Skills of a Business Owner

Episode 978: Skills of a Business Owner, with Ron LeGrand

The skills of a business owner are important for big responsibilities. Listen to this podcast and acquire the skills of a business owner.

Building and growing a business truly is a trial by fire. Learning the necessary skills of a business owner comes slowly over time, and mistakes will be made. But drawing lessons from those mistakes can be transformative. 

Master real estate investor and mentor Ron LeGrand joins Onward Nation to share how he developed the business owner skills needed to grow and scale his organization into the thriving empire it is today, and he shares some of the key lessons he learned along the way over the course of his decades-long career in real estate, mentoring and publishing.

What you will learn in this episode about the skills of a business owner:

• How Ron realized he needed to make a life change and start building wealth for his family, and how he discovered the potential of real estate
• Why Ron needed to make an early pivot in his investing, and how he refined the skills of a business owner and learned to manage and delegate responsibility
• Why Ron’s real estate business is always in demand and recession-resistant, and how adapting to changes in the market has been one of the keys of his success
• Why putting the right people in the right roles is crucial, and how Ron started his publishing business, Global Publishing Inc.
• How Ron’s mentoring business has become the cornerstone of his real estate empire, and how his organization has grown to include highly successful student coaches
• How the global pandemic became the impetus that caused Ron to take his coaching virtual through online events and training
• How the switch to virtual has opened up new opportunities and helped to further increase Ron’s mentoring reach
• Why marketing to your audience through multiple channels, both online and through traditional media, is crucial
• Why YouTube is a fantastic free marketing medium, and why it is the ideal channel to share your testimonials
• Why Ron’s number one piece of advice is to find someone who is successfully doing the thing you want to do and then learn everything you can from them
• Implementing the skills of a business owner and achieving your business goals

How to Connect with Ron LeGrand:

• Master the skills of a business owner by becoming a member of the Masters Program
• Website: www.ronlegrand.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ronlegrand/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/global-publishing-inc./
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/GlobalPublishing
• Twitter: @ronlegrand
• Podcast: https://thementorpodcast.com/

Additional Resources:

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Learn the skills of a business owner and a leader by listening to this podcast with Raphael Bender

 

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success in acquiring the skills of a business owner from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

 

Good morning. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation. We have a very special guest with us today who’s story, path, journey and what he’s been able to build as a result is going to be filled with golden nuggets that you can take and apply into your business onward. His name is Ron LeGrand, and today he’s one of the leading authorities in real estate and helping people like you and me build wealth outside of our businesses by buying instantly real estate without leveraging or risking our own cash or credit.

 

But it wasn’t always that way for Ron, as you’ll hear him share. When he was 35, he was broke. He was frustrated and wanted more out of life, but wasn’t sure of the path. Well, he borrowed $450 from a couple of friends, attended a real estate seminar, applied what he learned, and began to build a brand new business.

 

However, as business owners, we know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and Ron certainly experienced the highs and lows in those first seven years of his business. But he doubled down. He made progressive decisions, and he righted the ship to scale the business correctly. And then people began to ask him, Hey, Ron, can you teach me how to do that too?

 

So Onward Nation, I’m excited for Ron to join us today because he has done what many business owners maybe even you aspire to do. He built a successful, profitable business. Then he scaled it, then he perfected it, and then he built an audience around it. And now he teaches people all over the globe how to accomplish similar or greater results.

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Ron LeGrand’s Introduction

 

So without further ado, welcome to Onward Nation, Ron. Thank you Steve. And that was a great introduction. Well, you have a very, very compelling story, which I’m, looking forward to. I just gave obviously broad strokes, but I’m really looking forward to us diving in. But sincerely, thank you for taking time out of your compressed schedule, sir. My pleasure.

 

So let’s let’s kind of go backwards a little bit. I mentioned the 35 I mentioned, broken mechanic. Give us some more context there. So Onward Nation business owners really have a great foundation. Well, I was, running a service station just trying to make a living, and I only work about 6.5 hours a day. Have a good week.

 

Barely get by. I mean, I was paying my bills, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. And, frankly, it started with a washing machine. When my asked me why my wife asked me to buy her a new one and I said, no way, we can’t afford it. And we argued over that and went to bed. Man, honestly, I woke up the next morning.

 

I just made up my mind. I’m not going to do this for the rest of my life. I’m going to go figure out a way to make money. And it took me a while to master the skills of a business owner. I started looking down real estate and that’s what began it all. I think every thing starts with the turning point. Something has to happen in your life to make you turn the switch, you know?

 

So it was really that simple. But looking back, I did go to my first seminar, shortly thereafter that I did borrow the money to go. But I got out of there and I got my first check for $3,000 within, within three weeks. So that’s what compelled me to go get another. You know, whereas most people go to a seminar or roadblock they run across, they’ll quit or the dream stealers are at, and there’s more of them than there is me.

 

So on the, difference between people who make it and people who not is they follow their dreams and they keep moving. And I don’t listen to everybody else. The much of the stay down there and self-pitying and bitch and moan and groan about everything the rest of their life. Okay. So you’re confirming something here for me.

 

So it’s not urban legend. You actually borrowed the $450. Oh it’s absolutely true. And I had to borrow from two people I didn’t know anybody and one person was okay. But even something that might seem as small as that, in my opinion, is a golden nugget in that because you needed two people, did it together, $450, and you didn’t let them.

 

Not having the 450 be an obstacle. You’re going to be broke for the rest of your life, right? Yeah. Keep in mind now, this is 1982, so $450. I don’t know what that’s word nowadays, but it’s it was a lot I don’t know what it was. Well so so then the $450 turned into $3,000. And if I remember the story correctly, you know, you started building some success and that you like for the first couple of years.

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Becoming A Master Delegator

 

But then there was sort of the oh moment when all the properties that you had been able to purchase started creating like major headaches. Right? I learned just enough to go out and make a mess, and I did that for two years. Hey, I acquired over $1 million of equity in real estate, but I didn’t have any money.

 

And I bought all the wrong crap in the wrong areas of town because I felt comfortable buying a cheap, cheap stuff. And I just made a big mess. At the end of the first couple of years, I had over 200 tenants. But I’m telling you right now, I never want to go back there again. That’s just not what we do today.

 

So in other words, I went into the part of the business where all the problems are and you hear all the horror stories about it took me a while to figure out there’s a whole lot easier ways to make money than what I was doing back then. But hey, even struggling like that, I made more than a living.

 

And I was making, you know, in the service nation. So, it’s a learning process, but it took me a lot of years, took me a lot of years, took me more years to figure out that I’m not all that important, not all that smart. So, you know, today, everything I do, Stephen, I delegate my skills of a business owner. I am a master delegator.

 

All I do is watch over it and make it two decisions here and there. So whatever business I’m in and I have several, first thing I want to do is figure out who’s going to do what because I’m not to do it. So in the in those, that’s awesome. We’re going to dig into that too. And I appreciate you bringing that up.

 

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Skills of a Business Owner: Doing Something Differently

 

So when you mention that you learned, just enough to make a mess and where all the problems are. Yeah, like, you know, recognizing that is obviously one thing. But then having the wherewithal to not give up and then to figure out how to fix it because it took about five years to kind of turn that around, if I remember correctly.

 

Right. Five years after the two years. Yeah. We five years to get rid all the crap that I bought in the first two and not knowing what I was doing. And the problem was I was dealing with low end tenants who don’t have money. Okay, I’m you’re in business or you’re dealing in your clients who don’t have money in the businesses.

 

Likely not gonna make it. So the problems, you wouldn’t believe the problems. And, you know, I was on call all the time. I did not know how to manage the business, so I just learned it day by day. And over time, I figured out, man, we gotta do something different here. I won’t live long enough to enjoy this wealth if it ever comes if I don’t change something. 

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Protecting Yourself from Calamities

 

Well, okay, so perfect golden nugget that you’re sharing with on Word Nation business owners, right? Is having the right client avatar, knowing exactly what the right market is, being able to not be at the low end of the price. spectrum or whatever. Right. There’s that race to the bottom and then you can’t be profitable, right?

 

That’s correct. I don’t ever want to be on the low end of any business. I have restaurants that don’t have them now. I never want to be competing on price. I don’t I but I don’t want to be at the very top either. I always want to be in the middle. And that’s where I’m at today with real estate.

 

I buy houses today and at or about median price on up to, you know, a million, million, half, dollar houses. But I do them without risk. Today, I don’t have to come up with capital and I don’t have to go borrow money back. I teach my people. The last thing biggest mistake you make is go out and personally guaranteed debt by real estate.

 

I hurt them, I mean, I punish them by getting. But doing that because we don’t have to. Today we buy all the houses we want without guaranteeing debt, and we’re using very little money and absolutely no credit. So that’s the difference. While we build that business, we do it on a solid foundation so that if something goes wrong and it always does, I’m not going to come wipe out your empire.

 

So part of that process to mastering the skills of a business owner is how to protect yourself against those calamities as well. Because I’ve been through five of those down cycles. And the worst one, of course, was 2008. But I quickly figured out that it I don’t care what the market is like or what the interest rates are like, or who’s president then matter, because people always need to sell houses and other people need to buy it.

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Making Progressive Decisions

 

So real estate business been very good to me because it’s not going to go away. It’s not a fad, you know, it’s it’s always going to be there. So, when we just learn to adapt with a market, it makes it easier to get through all those tough times. Wow. my training business called Global Publishing. 

 

And, you know, when this Covid thing hit, everybody was running scared. But to be honest, it was really done. well, for us, because we literally are up over 60%. And, net profits since, Covid started and, way up on cashflow because we adapted to the market and started going virtual, doing live events. You know, we’re, we’re live events, company.

 

So, those kind of changes are what entrepreneurs do. And if they’re so busy doing all the grunt work all day and every day, they don’t get a chance to think like an entrepreneur, I should think from a macro point of view. Okay, that’s huge. And Onward Nation, that is an unexpected and super awesome golden nugget here that we’re going to dig into.

 

As far as the silver lining that Ron just shared with you, right? We talk about making progressive decisions, doubling down in the right areas. Then the business owners who do what Ron and his team did, they come out the other side of this recession even stronger and in. So there’s going to be a cool story for us to unpack there.

 

Yeah. Oh, okay. I got like three things going through my mind right now. What I want to ask you. So okay, let’s actually go back to the delegating piece because that connects into like the five years that you’re trying to systematize and sort of turn the ship a little bit to make the business not is not as crazy and not as problematic.

 

So is that when you learned your like starting the delegating skills that like built those that when you know remember I started 1982. They didn’t even have technology back then. I bought my first Mac computer in 1985 with $3,000 for that little old box. You know, technology was so it was a lot of years later, we started doing the implementing technology thing about 20 years after I started or so.

 

But today, I mean, it is easiest that it’s ever been because there’s almost nothing for us to do as real estate investors. We delegate everything, and I mean everything. I delegate everything. All I do is decide who I want to buy from, who I want to sell to, and most of the time, I don’t even make that decision.

 

Really by other a lot of it’s outsourced and some of it is in-house. But, you know, I have restaurants, have restaurants that, I mean, I work at home. Cheese. If I had to work at them, I never would want a restaurant. Right. picture me in an apron like there are out on the floor taking orders. Not me. 

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Teaching People What You Know

 

So my job was to look at the reports and make sure that the manager was doing his or her job running a restaurant. And that’s the same thing I do with any business that I have. I find the best person I can find and work with them and get them trained the best I can, and then turn them loose and they’re either going to make it or not going to make it.

 

And the key is clearly understanding that if they’re not going to make it, they simply have to be replaced because nursing them along is not going to help, many entrepreneurs. So just hang in there and I don’t want to get rid of them. Just make matters worse. You know, sometimes they just got to go because they’re just not right for the job.

 

Got it. So you mentioned global publishing. Let’s take that and go backwards a little bit to the point where, somebody came up to you. So tell us the story about when either somebody tapped on your shoulder, said, hey, can you teach me this? Like, so how did that start for you? You know, when I got into real estate business, I had absolutely no clue I was ever going to be ever teaching something like the skills of a business owner.

 

Any back then myself. So I was in it for about five years, I think. Yeah, five years. And I was in a local real estate group, nonprofit organization for real estate investors, which are all over the country. And people kept on coming up and asking me because I would come in and I’d tell them what we’re doing and I show them deals.

 

And so forth. So they knew I was a buyer, and they kept on asking me, how do you do this? How do can I do this? Can you help me? And so forth and so on. Finally, I got this idea. I’m just going to do a two day seminar, okay? And I want to charge them ten bucks and, you know, $10.

 

Yeah, ten. I gave them by droves. Okay. I said, well, I kind of like this stuff. I love teaching like everybody does. So I said not to schedule another one. Not only this time I’m going to charge $350. And of course, a lot less showed up. That was my first seminar that I taped. I actually taped an all day seminar.

 

And then I went on tape some more and so forth and built a stack of courses. And today, it’s more about live training and coaching and, working with them than just putting courses in their hands. So, you know, like I said, it’s never been easier this day because you got all the help you need. You want to learn this business.

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: People Need Coaching

 

I know some people are in the coaching business as well, aren’t they? Well, absolutely. And that’s why I think the interest of sort of the genesis of how you got started is going to be very inspiring to many of our listeners. So, you know, started from a two day course for $10.

 

Now, fast forward to today. Give us a view of what global publishing looks like today. We are a national training organization that trains people out to buy and sell houses and a few other things along the way, you know, restructuring, asset protection, business management, raising capital, those kind of things that are relative. And, we work all over the country in Canada mostly, and have been for an awful lot of years now.

 

So we do live events, we do virtual events. A lot of virtual events now and we have several courses and we have four-day training called Quick Start Real estate school and then a three day training called Business Management, which I still teach both of those. And, you know, our biggest revenue, as I’m sure your listeners are, it comes from mentoring, which is coaching.

 

And that’s exactly what people need today and need somebody to lead them by the hand and take them through everything step by step. And I recognize that about 12 years ago. But we need to get that in here somehow. But, you know, I spent 2 or 3 years, Steve, and I couldn’t figure out the answer to this one question, and that is, who am I going to get to coach?

 

Because I absolutely refuse to put somebody on the phone with them, knows very, very little more than they know. I just couldn’t make myself do that. And then it occurred to me one day, well, why don’t I go to my successful students and turn them into coaches? And lo and behold, they love the idea. Yeah, we got to pay them.

 

But it doesn’t take, you know, more than a day out of their week to do this. And I get to work with successful people. So now I got successful people coaching successful people. And that’s the only way I’m going to have it in my organization. I can tell you, this can’t stand the thought of I’m look, I’ve been around this country and I talked to a lot of coaches and I don’t like what I hear.

 

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Skills of a Business Owner: It Is Easier to Teach Than Do

 

So so-called coaches are not qualified in most cases. Amen to that. And you know, most people put a shingle out and say they’re going to be a business coach, but they’ve never actually created a successful business. It drives me. Know what I’m saying? It’s always easier to teach than do. Well, but turning in some of your successful students into coaches that also fits with your master delegation, right?

 

I mean if you had to coach personally, coach and mentor all of these people, I mean, you couldn’t do it. You would have created yourself a job. No, I could not possibly do it. And that’s assuming I wanted to do it. I don’t coach them part. I have a mastermind group of students that came into my system and now we’re doing commercial deals.

 

Okay and I work with them. But now, I never did coach. Personally, I knew from the very beginning that I need to get other people to do that. One of my biggest marketing mentors, Dan Kennedy. Sure you’re aware of? Sure. I was in his platinum group since 1980 and 1997. And you know, I learned very quickly if you’re going to do coaching, you better not be. You’re not going to want to do it very long. 

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: The Power of Coaching and Mentorship

 

So let’s talk a little bit about the power of coaching and mentorship. So when you were turning the ship around, you know, after the first two years and you spent five years really kind of riding the ship and you understood then better understood where all the problems were.

 

And so, how did you engage the coach or a mentor to help you see all of those things? No, I didn’t have any place to get one at that time. I don’t even remember. I don’t even know if there were any. But no, I did not. Besides, Steve, I’m a man. And the last no man’s going to do is ask for help.

 

Because if the wheels around, we can make it around right? And if it’s working, we have to fix it. Don’t with so many dudes, I’m no different than the rest of them. It was very difficult for me to ask for help today. It isn’t. Trust me. Yeah, they’re easy for me today. But back then, you know, I just probably would have never asked for it if it was there.

 

You want the truth? Okay, so let me, let me, let me. Let’s kind of theorize a little bit. Do you think it would be fair to say, you know, the pivot took five years. Had you had the assistance of a coach, mentor and so forth, do you think that would shorten that curve? Now? I had some mentors, one-on-one coaching mentors.

 

Okay. I looked up to them, but I didn’t really learn the skills of a business owner from them. I just learned a little pieces. I’d run around at every seminar convention that I could get to in. The company had a pickup truck full of books and tapes, and some of them. I even took cellophane off of what I had to piece of all together, you know?

 

And over time, I had to build my own system because there really wasn’t any. And we are the best qualified, company in the country. If your goal is to buy and sell houses, and I’m not just talking about wholesale jumpers or rehabbing today, I specialize in the term business that beautiful houses, the beautiful neighborhoods for a whole lot of reasons and a whole lot more profit than that, a lot less grief than, constantly competing to find the Junkers that you can buy it deep discount sale prices, pretty vast business.

 

It’s not just you not just do one thing. I teach people to be a transaction engineer more and learn the more they are got it. Okay, so let’s talk about, again, where the business is today because when you mentioned, you know, 60% net profit. Excuse me. yeah, 60% net, net profits, are are up. 

 

I’m saying that wrong. Net profits are up 60%. That’s what I wanted to say for Pete’s sake. I don’t know why I was struggling with that. I mean, that that is a huge result. Outcome. So tell us a little bit more about this pivot, into virtual and so forth. But the minute the company shut down, we had no choice but to go virtual.

 

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Skills of a Business Owner: Perks of Doing Virtual Events

 

We were doing some virtual, but nowhere near like we’re doing now. And then we quickly discovered, Holy moly, there’s a whole lot more people coming because we’re now on the internet that would never go to a live again anyway. So we got a chance to reach a lot more people. And, you know, we sell stuff when we do live trainings like anybody else does that.

 

Not that I’m aware of. Got to, you know, sell stuff. Nobody’s going to learn what you can do and you can help them. So, the revenue was up because there was more people on the other end. And of course, we do live deals. When I do a seminar, we literally do like deals. Well, we watch okay with leads that they bring, and we can do that virtually just as well as we can in the live room.

 

Now, nothing is going to replace live seminars, I can tell you that right now, nothing. You get way more out of being there in person than you do sitting in front of a screen all day. Plus, I have your attention for the whole time and you get to network and ask questions and so forth. But, we quickly learn that it’s a lot easier.

 

Plus, think about the marketing costs. You put somebody in a room, you get a lot of marketing costs, direct mail in the likes, then you got the cost of the room and all that. And we have none of that with the virtual so that we can do more events, reach a lot more people, more on as we do it.

 

And I’m doing a virtual event for the next three weeks in a row for the next three or so. Not for the entire events, not three weeks long. No, but three different events. Wow. So, okay, so is it fair to say that you’re able to stack them into your schedule? Yeah. and so you’re able to well, was your live schedule that compressed and now when you do live events, I went out maybe two, three times a month.

 

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Skills of a Business Owner: Building An Audience During Virtual and Live Events

 

Okay. So I’m doing more virtual events to teach people the skills of a business owner and I was doing live. But I mean, okay, I don’t have to leave the city. I leave my house. I’ve got to get out of the house, man. So I got a big old building about, oh, 13,000ft² and one 8000ft in the other, and they’re totally vacancy. So it’s okay.

 

Everybody’s working from home, and it’s working out very well. So we go, but we have a studio set up in there. So I go there, do these virtual events, said from the computer all day and just deliver. I’d much rather do it in person. Yeah. You know, in person. I even have jokes I can’t tell.

 

I joke so much so I have fun. I don’t know about it. Well, okay, so let’s fast forward. Let’s say that, we get past pandemic, does the most pandemic vision of your global publishing, does it include both now? Yes, absolutely. But there will be a lot more virtual than it was in the past.

 

Okay, so we’ll do both. And if you get one of our virtual events, you’re automatically entitled to a live event at no additional cost. So now they get more than they had before, like in the virtual before to come to life. Okay. So take us back again. I keep, you know, loving this history lesson that you’re giving us because there’s so many golden nuggets in it.

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Reaching Out To Customers

 

So when you have that first two days seminar and then it turned into another one, let’s think about how you built audience and which was probably pretty organic at the beginning. And now I know that you’re in many channels, in a great big presence. But thinking about, you know, our listeners who might be wanting to start that as you started it, how did you start to build traction and build an audience?

 

Well, how I started is not how you start today. You remember I didn’t have the internet, so everything we did was either by word of mouth or by direct mail. you know, I learned very early from Dan Kennedy, the direct mail business that became a real professional in the art of marketing, which, incidentally, any business on or better do.

 

Does a business owner don’t understand marketing? It’s very unlikely they’re going to run across anybody else that they can hire. So, I got really good at marketing and I teach marketing and marketing need marketing anything. Not just, not just houses. So we have to find customers at global, but we find it all sources. We find them from online and offline through various media.

 

And in most any company should be doing the same thing today. Most of them don’t. They all just want to go online where they basically free. And I’m just wasting a whole big whole bunch of people that they can reach by other media. Sometimes people forget that, different people want to be reached by different media, aftermarket to them, the way they want to respond, not try to force them there to respond the way we want them to.

 

So we run paid ads online. we run free ads online. We still do direct mail to acquire customers. and, and, you know, broad list of things that we do, in fact, today, filing, you know, for quite a few years, I was my whole goal was to try to break even acquiring a customer.

 

And that might sound funny to people who aren’t in marketing. Most people lose money getting a customer. They don’t make money getting them. unless you’re standing on the stage and delivering a speech. And even then you’re giving up a big chunk of your revenue. So there’s a marketing cost. So, today we simply drive them from a paid Facebook app to a webinar that sells, an $897 course, well packaged with a big, strong sense of urgency and an irresistible offer.

 

And we’re actually making money now. We’re bringing them in at age 97 than the old ways, when we were bringing a minute long two things and working them up. So when you can actually get back more money than you spent on the media, it’s a good thing, because now you can grow as fast as you want to grow, as long as you’re internal systems can support it, you don’t implode really smart.

 

Become a member of the Masters Program to learn the skills of a business owner

 

Skills of a Business Owner: Having a Follow-Up System in Place

 

And as you were sharing that, I’m thinking like I’m hearing your words. And actually Dan Kennedy’s voice in my head at the same time, right? Because both of you realize the importance of cost per sale or cost per acquisition, however you want to define it, and because, yes, it’s very common for business owners to think, oh, I’m going to do this loss leader, and I’m going to go red for a little period of time.

 

But unless you have long customer retention and long lifetime value of a customer, you’ll always be negative and a big pocketbook. Right? And most business owners don’t have that. Right. So, you know, I’ve the point now I’d really like to make money acquiring the customer or close at least. And then of course, you better have a follow up system in place when you get the customer.

 

It’s all from all angles, right? So, it’s marketing to me. It’s simple stuff to most people it’s very complicated. But it’s, you know, marketing use marketing as marketing, no matter what the product and service is. And it’s a multi-step process, not just one hit either. Most of your customers will come from the second through the seventh contact with prospect.

 

Okay, huge gold nugget right there. And okay. So let’s go a little bit deeper there because I think that there’s a perception that well, if I’m going to go online or if I’m going to spend some money on Facebook or I’m going to spend some money on Google AdWords or whatever, people are going to, you know, fall into my sales funnel.

 

And in that expecting that immediate result outcome and not realizing that it may take a day, it may take a few weeks, it might even take a decade for somebody to be nurtured to the point where they’re going to make a purchase, if at all. And it sounds like you guys have really built out a cool system that sure, there are some people who buy right away, but there are some people who take repetition and is true.

 

You know, I got a million videos on YouTube or whatever it is, I don’t know, I don’t ever go on YouTube. But a lot of people come to me and they tell me, I’ve been watching you on YouTube for months. Well that’s great. Okay. I’m glad you’re watching me. Means you got to be bored. I can tell you that.

 

But now let’s see. That’s a free medium everybody should be using is YouTube. Get your videos out on YouTube. I don’t care what your business is. A restaurant or doctor’s office or whatever. And, best thing to put out there is testimonials. And if you don’t have them, get them. But, any of the free media, you’re getting so much social media today, it is free, for crying out loud.

 

It’s kind of remiss of businesses not use that because that’s where a lot of the, I would say that’s where a majority of the customers come from. For businesses today is the social media stuff. Well, testimonials are so important, especially in the expert space that you’re in where you’re selling your expertise and knowledge. Like those testimonials are gold because it’s your social proof, right?

 

Yeah, yeah. Then believe others before they believe you. Of course. This has been so helpful. I appreciate your generosity and sharing your smarts with our audience, Ron. 

 

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Skills of a Business Owner: How To Connect With Ron

 

So, I know that we covered a lot. But before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, I want to be respectful of your schedule and any final advice, any final recommendations you’d like to share with our audience?

 

And then please do tell us the best way to connect with you. The best way to connect with me. I mean, I’ve got so much free stuff. RonLeGrand.com is pretty much, the easiest way to get to me, but there’s a bunch of free stuff on there, and you’ll see our schedule and what we do and all of that.

 

That’s from Grand Negra. And no, don’t spend it with and don’t let everybody else also do that or, and you know, looking back, if I were to start all over again, the first thing that I would do is to tack on to somebody who knows what it is I’m trying to do and has been there and done that and get behind the scenes and learn what I can about this thing.

 

And I’m trying to do. I wouldn’t do that when I was, you know, I wouldn’t do it any other way when I’m not young anymore. Learn from the people who have already done it and don’t have a dog, and on, for that matter, learn from the people who are. Everybody’s willing to teach you if you let them teach you and share with you.

 

Everybody wants to share with you. So I would just find the fellow who follows his dreams and latch on to him and make sure they’re qualified, because most people, everybody’s got free advice, don’t they? As for what it cost, but I always say broke people cannot teach you how to get rich. They’re not qualified. So careful who you choose to learn from as well.

 

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Skills of a Business Owner: Final Advice from Ron

 

And frankly, learning is the first step. But the hardest is implementing, easier to learn, much harder to implement. So if we stop at the learning free phase, what are we accomplished? And there’s absolutely nothing. And then again, along that line, hey, you’re not going to be perfect. You’re not even going to be good. In fact, in the beginning, you’re going to suck bad.

 

Everybody sucks. Okay. Little success at a time until you don’t suck anymore. So, you know, that’s the way it is with any business. I mean, in my youth, in my restaurants galley, I did most lot. I made a bunch of dumb mistakes. And, over a few years, you know, I finally got better on the skills of a business owner. So I finally sold my last one last September.

 

Well, good timing for me. this past month, the one before. Well, great timing for me. So anyway, hang in there. Keep going. Don’t quit and learn everything you can learn as fast as you can learn it and implement. I love how you said you know about the sucking piece that that was funny, but but all joking aside though, that helps set expectations.

 

Yeah, it is hard work. This is not a get rich quick scheme that it takes application. learn what you can from people who have done it before it. My guess is it was annoying early on in your business when you’re talking about real estate and so forth, and people around you who had never done what you were trying to do, or offered you opinions about why that wasn’t going to be successful.

 

Right? Yeah, that’s still that way today has a never ending supply of people have no idea what they’re talking.

 

Oh my gosh. wow. Okay. Onward Nation. No matter how many times you go back and re listen to Ron’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do. The key is you have to take these golden nuggets. You have to take what he so generously shared with you and apply them into your business and accelerate your results.

 

And Ron, I am so grateful that you took time out of your compressed schedule to come on our show to be our mentor and guide to help us move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much my friend. You are welcome sir. There’s nothing I like better than working with people who want to get more out of life and can lead others to do the same thing.

 

It’s been my pleasure. This episode is complete, so head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

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