Episode 4 with Jeff Sherman


Check out this great episode with Jeff Sherman

Paul Halme: All right guys, welcome to this week’s episode of Momentum Monday. I’m your host, Paul Halme. Today I’ve got a super cool guest, his name is Jeff Sherman. I’ll give you a little background. I met Jeff back in 2010, when I joined Bedros’ mastermind – it was all fitness based people, and I was the weirdo martial arts guy. I got along really well with Jeff because he was always very welcoming and helpful when I talked to him, and he would answer my questions.

We’re friends now, and we’ve been in a bunch of different masterminds together…Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, Frank Kern…just a little bit of everything. It’s been really cool to watch him grow from having a gym to having his first product, to now running a fitness marketer empire. It’s super cool, so with that being said, welcome to the show Jeff.

Jeff Sherman: Awesome man. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Paul Halme: So, you’re out in sunny California now…

Jeff Sherman: Normally it’s sunny. It’s raining today, but yeah normally it’s sunny.

Paul Halme: I was telling a little story about back when we first were in Bedros’ mastermind. Was that your first year in his mastermind or was that your second?

Jeff Sherman: I think it was the second because I was there from the beginning when he started it in like 2009. It was like October 2009 when he started it.

Paul Halme: Yeah, because it was 2010 when I joined. I always laughed because I was the oddball martial arts guy that had nothing to do with fitness. I knew Bedros was successful and that’s one thing I’ve learned over the years – if somebody’s successful, give them some money and get around them to learn, they’ll teach you stuff.

Jeff Sherman: For sure. Like when I met Bedros…well I met him through buying his software originally, but when I met him in person, I ended up joining everything that he had. From the Buddy Boot Camp to his info group to a seven figure mastermind group. Then from there Ryan Deiss has that other mastermind. It’s definitely a pay to play kind of thing to be able to surround yourself by people of that caliber, especially in the beginning.

Paul Halme: Oh yeah, and then when you get to a higher level, like War Room with Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, and Frank Kern. That’s definitely a different environment. There’s some big players in that group.

Jeff Sherman: For sure, yeah.

Paul Halme: That was a lot of fun, I learned a lot of good stuff in there. Now you don’t have a gym anymore. You’re basically all online now, correct?

Jeff Sherman: Correct. Yeah, I moved out here last January, and sold my gym last February. Since February I’ve been 100% online and pretty much all digital marketing.

Paul Halme: How’d selling the gym go? Was that tough for you?

Jeff Sherman: Yeah it was pretty tough, because I pretty much out priced any trainer that would be interested in buying it, and any kind of real business, like a biz op person, it’s not the kind of model that they would be interested in. I was kind of stuck in between the two, but then I kind of got lucky. It took me almost three and a half years to end up selling it. I had two trainers that were interested, but they didn’t have the money. They tried to get a loan from the bank, or they had a client that was going to invest in them or whatever, and they kind of fell through.

Then I kind of got lucky. After I moved, I was just going to plan on keeping it, because it was still making me a lot of money, and keep my fingers crossed that I didn’t have to fly back to Baltimore to fix anything. Once I had moved, one of my members asked my manager what I was planning on doing with it, and they had told her that I was open to selling it to the right person, so they called me up and I ended up selling it to one of our members. It was a good deal.

Paul Halme: That’s killer. Yeah it’s tough, fitness and martial arts, those are hard businesses to sell.

Jeff Sherman: For sure. It’s such a personality based business. It’s not like a Starbucks where it’s the coffee and it’s the music. For us it’s always the person to person.

Paul Halme: Yeah. It’s hard too because you’ve have to have both skill sets. You have to be a good trainer/coach, and business man. It’s hard to find people that have both.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah, for sure.

Paul Halme: That’s awesome though. Now you’re online and your big brand now is Fitness Marketer, or is it Fitness Marketer Lab? It’s more than Fitness Marketer Lab, though. What’s the overall brand?

Jeff Sherman: My company is Tech Sweat. TechSweat.com. You’ll see all the different properties that fall underneath Tech Sweat, but Tech Sweat itself doesn’t really have any products or any properties itself. Fitness Marketer is our agency. Probably the biggest, well known name underneath Tech Sweat would be Fitness Marketer.

Paul Halme: Nice. How long ago did you launch that one?

Jeff Sherman: Two years ago we launched the agency. At the time we called it Fit Pro Autopilot.

Paul Halme: That was the Fitpro Autopilot.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah. People were getting it confused with Fitpro newsletter. Then we had our membership site which was Fitness Marketer Lab. It just made sense, I had Fitness Marketer, but it was just a blog at the time. Then after I thought about it I was like, I don’t know why I didn’t just call the agency Fitness Marketer to begin with. So about nine months ago we rebranded it Fitness Marketer. We made a cool video with my COO, Carlo. We blew him up in the video and stuff, it was pretty cool. Yeah, so now Fitness Marketer is the agency where we do everything for them. Then Fitness Marketer Lab is the do it yourself, where we teach you how to do it yourself in our membership site, as far as marketing and business management goes.

Paul Halme: Nice. I remember being at Bedros’ event when you first launched the Fitness Marketer Lab. That was pretty cool. It’s cool to see how much you’ve blown up in two years. It’s nuts.

Jeff Sherman: Yes, it’s been great. The last two years, with the membership site and the agency, and then our live workshops and stuff…it’s been taking off pretty well.

Paul Halme: Man. Now we’re going to leave from business and talk about other stuff too. When you’re not running a fitness empire, how do you like to spend your time?

Jeff Sherman: I like to do anything active, really. Since I’ve been out here, I started learning how to surf. I started with long boarding back in January, and now I’ve been going three to four times a week, constantly for like a year. When I’m not good at something I get obsessed with it. Now I’m surfing short board, three to five foot waves, where before it was like one and two foot on a long board. I really got into surfing…Like I was talking to you before, I want to get back into Judo and Jiu jitsu. As soon as I get above average in something, then I start looking for something else to learn. I need to master one thing, so right now it’s surfing.

Paul Halme: That’s awesome though. It’s got to be kind of a rush to learn how to do that. That’s one thing I’ve never done. I need to put that on my bucket list, I’ve never surfed.

Jeff Sherman: It’s tough. I grew up skateboarding and wakeboarding. Snowboarding, it’s predictable, you know what the snow is going to do pretty much, but in a wave, every wave is different so catching the wave is the hardest thing. Once I catch it I can ride it because I’m used to being on a board. Every wave is different and you don’t know what’s going to happen when you do wreck. Where on a snowboard you can kind of predict if you wreck, how bad it’s going to be.

Paul Halme: On a wave you eat it.

Jeff Sherman: On a wave it’s so unpredictable. You don’t know if it’s going to just pass over top of you and you’re going to be fine or if it’s going to drag you for 20 seconds into shore. You don’t know what it’s going to do, so it’s very interesting. Everybody said I was crazy trying to learn how to short board at 38, but I’m getting it.

Paul Halme: I think if you sit in the office all the time, and you’re cooped up trying to do a lot of stuff, you’re not as productive. Having a good outlet and getting out to do something changes the game so much.

Jeff Sherman: For sure. I would say when my daughter was born, that was when I stopped working all the time and started batching more off my to do list and stuff. Before, whenever I had free time I would just work. From the time I woke up, to the time I went to bed, if there was free time I would be working. Then when my daughter was born I was like, okay I can’t do that, I have to give her all this attention.

Once a certain time hit, I would only have between this time and this time to work, and I found I actually got way more done in three to four hours of focused work a day. The rest of the time it’s either catching up on a phone call or going through my emails or whatever. Three to four hours a day of actual focused work is where I got the most done. Anything over that I was just wasting time.

Paul Halme: That’s funny, because that’s kind of similar to what I’m seeing. This last year I spent a lot of time trying to do personal development. Reading a bunch of books about successful people, listening to their podcasts…and they all talk about time batching like that. Try to find a couple hours where you’re productive in the morning, a couple hours in the afternoon, and crank out as much as you can get done in those two blocks. Then the rest of the day whatever you get done is a bonus.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah, for sure.

Paul Halme: It lets you have that family balance too, because it’s trying to do all of that. That’s a good, that seems to be a real common thing I think, with successful people.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah.

Paul Halme: Do you do yours in the morning and the afternoon, or do you try to do one straight batch?

Jeff Sherman: I definitely break it up, and it’s always different depending on what needs to get done. Lately, I’ve been trying to do more content. So for that I need like two straight hours to sit down and write out a video script, an article, or whatever it is. If I know I need to create some kind of content I’ll give myself a two hour window to sit down and knock it out. When I know I have to have it done by the time that two hours is done, it’s always done. If I give myself any longer than that it’ll just take me longer.

Paul Halme: Yeah, exactly. You can get so much more done in a focused block. It’s like working an eight hour job. I don’t remember what the last nine to five job you had was, but I know when I had my last one. You knew you had to get done at certain times and the rest of the time you were doing nothing, but they wouldn’t let you leave. It’s like, “Well I did all my stuff…”

Jeff Sherman: Yup. Talk about like when you’re in school. The first day in school your teacher’s like, “All right, here’s your project and it’s due the last week of school, this date.” Then like two weeks before the end of the semester you start it and then you’re done. Where if the teacher would have told you that the project’s due two weeks after school started, it would have been done then.

Paul Halme: Yeah, so much wasted time. That’s the cool thing. When you can batch like that, you can be productive  and get so much done. You’re running multiple sides of your company and doing different things, but you’re getting a lot more done in the same 24 hours as compared to a lot of other people.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah for sure.

Paul Halme: That’s awesome, man. Well, speaking of success…when you think of success, who’s the first person that comes to your mind?

Jeff Sherman: That’s a tough one, because for me success is more for like a lifestyle. Now that I’m into surfing, Kelly Slater has the ideal life. He made all his money doing what he loves, and now he’s on the cutting edge of wave technology, still doing what he loves, and building his own wave pool. I like Kelly Slater a lot.

Paul Halme: That’s awesome. I think it doesn’t always have to be about business and money. That’s a big factor, but as you start getting into your 40’s, you start to think about different things. People start dying, and you start thinking about lifestyle. Man, I want to build a better lifestyle and do other things, not just grind all the time.

Jeff Sherman: Yup. For me lifestyle is what it’s all about. I’ve had business coaches over the years always ask me ahead of time, before they even start coaching me, do you want to build a lifestyle business or do you want to build a venture business? I’m like, I want to build a lifestyle business. I don’t want to make a bunch of investors rich. I want to make myself rich and have a great lifestyle. In a venture business, you’re pretty much selling your soul. You’re going to be working to death to make a lot of money, but also making, obviously, the investors money as well. I don’t want my business controlling me, I want to do the other way around.

Paul Halme: Yeah, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how much money you have. If you haven’t taken care of your life and the people around you, you’re just going to be broken down and old with a bunch of money, and have never done anything.

Jeff Sherman: For sure. When I first got into all this, I used to think the mentality was I have to give up what I’m doing for the next. I have to be willing to do what other people aren’t the next three or four years so I’ll be able to do it later. Again, that’s one of the things having a kid will teach you. If I gave up three years of working and not hanging out with my daughter…hanging out with a one year old is different than hanging out with a two year old or a three year old. You can’t make up for lost time that way. You know what I mean?

Paul Halme: Oh yeah.

Jeff Sherman: If you don’t hang out with them when they’re six through ten, they’re not going to want to hang out with you when they’re 12 to 15. You can’t give that up…you can’t make up for lost time, which people try to think they can. They’re like, “Oh I just have to work really hard for the next three to five years and then I’ll be able to do what I want.” You have to be able to do it all at the same time.

Paul Halme: Dude, I agree 100%. I was lucky where I was able to be around a bunch as my kids were growing up. Now my oldest turned 14, and he literally has no time for me. If I had waited till he was 14 and been more successful, I wouldn’t even know the kid very well because he really wants to have his own life. He’s 14 going on 25.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah.

Paul Halme: I agree 100%, man. That’s one thing when we’re younger, we want to grind so hard, but it’s like man, the sacrifices…you’ve got to find that lifestyle balance.

Jeff Sherman: For sure. It’s like I always tell my coaching clients when they’re trying to do so much. In the beginning they have all this time so they have to go, and they have no money. So then I tell them, you either have time or you have money. If you have time, then you have to spend your time learning how to do it, and doing it yourself because you can’t hire somebody to do it. Then once you start making the money, as long as you don’t waste the money, you want to reinvest the money, I call it buying your time back. That’s where you go out and start hiring your team to be able to implement that stuff for you. That’s kind of where I’ve been in the last three or four years, really focusing on buying my time back.

Paul Halme: That’s awesome, man. That’s a really good balance, because that way you can get more done but still have a life.

Jeff Sherman: Yup, for sure.

Paul Halme: Got you scaled up. Another question for you. If money was no issue, would you do anything different? What would you do for a living?

Jeff Sherman: I mean, I wouldn’t do anything different to be honest. I probably would just hire more people and better people to be able to implement the ideas and the strategies I have at a faster pace. Besides that, it would still be the same. The last six months to a year I’ve pretty much reduced my role to producing the content that I have to produce, and then the rest is just strategy.

Everybody else executes on the strategy. Becoming more of like a coach role rather than the athlete role where you have to execute. I always say, athletes and military are the best coaching clients because they’re trained to execute. They’re not trained to think. I give them the strategy and they don’t overthink it, they just go execute. Before I was doing both roles, and now I’m more just the coach role, where I just give my team their strategy and they go and execute it.

Paul Halme: That’s cool, you’re able to build that up where you can do that. I think that’s a big measure of success, and like that question, would you do anything different? No I pretty much like my life. I just want to scale it bigger. That’s awesome, man.

Jeff Sherman: The only thing I would do, would be traveling more. It’s not money that’s keeping me from doing that, though, it’s more my daughter in school.

Paul Halme: Yeah. She’ll be a teenager soon enough and you can go do a bunch more.

Jeff Sherman: I mean we already travel like ten times more than most people. She’s six and she’s probably … It’s funny, my dad came to visit and he’s been on like four flights in his life. We were talking about it, my daughter’s been on like 17 and she’s six.

Paul Halme: She’s got her advantage loyalty card.

Jeff Sherman: Yup.

Paul Halme: That’s awesome man. To me that’s what it’s about. You know getting out there and chasing what you want to accomplish, but at the same time, still balancing the family life and going surfing, or doing jiu jitsu. Not just these guys…you know you see these guys grind so hard, and then they have heart attacks.

Jeff Sherman: Yup.

Paul Halme: Like it wasn’t worth it.

Jeff Sherman: For real. Either that or they’re overweight and they’re not happy with themselves. They make all this money but they still have low self-esteem and they don’t really have any hobbies, or do anything for fun. No real friends that they can connect with even.

Paul Halme: You probably see a lot of that out in California I bet.

Jeff Sherman: Oh yeah. Even at that event I went to that we were talking about. There were people there, same way, 60, 70, 80 pounds overweight but probably net worth of 6-700 million. You’re like, holy crap. They’re just miserable.

Paul Halme: So crazy, they got all the money in the world and they’re freaking miserable. You’ve got to have that balance.

Jeff Sherman: Yup.

Paul Halme: Well, thinking about that, I have to go down a different route here… Speaking about money. What’s something crazy and selfish that you’ve bought yourself? Something off the wall.

Jeff Sherman: I’m not a big…I mean, well…I’ve bought like eight surfboards in the last 12 months, trying to find the perfect surfboard.

Paul Halme: That is crazy.

Jeff Sherman: I mean, people think that’s crazy. It’s like probably $8000 or $9000 in surfboards. I’m not a big material guy. I value experiences and trips more than stuff. I have a BMW, which isn’t much, but for me I have never really owned a sports car. I’m more a Jeep/truck kind of guy. That’s actually not even paid for by me, it was paid for by Quick Funnels.

Paul Halme: Oh yeah, I remember you winning that, yeah.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah. I had to pay the down payment on the lease, but it wasn’t that much. I haven’t really bought anything crazy.

Paul Halme: You know what’s funny about that too? Talking about cars and money. I finally got a nice car that I was like, “oh I really want this car!” Then you get it and you’re like, it’s a car.

Jeff Sherman: Exactly.

Paul Halme: It’s a badass car, but at the end of the day, it’s a car. I drive it, I get out of it, it’s a car.

Jeff Sherman: Yup, for sure. I did the same thing with the BMW, I was like, it’s pretty cool, I’ll get it. Just because they’re going to pay for it. Then three weeks, maybe a month that I had it, I’m still driving my jeep more.

Paul Halme: Yeah. Especially with all your surfboards and stuff.

Jeff Sherman: Yup.

Paul Halme: You’ve gone up, you’re getting real successful. Your business is doing really well. What has money taught you through this experience?

Jeff Sherman: I mean to me, money is just a vehicle to freedom. 90% of most people’s problems come down to money. Like my younger brother, he’s not successful at all, and his problem is if he gets a flat tire, he’s out. He’s done for like three weeks because he can’t afford to get a new tire put on the car. For me, I call AAA and be back on my way in 30 minutes or an hour, and don’t even think about it. It’s just a vehicle to freedom. It takes away a lot of the first world problems anyway.

The other thing I’ve realized, money is meant to move. It’s all about cash flow. You want to have more coming towards you than going away. If you try to hold on to it all. then you’re missing out. You’re leaving a lot on the table by not investing back into your staff, into your team, into your company. A lot of coaching clients that I know, every penny their company makes, they take it home. Then when they go to open up a second location they don’t have any money. I’m like, what do you mean you don’t have any money? You were making like $6000 a month when I met you and now you’re making like 40. “Yeah, but I’m taking home 30.” Well you shouldn’t. You’re screwing your company over for your own gain, kind of thing.

That’s where I’ve been really well off. I’ll give myself a set salary for the year, and if my business does really well, it’s the business that does really well. I’ll invest a lot of it back into the business to grow it. Then at the end of the year if there’s a lot of extra money, I’ll take out a bonus. Then maybe the next year I’ll give myself a new salary. Just trying to be disciplined that way will help you grow a lot faster than however much money you make that month, that’s how much you take home. That isn’t a good way to grow fast.

Paul Halme: That’s a huge tip, too, for people to listen to if you’re taking all the money out. You have to have money in there to reinvest in the business, to build the business, because otherwise you’re not going forward, you’re going backwards. It’s really hard. I found this with my businesses too, if you’re not going forward, you’re going backward, it’s almost impossible to maintain a mean.

Jeff Sherman: For sure.

Paul Halme: I have friends that are like that too. They take all their money out. I’m like, “hey, you running Facebook ads?” “Oh man, I can’t afford those.” “What? How can you not run those?” “Gym’s not doing that great this month?” It’s like, well yeah, because you didn’t run any ads last month! They don’t realize it’s a never ending circle they’re creating for themselves. You’ve have to fund yourself.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah. It’s expensive to scale a business or grow a business.

Paul Halme: Yeah, it’s hard too, because a lot of times you’re around people and they’re not seeing things the way you are. You’re growing, so on your journey have you outgrown people? Where you’re like, man I got to raise my level!

Jeff Sherman: Yeah for sure, especially in the beginning, if you go way back to when I started my gym in 2001. I actually asked two of my best friends to go in on it with me and they both said no, which I’m actually glad they did now. Two years later, then they wanted to. In the beginning, people like childhood friends, people I grew up with, it was a different mentality. I kind of look at them almost like a family member now. It’s cool when I see them on holidays and stuff, and I can hold a conversation about the Ravens, or about sports, or news, or politics, whatever…but I don’t really try to tell them what’s going on in my business or this or that. Most of them actually don’t even want to hear it. They’d rather hear about your problems than hear about your successes, so I’ll just keep it more surface level stuff. Definitely outgrew more of the childhood type friends.

As far as people in the circles that I’m in now, and once I joined Bedros’ mastermind and stuff, it kind of does it for you because the people that don’t keep moving at the same pace as everybody else usually go away. Then they don’t show up to the meetings and then you don’t keep in touch with them anymore. It sort of does it on its own. You don’t even realize who you’re outgrowing or who you’re leaving, they just don’t come around anymore.

Paul Halme: You know it’s funny, thinking about that, back to that second year of Bedros’ mastermind, I was in there. If you look at the people that were in that room and how successful they are now, it’s ridiculous.

Jeff Sherman: Yup.

Paul Halme: It was you, me, Josh Carter…there were so many people. You still stay in touch with people and you see them. I’m in a totally different industry but you see each other at events and stuff, or I’ll see Josh and then see Sean…I’ll see all these different people. You think back, and if I wouldn’t have gotten into that group and paid that money, would I be where I am now? Probably not. I took a big risk to me at the time, and ever since then I’ve always invested in myself.

Jeff Sherman: For sure. From day one I saw the value. For me it was about showing up enough until they pay attention. I went to every event, every mastermind I could afford. I was investing all my money back in. I was spending…that’s another reason why it was hard to sell my gym, because I was investing like $80,000 in masterminds and coaching and travel. The people’s accountants that were looking at my P&L just couldn’t understand why it cost so much to run a gym.

Paul Halme: They ask why are your expenses so high, and you’re like, I’m trying to learn these skills!

Jeff Sherman: I’m flying all over the country and hiring all these people. It was kind of funny, but I’m trying to explain that to banks and people’s accountants.

Paul Halme: Yeah, knowledge is expensive. That’s one thing I’ve learned, but it’s such a shortcut.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah. The way I looked at it is, if you were going to any kind of high level business school, you’re going to be paying $80,000 a year in tuition, or more, and you’re going to be learning from people that just know the theory and don’t have their own businesses anymore, or never have and they’re just teaching out of a textbook that’s probably outdated because stuff on the internet changes daily. I was just looking at it more like a school, like college. That I go away every quarter for some classes and then go implement. Then go and learn, and then go and implement. Go and learn and go and implement. To me it was worth it, and I wasn’t stuck in class all day. I could actually go, take the information that I learned that weekend and make money with it the next day.

Paul Halme: I think that’s cool, just for me, knowing you since I first started in a lot of this stuff. That’s one thing I see a lot in common. The guys who are successful, they don’t just go to the things, they implement. You have to implement! You and I have been around. We see people go to all these events and they don’t ever do anything, and you’re like, dude, what did you do? “Um, went this month and going to next month.” Implement.

Jeff Sherman: Yup. You have collectors of information and then you have doers with information. You have to do this stuff. Like Bedros says, you only get paid for done. You don’t get paid for ideas. You don’t get paid for information.

Paul Halme: Yeah. I thought that was one of his good quotes. You only get paid for done. It’s really true. You can have all the ideas in the world and it’s not going to pay your rent.

Jeff Sherman: Yup.

Paul Halme: So, are you a big reader? Do you read a lot or a little bit?

Jeff Sherman: I do. Not as much as I used to. In the beginning obviously I was consuming as much as possible. I always try to have at least one good book that I’m reading currently, at a time. Before I would be reading like two or three books at a time. Lately it’s just one particular subject that I might be interested in, or whatnot.

Paul Halme: What are you reading? What’s your favorite book you would recommend to people?

Jeff Sherman: Of all time?

Paul Halme: Or just one that pops into your head as like, that’s like my favorite book for now…

Jeff Sherman: There’s been a couple that have really been the biggest paradigm shifts at different points in my life. I would say Rich Dad Poor Dad is the one that really changed my mindset on thinking about money. Books are always different depending on where you’re at in your journey. I’ve read one book, and then five years later read it again. I wasn’t ready for it the first time I read it, didn’t get much out of it, but everybody was saying how great of a book it was. Then I pick it up a couple years later I’m like, oh man this book’s awesome. Why didn’t I think it was before? Rich Dad Poor Dad, when I was first getting started, was a good one.

From the psychology side of things and just self-help and life, The Road Less Traveled, is a really good one. Had a really good paradigm shift there, because when you don’t have much, or you don’t come from much, and you look at people that do have a lot…they make it look so easy and you think that they’re born with a silver spoon in their mouth or what not. You use that as a crutch to keep you where you are. The very first line in that book is, “Life is hard, and the sooner you realize that, the easier it becomes.” Whether you’re doing the right or the wrong thing, you get to choose your hard or let the hard choose you kind of thing. That kind of paradigm shift in mentality has really gotten me far. I like that book a lot for that.

Paul Halme: Nice. I haven’t read that one yet. I’m going to put that one on my list. That’s one thing I did last year, I started reading more, because I’ve started talking about personal development reading. Man it makes a big difference though, because we consume so much on TV, on Facebook, on things like that, but sitting down and reading a book, even on a Kindle, you take in the knowledge so much different, I think.

Jeff Sherman: For sure. Yeah.

Paul Halme: The books can make a huge difference. That one can be a big piece there. Alright, so I won’t keep you forever. I’ve just got a couple more questions for you. One I always like to ask…if you could give our listeners one tip that would make the biggest impact in their lives, what would that tip be?

Jeff Sherman: Yeah, so one of the things that really changed everything for me as well…I was kind of like you how I learned how to do everything and try to do it all myself. It was really hard for me to ask for help in the beginning. I always had to fight for everything I got, with my upbringing and where I grew up and stuff, it was everybody for themselves kind of thing. You kind of never really asked for help or gave too much help. Finding Bedros, getting into that mentality, and finding a mentor, that was huge for me. That got me so far.

Then what got me to the next level, it kind of randomly just happened while watching the show, Beyond the Tank. With Shark Tank when they have businesses and they follow up on them or whatever. One of the businesses that Mark Cuban invested in, the person was calling them up and saying they’d been doing really well but they kind of hit a plateau. His advice was, “The problem with you is that you’re the smartest person in your company. You need to go out and hire somebody smarter than you.” I was like, “hey, that’s what I need to do! I need to go out and hire people that are actually smarter than me in one particular thing” That’s what I did, and that’s really helped me a lot with hiring. You don’t have to be the smartest person to be the owner of the company. It’s better to not be.

Paul Halme: That’s an awesome tip though. That’s huge because a lot of times people are like, “No, I need to do everything.” I’ve been that way, where I’ll do everything, but you can’t do everything and scale up. You’re going to hit a point where you’re going to hit that ceiling and can’t do anymore.

Jeff Sherman: Yup. Then you also get trapped within your own ideas too. Your own perspective, your own way of thinking, and all the information…books that you’ve read and marketing courses…If you want something different, and you want to take it to the next level, then it’s good to bring somebody in that’s smarter than you. Someone that has a different perspective, and is not a yes person. That’s going to challenge you and get you to look at things differently.

Paul Halme: Nice, and speaking of scaling up, you’ve got a couple big projects coming up. You want to talk about those a little bit? Your TV show or your shows?

Jeff Sherman: Yeah, originally we’re direct response marketer kind of guys, and really good at that. I really want to blend direct response with branding, because I’ve really been focusing on my own personal branding and stuff the last year. Also, content marketing is where everything has been going for the last couple years. Just kind of blending the content marketing with the branding and the direct response.

I’m focusing on putting out a lot more content. We’re going to do that through three different shows. The first show’s like the Ask Jeff Show, where some of my subscribers in my email list will email in different questions that they have and want me to answer live on the show. That one’s going to be weekly through a live broadcast.

Then, the other show is Hot Seats With Jeff. That’s going to be with my actual coaching clients, where we dig deeper into their businesses. We’ll go over some of the problems that they’re having, how I helped them through that problem, and then what the results were. Kind of breaking down their business. That’s going to be weekly, as well. That one isn’t going to be live at first, but then eventually we’re going to do that live as well.

Then, the third show is the Jeff Sherman Show, which is going to be a monthly show where we bring in experts and authorities, celebrities in different areas of expertise. Then just kind of breaking down and reverse engineering their success and how we could duplicate it or model it.

Paul Halme: Nice. I like that. I know, because I follow you on Facebook obviously, that your videos are getting so much better.

Jeff Sherman: Thank you. I have a whole team now. I’m getting ready to hire a whole new, dedicated, video person. The people I have now are pretty multi-talented. They’re more of a design background but also know video as well. They already do an awesome job, but I’m going to hire just a straight up video person. We just built out a new studio. Now we’re selling studio space, and we’re giving studio space to our clients. I want to have a dedicated video team, not just for myself but also for our clients.

Paul Halme: Man, so you’re scaling up big time. That’s awesome!

Jeff Sherman: Thank you.

Paul Halme: Man, you see a big difference, though, on the quality of the video. If people wanted to find the shows and follow you, what’s the best place? Where would you tell them to go?

Jeff Sherman: For those it would be my Jeff Sherman page. I’m actually launching a site next week, which will be JeffSherman.made, but Facebook would be the best place for right now, for that stuff.

Paul Halme: Okay. I’ll put a link in the show notes to your page. People can follow you, check out your videos, and learn some stuff. That’s one thing I tell people. If you can’t be around them but you still want to learn, start listening to their podcasts and follow them on Facebook, instead of making excuses like you can’t afford coaching and stuff like that. Watch what they’re doing, learn, and then as you scale up, start joining groups and doing things like that.

Jeff Sherman: Yeah for sure. There’s not a lack of information out there. I mean with all the podcasts that are free, between Google, the information’s there…people’s blogs, YouTube…Most people put all their information out there. The good thing about actually hiring a coach or hiring a mentor is that you’re putting your skin in the game. Which is going to put your back against the wall, and forces you to do your best work. If you could do your best work without doing that, then you’re even better off. Most people can’t. Most people have to have skin in the game in order to do their best. Yeah, nobody really holds back information.

Paul Halme: Yeah. I agree. Being in the different groups, and seeing everybody them will give you anything you want, basically, and help you out. It’s in there.

It’s been cool to watch your growth, going on…it’ll be seven years this year that I’ve known you. It’s exciting to see where you’re going to be in the next seven years. It’s going to be scary.

Jeff Sherman: I know. It’s crazy, I thought about that the other day. I was like, man I’ve only been doing this, really, eight years. Eight more years and my daughter will be 14. If I’ve gotten this far in eight years, and it’s been compounding each year, it is a little scary to be honest.

Paul Halme: You know what’s funny? When you get there though, they’re going to say you’re an overnight success and it was all given to you. Haters will come out of the woodwork like, “Oh Jeff, he’s overnight.”

Jeff Sherman: Yup, for sure. People already say that. I think that just comes with the territory.

Paul Halme: Yeah. You see the hard work you put in, and, man, you deserve all the success. It’s exciting to see.

Jeff Sherman: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Paul Halme: Awesome man. Well, thanks for being on the show, it was awesome. I’ve been trying to get you on here, so I was super excited you agreed and I could let everybody hear your story. How you’ve kind of risen, overnight, seven year success story.

Jeff Sherman: Thank you. Appreciate being on.

Paul Halme: Alight, thanks Jeff. I hope you guys enjoyed the show. After you listen to this episode, make sure you subscribe on iTunes and leave us a review. If this could help somebody out, please share this episode with them. See you guys next week.