Why working hard is not working smart

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

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Episode 116: Cameron Herold

In this episode, Travis speaks to successful entrepreneur and highly rated speaker, author, and

mentor Cameron Herold. Cameron's philosophy of simplifying things and focusing on a single

goal has transformed his businesses from a bootstrap to a multi-million dollar company that

grew exponentially from a span of just a few years. Apart from the coaching sessions and

lectures he has done all over the world, he has authored the best-selling book Double Double

which has helped business owners achieve the growth and success of their business in just a

short amount of time.

Cameron and Travis share a wealth of knowledge and practical ideas that would certainly be

valuable for entrepreneurs. Cameron teaches the value of learning from other successful

entrepreneurs and find out what they did to become successful. Acknowledging that not

knowing everything and learning every bit of information from the best people that you can learn

from is something that Cameron also advocates. He also shares the key principles on how we

was able to create a world-class environment in his companies such as aligning the goals and

vision of all of your employees in your company; creating a real, world-class culture in order to

attract the top employees; and leveraging free PR so that everyone will know who and what

your company stands for. They also share the principle of working smart rather than working

hard. These and so much more are what entrepreneurs can expect from this episode of the

Entrepreneur's Radio Show.

Why Working Hard Is Not Working Smart

TRAVIS: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode number 116 of the Entrepreneur's

Radio Show, a production of rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com, where as always each and

every week my focus is to connect you with rock star entrepreneurs that explain their journey to

success including failures, and what's been the key principles to finding that high level of

success as an entrepreneur. Now today I'm excited to introduce you to Cameron Herold.

Cameron has help build a well-known business, a business that you probably would recognize,

from $2 million in annual revenues, to $106 million in just 7 years with not debt and no outside

shareholders, in other words bootstrap. Not to mention he's done this for multiple, other

companies as well. So as always I'm confident that you'll find value in listening to the wisdom

and advice that this guest shares with us during this interview.

Now before we get started I want to say thank you to Robert Boden for the five stars and the

written review on iTunes. Robert says, "Amazing content, the Entrepreneur's Radio Show is well

worth the listen and the content was amazing. Will definitely leverage what I learned here in the

future. I definitely recommend subscribing to the show." So, thanks a bunch for that Robert, I

really appreciate you taking the time. If you have time and value in the show, I'd really

appreciate it if you'd let me know how we're doing. Write us a review, rate the show, give us a 1,




2, 3, 4, 5 star rating, whatever you think we deserve. And of course, I'll recognize you on air and

say thank you if you take the time to do that.

One last thing before we get started, remember there's three easy ways to take the shows with

you on the go, through iTunes, Android, or Stitcher. Just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com

and click on the iTunes, Android, or Stitcher button right there on the menu bar. It will take you

directly to the podcast where you can subscribe if that's something that you want to do. Now

that we got that out of the way, let's get down to business. Without further ado, welcome to the

show Cameron.

CAMERON: Hey Travis, thanks very much for having me.

TRAVIS: Oh man, it's a pleasure. Hey, you've got a pretty interesting story here, do you mind

giving us kind of the background on your story and what brought you to your success today?

CAMERON: Sure. In a lot of ways, I was raised as an entrepreneur. I grew up in a family of

entrepreneurs. Both grandfathers owned companies, my dad owned one. Today, my brother

and sister all run their own companies, even my wife and both her parents owned companies.

So, I'm surrounded in that entrepreneurship world. I ran my first business when I was in my 20's.

I had a number of entrepreneurial ventures prior to that which I actually talk about on my Ted

Talk with ted.com about raising entrepreneurial kids. So I really grew up in that entrepreneurial

world, not a formal education world. I got a lot of training running a house painting business

when I was back in my 20's. Then I went on and I built out a chain of auto body collision repair

shops with a couple of partners. I built a private currency company, and then I joined one of my

good friends and we built out a company that we expanded across North America and into

Australia called 1-800-GOT-JUNK. And I kind of got known really for that person, except the

ones before all had really big household names, Gerber was the auto body chain, and College

Pro Painters was the house painting company. So I've been involved in growing big,

professional businesses that had amazing cultures, and strong profitability, and good growth,

and lots of PR. And then I started being asked to a lot of speaking events. I'm doing a lot of the

speaking events globally. I have now spoken in 28 countries. I started getting asked to write my

content to do a book. So I wrote a book 4 years ago called Double Double. Seth Godin wrote

the cover testimonial for that and it's been available all over the world for the last four years. So

that's really what I've been doing and where I came from. And now what I do is I work behind

the scenes coaching CEOs of companies that want to be more entrepreneurial and want to

grow in a better and faster way. So I've got clients that are small, about 3 million in revenue and

my largest current client 700 million in revenue, so all across the board.

TRAVIS: Well, I'm curious. I've taken businesses through several growth stages myself.

Although I haven't reached the $100 million mark. And so there's thresholds, there's 500,000,

there's a million, there's 3 million, there's 5 million. Things change, even 10 million, things




constantly change in a business model that you have to focus on especially when you're driving

the growth of that business. How did you have that acumen, or where the acumen come from to

grow businesses to these levels?

CAMERON: Some of it came from a lesson my dad gave me when I was quite young and he

just said, "You'll never be smart enough to figure this out on your own. Your R&D has to stand

for rip-off and duplicate." All the best companies on the planet have been figuring stuff out for

years and spending millions of dollars to figure it out. Just state what he problem is or state the

opportunity and find out who's doing the best job and just do what they're doing. And it'll come to

you a lot faster and a lot easier. So that was lesson one. And then lesson two came from an

Olympic coach and he said you really need to visualize what the future of the business looks

like. Lean out 3 years into the future and describe what the company looks and feels like 3

years from today. Or what a project looks like in its finished stage. And once you know what it

looks like in its finished state, you can reverse engineer it and figure out what to do to get there.

TRAVIS: Brilliant advice. And so, did you go through these processes on your own, or did you

seek mentorship? How did you go about that?

CAMERON: We were a part of an organization called EO, which was the entrepreneur's

organization. And they bring entrepreneurs from around the world and they essentially

mastermind, mentor each other on a monthly basis. They bring in guest speakers, but they also

work on it in a forum, mastermind environment to learn from others that are already doing stuff

and to hold yourself accountable. So it was a process from learning from them. And also again,

taking the systems that are already there that are proven in doing it. Most people that I see out

there, keep reading, keep reading, keep reading, but they don't do anything with their reading.

Once you've read 3 or 4 of the best business books you probably have enough to double the

size of your business. The problem is most people don't do it. They just get sucked back into

email and being busy.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: So I was kind of taking the dumb approach. I was just like, "Well, if the experts say

to do it I'll just do it, and I'll trust that it'll happen." And sure enough by doing it, it happened.

TRAVIS: I think what happens is people get on a diet of consuming books and they never stop.

And this is kind of exactly what you were saying but on a deeper level. They never implement.

It's almost like an education junkie, right? And the true wisdom comes in the implementing. I

think maybe that's what people are missing, is they want to make sure that they've got

everything down perfect in the process. But doing and making mistakes, and then correcting it is

where the hyper learning occurs, right?




CAMERON: And it's also where the growth occurs. A lot of the truisms that come from science

or even from our grandmother play out in business.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: One of the ones that we hear from science, from physics is that momentum

creates momentum. So to get momentum you just have to start things and execute. And then

you'll learn a little bit. But at least you're making forward progress. Perfectionism and

procrastination is what slows everything down.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: No one really cares what any of your listeners ever got on their university

transcript. There's not a single one of us running a company today, the A+ or the 94% added.

72% or 92% once you've been out for a month it's the same grade, no one's ever going to care.

It's the same with that perfect marketing piece. You’d be better to just get the marketing piece

out there and learn from it than to sit in your office waiting for perfect 3 months later. Momentum

creates momentum.

TRAVIS: Right. I've got a 14-year old daughter and recently I had mentioned to her mother. I

said, "I'm not completely convinced you need to go to college." I would almost rather see you go

down a path of learning skills of being a business owner and becoming an entrepreneur. And

they both were offended by the idea. And I'm concerned that-- there's a preconceived notion

that everybody needs to go through college. And I've come to realize that entrepreneurship is

the best self-improvement program that I could have ever signed up for.

CAMERON: Yeah. I think unless you're going to become a doctor, or a lawyer, or an

accountant, or a dentist where you need formal training, I don't think going for a university

general arts degree makes any sense whatsoever. I think what makes a lot more sense is going

in apprenticing for some companies like people did 100 years ago. You know, 100 years ago

maybe 5% of the population went on to formal education but we've been brainwashed into

thinking it's the only path. It's not the only path. It's just become a very successful business and

government grant program in the United States. What people need to do is again lean out into

the future and say, "What do I want to do? What are the different paths or different options I

could do to get there? And if you wanted to go get some experience and some theory, and

some networking, you're going to get a lot of that by just going and working for four great

companies. So go and offer up yourself for fee, for minimum wage, for whatever they'll pay you

for the next 4 years. Work for one company for a year and another company for a year, do that

4 times. And at the end of your 4 years you'll have more experience, more theory, more

connections, and more fun than you will have by going to university. And you'll come out with no

debt.




TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: In a university, you're going to come out with a lot of theory but not necessarily any

connections for future work. And you're going to come out with a pile of debt. It doesn't make

sense to me why everyone goes down that path blindly.

TRAVIS: Right. It is a good choice for somebody like you said. Some people it's the right path,

but we've been brainwashed in believing that it's the right path for everybody and it's just not.

Now, one of the key things that you mentioned that I wish I would have changed is I had really

good success in business and growing it early on to 100% 400% than just continual growth like

that over the years. Although, I never sought true mentorship until about 15 years of being in

business, 16 years in business. And it completely changed who I was, how I did things, and put

me on a whole new level. And I don't think this is spoken often enough, or suggested often

enough of getting in some type of environment mastermind the E organization that you

described. Because you're around a group of people that can help nurture the positive attitude,

and ideas, and give you some of the business acumen and support that you need to grow that

business. There's just not enough emphasis on that. Do you find that to be true?

CAMERON: I think a lot of people try to work hard instead of working smart. A lot of people, and

we've been ingrained in the university system and the high school system, and grade school

education is that it's about reading everything, learning everything, and memorizing everything

instead of kind of finding a better way. Well, the better way is essentially cheating. Cheating in

that everyone else already has the answers. In school we're told not to talk to anybody because

you're supposed to do it all on your own so we end up building a bad habit. Or as a really good

habit is everyone else already has the answers, go and talk to a bunch of other people and kind

of absorb that at least into the crowds and do the best you're already doing. We have a bit of a

vulnerability issue where we're taught to pretend that we're smart instead of pretending that

we're dumb and putting our hand up and saying I don't know this. It's actually okay to put your

hand up and say I don't know it because about 15 people that are around you that don't know it

either.

TRAVIS: Right. And I said this to a group of people recently. I said, "What we do in

masterminds would be considered cheating in school."

CAMERON: Right.

TRAVIS: And they were all confused and somewhat offended by that, or had a perplexed look

on their face. And most people never think about it like that. One has humility and one doesn't to

say you don't know the answers and you'd like some help by others that have already achieved

it is the way that I would prefer all my friends and family approach life rather than the opposite

way. So I think that’s the core problem with school in itself.




CAMERON: Right. It's teaching very, very bad habits that only one person can know, and don't

work around with other people, and sit and try to memorize everything. Well, it's crazy, the

answers are either on Google, or someone's already done it. So, for the most part, unless you're

trying to do a PhD and invent something, you don't to be the only person in the room.

TRAVIS: Right. So, one of the things that I want to highlight is the epic amount of success that

you had with the 1-800-GOT-JUNK. You helped the company grow from $2 million to $105

million in 6 years, that's crazy growth. What was the key principles to making that happen?

CAMERON: There are three. One was really getting everyone completely aligned with the same

vision so that everyone could see what the CEO could see. And we use the concept that I teach

now called the painted picture where people literally lean out into the future and describe the

company in its finished state 3 years out into the future. I covered in-depth in chapter 1 of my

book Double Double. The second thing that we did was we created a real great, world-class

culture that attracted people to our company like a magnet. We were just an amazing place to

work. Not because of the foosball table and the Wii room but because we had people aligned,

we had people in the right rules, we had amazing people there, we coached and mentored

people, and we hired amazing, driven, A-level players. So people just wanted to be around that.

And then the third was we leveraged free PR. We really worked hard to get the media talking

about our company. And what we got them to talk about was our culture and their future. So the

more that the press talked about how great we were, the greater we became. And it was really

those 3 things, leveraging vision and alignment of people, making sure that culture was

fantastic, and leveraging the free press.

TRAVIS: So what part of the organization were you involved with, or how does all-- some of

those steps deal with the growth of the business, some of it deals with the acquisition of talent.

And the other deals with I guess making sure that everyone's on the same page. What was

some of the underpinnings and all of those completely make sense and a brilliantly simple,

succinct way of doing it. What were some of the underpinnings of how you were able to ignite

the growth once you got all of these three core things in alignment?

CAMERON: So I was the chief operating officer. I came in as the 14th employee and when I left

we had 3,100 employees system-wide. I ran everything except IT and finance. At the end of the

day that was what ignited it. When you get as Jim Collins' Good to Great said, "When you get

the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus, and everybody in the right seats,

that's the first step." The next part is making sure that all those people are aligned so that

they're all pulling in that same direction. So if everyone can see the same movie that the CEO

can see, you don't have to hold anyone accountable but they're holding themselves

accountable. So the systems that we used to do that, the painted picture is what aligned with

the vision. I covered that in great detail in my book Double Double. The second thing that we

used were the systems from top grading around getting the right people into the company, very




rigorous interviewing process. We made sure that we hire people that both culturally fit and had

the skill set to do their job. There's that old adage of hire for attitude, train for skill. And that's not

going to work. That never, ever, ever is enough. What you really, really need is to hire the

people who have done it before and have that theory, sorry, the cultural fit. The oust Herb

Kelleher from Southwest Airlines, how do you get all your people to smile so much? We hire

smiling people.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: You can train a grumpy person to be happy so you hire happy people. So I think

most people miss out on that. They hire the really smart person who's done it before. And

they're like, "I know he's a bit of a jerk but he's really smart." Great, now you've got a cancer

inside your organization.

TRAVIS: That's an interesting way of looking at it and that definitely makes sense.

CAMERON: I was asked by Fortune Magazine years ago, they said, "How do you motivate your

employees?" And I said, "I don't, I hire motivated people." When you hire motivated people you

don't have to hold them accountable, they hold themselves accountable.

TRAVIS: Right. And 3 A-players can replace 7-8 regular players.

CAMERON: Correct.

TRAVIS: Very few people realize that. Now, was all of your marketing the earned media stuff, or

was there any paid traffic? And then you guys also slid a franchise model also didn't you?

CAMERON: Yeah, the franchising was one of the vehicles for our growth. It was the way that

we could grow quickly and really have people invested in the growth, really having skin in the

game. Again, hiring accountable people. When we had a franchisee in the market it allows us to

grow quickly because they were very, very keen to grow their market.

TRAVIS: That's skin in the game, right?

CAMERON: The PR for us was really the core of our marketing strategy. We did a lot of guerilla

marketing, just even things like parking our tracks in high profile locations. A lot of people are

afraid of doing guerilla marketing; they think paid is the only way to grow. Not necessarily. And

then we became very, very good at understanding in the early days areas that people are just

figuring out today. I had a client that I was coaching recently and he's still doing Yellow Pages

advertising. And I'm like, "No one uses Yellow Pages." And he goes, "Well, 75-year olds do."




And I'm like, "Yeah, you just told me that 35-year old females are your target market. So what

do you care if an 80-year old is using the Yellow Pages?"

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: They don't go to you. So, it's just following the real basic advice and just sticking to

it. A lot of people are always looking for that silver bullet; they're looking for that magic pill;

they're looking for the easy way out. Well there isn't an easy way out. What works is working

smarter, not working hard.

TRAVIS: I completely agree. I consider myself a good soldier. So at times in my career of

building businesses I've been guilty of working hard instead of smart and I paid the price for

years for that. Several other things that I noticed about the business that are just brilliantly

simple that allow the business to grow is the name's just straightforward, easy, simple, 1-800-

GOT-JUNK, right? Multipurpose name, right? It's the name and also the phone number.

CAMERON: We got that basic marketing rule from a book called the The 22 Immutable Laws of

Marketing by Al Ries. Al Ries is really one of the godfathers of marketing and branding. And we

just followed the 22 rules. And if you read the 22 rules of marketing or branding you'd realize

that our name literally follows the rules that you laid out for us. Where most people don't spend

any time on that. They try to pick something unique and creative. And we just realized that if our

name was our phone number people would call. And then as we started to grow-- We created

that brand back in 1999 so the internet wasn't even that strong at that point. But it became our

URL and then we worked really hard at creating 30% of our customers to book online. So it just

became a way to decrease our expenses, and grow our brand, and grow our recurring revenue.

TRAVIS: Yeah, plus the trucks are clean, good-looking, and the signs, it reflects an image.

Before this company, I don't know if you guys were the first one to do this, I want to say that you

were the first ones to really come up with a business model for hauling off junk from the house.

CAMERON: There were actually 17,000 independent junk removal companies the day we

started. What we did was we professionalized and cleaned up an industry. So I used to be with

College Pro Painters, which is the largest residential house painting company. I helped build

that group across North America. And we did the same thing with the house painting industry

where it was used to be the house painter with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and

showing up all dirty. We just professionalized it.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: Think about Starbucks when they really kind of got going in the early 90's. People

were walking around the city with a white coffee cup. No one had white coffee cups with their




brand on it, and no one played jazz in their coffee shops, and no one charged 50% more than

everyone else. So that's what we did. We put the clean and shiny trucks on the road with

friendly, uniformed drivers. We charged a premium for our service but we blew people away on

the customer service side when they expected a grumpy, greasy, old guy that hauled garbage

shows up at their house, and we showed up with a bunch of fraternity boys in golf shirts.

TRAVIS: And that's exactly was the choice was prior to that is some really grungy looking guys

that were kind of scary looking. Beat-up trucks, torn up trailers that would come haul of the junk.

Although I felt like I needed to be home when they come to get the junk because I didn't want

them to be home with my wife by herself. So, exactly what you were saying.

CAMERON: Yeah. And it happens in all kinds of industries, it happens in dentistry, it happens in

medical offices. When we created our auto body location we decided to paint the walls white

and then have all of our marketing to be female-friendly because we knew that females would

tell other people about it, guys wouldn't tell anyone. We painted the walls white because it would

force us to keep the location super clean.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: At the end of the day it's about making very conscious choices and deciding to set

yourself out against the industry.

TRAVIS: So you sit down and actually engineer the entire experience out. And pay attention to--

CAMERON: We pay attention to what Jim Collins said, "Critical few things versus the important

many things.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: So what are the critical few things in your product or your service, what are those

critical few things that really matter? I was talking to a guy who owns dental clinics today down

in California and he's doing some orthodontic work. And I said, "Who are your customers?" And

he said, "Well, it's women and typically 35-45 and they've got kids." I said, "Well, why does all

your marketing read like it's focused to me?" And he's goes, "Geez, I never thought about it." He

never thought about his target audience was. So nothing happens fast and always reverse

engineer it. Think about what you want your clients to say and then tell them those things and

they'll say those things.

TRAVIS: Right. Ultimately, it's 80-20 principle, right?




CAMERON: Exactly. Think about what you want them to see and tell them they're going to see

it.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it's so simple it's surprising on some levels. That's a common problem I see is

most people really never get a clear understanding of who their most ideal client is. Everyone

feels like they could serve-- well, I could serve everybody. Well, you can serve everybody but

who, would be your dream? Who could you deliver the absolute best experience for?

CAMERON: I had a client that I started coaching and mentoring about two and a half years ago.

And when I first started coaching and he was talking about opening up in the United States, now

he was going to expand all through the United States. I was like, "Wait, let's look at what your

goals are for your company 5 years out, 3 years out." And then he realized that he could be 3 or

4 times bigger than his 3-year goals just being in Canada alone. He didn't have to

overcomplicate it by going into second country. Most people aren't focused. If you think about

light. If you just disperse light it'll light up a room. But if you highly concentrate that light it

becomes a laser and it can cut through steel.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: How focused are our people, how focused is our marketing, how focused are we

with our time?

TRAVIS: Yeah, excellent point. So I think that cut you off when you were explaining some of the

other aspects of the marketing. Did you say you guys did start using paid traffic, or paid

marketing for Got Junk also?

CAMERON: We did but not in the early days. In the early days we started to tell all of our offline

customers that they could book online. We started to tell all of our offline customers where to

book online. We started to put as a P.S. on all of our emails that people could book online. So

we started to convert all the people who had moving them online and then asking them to refer

people. Once we started to move that group then we started to look for other new customers in

an online space. But we wanted to leverage the group that we already had, and convert them

over and get them to tell everyone. And it's easier to get the group you have talking than it is to

attract a whole new group of people.

TRAVIS: Right. So, focus on grassroots stuff then first?

CAMERON: Yeah, you think about every one of your clients. Does every email that goes out

from every single employee of theirs at least contain some kind of a P.S.? Probably doesn't.

And does the P.S. contain want you want people to tell? It probably doesn't.




TRAVIS: Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about that. Interesting. As you ask that question

I'm reflecting on the emails that I read, even the emails that I send. I'm a big P.S. user.

CAMERON: It's an easy form of marketing.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: We've been told that our whole lives that the most read part of a letter is the P.S.,

and yet most of us don't do it. We sit around waiting for the magic bullet but we miss out on the

hundreds of perfect bullets that we have.

TRAVIS: Right. Let me ask you, what are some of the key performance indicators; KPI's that

you look for typically in the business. Do they change or do you have a core set of KPI's for

practically every business?

CAMERON: Yeah, they absolutely change, they change based on what the core focus of the

organization is. What I look for is also more of an economic denominator. So I look for the "per"

something as a KPI. Is it per employee, is it per revenue, is it per location, is it per what. So

often you measure a lot of things per something versus just measuring a lot of things. So the

way I figure out the KPI's is both looking for lagging and leading indicators because I take each

business area and they'd come up with 10 things that they would have to measure so that they

would know that they're on-track to hit their goals for their business area which would in turn

help the company hit their goals. Once each business area comes up with the 10 things that

they would need to be tracking, then we look at what would the top 2 or 3 things be from each

business area. And then what can we look at that is going to be a leading indicator to show us

where we're going. Or to forecast and what can we look at based on our past numbers to kind of

pull out that data. For me in my business, it's how many paid speaking events do I have on my

calendar. Because that shows me how many books I'll sell, how much my digital content people

will buy to download, how many coaching programs I'll be able to sell. It's all predicated off the

number of speaking events I have booked currently going forward.

TRAVIS: So, let's take one of the service businesses, just a random service business. Give me

feel of what some of those KPI's would be for one of the service businesses and you don't need

to give us the name, as a great example for people to kind of get their arms around.

CAMERON: Again, it depends. If your core goals are revenue profit, customer engagement,

employee engagement, and some kind of a strategic initiative, that will determine what your

KPI's or your core few KPI's are going to be. In the early days of 1-800-GOT-JUNK we wanted

to be in the top 30 metro markets by 2003. So we leaned out into 2003 and started to figure out

how to do that. So it was always how are we doing towards that track of 30--




TRAVIS: ...30 markets, yeah.

CAMERON: If it was being in 30% of our clients booking online, we would then be tracking data

around that. Are we getting click-throughs, what's our balance rate like, what's our conversion

rate like, what's our new topic like? We would be looking for marketing activities, like

remarketing to be able to leverage that and drive more. But if it was in the early days we're

looking at our revenue. And we knew that one way to get our revenue up was to get our full load

rate up, to get our average job size up. So we taught people how to sell more and how to

identify bigger jobs, and how to go up to commercial work. So it just depends what is you're

driving. We note 3 years and look at what your goals are and then figure out how do you make

that happen?

TRAVIS: Right. So example could be average, maybe it's opt-ins, maybe it's conversions,

maybe it's average ticket price. So if you're wanting to-- maybe one of the things you were, and

using the example that you just gave, you guys were wanting to increase revenue and so

maybe you were getting a lot of half in quarter, low loads. And so you taught the guys how to

upsell. And that way they could get a full load, the difference between maybe $300 and $500,

right?

CAMERON: Yup, that's exactly what we did, is we thought about what the goal was. And then

we came up with a few strategic initiatives or projects to make that goal come true.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: Again, what most people don't do is they don't lean out into the future, so they

simply work harder instead of figuring out where they're going, and one of the different things

they can do to make it happen.

TRAVIS: Yeah. I like to break examples down like that because a lot of times people get lost in

the theory. And every time I want to accomplish something, we work in Basecamp. And so, we

may set up an objective to accomplish A, B, C. Working with this one doctor, he's wanting

accreditation. And we break all of the pieces down, all the steps down so that we can start

knocking those out. And it's really emblematic of what you're talking about is you get a clear

picture of what you want, break it into pieces, reverse engineer it, and you know if you're not

accomplishing those steps then you'll never accomplish the goal. Ultimately, the micro creates

the macro, right?

CAMERON: Exactly right.

TRAVIS: Okay, excellent example there. Let me ask you, what book or program made an

impact on you related to business that you'd recommend and why would you recommend it?




CAMERON: I think for a lot of businesses it goes right back to the E-Myth which is about putting

the systems in place to grow the business and looking for missing systems, or broken systems

versus blaming people for mistakes. A lot of people are too quick to blame people instead of

looking for the missing system. I'll give you a very big company example of how this small

system works so perfectly. One of my mentors was being groomed as the chief operating officer

at Starbucks. And he got a phone call from Howard Schultz one day and this is about 10 years

ago. And Howard said, "Why is the letter B on the sign at 50th and Wallingford location in

Seattle, why is the letter B on the sign not working?" And my mentor started to laugh, and he

said "Are you kidding? That's not the question you're allowed to ask me." And Howard got

pissed off and he goes, "Well I care." My mentor said, "Well, I care too. But the question you

need to ask is what system do we have in place to ensure that all letters on all signs, at all

locations are always working. So that's the question I'll answer. But I'm not going to tell you why

the letter B is out because I don't give a shit why the letter B is out. What I do care is that we

don't have a system in place to ensure that all letters, on all signs, at all locations are always

working."

TRAVIS: Excellent point.

CAMERON: So that's a basic system idea comes from Michael Gerber's book the E-Myth. But

again, most of your listeners will get off the call. And as soon as something wrong happens

they're going to blame one of their employees instead of saying, "What system was it?" It could

be an interviewing or hiring system that allowed the wrong person to get in to the company. It

could be a missing system that has people carrying too many projects, or has too much on their

plate. So always look for the missing or broken system.

TRAVIS: Well said, excellent point. What's one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology

that you've recently discovered, if any, that you'd recommend to other business owners and

why?

CAMERON: I think one of the most basic ones and it's been around forever, we probably only

have about another 12 months of being able to use it before everyone's using it. And this would

sound silly, but it's Skype video. Just basic Google video, or Skype video, or Zoom video, any

kind of normal video conference. If you can speak to all of your customers or all of your

employees that are-- you have video and build a huge relationship. Much stronger than audio,

much stronger than over the phone, but the video face-to-face connection is extraordinarily

powerful. And when you do that you will hold on to those customers forever.

TRAVIS: So you really feel like there's that big of a difference between turning the video on?




CAMERON: Oh, it's absolutely huge. Again, the face-to-face connection you developed from

the video itself is what will build the relationship. If you own the relationship, no one will take that

customer or prospect away from you.

TRAVIS: You know, I've never thought about it like that. I guess reflecting on it aligns with what

happens naturally anyways, right?

CAMERON: Exactly. When you're having the face-to-face discussions of people it's powerful.

But imagine if you a potential customer, all of my clients are all over the world. The CEO's that I

coach are everywhere. I just signed a client yesterday and when I start coaching in August he

was based in Saudi Arabia. I have a client today that I've been coaching for about 6 months

who's based in Australia. I have another who's based in the U.K., I have them all over the

United States. But I don't ever go and meet with them, or rarely do I go and meet with them in

person. But I feel like I know them intimately because we're able to talk on video for 90 minutes

every 2 weeks.

TRAVIS: And you always use the video.

CAMERON: Yeah, it's huge and it's free. It doesn't cost us anything. It cost you nothing to have

a relationship with someone face-to-face.

TRAVIS: And so why do you feel like that we're going to have this for another year, are you

saying you think they're going to go to a pay model?

CAMERON: No, I think it's going to become ubiquitous. I think that all of the phone calls are

going to include videos so it literally won't have a chance to take that away from your

competitor.

TRAVIS: Okay.

CAMERON: It's not that it's fee so much as the fact that video builds a relationship. But if

everyone's using video then you've lost that strategic advantage.

TRAVIS: Okay. I'm going to take your advice, I'm going to shift because I'm guilty, I'm a very

auditory person, and I'm guilty of not doing the video aspect of that with my coaching clients.

And I'm going to make that change because it just makes too much sense.

CAMERON: Yeah. I was coaching a guy who's based in the U.K. years ago, we've been

coaching for about 18 months. We're having breakfast one morning in Hong Kong at a

conference we're both at. And after about 20 minutes into our breakfast, he jumped up,

practically left across the table and gave me a hug. And I started to laugh, I'm like, "What was




that all about?" I just realized we've never met in person. Because we've been talking on video

90 minutes every 2 weeks for a year and a half. I felt like I knew this person better than I knew

my parents.

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: Right? That's really powerful, and it's free. Again, the critical few things we can do

versus the important many.

TRAVIS: Excellent point. Thank you for that I'm going to use it.

CAMERON: You're welcome.

TRAVIS: So what quote would best summarize your belief or your attitude in business?

CAMERON: "Vision without execution is hallucination." That was Thomas Edison. "Vision

without execution is hallucination."

TRAVIS: So true.

CAMERON: You can have all these great goals and these great ideas. But if you don't actually

start working on it it'll never happen.

TRAVIS: It's so true, that's why it's laughable to me.

CAMERON: It's just so darn simple, right?

TRAVIS: It really is. I've come to realize that that's kind of the underpinning of your brilliance is

a lot of the things that you talk about are brilliantly straightforward and simple.

CAMERON: See, I was never smart enough to go to a normal MBA program; I couldn't go and

get a formal education because I didn't have the grades, I didn't have the ability to sit and focus

like that. So, I had to learn kind of by finding all the shortcuts. I almost wish that my

grandparents wouldn't have fooled me to work hard; I'd wish they'd told me to work smart.

TRAVIS: Right. I think you need to become comfortable with yourself. Because I have found

that a lot of people that speak and make things much more complicated than necessary. Or a lot

of times just trying to convey their intelligence rather than help you.




CAMERON: Exactly. I had a mentor 25 years ago and he said, "If you can't write it down on a

half a page of paper, you haven't thought about it clearly enough, don't talk to me about it until

you can."

TRAVIS: Right.

CAMERON: It was really powerful because now I realize that people over complicate

everything.

TRAVIS: Yeah, cut the BS and get to the point, right?

CAMERON: Exactly.

TRAVIS: Hey, let me ask you, how do people connect with you?

CAMERON: So my website is doubledoublethebook.com, and it's got all my contact information

right there.

End of Interview

TRAVIS: Excellent, thank you for that. Remember that you can find all the links to the books

and resources mentioned in the show, in the show notes. Just go to

rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com. Now while you're there opt-in and you'll get my personal

email. And it would just take a few minutes and tell me what you feel like is holding you back in

your business right now. What do you feel like the major thing that's holding you back from

accomplishing your dreams. And I'll give you my feedback on air to help you move your

business forward right now. I've helped businesses grow their profits by more than 2,000% with

the giving them advise on what to do with overcoming those obstacles. And increasing your

bottom line, your net profits by 2,000% is life changing. So I want to encourage you to take a

little time and send me that. And let me help you overcome what's holding you back and start

moving you in that right direction. All that's going to cost you is just a little bit of your time.

Before I close the show today I want to read a quote to you that I feel like really speaks to that

suggestion earlier of overcoming the obstacles, and the quote comes from William Durant. So

the quote reads, "Forget past mistakes, forget failures, forget everything except what you're

going to do now and do it." This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now. I'm looking forward

to hearing from you and what's holding you back. To your incredible success my friend, take

care.




How We Can Help You

We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so

called gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to

do. That’s exactly why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an

exclusive offer for our fans at a fraction of its normal cost.

Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time

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We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses,

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This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common

reasons are.

As the 'Business Owner' it’s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you’re

in the middle of a daily management.

And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.

This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn’t matter if you are a one-man

army, or an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins

Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist

Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show

“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your

Business"

Documents

Why working hard is not working smart