#371: How To Systemize Your Beeswax w/ Benson Agbortogo

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

business, people, book, read, system, dallas, hear, milwaukee, benson, ear, cameroon, routine, run, listening, failing, focused, good, q tips, years, bing

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Say it again. Yes, yes sweat equity podcast and streaming show the number one comedy plus business podcast in the world live and die and the number one business plus comedy

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for the overweight businesses listen to us on iTunes Apple podcast Spotify, listen to this and your holes maybe you got one or two I've got you clean them normal basis and I can't hear out of my right ear right now.

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Look, it's just earwax building up I don't want to get into with FinCEN as our guest talking about God business profit tree being consistent, something we all have trouble with being consistent running your own business consistent profit tree.com forward slash ebook is where you can get his ebook for free

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but if you're listening to this in your your holes go to Apple podcasts or Spotify give us a five star review hook up a little a little something something on there. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace the all in one drag and drop templated Website Builder looking at over there you're looking at like on a wall? Yeah, I'm just looking at you ever you ever tried to balance yourself while you're like holding your landlines or yours? Dude, I can't hear

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you didn't balance correctly. No, look at it. Look into my ear off to the wall to balance yourself because you won't clean your ears. No, I went to the ear doctor do anything. Somebody said dirty Squarespace the all in one. Drag and drop website builder you can do anything WordPress can do don't let those bronies that are trying to rip you off. tell you otherwise.

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SEO indexes right to Google and Bing and Yahoo and all the search engines. You don't even have to do anything else for you. Hit that in the description. Hit that link. If you want one of these sweat equity tanks that I'm wearing right now and video. Holler if you hear me. Yeah, I do. Let's get his mind. fuckface let's talk

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about my sweater

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woody

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woody

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Woody,

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can you hear us all right. Very well. Where are you? Vincent? How do you say your last name?

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I bought together how just said stick with bands. And now just define I want to hit I want you to say it. Yeah, try it. It's it's you won't want him to say no, I was I know He'll mess it up. I mumbled through everybody's anything that's a little difficult. I'm like, I can't read Albert arburg Gertie he gave he gave up after the second letter. Okay, let me help you. Agbar turbo so the first G is silence I will

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go think about to go for it. Gotta go. Okay, you're from Boston.

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Where are you from? Rico. I am I am located in Dallas. Dallas, but we were originally How do you get this cool last name Smith is a bad last name. I was trying to explain to my kids it's the most common last name in the United States.

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I am the whitest one could disappear very easily. I could. I could except Except I look like my face looks like it belongs on a coin. Right? Yeah. All right. Wait, I'm starting to get fatter. I look like Gerard Depardieu. My dad. Aaron Rodgers just took my Con Air look. I don't know. I don't know if you saw that. He just showed up with a white t or a tank top but just pure white and it looks like Nicolas Cage and Con Air. It's cool. I think he should do some stand up comedy. I need to I need to work on it. My standup needs a lot of work. Man. I just bombed so hard the other night.

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I I can't hear out of my right ear. Right now. I just did the firt I think the first time I just backed out of a set because I was like I was dizzy. I couldn't even Oh in the middle of the set you style before before I went on? Oh, I I was like getting nauseous because my my balance is all fucked up. Man. I probably shouldn't really use Q tips though. I jammed a Q tip too far into my ear. Benson. Do you ever done that? No, I don't plan to.

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Well, I can still use them safely and clean your ears. Eric shamed me a couple of years ago and said My ears are too gross. And then I did 20 Different Q tips

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that were all plum purple red. Yes, it was the one of the top five grossest things I've ever seen. And it gives me glee that it grossed you out but to gross you out to it did your little around with that rattling around in there. I can't help it. It's just protecting these crinkly ears. I got it

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This is how we do the show. We're already going. I don't know if you realize that. Oh, yeah, I mean, I've listened to some other episodes. I'm familiar with you guys. So give us some customer feedback. Where can we improve? But mostly? Would you like about it?

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Make us feel good.

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How about this? Why don't you start with your plugs, profit tree? Your the business system that never fails?

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Where can people find you? We try to do them at the top of the show accuse people, you know, get distracted. For sure. My website is consistent profit tree, that calm. And typically when I do shows like this, I give people who are listening a an electronic copy of my book, which is a business system that never fails. So they can find that consistent profit tree.com forward slash ebook where you can download a free copy. Right? And so what what brought you to writing that book?

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I was so sick and tired of so many businesses failing? I mean, if you look at the statistics, over 85 to 90% of small businesses fail after the first 15 years. Yeah. So I think it's about 60% is like within five years or something like that. Yeah. So the percentages keep increasing as the years go by. So I was born and raised in Africa, Cameroon, specifically. So when I came to the United States over 20 years ago, I was thinking, Boy, it's so easy to start a business here, easy to run it, then I started realizing so many businesses were failing. I say, with all the technology, why are many businesses failing? And whenever I know there is a problem, I want to go into the root of it to find out, okay, how can we solve this problem? Then I discovered that the reason why most of these businesses are failing is the neglect the universal laws that govern business, such as which we know which we know for sure it's tattooed on our body, such as the law of sowing and reaping our cost and effect are given example, many entrepreneurs, the market, the market, they generate leads the follow up, when they really lead business, then what happens is when they have so much business, they go on a vacation, they stop doing it. And then they realize, Oh, my goodness, our pipeline is dry. Let's get back to it. So you see this fluctuation going up and down, up and down. They are inconsistent. So as a result, they have inconsistent results. And some of them never really survived that downside, or when they tried to get back to it again. And what happens is, you're out of business. Here, consistency is something I struggle with for sure. What do you find that a lot of entrepreneurs do, you know, kind of struggle within the consistency part? Is it them? Is it being content? Is it is it? You know, is it something we don't not improving? Yeah, you know, systems. The number one reason I know that most entrepreneurs struggle with consistency is distractions.

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So they are distracted from doing the main thing that should help them grow their business. That's part of the reason why we have that name, consistent profit tree, because I always asked entrepreneurs, I say, if you go to an apple tree, how many types of fruits are you going to find that? There will say one, I say are you sure? So yeah, I'm very sure. So you show you all find mangoes and oranges, and

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guava, whereas they said no, only one asset by when I look at your business now. I can't really tell which fruit black tree is producing. You're all over the place right now. But focusing on the one thing you do well work on that, get that going scale it up. Do that the best you can then you can add these other services that are ancillary to it. Absolutely, absolutely. There's a guy was called judge Washington Carver. He really focused on peanuts. I think he ended up producing over 300 products, but all of them were from Peanuts.

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So that is a prime example of focus. So when these entrepreneurs actually

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struck that with so many glazes, so many directions, then they end up diluting their focus, and evidentially a lot of them are out of business.

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So what is your recommendation for these distractions? Is your routine? Is it habit? I mean, do you hire out the things that you think the owner or the person who does things well should be not focusing on? How, what is your recommendation, my recommendation is every single business owner should systematize their business, the way it should operate, and as simply hire people who are going to run those systems, and they just supervise the results that those systems are expected to produce. And every good system starts with specific results you want that system to produce. So if the results are not there in the business, they know the system is now working, something has to be readjusted. So if you systematize your business, then it becomes easy to scale. And then the business owner is not trapped in the business walk in so long hours, and barely having enough time for themselves and their families. That's good. I like that work life balance. Yeah, figuring that systems but yeah, so I mean, systems, habits, routine, all those things. It's it's

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what I don't think habits and routine are the same as a system kind of way. Benson is referring it to Yeah, but a system is meant to be followed very carefully. And you know, by the book, or a routine is like your morning routine. You don't have to do that. Because what's what's the consequence? You do that with your business? In the system? Bad things happen? It doesn't get done. What

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I'm trying to be very clear what we're talking about. Wait, no, if your morning routine, I'm saying the word routine, I don't think it's a wake up.

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The word system and routine are interchangeable is my boy, I feel like they're pretty close. They're kissing cousins. Okay, well, well let them decide those systems. It's really the big, the big more than yourself. Yeah. And then their routines are really the smaller things that you do. within the system, the systems that were designed for businesses, they are designed right down to a point where if the checklists within our systems are not followed, we know we're not going to get a result, right. So it becomes so easy to hold your team members accountable. Like he was saying, if you have a routine that is not tied to a specific results, the stakes are not high. If you miss it two days, three days and bad for business, if you miss it, you will know your results. They are results another and they look like the way you want them to. Yeah, I would say there's a there's a cascading effect of other people involved. Mainly the customer or client, patient, whatever it is worker co workers. So yeah, I started I realized I wasn't great at project management about five, six years ago. And I realized that never going to scale anything or

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be less frustrated. Unless I really focused on that. What can someone do? To kind of what, how do you learn how to be a better operations kind of person.

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Again, as I said, if you are not really good in operations, then it's good to bring somebody in, who is good at putting systems in place. Because once systems have been put in place, you don't have to be good at the systems, you just have to follow them. You know, for example, all of us drive cars, right? I don't know how to put an agent together. But I don't need to know how to put an agent together. I just need to know how to enter my car, use my car key, put it in the ignition, and then control the selling. That's all. I don't need to worry about. How did they agent come together in an all of that I go by the car. So you don't have to worry about you know, trying to put everything together. You just need to know how to run the system. That would be my recommendation.

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Yeah, let's think we're both right.

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We both won. Now. How about this? It's well, let's let's talk about you growing up in Cameroon. Before we forget what advice would you give your 30 year old self I can't tell how old you are. But

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you know, if you could travel back in time, tell yourself something that 13 What would it be?

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I will say reaps rate rate so you become a person of value because

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So you become a person of value. The Marketplace will pay more for you. One of my mentors, and I also had it from Jim Rohn. He used to say,

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rich people have big libraries for people have big televisions. Interesting. I like that.

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And that's no truer than right now. I mean, like, I've heard I've heard a couple of comics talk about, it's, there's never been a better time to be poor. Because you can have a huge TV and you can watch Netflix and you can, you can satiate yourself with a bunch of things that don't really matter. Yes, that aren't pushing you forward or getting you out of lower middle class or whatever it is.

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I'll give myself that advice, read more books, but specific books, not just scattered books. Once in a while, somebody will say read this book. I said, Why do you want me to read that book? Do you know my goals?

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are read books that are related to my goals? So I'm gonna start saying like, do you even know my goals?

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accusatory Yeah, oh my god. It's like you don't even know my goals. You should read this book. Do you know my goals? Oh, my God. Yeah, the nerve. I look, I read l RL Stein exclusively. I read goosebumps because I like it. Okay, goals, my goals feel good. But in the same regard, you can just I love. There's a certain kind of Florida novel. I like it's fiction. It's Carl Hiaasen, it's Tim Dorsey. Is it really helping me move towards things? That's more of a Netflix thing? That's more of a entertainment, right? That's not, I am learning of quirky things here and there, but it's not really getting me towards what I need to do. Well, if you're, you're definitely a marketer, because of what you guys do. If you read if you read a novel, and you hone your ability to tell stories, then that's a good thing. Oh, nice. Well, I do think down the line, I might try to write a similar type of novel right, like they do, but that's years from now, but you know

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what? You don't like Tim Dorsey. You don't like Carl Hiaasen. Oh, I can't wait to read your like Dave Berry. I can't wait to read it. You can't wait to read the sweat equity book I'm writing. Now we're talking. Yeah, that's, that's in the mix. Right now. I'm trying to finish a book this year. Sweat equity book, how many pages you got? 10 when I when I?

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Yeah, I'm just taking all these interviews and putting it in a book. That's all that that's the marketer. Right?

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Repurposing, but then we'll be published Arthur authors, and then we can just it's like our buddy Dean says, What? What's your book? Like? Yeah. Do you even know my goals? Right? It's a big it's a it's a whose penis is bigger kind of conversation? I mean, books, do you and I need as many of those non real penis to books. Oh, oh, hey, oh.

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So, you know, we started this interview with you talking about how it we do take advantage as Americans that grow up here that I do think entrepreneurship, even though it's a French word is truly American. It is like, it is a thing that you have to realize not every country, every country has the resources and the ability to do it. Well, everybody here may not have the same playing field they start with, they do have the same opportunity.

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Tell us about you growing up in Cameroon is how be I've heard a lot of African countries are very entrepreneurial, because necessity breeds innovation is that is that kind of the

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how it is over there? Or you're you're tilting your head, like not so much. Allah say Yes, I know.

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It's very difficult to start a real business in most African countries. So let me give you a context. When I came to the years.

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The first business I started, I was living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It took me about 10 minutes to fill the arrows, the firm pay, I think it was $35 then, and I got my license, and I was blown away. What would that be like in your native country? Maybe five or 10 years? Whoa.

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And so is that kind of government kind of overreach on everybody? Or is that tribal isn't? It's a lot of red tape. So this person wants you to bribe them. This person wants you to bribe them that person wants you to bribe them that way. So you go through a prolong process, just to get a license to do business. So it's it's very difficult so most people really do it in a mom and pop way, so it becomes difficult for them to scale out

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To have the quality they need to even provide goods to the international market. Well, it's gotta be defeatist. Right? So you're, you're basically getting the skill Bing, right? And I mean, once you get that license, I'm gonna guess that the Bing doesn't stop necessarily. You probably driving, are you good to go? Are you probably paying a VIG on the backside? That is That is right. So taxation is non existence, and most of it is a if you give me a little bit of money, then consider it to be an X Men, it's not really going into the government system. So there's nothing like IRS income around.

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That sounds kind of

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but you know, until they do wants his money, I want the IRS back. And then I'm sure you just flip around, become part of that bureaucracy, right. Like you do that for five to 10 years to get the license. And by the time you get it, you're like, well, now I know this system, I'm gonna flip around and be the Bribie or briber. Robber. Right, yeah, depending on your level of, depending on your level of integrity. Some people still survive within the system without doing all of that, but it's a very small minority.

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So that's, that's how the business climate is. So most people are really small mom and pops. But I will say the government hires most of the people who are at work. And unfortunately,

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most people go to school, they have good education, they have bachelor's degree, master's degree. But because government cannot hire everybody, a lot of these guys are just sitting, and you know, waiting for some kind of opportunity to come. So that's part of the thing I plan to go back and do to really inject the entrepreneurial spirit in people and expose people to the global market. Because now with the internet, you don't need you don't need a local business to survive. You can literally learn how to do business in the internet, and really do well. I mean, in my business, I hire people in Mexico, the Philippines, but these are people who have skills that I need for my business. If there were people like that in Cameroon who had those skills, I'll gladly hire them in or pay them in dollars. And they will be living at a very high level when they convert that money to the local currency. So it's really about exposing people to the global opportunities that are available today with the Internet. In the past, the Philippines is the Mexico of the world's capital over the internet, for the internet, and they speak Spanish. Right. But you know,

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it's interesting. So let's take us back to Milwaukee. You're in Milwaukee, probably one of the only black guys walking around Milwaukee.

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What, tell us about that experience Milwaukee. Hmm, you've never been in Milwaukee. I don't need to go to Haiti to know it's hot like I use. I'll read Farmer's Almanac. I know what's up. What. So in Milwaukee, what's tell us about that experience. You get over there and you walk it back to me walk is frequently cool. Yeah, yes. I don't need to go walk you to know it's cold. Like it's very cool. So when I came to the US, I went to school festival in New York. So I did my

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bachelor's degree in business management in New York. And then decided to go for my master's in, in Milwaukee. So it was a very interesting experience.

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The company I worked with was a consulting company. And then after my master's in, I really decided, Okay, I'm gonna step jump out and start on my own, and have a lot more control over my time. A lot of my money and all of that.

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But it was very, very challenging in a part of me was like, Oh, my goodness, is this the right time to do it? Should I wait a little bit? My wife was pregnant at the time with our first daughter. And she was yeah, she was.

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She was about to give birth when I decided to, you know, move on and start my own business. And I thought that, you know, customers will be running from left and right, coming to me and saying, Hey, Benson, we just started the business in a way we are going to do business. But I had a rude awakening, and went through, you know, several years of just grinding it. But man, when I look back now, it was one of the best decisions I've ever made for my own life. Awesome. You and your wife still together?

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Oh, yeah, we have four kids. Four kids, kids.

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Congratulations, Jesus, that's a lot of work. So how do you make it from Milwaukee down to Dallas, what's so started the consulting company. And you know, as I looked at the lay of the land, I look at the school district, I knew I was going to have market. So I really wanted to be in a place where there's a bullshit school district. And then the climate, of course, will be similar to Africa, because I hated it. In the working, yep. Dallas, Dallas was really a winner, good school districts, you know, the climate is really good. And of course, the economy is also better. So in 2011, you know, relocated the family here and continue running the consulting company. And

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again, that was a very, very strategic move at that time. We have Dallas love the area no state income tax. That's, that's, that helps as well.

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Have family of Fort Worth. So I've always loved that area.

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Even though Dallas and Fort Worth are kind of what else about Dallas. I've done I've done hyenas in Dallas, I've done in Fort Worth, I've gotten to go around Highland Park, my roommate in college at Wally, his initials ju je w. He, he was from Dallas. So I got a pretty good got a pretty good view of Dallas, when you didn't think I'd never been there. No more facts about Dallas, SMU at&t, what do you want?

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The Cowboys hate the Cowboys? That's all? Yeah, I'm not a fan of to say that.

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So what advice? I mean, so you'd have four books, is that right? Yes, the main one, I mean, I don't promote the other, the other three, relatively one of them. I mean, the that one will be much more suitable for people who are interested in the development of Africa. Now I was written when I was in college is called fate and development in Africa. So it's really about how to develop the African continent, because that's something I'm passionate about. But the main book I really promote is the business system. That never fails. Because I believe that anybody who masters the three pillars in the book, should be able to run a business successfully, without being afraid of failing.

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It seems like you have a big kind of Christian theme throughout a lot of a lot of the information I received from the booking agency is that that's the main through line of integrity, you kind of spoke of earlier. Absolutely. And everything that I do. That is the foundation of the business that I run is love. And I believe that if you if you love your clients, you love yourself,

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then you will be passionate to help those clients. When I see people who are afraid to sell or afraid to market, our city to them. Either you are wicked, or you don't believe in your product or service. Tell me which one? Yeah. And they will say, Okay, I'm not a wicked person, then I said, I will say okay, then you don't believe in your product or service. Because if you believe that your product or service is going to solve problems for your clients, and you love them, you should do everything you can to introduce that product or service to them. Because you are you are helping them to relieve them from their problem. But if you are shy to talk about your product or service or you know people who are in problems, then you are a wicked person.

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Yeah, and, and they will go oh my goodness, I never thought about it that way. I said, I say you are shy to talk about your product or service, because of the stigma, that marketing and sales are scary. But if you change it, or you begin to see yourself as a distributor of solutions, then you should be passionate to talk about what you offer to be. Yeah, and there's a ying and yang to that as well. I remember when I was going through my divorce versus rough or pre divorce, and you're like, I feel like a bag of shit internally. And I can't. But I do believe in the business I was doing but I still couldn't get over the hump to be able to do it. So you have to kind of have both of those. Now, Eric, once is Wiccan he wants to be a witch he doesn't believe in God. Can his book can your book help you? Can I help? I don't know. I haven't read the book. But Benson is he he is agnostic and atheist. I will be happy to mail him a copy. And the one of the big things that differentiates me from what from a lot of the other people that talk about God is really focused on the love aspect because I like that part. Yeah, Eric Eric loves

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Yeah, Eric, Eric Eric, looking at him. He's a loving person. Thank you. He's a hippie. I love you very much, and everybody listening right now in your cars, but he mainly goes to drum circles with other sorcerers or something. I don't know, I've never gone. But if he doesn't believe in God, let's say, Well, this will this get them towards Christ a lot more. Now I'm a God fearing man. I go to church every other week. Are you scared of,

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you know, stuff? The Rapture? You know, you get to the end of that the end of that Bible got a crazy twist. Yeah, they kind of really poor horse that up quick come out of nowhere 1000s of years.

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But, you know, it's one of those things where it's tough to infuse those two things together with integrity I find in the business world if you're seems genuine, don't get me wrong. I, I was just watching that documentary of the way down on on HBO. And it's about this lady who had one of these evangelical kind of cults, and they have their own business and the business starts within the church and all that stuff. I like the way you're going about it, which is, hey, this is my this is kind of my through line throughout this. Believe it or not, it seems like that is that? Well, I think it's good that you use the word love, right? Instead, and I have no problem with the word God, but it will turn people off when they're basically saying the same thing.

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But using the word love instead, I think is much more welcoming. And universal. Yes, because the reality is God is love, right. And I've never met a single human being in my life, who does not have some love in that. So all of us are connected without common thread, just like all of us breathe oxygen in I don't know, any human being who breathes a different type of air, we all breathe in oxygen is the same thing that really, really connects us. So that is what I really encourage people to go down that route. Because if you really

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increase your ability to love people, you You will find a lot of God within you manifesting because again, God is love. And love is God. So that is a lane, I choose to really go down. And when I felt the desire to go into business, I didn't just want to go into it ignorantly I took the time to really go and study and have degrees in it. And I was fortunate to have a very good mentor in as well, after graduation studied under him, and really got to really know what it takes to run a business. So

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I believe that that differentiates me from a lot of people who just get them and say, Hey,

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I think I have the option to become a business person and they haven't done any studies. And then messing things up. Yeah, coming in with mouth of babes kind of style unbiased. Know what you don't know those kinds of things and learning from others who've been there. It's really important all that consistent profit tree.com forward slash ebook. We'll put that in the description of this episode. Benson, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. I think Eric does too. Thank you, sir. I absolutely appreciate you guys. You guys are hilarious.

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I appreciate it. The way you're on the way you're on your shows and I mean, it shows business doesn't have to be boring. You know? No, we don't we don't want to live boring is a crime.

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Well, we have nothing but love for you, Benson appreciate you coming on. Absolutely. You guys have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you

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