 How do you start a business from scratch and Only a handful of years later seven years later. In fact, you're about to do one hundred million dollars in revenue man That's a pretty impressive Meteoric rise in business revenue, isn't it you go from zero you get an idea you start You lose some money in the first year. Maybe you do 50k or 500k in the next couple years, but then somehow somewhere on the line you do a big jump and you go to a hundred million dollars. Well How to do that because let's get the blueprint for it, right? We're actually going to talk to The man who did it in conjunction with a couple of business partners or a business partner and then we he's added another one since then Today's guest is a gentleman by the name of Evan Tardy and he's based out in Nashville, Tennessee where I was recently Evan is responsible for helping build a company called doctor acts comm that's doctor acts And there's a very famous chiropractor who's famous now called Josh acts and he's the face of the company. He's the chiropractor And the brand and he helps people with various health Advice and health education and Evan Was employee number one. He's come on And really brought his business prowess to it to the point where he's going it from, you know Where they were losing money in the first year to now they're on track this year to do a hundred million dollars And he's responsible for an ad budget. That's over a million dollars a month. So he's literally making decisions where he We said, well, we're gonna spend a million dollars this month promoting the company and All of this has landed the company, which is doctor acts comm as number 130 on the ink 500 fastest growing companies in America and The company is the fastest growing company in Tennessee or at least it was in 2016 and Evan leads a team of 70 plus people and He's he's still only in his early 30s. I think he's like 31 or 32 will find out for sure Evan Tardy. Welcome to the show sir Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here so May just give us an overview of what your revenue has been in this business on You know the first year and then the second third fourth fifth sixth and sevenths just so we've got a little bit of context Yep, so we grew from you know the first year. We were Startup so we had no revenue Trying a lot of stuff throwing a lot of stuff against the wall trying to figure out what stuck So we went from 50,000 about a hundred fifty thousand to five hundred thousand to two million to eleven million And then last year at about 47 million on pace this year to do a hundred million Wow, they're astronomical Figures and what is it that you're selling exactly at doctor acts comm? Yeah, so we have two Main things that we offer. We have online programs. We have a handful of different types of programs We take people through and then we have We have about 65 different supplements as well And these are all natural supplements So when I was actually in Nashville, Tennessee recently and I was staying with one of your your staff members or one of your your colleagues David to hill and I had him on the show on this very podcast and and his place was just filled with all of your your Supplements, so what are some of the supplements and and what's the emphasis that you put on them? Yeah, so our stuff is organic premium Real food whole food based products and you know We really the whole message of our brand is that food is medicine and so everything that we put out we put out a lot of content a lot of articles and You know, that's the basis of everything that that kind of goes out from our companies is that food is medicine? And so even the supplements that we create and put out we're looking for the highest quality premium and organic Formulations that we can Create and really deliver the highest quality supplement. So the actual supplements that we have You know, if you go to the doc go to drx.com and click store Anyone can go check them out, but they are we have some kind of foundational supplements like your your multivitamin Your Omega 3 your vitamin D3 be complex stuff like that You know some whey protein some pre-workout energizers Mmm, and then about a year ago. We launched a brand called ancient nutrition and One of the key products around that is the product called bone broth protein Yeah, I had some of that I had some of that bone broth protein David gave me some when I was out there in Nashville bone broth is It's excellent for you lots of minerals and nutrients Yeah, okay, and so do you sell only online Evan or are you in retail stores also? We're in about 4,000 retail stores right now. Okay So what we're gonna talk about on this this call on this episode is gonna be some business stuff Obviously, we're gonna talk about the business side because just to clarify Evan is not the doctor or the medical experts or the health Nutritionist per se. That's that's left to the face of the company. I guess you'd say dr. Axe who's a chiropractor With a big health background based out in Nashville you really the the business guy Is that safe to say Evan? Yeah, exactly and and dr. Axe is He's an incredible You know how he and I actually met He went through a business coaching group here in Nashville and when I was looking to move to Nashville I started calling around and asking you know doing the networking thing. Who should I meet? I started looking for jobs and My brother actually had just met josh at this Dave Ramsey's entree leadership and he said Well, you know, I met I met this josh guy and he has this website that he seems to be kind of getting off the ground it seems like it's gaining some traction and You too seem like you'd hit it off and so he put me in touch with josh and josh and I talked And we had a you know at the time the website. I think it had about 500 visitors Like that about 500 people that on the facebook page and josh and I talked and he just shared the vision of Really being able to take this message of nutrition and really helping people transform their lives From a holistic point of view and really get off of the medicine and You know, like I said our brand message is is using food as medicine. He shared that vision with me And you know, we were talking and he brought up a couple of books one was The four-hour work week and then another book called crush it and You know, he said have you read have you read these books, you know on our first conversation? I was like, no um, I haven't read um, and then we went on to talk about some other stuff and I called him back the Next week and I'm like, okay, uh, read both those books. Love it. Um, I don't know how to do that stuff but we'll figure it out and I believe in in your mission what you're up to so much. I mean if I have to stack chairs I'll do whatever it takes to be a part of of what you're doing. And so he was like Okay, uh, well they called me when you get to town. And so the next month I moved to Nashville and called him up and We got started and so I got started out of his kitchen table And and that's kind of how we got started and it only took three weeks until I was actually literally stacking chairs And uh, and said, you know what this I did sign up for this That's how we got started. Wow Did you did you have any marketing or business prowess when you first sat down with with with dr Axel, what was your your business acumen up until that point that that let him go? Oh, okay I'll take this guy seriously you know, I think josh believed in me from the beginning um and and Josh is an incredible leader. He's constantly empowered me and given me the vision and goals But really given me a lot of autonomy and gotten out of my way and just said, hey Whatever I can do to help you be successful. Let me do that. And so um, he's an incredible leader and visionary from that standpoint And I think one of the things, you know, for me personally entrepreneurship and small business is just kind of in my DNA My granddad left the family farm when he was Out of out of college and you know, the the path was really clear for him to take over the family farm and continue running it And he wanted to you know, take control of his own destiny and left the family farm moved to the big town of Lubbock, Texas Home to about 5 000 people at the time And uh and started out on his own and started his own company. My dad took over that company when I was 16, I started my first company and uh, it was a mobile car wash and so entrepreneurship and and uh Small business is just kind of in my DNA. And so I think josh and I are cut from a similar cloth and that um, we both work really hard and um, you know, believe that we can we can figure it out and uh And there is a way so I I couldn't tell you exactly, but I think something Something having to do with Just my willingness to to hustle and try things So so you you had an entrepreneurial background In your early 20s to the mid 20s when you first met Dr Axe for what was in terms of revenue of any of the businesses that you had created or got involved in What was the what was the most successful and what were some of the failures maybe? Yeah, great question. So I didn't have a lot of success. Um, you know, we uh, I didn't have a lot of success and when I joined with with Dr. Axe We were getting started from the ground up and so You know, there there wasn't a lot of A lot of things that were already in the works, you know, we built a lot of stuff from the ground up And so in my past, you know, I sold my my uh, the company I started when I was 16 the car wash I think I ended up selling it for Maybe $4,000, you know, it was it was the cost of the rig and uh in a handful of customers. So So, you know, my my business background, I was fresh out of school. Um, I had an advertising degree and You know, just hustled. So I didn't I didn't have this any sort of pedigree or Any sort of experience that would have, you know, convinced him to to work with me other than My willingness to just hustle and get after him. Okay. So you you met Dr. Axe in Nashville. Is that right? Correct. Okay. That's when you first met and you had this conversation He shared the vision and then you who who had an advertising degree But no real business pedigree other than you had a car wash earlier on and you'd sold for 4k Like what else was there that you'd been doing in your early 20s to make money? I had a handful of jobs. Um, I did photography to pay the bills. Um, some graphic design I've a lot of stuff specifically, um, as I was learning some of these marketing principles and reading books and listening to podcasts um, I wanted to try some of this stuff out on my own And as I was meeting people And talking about this stuff. I'm really passionate about marketing and helping small business grow Um, it just kind of naturally comes out. And so, um, I met a dentist and he was moving to town He had just bought a practice. I think they were doing about 80k a month And you know, we we met and I gave him this book. I'm like, you have to read this book Grilla marketing it's going to give you some real practical stuff. You can implement and ran into him three or four weeks later and You know, I asked him, hey, how's that book working out for you? And he was like It hasn't moved from the front seat of my car since you gave it to me And so I was like, listen, why don't why don't you let me do some of this marketing stuff for you? It'll give me a chance to learn and you don't have to worry about anything. I'll just take care of it for you And so he was like, what do I got to pay you? You know, that sounds good, but how much is it going to cost? I'm like nothing I want to volunteer and just I just want to do this for you because I knew as soon as I took money for doing this The the stakes were a lot higher than What I wanted them to be and so volunteering and doing this form. I literally just bought peri-martial's Google ad words book and went through it page by page set up his account and Three months later we got his account. We got we got his His practice from doing 80k a month to 250k a month Majority of that was from the google ad words that we had set up and so Um, I started slowly kind of getting some wins like that under my belt and the look, you know Cutting my teeth and getting a little bit of confidence Hmm I remember when I first made the decision that I was going to be an entrepreneur like really go for it And it's particularly an online entrepreneur and I was I was a sports center anchor on ESPN from 2010 through 2012 and Good job well paid Got to be on tv and talk about sport all day pretty fun And then I I basically set fire to that career and say i'm going to go and be an online business person and And I remember learning things like how to write a video sales letter from a I've forgotten what he's name was the guy called john benson And I remember sitting in bristol connecticut sort of in the in the weeks before I left ESPN which is where they're based and and just Going through and sitting in a dark room when it was nice and sunny outside I'm sitting in this in this room learning how to write a vs l and it was all like a foreign language to me But I did it I kept I kept learning and then I created I said right I'm going to create a product and I created this crappy little e-book called how to become a celebrity journalist and it's Little pdf and you can still find it on my site And I put it up on a website and I and I Learned what an email auto responder was and I learned what wordpress meant and I learned how to take people's payments and all that kind of stuff Um And it was hard to be honest with you like I mean it was fun to learn, but it was a process It wasn't it wasn't easy. Um, and it took a little bit of work, but doing that Um, and just to fast forward the story. I struggled for a couple of years quite frankly like I I really struggled doing it on my own It was only when I actually Hired someone I invested in in a business coach I paid him considerable money to mentor me that I actually sped up that that process So two different ways of doing it there Like well kind of similar like you forced yourself to learn by offering your services for free I Just went in and tried to make it happen for my for myself and then ultimately paid someone to fast track my My progress. Do you see what do you see kind of like pros and cons to both scenarios? Yeah, absolutely when you're getting started You know depending on your budget your your expertise your skill level your experience all of that stuff You know, if you're just at the early days of your career You don't have a lot to bring to the table, you know, and so being able to volunteer and uh, you know create create a lab for yourself where Really low so you can fail in front of a small audience or fail when the stakes are low You can cut your teeth and start gaining some experience And so saying yes to everything when you're early on in your career I think it's is super important and then it there becomes a point in the kind of the life cycle of your career um, or even the business where It's actually more important to say no to things and so finding that balance becomes an art in itself, but Saying no to projects saying no to outside things saying no to things that could be lucrative and helpful for the business, but Saying no so you that so you can Focus that much more on the things that really do matter We'll come back to that. That's a very interesting point We'll come we'll go through the life of the company a little bit for a little bit first And then I'll come back and ask you about how to say no to things, but um, okay, cool. So Just as another example of that by the way someone who worked for me for two years up until recently He reached out to me a couple years ago and said james I want to do your facebook ads for your 30 day no alcohol challenge program You don't have to pay me anything. In fact, I'll even pay you the marketing budget for you He was a long-term listener of the show and he just wanted to get his foot in the door I wanted to get my attention. So he essentially came to me and said I'll work for you for free for 30 days and I'll cover the the advertising budget. I'm like, okay No worries. I'll do that and quite frankly and quite frankly He was actually really poor at doing the facebook ads and it didn't work out but I loved the fact that he tried and then so I asked him, you know, what else are you good at? What else can you do and he said, well, I can do web development and stuff I said great. Well, I'll get you to do that to start off with He was with me for for two years and really helped me with the with the growth of that of that business So if you're listening to this or watching a great way to get your foot in the door is to just start offer your services for free Give value and you can learn and you know, ultimately that'll turn into a paid gig paid gig later So we're talking to Evan tardy. He is the Is your title the president now? What's what's your title? President president of drax.com. He was employee number one He's helped build drax.com from zero to 100 million dollars this year in in seven years, okay, so The first year let's break up these seven years The first year you said you tried a lot of stuff. So just walk us through the things that you tried that did not work Man going way back in in into the memory bank here. Yeah, so year one. I think we tried We we were going to model Dave Ramsey and Dave Ramsey had this one of his kind of Key pieces to his businesses called financial piece university and so we were going to model the way that they kind of sold that into churches and then Companies and had kind of a corporate program for people and Dave's model is you know, it's Financial piece so helping people with their budget and their finances and their money And our message is is around health and so we had this idea that we were going to model Dave's selling approach where we were going to create a great program All all encompassing it was called the real body revolution And we were going to sell that into churches, you know I was going to get on the phone and just start selling and sell into companies and And have this be the program that companies can take their employees through or churches can take their congregation through We we created the program and we spent a lot of money on production and The full day event. It was a six hour program really really great stuff in there Got these DVDs printed. We got about a thousand of them printed and As soon as the the DVDs arrived We got word from a potential someone that we were looking to to do some to partner with and do some work together They already had a church program and they were like, listen, you guys can't you guys can't do your church program thing? And so before we ever got to try it. It was kind of shut down And so we had we had a thousand of these DVDs. There were a six set DVD thing Laying in the grudge literally collecting dust And I started learning about webinars and Just like you said probably very similar, you know How to write a vsl how to, you know, what is what is an auto responder? started learning about some of these things and then specifically webinars and so I'm looking at this product and I'm looking at these guys doing stuff online. I'm like, man Surely there's a fit here if we could just you know, tie all the pieces together I think we could have something and so at this time, you know, we were we were just barely getting by In terms of company revenue and So I put together a sales page. I put together A little go-to webinar account Set up a little kajabi membership site took all the content off of the real body revolution Uploaded it put it into an online membership site for less than 500 bucks. We were able to get this It's this $30,000 production program that we created For 500 bucks set up a sales page set up an auto responder set up a little membership site And I said I called Josh. I'm like, hey, you know, we should Put together a webinar and then send out an email and I think if people get on the webinar, they'll go You know can go buy the program and he's like, great. Um, how do we do a webinar? Don't worry about it. Um, I'll just you know, you just you just teach Send you a link to download the thing and at the end tell people to go to this page And so we did it we set up the tech, you know, I was the tech guy And we didn't even know to be be nervous because we didn't know what we didn't know And we didn't know to be nervous that the tech would break down or that, you know People wouldn't get the right link or any number of things that could happen We sent out a link to our list very small list at the time And we had we had a handful of people register And in one hour after the webinar ended, we made $10,000 and so that was a big turning point for us Really figuring out, okay, it does not we did not have to sell this One to one we can sell it one to many and so from then on for our online programs You know, we've been trying to optimize that whole system and turn it into a flywheel and get better and better at doing that Mmm Good on you. That's awesome. I remember in the first few months that I after I'd hired my mentor I was in Sydney, Australia and I was I was it was December of 2013 And in Australia at that time of year, it's beautiful weather like it's the middle of summer Everyone's out on boats and yachts in Sydney Harbour. It's like Bondi Beach is beautiful. It's amazing I remember sitting I was staying at my my brother's house. He was living there at the time And I remember sitting in this again dark room trying to learn google ad words like trying to learn how to create a google Google ad and like just being so frustrated and all my friends in Sydney were out and enjoying the sun and They're on Sydney Harbour and they go into the beach and I'm I'm inside in this like beautiful 85 degrees outside and I'm stuck in a dark room just I can't figure this out. I can't figure this out And but ultimately you figure it out, right? Like I had to go through that kind of pain You kind of make that little breakthrough and and fast forward to today I'm still pretty crap at google ad words, but guess what? I've outsourced it to someone who is good at it And now he runs it for me So for me, it was important to get to be like a two or a three out of ten To learn how to do that stuff before I then brought in brought in the experts and I also I I when I coach my I have entrepreneurial students. I have a coaching program called the James one in a circle and I was just on a call with him earlier And I was saying like try to get to like a three or a four out of ten And any of these things like starting a webinar career, you know writing emails for email auto responder doing a facebook live feed and then outsource it to to someone else who's already at like a nine nine out of ten. Yeah Yeah, that's that's great great advice. I mean that's honestly, I think if you want to grow your business You've got to learn to you've got to learn to master that what you're talking about right there because You being the best google ad words advertiser for your company Very soon is not what your company needs of you if you're the founder and the ceo and the leader of the company That's right All right. So you'd say this is the first year and the second year You kind of tried the webinar that work. What what happened from there avan? What else did you try? What else happened? Yeah, so next we tried We were retailing product. So we were buying high quality Product it was a brand called garden of life, but we were buying it wholesale and selling it on our own store And we had I mean our customers and fans were just the most amazing people ever We could not afford to sell it at the same price that amazon sold it And since I was the shipping and fulfillment guy at the time because we were a team of you know, josh and myself The fulfillment was not near as fast as amazon and then obviously we don't have prime and you know, the delivery is not as fast But our customers kept you know Honoring us with their with their purchases and so slowly we started developing a customer base Even though our products were more expensive and slower than amazon Then after that we started formulating our own products and once we did that the number one question we get is This this sounds great. This brand this food sounds great or the supplement sounds great But what brand does dr. Axe recommend and so we would be referring to other brands That dr. Axe actually used and and recommended but once we created our own And that was kind of a big tipping point for us So You mentioned there that your customers were willing to buy your these other products like the garden of life products From you even though they could get it cheaper and quicker elsewhere That implies that you had really a really great relationship with your customers. So What did you do? What did you proactively do to ensure that your customers loved you and that you created this wow factor with your customers? Yeah, so I don't know if I I named the books earlier, but the two books that dr. Axe You know when we first had our I get my interview with him um that he asked if I had read one was the four-hour work week and the other book was crush it and That was what he wanted to build the company around kind of those two principles and really around crush it giving so much value Showing up every day and just give give give to your customers and so we that's what we modeled and so We put out really high quality articles from day one we invested in researchers editors writers graphic designers that would help us put together really well researched cited articles that we would send out and that's how we grew and served and added value to our newsletter and that's really where We were able to build that relationship. Okay nice work, so customer Love there's a company called zappos. That's which tony shea started which later sold to amazon for a billion dollars and It started off as a shoe company, but if you ask tony He'll say that it actually wasn't a shoe company. It was a happiness Company their motto I think for for for four or five years was delivering happiness And so literally, you know, even though they're selling shoes online If you called their customer service Phone number and you wanted to know what the local pizza place phone number was they would find out for you Like even it had nothing to do with being a customer of shoes You could call them almost like a speaking google And their customer service would go out of their way to help you Yeah, I love that. In fact, we have all of our new team members Specifically on our customer service team That is the book they read as part of their onboarding is is tony shea's delivering happiness And and I love the fact that they They deliberately decided not to have a marketing budget and they used whatever that line item would be and they They allocated that money to Making customers delighted, you know, it's it's an incredibly different and pretty amazing philosophy So let me ask you this in these first couple of years when you're sort of losing money the first year You're getting up to 50k you're getting up to half a million in revenue I guess at the end of year three. Have I got my my chronological order right around there? um Did you did you doubt the company's? Prospects. Did you what what was like a low point? What kind of Were there times where you were like, oh man, this is this is a struggle I don't know if I want to be doing this like maybe I should go and get a job somewhere and like We'll go and do my own business and just you know, what did those thoughts come into your head at all? They definitely did You know, especially when my friends started graduating med school And we're getting these job offers for 200 and 250k a year And uh And I started wondering you know, did I choose the right path here? um One thing that always encouraged me personally there were there were two things one was I you know, I I believed in josh I believed in his mission his story and his message That at the end of the day We were we were doing something that made a difference in people's lives So that was incredibly rewarding. But then on the financial side when I whenever I was discouraged or You know looking at my friends and I'm like, hey, man Must be nice I uh, I read a book by Keith Frazi called never eat alone that my brother gave me about 10 years ago And and in it he says you learn in your 20s and you earn in your 30s. And so The whole time I just kept telling myself, you know what? No matter what the experience that I'm getting by going through this the learning that I'm getting Um, it's worth it. And I've got I've got the rest of my life to earn So if I can just double down on my learning now and so I would tell people I've got the best paid internship in Nashville I still do It's so funny, isn't it? You always think that other people are doing way better than you And in different areas of your life and sometimes they are like in terms of if you look at, you know, pure financial Someone's like you said your friends are making 200 grand a year and you're not making that um, you can you can take the short-term view and say well I'm getting killed here like I maybe I should quit. Um Well, you can take a long-term view which is you're investing in in your training and your future Which will make you 200 grand a year plus for many years to come once you once you once you're good enough Uh, I still go through that like I'm you know, I I've got a couple businesses now and million dollar businesses And and I'm still like find myself Sometimes comparing myself to other people going man Why am I stuck in this business for I should be making 10 million or 50 million dollars a year Maybe I should go and chase that other thing and that guy's making all that money and I like it's crazy doesn't matter like like It's insane how the human mind works, isn't it Evan? It absolutely is and uh, and I don't get out of it either. I mean I was talking to someone the other day That that head trash still bubbles up at times of who am I who am I to? You know be leading a company in the way. I am I don't have this experience that others may have But you know what? We're all here and If if you show up Give it your best, you know bring your smarts every day bring your creative problem solving self to work I think you're I think you're gonna be just fine and And the getting rid of the head trash It just it just slows us down. You know, it just yeah keeps us from doing doing great stuff Just as a side story never eat alone by Keith Farazi is my favorite book of all time and actually Completely changed my my life when I read it in 2009 and here's a good I won't go into the story because I've told it many times but Essentially Keith Farazi is now actually someone Well, we both call the other very good friends Which is which is a thrill for me because when I read the book I was like I was like in awe of this guy because he was it was such a Had such an influence on my on all of my relationships platonic business networking Entrepreneur or romantic all those kind of things And then to find to to finally meet him and then become friendly with him and then ultimately be friends with him Where he's text messaging me saying hey, do you want to meet up on on saturday on my phone? It's like a real it's a real thrill for me. It's gonna like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your hero is texting you to say hey Let's go hang out. It's like I love it. I love it um And if you're listening to this right now and you want to get my notes on that book Which is called never really eat alone by Keith Farazi Go to my website James swanick.com enter your email address I will send you my personal notes on that book So it's like the best three pages of notes that I took From that book so you don't have to read the entire thing if you don't want to um Okay, cool. So let's move along. We're talking to evan tardy We're learning how to grow a business from nothing to a hundred million dollars in seven years Evan is the the businessman behind the company called dr axe.com based out of Nashville, uh, Tennessee so You pushed ahead and now we're getting up to like year four kind of like the jump from 500 k Which is half a million to two million What was the lever that really four times the business from year Around that year three to two year four because one thing that I've learned in business is that what got my Swanee's blue light blocking glasses business to a million dollars in revenue is not going to get me To five million dollars in revenue and then those skills are not going to get me to 20 million and so forth So What were the what was the lever point? that got you from that 500 k to 2 million in year around year four I cannot agree more. I mean the same thing for us has been true from Excuse me going from 500 k to 2 million is not what took us from 2 million to 11 million and then 47 So going from 500 to 2 million there were two things one That's about the time when we started really launching our own physical supplements Um, so when we did about 500 k we had our our first online program that we launched And that that did well um and then Going from 500 to 2 million we launched um a handful of our own, you know uh formulated supplements That were branded acts naturals and so Uh, like I said everyone asked us our customers asked us all the time. What what is the what does doctor acts recommend? What's the exact brand and so when we came out with our own there was a lot of Momentum just kind of built up behind that The second thing was focus. Um, we had a lot of other things going on Myself I had other stuff going on Josh had a couple other businesses going on and about that time, you know, he and I met up. There's a great little Raw organic restaurant here in Nashville that recently closed, but it's called silly goose he and uh And just kind of had had like four hour afternoon session to just kind of Realign and reset the vision for the future and You know, we both kind of look at each other and we're like hey if if this is going to grow We we're both 100 fully bought in and we're going to make this thing happen. And so um Part of it was just that that relentless focus on Doing whatever it needs to do whatever we need to do to get this to grow and so during that year Um, you know, we placed our first Inventory order of a thousand units for our first product that we launched. It was a green super food And we you know put together a sales page Send out email to our list and we're like, all right We hope we can launch it with a bang and then have you know make some sales over the course of the month And we sold out within 24 hours, which was great. We were high fiving. It was awesome and then we looked at each other like Uh, we have an eight week lead time here and we don't have product on the way You're speaking my language. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. And so, you know We we ordered product and we ordered second product behind that and Um, when one of them came in, you know, we kind of followed this This Easter famine mode for about six months as we started getting some uh historical sales trends and just kind of an ability to Some what project a little bit a little bit better and then get on top of some of the lead times and and turn it into a flywheel where we weren't always sold out or You know fully in stock And so that that took about six months to kind of get that get that rolling Um, and then over the course of that year as we really started focusing on growth Um, we also doubled down on on seo and then on um really Making sure we had a playbook for seo for our social media And then for our email marketing those those were kind of the three pillars that we built on and then not long after Was paid advertising as well. And so Then leading into the next year of growth for us It was it was finding amazing people To get them on the team um And and that's you know once we had Our products kind of dialed in and our some of ourselves processes dialed in The next piece for us was was hiring eight players. Yeah so I know what you mean when you're talking about, um You know you sell out in 24 hours and then you're like, oh, hang on. There's an eight week lead time when when My brother and I launched these glasses And for for the listener. I'm wearing my swanese blue light blocking glasses at the moment We launched them on um black friday in november 2015 to 18 months ago as we're recording this and uh We sold uh, I bought a minimum quantity of 300 units, right? That was what I negotiated with the with the manufacturer and and 300 units And we sold them steadily over 30 days So we sold them out of just before christmas of of that year and we were like great We've sold 300 pairs that's proven that people actually want the product awesome And then we were like, huh? Hang on a second Now we need to Take that money and place an order for new product and that's going to be an eight week turnaround So we so we lost all of that momentum that we built up Of reviews and sales velocity just to be clear We started to sell these on amazon and amazon rewards you for Obviously an increase in sales for the addition of of reviews um You know, whether you get five star review or three star review and so And it promotes you on its page a lot a lot more the more reviews and the more sales you make And so all of a sudden we're like getting this momentum. We're moving forward. It's like great. That's awesome And then boom boom we're out of stock So for january and february of last year 2016 zero Zero revenue and it's funny because I look at a graph. I get these Daily sales reports now and and on a month I'll look at month to month as well and you can see the business revenue Like there's a little little graph in like november and december and then all of a sudden There's like nothing in january and february and then it starts again in in march and it goes off so It it was frustrating at the time But at the same time it was nest, you know, I feel like it was necessary I didn't want to overextend myself and buy a thousand units and then no one buys them and i'm stuck with them, you know, so It's kind of like a necessary problem problem. I found Yeah, it is it's part of that Getting the flywheel going, you know, it's kind of going through validating You know for us, we had a we had a small list at the time. So a thousand was a little bit more um, I guess, you know appropriate for us but you know We didn't we didn't come out of the gate with 10 000 and put everything on the line do or die This is gonna work or we're out of business kind of thing It was let's do a thousand and then take that cash reinvest it and it's a little bit slower. It's a little bit more Bumpy to kind of get it going but you know, the benefit is that We're we've never taken on investor money. Everything's been bootstrapped And so we're able to continue to run the company and you know Do things as we want to this day because we have not taken on a ton of investment or any sort of VC type of cash Yeah, and when you said you've turned the inventory management into a flywheel How how did you manage to to do that and just to give context to the listener? This is a problem. I'm going through with my business at the moment or not a problem, but a challenge is You have to manage cash flow Like that's the money that's coming in from the sales you make with then purchasing new product From china where there's an eight-week You know time difference and when you order to when you get it um And so you always have to be forecasting ahead of time like are we running low on stock? How much stock are we going to need should we like spend? A massive chunk of change and buy like 50 grand or 100 grand of product right now Um, but then we don't have that cash in the business But meanwhile we've got to pay staff to do their things I've got to pay there's all these other costs that are coming in we too have seo. We've got paid advertising We have costs of you know, just running the business amazon takes a cut from when they sell their business I've got a web developer which takes money like so you you've got this constant battle I guess you like between if you like between um Keeping cash in the bank because the the life blood the life blood of a business is cash flow Like you have to have cash And if you don't have it then you're in you're in dire straits versus Um, oh, I want to I want to take that cash and I want to invest in inventory But now I've got to wait eight weeks to get it and then however long it's going to take me to sell it Before I get that that that money back. So that just creates a little bit of context How did you get that to? The machine the flying wheel that you have now where it all seems to be running pretty smoothly Yeah, great question. There are a lot of bumps along the way one book that was helpful for us is a book by Greg Crabtree called simple numbers big profits Um, that's a very helpful resource. So for us I often recommend if you can you know do some sort of service consulting coaching Anything especially if you're if you're a bootstrapped entrepreneur from You know going from day one and you're selling a physical product Your cost of goods until you hit a certain tipping point Your your costs of goods are going to continually go back into funding the growth of the company And so you're not going to be spitting off a lot of product as you're you know You're you're experiencing and have gone through so until you kind of start to hit a certain tipping point If there's any way, you know for the listener if you can do Coaching consulting anything to start getting a little bit of extra cash coming in that you can use to fund the inventory Um, that allows you to grow a little bit quicker As far as a cash flow perspective The other side of it is Not taking money out, you know and and One of it is that Ryan holiday has a great book called the obstacle is the way So part of it is going through rubbing two pennies together to make a dollar That is what eventually will be one of the keys to your success when you come through come out of it So there are a couple mindset things that I think are going on at that phase of the the life cycle of the business um A little more practically uh on the tactic side, you know If you're an excel junkie, it's it's at the end of the day, it's numbers and math, you know, you have your lead time You have your burn rate And you have your your cost of goods And so it's a matter of staying on top of those things Um, one thing I would recommend is as soon as you possibly can Um, look for an outsourced bookkeeper. Um, and they don't have to be a full time But someone that can manage your books and and really Help process some of this stuff for you Um, that's incredibly valuable Um, so someone who's not I wouldn't just hire an executive assistant It would be a specific bookkeeper or their great services out there that That are outsourced cfo services, uh, where you can hire a cfo A high level cfo for you know, five hours a month or whatever So the the between those things I think um Gregg Crabtree simple number some big profits Going, you know, just gearing up and muscling through Making sure you do the math and then and then hiring a bookkeeper. I think you're going to be Had in a good direction. Okay. So so now we there was a jump from two million dollars in around year four to 11.6 million dollars was that from mostly from paid advertising Um, and finding the right people as you you you intimated there Definitely hiring the right people Another thing we did at that time was creating a program that we validated with our audience Rather than creating a program that we thought our audience would want so Years ago, we created a weight loss program um We a nifty title that we thought would work. It didn't work. It flopped. No one wanted it Um, but we we did no market validation. We just came out of the gate and said here it is um during that during uh 2015 when we did 11.6 million we Validated first before we created a program then we launched an online program Um based around some of the content that was doing performing really well on our site Uh, so there are a couple pieces like that. We continued to extend our product line during that year and then we started advertising and Really started scaling things up Yeah, it's um In terms of creating products too many p entrepreneurs me included Decide what the customer is going to want and we go ahead and make it and then we try to sell it to them Which is the wrong way to do it um the best the best and simplest way I have it stuck in my brain now in terms of Always be asking the custom potential customers first what they want is um was trained to me by A business coach called keith cunning ham and I went to an event of his in austin texas about three weeks ago called the four day mba And his man in his mid 60s. He's been around, you know in business for years He made hundreds of millions of dollars in the 80s in real estate lost at all and now he's he's come back again And he's coaching people and he uses this very simple Sort of three sentence formula to ensure That you are always creating products that people are going to buy right versus creating products that you want them to buy And he says this Ask them what they want Go and get it Give it to them Pretty simple, right, but it's a difference between having a business that loses money does okay and makes 100 million dollars So ask them what they want so literally ask people like ask your customers ask your prospects What is it that you want like What type of supplement do you want what type of dating program do you want? What's your pain like what kind of program? Would you like me to make for you that will help you then you go and get it for them Which is you go and make the product or you go and create the program and then you give it to them That's it That's it, but yet we all like oh i've got this idea I reckon people are going to love it. It's going to be awesome like no Ask them what they want and then go and get it and then give it to them So it seems like you've you kind of made a similar mistake early But now you poll your customers or you do that research beforehand ever and is that correct? That is and there's a few specific things we do one thing that Has been really helpful for us. You can even go to uh amazon, you know and look at amazon reviews of products And if you avoid the one star review and the five star You it's you're typically the five stars are You know, it's great. I love it. This is awesome. You know, it's just it's not really helpful content The one stars are usually just complaining about something Irrelevant that the two and three star reviews are typically where people give pretty thoughtful feedback So if you're if you're looking to do a Product go find a similar product on amazon look at their reviews and pay attention to the two and three star It may be some type of product and they say I love it, but I really wish it would have had x y or z And if you can go create that product with x y or z You're you already have a market there. That's that Looking for something like that. So that's an option for us what we do We you know, I mentioned we carry we wholesaled Wholesale and retailed garden of life products early on and so for us We we could order in small quantities And not have to go through the whole formulation process and the minimum order quantity Of a thousand for our own product. We could order, you know, 50 And put it up on our store and just see if anyone is looking for if anyone is actually buying In our case, it might be like a garden of life vitamin c And compare that to a green superfood and for us the green superfood was selling 10 times more than any of our other products So when we went to go create our own green superfood or our own supplement, the product we started with was a green superfood Vitamin c didn't sell and so we never formulated our own vitamin c. We just stopped selling it so that you know, you can do that by using real customer data and kind of taking a lean approach Another great resource on that is The lean startup by Eric Reese So just on that I So for example, we have a this is my company here swanix sleep And this is a sleep supplement that we have just launched and we're testing various things So I actually ordered a thousand units of this To start off with just assuming that it that That it would do great and that we'll find a way to sell it So what's a different way that I could have done that which wouldn't have overcommitted me to buying a thousand different Pills like how could I have tested whether there was a demar how could I have in a more cost-efficient cash flow management way Have tested whether there was indeed a market for people buying a sleep supplement on my swanix sleep site Two ideas come to mind immediately one is Just talking to people So if you have any sort of list any sort of facebook, you know any way to get people on the phone, you know One thing I really like that they harp on in the lean startup And then steve blank is famous for this in the four steps to the pit of me Is he thought he pushes engineers to get out of the building The last thing you want to do is spend a year in your Garage as a developer coding up some fabulous software that you think the world needs Only to launch it and no one cares You've wasted a year and so actually getting outside of the building and talking to real potential customers And putting it in their product. Hey, uh, do you have problems sleeping? If so tell me about it, you know, and then starting to dig in and find out Actually what they're actually looking for so that's one option another is to set up a simple click funnels landing page and Take a picture of a sleep product put it up there or even your the mock up of your product put it up on landing page except the order and You can even sell a different product, you know product a similar product That's a sleep product from amazon and put it up on the landing page except the order Run ads to it see what the cost per acquisition is And then buy the product from amazon ship it directly to the customer and that's a very lean way to You know kind of get some get some back of the napkin kind of math that you can start running some if then scenarios I'm gonna it's I love that idea I've never done that idea before where you accept the order and then you either say, oh, sorry We're sold out, um, but you you you basically get the intention of of theirs to buy or you sell A similar product that yours you propose yours to be and then you ship it from amazon So I haven't done that. I'm actually just about to start testing that in my 30 day no alcohol challenge funnel Because I want to I want to create a detox pill like people who take my 30 day no alcohol challenge program They take a supplement that helps them detox throughout those 30 days and helps them avoid alcohol, etc Etc. So I don't want to go and spend five grand buying a product that I think people will buy I want to test it first To see whether they will buy and then I go and spend the five grand Buy my product. So I'm glad that you mentioned that I'm gonna I'm gonna go and I'm in the process of building pages to To do that for the first time. Yeah Third option on that real quick is is to just simply pre-sell, you know and say, hey, we are The the first 100 customers You're gonna get a 30 percent discount And then you're up front that and you say hey listen We're looking at at formulating a product that it's going to have all these benefits. You write the sales page Put it up and then in let people know that they're getting some sort of benefit by being a beta or or a Pre-sell customer you take that cash from the pre-sells And use that to fund your first inventory purchase Yeah, I mean, I've heard that before when I can't believe I didn't think about that Again, like it's amazing with all the knowledge that you put in your brain You still you need to be told like two three four times before you do it. That's actually genius So I could just go into my existing customers And say hey, I'm gonna this is this is the supplement. I'm gonna create It's gonna retail for it's gonna be 49 99 I'll give it to you for 20 to 25 dollars now It'll be eight weeks away, etc And then yeah, so now you get that money and then you use that money to buy the product And then and if not enough people buy you say, you know what? Sorry We're not we're not actually gonna go ahead with it and you refund them the money. Yeah, exactly Damn genius Can't believe I didn't do this beforehand I'm angry at myself now This is good stuff. All right, we're talking to Evan Tardy how to grow a business from nothing to 100 million in seven years Um, I could I mean I could literally talk to you for hours on this stuff I love I love it Evan. I want to be conscious of your time. So Let's um, let's go from paid advertising Um finding amazing people. What was the lever from 11.6 to 40 47 So it was SEO email marketing social media marketing in in paid and really Was that from 11.6 to 47 or was that 2 million to 11.6? 11.6 to 47 and and my point is it was Two to 11 and 11 to 47 That's your dog there. There we go. Oh the beautiful soothing sounds of Evan's dog Sorry about that. That's all right. Carry on. We've got a little bit of light comic relief in the middle of the podcast There we go. I'm doing this from from my home office here. Um, so and my point with that is that Really at a certain point, you know, we used to we used to look at people that were so much So much further beyond us and doing so much more revenue that We're like, man, there's got to be something in the black box, you know If we could just reach in and and figure out what that The insider secret is Um, that's what's going to get us to the next level and really at a certain point. It really is Is you have your processes down you have your product down you have your cell system down At a certain point. It's more of the same and so Scaling up looks like hiring amazing people to go execute on the processes and and make the processes better And execute on the advertising and make it better and exactly what you were saying Is not not being the you know letting yourself be The lid of the organization as a you know, a three out of ten at a google ads You don't want your company to be a three out of ten. You want your company to be a ten out of ten so You need to go hire a ten out of ten advertiser and Turn them loose So for us it was more the same but really, you know Every problem is a who problem and so Keith Frazi. I'm sure Must have coined that at some point. I don't know where that quote came from but for us It kind of stuck during that period that we have world-class products programs And now it's all about getting the right people on the bus And is that the same Strategy for 47 million to 100 million Which is your projected revenue this year? Is it just more of that more of the right people getting the right people on the bus getting the wrong people off the bus And then systems and processes It really is it really is it's that simple And so for us, you know It looks like at at this scale Going from 47 to 100 million. We're able to do more things now because of the resources, right? So we're able to Now we're no longer just online Because of the resources and the partnerships and everything like that We're able to get into retail stores. And so but at the end of the day, it's a process. It's people Um, and it's people making the process better and executing on the process And so it really is in a lot of ways very simple and more of the same but From you know going from the kitchen table to where we are now I Followed a very similar path to you and that I learned just enough to be dangerous And then as quickly as I could figure it out and as quickly as I could hire and find someone to take over with it That's what we did and quickly got it off of my plate and had someone else who was way better at it Take the ball and run with it. Um There's a great book called rocket fuel And the author talks about there's two types of people in the business. There's the visionary and there's the integrator integrators Um, it sounds like dr. Axe is the visionary and you are the integrator. Is that a fair assessment? I think so. Um, I'm not familiar with the integrator, but it Sounds about right as far as what I am. There's are you familiar with the book? Um Called the synergist no less mcallan. Um, That one's an incredible book once you start Relating a team of you know, five ten people You really start to see some of these these dynamics. So he has the visionary. He has the Operator, which may be the integrator. Yeah, that's what it is already. Yeah And then the third part of that is the processor and so They're kind of three natural operating styles that everyone has Some of them are more more predominant than others But everyone has a primary and a secondary for the most part of how they just kind of naturally operate So I would say josh, you know in our case is the visionary And then his secondary is probably like an operator my primary is Um is split between you know, I'm half visionary half operator My visionary is not as big as josh's and so his is that's his he's like visionary with a capital v And then your processor is someone that you know, if we're looking at an analogy of We're gonna we're gonna We're all on a hike together and we come to a We come to a ravine or a dip where we have to cross a river and get to the other side The visionaries already jumped, you know, they're the the radiifier aim kind of guys The operator's like, all right, how can I if I run really fast and I and I like do my stretches And then I jump at just the right angle. I'm gonna I'm gonna jump across this river And the processor is like, hold on guys if we slow down and build a bridge We can just walk right across and so each of those roles are really important And the synergist is someone who's able to step outside of their natural operating style and assess the situation and say What does the situation need does? Do we need to build a bridge to cross this little trickle of water or should we just step over it? You know, you know and not over process things or if this is the Mississippi Hey, it's probably good that, you know, we stop and build a bridge and not try to swim swim across it every time I probably need a couple of those in my company. I'm more like, let's go. We're going it now We're going over this charge over the hill a million miles an hour and That's got us to here like I like I think my one of my great strengths if I had to Blow smoke up my own ass so to speak would be I'm great at starting things and just getting that momentum going And then bang but I'm noticing now like what's got me here is not going to get me there so I need to put people in place who can Create systems and processes and and you know have some kind of structure around how we actually execute on certain things um Having said that um, you know If you don't if you're not embarrassed by your first product you didn't launch quickly enough, you know like you There's a I hate this overthinking and dissecting and like oh, maybe we should do this Should I'm like let's just go let's test a lot. Let's test quickly That's fail quickly if we have to and then we use that intel To go from there, but it's you're right. I think I think every business every company needs someone who not so much puts on the Puts on the reins a little bit to hold you back But maybe just puts in some systems and processes around how you're going to go charging over the over the hill a hundred miles an hour Yep, uh, the guy that we brought on that is a processor. That was really a great counterpart to myself His famous saying is let's go slow now so we can go fast later. Hmm. I like that. I'm gonna write that down. Let's go slow now Let's go slow now so we can go fast late later. I like that and how that plays itself out for us just a real practical is We would hop on to some scrappy tool We'd hop in do infusion soft and have a big idea and create a campaign real quick and let's get it out the door We want to see the want to get customers to look at it. We want to see the data and We do that and we'd leave kind of this this web of you know, just kind of a mess behind us and But it was a lot faster. It was fun, you know Yeah, and uh in what mic would do would come in and say, okay What do we we won't ship on it today? But we can get it out by early next week But it's going to be organized and we're going to be able to look back on the data in a predictable way And then if it works we can build on it rather than recreate recreate the wheel every time so um Again, it's there's a place for both both strategies. Exactly. It's assessing what the situation needs and being able to apply it Absolutely All right. Well, that's how we got there. You're going to do a hundred million dollars this year In revenue and projected Revenue and that's was a pretty amazing Amazing blueprint there Evan. So we've got you know starting off just trying to break even maybe you're losing a little bit You're trying new things. You're adjusting It's not the strongest of the species that survive. It's the It's those that are most adaptable to change so they had all this money and dvds They changed it. They changed the format all of a sudden now. They're making more money You're creating your own products. You've got some increased focus You're now asking the customers what they want a little bit more rather than just assuming what they want You're finding amazing people a players to join the team You're adding some things like seo and some concentrating on your social media email marketing Paid advertising and then it really comes into dialing in systems and processes getting the right people who can Create the right systems and processes So then you can scale and make that big jump from 11 to 47 and 47 to 100 and enables you With more cash flow enables you to do more things and attest more big things that can ultimately lead to even more More revenue now that is a that's an amazing blueprint and congratulations on your success What's the lowest point that you've had like I know that somewhere along the way there was a big mess up or something disastrous happened and Or you personally just felt oh man This is like some this is too much like what was the lowest point for you in the business despite this seemingly amazing financial success you've had We've had a lot, you know, I I think the one thing I would encourage anyone who's listening is that um I was listened to the mixture to podcast all the time and um all the tips and tricks and Andrew Warner's He's just he's awesome But I remember the exact intersection that I was sitting at listening to the mixer g podcast In my car And he was talking to someone who was kind of on the other side of their business was profitable and all that and he was asking them What was it like when before you were here, you know when you were struggling and He just kind of he just shared the the real stuff, you know, and I remember thinking There's I'm I'm gonna get there, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna get there and I still to this day You know, I feel like I'll I'll retire when I'm 85, you know, I feel like I'm just getting started, you know and I've got so much, you know learning to do myself that um The I think the encouragement is We drop the ball all the time, you know, and I think the the biggest, uh Um Are the lowest point I think for myself is when um, you know, we made the wrong hires and we had to kind of face that and let them go, um Those anything that involves people because you're you're impacting their livelihood and their families Um is incredibly hard. So going through some of those periods is really hard um you know Taking uh taking risks and being wrong um Is it's always hard. So there there are a number of those I'm trying to think I'm trying to think in any other specifics the biggest one that keeps coming to mind is It has to do with people. Um, those are the ones that That hurt the most Yeah, I know what you mean. I I had to finally fire someone in my organization after More than a couple years with me this year earlier this year and it was hard because that person was with me from you know day one from one of one of the businesses and You become emotionally attached and you romanticize the story about, you know, how You know, we started it from here or we You know, like you came on in the development phase and everything but It just got to a point where it was obvious that that it was no longer working and having that conversation super awkward and challenging and and and and And difficult and hard But you have to do it this times where you just actually got to make these decisions in the business or the business suffers And if the business suffers it can die Exactly exactly. So there there are a few things that kind of helped me through that specifically um one, you know, there's I went through this book called scaling up by verne harnish and um In that he kind of draws out this grid of productivity and then like culture fit, you know, so you have a matrix Or or an x y axis on on one side is, you know, high productivity Low culture fit or high productivity product could be high culture fit low culture fit and so You know, we literally like plotted everyone on that and on that grid and everyone who was in the high productivity high culture fit I mean, those are essentially your a players Everyone that was in the high productivity Low culture fit you want to you know, they're good Let me make sure I get this right Everyone that everyone that's high productivity low culture fit you want to Move them towards high culture fit everyone that's low productivity low culture fit. I mean those are obvious fires Low productivity high culture fit Uh, those are the ones that um, you you really got to work on some of their their Tactical skills So that that leads me to one other thing and this is the secret sauce The secret sauce of the whole thing or just of people Which is the whole thing. There it is. Okay. That's all that's all we got. That's all we got time for evan Thanks so much for joining us on the show and All right, let's have it the secret sauce here it comes the secret sauce. All right, listen to this so if The secret sauce has to do with people. Okay, so Imagine you have even even yourself and if you just reflect on yourself and Think days when I feel like man, I am bringing it. I'm you know cutting through problems. I don't have the head trash I'm just like I am bringing it and this is my a game. I call it, you know, bringing your creative problem solving self, right and You have some of these days in a week or over the course of month where you're like, wow I was not just like, uh, you know, one and a half times better than I normally am or when I'm, you know Just kind of like going through the motions. I wasn't like two times better I'm like five times better on those days where I'm you know, I jump out of bed I'm like ready to go. I bring my energy and real tangible things come from that I was interviewing a guy a few weeks ago and pretty quickly, you know, within five minutes you can tell You know, if they're the right fit or not And so right away I was like this guy is this is this is Not the right guy. I don't even know how he got in here, but uh You know, I'm I'm gonna wind this interview down But he brought up a name that if I was just going through the motions he mentioned a friend of his and Said she was great at, you know, affiliate management and We're looking for an affiliate manager And so if I wasn't if I was just kind of going through the motions, I thought yeah, yeah, cool, whatever Nice to meet you, you know, walking out But I was in this like, you know, bringing my creative problem solving self to work day and I'm like, listen I'm sorry to tell you but you're you're not the right fit for this role But we are looking for an affiliate manager. Would you be Up for making an introduction to this this girl you mentioned? He's like absolutely. I'd love to and so in that interview I got a referral to someone who I'm interviewing next week. That could be a really great candidate for us Uh, and so that is you start getting these All new types of opportunities open up when you're bringing that level of of effort to work So that's a long story But if you can create a culture where your team Brings their creative problem-solving self to work every day It's not just one or two times more productivity and effort and results that you're going to get from your team I think it's close to five times the results So really getting like a 5x multiple on your team and your talent And it's not just salary, you know, it's not just paying people more I think salary is is just part of the equation, you know, there's four things that that really drive people specifically in kind of a work environment you have personal growth you have Having having friends at work people that they like working with You know, there's salaries part of it and then people being a part of a company and a mission that's bigger than themselves and so creating a culture where you You tie in all of these things the people that To do the work you can train for a lot of the skills, you know, the skills can be can be learned Some skills are a little bit harder than others. Sure, but this culture in this This community, you know, this way where you you've created in your company people who bring their creative problem-solving self to work every day That's the secret sauce because even if your strategy is wrong in some days it is You if you have a great team, you're going to win every time well said Final question I did allude to to this earlier and that was how to say no So you were saying that at some point along The road that you had to learn the skill of saying no to opportunities That opportunities that maybe you know will make money Um a lot of people Have this idea or or preach this idea that just say yes to everything. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes At what point did you start saying no? Why did you start saying no and what have been the results of saying no? So what point did we start saying no? Yeah, and why like yeah, so why when and why did you start saying no? What what were some of the things that you were saying no to? Why did you start saying no and what has been the results of you saying no? so for us Some of the things that we say no to are If it kind of the instant gratification things like let's just get it out the door and and just really quick Let's do this launch sooner Because we're we have the product rate. Let's just launch it, you know So old operating styles that we used to have like It's here. It's ready. Let's start selling it Versus let's set up a really well done funnel that we Know is right from the beginning and it takes a few weeks longer, but we know it works And we can test and validate and build and optimize the funnel rather than Just kind of put something out there because we're we're anxious So there's no from like project, you know standpoint and launch standpoint For us, there's no in Business opportunities. So partnerships that we've said no to Product lines that we've said no to that we've killed we have We have three brands that we were looking we had a retail strategy that has shifted And so we're winding down three supplement brands right now and consolidating so You know for us it I think the framework may be more helpful than the actual no things that we've said no to So we we have a handful of different things one is The the filter of every time a new product or project comes through One of the filters is if we say yes to this, what are we going to say no to? And really starting to view time as not just an unlimited resource You really do you have a limited amount of time to be able to spend on something and so part of it is Scoring in in measuring your time a little bit better another one is another framework that we use is is an ice kind of scoring acronym and so it's impact confidence and then What is the This is the the manager of a hundred million dollar a year company folks who's forgotten these own lessons Yeah I don't have them all memorized Yeah, I delegated that But yeah, so so ice so impact confidence in ease. So it's a simple framework if you can remember it But you know impact to the organization What's our confidence that it's actually going to do that and then you know the ease of which we can do that and so you know, there's there's a handful of frameworks project managers are um equipped with a lot of frameworks, but Um, I think the easy one for us just from a like a rule of thumb is if we say yes to this, what are we going to say no to? Well, there you go Evan tardy who was employee number one at dr axe dot com make sure you go and check out Evan's business there at dr axe Dot com that was the blueprint from zero to a hundred million dollars in seven years congratulations on your success Doing that Evan and well done good on you for pushing through the dark days as they all always come series of ups and downs I always think it's kind of like a like a heartbeat It's like high highs and then you know temporary low lows and then it's like high highs again And as long as you're moving in that direction of always going up, right? Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that and where can we find a little bit more about you besides dr axe dot com anywhere else when you're on social media or somewhere where our listener might want to reach out to you Sure. Yeah, I'm on facebook. So facebook, uh, Evan tardy and just message me add me as a friend would love to connect Um, we're always hiring awesome people There you go. So yeah, if you're looking for looking for a gig you want to work with amazing, uh company When I work with Evan reach out to Evan on his facebook page to Evan. Thank you so much Matt. I really I appreciate your time. This has been awesome Absolutely. Thank you for having me And to you the listener and to the viewer. Thank you so much And I will catch you on the next one