Eviter la confusion des affaires avec le fondateur de Carrot.com

Bienvenue sur le podcast BiggerPockets Business.

Afficher le numéro deux.

Une fois que je me suis dit que l’entreprise ne devait pas nécessairement être votre passion, elle devait l’alimenter. Je suis comme oh ok c'est ce dont il s'agit.

Bienvenue dans un MBA du monde réel issu de l'école des durs coups, où les entrepreneurs révèlent ce qu'il faut vraiment pour réussir. Que vous soyez déjà en affaires ou que vous y alliez, ce spectacle est pour vous. C'est BiggerPockets Business.

J: Bienvenue à tous dans le podcast BiggerPockets Business. Je suis votre cohost Jay Scott ici aujourd'hui avec ma charmante cohost et incroyable négociatrice, Carol Scott. Comment allez-vous aujourd'hui Carol Scott?

Carol: Je vais très bien. Même si je dois vous dire que cette dernière négociation sur le nom de domaine me fatigue. Vous savez que je suis un bon négociateur. Comme si j’étais un très bon négociateur, mais dans toute cette situation, je ne sais même pas où aller.

J: Oui, je pense que ce dont parle Carol, c'est que nous avons passé la semaine dernière à négocier pour essayer d'acheter un nom de domaine qui serait précieux pour notre entreprise, mais nous essayons de décider si nous voulons dépenser de l'argent ou non. . Nous négocions avec un vendeur de ce nom de domaine depuis environ une semaine maintenant et nous nous trouvons dans une impasse. Nous devons maintenant déterminer quelles sont les prochaines étapes.

Carol: Ça me tue.

J: Ce qui nous amène au spectacle d’aujourd’hui. Nous avons parlé à un gars qui a récemment dépensé une somme obscène pour acheter son nom de domaine. Nous discutons avec Trevor Mauch, fondateur de Carrot.com, une société de logiciels qui aide les investisseurs immobiliers et les agents immobiliers à se démarquer, à convertir davantage de prospects et à conclure davantage d’affaires. Donc, des trucs géniaux dans cet épisode.

Trevor va nous dire pourquoi, lorsqu'il construit une entreprise, il ne la construit pas nécessairement autour de sa passion. En fait, construire une entreprise autour de votre passion peut mener à un échec potentiel. Il nous explique comment nous pouvons construire une marque forte pour notre entreprise, à la fois une marque forte pour nos clients à l'externe et une branche forte à l'interne avec nos employés. Il nous donne quelques astuces sur la façon dont nous pouvons mieux utiliser Google pour améliorer notre classement dans les recherches si nous avons une activité en ligne.

Carol: Un de mes rôles préférés, Trevor nous parle de ce concept génial qu’il a. C'est ce qu'on appelle l'audit énergétique et je vais vous dire en quoi cela changera complètement votre façon de voir votre routine quotidienne.

J: Bien, bien avant que nous ne passions à notre épisode, entendons un mot rapide de notre sponsor.

Bien les gars, l'investissement immobilier est connu pour beaucoup de choses, notamment gagner beaucoup d'argent à un groupe très sélect de personnes, mais être une expérience de pointe en ligne ne fait généralement pas partie de ces caractéristiques. Eh bien, grâce à Fundrise, ce n’est plus le cas. Fundrise est l'avenir de l'investissement immobilier. Le modèle révolutionnaire est en train de transformer l'industrie. Grâce à leurs logiciels, ils éliminent les coûteux intermédiaires et éliminent les inefficiences du marché.

Fundrise offre le type de pouvoir d’investissement que l’on ne voit généralement que dans les grandes institutions et peut maintenant apporter un potentiel unique de l’immobilier pour la croissance et les flux de trésorerie à long terme aux investisseurs individuels comme nous. La mise en route est simple et prend généralement moins de cinq minutes. Lorsque vous investissez avec Fundrise, vous serez instantanément diversifié parmi des dizaines de projets immobiliers. Chacune d’entre elles a été soigneusement sélectionnée et gérée activement par l’équipe de professionnels de l’immobilier de Fundrise.

Ensuite, vous pouvez utiliser leur tableau de bord intuitif pour les investisseurs et leur système de reporting en temps réel pour surveiller les progrès de chaque propriété de votre portefeuille. C’est l’avenir de l’investissement immobilier, êtes-vous prêt à vous lancer? Ensuite, visitez fundrise.com/BPBusiness. C'est FUNDRISE.com/BPBusiness et vous obtiendrez une exemption des trois premiers mois de frais. Encore une fois, c’est Fundrise.com/BPBusiness.

Sans plus tarder, intervenons immédiatement. Accueillons Trevor Mauch sur le podcast. Comment vas-tu Trevor?

Trevor: Je vais très bien. Je suis fou de pompage pour ce nouveau podcast que vous avez et que vous venez d’honorer d’en faire partie. Ça va être amusant.

Carol: Je suis ravi de vous avoir aussi, Trevor. Je pense que c’est aussi un bon timing avec le lancement et l’acquisition de carrot.com et c’est tout simplement parfait.

J: Hey, hey spoilers.

Carol: Nous sommes très heureux de vous parler.

J: Alerte spoil.

Carol: Alerte spoil. Dang. Coupable.

Trevor: C'est vrai.

J: Dès le départ.

Trevor: Si je regarde la vidéo, je porte ma chemise de carottes, journée nationale des carottes. Nous avons imprimé ces chemises spéciales la semaine dernière. C'était la Journée internationale de la carotte, il y a deux semaines.

J: 4 avril.

Trevor: Le 4 avril, c’est vrai.

J: Tout le monde connaît la Journée internationale de la carotte.

Trevor: Tout le monde.

Carol: Totalement.

Trevor: Tout le monde a raison maintenant.

Carol: D'accord.

J: Alors Trevor, pas une histoire amusante, mais une histoire intéressante. J'ai entendu parler de vous pour la première fois il y a environ cinq ans et je pense que c'est à peu près à l'époque où vous avez lancé Carrot. Carol et moi avons déménagé d'Atlanta dans la région de Washington en 2013, puis au début de 2014, nous avons acheté notre première propriété dans le Maryland et nous l'avons achetée à un grossiste.

Trevor: D'accord.

J: Je faisais des recherches sur elle à l’époque car nous aimons toujours faire des recherches sur les personnes auprès desquelles nous achetons des propriétés et la première chose qui a été évoquée a été une vidéo qu’elle a réalisée avec vous et qui était la vôtre. Il s’est avéré que c’était votre tout premier examen vidéo avec un client que vous avez réalisé avec Carrot. Elle s'appelait Brittany Boling.

Trevor: Oh oui. Oui.

J: C'était ma première introduction à vous. C’était ma première introduction à Carrot. Je vous ai donc bien suivi ces cinq dernières années, et après Carrot au cours des cinq dernières années. C’est donc une histoire intéressante que j’ai découverte. Vous avez lu sur le début.

Trevor: Oui.

J: De toute façon, nous allons beaucoup parler de Carrot évidemment, mais je veux prendre du recul et pouvez-vous nous en dire un peu plus sur votre histoire? Pouvez-vous nous en dire un peu plus sur le moment où vous avez eu cette démangeaison entrepreneuriale et comment vous en êtes arrivé là où vous en êtes?

Trevor: Mec, c’est une si bonne question parce que vous entendez tout le temps sur le podcast entrepreneur où presque à chaque fois c’est comme mec, j’avais le stand de limonade. Vous savez que j'allais à l'école, en vendant des friandises à l'autre. Ce n’était pas moi mec. Je ne voulais pas faire ça.

Je ne voulais rien avoir à faire avec les entreprises grandissant. Mes parents avaient tous deux démarré une petite entreprise quand j'étais jeune et, par nécessité, ce n’était pas parce qu’ils étaient nés entrepreneurs. Ni l'un ni l'autre de leurs parents n'étaient des entrepreneurs. L’un d’eux était un agriculteur, on pourrait dire qu’il y avait de l’esprit d’entreprise là-dedans, mais c’était par nécessité.

Ils étaient toujours fauchés et puis la famille de ma mère, mon grand-père était entraîneur et enseignant, il n’y avait donc vraiment pas d’entreprenariat dans la famille, à moins de revenir en arrière de quelques générations. Je me souviens de mon père, il était probablement entre la première et la troisième année. Je ne me souviens plus du calendrier exact, mais il a perdu son emploi et est donc devenu le directeur général de ce magasin de location d’équipement pour les agriculteurs. Comme la location de moissonneuses-batteuses et de tracteurs, il les vendait, etc.

Les affaires étaient dans un état déplorable lorsque mon père est intervenu et il est donc plutôt venu pour aider à réduire les risques. Il était donc sans emploi et c'est la première fois que j'ai vécu qu'il pouvait aller en créer un autre. Je pouvais soit aller chercher un autre emploi, soit choisir de créer le sien. Il a créé une entreprise et ils se sont très bien débrouillés. Ils ont encore ces entreprises aujourd'hui. Ma mère en a ouvert un dans notre sous-sol, alors je me souviens des personnes qui allaient se marier et qui organisait un mariage. Ils venaient littéralement entrer dans notre sous-sol, s’asseoir et transformer notre sous-sol, elle avait des étagères dans notre sous-sol avec des serviettes de table, des gâteaux et des choses comme ça. Pour moi, je ne le voyais pas comme de l’esprit d’entreprise.

Je voyais cela comme mes parents faire ce qu'ils devaient faire pour mettre de la nourriture à nos tables. Nous n'avons jamais été riches. En fait, je n'ai jamais vraiment voulu faire des affaires parce que mes parents sont formidables. Mon père est la personne la plus positive que je connaisse, sauf en ce qui concerne les employés.

Vous savez, ce que j’avais vécu, c’était que vous ne pouviez jamais trouver de bons employés, les affaires étaient difficiles, toutes ces choses qui avaient en quelque sorte une mentalité semi-négative sur la création d’entreprise. Je me souviens que nous serions en train de nous casser la gueule comme vous le savez 10-11-12-13 ans en été, emballer des chaises, monter des tentes pour les mariages en été et que pour moi, c’était comme si je ne voulais pas courir entreprise si c'est ce que c'est.

J: Oui.

Trevor: S'il n'y a pas de temps libre, s'il n'y a pas de flexibilité, si vous êtes toujours lié à votre entreprise et que vous ne pouvez pas vous en échapper, je ne le souhaite pas si c'est ce que sont les affaires. Ce fut le début de ma connaissance des affaires. Je n’ai pas été attiré par les affaires avant la fin de mes études.

J: C’est formidable et c’est une chose que j’ai remarquée au fil des ans, c’est que les gens nous disent maintenant que nos entrepreneurs sont exposés à l’entreprenariat comme leurs parents. Leur attitude à l’égard du démarrage d’une entreprise est très différente. Je connais beaucoup de gens qui ne se lancent pas vraiment dans l’entreprenariat ou la création d’une entreprise avant la fin de leur vie. Ils ont tendance à penser que c’est glamour. C’est quelque chose d’être vraiment excitant. Chaque jour va être amusant. Chaque tâche sera passionnante, mais ceux qui ont été exposés tôt et je ne l’ai pas été aussi, je tombe dans la deuxième foule, mais ceux qui ont été exposés tôt se sont rendu compte que c’était beaucoup de travail acharné dans la plupart des cas. tâche que vous faites ils ne vont pas vous exciter. Ce n'est pas un truc que tu te lèves tous les matins en disant que je suis impatient de faire les livres ou d'écrire les chèques de paie, alors c'est certainement quelque chose que j'ai appris: si tu commences tôt, tu as une attitude différente que si tu " Re juste sauter quand vous avez 25 ans.

Trevor: Vous le faites certainement parce que pour moi quand j’étais jeune, j’étais incapable de faire des choses amusantes. Je ne faisais pas le marketing. Je faisais le travail de grognement. Vous savez que je faisais mes valises et, mais le truc sympa à ce sujet, c'est que, si je regarde en arrière, pourquoi la carotte est-elle telle qu'elle est aujourd'hui. Pourquoi sommes-nous, à votre connaissance, considérés comme l'une des meilleures expériences client, pas seulement dans ce secteur, mais dans toutes les entreprises avec lesquelles nos clients travaillent. Vous savez pourquoi notre culture est incroyable.

Pourquoi sommes-nous si centrés sur l’expérience client que c’est ce que j’ai appris dans l’entreprise de mes parents? Vous savez que ce n’était pas acceptable d’aider à organiser un mariage et de ne pas partir avec cette personne ravie de cette expérience. Il n’était pas acceptable pour nous d’être en retard pour organiser un mariage. Il n’était pas acceptable pour nous de ne pas vivre une expérience exceptionnelle pour ces clients, c’est ce que j’ai vraiment inséré en moi très tôt. C’est comme si vous pouviez aussi bien être excellent dans tout ce que vous faites. C’est quand nous avons commencé avec Carrot que je suis comme si on ne faisait pas que du bien. Pouvons-nous être les meilleurs au monde?

Carol: Sympa d'être le meilleur.

Trevor: C’est ce que nous avons vraiment voulu faire. Oui.

Carol: Je trouve cela tellement intéressant que non seulement vous n'aviez jamais envisagé l'esprit d'entreprise. Vous êtes, on dirait que vous êtes à fond contre. Parce que, comme vous l’avez dit, au milieu de l’été, vous êtes censé être à la piscine pour manger des sucettes glacées, jouer avec vos amis, terroriser le quartier avec Nerf Blasters.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: Vous organisez des mariages, n'est-ce pas? Vous ne voulez pas merci. Pourtant, vous avez continué à faire ce que vous faites maintenant, quel a été ce tournant? Quel a été ce moment décisif où vous avez dit: «Ha, je veux être un entrepreneur."

Trevor: Quelques choses différentes en fait, donc je suis entré au lycée et je pensais que je voulais être médecin. Ok parce que je suis comme je vais aller dans la direction opposée dans cette affaire. Je pense qu'être un médecin, ça sonne bien. C’est un peu comme si vous aviez ces mentalités d’argent traditionnelles que les gens vous disent. Ce médecin est un succès, un avocat est un succès.

Une sorte de profession est synonyme de réussite juste et stable. Au lycée, j’ai suivi un cours intitulé «Professions de la santé» et c’est la première leçon. Je pense que les gens doivent s’essayer. Les gens doivent beaucoup explorer et barboter. Dans la classe des professions de la santé, j’ai appris très vite que je n’allais pas devenir chirurgien orthopédiste lorsque je me suis presque évanoui dans la salle des urgences en regardant une procédure élémentaire dans la classe des professions de la santé. Très bien, vérifions celui-là.

J’ai expérimenté, je n’ai pas envie d’être dans le domaine de la santé, puis j’ai étudié à l’université et, comme beaucoup de jeunes, l’université est en quelque sorte une évolution de ce genre. Vous allez au lycée, si vous êtes des parents ou la société vous dit d'aller au collège, alors vous allez au collège pour le découvrir. Je suis allé à une école très technique appelée Oregon Institute of Technology. C’est une incroyable école technique. Si vous voulez être un ingénieur ou quelque chose du genre, informaticiens.

Ce n’est pas une école extraordinaire si vous voulez faire des affaires et c’est ce que j’ai fait. J'y suis allé, j'ai joué au baseball et j'ai obtenu un diplôme en gestion de petite entreprise avec une option marketing et entrepreneuriat. Nous n’avons pas eu la chance de rendre visite à un entrepreneur en quatre ans, pas un seul entrepreneur n’est venu parler. Nous n’aimions pas vraiment aller voir de vraies affaires et la seule éducation entrepreneuriale que j’ai eue était celle de mes parents, puis dans des livres.

C’est là que le changement s’est produit, Carol est la suivante. Est-ce que j'avais un professeur qui s'appelle Arie DeGroot et il était juste – il était un type vraiment charismatique, bon orateur, mais il était avocat et investisseur immobilier. Je suis comme ce gars son énergie est incroyable. Quoi qu’il fasse, je veux juste ça.

On dirait qu’il a pris une sorte de chemin qui a dû marcher pour lui. J'ai commencé à étudier, à obtenir les notes, je voulais aller à la faculté de droit et je voulais être un investisseur immobilier et un avocat. J'ai obtenu la partie investisseur immobilier, j'ai acheté ma première propriété alors que j'étais junior au collège, quand j'étais en 2004. C'était la propriété de quatre unités à Klamath Falls, dans l'Oregon.

Je possède toujours celui-ci aujourd'hui. Cela m'a permis de savoir où je vais. Ok cool. Oui, je suis jeune, mais ce n’est pas une excuse pour ne pas sortir et faire quelque chose par moi-même.

Si je peux acheter une propriété avec littéralement comme le dit le publi-reportage, pas d’argent en moins, c’est un quadruplex et j’ai 21 ans et je n’ai pas de mauvais crédit. J'ai pas de crédit. Si je peux le faire, que puis-je faire d'autre? J'ai fini par échouer, ils se sont tous assis pour aller à la faculté de droit à deux reprises, alors c'est ce qui a décidé de ma décision.

Carol: Beaucoup plus facile.

Trevor: Oui, et pendant ce parcours universitaire, c’était la même chose, j’avais besoin d’argent et je n’avais pas assez de temps pour travailler, car je jouais au baseball. Je vais à l’école à plein temps et j’ai bien dit que j’aime vraiment créer des choses. J'aime l'acte de l'aménagement paysager, comme la création de l'aménagement paysager. Je fais le paysage de la nouvelle maison de mes parents et vous savez qu’il ya des chutes d’eau et toutes sortes de choses et que je trouvais cela très amusant, j’ai donc commencé à être paysagiste à l’université.

Carol: Sans blague.

J: Intéressant.

Trevor: Oui.

J: Revenons vite ici. Vous avez mentionné que vous avez acheté une propriété de quatre unités. Quel était le but de cette propriété? Vouliez-vous être un investisseur immobilier? Vouliez-vous créer un empire immobilier ou pensiez-vous simplement que je devais commencer à investir dans un investissement et que je devais commencer à faire une demande de retraite? Quel était, quel était votre processus de pensée là-bas?

Trevor: Oui, au début, je voulais honnêtement devenir un flipper et un grossiste, car c’était à l’époque que vous savez 2003-2004 à 2005, alors que tout explosait et que tout le monde et son chien voulaient faire de l’immobilier. Un peu comme si c'était les trois dernières années sauf hyper hyper fou et j'étais donc sur tous les forums. J'étais sur tout. Vous savez tout apprendre sur le retournement et la vente en gros, et quand cela m’a vraiment touché, j’ai adoré le marketing et j’aime vraiment ce genre de choses, mais cela ne m’intéresse pas vraiment pour moi de rendre mon travail quotidien réel. biens. Je veux trouver quelque chose d'autre, mais je veux que l'immobilier soit mon outil de création de richesse.

J: Je l'ai.

Trevor: Après une année de recherches sur tout ce qui concerne le commerce de gros et le retournement, je faisais partie de ceux qui pourraient probablement bien répondre aux questions du forum, mais je ne l'avais jamais fait auparavant. Je suis comme vous savez ce qui me laisse changer. Et si j’essayais simplement de trouver un bien locatif et peut-être que c’était davantage ce que je voulais faire. Je veux gagner de l'argent en faisant des choses qui m'intéressent beaucoup tous les jours, puis prendre cet argent et le placer dans l'immobilier pour créer de la richesse.

J: Je l'ai. Impressionnant. Vous avez acheté le Fourplex. Vous avez décidé de créer une entreprise d'aménagement paysager. Quelle a été la, quelle est la prochaine étape de ce voyage?

Trevor: Oui, alors j'ai probablement eu quatre ou cinq clients que vous connaissez pendant cette période. Je n’ai pas fait la maintenance. J’aime sa construction et c’est une chose que j’ai découverte sur moi-même, c’est que je connais maintenant une expression appelée capacité unique. Tu sais ce que tu aimes

Quelles choses vous donnent plus d’énergie lorsque vous avez fini de faire les choses que lorsque vous avez commencé. Je ne savais pas qu’il existait un concept appelé cela à cette époque. Je savais juste que je n’aimais pas faire la maintenance, mais j’aime la création. Je peux le dessiner.

Je pourrais le concevoir et maintenant, pour que mes copains fassent partie de l'équipe de baseball, je les paye vraiment bien. Nous mettions tout en œuvre en deux jours, puis nous sortions à l'autre bout avec de l'argent vraiment bon et une création. Quelque chose a été fait. Puis remettez-le à quelqu'un d'autre pour le maintenir. C’est un peu ce que j’ai fait là-bas et j’ai bien compris: je vais devoir constituer une équipe et faire cela, ou bien je vais faire autre chose.

Parce que je ne veux pas être briser mon dos tous les jours. Vous savez, en construisant ce matériel, je veux juste le concevoir, ce qui signifie que d’autres personnes vont devoir le construire. De cette programmation que j'avais obtenue par inadvertance de mes parents. Je suis comme si je ne voulais pas construire une équipe, parce que les employés ont la même douleur. Ok, alors à cette décision, j’ai dit d’accord l’aménagement paysager, j’ai terminé.

Je veux chasser ce truc de l'immobilier. Après mon diplôme universitaire, ma femme, nous nous sommes mariés juste après le collège. Nous avons déménagé à Portland, dans l’Oregon, et j’ai dit que je vais me donner un an. Je vais me donner 12 mois et c’est une leçon énorme, aimer les jeunes, il faut se donner le temps de le comprendre, surtout quand on est jeune et qu’on n’en a peut-être pas beaucoup. ces choses, les bons engagements. Je me suis donné un an lorsque ma femme obtenait son diplôme de maîtrise.

J'ai dit: «Je vais essayer de comprendre cette affaire d'entrepreneur. Si je ne le découvre pas cette année, j'irai chercher un emploi. »Cette année-là fut pour moi une véritable épreuve, des tribulations, et en réalité, apprendre ce qu'est le vrai marketing, puis j'ai découvert Internet dans le monde des affaires. a décollé.

J: C'est génial.

Carol: Je veux en entendre un ou plusieurs cette année-là et j'adore le conseil que vous venez de donner aux auditeurs, à propos de vous donner vous-même, en vous accordant cette période de temps où vous pouvez expérimenter, où vous pouvez trouver comme vous l'avez dit votre passion et comment vous pouvez le mettre en œuvre. Essayez différentes choses et apprenez ce qui compte vraiment et voyez ce qui fonctionne, ce qui ne fonctionne pas, etc. Quelles ont été certaines de ces épreuves et tribulations qui vous ont permis d’écarter certaines choses?

J: Oui, alors la première chose à faire pour moi, Carol, est le numéro un et être ouvert aux nouvelles idées. Je suis entré, je n'avais aucune idée de ce que j'allais faire. Je savais que je voulais en savoir plus sur le marketing. Mon oncle, qui était l'un de mes clients, ne me payait presque rien, mais j'apprécie tellement le fait qu'il me paye quelque chose pour pouvoir payer mes factures et apprendre le marketing. Il travaillait pour une société de courtage hypothécaire. Il ne le possédait pas et il est entré un jour et a pointé l'écran de l'ordinateur.

Il est comme Google nous. Google comme Portland Mortgage Brokers. Je l'ai fait et il va comment y arriver? Savez-vous comment le faire? Je ne suis pas au courant, mais je vais comprendre.

Carol: D'accord.

Trevor: Soyez ouvert à de nouvelles choses et le numéro deux essaie juste de comprendre les choses. Comme apprendre, plonger et expérimenter. La prochaine chose que Carol a fait, c’est que c’est après avoir commencé à apprendre certaines choses que j’ai dites d’accord, je vais me frotter de mon côté et commencer à les tester. Comment puis-je obtenir du trafic? Comment puis-je écrire du contenu?

Comment puis-je – comment Internet fonctionne-t-il en relation avec les entreprises et j'ai dit d'accord, je suis en train d'essayer de vendre des services de conseil aux gens, mais personne n'achète. Comme si personne n'achetait ces services, ils ne le devraient pas non plus. Je n'avais aucun antécédent. J'ai eu un pitch terrible. Je ne savais rien de rien.

La prochaine chose que j'ai dit tu sais quoi? Si personne n’achète mes services en ce moment, pourquoi ne vais-je pas simplement les donner? Pourquoi est-ce que je n'aime pas simplement trouver des personnes, leur ajouter tellement de valeur sans leur demander rien en retour, et je trouverais des personnes pour lesquelles je savais que je pouvais ajouter un résultat, et je les ai contactées et leur ai dit: remarqué cela sur votre site web. Pourquoi ne pas tweeter ces deux ou trois choses et je pense que cela aurait pu vous donner un meilleur résultat da da da da.

Ils m'ont répondu en disant: «Hé, tu peux le faire?» «Je suis comme si, tout à fait. Tu sais, laisse-moi savoir, laisse-moi le faire. »Je le ferais pour eux.

Que puis-je vous payer? Rien. Allez juste pour obtenir un bon résultat, faites-le moi savoir si je peux vous aider. Cet état d'esprit là-bas, l'état d'esprit du donneur était énorme.

Ne pas aller là-bas, essayer d'obtenir le mien. Comment puis-je aider les autres à obtenir le leur? Je pense que ça va revenir. Cet état d'esprit m'a vraiment nourri au cours des deux prochaines années.

J: C'est génial. Vous avez dit quelque chose de très important il y a quelques minutes et vous avez mentionné une capacité unique. En quoi es tu bon? J'ai un ami nommé Matt Faircloth, beaucoup d'auditeurs de BiggerPockets connaissent Matt et il m'a frappé.

La première fois que je l'ai entendu, quelqu'un l'a approché comme un investisseur immobilier en herbe et a commencé à lui parler, cherchant des conseils, et Matt a interrompu la conversation. La première chose qu’il demanda au gars était quelle était ta superpuissance? J'aime cette question. En gros, vous vous demandez en quoi êtes-vous vraiment bon?

Quelle est votre capacité, selon vous ou selon vos mots? Puis concentrez-vous sur vos aspirations, votre entreprise, tout ce que vous allez faire dans la vie autour de cette capacité unique, autour de cette superpuissance. Nous sommes nombreux à penser que cela fait partie de notre esprit lorsque nous grandissons. Nos parents vous disent que vous pouvez être ce que vous voulez être. Trouve quelque chose que tu aimes et fais ce que tu aimes. Je veux dire, si c'était aussi simple, je serais un joueur de baseball professionnel.

Trevor: Moi aussi mec. Oui.

J: Je ne serai jamais aussi joueur de baseball professionnel. Autant que je l'aime.

Trevor: Oui.

J: Il ne suffit pas de faire ce que vous aimez. Vous devez savoir quelles sont vos capacités uniques et ce en quoi vous êtes bon. Quels conseils donneriez-vous aux personnes qui tentent de trouver cette intersection de ce qu’elles aiment et de ce qu’elles sont en mesure de tracer la voie à suivre?

Trevor: Mec, je pourrais littéralement parler de ce sujet pendant trois heures. Je rencontrais un de mes employés au café juste avant ce matin et c'était en grande partie ce dont nous avons parlé. Tout se résume à ce seul mot. Le conseil, et je vais vous dire ce que le mot est ici dans la seconde.

Le conseil que vous avez mentionné il y a une seconde, Jay avec votre ami a parlé de votre superpuissance. Mec, j'avais entendu les mêmes commentaires. J'avais entendu le même conseil. Les gens m'ont dit la même chose et au cours des prochaines années, lorsque j'ai créé ma propre maison d'édition en ligne.

Je faisais ce que la plupart auraient considéré à ce moment-là comme ma superpuissance. J'étais assez bon en marketing. Okay, les gens me payaient beaucoup d’argent pour exécuter du marketing pour eux. Je le ferais aussi pour ma propre entreprise.

C’est ce que les gens diraient, sa superpuissance réside dans le marketing en ligne. OK, le problème, c’est quand j’ai suivi cette voie et que poursuivre ce que j’étais vraiment très bon dans ce domaine n’était pas ce que j’aurais dû être. Cela m'a rendu misérable. C’est, à mon avis, l’un des plus bien intentionnés, mais pour moi, personnellement, le pire conseil que j’ai jamais reçu est de plonger de fond en comble: vous savez tout sur votre super et sur quoi vous êtes bon et voici pourquoi.

Voici pourquoi, et ensuite je donnerai aux gens une tournure différente. C’est au cours des années 2007 – disons de 2008 à 2010. J’avais fondé une entreprise en ligne. Nous avons fait un sacré bon revenu ou être un jeune homme d'une vingtaine d'années.

Vous connaissez les chiffres de la mi-six et avez gagné de l'argent, mais je me souviens de 2010, en se réveillant très clairement. Vous savez que nous avons eu notre première fille en 2010, McKinley. Nous avons trois enfants maintenant, quatre, six et huit. Cette année a été un peu un tournant pour moi parce que je vais mon dieu alors j’ai trouvé comment gagner de l’argent.

Vérifier. Vous savez vérifier cette partie. Il a fallu deux ou trois ans pour y arriver, mais imaginez comment gagner de l'argent, mais pourquoi ce rêve entrepreneurial n’est-il pas comme je le pensais? Je pensais que cet entrepreneur, comme les nuages ​​allaient se séparer dès que j’aurais réalisé ce modèle à six chiffres le revenu. Les nuages ​​vont se séparer. J'ai compris cette chose. C’est vrai et j’étais assis dans mon lit de 10h30 à 11h00 du matin et j’étais désolé pour ma misère.

Je ne voulais pas me réveiller et faire le travail que j'avais créé pour mon travail parce que je faisais ce que les gens considèrent comme mes superpuissances et me payaient très bien pour le faire. C’est parce que je ne cherchais pas d’énergie. C’est le mot que je veux lancer aux gens. L'énergie est la clé. En 2012, j’ai rejoint un programme d’entraînement et j’essayais de trouver cette capacité unique, parce que je pensais que c’est en vous que vous réussissez très bien et que vous êtes vraiment bien payé. Une fois de plus, j'ai été doué pour la création de campagnes marketing.

J'étais doué pour créer des produits. J'étais douée pour faire ces choses, je me suis très bien payée pour les faire, mais elles m'ont pompé de l'énergie. Ils m'ont aspiré l'énergie. J'étais là à Chicago et la fille.

J'avais lu le livre de Dan Sullivan Capacité unique livre. J’ai acheté la chose pour 20 dollars, pensant pouvoir écourter le processus au lieu de payer les 6 000 dollars pour suivre leur programme d’entraînement. C’est ce qu’elle a dit et cela m’a finalement permis de cliquer. Je l'avais probablement entendu auparavant. Ce n’était pas le bon moment et elle a dit: «Votre capacité unique n’est pas nécessairement ce que vous êtes en train de faire de bien.»

Elle a dit: "C’est un abus de langage." Elle a dit: laissez-moi revenir en arrière. Vous êtes incroyablement doué pour votre capacité unique, mais la plupart des gens ne se donnent pas la chance de réaliser quelle est leur véritable capacité unique parce qu'ils font des choses pour lesquelles ils sont vraiment très bons. ici. Je faisais des choses pour lesquelles j'étais vraiment doué, à savoir le marketing, l'exécution, etc.

Ce qui me donne vraiment de l'énergie, c'est ce genre de choses. Parle de l'entrepreneuriat. Ce qui me donne vraiment de l'énergie, c'est la stratégie, mais je déteste l'exécution. L'exécution me tire de l'énergie. Ce qui me donne vraiment de l’énergie, c’est de coacher des entrepreneurs de haut niveau ou mon équipe.

Ce qui me tire de l'énergie, c'est la création d'un système autour de lui. Vous savez ce qui me donne vraiment de l'énergie, c'est créer des choses comme l'aménagement paysager. Oui, j'adore le créer. Ce qui, comme oh, craint, l’énergie dont je dispose, c’est de réellement construire la chose.

Carol: Pour le construire.

Trevor: C’est bien et c’est ce qu’elle a dit. Elle est comme: «Oh mon Dieu, écris les choses qui te donnent plus d'énergie quand tu as fini de les faire que quand tu as commencé." Si tu es incroyablement génial à ces choses, certaines choses de celles-là, alors tu peux être un monde- classe. C’est tout ce que vous devriez faire. Je suis comme: «D'accord, je vais juste chasser l'énergie."

Ce que je reçois vraiment bien, beaucoup de gens diraient, c’est ma superpuissance. C’était seulement ma superpuissance parce que je ne me suis pas donné la chance de vraiment faire les choses qui sont mes capacités uniques. Comment puis-je en arriver là où je passe aux choses qui rapportent beaucoup d’argent pour lequel je suis vraiment bon. Je ne veux plus en faire, même si cela représente 90% de mon revenu. Comment puis-je passer à l’endroit où je fais principalement des choses qui me donnent beaucoup d’énergie, puis laisser quelqu'un d’autre faire ces choses qui rapportent de l’argent?

J: Donc, vous avez ces choses pour lesquelles vous êtes vraiment bon et vous savez que vous êtes doués, mais ce ne sont pas nécessairement les choses qui vous donnent votre énergie. De toute évidence, ce sur quoi vous devriez vous concentrer n’est pas toujours évident. Encore.

Trevor: Oui.

J: Vous vous concentriez beaucoup sur ce que vous étiez bon.

Trevor: Surtout s'ils vous font gagner de l'argent. Droite.

J: Exactement.

Trevor: C’est là que les gens sont stressés.

Carol: Des choses plus difficiles à emporter.

J: Bon, nous avons beaucoup d’auditeurs qui vont bien et j’entends les mots que vous dites. Je devrais me concentrer sur ce qui me donne de l’énergie, pas nécessairement ou ce qui me donne de l’énergie et sur laquelle je suis vraiment bon. Quels sont certains des conseils pratiques qu’ils peuvent prendre pour vraiment comprendre ce qui leur donne de l’énergie et je suppose que vous parlez non seulement de l’énergie physique, mais également de l’énergie mentale.

Trevor: The whole thing so I’ll give you a real example and people can actually like, people take out a piece of paper and it is cool. I’ll walk you five minutes through the energy at it.

Carol: That’s awesome.

Trevor: Is the exact thing.

J: Absolutely.

Trevor: People do.

J: Keep in mind that a lot of people aren’t watching this. They’re listening, but.

Trevor: Cool and I can give you guys. I have a PDF template that I use internally. There is no opt in for it. I can give you guys the link to it. Like I just want people to use it. To have my team use it.

Carol: That’s awesome. That will be so helpful.

J: Everybody check the show notes for that template.

Trevor: Yes, sweet. If you’re listening to this or watching it, you don’t have to be watching it. Take out a piece of paper and it’s really amazing when you draw a line down the middle of the piece of paper. Right like cause it separates things. It gives you black and white, no longer are things grey and so I don’t really have like a blank piece of paper, but I’ll play with it here. I’m going to draw a line down the middle of the paper right here. Of course, I’ve got my orange in there so.

Carol: Guys, you should.

Trevor: C'est vrai. Branding right. I got my line down the middle of the paper. On the left side of that piece of paper right at the top, energy you know gives energy at the right side of the paper, but drains energy. This is what the first part of the energy out of it is.

J: Left side of the paper gives energy. Right side of the paper drains energy.

Trevor: Oui, exactement. Really pull back and go on an average week, on an average week what things give me more energy when I’m done doing them than when I started. That’s the key. What things give me more energy when I’m done doing them than when I started. That’s business. That’s life.

For me, working out. For me, doing things like this podcast interviews. Strategy, I’m going to blow in to the boardroom. The whiteboards is going to be full then I want to leave. You know like that gives me energy. The second that we have to think about how to do it I’m like ugh.

Carol: Out of here. I’m done.

Trevor: Give me another whiteboard. Yes, give me another whiteboard. You know it’s spending time with your kids. What types of things with your kids?

With your spouse? Like one of those things that gives you energy right? On the right side of things then the same thing. You do the energy drains.

I would look at your average week. I would go okay what do I do on an average week? This sucks my energy. Even if it makes you a bunch of money, even if you have even if it has to get done in your business. Write that down.

This is where the magic was. Like that right there had been done a million times. Like cool I’ve got I know what my problems are, but how do I move it now?

J: Oui.

Trevor: How do I move it to where I flip flop my ratio and said okay. The only way you can move something is if you measure it. Right so at the bottom of that piece of paper and this template actually gives all the spots and gives instructions. At the bottom right down percentages.

Go okay cool. What percentage of my week is spent doing these energy gives things. What percentage of my week is spent doing these energy drain things? For me at that time in 2010, it was 20% of the giving energy, 80% draining. No wonder I wasn’t able to really light my business up and scale it. No wonder I wasn’t really happy doing what I was doing. No wonder I didn’t feel purpose and passion in my work.

Carol: Yes, your energy was sopped every single day if 80% of your time was not stuff that was giving you energy. It was draining you over and over.

Trevor: Yes, but I got paid well for it so society was saying keep doing that.

Carol: Do it more.

Trevor: Because you’re getting paid well for it. Right, you’re getting paid well for it. You’re really good at it. Do that stuff right and so you have your percentages and you go okay.

My aim over the next two-three years each quarter is to do this 15 minute energy audit and I’m going to move things one by one over and over time I’m going to move it from 20% energy drain energy given to 80% energy given. Today I’m about 80% to 85% of my life today working life is energy giving now. What you do then on the right side is you take your energy draining stuff and you go okay. What are the one-two-or three things that are just killing me the most right now?

Even if they make you a bunch of money and circle those and write how many hours per week are you spending on each one of those activities. Voici un exemple. A real world example. One of the things that built Carrot to one of the fast growing companies in America is our content.

We write a long, a lot of long format content. Ranks really well on Google. Gets people in there. Builds expertise and trust, converts them into our customer merge right. I’m looking at it going oh my gosh, I’m really good at this. Like one of the best people out there at writing long format content, but hate it. Like I hate it.

Carol: Yes and you’re over.

Trevor: Even though it’s just a lot of money. Yes right and it makes us a lot of money so how do I stop doing that? And I’m the only one in our company that can do that right now at this level. I’m writing out in like eight hours okay then there was probably something else on there too.

Then I go okay eight hours I’m going to gain back if I can get rid of that. How do I get rid of that? That was hard because we place these mental limiting beliefs in our minds going well I’ve got to do that. No one else in my company can do it or I can’t stop doing that because it makes us money. Therefore I’ve got to do it.

I’m like you know what if I can get rid of that and add something that gives me energy I think I’m going to actually be way more productive in my business and happier. If I’m more productive and happier therefore everything is going to be better. I took that and I said I’m going to take that same eight hours and put it over here to these two things that give me energy. One of them is doing interviews, doing talks on entrepreneurship and stuff, but I didn’t know how to make money doing that. I didn’t have a podcast at that time.

J: Wait a second and so you now have this long form content writing that you’re really good at, but sucks energy from you. You’re going to take that off your plate, but you’re the only one in your company that can do that. How exactly did you get that off your plate?

Trevor: Yes, the first thing is I had to give myself permission that I wasn’t the only one that had to do that. Someone else could do it if I created process. Right so I pulled back.

J: That’s huge.

Trevor: And I said cool so. I circled those one or two things I wanted to get off my plate. I circled the one thing that I wanted to add that gave me energy even though I had no clue how I was going to make money with it, which was doing a podcast. I said, “Okay cool.”

That’s my first thing I needed to do this quarter is how do I get that article writing thing off my lap. What I did is I pulled back and I documented for about a day. I documented my process on how to write great content. Then I went out there and found the best possible writer that I could find and pay him a crazy amount of money.

I paid him a thousand dollars an article. Some of them were up to $2,000 to write one article, which people would look at that and go that’s insane. Well maybe it was, but this guy ended up becoming the editor-in-chief of Shopify Plus. The guy who ran Shopify Plus’s entire content team was my writer for two years.

Carol: That’s invaluable.

Trevor: Really valuable. Right so he came in and just started writing it. I didn’t have to train him because he was already amazing. I documented how I do some stuff, but he made it way better. I’m like cool. C’est fait maintenant. It takes some money out of budget, but that’s okay. I’m going to go over here and just do podcasts now. That lit things ups and now we make a lot of money through podcasts because the culture and the energy that we built with it.

J: That’s awesome and it reinforces an idea that I like to throw out to people who come to me and ask how can I scale my business. How can I make my business more efficient? How can I grow my business? The first thing I remind them of, everything in your business requires one of two things.

It either requires time or it requires money. If you have an inefficient business it’s going to require both. If you’re running an efficient business everything you do is going to take either time or money. As a business owner, you need to decide which of those is more valuable to you. You did a great job of explaining it.

For you, what’s more valuable is is your time. You need your time to spend on the things that don’t drain your energy, they give you energy. As a business owner, you need to be willing to spend the money to get that other stuff off your plate. There’s no middle ground. There’s no way you can do it without spending time or money, but you need to be able to make that decision and there’s no shame in saying I’m going to spend money to get this off my plate.

Trevor: Oui.

J: Because what you’re doing is you’re saying I’m investing in my business. I’m investing in myself. I may not be making the best financial decision today, but this is what’s going to allow me to get my business to where I want it to be a year from now or five years or five-ten or ten years from now. You need to do that for every aspect of your business because ultimately you want your business to be able to operate without you.

Trevor: Oui.

J: The only way to do that is to document, to create systems and processes and start getting things off your plate.

Trevor: You said something really important. I want people to go back and let this sink into their mind for second is you mentioned maybe it’s not the best financial decision for me personally today to spend this money to have someone do it. I hundred percent agree with you because what happened with that guys is J said it’s either going to be time or money. Okay for me, I had more money than time at the start of the company so I had to dig in and do things I was good at, but I didn’t like to get momentum going.

That’s part of what we have to do. Like you got to go okay what are the things, what’s that income level that I got to get to so I can start to bring in people. Right, to help with this thing. That’s where I started to make that mindset shift and start to get rid of some of those mindsets that I had ingrained into me for my upbringing about employees are a pain in the butt. You can’t find good people.

They steal from you because they did steal from my parents. Like multiple six figures, some of the most trusted people in the company and so at that time I’m going okay and this is really what hit it for me J and Carol is this is. Is right around 2000, it’s probably end of 2014, maybe 2015, after just hustling my butt off for that first year, a year and a half starting Carrot. I didn’t pay myself a dime from the company for 18 months. I had some money coming from consulting and some rental property stuff, but I didn’t pay myself a dime because I said, “Okay can we get some traction with this number one.”

Then I’m going to take all of my profits and put it back into people. I still had this limiting belief that people equaled pain in the butt. I’m like I’m going to keep my team small and we’re not going to get any more than five or six or seven people because that equals you know pain in the butt. That’s what I had learned and after putting in so many late nights writing these articles and just hustling my butt off trying to create the business I don’t even know how many hours I worked.

Like I can’t tell you. Was it a hundred hours a week? Je ne sais pas. I was having fun doing it, but it was a lot of hours and I remember a family trip. We were driving over the mountain.

It’s about a three hour trip to my parent’s house. Middle of the day, after I had pulled a bender. You know during that week writing content. I was thinking well shoot I’m going to stay up you know going to get home from work. Going to have family time, dinner, put the kids to bed. A little bit of time with my wife and then 11 o’clock I’ll open up my computer and I’ll work two-three-four hours writing content, catch up on stuff.

I thought well it’s not impacting the family. Right because they still get the time and I will just work on less sleep. It’s not impacting the family. It’s the hustle and grind modes mindset. We were driving down to Klamath Falls and it was after I did a three in the morning bedtime, which was normal for me at that time. One second I was awake and the next second I wasn’t.

Carol: Whoah.

Trevor: We were up in the mountains, guardrail and I just remember literally being awake one second and not even feeling like I was getting ready to fall asleep and then the next second just like in the movies you go there is no way it would have actually been this close right? The movies are like oh the bumper scrapes the guardrail and like no way. It would have been that close. It would have, just that’s movie stuff.

It’s exactly what happened. I woke up. There is a ravine. I see us going towards the guardrail and just in enough time I don’t know if it’s a God thing. I don’t know whatever it is, but I woke up just enough time where I swerved, bumper hits guardrail and I just stopped dead in the middle of the highway and without saying a word get out and you know I’m like almost like tearing up here talking about it because my three kids were in the back seat, but or two of them were in the backseat. I don’t member the year.

Carol: Oh my gosh.

Trevor: Specifically that anyway and so I get out. My wife was looking at me because she was reading. She didn’t even see what happened and we just switch spots. I didn’t say a word for probably 30 minutes and I was just thinking about it going man I almost killed my family because of the hustle and grind.

Carol: Like you literally have me. I’m choking back the tears here, Trevor.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: I cannot even imagine there’s so many thought processes going through my head right now and how terrifying that must’ve been and was that almost I hate to be a cliché.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: But was that like the most horribly effective wake-up call you oh my God no pun intended.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: Horribly effective wake-up call you ever could have received unintentionally?

Trevor: It was a big one Carol because like I said we have all these things ingrained into us. We have the hustle. We have the grind. We have glorifying the hustle and grind in there. I think hustle and grind is good for a period of time.

If you look at gears. Like you think of what a grind is, grinding gears can only grind for so long before the whole machine breaks. I think people glorify the grind so much thinking it can be a perpetual lifestyle and it can’t be. For me, I had been grinding for two years thinking I’m just going to keep doing it. I don’t need to build a big team because big team equals pain in the butt and, but I still want this entrepreneurial dream. I want freedom.

I want flexibility. I want to grow those finances. I want to make an impact and at that moment, that was a life changer for me. Because then I’m going okay I need to really go all in on this unique ability thing. I need to really go all in on what the process that I had started creating, which was the energy audit and I need to regain my time back.

J: Oui.

Trevor: I need to make this business so it fuels my passion so it truly is something that can run without me and grow without me if I wanted to. Not to where I’m supporting it and where it can support me and from that second I literally went cold turkey. I almost overcorrected the wrong overcorrected so far the other way. I didn’t work one night or one weekend for two years after that.

Carol: Sensationnel.

Trevor: Two years, the computer would say in the truck.

J: C'est génial. That’s I mean I know a lot of people especially these days anybody that’s on Facebook and has seen the Facebook post about hey are you sleeping past 3:30 AM because you’re wasting your day and.

Trevor: Oui.

J: If you’re not working 18 hours a day you’re not hustling. You’re not doing what you need to do, but business is it’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint.

Carol: Right.

J: You can’t, that’s not sustainable. Yes, some of us have to work 18 hours a day for a couple of weeks at a time, but you have to think of it from the long play.

Carol: Long-term health implications perspective too not just.

J: Oui.

Carol: Not just, not just what it’s doing in the short term.

J: Good for you and good for your business. Oui,

Carol: Absolutely yes.

Trevor: All of that stuff and that was the big changing thing for me and I want people to really take this to heart is really think about why are we starting these businesses? You know why are we doing this? Is it just to make money? If that’s the case, you know I make more money today than I ever thought I could ever make in a year. It doesn’t make me any happier. You know what makes me happy.

Carol: Sûr.

Trevor: What makes me happy is is really creating a business with real people, with real impact. What makes me happy is that. Is impact and so for me, at that point I go what mental programming do I have to get out of my brain to do this because obviously it wasn’t really working. The money side we were getting traction, but the whole entrepreneurial dream thing, freedom, flexibility, finances, and impact wasn’t happening.

Carol: None of the above.

Trevor: Yes and so I said well maybe that mental programming that I had adopted growing up isn’t correct

Carol: Sûr.

Trevor: Maybe you can build a great team, with great people and actually make your life easier than it being harder. I made that decision right there. I’m like because I can no longer work nights or weekends I’m not doing it anymore; therefore, I have to build a team to make up for me cutting my hours way back. That’s what I did.

I would never ever ever do it differently other than doing it earlier and I’m just so grateful now that when you look at at really creating a company with a team. Whether it’s two people or 25 like we have now will be over probably 35 by the end of the year. To me it’s like one of the most amazing things when you get it right. Because now I can truly step away for I could separate for six months and this business will be bigger when I came back if I wanted to.

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You are hustling and grinding and hustling and grinding for two years and you were not sleeping and just avoided potential horrible tragedies so you had that mindset shift where you realized you needed to hire people that wouldn’t be necessarily a bad thing, which was previously ingrained in you. You wanted to build this company with a team so how does that play into how you started Carrot? There’s a transition there. Let’s start building this thing out with the help of other people and grow so what was that that first little nugget that was like there is, there is some potential here.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: For something different with the help of other people and let’s grow this.

Trevor: This is where it gets fun. Like this is where my business journey is. It gets fun. All the other years I learned so much and that all built up to what we were able to do today, which is cool. Right around that moment too. Right at the time we were starting Carrot after my previous company and I was doing things that paid me well, but didn’t give me energy.

You know then I shifted over to how do I build something and get more focus and focus on fewer things is I wrote these things I call non-negotiables down. Between those companies that publishing company I sold my 50% share in that just to get out of it. Love my business partner. We still do business today.

We have a mastermind we’ve been doing for 10 years so were great friends, but that was the first thing that I had to do Carrot was okay. Let me relate focus on fewer, but better things first of all. I think in general entrepreneurs have this mindset that being a serial entrepreneur in five- six- seven business is a cool thing. They look at guys like Richard Branson, but he’s got a 180 companies. Like he can do it. He doesn’t run any of them.

J: Oui.

Carol: C'est vrai.

Trevor: Like that’s the thing.

Carol: That’s right not even a little bit.

Trevor: Yes, he doesn’t run any of them so he’s figured out his unique ability, what gives him energy, what he’s insanely great at, potential world class at and then he finds people to run the companies. Where we fall in the traps is we’re running five different companies and we think that’s cool.

Carol: Oui.

Trevor: At that time, I cut ties from all companies except for one software company I had invested in, which is blowing up now and I said what’s my next thing? What do I want to make sure that this next thing really always does or follows. What are those guiding principles? I wrote nonnegotiables down there, these five nonnegotiables and I said cool. Any business I ever start from here on out has to match these five nonnegotiables otherwise I’m going to shift the business or stop it. Numéro deux.

J: What were those five nonnegotiables for you?

Trevor: Yes, well one of them was I wasn’t having a lot of fun in general my previous company because I wasn’t doing unique ability stuff so one of them was have fun. Next thing was build something, build an asset, a valuable asset that matters. Before I was doing kind of transactional stuff right and when you start to look at legacy you go well if I have a business that’s a transaction am I really building something that could be an asset for my family? Am I really building a long-term deal?

My previous company wasn’t so I’m like okay I need to pick a business model that actually builds an asset. That’s where the software thing came in. I invested in a software company. I saw recurring revenue and the predictability of that. I’m like that’s amazing. I want predictability. That was nonnegotiable number three is predictable.

J: Vraiment.

Trevor: Consistent finances. Because when you have predictable consistent finances what happens is you actually get freedom and flexibility. Like you can’t have freedom and flexibility without predictability and consistency on the financial side of things. You see a lot of people that they might be a rich, they might have millions in the bank, but they are boom and bust.

They make $200 grand one month and the next month they make $35,000. They are stressed every month and they do not have freedom and flexibility. Even though they’ve got the money. I’m like cool we’ve got to have the predictability and consistency. One of them was focus on my unique abilities. That’s number four. Go all in on my unique abilities. The fifth one, I’m trying to pull it up here. I honestly can’t remember what the fit one is right now.

J: C'est bon. The reason I didn’t ask you that question as a got you a type question.

Trevor: No, totally.

J: I think it’s so important, I hear people all the time saying, yes we wrote out our mission statement for our company. Here are our company values. Here are my nonnegotiables to use your term, but then as soon as it’s written or as soon as it’s like in a Word doc somewhere it’s forgotten about.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: It’s not lived and implemented on a daily basis.

J: Right, right and the fact that you wrote this five- six- seven years ago and you can still rattle off with these five things are. That’s so important and it’s just a good lesson for our listeners that if you’re going to take the time, these things are important enough to think about and write down. Don’t just write them down and forget about them. Write them down and live them. Keep them. Read it every day.

Trevor: Exactly and the important thing here is I pulled up the document. I got them all, but the one the singular focus on the big thing what’s the fifth one. Because I had some things where I was doing a lot of activities before. I’m like I just want to focus on one thing and be really good at it.

Let’s see what can happen if I just do one thing and be really good at it. That was the fifth one. The funny thing is here guys is the non-negotiables. The reason I couldn’t rattle all five of them all is because that is what got me started to start Carrot was like what are my guidelines? Once we got into year two or year three like the first year Carrot I’m going okay I just want to see if I can focus on one darn thing and if this idea that I’ve got actually has any legs. That’s only mission’s going to be this year.

J: Oui.

Trevor: There’s not, I don’t have a life purpose right now. Other than to be an amazing father, amazing husband, and to try to be the best entrepreneur I can be, which I can only do that if I focus on one thing. We get to the year of, end of year one. I’m like cool. It looks like there is little traction here.

Let me make a contract with myself for one more year. This goes all the way back to my contract with myself out of college. Let me give myself one full year-12 months, not 10 months, not if I can’t figure it out in six months I’ll go get a job at. I’m going to give myself 12 months of contract for the year with myself.

I did that with Carrot the first year. Contract for myself for the year. Let me put 12 full months into this and see if the idea will work. Then the next year, I’ll look at it again and make a full another contract with myself. Do I want to do this for 12 more months? I did that year two. We’re going okay this works.

Year two it was cool my contract with myself is I want to be see if we can be the best in the world at this. Okay so by the end of year two we’re like alright I think we’re getting there. We’re not there yet, but I think we’re getting there. Year three, the new contract with myself for those next 12 months was like okay I really believe that we either are or are very close to being the best in the world at what we do in our niche, but what happens when we get there?

Like what’s next? Then I’m like I want to build something that has purpose and matters. Right around there is when I started to really dive in and adopt unique ability in a big way and really made that my mental mindset shift to go you know what? If we’re really going to make a go of this, I’ve got to build a team.

How do I build an amazing team? I’m going to model companies and people that built great cultures. I’m going to model companies and people that built great brands that attract the right people. How do I become a better leader so people actually want to work here and work for us because I know that if we’re going to build this thing and be the best in the world at we do and also have a bigger impact there’s got to be a team of people right here alongside with me. That third year is when things really shifted for Carrot and grew really really fast.

J: That’s great and I hate to step back here, but I don’t think we ever told our listeners and I’m sure a lot of them are familiar with Carrot. A lot of them probably use Carrot, but for those who aren’t familiar can you talk a little bit about the mission of Carrot and what your business does, what problem it’s trying to solve.

Trevor: For sure so the problem we’re trying to solve is my background is online lead generation content marketing and conversion rate optimization. How do you make your websites and online marketing actually work better? Have a higher ROI? That’s what I did for years before Carrot and so people were coming to me. Investors were coming to me saying, “Hey I see that you’re getting stuff ranked really well on Google. How do I do that?”

After so many people ask me, we ended up test beta, you know beta testing a service on it. If you’re in a Google sell my house fast or you know we buy houses or any phrase like that. Insert any city in the country. You’re going to find several Carrot customers probably controlling the top of page one in Google for almost every motivated house seller phrase in America.

You can go into cash buyers and all those kinds of things too. We help you get in front of your highest quality and best prospects online as a real estate investor now an agent and then we help you convert them into a lead at a much higher rate once they get to your website. That’s what we do. We work with a lot of the biggest home buyers and house flippers, wholesalers in the country, now agents, but the mission, the mission. This came in year three, year one the mission was will this work?

Year two, the mission was can we be the best at the lead generation part of it? Year three was like let’s have a bigger purpose with this thing? I don’t want to do this if it’s all about leads that bores the crap out of me. I’m not passionate about leads.

I’m not passionate about real estate. I’m not passionate about software. What I am passionate about is this is a vehicle to make change and impact. For us, what we love the most was the interactions we were having with our customers.

It was how do we change our customers’ and our market’s mind and elevate the experience that people expect to have with companies. Not just in the real estate market, I want to change the perception. Every single person that ever interacts with Carrot, I want them to compare that experience with any company they ever work with and elevate what they expect business to do. We said, what is that about? This is all about we want to have business add humanity back to the world.

Business so much, you go two Masterminds, people talk about automation, automation, automation. Automation is good, but automation should only happen if you’re automating out low touch, low value things and putting the human and amplifying human touch somewhere else. So many businesses automate out the human touch to make me ROI bigger. We’re like.

Carol: Non.

Trevor: If everyone’s packing meat like like you look at kids these days or even a lot of adults no one talk—like you’re in an elevator, everyone’s looks down at this thing. Like humanity is slowly slipping away and can we use business to add humanity back into the equation?

J: That’s awesome. I know we have a bunch of listeners who are actually trying to start businesses like Carrot. Not necessarily in the real estate space, but they’re trying to break in to content marketing and building online businesses, services, that can get the attention of customers and that’s something that Carrot obviously has been amazing at. That you’ve been amazing at doing.

Can you give us some tips so for those people who can’t just get a Carrot website because they’re not necessarily in the real estate space. Can you give us some tips for how those people who are in the online space that want to do a better job of acquiring customers, of getting to the top of Google, of gaining attention for themselves in their businesses. What are some tips that they can do to do that?

Trevor: Yes, there is a couple right here and it’s funny. I was thinking about this the other day and I recorded a podcast on it that will be published here in a couple of weeks on our podcast.

J: Just for people that might be interested, you run a podcast called Carrot Cast and we’ll have a link to that in the show notes.

Trevor: That’s right, the Carrot Cast man and so when I really boiled down what was it the main, that helped Carrot get to where we are. It was a lot of things, but two things in this respect. Content and context. Right because like there’s a lot of people who put out a lot of content and you can gain attention putting out a lot of content, but if you don’t then, if you’re not the best possible solution for them you’re not going to get their loyalty. That’s where the context part comes in, right.

With Carrot, we have amazing content, but then the context comes in the fact that we can prove that our tool is the best. We can prove that our tool will actually solved their problem better than anything else out there. That’s the first thing I would really challenge people to do is number one, you’ve got to really pull back and look at your product. You’ve got to really pull back and look at your service and go is it fundamentally better than the other options out there? Because you can put out as much content as you want, but once again, your loyalty, you’re not going to have loyalty if you aren’t truly the better option.

Okay so focus on your product. Focus on the actually delivering a better result, a better solution to their problem, number one. Number two, now go out there and go what are the questions that people are asking around this? What are the main problems they are having? What are the main objections they are having? Write those down on a piece of paper and then start every single week, just doing videos on those things. You can do writing, but video just really cracks through the clutter these days in a big way.

I’ve got a framework and this is exactly what I would have people do first. Because it’s almost like a bull’s-eye. If you picture a bull’s-eye with three rungs to it. The center of the bull’s-eye is what I call brand. Right brand is the center of the bull’s-eye.

The next rung outside of that is what I call discovery. The next rung outside of that is evangelism. Okay, brand, discovery, evangelism. Once you’ve nailed your product and you have the context for the story. You have the context that you truly solve people’s problem better than anything else, you go okay I’m going to go all in on my content at the start just on my brand.

On brand search is what are your product names? Your product name plus the word reviews, if you’re in a lot of your marketing Google your name. Google your product, Google your product plus the word review. See what pops up in Google. Because that’s the conversation that your market is seeing when they are researching for you.

That’s the part that so many people miss is they’re putting out all this content, which is discovery content ie, how do I generate leads online. How do I do Facebook marketing for real estate investors? That’s discovery content. Then if they land on my blog post and then they’re like this Carrot thing looks interesting.

Now they go to, they go to Google and write Carrot reviews. Carrot software reviews. Carrot versus insert you know competitor. If we haven’t owned that conversation, we’re going to be missing out on that on those sales towards the end of the buy cycle. Start with brand content. Okay, put a video up on your website about who you are, why you do what you do, what you believe in because when people do research on your company, when they’re close to the end of the buy cycle they’re going to go your about page.

They want to see who the heck you are. Close that sale on your about page and then completely control the conversation around your brand. One thing that we’ve done to illustrate this, if you Google Carrot or investor carrot reviews, you’re going to see pretty much all of page one we curate it. It’s either some of our affiliates who are like, “Hey, what if we collaborated with you to do a video review on Carrot.” Well that would be pretty cool.

It’s like we actually drove those or you’ll see BiggerPockets forums pop up right. We go well we don’t own BiggerPockets, but it is the most amazing forum out there. How do we go out there and just add so much value to these forums that when people land on these, when they’re researching us and our competitors. It’s clear that we’re the best.

Carol: Sûr.

Trevor: We joined all of those forum conversations that were popping up when you research our brand and we essentially own them. We own them. That’s where I’d focused on guys is make sure your product is amazing it truly is the best. It has a clear unique selling proposition and then start to Google search all of your brand phrases, see where you need to control the conversation. Start to create content on those brand searches and then you start to create content on discovery phrases on the main questions, the main objections, the you know Facebook marketing for real estate investors types of phrases.

Carol: Great so it’s I find it so interesting that this tip is really just focus on all these different parts of your brand. That it’s all about the branding, branding, branding and looking at it at the bull’s-eye where you’ve got branding and then branch that out into discovery. Branch that out into evangelism. I’m curious and looking at your website and I’m looking at the different kinds of the different kind of employees you have and the way you build out your culture, would you almost say that you’ve got the branding, discovery, and evangelism to externally grow your company.

Do you think, Trevor that you almost take that whole concept of brand discovery and evangelism, bring it in-house, bring it internally and feed that into the culture of how you run your business so that all of your people who are working for you are working with all of those same type of concepts to make your business flourish.

Trevor: I love it. That’s such a good question. Yes, if you’re going to walk around the offices or half of our team or more half of our team is remote so like how do you bake that into the culture with remote team right? Even people in Baltimore on our team or California, they’re decked out in Carrot stuff all day. Like we don’t ask them to, but when they join the company they get a big old box mailed to them that lands on their first day of work.

It gets them all swagged out. It gets their core values like we send them a core values poster. I’ve got mine right there. Everybody gets a core values poster. This big old huge colorful thing.

It’s on their walls no matter where they are that they work with us. We have a channel on our slack channel called the thread of awesomeness. This is the awesomeness channel. We put that in place in 2015 because we’re going man there’s so many people on our team that are doing amazing things, but they don’t know the impact that they’re actually having on our customers.

Imagine if they knew in every single day saw the impact they’re having on people how much more connected they would be with our mission. How much more connected they would be with helping our clients. We incentivize our team members and we created process around how do you create amazing stories with customers. What questions do you ask people in live chat rather than just helping them upload their logo and then you finish it, you ask them a question like how are you loving Carrot so far?

Not how are you liking Carrot so far? How are you loving Carrot so far? Or if you see that they’re getting a bunch of leads, you proactively reach out to them and say hey I see you’re getting a bunch of leads. Are these turning into deals? You start the conversation and so they end up every single day there’s amazing amazing success stories that are getting put in the awesomeness channel and after about two years of incentivizing people to do that we remove the incentives. It has just has stuck in their culture.

Carol: That’s beautiful.

Trevor: Where people are just pumped to go I want to celebrate our customer. I want to celebrate the success of our customer. I want to celebrate the stories of those customers and get them out there and really wrap like you said around the brand.

J: Along with brand I know there’s an interesting story that I’d love to share with our listeners now and I’m sure you’re probably excited to share it with our listeners now as well. A couple weeks ago on Carrot Day, April 4th 2019, you launched a new domain name for Carrot. Can you tell us a little bit, can you go into the story behind the new domain name and what brought that about and just some of the interesting details that I think they’ll come out quickly.

Trevor: Yes so about a year well four years ago we’re like if we’re going to do this Carrot thing it would be kind of cool to own carrot.com and so we look it up and there’s an artist who owned carrot.com from like the beginning of the Internet. His name is Michael. He was amazing artist and he would never answer emails from me. I’d make offers that I thought were crazy like crazy prices and he never answered my emails. Probably two years ago my CTO hits me up and he’s like dude pull up carrot.com and I did and it was a coming soon page for another tech company.

I go man we lost that. It’s like ah. We’ll stick oncarrot I guess, but over the last two years it’s really amplified as we’ve grown even more. We’re almost 6,000 active members right now. It’s like the last two years we’ve really realized how confused a lot of people are on what our brand actually is. Probably half of the market calls us oncarrot as a company name.

Like they’d say I love oncarrot. The only thing about oncarrot was our domain name. That’s a really really good lesson for people. A lot of people think about domain names as it relates to SEO, the search engine optimization, but they forget that often times your domain name almost replaces your company name and people’s in some people’s minds.

Carol: That’s your brand.

J: Laisse moi te poser une question. If you had it to do over again, if you knew that you couldn’t get carrot.com it just wasn’t going to be affordable and it wasn’t for many years, would you have chosen a different business name if you had to start over again?

Trevor: I don’t know man because that’s a really good question. Je ne sais pas. I just really like the name Carrot man. Like I think it works and I can’t think of another better name and you know for us right now so I don’t know, but it’s kind of one of those things that I think things happen for a reason. If we never would have been able to acquire carrot.com I think we’d be just fine, but where it really completely shifted in our minds was same thing every level in business, every year in business I make a new contract with myself. I go okay, what is my contract this year? About a year and a half ago because we were leading into 2018, we were looking at things going okay, we’re making more money than we ever thought we would at this company.

Like we never aspire to build this company and scale it to where it is. Never did. Every year we’d set a new contract. Year one is can we make something that works and people want. Year two was can we be the best in the world with this niche? Year three was how do we make more purpose with this business? Year four became what does that next level look like and is it always just in the real estate market? At that point, we go okay. If we’re going to go big with this thing, if we’re going to go all in on our brand, let’s go all in on the brand. We’ve got to own carrot.com.

J: D'accord.

Trevor: We got to do it. That led into a series of different things. We lost it. We got it. We lost it. We got it.

Then it ends up landing up on, we never got it, but it ends up landing on a GoDaddy.com auction. It is about eight-ten-12 months ago. “My CTO is like dude this on GoDaddy.com auctions. What’s going on?”

We hopped over there and we were going to bid it up or you know towards that last day, it was like a week left and it was almost at $100 grand with a week left. We were going to geez this going to be expensive. Like how bad do we really want this thing? How all and are we really on? Not just the brand Carrot.

We were all in on brand Carrot. The question was and this is a big lesson how all in are we on our mission? How all in are we on our mission because this isn’t about making this, we never would have invested what we invested in this domain guys. If we were just going to stay in the real estate market we never would have.

We could completely continue doing what were doing with OnCarrot.com. We would have been just fine, but when we looked at it and went okay. What was our original intent with this company? It was help high-margin small businesses across America finally get results online. They’re all online.

They all got simple, free, cheap easy websites set up or they had a mom, pop web developer set up. They look pretty, but they’re not performing. We think we can solve it better than anyone else. Let’s start in the real estate industry. That’s where the calculations became a lot more stronger as we were going okay when I used to think $20 grand for this domain name was a lot. We were going okay. This is probably going to be our last chance to ever buy it. Let’s see how real we are with this business and we did.

J: Before we get into I don’t think you’ve mentioned a number yet, but.

Trevor: Oh my god.

J: I want to get to, but before you mentioned a number, I want to ask did you do any type of financial cost benefit analysis? Did you look at how long if we own this brand or if we own this domain name, how long it would take to basically generate enough revenue to pay us back the extra, the benefit from the domain name or was it never a financial discussion. It was purely this is what we need to do for the company and there’s no reason to do a financial analysis.

Trevor: Yes, there was definitely some emotional in there and there was some logical. Right so.

J: Right.

Trevor: There was definitely a little bit of both in there. We ended up investing in $600 grand in a domain name.

J: Sensationnel.

Trevor: We could either, we could have either had an amazing vacation house to live in or something or a domain name. You know we can’t even live in the domain name. We ended up working the numbers all different angles because yes I wanted it. I wanted to quit telling people my email address was It just bugged the crap because you’d have to like explain it three times.

Carol: Explain over and over.

Trevor: Yes, it was hard so there was those little things there, but yes there’s a lot of benefit, but we wouldn’t have gotten a lot of the benefit if we weren’t planning on going bigger. Okay so one of the benefits of is a general domain can open a lot of doors with introductions. An introduction or an email from packs a lot more weight than an email from number one.

Carol: C'est vrai.

Trevor: You can’t quantify that.

J: Oui.

Trevor: There’s likely going to be something that might pop up in the future. Number two, if there is an acquisition, which we don’t have any plans on selling the company any time soon.

J: Oui.

Trevor: If there is an acquisition that domain name just elevates the brand that much more. You’re going to get far more than what we paid in there out of that that OnValue on an acquisition.

J: Absolutely. Intellectual property.

Trevor: Yes, IP in a big way. Number three like I said is if we were going to go more broad into other types of businesses, which we will as we go. We’re not doing it at any time in the next year, year and a half. There’s brand confusion since we started Carrot. There’s been you know in 2013-2014 there’s been a bunch of companies pop up that have also been called Carrot.

There’s Carrot weather app that started in 2015. There’s the Carrot fertility company that’s like $80 million and funded that started a couple of years ago. There’s a Carrot habit tracking app. All those popped up within a year or two of us starting and we’re going okay. If were really going to go big with this thing and I’m just making this up. Let’s say someday we do TV commercials. Right I want to be the Carrot company.

Carol: Do it, yes.

Trevor: I want to be one of the Carrot companies, the one with a terrible domain name, I want to be like the Carrot company.

Carol: You are Carrot.

Trevor: I’ll give you one last little final, final thing is I was thinking worst-case scenarios when I’m making big decisions. I go what? Like worst-case scenario, I’ll go—going back to that first year out of college, same thing. Worst case scenario, if I can’t figure this entrepreneurship thing out this year, what happens?

J: Oui.

Trevor: I go get a job I guess and maybe move in with my parents? Je ne sais pas. It’s not that bad then I’ll go get a job or something. Worst case scenario with this was okay let’s think this Carrot thing doesn’t work. That would be a bummer.

That would suck, but we’ve got cash. We’re fine. Worst case scenario there’s these other carrot companies that would probably love this domain name and maybe we’ll be able to sell it for exactly what we got out of it and maybe more. Let’s say it worst case, $300 grand.

Let’s say we sell it for $300 grand. Okay, we got to use it for a few years. We took a hit. It was kind of a cool experience, but if a couple hundred grand actually kills me over several decade period I think I did something wrong. That was kind of my analysis there.

Carol: That’s great and that’s such, I think a great reminder to the listeners too something you touched on is this takes you back to way back when right out of college. Just remember what is the worst possible thing that could happen, right.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: At the end of the day it’s not a matter of life and death.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: Your kids didn’t go off the cliff into a ravine. Everyone’s happy and everyone’s alive and worst-case scenario we lose a little bit of cash and we move on. Do that worst-case scenario exercise and it’ll all work itself out.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: Like I said like so many people forget to equate in there your like to me the worst case scenario of not taking a leap is usually way worse than the worst case scenario of taking it.

Trevor: You know so the worst case scenario of me not taking that year out of college is I end up getting a job. That I get locked into then we end up having a family and I feel like I can’t leave it because there’s less flexibility now because it’s a steady paycheck. I’m ten-15 years in. I hate my life and then I feel like it’s too late to make a switch and then blah. Then I lost decades of my life. That to me was way worse than like oh, well, I tried it and it didn’t work.

Carol: C'est vrai.

Trevor: Same thing with the domain. I’m like worst case scenario if I didn’t do it is let’s say we grow this thing to big and then there’s this conflict with brand and I don’t know know and all these things. I’m like let’s just do it.

Carol: Yes, let’s just make it happen. Excellent.

J: It’s so cliché, but the saying you regret the things you didn’t do versus the things you did do.

Carol: Oui.

J: One more question, Trevor. What is your biggest challenge at your business these days?

Trevor: I mean the biggest challenge today its people. Right it’s not the quality of the people. It’s mainly how do I as a leader lead people at the next level? You know we’re at 25 people right now and once you crossover to 18 to 20 person mark you’ve got to have leaders.

Right and no longer can I be a lazy leader. Because now I am leading the leaders and then those leaders are going out there and leading their teams. I’m having to really nail my personal habits more than I’ve ever like all those little things that were okay for me to have bad habits, waking up late, not being disciplined with my schedule, not planning ahead and being clear on priorities. Those things can’t happen anymore. They just can’t so that’s where I’m the most pumped about, but it’s also hard because I’m having to work against the some bad habits I’ve created over the years.

J: That’s awesome and I love the fact that you don’t use the term manager. You don’t use the term boss. You don’t use the word team. You use the word leader and that’s echoes a lot to what kind of culture you’re trying to build there and I bet you your employees appreciate that.

Trevor: Je vous remercie.

Carol: Impressionnant. Trevor, now we’re going to go to the part of the show that we call four more so we’re going to start with four questions that we ask all of our guests and then the more is going to be we’re going to have you tell us where we can find out more about you.

Trevor: Cool.

Carol: Okay so J take the first question.

J: Okay, so Trevor we know what your first job was. It told us that, but what was your worst job and what lessons came from that job?

Trevor: It’s so funny man. Like I’ve never had a real job other than you know doing that stuff with my parents because after college I just started taking on some things. I think the worst ones that’s such good question man. The very very first core value on the Carrot, core value that I love the most. It’s not at the top, but it’s the one I love the most is be a beacon of positivity and possibility. That question right there like I think I’m so clouded to negativity. I can’t even I literally can’t even think about what my worst was.

J: D'accord.

Trevor: Which is weird. That’s a good question though.

J: Good enough so.

Carol: C'est très bien. C'est très bien. I’m going to ask you a different one.

Trevor: D'accord.

Carol: What’s a big opportunity somewhere along the way that you said no to. Do you think it was the right decision to have said no?

Trevor: Yes, there was one really early on when I was. It was about a year and a half out of college and I was starting to learn some of this marketing stuff. There’s a company called Agora Publishing and Agora Publishing is a huge company right. They had a division and they still have a division called early to rise and it was kind of the healthy, wealthy, wise division of the company. I had worked my way into getting to know the people who lead that and I was one of the finalist to lead the company.

I was completely underqualified. I should not have done it. That’s the reason I didn’t get hired, but I actually, that was an amazing opportunity to get mentored by some of the smartest marketers in the world and I let my own insecurities get in the way from me actually stepping forward and showing my best self. That would have been an amazing opportunity, but at the same time things happen for a reason. That would have been cool. Working with my Mark Ford, Michael Masterson, all those guys would have been amazing.

Carol: Sûr.

J: Génial. Question number three. There’s a lot of bad advice out there both in your industry and in business in general. What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given and how would you improve on that? How would you improve on that advice if you were to give it to somebody else?

Trevor: Yes the worst advice kind of goes back to what we had talked about a little bit sooner and the thing is it’s such well-intentioned advice and maybe it’s unique to different people too right. Where the advice I was just hammering, hammering, hammering people hammering into me were the two things. Follow your passion, ie build a business around your passion. I so wish like you said I’ve got the baseball clock back there. I grew up playing baseball.

J: Oui.

Trevor: My dad played professional baseball. I was not destined for that, but I was banging my head against the wall for years going man why there must be something wrong with me? Why can I not figure out how to create a business that’s my passion? Like why can I not figure that out. Once I made that mindset shift that the business does not have to be your passion.

It should fuel your passion. I’m like, “Oh okay, that’s what this is about.” Like I don’t have to build a business around mountain biking. I don’t have to build a business around these other things, golf, or whatever. I just need to build a business that lights me up. That does good and that fuels the passion, fuels the things that I’m good at. Then the last part of it is, the business has to be interesting. Right it’s got to be interesting to you. It doesn’t have to be your passion. It’s got to be interesting to you. The software world was crazy interesting to me.

Carol: Excellent. Okay so our fourth question is now we know that you splurged on carrot.com $600,000 and I think you’re agreeing that as of right now it’s absolutely totally worth it.

Trevor: Oui.

Carol: Other than that example right there. What’s something else that you’ve splurged on? Either in your at home life or your professional life or however, wherever, it fits into your life. A splurge that you’ve made that was totally worth it.

Trevor: Yes, two things really quick. One of them 2010, I wrote my very first ever life list. It’s still back there. I have to retrace it over with pen every couple of years and on there was I was visualizing where I wanted to live. I would visualize myself waking up in a house with a big window in our bedroom overlooking a body of water that inspired me and like a bunch of properties so we bought three acres on the north on Qua River here in Southern Oregon two and a half years ago and that was a splurge, but were going to be there for a long long long long time. That’s something.

Carol: Impressionnant.

Trevor: I’m proud of. You know same thing, the window like literally the window overlooks this amazing stretch of the river. That was a splurge. We’re renovating right now and it’s turning out to be more of a splurge than we expected as the renovations happen.

The second one is Masterminds. As I was needing to up level myself and my team this past two years I started joining the right Masterminds. I’m in Russell Branson’s mastermind I’ve have been a part of for a couple of years and I’m in another high-level Mastermind with my software coach. Those are not cheap between just the two of those were $80-$90,000 deep. Just in Masterminds for a year, but it’s some of the best investment you could possibly make.

Carol: Excellent.

J: Impressionnant. Okay so that was the four. Let’s jump into the more so for people that want to find out more about you, want to find out more about carrot.com. How they can get in touch with you potentially. Where can they do that?

Trevor: Yes, carrot.com is probably the first spot. I don’t really put much out on my own personal blog yet. I’m going to be kind of documenting our journey a lot more over there on TrevorMauch.com, M-A-U-C-H. Honestly, probably the best spot is the podcast. Is the Carrot Cast because that’s my outlet. I document behind the scenes of what I’m doing to grow this company. It’s probably 30% real estate lead generation related, 70% entrepreneur mindset stuff, 70% what am I going through as a business owner and how do you do the same thing? The Carrot Cast, CarrotCast.com.

Carol: Excellent, thank you Trevor. Thank you so much for being with us today. We learned so much. I can’t wait to do my own personal energy audit.

Trevor: Fais le.

Carol: I think it’s going to reveal. I’m totally going to. I’m excited that we’re attaching it to the show and I think everyone’s going to find it really useful and I can’t wait to see where it takes me so thanks again for all the great information you shared. It was an awesome time talking with you.

Trevor: Thank you guys. I had a blast and if there’s anything at all that I can do for you guys or your listeners or promoting the heck out of this podcast. Faites le moi savoir. Love what you guys are doing and would love to support it.

J: we appreciate that. Thanks so much Trevor.

Carol: Oh my goodness. I so love talking with him. I truly can’t wait to do the energy audit. I think that is such a valuable piece of information and I know I do stuff that I just gets sucked into every day that I don’t necessarily love and I really can’t wait to be able to find a concrete way to shift that to really do the stuff that truly fuels my energy.

J: Yes, I know. I’m always concerned that you don’t have enough energy and you’re not high energy and so yes maybe pick that energy up a little bit Carol Scott because.

Carol: I’m going to work on it. Je promets. All right, take us out of here, honey.

J: Thank you everybody for listening to today’s episode of the BiggerPockets Business Podcast we’re Carol and J.

Carol: Now go do something that fuels your energy today. À plus tard.

J: Au revoir.