The Age of Entrepreneurs with Clark Varin: Recent Episodes
Clark Varin
For the first time in history, anyone, anywhere, can build a business to pursue their wildest dreams, even if they don’t have a million dollar idea, a Harvard MBA, or a dime of startup capital.
Digitalization and globalization have flattened the world economy, providing unprecedented opportunities to a generation of entrepreneurs who have gone on to launch business empires.
Only those who are persistent, ambitious, and resourceful enough to break free from their day-to-day will go on to earn back their time, money, and freedom during the Age of Entrepreneurs.
Pete McPherson is a full-time blogger and podcaster at DoYouEvenBlog.com, a resource for income-seeking bloggers and online entrepreneurs. He spends his days interviewing the world’s top creators & entrepreneurs, such as Seth Godin and Neil Patel. He’s been seen on Forbes, Business Insider, and NPR.
Matt Wolfe is one of the podcast co-hosts of the Hustle and Flowchart Podcast and co-founder of Evergreen Profits. They’ve had some legends on their show including Russell Brunson, Mike Dillard, Mark Joyner. As a copywriter, I was just going wild with the content that he had on his show. But what’s really unique about Evergreen Profits is that they call themselves “A Life Improvement Podcast Masquerading As A Business Podcast”, so although they talk about marketing, traffic, and wealth creation, they also dive into mindset, lifestyle, and the stuff that really makes life worth living. So let’s give it up for Matt!
Mike Begg and his company AMZ Advisers has generated $500 million in e-commerce sales for him and his clients. He also operates AMZ Courses which educates Amazon sellers on how to increase sales on the platform. Mike enjoys scaling and finding ways to do things better, and has built international office for his company in Mexico where he currently resides. He also loves sharing advice and tips on anything related to Amazon, improving business efficiency and establishing companies internationally.
Akbar Sheikh, once suffered from some serious addictions and anxiety that ended him up in the hospital. During that time he and had no purpose or passion for life, he was broke, living in a windowless electrical storage closet with no hot water, not even a shower, when he when on his journey to find his “WHY”. He discovered his purpose and passion, found spiritual peace, became the international best selling author of “7 Figure Funnels”, he’s helped 10 funnels hit 7 figures in online sales, and now spends his time focused on giving to others (especially to orphans, blind people, and building water wells in third world countries).
Andréa Jones is a social media consultant that helps early-stage entrepreneurs build online communities and find their dream customers. She's the host of the Savvy Social Podcast and creator of the Savvy Social School, a digital platform designed to teach its members how to implement organic social media growth strategies. Her work has been published by Hubspot, Aweber, and WordPress and she’s been named one of Social Report's top marketers to follow.
Today’s guest is Kevin Bupp, an entrepreneur, real estate investor, CEO of Sunrise Capital, and podcast host of “Real Estate Investing For Cash Flow”. His journey started at 12 years old delivering newspapers, nearly dropped out of high school, and then found his passion for real estate at 20 years old. To date he’s started a dozen businesses, completed over $150 million in real estate transactions, and he’s founded multiple charities including “72 Hours To Key West”, an annual 280 mile bike ride to help families in poverty.
Alan Hart is an entrepreneur down to the core having founded or served as an executive on nine separate start-ups. He’s also the host of “Marketing Today” what Inc calls the best marketing podcast for CMOs, where he has interviewed some of the world’s top marketing professionals and business leaders. Today Alan serves as a consultant, speaker, brand, and innovation expert and has consulted for Fortune 100 companies.
Eric Simonson and Ethan Jung are two entrepreneurs who are getting the bullshit out of financial advising. While other advisors will purposely give you bad advice that trains your life savings down to 33% of what it could be, while they walk away with the rest, these guys give you raw unbiased advice that could help you achieve your dreams or save your marriage. Listen up for some free tips on what to be aware of as an entrepreneur.
Kelly Roach is known a business coach, former Fortune 500 executive, podcast host of, “The Unstoppable Entrepreneur Show” and through and author of “Unstoppable” and “The Live Launch Method". Kelly has also been featured on ABC, NBC, Good Day, the CW, Inc. and Forbes.
Paul Ollinger is a nationally-touring comedian, podcaster and corporate refugee. After 15 years selling advertising for companies like Yahoo! and Facebook Paul launched a comedy career that has taken him all over North America, opening for legends like Daniel Tosh. Paul is also the host of the Crazy Money Podcast in which he interviews celebrities, authors, and everyday people to explore how money affects their decision-making and happiness.
Stephen Gates is the Head Design Evangelist at InVision, working as a strategic partner to companies like Google, Amazon, Home Depot, Bank of America, Facebook, Rolls Royce, American Express. If you don’t know his name, you’ve for sure seen his work before. Apple has featured his work in 10 keynotes, 4 TV commercials, in Apple Stores, & Apple's website.
Kute Blackson grew up as the son of a minister in Ghana. He left the church to become a visionary and teacher in a new, fresh approach to spiritual awareness. Through his lessons and events Kute has helped millions of people all over the world tap into their spiritual energy and break down their internal barriers including top CEOs, supermodels, pro athletes, and Hollywood actors.
He’s the author of the national bestselling book You.Are.The.One. has appeared with Larry King, Jack Canfield, Fox and Friends, Dr. Drew, and Inc magazine, which named him ‘The Mindfulness Guru Billionaires Go To For Advice’.
Business coach Adrienne Dorison is the co-founder of Run Like Clockwork, a business that has helped hundreds of business leaders from Fortune 500 companies to fast-growth startups to systemize, expand profit margins, and help entrepreneurs win back their time. Her method is to implement the Clockwork system into businesses over a 12 Week Accelerator Program and then battle test the new system by having the business owner take a much needed 4-week vacation. If you feel like your business runs you instead of you running the business, then listen closely because this podcast is for you.
I personally learned a ton during the interview. A few of the more notable things were how Adrienne was able to make a $20,000 launch from an email list of just 250 people. We talked about how all your business problems are also personal problems, many of them you make yourself. Her thoughts on living life in seasons where some seasons you have certain core focuses while still making minimum payments to your other value buckets completely revolutionized the way I plan to think about my time over the long term. She is truly an amazing business coach and this episode was full of wisdom. Hopefully you enjoy listening to it as much as I’ve enjoyed creating it!
After taking a solo adventure across Kenya and Tanzania, Ryan was on a plane back home wondering, how can I travel more? The only thing holding him back was $207K of debt. That’s when Ryan realized it’s time to start a side hustle. He loved his job, so instead of doing anything radical and quitting, he worked nights and weekends towards his mission, “Operation Do Whatever The Hell I Want”. After working two years without taking a day off, Ryan is now enjoying the freedom he was striving for and teaching others how to dial in their goals and achieve their dreams using The Molehill System, a strategy to stay focused and achieve at your peak.
On this episode we talk about Ryan’s progressive leap from employee, to side hustle, to full time entrepreneur. Ryan reveals his strategy to eliminate all of his debt in two years and how he did it by increasing his income. He revealed a somewhat unpopular opinion from all the internet “gurus”, because his strategy was to first increase his income as an employee, then to build the side income in the long run. It worked out for him and perhaps it could work for you.
For the last few days, I've been completely thrown out of my routine, because last week I moved from Milwaukee to Minneapolis. It's been frustrating, but it's a good reminder that the key to productivity is forming good habits. The faster you can instill productive habits in your life, the faster you'll achieve peak productivity. Here's what I do on a daily basis to keep myself performing at my peak.
Ever since his first job at 14 years old, Art Sobczak has been selling over the phone. His company "Business By Phone" has helped hundreds of thousands of salespeople generate untold millions of dollars by implementing his conversational, common-sense, and non-salesy techniques. He’s received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. He just released the third edition of “Smart Calling - How To Take Fear, Failure, and Rejection Out of Cold Calling” and once again became a #1 Amazon Best Seller in the Business Sales category.
On this episode we discuss advanced cold calling strategies that Art has renamed “Smart Calling”, which how to pre-fram the decision maker and their assistant so that they’re happily anticipating your call, how to generate immediate interest and curiosity with your opening line on the cold calls, and then how to close the sale without sounding “salesy”. He also reveals the mindset shifts and language shifts you need to successfully get past the “gate keepers” (hint: he doesn’t call them gate keepers) and what neds to happen in order to get a call back when you leave a voicemail.
I personally learned a ton from this podcast and took down a ton of notes. I hope you enjoy listening to the show as much as I enjoyed recording it. Let’s welcome Art Sobczak!
How I went from constantly being stressed out all the time to learning how to build a machine that I can walk away from while it keeps running. I share some of my biggest failures and lessons learned from hiring, building a team, and documenting processes.
On Monday I told my team we need to get another client, on Tuesday we landed one of our dream clients. Using the Golden Rule of Marketing, I’m able to predictably attract my dream clients to me without spending a dime on ads, without a website, testimonials, or any of the other distractions that get entrepreneurs caught up in the early stages of business. Just to prove my point, I’m going to run this marketing agency for a year, with the goal of getting to 7-Figures, without a website. For my full strategy, dive right in.
Karen Briscoe is a realtor who in the early stages of her business lost her business partner to cancer the same month that the market crashed in 2008. After nearly giving up on her business, she made a commitment to improving herself by giving herself 5 minutes per day every morning towards personal development. Despite the market tanking, she continued growing her business and to date has $1.5 billion in real estate sales. She attributes much of her persistence to her morning routine, nicknamed the 5 Minute Success concept, and now speaks nationally on the topic in front of entrepreneurship conferences.
On this episode we talk about bouncing back, emotionally from failure, the fundamental of compounding success, energy versus time management (what it means and how to maximize it), parenting as an entrepreneur, investing in real estate, and crazyyyyy -- the background of how I came up with the concept of "The Age of Entrepreneurs".
I may not be a world-class entrepreneur, but I've made enough mistakes that at least I can share with you what NOT to do when you're getting started. This time around I decided I'm NOT going to make a logo, I'm NOT going to make a website, I'm NOT going to even name my company, and so far this has been my best start. I have more of my dream customers than I could have ever hoped for and I acquired them in such a small period of time. I'll also share with you what I AM doing and now by choosing NOT to do all that other stuff has allowed me to focus on the one thing that does move the needle forward.
When I re-started Travel Young, I knew that I was taking on way more risk than I should have, but I did it knowing that my worst case scenario wasn’t going to be that bad. I already planned out that if everything fails, then I’ll start a marketing agency. I had done it in the past and I knew that I could do it again if everything turned sour. In this episode I give away how I’ve been able to acquire my first few clients even though I had zero testimonials and success stories. I also explain my thought process on picking my niche, and my strategy for acquiring my first 10 dream clients.
I have a confession to make. I'm in rehab. Not because of drugs or alcohol, but because I'm a rehabilitating entrepreneur. Last July I decided to relaunch my dream business and what was once my college project, Travel Young. It failed epically and I learned a ton from it. Here's what happened.
Chase Dimond, an internet entrepreneur who started his career guerrilla marketing at 14 years old. After starting a series of online communities and businesses, he found his niche as an email marketer. He started an agency, called it Boundless labs, and although it’s only two years old, he has already made $35 million in e-commerce sales for his clients. Chase has been featured in Forbes, Foundr Magazine, and Sumo.
On this episode, we talk about some crazy early startups that Chase got involved with including a dating app for Bernie Sander’s followers that went viral with millions of website visitors per month. We also get to hear some professional tips and tricks on how to get past email spam filters, how to test the best email frequency for your business, how to maintain good email list hygiene, and how to maximize open and click-through rates. Considering that email lists are the #1 most profitable marketing channel in the New Age, his knowledge is worth solid gold. Towards the end of the show he also shares some of his biggest struggles in growing his team, hiring, and running is business while caring for a new born baby.
Dr. Moe Mukiibi, grew up in Uganda, wearing shirts made of tree bark and brushing his teeth with microbial sticks. As a kid he had to walk long distances to collect dirty water, which sparked his passion for water technology. Moe went on to study Chemistry and then got his PhD in engineering at the University of Arizona. He's won 15 distinguished awards for his work, has been recognized by the International Water Association and World Health Organization, and has been hired by the government and Fortune 500 companies for major water projects including helping clean up the BP oil spill in 2010. Now Moe’s mission is to bring clean water to every home developed and undeveloped with his company StoneHouse Water Technologies.
In this episode we hear about Moe’s insatiable drive to learn and solve problems. He was teaching a class of Ugandan students his same age when he was 11 years old, was one of 2,000 kids to get a full-ride scholarship to the “Harvard of East Africa”, left his country, learned a few lessons about what creates happiness, kidnapped kids to put them in school and got blackmailed so badly the FBI had to get involved. Moe’s story is a rollercoaster, like many entrepreneurs, but he shows us how he’s been able to tame it by focusing on a few things: creating a product, building a team, and then communicating the vision very effectively while the team figures out the rest.
Matt grew up in the ghetto of Chicago and at one point was homeless, carrying a machete on him for protection. To survive he was selling weed on the streets, but after a series of life-changing events he got his life together, changed his mindset, learned to sell, and started several dispensaries at the start of the “Green Rush”. He became the leading expert in the cannabis industry and is now running the CBD Business Accelerator, the leading online course for people who want to launch and grow cannabis businesses.
On this episode we hear about the insane stories Matt has of growing up in the ghetto, we talk about how he changed his mindset from anger, resentfulness, and blame, to a mindset of peace, acceptance, and gratitude (spoiler: His morning routine was critical). Matt’s obviously a big proponent of cannabis (and psychedelics) for uplifting reasons like to dive deeper into one’s own spirituality, so he tells us about a time when he locked himself in a dark room during a trip to meet his spirit animal. In Matt’s own words “Cannabis entrepreneurs are not like most other entrepreneurs” and from what I learned on this podcast, that statement really couldn’t be more true.
Today is a very special day! I have the pleasure of introducing one of my dearest friends and inspirations in life, my business partner in Muvule Financing, and a man that I love like a brother, Moses Muwunguzi. Moses grew up in the countryside of Uganda during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He tragically lost both of his parents to the virus, had no other option but to move in with his aunt who lived in a single room mud hut made of sticks and straw, but Moses never lost hope. Against all the odds, he fought to finish his education, earn a scholarship to attend Mackerere University, the "Harvard of East Africa”, out of college, he started a series of companies and he’s now he is fulfilling his dream of providing nearly free food and education for every single child in his village. He’s one of the kindest, hardest working, and determined people I’ve ever met.
In this episode we discuss how to overcome unbearable hardship, how to stay happy through times of trial, how the internet has opened doors for people in Uganda to compete in the American market, how to change a small entrepreneur’s life with a $10 micro loan, and how to build a strong vision and foster strong relationships to make your dreams come true. Learn more about Moses' ventures at www.muvule.com , www.omutouganda.org , and www.kisasafaris.com.
Bridger is a fund manager and internet entrepreneur who decided to skip the usual steps of managing money, getting the Harvard MBA, building credibility under someone else, having a bunch of his own money to invest, and decided he was just going to START. Within 18 months he had done 142 deals in 38 states, created a network of billionaire mentors, and decided to it’s time to launch a mastermind to help the next generation of fund managers get into the game even if they think they're, “Too Young” or “Don’t have enough experience”. Today he continues to run Black Bridge Capital, the Investment Fund Mastermind, and he hosts the podcast “Investment Fund Secrets”.
On this episode we discuss how your greatest weakness is actually your greatest strength, (as long as you lean into it) the secret formula to starting an investment fund without any prior experience or credibility, how to test your info product business with only $500 before you ever create it, the role of the entrepreneur within the business, how to leverage partnerships to get more done, and how to bounce back after traumatic events.
Tyler started his first business at 12 years old and sold it, only to find himself in $150K of credit card debt. He dug his way out of that hole by starting a very successful social media marketing agency in Minneapolis, hired a CEO to run the company and is now preparing for digital warfare with his newest company, Shyld Academy, which educates people on how to protect their information from cyber criminals.
On this episode, we talk about the journey of running a six figure IT company out of a 200 sq foot college dorm room, how to find opportunities even when you feel hopelessly broke and deeply screwed, the art of juggling multiple businesses at once, how hacking AirBnb can free up your time and money to travel the world, and how to improve your businesses’ cashflow processes to unlock treasure troves of cash that can be used to fuel the growth of your company.
Bobby Mason is a serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, co-founder of the startup incubator EducatingEntrepreneurs.com, and podcast host of “The Bobby Mason Audio Experience”. He started his first business in 8th grade by going door to door asking for odd jobs. His company evolved into a landscaping firm of 20 employees by his sophomore year of high school, which is around the time that he found out he was sick.
He spent his last year and a half of high school living next to the Mayo Clinic as doctors probed him trying to figure out what was wrong. He nearly died, but miraculously the disease subsided, which fueled him with a “life is short” mentality. Three years later he went on to make his first million and he’s started a dozen businesses since.
In this episode we cover everything from personal development, time management, how to network with billionaires, finding your passion and purpose, giving back to the community, and how to live life to the fullest.
For the first time in history, anyone, anywhere, can build a business to pursue their wildest dreams, even if they don’t have a million dollar idea, a Harvard MBA, or a dime of startup capital. Digitalization and globalization have flattened the world economy, taking the power out of the hands of huge corporations and putting unprecedented business opportunities out on a silver platter for a generation of hopelessly broke and deeply screwed entrepreneurs who have gone on to launch their empires out of their parents' basements.
As the job market staggers and inequality rises, an entire generation of ambitious, hard working, and well educated adults are entering the workforce only to find themselves completely undervalued and underpaid, suffocating under a heaping piles of debt, hopelessly dragging their feet, and begging for an escape.
Only those who are persistent, ambitious, and resourceful enough to break free from the shackles of their day job will go on to earn back their time and freedom during the Age of Entrepreneurs.