Entrepreneurship and Marketing: Six Principles to Succeed in Business with Jim Britt

This week, Eric Dickmann interviews Jim Britt. Jim is the author of numerous best-selling books and programs. Some of his many titles include Rings of Truth, Do This. Get Rich-For Entrepreneurs, Do This. Get Rich! for Network Marketers, Unleashing Your Authentic Power, The Power of Letting Go, and Cracking the Rich Code. He is an internationally recognized business leader who is highly sought after as a keynote speaker for all audiences.

Jim was recently named as one of the world’s top 20 success coaches, the top 50 speakers world-wide, and presented with the “Best of the Best” award out of the top 100 contributors of all time to the Direct Selling industry.

In this episode, Jim shares his thoughts on marketing and discusses six key principles for success in business.

Eric Dickmann can be found on Twitter @EDickmann and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/edickmann and his website https://ericdickmann.com

Jim Britt can be found online on LinkedIn at https://jimbrittcoaching.com/ and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-britt/

Episode Summary: The episode summary can be found at:  Coming Soon!

If you'd like to contact us with feedback or guest inquiries, please visit:
https://fiveechelon.com/podcast

For more information about Virtual CMO strategic marketing consulting services, visit The Five Echelon Group at https://fiveechelon.com
 
Episode #51

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Transcript

Carla: 0:01

The Virtual CMO podcast is sponsored by the strategic marketing consulting services of The Five Echelon Group. If you’d like to work directly with The Five Echelon Group and receive personal coaching and support to optimize your business, enhance your marketing effectiveness and grow your revenue, visit Five Echelon.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation.

Eric Dickmann: 0:24

Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann. In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business. This week, I'm excited to welcome Jim Britt to the program. Jim is the author of numerous bestselling books and programs. Some of his many titles include Rings of Truth. Do This, Get Rich for Entrepreneurs, Do This, Get Rich for Network Marketers, Unleashing Your Authentic Power, The Power of Letting Go and Cracking the Rich Code. He is an internationally recognized business leader who is highly sought after as a keynote speaker for all audiences. Jim was recently named as one of the world's top 200 success coaches, the top 50 speakers in the world and presented with the best of the best award out of the top. 100 contributors of all time to the direct selling industry. I think you're going to enjoy this wide ranging conversation with Jim Britt. Hey, Jim, welcome to this episode of The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm so glad you could join us today.

Jim Britt: 1:37

Hey, well, thanks Eric. Glad to be here.

Eric Dickmann: 1:39

You know, this is great because you're going to be my first guest. Of 2021, it just seems like so much has been crazy this past year. Everybody's sort of looking out to this new year with a fresh outlook. And so I think you're a perfect guest to have on here. I'd love to start out just to give the audience a little bit of background in terms of you. I'd love to hear just a little about your journey to becoming an entrepreneur. Have you always had this bug of entrepreneurialship?

Jim Britt: 2:09

You know, I don't know if I have or not. I, I know, um, uh, my, my work ethic started when I was six years old. Um, I guess that was entrepreneurship as well. Uh, my family, basically, we picked cotton. Okay. And you've ever picked cotton it's so you probably have it.

Eric Dickmann: 2:29

No, I haven't. I can't say I have,

Jim Britt: 2:31

it's really hard work. We got paid 2 cents a pound. And a pound of cotton. Doesn't, I mean, it takes a lot of cotton to weigh a pound. You know, you could get a basket of cotton like this, you've got maybe three pounds. It, so, um, so as, as a six year old, my, my target was always to try to pick enough to make a dollar in a day. And, and, and, and I don't think I reached that until I was about eight. Uh, so that was my first work experience. And. You know, the whole family had to go pick cotton, my brother and two sisters, mother, dad, um, and probably today they would arrested my parents for childhood. We had to have the money basically and survive. So, uh, but I learned from that, that, that working hard, you know, physical work is not gonna, not going to get you ahead in life. If you gotta, you gotta work with your own two hands. I mean, nothing wrong with that. If that's something you want to do, but, um, But it's not going to get you ahead financially. So, uh, I kind of learned that deep down and then my second job, I dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. And my second job was working in a gas station, pumping gas, and I got paid a dollar an hour and I worked 60 hours a week, no overtime, and I'll never forget. I took on$52 and 10 cents every week. Uh, but I worked hard and, and I think I liked my job. I, I took pride in what I was doing. Uh, but again, uh, I worked hard, but I knew that wasn't going to get me anywhere, but deepen my mind. I'm throwing, you know, if I could only get the job down the street and the factory, um, working on the assembly line, that was kinda my dream job. And. One day, a fellow came in pumping gas and we got into conversation. Long story short, he worked at the factory and he was a supervisor and he said, you should come and apply. And I said, well, it takes a high school diploma. I don't have one. He said, you know, I'm a supervisor. I I'll pull some strings, got hired, went to work there 9,000 employees. And within six months, uh, they rated you on an efficiency rating. They'd give you this job to do, and you have so much time. Okay. Telephone switchboards, basically. Okay. Um, I was number one out of 9,000 employees. Well, that wasn't making any more money. He was of was four, four, 457%. So I was doing the job of 4.57 people on going, okay, well, this is not getting me anywhere either. I could see my future was. Not there, but again, didn't know where to go. And the way my entrepreneurship started out, um, one night I was working a swing shift, got off at 12, 1230 in the morning and fellow walks up to me and he said, Hey Brett. He said, you're going to work here the rest of your life. And I'm going, man, I don't know, maybe. And, and he said, come and go to this meeting with me. He said, I think it's something we could do to make some actions for money. And I said, well, what is it? And he said, I don't know, they just told me to come and bring somebody with me. And I said, well, I'm not your guy. I said, unless you can tell me what it is. He said, I'll tell you what you come with with me to the meeting tomorrow night. And he said, uh, I'll buy the beer afterwards. Oh, there you go. I said, well, what, time's the meeting? I went there for the beer, but I sat there and listened to a presentation. Uh, it was a direct selling company. And the second speaker, I'll never forget. He gets up and starts talking about how you make money. In in this business and he wrote the figure$2,000 a month on the board, which really piqued my interest because that was wealth to me. And I sat up and took notice and I started telling myself, I'm going to do this. Not only am I going to do it, I'm going to get rich doing it. And so the meeting was over. I found out it cost$4,000 to, to become one of their distributors. And, um, I only had$9. So I ended up going to 23 banks and loan companies to borrow the money. And finally, the 23rd one loan me the$4,000. And. The next I started business. I didn't know what to do. And the next year I ended up losing everything. I owned, I Apollo my cars, my furniture, everything. I had a wife, a child, a notice on my door saying from the sheriff saying, you gotta be out in five days. And I had 15 cents in my pocket. And. That was a turning point for me because somebody knocked on my door. I'm thinking it's probably a bill collector, but I had nothing to give them. So I opened it door and it was somebody from the company and they spent two hours with me and taught me what I was doing wrong and what I needed to be doing. And my business took off like a rocket. And the next 12 months I earned myself just shy of a million bucks. Oh my God. It can tell you how fast things can turn around. So I got the entrepreneurial bug, but then during that year, even I started a second business based on the money I was earning from the first one. So, uh, both of them together made me almost a million bucks. And, um, just, uh, I can't imagine now working for anybody, uh, I've been an entrepreneur for the last 45 years or so.

Eric Dickmann: 8:07

That's so interesting to me, because it was a bit of school of hard knocks, the in order to get you on that entrepreneurial path. And yet we've got so many guests that we have on this show who are aspiring entrepreneurs, and I'm sure you see a lot in your coaching practices as well, that they have a great idea, but they just don't know how to make money from it. It's not enough just to have a good idea. Is it.

Jim Britt: 8:31

No, it's not, uh, I mean, there's a lot of good ideas out there and if you don't act upon it pretty quickly and figure out how to get it out to the public, somebody else is going to have it because it seems like new ideas that come, come and go pretty fast. You know, somebody else's going to invent something. So, so yeah, you've got to, you've got to figure it out. And I think, you know, Uh, people need basically any entrepreneur needs PR marketing branding in a way to generate leads. And if they don't have those four things, then, uh, uh, to one degree or another depends on the type of entrepreneur it is. Um, but, uh, you just get left in the dust if you don't have those. So do you remember back what was or. The one thing or the couple of things that when you were pulled aside and they said, this is what you're doing wrong. If you would do these things right, you could change your business. What were those things? Yeah. And th this is probably one of the best marketing tools I ever got, actually the best advice that I ever got. Uh, and, and the funny thing is I don't even remember the person. I remember his first name. And, and, and I never saw him again, but what he first asked me what I've been doing. And I said, well, the training I got a year ago was your job is talking to people. If you talk a little, you learn a little, if you talk a lot, you'll learn a lot. I said, well, how much is a lot? You said 10 a day. I said, okay, I'll do the 10. So we didn't have any kind of tracking system or computers or anything else. So every morning I'd put 10 beans in my pocket and go out the door and talk to 10 people a day. And every time I'd talk to somebody I'd flip a bean away. So that was my tracking system. And for a year I did not miss a day talking to 10 people. Holidays, no exception. So. I said, well, I've talked in the last year, I've talked to 3,650 people. He said, well, let me ask you a question. He says, how do you know if you have a viable process? I said, well, I guess if they buy from you and he said, no, he said, uh, how do you know if they're even going to buy from even a possibility? And I said, I don't know. And he said, well, Obviously, you don't know, not there I've been in your jaws for 12 months and you haven't made any money, so you gotta be doing something wrong. He said here's one key. He said, in order to have a viable prospect, you've got to arrive at three destinations. He said, number one is, do they have a pain or problem? Number two, do they want to solve it? And number three, can you solve it? And you said, if they have a pain or a problem and they don't want to solve it, you don't have a prospect. And if they have one and they want to solve it, but you can't solve it, you don't have a prospect. So you've got to have all three of those things and, and he's, and I said, well, how do you know if they have a pain or a problem? And he said, well, it's certainly not what you've been doing. He said, you need to ask questions. And I said, what kind of questions? He said, you know, it really doesn't matter. I said, well, I'm confused. He said, you meet somebody new. You're at a party. You're on an airplane. You're at a coffee shop. He says, you meet somebody new and start spark the conversation. He said, what do you ask them? You live around here. What do you do for work? Uh, you know, are you married or do you have kids? What do you do for fun? You know, whatever. Uh, do you like fishing? Well, he said it doesn't matter. One question leads to something else. And, and that's something else will lead to something else. And I said, well, why would I want to do all of that? He said, you're trying to find out what their pain is. I said, well, they're not just going to give me their pain. He said, yes, they will. If you ask enough questions, do you like your job? No, that's a pain, definitely that you think you're worth? No, that's a pain. He said there they've got two kids ready to go to college. And it's going to cost a lot of money. That's a pain. He said, there's a lot, everybody's got pains. And he said, you know what? They'll share it with you. If you sincerely asked the question. So he said, I'm going to give you the key to success right here. He said, if you live your life this way, doesn't matter whether you're selling something or just living your life this way, every time you meet somebody, always be thinking, what can I do to help this person? And he said not about selling them something, not about making money off of them or any, it's just, what can you do to help this person? And he said, maybe it is that you're going to sell them something, but maybe it's not, maybe you're going to give them a referral. Maybe you're going to help them out in some way. Maybe you've got a knowledge that would benefit them and their family or whatever. He said, always be thinking that and. Quite frankly, that's what I've done for the last 45 years.

Eric Dickmann: 13:33

It is practice those same principles.

Jim Britt: 13:36

Exactly.

Eric Dickmann: 13:36

It's amazing because when I talk to my clients, you know, these are the kinds of things that we go over and over again, because it seems like, although this isn't revolutionary in terms of this practice, you can pick up so many business books out there, right? And they will refer to similar kinds of concepts. So many people don't do it. I just, before this call, I was going through some email that I had received from unsolicited email and I had no idea why they were contacting me, but they were asking to schedule a call with me. You know, they haven't, they don't know what any of my pain points are. They don't know anything about it. They don't even know anything about my business yet. Somehow they think they have something so great to offer that I should schedule time in my day to have a call with them.

Jim Britt: 14:21

Exactly.

Eric Dickmann: 14:22

This isn't a random thing that happens, right. This happens all the time. It's persistent. So I gather, I mean, what have you written, uh, is it like 15 books now?

Jim Britt: 14:31

15 books.

Eric Dickmann: 14:32

And I'm sure a lot of these messages are the core to what you're talking about in these books.

Jim Britt: 14:39

They are, they are. And, uh, yeah. I mean, even if you're, if you don't have direct contact with somebody and you're writing a sales piece or an ad or something like that, uh, the same thing has to happen. You've got to you've, you've got to, you've got to get the client or the prospect. Too in their own mind to, to ask the question to themselves, basically. Sure. You've, you've got to, if somebody's in a certain type of business, well, what are their potential pains? And, and I, I learned with general audiences that, uh, there's only about six problems in the whole world and everybody thinks theirs is unique, but there's only a half a dozen and. Yeah. So there's a billion people out there with the same problem, but it's really connecting with the people, um, on a level that gets them to ask that question in their own mind. Uh, if you can't get in front of them and, and, and speak with them. And, you know, I think the reason, a lot of people don't. Accomplish what they set out to accomplish. Um, I discovered, uh, not only through my own experience, but from experiences, some very high level people, very successful people that I I've known over the years and still know, um, that there's, there's a half a dozen things that is required. Call them traits, whatever you want, but a half a dozen things required. To accomplish anything you want to accomplish in life. And when you look at, um, the things that you have accomplished, chances are you've used those six things you might get by with five on some of them, but typically it takes all six things. If you want to get ahead, um, in a big way and those things, number one, I mean, I look back at my. My first experience. Well, how many people would go and talk to 10 people a day for a year and get 3,650 people that told them no, and not give up. Now, when I look back on that, I'm going, you know, was I just stupid or what? I mean here I am. I lost my home, my cars. I got 15 cents in my pocket and a wife and a child. I mean, Who would go to that extreme? Now I'm not saying to, people need to go to that extreme, right. But, uh, number one, first and foremost, that you have to have a desire to change. If you want to change something. Uh, if you want something more in your life, whether it's money or a better relationship or better health or lose weight or whatever it is, these six things are required to accomplish that. That's number one, you've got to have a desire to change. So if you take money for example, cause we're speaking here to entrepreneurs primarily, um, all entrepreneurs want to make money, right? That's the reason we're in business. So, um, You could probably go ask a thousand people on any street corner in any, any city in the world. If they want to make more money, uh, successful people are not successful and everyone will tell you yes, pretty much. Um, but how many actually do. Maybe 5%, 10%, but there's about 90% that really have a problem with money. They have a problem with their relationship with money and how they see money. And it's not, it's not something they made up. It's something they were programmed with. So yeah, you, you see, you can have a desire to change. And I had one, I mean, a burning desire to have something more than working in the factory, but the second step is, is so critical. And, you know, I was taught back then to set goals and put up pictures on the wall of things I wanted to accomplish and all that kind of stuff and vision boards, they didn't call them vision boards back then notes on my ceiling. So I could see them when I woke up in the morning. Well, nothing happened, nothing happened, but you've got to have that second step, which is making a decision that doesn't allow for anything less. Then what you want to accomplish. See desire is not enough, right? Does it take you anywhere? You can, you can desire all day long, but you've got to got to go to that next step because the decision creates, uh, that creates a mindset. It's a foundation that you build upon. If your decision is weak, it's like if you, you take a circle and leave a little opening at the top. Let's say this circle is a decision, but there's a little opening at the top. That's your exit? That's your excuse. Sure. And you can't have that with decisions and opening, why even make it, because you're going to exit, you're going to find some reason why it's not going to work. See, I made such a strong decision that night in that meeting that I wasn't about to exit. I mean, I S I saw where I could make some money and, and have a life that I wanted to live. So, um, uh, that decision, not only does it create a mindset, but it determines how you show up to the world. And even more importantly, how the world shows up to support. You see, you know, you look at like the law of attraction. Yeah. Kind of, I kind of see that, but, but again, it's been out there for many years and how many people actually have gotten ahead using the law of attraction? Good point. You have to become attractive. Hmm. And when you change your view of the world changes, you make the decision to do a certain thing. Like you want to make more money. If you didn't want to make more money, why, why would you look for opportunities? If you want to make more money than you make a decision to do it, and then opportunities show up in you and your viewpoint and people show up to support you. Uh, you know, if you, whatever it is you want to accomplish, it seems that. If you've made a firm decision, it's like little miracles happen, you know, people show up and you go, wow, I got this phone call or I got this or that, you know, so that's so important.

Eric Dickmann: 20:54

It does make a lot of sense. And I think, burn, the boats, you want to make a decision. Uh, you want to say that this is my goal. You want to make this promise to yourself and you want to push ahead and say, this is what's going to happen and, change that mindset. But this, this often flies in the face of what I hear sometimes from aspiring entrepreneurs or small business owners that look at other people's success and they say, Well, they just got lucky or it was just good timing. And I think you've probably dealt with a whole lot more entrepreneurs than I have. That's rarely the case. Sometimes it plays into it. Right. But there's usually a lot more to it than that.

Jim Britt: 21:33

Well, you, you create your luck and you create timing, you know, um, everybody knows Tony Robbins, right? So Tony, Tony, uh, I actually hired Tony and was his trainer. I trained him for his first four years in the business. So when I was business partners with Jim Rome and, uh, so he worked under my direction and. And, uh, I never thought he would do what he's done. No, I mean, cause I knew Tony back then, but he was a kid, he was a young kid, but one thing he was really good at is, is learning things and applying them and he would execute and he was really good at selling. And you might say, well, Great timing that it got on that infomercial. If he hadn't had his, his ability to sell and sell himself, Guthy, Renker would never have picked him up. And if it wasn't for Tony Guthy Renker, wouldn't, wouldn't be what they are today. Um, so it was perfect timing for both of them, but they created the timing and, you know, yeah, it was a big break. I mean, uh, Chicken soup for the soul. Yeah, they've sold what a billion books or something. Um, you know, Jack and Mark are friends of mine and, uh, I was around when they created the first book and then they tried to get 200 different publishers to publish it. Finally got one little publisher to take it on and look what's happened. You know, so from the outside, somebody might look at that and say, well, they just got lucky. Somebody picked it up and it's all, or Tony's done all that. Yeah. But there was all this work that went in behind the scenes before they ever got to that point. Yeah. The biggest, you know, people will a good example, somebody sitting in their office and, and they have a, uh, a view of the elevator through their window. And, and this high-level person comes in, whoever it might be comes in, gets on the elevator, goes to the penthouse for their office. And every day they come in and they see them and they go, God, I liked it. They've got their guards around him or something. He said, I like to meet that person. I really want to meet that person. I think that person's got the answer to what I'm looking for. But they keep just looking and seeing the person getting on the elevator up and down and up at them. So what are they supposed to do? Get on the elevator. If it takes all day long, sit on the elevator all day long until that person shows up. If you want to meet him, that that's what I call luck. Put yourself in a position of being lucky.

Eric Dickmann: 24:14

I think that's such great advice and so true. Right? You want to make your own luck. You don't want to wait on the cosmos to sort of do it for you.

Jim Britt: 24:20

Yeah.

Eric Dickmann: 24:21

You've mentioned a few, few names throughout this interview today, and you've had the good fortune. I don't know whether you would call some of these people mentors or just peers, but there are obviously some points in your journey or you did get some clear mentorship. How important do you think that is for a business leader today or an entrepreneur, first of all, to, to find good mentorship or coaching? And give back, and be mentors to others who are, coming up along the way.

Jim Britt: 24:54

Well, I think it's important both ways, uh, you know, to have a mentor or a coach. I never really looked at at Jim Roan. As my mentor, he did tell me that was Jim. That was Tony's mentor Jim Roan. Um, I just happened to be there training at Mon on how to do the business, but, um, you know, Jim, Jim, I think I learned from him looking back on it, a lot of my style and what I do. I asked him a few questions, you know, how do you, how do you become a, how to become a good speaker? They said, well, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta be able to tell stories. You gotta, you gotta be able to be passionate about, uh, the topics that you want to talk about. And I said, well, what kind of topics he's well, what are you passionate about? And I thought for a minute, and I said, goal setting, personal development and attitude. And he said, okay, well go study those three and become passionate about it. And he said, And never forget. He said become a gatherer of stories. As awardee find stories. He said, they're everywhere. He said, they're in a newspaper. When you read it in the morning, you can come up with a story to tell there, you know, your kids there's stories to tell there. He said, you'll come up. If you just open up and listen, you'll come up with so many stories. Get being the limo from the airport to the hotel. It could be the person behind the desk at the hotel could be the bellman at the door. He said, there's stories everywhere. And I took that to heart. And, uh, now I'm known as one of the best storytellers. So it's, I gathered, in fact I wrote a book. Uh, one of my 12th book was what I've learned from my six sons. And it's all stories that I've gathered and kept notes on over the years. So it, you know, and Jim had a very low key style. Okay. Um, you know, he wasn't a motivator. He was just, he just discussed things and, and had a unique way of presenting it. Well, that's kinda my style, you know, I can, I can sit on a bar stool for four hours in front of 5,000 people and never get up. Or I know other, people's got to go back and forth on the stage and different things that they do, which is fine. That's their style, but I have more of a conversational style. That gets, it gets people to open up and listen, and I understand what people are going through so I can kinda help, uh, tap into those emotions and feelings and what, what they're actually experiencing it because I've probably experienced it.

Eric Dickmann: 27:34

Well, I love what you're saying there, because it really ties in what you started out talking about, which is to really understand the people that you want to do business with you have to listen, you have to be prepared to understand what they're going through, their pain points, their motivations and one of the reasons, or one of the ways that you can do that is by being empathetic to build trust and telling stories. I know when I go to a trade show, if we ever do those again, when you get up and you meet somebody and you introduce yourself, or they introduce themselves, if you just sort of exchange names or where you're from, that's not a whole lot to hold on to. Right. But if they would tell you a little story about their son who just had a skiing accident in Colorado or something like that, all of a sudden you would have more insight into them. You would have more connection with them because it came in the form of a story.

Jim Britt: 28:25

Yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely correct. Yeah. And you know, Jim's point was, uh, he said, you know, if you tell a story and make a point, people will remember the story and the point you just make the point. They're probably not going to remember it. So he said either make the point, tell a story, or tell a story and make the, and that's one of the things I learned from him. And, and, um, so I, I guess you would say Jim was probably my. My number one mentor. Um, even though at that time, I didn't didn't think anything about it. Um, since then I kind of, I don't know. I learned from all kinds of people, I watch people that are unsuccessful and learn from it. Cause I think, I think everybody. Is is a, a mentor or everybody's got something good to say, or you can learn from everybody, everybody's a student and a teacher, or at least they should be, um, some people teach and they don't even know they're teaching just from who they are. And I'm like, Jim Rohn used to say, he said, if you want to, if you want to get rich, you can learn from poor people. He said, watch what they do and don't do it. Pretty simple. Very simple. So, so anyway, back, back to the fixed things, th the third thing you've got to do as an entrepreneur, especially, uh, after you've made that decision, you got to take action. You know, you, you've got to, you've got to step up and take action. And there's so many people that are, they, they want to start a business and they decide to do it, and then they're getting ready to get gone. They got to have all of this stuff. It takes a month to put all this stuff together. Well, maybe a lot of that's important What can you do right now today that will move you forward. That's the key got to take action, even if it's small steps and you know, somebody say, well, I don't have a business card. Well, so what. Become memorable without it, you know, write it down on a piece of paper, whatever it is, it keep moving forward. That's key to, uh, you know, being an entrepreneur, you got to learn to shoot from the hip you can't keep getting ready to get going to me. That's an excuse for not getting going you're not going to succeed. So they think they, if I just do all of this stuff and get everything ready, Um, you know, it's like somebody going out and being certified to become a coach. I spoke with somebody just the other day that spent$10,000 getting certified. And I said, well, what's your marketing budget? I'm broke. I said, well,

Eric Dickmann: 30:59

how is anybody going to know about that?

Jim Britt: 31:01

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how are you going to market yourself? I don't know. Yeah. And that's a problem. It's not that they're not good at what they do. It's that you got to have the full package and you got to figure out some way, uh, in a direct sales business, somebody goes, well, What do I do to start? I said, pick up your cell phone. And if you've got 500 people in their spare, calling them call all 500 of them in a week, I said, that'll get your business up and running. So it's taking action instead of waiting. So that's number three. And number four is critical too. And I think four and five kind of go together in some ways. But you gotta be bold in today's marketplace. You've got to step up and take center stage, uh, step into the spotlight because it's not going to find you. So if you look at Tony, I mean, what Tony has done over the years is just amazing. And he just keeps going, man. I mean, nothing is going to stop him. I mean, look at what he's done with, uh, online, uh, seminars now. Oh, it's crazy. I get 20,000 people on an online pro uh, program for, you know, for a thousand dollars I had, and he's got this incredible room that he set up. Yeah. Average person couldn't do that. It probably cost them a couple million dollars. I'm sure. But, I mean, he just doesn't stop. No. And he may have found a better way to even go present seminars. Now he doesn't have to go travel anywhere. Um, but that's what you've gotta do. You gotta be bold. Um, I love them. It's just critical in today's marketplace. Um, which brings up the next topic, which is, or the next trait. Um, Is you gotta be willing to experience some pain. You're going to get ahead in life. You know, my philosophy is that that every income level and every life level requires a different you. And if you're not willing to experience some pain, to discover that new view, you'll probably end up staying right where you are. Um, so you've got to be willing to step out of that comfort zone. Somebody asked me the other day, they said, well, what was your biggest one? I said, well, you know, the first year I only knew like nine people in the factory. You had a few neighbors. So was it uncomfortable for me to go out and talk to 10 people every day for a year? Yeah, it was uncomfortable. And now people say, well, how do you handle rejection now? And I said, I did that when I was 22 years old.

Eric Dickmann: 33:43

So you learned all about rejection, then

Jim Britt: 33:46

it's like, I got all of it, but it was uncomfortable. Every person I talked to for the most part was uncomfortable, but you know what I learned from that one of the best years of my life, I learned how to talk to people. I've learned how to meet strangers. I mean, I learned how to be bold. I learned how to step out of my comfort zone. I learned how to create stuff. If I couldn't find somebody to talk to, I pick up a phone and dial the wrong number. You know, anything to, to succeed, you know?

Eric Dickmann: 34:13

and this was before the days of LinkedIn InMails and other things, it was either in person or on the phone, right?

Jim Britt: 34:18

It was, that was it, man. I mean, that was it. So, um, so my, but that question, they asked me, what was your, what, what, what was the biggest fear that you had of stepping out of your comfort zone? I said public speaking was my biggest fear. I mean, My first talk, I did, I got kind of hooked into it by accident. And it was only for about 30 people. Bella booked me into it. One of my salespeople with Jim Rohn and I just, I was scared of death for months. I was scared of death right up to the time that I was getting ready to go do the talk. I was in the hotel. I couldn't sleep. I didn't sleep any all night. I was trying to figure out how do I get out of this? And I couldn't come up with anything until about seven o'clock that morning. I'm going, you know, I'm going to go have an accident in my car so I could not have bad, bad one, just, you know, fender bender of some kind. So I could point at it and say, that's why I was late. I had an accident. Okay. And I thought that's what I'm going to do. I mean, I, I was actually going to go to that, looking back on it. I think that's pretty. Yeah, but I'm scared. I'm scared and notes. I mean, I'd written notes on what I was going to talk about. I probably had that many notes, probably enough to talk for 10 days now. Um, and that morning I was getting ready to leave and somebody knocks on my hotel door. Open the door thinking it's probably room service or, or the cleaning. And it was the guy that looked me into the talk and he said, I came to pick you up and I'm going well, I'll drive. And he said, no, I'll drive. And I said, well, I really want to drive. And he said, I'm parked in front of the door. Come on. I'm gone. Okay. Now, do I grab the wheel while he's driving? Or what do I do? How do I get out of this? And I couldn't get out of it. So I ended up doing the talk and I don't remember what I said. I have no idea. Um, all I remember is I couldn't see the people. It was like, I was blinded by fear and at the end of it, they clapped and I couldn't wait to get outside. So I walk outside waiting on my, my friend that booked me in there and I thought never again. Never again, will I ever put myself in a position to feel like that? Never again. So I've thought for a little bit longer than going well, Jim Britt, you got one of two choices, never do it again. Or do it often until you got to get better at it. The first one we occurred to me, never do it again. Right. Then I thought about it a little bit. I'm going okay. I'm just going to have to push myself. Yeah. And so I went back and over the next 30 days, I announced over 300 salespeople that we had, that I would do presentations for them. Like I did for this guy. I would do presentation for them as long as there were 50 people. And I do up to three a day and I averaged three a day for the next five years. Wow. So was talk about overcoming that fear, right? But, you know what, at the end of five years, I've done a lot of other seminars and things too, but, um, but I was still, I was still afraid and I'll never, never forget when I, I kind of, kind of got what people are looking for and I got what holds them back in life. And I will never forget walking in to the back of the room in park city, Utah opening the doors. There's about 400 people waiting for me. And my first thought was, let me add them all the fear went away. And it was something that I learned that. That really gave me the confidence that I could answer any question that anybody brought up about what's going on inside them. Oh, interesting. And that did it for me. And I've never had fear since I don't, you know, I don't plan out how am I going to start my talk or anything. I just go out on stage and start and, uh, and it always unfolds perfectly.

Eric Dickmann: 38:39

I really liked that. Cause I've heard other speakers say the same and that, you know, we tend to learn from our fears and our mistakes and what we overcome, successes kind of get blurry after a while. We forget how we got there, but you tend to remember those key moments in your life when you had to overcome something. Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level? If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO onsulting service may be a great fit for you. We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution, step-by-step. We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads. How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers. How to strategically package and position your products and services. How to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business. To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services. Now back to the podcast. So what's number six. Number six was. I was on a panel one day and somebody says, what is asking me a question? What is the number one thing that you've learned above all else? That's been the most beneficial for you in your life? Oh God, I had that question for you too.

Jim Britt: 40:00

And I said learning to let go, learning to let go. Um, you see, we get, we get programmed. I mentioned earlier that people's relationship to money. Um, There was a fellow that I was talking with about a month ago. And he said, he said, I haven't been able to pay my bills on time or fully each month for 25 years. And I said, wow, that's a long time. I said, what are you gonna do about it? He said, well, I'm thinking about cutting my overhead. And I said, well, there's nothing wrong with that. But I said, um, In two, maybe three months at the outside, you'll be back not being able to pay your bills on time. He said, well, how do you know that? I said, well, you've been doing it for 25 years. Yeah. And you've been trying to break that cycle. And I said, you're addicted to it. And I said, that's the problem. It's an emotional addiction. It's a core belief that you have that you will do anything in your power. To prove to yourself and the outside world, that what you believe is true, even to your detriment. Instead if somebody doesn't walk you how to walk you through how to break that cycle, I said, you'll live out the rest of your life. Not being able to pay your bills on time. So learning to let go is, is, uh, it's a critical thing in business critical, especially if you're an entrepreneur. I mean, it's, it's. For example, I mean, people say, well, it's hard to let go. Well, I've got this mouse in my hand. Um, just because it's in my hand does not mean I have to keep it in my hand for the rest of my life. Sure. I can put it down just because you lost money in the past. Doesn't mean you have to carry that around for the rest of your life, just because you had a breakup in a relationship. And you don't want it to happen again? Doesn't mean you have to carry that around for the rest of your life. Yes. Um, just because you had a health challenge or whatever it might be, but if you relate it to entrepreneurship, we have so many failures, you know, their failings, I guess, uh, Some people fail, but I don't look at it that way. I just look at it. It's something that didn't work or you approached it incorrectly? Uh, it was like the, all the people I talked to the first year I approached it incorrectly. Um, I did an infomercial many years back. Uh, I spent three quarters of a million dollars on, and I get a call from Kevin Harrington. Uh, from shark tank, who's now a good friend of mine and actually a business partner, but I've never met Kevin and he calls me and congratulated me on the show. And he's the number one infomercial producer in the country. He said a great look and show. And he said, I just wanted to congrats. I just watched these one of the best look at shows I've ever seen. Well, it didn't work. It looked really good. Look good, but didn't sell it. So I spent another 50,000 doing a little editing and trying it again. And then I just go, okay, well, it didn't work. So there's three quarters of a million down a drain. Well, I could, I could still be buried in that going, Oh my God. It that as a, just worked. It's just something that didn't work. We've got some good footage out of it, a little expensive footage, but we got to meet a lot of great people, you know, but, um, but that's the key is the ability to cut the tie.

Eric Dickmann: 43:43

not keep that emotional baggage.

Jim Britt: 43:45

Oh, all stress, all stress in my opinion, comes from trying to control things over, which you have no control.

Eric Dickmann: 43:53

Yeah. So true.

Jim Britt: 43:54

There's something doesn't work. You have no control over trying to control an outcome in a sales presentation. The best way to do that is in your presentation, not in trying to control what that person's going to do, but control what you can do. You know, if it's something you can take action to change and improve the situation, take action. There's no action to take. Let it go, man, move on. But you know, we get programmed, uh, About everything. And I mentioned that 90% of the people will never make the money that, that they desire to make simply because they're programmed that they're in that addictive cycle and they don't know they're in it. So it's like a self-imposed prison that they're trying so hard to break out of. And every time they try to break out of it, one that they don't know they're in. If they try to break out of it, Uh, and fail it strengthens the cycle. It strengthens the bars on the prison building. So it's not that hard to, to break it. I mean, I spent an hour with somebody, uh, in coaching and typically I get this, I don't need any more sessions. I got it because it makes sense though. If you can get somebody to understand logically what they're doing. And so that they see what they're doing, what cycle they're in, then now it becomes, it becomes a choice that they do these things conscious choice before it's an unconscious choice or they're doing somebody that's a bitterly late for meetings. You've probably, or any appointment, you know, you probably know these people. Yep. Yeah. Well, it's, it's a habit you can count on this person being 15 minutes late. And once they understand that they're doing it now it's a conscious choice. They don't even know they're doing it. They just it's an attention thing. even though it's negative attention, they still get attention.

Eric Dickmann: 45:46

It's still attention. Yeah. Just becoming aware of some of those things, bringing them from your subconscious to your conscious can really make all the difference in terms of you being able to control them just by starting to take note of them.

Jim Britt: 45:59

Well, you mentioned awareness. Here's the way I look at it. You can be aware that you're fearful. You're going to be aware that you're broke. You can be aware that, uh, you're unsuccessful or whatever, but just awareness alone. Doesn't do it. You got to go to the next step and you got to become self observant. You got to catch yourself doing what you're aware of your, if you were literally an angry person, If you catch yourself being angry and stop and observe yourself being angry. I mean, from a higher, higher level looking so, Oh, there I am doing this again. I'll challenge you to stay angry or if you're depressed, observe yourself being depressed and depression will go away because you're cutting the tie. So that internal dialogue that's automatic.

Eric Dickmann: 46:51

You clearly have a wealth of experience, a wealth of stories. I think we could probably go on for several hours, on some of these topics, because I love to get into the details on these things. But, uh, given we're running up on the top of the hour here, I'd love it if we could just conclude today by sharing with the audience a little bit more about, uh, your next projects. you mentioned a couple of books. I know you've written a couple during COVID here that are coming out. where can people find out more about where you'll be online, where you'll be in person and some of these new books that you've written?

Jim Britt: 47:23

One program I have that's that's online. Uh, it's a four month program designed to reprogram your subconscious and your relationship to money. Hmm. Just like when you talk about that's a cracking the rich code.com and I'm also doing a book series that I'm in the sixth volume of that book, um, with Kevin Harrington, from shark tank, um, and Tony Robins has endorsed the series as well. So we have a, it's a collaborative book series, but it also offers PR marketing branding and lead generation to go along with it. So it's a pretty cool package that Kevin and I put together. Uh, but the book is also called cracking rich code. And the key thing that we've done is we've taken a kind of unique approach that the cover of the book. Yeah, it has a picture of Kevin Harrington with his notoriety of shark tank. And everybody knows either Kevin or shark tank, uh, even internationally. And, um, it's got a picture of me as a top 20 success coach and last year pop 20 top 50 speaker, not last year, but the year before. Um, and then Tony Robbins and his endorsement with his picture and we do a different front cover for each of our coauthors. So their pictures right in the center of the book, surrounded by three. Top coaches and speakers. That's co-brand with us. I mean, how do you get to go co-brand with Tony or co-brand with Kevin Harrington. Oh, it's a great, it's a great idea. So it's a, it's a cool package. We've got such talented people in it. They're they're entrepreneurs, they're coaches or speakers or consultants, uh, people that deal directly with the public and Kevin and I are, our objective is to help people to become a key person of influence in their field of business because in today's marketplace, on social media and the internet, if you don't stand out, you get lost. I mean, it's like, everybody's your competition? Uh, not even people outside your, your field of business, because everybody's looking to take up space. Cause a lot of noise. That's what we're doing with that. If anybody's interested in learning more about that, they can just email me@supportatjimbritt.com and I'll get some info to them regarding that. If they'd like to maybe apply to be one of the chapters in the, in the book. And, um, so that's, that's that, and then more about me and my, my books and programs are jimbritt.com. That's J I M B R I T T.com.

Eric Dickmann: 49:53

Oh, that's great, Jim I will make sure that we have all of that linked up in the show notes so that, people can see it find you online. That's a great offer. I really have enjoyed this conversation today. I think you've shared a lot of great wisdom with us. I love the stories and I look forward to continuing the conversation at a future date and time.

Jim Britt: 50:12

Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Eric, for having me here.

Eric Dickmann: 50:17

Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Virtual CMO podcast. For more episodes, go to fiveechelon.com/podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice. And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit fiveechelon.com to learn more about our Virtual CMO consulting services.