Josh Elledge is a U.S. Navy veteran who became a serial entrepreneur who builds the companies he needs most in the world. In 2014, He launched UpMyInfluence to help entrepreneurs like himself attract the perfect audiences and grow their authority and influence. However, while growing their better-than-PR agency, UpMyInfluence discovered that building 7-figure B2B Sales Systems for consultants and agencies (with zero paid advertising) is actually what they do better than anyone else on the planet. UMI (short for UpMyInfluence) was the natural outgrowth of his first startup, SavingsAngel.com which had grown to more than 50 employees and grossed more than $6 million in sales with zero paid ads. He did it all through building authority and serving audiences in the media.
Josh is a frequent speaker at business and startup conferences including Social Media Marketing World and a Tony Robbins event for his Business Mastery grads. He’s a weekly consumer expert on Fox 35 Orlando and News 13, writes a syndicated column for nine newspapers (with total readership above 1.1 million readers), and regularly appears on more than 75 TV stations across the country. All told, Josh has appeared in the media more than 2000 times.
The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast
Josh Elledge is also the host of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast, where he provides his listeners with a daily commercial-free entrepreneur spotlight show. He features CEOs and founders of 6-9 figure B2B companies. Agencies, coaches, consultants, and other leaders share their success stories and advice for business leaders focused on business growth.
And now here’s Josh Elledge.
Full transcript below
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Podcast with Josh Elledge. Using Authority to Amplify You.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, business, josh, authority, started, linkedin profile, run, money, work, podcast, serve, building, listen, audience, sales, wife, bit, years, marathon, book
SPEAKERS
Josh Elledge, Mike Malatesta
Mike Malatesta 00:04
Hey everybody, welcome back to the How’d It Happen Podcast ,and today I have an another amazing success story. I’ve got Josh Elledge on the show, Josh, thanks so much for joining me,
Josh Elledge 00:18
Mike. It’s so good to be here.
Mike Malatesta 00:21
So let me tell you about a little bit about Josh so you can get as excited as I am. Josh Elledge is a US Navy veteran, thank you, who became a serial entrepreneur who builds the companies he needs most in the world. That’s a very interesting way to put it. I want to explore that. In 2014, Josh launched Up My Influence to help entrepreneurs like himself attract the perfect audiences and grow their authority and influence. However, while growing, they’re better-than-PR agency Up My Influence discovered that building seven-figure business-to-business sales systems for consultants and agencies is actually what they do better than anyone else on the planet. I call that strategic byproduct. That’s a strategic byproduct of the journey. Josh is a frequent speaker at business and startup conferences, including Social Media Marketing World and a Tony Robbins event for his business mastery grads. He’s a weekly consumer expert on Fox 35 Orlando and news 13. He writes a syndicated column for nine newspapers with a total readership above 1.1 million, which is amazing. And regularly appears on more than 75 TV stations across the country. All told, Josh has appeared in the media more than 2,000 times. He’s passionate about his family, his physical fitness. An avid fitness geek is what it says. So I do want to talk about that as well. And breaking out of escape rooms.
Josh Elledge 02:01
Have you done any escape rooms?
Mike Malatesta 02:02
I’ve done? A couple. Yes. Yeah. I will talk to you about escape rooms, because I know you have a long list of escape room.
Josh Elledge 02:10
Yeah, my wife and I have Yeah, I think my wife and I have done probably about 40 to 50 of them now. And we, I think we have about a 95% success rate. Like we’re pretty into it. We’re escape-room nerds.
Mike Malatesta 02:28
And you just do it the two of you together or do you No, no.
Josh Elledge 02:31
So my daughter’s not, come with us and but my boys, they’re, they’re both kind of engineer-minded. You know, when my one son’s going into cyber security’s in high school, but that’s, he already knows what he wants to do. My other son is a mechanical engineer, my wife loves puzzles. And I am, I would say I’m a, it’s fun, because when you do escape rooms a lot, you start to learn. So I think it’s a great team building exercise, because personalities really come out. I tend to be a pretty good coordinator and communicator. And then also, I would say, a lot of outside the box, kind of thinking, my wife is a genius when it comes to puzzles. And just she, she could solve them. I’m no good at right. She’s dead. It’s but you know, you start to recognize your your superpowers, and you really learn to play to that. So you know, to someone who’s, you know, kind of done a few escape rooms and you wonder, like, you know, people are really good at it. It that’s, you know, people start to recognize their strengths. And everybody knows, oh, that’s one of these puzzles. All right, and then immediately, like, everyone knows what to do, so
Mike Malatesta 03:50
everyone else get away. Yeah. Okay. Have you have you thought about, like, amazing race or something like that for the top view? Yeah, you
Josh Elledge 03:58
know, I haven’t, I haven’t, I’m a little too busy. I can listen, well. I can squeeze it. I’ve got I’ve had friends that have been on reality TV shows, and, you know, I can squeeze and no one our escape room. But to give up potentially, you know, a couple months of my life. I don’t know, I’d be fun. Not sure I’m ready for that.
Mike Malatesta 04:18
Sometimes. Sometimes the world is about experiences and you know, the sounds like you guys might do well. So you can find Josh anywhere at it by searching for his name Josh Elledge, E L L E, D, G E and you can also find out about him at up my influence.com Josh, I start every show with the same simple question and that is how did happen for you.
Josh Elledge 04:43
quite by accident and I’m sure you’ve heard that answer quite a bit. So Surrett High School join the US Navy fell in love. I got into journalism because I thought it was fun. And then I met Adrian Crona er who is the Is the featured stories featured in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, with Robin Williams. And he really inspired me to serve audiences in the sacred duty that we have, you know, when we leverage platform. And, you know, we want to do good in the world, because we have a tremendous opportunity to do good in the world when we use platform in that way. That so I was a journalist, United States for for five years, I studied Family Science, because I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist, but I got I fell in love with internet development. And so I started a number of businesses there. And the first six businesses I did, ultimately, some of them failed pretty spectacularly. And some of them, you know, eventually just exited. But then I started Savings Angel, and that company did quite well. So that ultimately became a six figure a month company. And it was a real joy. But I see I did all of that revenue, and I think close to $7 million in revenue in total, you know, that we did, you know, with that company, but all of that I did with zero paid ads, no advertising at all. And and what I how I achieved that success is, I just started using local media, I started leveraging platform with this mindset of generosity. And I said, as a guest, I’m going to be more generous than anybody else. I’m going to think truly, in terms of again, I learned this from Adrian Krohn our, what does your audience need right now? What do they need most right now. And that’s what you need to do. So I would go into the radio studios, you know, thinking of, you know, of Shelley, and Shelley was holding her baby, as she’s, you know, shopping at the grocery store. And she’s looking at the price of diapers, and she’s stressed because she’s like, why are diapers so doggone expensive? It’s not fair. And that’s who I was there for. I was there because that represented my mom, when she was, you know, taking care of three little kids, right, and so I have an obligation to serve her. So, you know, because of that passion, that desire to serve, I think people really resonated with that. And so they’re like, you know, and we would help them cut their grocery bill in half. Now, along the way. You know, I started serving pro bono on our local startup communities, you know, our local SBDC, Small Business Development Center score, you know, minority owned Ms. Business owners, women owned business owners, veteran owned business owners serving on boards, pro bono workshops, I mean, just as much volunteer stuff as I could do, you know, because I’m like, listen, I, I know what it’s like to be at the early stages, everyone deserves a mentor. And if you can’t get one pro bono or otherwise, here we are, here’s Mike and I having a conversation, you can go back to Mike’s catalogue, and you know, and hear amazing business leaders, you know, share their story, you can go look up the thoughtful entrepreneur, Episode 1051, where I talked about the truth behind owning a trade business with Mike. And, Mike, you are a guest on my podcast, and thank you so much for that. But that’s it, you just, you know, you want to build because, you know, if you believe in this law of association, your combined average, you are the combined average of the five people you hang around with most right old school was I think that was Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn. Yeah, yeah. So you can up your average by associating virtually, with people that you resonate with. And so that’s, you know, I was focused on that I really tried to do that, in my early stages of business, I was committed to showing up as a mentor in that way. But here’s the thing that will happen, right? And I’ve had friends that have exited businesses, and you know, we’ve had private conversations, they’re like, What do I do now? Josh, I’ve, you know, I’m gonna I’m gonna take some vacations, but then what? And I’m like, man, keep busy, just keep doing stuff. And what I like about pro bono workshops and serving, right, it doesn’t matter what stage in business you are, we all have the capacity to, there’s stuff we do that, you know, very focused on growing our business. And but you know, I like the idea of maybe taken, you know, up to 10% of your time and a schedule in your schedule, and just say what stuff I can do, where there’s no profit motive whatsoever. It’s just, it’s the right thing to do. It will be so good for your soul, it will be so good for the world. And people will remember it forever, if you could show up in their life in a positive way. Well, one thing that came out of that though, is I accidentally started another company. And this will happen, which is why I was talking to my one friend recently about you know, he just had a just had an accident, you know, it was it was an awesome deal for him. But he’s like, I don’t have to work ever again in my life. What do I do? I’m like, go Just do what I do, man. It’s fun to serve and And then what you’ll find is, when you’re in the process of just out there doing your thing, opportunities will come around. But see, here’s the thing, it’s like, you know, if you’re in a car, and the car’s not moving, it’s kind of hard to change direction, right, or, you know, adjust them, you could move the steering wheel, but you’re not going anywhere, right now. So you want the car moving. And then, you know, if you turn to you can turn to the left or return to the right, you have much more play in control of that vehicle when it’s movement. So find stuff to stay active with, right, and then that will just lead to opportunities. And sure enough, that ultimately led to my I was serving teaching people because locally in Orlando in Central Florida, you know, I’ve been on TV over 800 times. So people are like, oh, here comes a Savings Angel guy, you know, and so I would help them out with media, you know, here’s how to get media and maybe I’d helped make some connections or whatever. But mainly, it was about helping them with their media brand, right, so that they could, you know, do maybe the kind of volume that we did with Savings Angel without having to spend a ton of money on ads, because advertising. The founder of Geek Squad, once said is advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t advertise, it’s just if you’ve not done enough to gain the attention of audiences, organically, you’re gonna have to pay for it. So which is fine, you know, but, you know, I’m of the opinion that if I’ve not achieved that level, where all of my business is inbound, I believe that I ought to keep on working a little bit harder, so I can get to that point.
Mike Malatesta 11:41
So you, you lay down a ton of stuff there and I want to go back and like sort of make my way through a little bit of it. If you don’t mind. Josh, the when you went into the Navy, you talked about that, I’d like to understand what got you from, you know, as from from being, you know, your child or your kid to making the decision to go into the Navy, what was going on?
Josh Elledge 12:04
Yeah, we had kind of like a Richard Garin, an officer and gentleman, I got nowhere else to go, you know, his like, I did I, you know, I was on my parents, God bless him, I work so hard. But they couldn’t afford to send me to college. I was looking at doing that myself. And I’m like, where’s that money gonna come from? I, you know, thankfully, a recruiter came into our journalism class in high school. And, and, you know, they talked about, hey, and you know, you can get great on the job training, you know, you can work in a great environment, you know, especially that he brought a former Plainwell, high school student with him who was now active in the military. And he was a photographer, and he’s all like, oh, so great, man. I’m hanging out helicopters taking photos. Well, as I’m like, Man, that’s fine. So a buddy of mine went to the recruiting office, and like, tell us what you got, you know, and, you know, my buddy didn’t qualify, but I did. And, you know, it was it ended up being a really good play for me. It wasn’t easy. It you know, it was it’s a challenging lifestyle, no matter what the work, you know, the role is. But for me, I really learned a lot of in addition to getting comfortable in a media environment, because I did mostly video news for three years. And then my last year, I was a DJ, that was my job in the military. So it’s a cool job. Again, still, all that said, kind of a grueling work environment. But it was good, because it toughened me up. And one thing that you if you ever get business owners on the show, and you asked him about how did your military experience flavor, your personality, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, I think you’ll hear this quite commonly. And that is, is that you learn grit, right? You learn tenacity, because in the military, there is no room. You can’t go to your chief or you know, your office or whatever and say, Well, I tried it, but it was pretty hard. So I stopped that concept.
Mike Malatesta 14:28
It doesn’t go over. It’s not like received.
Josh Elledge 14:30
Anytime I use that example with someone in the military. They always start laughing because it’s like yeah, no, that’s like there is there’s no room for that you did you do the mission? You say you use you fix the problem. You do you complete the mission, there is no option for quitting. Right? You just do it. And and so that’s helpful because, you know, you go back to books like atomic habits. For example, what is the difference between an amateur and a professional or a champ? Yeah. And it’s it’s not innate skill. It’s not amazing personality traits. It’s not, you know, it’s just you just kept on showing up. You know, it’s like I just now starting a weightlifting it’s like a six month program, right? Where there’s a competition. And, you know, you know, with that right of leverage that that amount of leverage on myself is just perfect, right. And so if and I’ve got, I actually have in my bedroom closet, I made a paper chain, remember to like, you know, days to Christmas or days to your birthday? Yeah, so you make a paper chain, I actually literally made a paper chain 104 links, because all I have to do is 104 workouts. That’s it. And so, so every day that I do a workout, I just rip off one of those paper chains. And that’s really it. By the way, atomic habits. That’s probably one of the two best books that I read last year. Fantastic by by James clear,
Mike Malatesta 16:03
James clear. Yeah, I’ve read that book as well. And it’s a good point you make about the book and about life in general, you know, the, the difference between someone who makes it big and someone who doesn’t, is usually much smaller than you think it is? Yeah, it’s, it’s the grid or the grinder the showing up? It’s showing up with intention, you know, it’s just doing the things that 95% of the people won’t do continuously, like, 5% of the people do it maybe less than that. Yeah, cuz it gets
Josh Elledge 16:33
boring. It gets it gets boring, you know, here I am, you know, it’s like, you and I have each done a lot of podcasts. Right? And, and, and people ask, Why do I do that? And I say, you know, around Episode 200 300, something, you’ll, you’ll start to see. But until then, it’s like you’re doing all this work, like has this really pan off? Like, is it worth it? And then, you know, you get at some point, right, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll start to see holy cow. For me, it’s the, I’ll tell you the number one reason I do it, number one, serve an audience number two, but the business justification for doing what I do. So I serve the audience for free, right? There’s no ads, I don’t do ads, I don’t do any of that stuff. I like i The number one thing that I get, like personal endeavor value out of it, is it is the ultimate networking tool. I get to spend every day with amazing business leaders, and just that proximity together, has led to so many opportunities. And, you know, in your lies you mentioned in the intro, the work that up my influence does today, completely different than what we were doing at the beginning. In the beginning, you know, we were just offering low cost public relations services. And I would say we’re doing it just okay. But today, what do I do better than anyone else on the planet, I, I fill the sales schedules of high authority, coaches, consultants, b2b service providers, and agency owners. And I do it leveraging generosity and platform. And again, I’m probably one of the top 10 people on the planet, I don’t even know who the other nine would be at doing that very niche II nerdy, specific thing. If you want me to help you with your social media and other stuff, don’t come to me, I’m not very good at that. I’m never gonna, I’m probably average or below average at 99% of things on the planet. But man, that one thing that I obsess on, I have figured out so many things, that the only way you can figure those things out is you have to do it 1000 Or two, you know, so times, then you start to get good at
Mike Malatesta 18:52
it. Your parents. So it’s interesting, because I’m, you said your 2000s Plus podcast, I’m at 250 or so maybe now? Well, with all my episodes, maybe a little more, but there have been several times along the way where I thought just what you were saying I thought yeah, this is you know, this isn’t really going where I want it to go, you know, it’s not amplifying the I’m not, I don’t feel like I’m getting the payback on the on the on the value that I’m bringing. Right. But but but then I say to myself, well, like before you before you today, before we got on on this zoom, I recorded a podcast with Peter Fagan, Peter Fagan is the president of the Milwaukee Bucks the world champion, NBA Milwaukee Bucks, right. So opportunity, right. And I said, I say to myself, well, if I didn’t have a podcast, would I have had it in our power? Would I would Peter Fagan have ever even you know, maybe he would have given me the time of day if I happen to meet him in a place where it made sense, but what’s the likelihood of that? Right, right. So and it’s done His kinds of wins, like hitting a good golf shot after you’ve hit a lot of bad ones that keeps you going and, and, and, and ultimately will pay off I, I do agree with you on that. I want to dig into three things, you this, this navy thing, this health thing and and then what you do for coaches and consultants, the Navy thing? So how did you so you, you, you spent most of your time as a journalist there, but when you went in? Is that what you want it to be? Did you know that? And was there a path to get there? There was an easy path? Yeah.
Josh Elledge 20:39
Yeah, yeah, I know, I was very intentional about I wasn’t going to go into be a corpsman or an infantry person or whatever. I, I knew that. I had some skills coming in. Right. I had, I had really worked hard in high school to focus on, you know, speech and debate. And, and you know, and it’s interesting, right? Because, again, you know, when you look at, you know, like Malcolm Gladwell is 3000 hours, when you look at atomic habits, right? It’s, you know, what is it that you should be doing? You know, I love that I think it’s an atomic habits, what should you be doing for a living? And, you know, a lot of times people will say, we’ll do what you love, right? And that’s great advice. And he says, Add as close. But here’s the thing, right? Do what, for whatever reason, you don’t get bored of other people would look at that and go, Ah, there’s no way I could do that, that, you know, record, you know, 2000 podcasts episodes, how on earth? Could you do that? I don’t know. I like it. You know, in the sense that I’ve, you know, I work really hard at it. And I work at the craft and I and I show up in service, right? And there’s a you know, and I’ve also figured out, you know, all right, because you got it, you always have to have a business plan around everything that you do. And just like, what is the business plan, hoping and wishing is not really a great business plan. So maybe we want to be a little bit more methodical about that. So for me, I say, Listen, if I get value from the audience, I’m going to count that as a bonus, right? How can I get value from this system? So I very deliberately use my podcast to build relationships with the kind of people that I want to spend time with. And then from there, I’m very deliberate on you know, what may be a possibility. I don’t sell at them, of course, but what I want to be able to do is I want to be able to listen to what they’re working on. You know, I asked very deliberate question on my podcast, I’m listening very closely. What are they working on? You know, where are their pain points? And maybe I can help them with that? Maybe not. But here’s the thing, your net work equals your net worth? Did I say that? Right? I think I did. Because worth equals your net worth? Yes. Is your network equals your net worth? Right? That’s it. Yes. So now, if he says, Listen, my number one problem that’s plaguing me right now is, you know, I’m just not getting any, you know, any engagement on social media, for whatever reason, that’s what you know, whatever, right? Or, Hey, I’m making really good money, but I just have no time freedom. Okay, well, I’m not really the expert for that, like, I mean, I can generally tell you, you know, we can kind of talk business owner to business owner, and maybe I can share some things that have worked with me. But I’ll tell you what, I’ve been doing this a long time. And I’ve talked with a lot of people. So I know somebody so that I don’t think it doesn’t matter what you come to me in terms of problems and business, I can go through my CRM, I guarantee I’ve got somebody who can solve that problem. Now, here’s the thing. I likely would say, would you mind if I made an introduction? You know, I’ll just you know, full disclosure, I say, I have a business relationship with them. So if ultimately you decide that you end up wanting to work with them or whatever, you know, they would probably, you know, give me some sort of a kickback or referral fee. Would you be offended if that were the case? Nobody says it every was like no, of course, I would hope that you would, right. And so say because I’m happy to make the introduction, you know, just kind of because I like you or whatever. But this is actually now what I do and so it’s not gonna cost you anything. I mean, you know, certainly but but, you know, there is so much power to being the guy or gal who knows a guy or gal right you who knows. And there became a point in our business With the value of my network exceeded the value of the PR and media consulting services that we’re offering. I’m like, okay, look, I can either have my team do this work for you, and I get a 20% profit margin off of that work, and that’s my commission for that. Or I could refer you to somebody else, and I don’t have to do anything, and I still get the same 20% I tell you what, I’m just gonna have someone else do the work, if you don’t mind. Because then I don’t have to stress about it, I just have to, you know, keep talking with new awesome people and keep building up my network, you know, so that’s, it’s a good gig, it’s a good day, it takes a while to get here. But it’s a really fun gig. And I’m very humbled today, at you know, the Josh Elledge from two, three years ago, who really just started obsessively working on this, where you plant your seeds is not necessarily where you reap your harvest, right. But there’s so much value into caring about people and, and seeing how you can help other people. And if when you wake up in the morning, your first thought is, you know, who I’m grateful for the skills and talents that I have an ungrateful, you know, for the platform that or whatever the thing that I’ve built up, and now I’m so grateful for the lives I get to touch today, I’m so grateful for the impact I get to make in someone’s life today. Right? That is such a different mantra, then, who am I gonna make some money from today? Like, if you wake up with that first mantra, people will feel it. And people will naturally want to work with you. If and I can feel it, when I know you can feel to, especially if you’ve done interviewing for a while you can tell exactly where someone’s heart is. And here’s the thing is, we’re all, we all have our intention, I tuned to someone’s intentions, much better than ever before. And so you broadcast as a business owner, you are always, always, always always broadcasting your intentions. And so if you think that you can have a miss a lack of alignment between what you say and what you want, it’s your you’re going to, you’re going to constantly be frustrated over and over and over again. And you’re going to wonder what’s going on? And it’s because we as consumers know exactly what it is you want. Yeah, before you even open your mouth.
Mike Malatesta 27:29
We recognize the conflicting messages, right? You’re
Josh Elledge 27:33
really good god, this Yeah, is marketing rebellion by Mark Schaefer. And he talks about what fortune 500 companies know, you look at advertising today, way different than what it was 20 years ago. It’s because fortune 500 companies know exactly where consumers brains are. Consumers don’t want to be sold to think about this, right? Is Here we are as a population, and we’ve been experimented upon, like never before. We’re inundated with advertising messages. If you spend any time on social media, you are the subject of experiment, intense experimentation. So what happens, I forget what this is called in, in, you know, science or whatever. But eventually, it’s like if you if you run a, you know, you’re your test subjects kind of wear out, right. And eventually, you need new subjects to get better, fresher data or whatever. So but here you have a population that’s been experimented upon, bombarded with people sliding into their email, sending them spam, sliding into their DMS, low key selling Adam constantly bombarding you with ads constantly. What do you think is going to happen to audiences? What do you think is going to happen to populations, when you do that, you’re going to create a hyper resistant population that no longer wants to be sold to by your dumb marketing, marketers have ruined everything. So your only option today is to stop with the false pretense, Stop with the nonsense advertising and just be genuine and authentic with people and serve in a way where you have their needs and their desires at the forefront rather than your own. Anything else today does not work. Or if it dies, it works temporarily and it’s awfully expensive. And you run into this same situation. I’ve got people I’ve got clients that are CFOs for a lot of my Be careful how I how I identify who these people are. They love instant automatic sales automation funnels. We’ll just say that and they love to be recognized for achieving a certain magical level. I know this. I’ve worked with CFOs who serve a lot of those clients. There We’re broke as hell. And not all of them, but a lot of them. Because the margins end up being so thin because of the model, right? And so I’m not saying this for everybody. So back off, if you’re like saying I’m making, I’m not being making a blanket statement about everybody who does that kind of business, I’m just telling you, it’s harder today than it was three, four or five years ago, even.
Mike Malatesta 30:27
Okay, so let’s move to health, I have this this chain thing that you talked about, and I know that at some point in your life, you you sort of changed your habits of atomic habits and you you lost a lot of weight, and you’ve become you transformed yourself into I think what you describe as a fitness geek, or running geek or whatever you are. So tell me about Tell me about your chapter your transformation. And tell me about the the the challenge that you’re undertaking right now. What is it specifically?
Josh Elledge 30:56
Yeah, so yeah, you’re right. I wasn’t heavy dude. And, and then it was, I want to say about 1213 years ago, that I just very consciously, I just meticulously tracked everything that I was eating. I will say that that first go round. I was really just racking up calorie deficits day to day like big is big, big calorie deficits, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that. So how I believe in, you know, if someone says, Hey, I want to get in better shape, or lose a little weight, I honestly believe now, you know, because I’ve, I’ve lost weight starving myself, it got me down. But then I immediately rebounded a good, you know, 1015 20 pounds, with the exception of, you know, I got to my goal weight. And then it was really interesting. While I was doing that, I was actually watching back in the day, season seven of the Biggest Loser, which again, not recommended. And again, I can color in why I’m saying not recommended. But in watching that, they said, okay, and they had like the top three or four people in the contest are wondering the dumb weight loss thing there. But they said you’re gonna run a marathon. And I was like, what? If people like me can’t run marathons. And I was just incredulous. As then I watched them in the show. And all four of them finished a marathon. Now they ended up walking a good chunk of it or whatever, totally fine. Like still 26 miles. That’s absurd, right. And so then I got a book, who how I can recall out not however, I forget who it was, but he wrote a book that is like the beginning of the Beginner’s Guide to Running a marathon, like, you know, kind of a couch to marathon type thing. And look, it’s, you know, unless you have some serious, serious injuries or something like that, I kind of believe that almost anyone could run a marathon if they wanted to. Now, it’s not that that’s not going to come with some consequences. Because, you know, my experience, I’m still, you know, I would say, I’m not rubbed out a rail thin kind of guy, right? I’m, I’m very much an endomorph I pack on muscle pretty well. I’ve got those jeans, you know, like World’s Strongest Man kind of people. That’s my ancestry. So the Hardy finish, you know, kind of stocky kind of body shape. But yeah, so so. So random errands. So I trained in random first marriage Disney marathon. And as they crossed the finish line, it was probably short to the birth of my own children, absolutely the most emotional experience my entire life. And I bawled uncontrollably after crossing the finish line, not because of the 26 miles I just ran, but it was the culmination of all of the training that had to go into that. And before that, the fact that I, I took a stand for my life and my health and my well being, and I lost all that weight. And that’s the finish line that I crossed in that moment.
Mike Malatesta 34:09
What got you to start? Because I saw other
Josh Elledge 34:13
people do it, and it was modeling knowledge. Right? And like, if they can do it, I can do it. I was never an athlete in high school. You know, I was kind of a cool music, nerdy, you know, kind of like I was, you know, kind of a little bit punk a little bit. Poser, you know, low mid, you know, a little bit new wave, you know, it’s cool guy, I guess, you know, little nerdy, little, little overly gregarious. But yeah, I never got to be an athlete. And, you know, when I started running, I started listening to a lot of books and reading a lot of books on this and, you know, and it was finally someone in an audio book just said, Congratulations, you are if you’re training for a marathon or half marathon or even a 5k Listen to me You are an athlete now. And I don’t know, there was just something about that. I was like, Wow, I’m an athlete. And so what athletes do, what athletes keep showing up, and they keep doing good stuff. Right? And so, yeah, that that was that’s all it took for me. And so, you know, right now, and I was sharing with you before we start recording is, um, you know, and look, and everybody has like, their seasons, right? So I just finished a very intense work season, right. And I knew, look, I’m going to take some of these physical things, I’m going to have to set them a little bit gives us seasons of life, right? And, and anybody that says, Oh, you can live every day in perfect harmony and balance? Yeah, got it. Yeah, to hear man, there’s, there’s going to be crises that are going to happen, you know, there’s going to be something that there’s always stuff that’s going to take place, right. And so you’re always going to be a little bit out of balance bed. And but I knew that so I said, Listen, you know, I really going to have to really knuckle down for his four months. Also, I had a major injury, I injured my back leg for L five, and it sucks when that happens, right? So then I was on a year and a half of healing from my back and not being able to lift weights, you know, with some exception. So, and plantar fasciitis, I had that I’ve had that really bad for three years. I don’t know why it kicked in I, I rolled my ankle a couple of times, and then all of a sudden started getting plantar fasciitis. So as officers i Well, so we’re going to do so I stopped, I stopped with the longer distance running just kind of stuck with the shorter distance riding my bike. But you know, that’s just that’s part of this, you know, can you be adaptable? You know, can you keep on moving, you know, rather than, you know, putting yourself on the sidelines completely. So, but yeah, now I’m just I’m excited because I, I used a program called the Healthy wage. So I’m actually betting $200 a month that I will lose 25 pounds. Why did I do that? Because they didn’t get my $200 a month. Even though I mean, that’s not a lot of money, that’s six times two is $1,200. Still $1,200 is enough for me to go, oh, no, no, you are not keeping that money. So I put that money down as a bet against a you know, a bet for my success. And then plus, I went a little bit of extra money if I do it and stuff. So
Mike Malatesta 37:27
and that’s. So that’s the ultimate goal of this particular challenge is to lose 25 pounds. Is there some other parts? One
Josh Elledge 37:34
of the goals? Right, Natalie, I want the physique to turns heads,
Mike Malatesta 37:37
mainly my wife. Okay. Well,
Josh Elledge 37:40
I should say only my wife, dear, the others are just kind of like, Oh, I feel good about myself.
Mike Malatesta 37:46
So if you get that, and you don’t get the 25 pounds, you’d be okay.
Josh Elledge 37:50
Yes, yes, I, I would, that’s the I would it’s not I don’t need the external reaction I want. I want to be able to, let’s say, for example, there were a picture of me shirtless on social media, I wouldn’t be like, Oh, God, Oh, no. How do I get that off? Like, I would be like, yeah, it would be cool. It would be so I would feel good. I would feel as though my exterior was a match to my interior. Because we’ve done a lot of internal work. And in in, do we really want to show up to the finish line in life, you know, with a body that maybe doesn’t support, you know, or an unfortunate and this is, listen, a lot of this stuff may sound superficial. And I get that right. But for me, like I want very badly, to put the amount of effort into my physical body so that I can have longevity, and energy and, you know, and, you know, I can run and run and run and not tire and that sort of thing. Like, that’s cool. Like I want I want a body, especially now. And you know, I’ve recently just turned 50 as well. So like, look, I have to do this, right? Because, you know, at that age, you know, your your life choices have lasting implications. If you know, as we start getting in our 40s and 50s. And certainly our 60s, you know, if you don’t have muscle mass, you know that muscle mass is a gift going into those eight those those decades.
Mike Malatesta 39:28
If you’re building you’re not building more of it on your own, but it’s not just happening. You have
Josh Elledge 39:32
to Oh, no, right, right. Right, right. Yeah. So I listen, I want to be here for a long, long, long, long time for my wife or my kids, for the people that I serve. And I believe that being in great physical health is is is instrumental to that.
Mike Malatesta 39:47
Well, the reason I wanted to explore that a little bit further and thanks for sharing that was this very often. Thank you. Yeah, my my own journey was, you know, 22 years building my first car Anthony and I like staying in shape. During that time, I would go to the gym and I would do things, but it didn’t come first. And as a result, without really paying attention to it, thinking pretty much the same, you know, I put on about 30 pounds over that time. And and I a few years ago decided that’s not who I wanted to be. And I got rid of that. But I wondered in your case, was it you know, business can end life can grind away at your ambition to do the things that you need to do to keep yourself sort of number one sometimes. Was that kind of what led to you? Did you have a similar journey that led to you putting on the weight before you had this? Epiphany to
Josh Elledge 40:49
Yes, change? Yes, I put on most of that weight, when I was really stressed out and struggling business wise. Okay, I had, I was at the tail end of kind of a contractor type relationship that I was just, it was very stressful that and then oh my gosh, then I lost a home to Gosh, a short sale, we had to short sale a home. You know, finances were just so stressful. And yeah, so you know, listen, it’s, I have so much empathy for for our friend right now is listening to our conversation. And you’re going through a stage in life, where you’re dealing with a lot of stuff, I have been there, I empathize with you, I want you to know that I love you. And I promise you that, just like Jim Rohn get this little book. It’s called seasons of life by Jim Rohn. And that book gave me hope. But I will tell you that because I was so stressed about, you know, I gotta get my family’s finances figured out. You know that, you know, I just, it was too much pressure for me, oh, well, I should go to the gym right now, I should be lifting weights, I shouldn’t be out running. I didn’t do any of those things. Because my brain was elsewhere, my brain was, you know, frantically figuring out, you know, how can I pay the bills. And in fact, when I launched Savings Angel, I didn’t even have enough money to pay my heating bill, it was my first radio segment that I ever did, that gave me the money to pay the heating bill that was due that week. Otherwise, they were going to shut off my utilities. In the end, this was March in Michigan, which while you’re in Wisconsin, you know, that’s a winner. For sure. It’s yeah, you don’t want your heat turned off that early in the in the year. And so I you know, and so I remember, you know, working you know, I was working 1216 hour days, easily, easily. To try to get it figured out, I was building my own website. And, you know, and there was really no business podcasts at the time. I mean, I was listening to like, audio cassettes and CDs and, you know, you know, somehow I would get mp3 versions of some things, you know, and I’d be, you know, constantly listening to that the secret had come out. And, you know, so I was like, really into that and, but eventually, the business launched, you know, first year was still pretty dicey. It was alright, you know, at least I could pay my bills. But then the second year, things started taking off. And I think that was about the timeframe that I we moved down. Yeah, second, second, or third year moved down to Florida. And interestingly enough to we moved, for whatever reason, it seemed like my environment was a little bit different to it seemed like the people that my wife and I were associated, there were a lot more fit people in where we moved. And that was part of it, too. It’s like, oh, well, new beginnings. And when in Rome, you know, oh, there was a lot of our friends were like into little triathlon sprints. And so, so they were just constantly talking about fitness. I’m like, oh, okay, I guess, you know, a better you know, I don’t want to be this oddball. So there was a little bit of social pressure for me to conform, essentially, as well, but I think primarily, it was on the shelf, and I knew that it was on the shelf, and I think it was when I stood on a scale and I looked at 230 pounds. I was like, what, that’s not me. What, how can that be? How did I get to 230 Right. And then and, you know, move down here and it was really I think it was pretty shortly after we moved down here that I got going in fact, I had a friend from Michigan come down and visit and the comes through the front door and like what that who are you? You lost some weight man, and it was like that That’s cool.
Mike Malatesta 45:01
Yeah, I feel good. Have you? Yeah. So that’s interesting what you said there because it’s more it’s an another use the word room. But I’ll say it’s another Rhone ism. Right? The, you know, the, the people you’re around impact who you are, right? Yeah. And you’d be around people who are in shape you go away.
Josh Elledge 45:17
Yeah. Guess what we do? Right? Yeah. But that same thing. It’s like, you know, how do you talk about your wife? Well, how do your friends talk about their wives, chances are, you’re going to talk about your wife and the way that they talk about their wives. And if you’re around someone that you don’t think that they’re very respectful or whatever, you probably going to disassociate, because there’s a, you know, it’s like, Man, I’m zigging and zagging. And I don’t know, like, you will just naturally kind of start to lose touch with one another. I see that all the time.
Mike Malatesta 45:47
So let’s turn to back to up my influence. So I’m a I’m a business coach, or I’m a consultant, or I’m someone who could be one of those things, right? And I want to get my business, you know, jumpstarted? Or accelerated? What, what do you? What’s it like to partner with you or work with you? And what happens? How’s it?
Josh Elledge 46:07
Right, yeah, so there’s, there’s, there’s definitely, you know, we know who we work well with. And when you do something, a lot of times, you start to figure out who you’re a really good fit for, and who you’re not a good fit for. And you learn not to take the business from, you know, people are like, well, we could do it, but we’re not sure if it would be successful or not, don’t take that business. It’s tempting, especially when you want the money. It’s always trust your gut on that, if I could just put a plug in there. I don’t know why I brought that up. But here’s the deal. All right. I know who I work well with. And that is, if you are already doing about six figures in business, you generally have some pretty good authority, you know, people will pay you well for your time, because you are known for achieving outcomes. But the main problem you have is you have you have capacity, right? You’re not at full capacity, business wise, if that’s if that’s where the gap is, then I fix that gap, I can get you to full capacity and keep you at full capacity for the rest of your life. How I do that is we have really have to take a page from Bob Berg, the Go Giver, if you don’t get what Bob talks about in that book. Also, that disqualifies you from working with me. If you want automated riches, and you don’t want it you all you care about is just automating money, and you don’t care about the people that you work with. That is a hard disqualification. I don’t work with sharks, I only work with people that believe in growing their business through meaningful authentic relationships. Okay, all that said, here’s what we do, right? And so, you got to it, it comes down to three elements, and I firmly if you are in big ticket, or big-ish ticket, you know, business, especially again, consultants, coaches, speakers, b2b service providers, agency owners, this will, it’s the greatest way of growing your business, you will love starting work every single day. And you’ll never have to I don’t wanna say you’re never stressed out about money. There’s some other factors in there. But in terms of solving for the problem here, let me let me start with this. Okay. Sorry, I’m be bopping around a little bit. revenue comes from closed sales period. You will let me know where I lose you owe?
Mike Malatesta 48:50
Me? Yeah, yes. No, okay, good.
Josh Elledge 48:52
So we’re good there. Okay, were to close sales come from close sales come from sales conversations, not everyone is going to buy. In fact, I would argue a majority of people that you have sales conversations with are not going to buy your thing. Get over yourself. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Right? If they feel like you can solve their problem they will buy, if they don’t have your problem they are not going to buy if they don’t have a problem that you can solve, they’re not going to buy if they do ever problem. And they do have the problem that you fix, and they feel like you can solve their problem they will buy unless they just don’t have the money or something like that. That’s, you know, other than that they’re going to buy they will buy. So let’s say that out of 100 people, they say you know, let’s say you know it let’s say you want 20 sales, right? So how do you get to 20 sales? Well, if your conversion rate and again, it has more to do with the population than it does you now you do have to have you do need Need to have focused on your authority, right? So you need some industry authority, the more industry authority you have, the easier it’s going to be. And your conversion rate is going to go up. If you have a low authority, you’re probably only going to have a maybe a 10% conversion rate. If you have high authority, you may have 25 30% conversion rate. Yeah. And
Mike Malatesta 50:18
how do you define and measure authority? Just so everyone knows? Yeah, yeah.
Josh Elledge 50:21
Okay. So take where you are right now. Think of think of where you are in your industry, what you do, how you’re known for it? If someone were to do a Google search on you, what opinion might they come up with, in about 30 to 60 seconds, okay, that should give you some indication of where you are, right? We’ll take a look at your branding, on a scale from one to 10. You know, if your branding looks like a three, it’s going to be really hard for us to work with, it’s going to be really difficult for you to get business with sixes, sevens and eights, because they’re gonna look at where you are right now. It’s not your fault. It’s just the way that we do business. Right? And is it superficial? Yes, but it’s the way we do business. So if you’re a three, you’ll have no problem doing businesses business with threes, and fours, right. However, the five sixes and sevens might be a little bit elusive for you. So we can overcome that a little bit. But what I want you to do, authority is not something you’re going to grow overnight, it’s going to be something that you’re going to need to work on it a couple of hours a week, every single week for the rest of your life. Because then all of a sudden, one day, you’ll wake up and you’re just gonna feel lucky. Like it’s gonna be like Harry Potter, when he drinks that lucky juice, I forget with Polly juice or I forget what it is. But it is so weird when you I love that scene in that movie, because he just says the perfect thing that gets him the outcome that he wants. And he has no control over it. Because his it’s like his the luck is just directing everything. So when people say, you know, they’ve spent some time checking you out, because everyone’s gonna check you out. Right? And so they don’t do business with I don’t do business with anybody until I check them out. Right? And as simple as it could be just simple Google search, spending time on your site, looking at your social media, and I’m going to start to build a picture about you. And is it a fair picture? Probably not. But it’s the way that we all do business. So take your authority, what you perceive your authority to be. And imagine I’m going to give you a man wave my magic wand, and I’ve just bestowed upon you 10 times the industry authority that you had previously. Okay, what is your life now? Like? Imagine what your inbound opportunity your inbound sales opportunities is going to be different. Again, if you have 10 times the authority, imagine your speaking invitations, your joint venture opportunities. Imagine what your traffic is like your social medias, like imagine how people treat you, again, if you have 10 times the authority, so you can get authority a lot of different ways. There’s authority through association, right? I went to Harvard and got a PhD. Oh, well, I know what Harvard is. And I respect Harvard. And if you they give you a PhD, then because I have I respect the authority of Harvard, I therefore respect the authority that you have, right? I have 130,000 fall, I don’t have a PhD. I have 130,000 followers on social media. Right? And it looks, you know, looks somewhat legit, right? So and by the way, I do have 130,000 followers on social media. And so someone can look at that and go, Oh, well, if 130,000 people have decided to at least engage at some level with this person. That probably means something. So therefore, we have authority through social proof. Right? I have testimonials. Oh, okay. Well, this person is the, you know, Head of Marketing at blah, blah, blah, I recognize that this person looks legit. Therefore, we transpose its authority through again, more kind of association, and authority through testimonies and success. And that’s, by the way, I teach on a lot of this stuff at my website, if you’re really into this, I’ve got a free video series where I really dive deep into a lot of these elements. Authority is a big deal, right? And so again, don’t stress out if you’re like a to right now in business, because guess what, guess where everybody starts? Zero? Yeah. And we just keep showing up. You know, we keep you know, keep on doing the deal. Do things like you know, but you can do simple things like you know, get new headshots for your social media profiles, small, seemingly unimportant, but it really makes a difference because people will look at your headshot, and they’ll make they’ll make judgments about you. Is it fair? Nope. Is it superficial? Yep. People do it. Yep. And so that is one way to just earn earned a few more seconds of attention, write your LinkedIn profile. That’s one thing I can tell you, as a podcast host, you know, people will send me all these one sheet so that I’d never look at them, I just pull up their LinkedIn profile. Because I, LinkedIn generally tells me about everything I need to know. And certainly it gives me enough to talk about, but why not take an afternoon and max out your LinkedIn profile, it can only help you. And that is an authority indicator pay, a lot of people will do a Google search on you. And if you have a well optimized LinkedIn profile, usually it’s going to come up on page one of Google search results. If you Google my name, Josh Elledge, I haven’t done this for a few. You know, for a little while, I think my LinkedIn profile is probably going to come up in page one, sorry, I use, I use brave and duck duck go. So I’m going to have to go back over to Google. So
Mike Malatesta 55:57
when I google myself and use Google on brave, yeah, that’s
Josh Elledge 56:00
right. But I just by default search engine is DuckDuckGo. Okay, here we go. Yep, number one. Result is my LinkedIn profile. Number two is my media page on my own website. Number three is my personal Instagram profile, then we go to my personal favorite app. Well, let me tell you, if you want to get a really good picture of who Josh Elledge is, just google me, and then check out what Google tells you. Google’s spent, they’ve collected some good stuff here,
Mike Malatesta 56:33
who was telling you that Terry as authority, what’s that? I said, Google is telling us that Josh has authority. Has a what? authority?
Josh Elledge 56:42
Authority. Yeah, yeah. So your Google search results, big time indicator of where you are. So again, we want to work on that. Oh, man, where were we before we were talking about authority? Oh, we were talking about how money comes from because I want to help you. To our friend listening right here. I want to help you get a ton of money. All right. So many people overcomplicate this, Hey, money, revenue comes from close sales, close sales come from sales conversations, where do sales conversations come from? Okay, you just need to build relationships with more people more of your ideal customers, period. And if story, that’s it, that’s where money comes from. And so now, if 20, let’s say the 20 sales, and let’s say you charge 10,000, the average lifetime value is $10,000 as $200,000 for the year. Okay, if I can help you make 20 sales. So again, 20 times 10,000 $200,000.20 $200,000. That’s good living. That’s, that’s a pretty good living in the United States. So I would say it’s a damn good living. And so given my, my background of my parents, okay, so how do we so all we have to do then is we have to have 100 meaningful conversations? How do we do that? Well, great question. So what is it? How can we get the attention of 100 of our dream customers? If you think the answer is sliding into their DM and low key selling them? Do you mic Do you have a buzzer sound effect?
Mike Malatesta 58:23
No, I know but I have a I have a I have one downstairs that says that’s bullshit.
Josh Elledge 58:30
I should have had all right. Okay, that doesn’t. Okay. So with that second work, what else can we do? You could spam people, right? That’s a possibility. And buzz it again insert buzzer sound effect, right? Well, let’s see what else Oh, LinkedIn, you can slide into DMS. It’s going to take over a lot of annoying the crap out of people to get 100 people to say sure. I would love to have a conversation with you about your IT services. Right it’s meanwhile it’s like people are laughing right now as I’m talking and illustrating this because we all get spammed we all get sold to how do you feel when people treat you like that? Do you want to engage with them? I don’t you want to run away from them? Yeah, absolutely. And here’s the thing. The and I learned this about pitching media, right? Is that if it’s all about you, it’s your you’re already setting yourself up to fail, right? And the more exclusive of a club that you are trying to reach into the more layers of protection they have learned to build for themselves. Okay, of course, it’s you’re gonna get a team of people like if you reach out to me with a sales kind of message I probably will never hear it, see it because my team has been trained to help me keep my focus, I just don’t have time to go down rabbit holes, I’m sure as hell not going to watch your webinar if you just, Hey, how’d you like to join our blah, blah, blah, I don’t even if I don’t even know who you are. And you hit me up with some webinar, or join your Facebook group or whatever. It’s hard. No, and it’s not that I disrespect you, I just don’t have the bandwidth. I don’t even the free time that I do have. That’s not where I want to spend it. Because I don’t need to write my free time I spend with my family, with my friends with doing the things that I really, really enjoy. My bills are paid like I’m good. Like, I’m not in desperation, like I’m fine. If I need something, I know how to find it generally. So. So that’s not really a good fit. And then also, you know, in terms of, you know, bandwidth, I’m just starting Oh, yeah. And if I want to, let’s say, I want to join a thing, because I want to perform service, I have a big enough network, trust me when I say I have an infinite number of service opportunities, and I love it. I don’t need someone cold minding me for again. So there’s, there’s really nothing you can interest me with. If you’re coming in cold at me. If I don’t know who you are, and again, I’m sharing that as a representation to pretty much everybody is like that. I’m so I’m kind of trying to throw a little bit of a bucket of cold water on things that you may have tried in the past. And I want you to know, it’s not your fault. It’s this is just some guru told you to do this, because gurus make a lot of money, give selling bad advice. Why? I don’t want to get too conspiratorial here. But I know this very, very well. I’ve actually studied cult behavior and how cults work. Colts will intentionally give adherence, really bad advice on go out in the world with a bullhorn and try to convince people and convert people. Go bang on a bunch of doors, go do this, go do that. And go, you know, just all this stuff, right? It doesn’t work. It doesn’t. It’s the numbers are horrible. It’s a bad mice bad marketing advice. So why would a cult do that? Right? And I should say also, legitimate churches do this as well. And other legitimate organizations do this as well? Why do they do that? It’s not for the conversions. It’s for the person that they’re sending out that it’s an intentional, I’ve seen this done, I shouldn’t say quite artfully masterfully. At a couple of Guru events that I’ve attended, that intentionally give you really bad advice, have you tried, have you failed, and then then you come back to the community where your love bombed, and you’re like, Oh, see, that’s okay. The outside world doesn’t understand you, all you need is x, all you need is to buy my new product course, all you need to do is join our new, more exclusive program. And then you’ll learn the secrets. So if you if you went out and you were successful, you wouldn’t need anything more. Does that make sense? So again, there’s, I’ve looked at the data and talked with people on the inside of a very well known organization that sends out a lot of folks knocking on doors and stuff. And it is absolutely bottom line, it is for the person or people that they’re sending out to knock on the doors, because it actually it keeps them in a lot longer, and makes them a much stronger member of that organization. The results, the conversion results are horrible, terrible, it’s a horrible use of money and resources, terrible use of manpower, but they do it anyway. Because it’s an investment in the future for that person.
Mike Malatesta 1:04:00
So for someone that does fit you, right, what and, and is willing to work to to grow their thorough and their business. What did they had? Okay,
Josh Elledge 1:04:13
great question, because I didn’t complete that loop. Yeah, that’s the best question you could ask her. Okay, so, read Bob Berg, the Go Giver, or go giver sell more. And you have to ask yourself, then, what can I truly give away? So how do you bridge a gap? If you’re a three and you want to market to fives and sixes? It’s going to be very difficult. How do you bridge that gap? The answer is number two. Number one is authority. Like I mentioned, there’s three, three things you absolutely must do to succeed in business state. Number one, you’ve got to work on your authority and it’s going to take some time. Number two is generosity. You have generosity will bridge that gap. I remember meeting with a very, very An influential personal finance person at an event. And I said, Hey, I went up to him, I said, I loved your presentation. And I was just looking you up on LinkedIn. And look, I love your work. You don’t realize this, but your work is already impacted me in such positive ways. I would love to be of service. Would you mind if you connected me with your team or whatever, I would be honored to do a LinkedIn profile, I do that professionally, I wouldn’t be honored to do that pro bono. You don’t have to pay me, I would just be my thrilled to do that. I was just going through your LinkedIn. And I found at least seven eight things that I would love to have my team and I work on for you at no cost. It would just be my honor to do so. He said, Yeah, totally. Let me get you connected with so and so. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Again, this is not a fake? Come on. Because if it was, he would sense it. I was genuine, right? Do I want something in return? Well, that might happen. But I have to be okay, you have to be okay with the result that it might not happen, right. Because if you’re only doing it because you want to dosey doe, that’s not giving, that’s not generosity, that’s recipe that’s like, I’m gonna give you $10 And you’re gonna give me you know, a meal or something like that, that’s just transactional, that’s not giving, you have to be willing to give with no expectation of return. But here’s the thing. And here’s what happens, I would say, eight, nine times out of 10, they will reciprocate, but you have to give willingly with the at the expectation of reciprocity. So if you can do that, and you can get your mind there, the world will be opened up to you in a way that will shock you. But you have to be the first one to give. This is how I got 2500 media appearances. I always worked with the producers in a way where it was all about that. I had no, no calls to action, no sales never promoted my thing on you know, these three minute TV segments was always about being there to make the producer look good, the talent look good, the station look amazing, the audience, I want to give them value. And that’s the attitude you kind of have to have. And if you can’t get to that point, you might consider a different line of work. Because it’s going to be really hard to grow your business any other way. You’ve got to lead with generosity.
Mike Malatesta 1:07:40
And let’s take us out with number three Josh, what’s number three events so you gotta thority generosity.
Josh Elledge 1:07:46
Number three is platform and what I mean by platform, platform it today in 2022 is the easiest way for you to be insanely generous. What’s platform? Give it let me give me some examples. Podcasts, live streaming on social media, creating content together a blog post, a social media post, what is it so easy to create content, celebrating somebody else? Go back and real Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends Influence People. That’s what you should be doing. But use social media to make other people look amazing. Oh, look, you know, if you look at my social media, it’s very infrequent. It’s very infrequently about me or anything. It’s always about other people and celebrating other people. That’s very intentional. I use my social media for good. I use my social media to make other people feel amazing. Because if I can keep on doing that, eventually, you know, they’re gonna be like, hey, thanks. What can I do for you? Right? And so I’ve gotten on some big name podcasts doing the same thing. Okay, so let me give you an example. Let’s say you like what, Josh, I don’t have any audience, okay? Are you a member of let’s say, a Facebook group, where you have permission from the mods and the group to do a live stream. So I did this once I went to an event. And I know we’re kind of run low on top of Victor’s story quick, Eric, I went to an event, not my event, right for my wife. However, I wanted to, I was thinking, Oh, I’m, again, I know, this is the way I live, right? And so I’m like, who’s the who runs this event? Oh, it’s this woman over here. And so I was part of a group that she was very interested in getting more people from that group to attend this event. I knew that right. So I said, Would you mind if I went I did a quick live video to this group where we could talk about what’s going on at this event. And you know why people should get on over here get to this event, you know, get their buy their tickets for next Hear what takes place? Yeah. Are you kidding? Totally. Right. And so I’m doing a quick live stream with her. Right? And so, and I’m just like, hey, I’m on the Rhonda and I, you know, as I interview her, and she’s like, taking me around, and then we’re like, going to like vendor booths. And we’re interviewing them and making them look amazing to this group. And then, and then close ups. Thank you. Bye, you know, and, and she’s like, thank you so much for doing that. You didn’t have to do that. I’m like, Yeah, I mean, I was just standing here anyway, I’m figured, you know, I’m in this, I figured, you know, folks in this group would be interested in this. And then she’s like, we’ll go, who are you? Are you? It’s like, I was like, oh, you know, I’m Josh. My wife is Jenny. And then I kind of explained the connection of how she might know my wife, Jenny, is because Oh, hey, Janet. And then she starts talking with Jenny. Now does that is that going to do anything for my wife, professional career? Who knows? Do I care? No, not really, like, I’m just okay with planting those seeds. Because where you plant your seeds is not necessarily where you reap your harvest, but go and plant anyway. Because eventually, you will reap a harvest that is just so enjoyable, so enjoyable in life, if you’re the kind of person that has, you know, 234 or 500 people who when they think of, you know, who sells homes in our neighborhood, oh, I know. It’s Josh right. Your scheme set match, you are set for life, get to that point might take you a few years, but it’s totally worth it. We have been 100% inbound as a company now for 28 months, and I talked with 40 of my dream customers every single month 100% inbound they’re all six and seven figure business owners and it is my absolute pleasure and it is my dream to be able to work within a company like this do what I do with the kind of people that I get to associate with
Mike Malatesta 1:12:02
Josh, thank you so much for sharing all that you’ve shared and for teaching us how to up our influence I we already know how to get a hold of you and get connected with you. You just google him and it comes first
Josh Elledge 1:12:16
I mean five five there’s not too many other Josh elegies out there. There’s a couple one was on The Bachelorette. That was not me. He’s much more good looking.
Mike Malatesta 1:12:27
Well, congratulations on your challenge your health. And thank you for sharing authority, generosity and platform. I learned a lot and I appreciate the opportunity to to get to know you as well.
Josh Elledge 1:12:40
Yeah. Thank you so much, Mike. I really appreciate it.
