Bound To Be Rich

Came to America With Nothing… Now Runs Multi-Million Dollar Businesses – Josh Pather

EPISODE 6 – Josh Pather, Founder & CEO of Photo Booth International

Listen in to this in-depth conversation with Josh Pather, CEO & Founder of Photo Booth International.

Josh immigrated to the United States with nothing but two suitcases and is now a successful entrepreneur generating millions in revenue.

Josh shares:

  • how he got sued by Nike as a teenager
  • how he built a photo booth rental company that got to $700k in revenue
  • how he built a company that generates millions by selling equipment to event companies
  • how he invests in real estate and dividend stocks
  • his tips for online marketing and lead generation
  • and much much more!

Podcast episode & show notes below!

Show notes:

[expand title=”Click here for the raw, unedited transcript:”]

This transcript was automatically generated using Descript.

Ismail: Welcome to The Bound to Be Rich Podcast, where I attempt to reverse engineer people who seem to be successful, no matter the circumstances, so that you can apply those lessons to your own life. I’m your host, is Ismail Humet. In this episode, we are joined by Josh Pather, founder and CEO of Photo Booth International.

Josh immigrated to the United States with nothing but two suitcases, literally. We talk about his journey in all the ventures along the way that led him to where he is today, including when he got sued by Nike as a teenager, he’s used the skills he picked up in each business. He started to get to the next level on his next idea.

He’s now a master of digital marketing and online lead generation. He was recently awarded the coveted two comma Award from ClickFunnels twice. This means he generated over a million dollars in revenue through a single online marketing funnel, and he did that two times. So how does someone starting in a whole new country, literally from zero, grow a multimillion dollar business?

Let’s dive in.

Josh, thanks so much for coming on the show. Happy 

Josh: to have you here. Hey, man,

[00:01:22] Backstory of Josh.

Josh: I’m glad we’re able to do it. 

Ismail: Yeah, we’ve, we’ve been connecting a lot more over the last couple years, thankfully. For people who don’t know, you were a speaker at the PB and y conference that I set up and so like a little bit, not, this isn’t meant to like downplay you, but I was a little bit surprised by how like popular, like people went crazy for you, I guess.

Cause I, I know you and I know what you do. But people were really, really digging and I was thinking about afterwards, like why and I, I’ll give you my thoughts, but I’m curious to hear why you think people really like really were drawn to you after the presentation. 

Josh: I’m an underdog, you know, like I was watching undercover, billionaire season one, you know, and they, they talk about like underdog barbecue and you know, like I just share my story, you know, there’s nothing fake about it.

I keep it real and you know, just show people my struggles. I’m not perfect, you know, I show people my report card all the time cuz I think a lot of times people think that, you know, when they see successful people, they had some kind of advantage and even I was under that influence, you know, in the beginning as well.

Or they have a certain skin color or they went to a certain college or they had contacts or their parents had contacts or they, you know, had a trust fund or something like that. So I think a lot of people just I’m relatable to a lot of people and they can see like, man, this guy Josh can do it. I can do it.

You know, And I wanna be that example cuz I needed that whenever I was, whenever I first moved here to America, you know? 

Ismail: Yeah. I think if I, So from what, when I thought about it, I remember just watching in, like seeing all the comments actually rewatched the presentation last night to kind of get ready for this.

Yeah. And I remember like all the comments coming in, like people were like, Yo, this guy’s the man, Keep him talking, keep going. Like, and I thought about afterwards why, And I think I, I kind of zeroed in on a few things. One, and I’ve told you this before there’s like these little online communities of like photo booth owners mm-hmm.

you’re, you’re not terribly active in them. Yeah. So you’re kind of like new blood. So people are like, Yo, who is this guy? He’s amazing. I haven’t seen him before. That, that kind of gets their attention. Yeah. Number two, you had, like you mentioned right now, that relatability, Right? People really relate to you and you even in the start of the presentation, you made a point of that.

You’re like, Hey, I’m nothing special. If I can do it, you can too. And I think that of course, really motivates people. And third, you just had a great presentation and we were kind of talking about this before we, we hit record. You clearly put effort into that presentation and you spoke at another conference too.

Mm-hmm. . The content is great. The delivery is great. I don’t know if you rehearsed it or how much work you put into it, but it’s a lot better than what everyone else kind of throws together or just kinda wings you. Yeah, 

Josh: most of the time. And, and it’s funny brought brought up that point because I, I always look back and look and see like from our customers who buy photo booth from us, like what’s the difference between the success and failure, right?

Cause with me and you, we can go on Google and we know people are searching for photo booth rentals, right? So we know that, you know, the numbers don’t lie, but it’s the effort that they put in. Like, did they pick up the phone to call Google to get set up with ads? Did they take the effort to learn the software?

And I boiled it down. I was like, it’s always an effort problem, you know? And when people come by from us, I tell them, Look, we’re gonna give you all the training. If you put the effort into it, you have a good chance of being successful. So I try to live what I, what I, you know, preach and, and make sure, but it’s always the effort thing all the time.

Ismail: So I’ll, I’ll try to come back to that later. But before we get to deep into the weeds on effort and stuff, let’s, let’s get started. Like, 

[00:04:46] Immigration to America.

Ismail: I think you started the presentation with Moving to America, but I’d like to hear more about that story cuz I think I know a lot of people around me in my community, all were immigrants or children of immigrants mm-hmm.

And I find that those people, for whatever reason maybe this is controversial, but they work a lot harder. Mm-hmm. . So I’d love to hear the story of like, you come into America, why you guys came to America. Yeah. How that was, that whole kind of thing. 

Josh: Yeah, it was a, you know, it was traumatic experience.

I mean, looking back now, you know, obviously it’s for the, the good, the better, if you will. But yeah. So it was, I was probably about 10 or 11. Now my, my aunt and my uncle were living over here. My, my mom’s sister, so she was a nurse and she actually left South Africa many, many years ago and ended up in Texas.

And so my, she actually sponsored my family my mom, my dad, me and my sister to come to the us. So we started the application in, I think 1990. And by 2000 was when like, I guess everything finally got approved. So it was like 10 year process. And then 2001 is when we decided like, Hey, we’re gonna move.

So you know, like we discussed it and all that stuff. And then we’re like, had to sell everything we owned, right? Cause we could only bring, you know, like two bags each. Coming here. So we, like, we sold our house. People would come into our house and buy like furniture. They’ll buy like our cutlery, they’ll buy our TVs, radios, you know, paintings on the wall.

I remember we just had like a for sale sign. People just come in and buy whatever they want, you know, There was no Craigslist or anything like that. So I had to sell, like, all my toys. That was really painful. We had to, you get set up at like a local flea market and like, just sell all my toys, you know?

And like, as 11 year old child, man, that, that was real tough. I remember like, the hardest ones were like my Lego and my marbles, Like I used to love them so much. And I had to, like, I had, I had like the best Lego sets, like the real unique stuff that you don’t really find you know, out in the public, I guess.

Had to sell that and yeah, just get rid of everything. And so the rest of the stuff that we could bring, pack it up into two suitcases, and then right around that time, so we actually came to America a week after nine 11. So we were all gearing up to make this massive move you know, and leave out families and come, you know, start a whole new life in another country.

And then nine 11 happens. And from, from what I heard, like my, my dad’s mother told him like, Hey, you shouldn’t be going, You know, like it’s, it’s a scary time, you know? And my dad like still. You know, just moved forward with it. And so yeah, we ended up leaving, you know, went to the airport, everybody’s crying.

It was just a horrible scene, you know, like, you just never know who you’re gonna see again, if you’re gonna see people again. And yeah, we just caught on the plane, went to, from Durban to Johannesburg, that was a short flight. And then from Johannesburg to London, that was a 12 hour flight in economy.

And I just remember being so uncomfortable and just like, it was hard to sleep. The food was nasty and it was just, just being so uncomfortable and miserable. And then like, when you get to London, you still got another 12 hour flight to Dallas. And so like, it’s another same thing again. And so I always kind of look back on that and I told myself, I was like, Man, I’m, you know, once I make a big, I’m never gonna like travel economy again.

Like, it’s just, I don’t wanna go through that whole experience, you know? So yeah, we came to America and that was, you know, I had to learn everything was going to school here. Like everything was different, you know, just the way people communicated the school systems. Like it was a big, big, big change coming from, you know, South Africa to, to here.

So, yeah, I started off in middle school. It took me about, you know, like a year or two to kind of, you know, make friends and meet people and stuff like that. And then by high school I was pretty, I understand the lay of the land, so I was like, Where’s the opportunity at ? 

Ismail: So were you were you excited?

Like, did you say your fam, your family talked about it? Were you all looking forward to coming or were you upset about it? 

Josh: I was too young to process that. It was just more like, Oh, it’s something new. You know what I mean? But I didn’t realize how much, how painful it would be. You know, like when you’re standing at the airport and like, you have your entire family there, everybody’s like crying volunteers and, and you just then it’s like, then it kind of hits you and it’s like, man, I may never see this person again.

And some of them I haven’t seen in 25 years. You know, like you spend the first 10 years of your life growing up together, picnics, going to the beach, going to the park, you know, these are your cousins, your family, right? And then, and then you don’t see them again. So, 

Ismail: yeah, I, I like to, I like to talk about this stuff because like I said, I’ve, I’ve seen that scene,

[00:09:35] Reason to shift to America.

Ismail: I’ve been around that scene.

I’ve been part of some of those scenes. But I find a lot of people that just live in America never leave the country. Like I know people that never leave, like the tri-state area and New York, New Jersey, like, that’s all they know, right? It’s hard to comprehend just packing up, like, and going to whole different country, different culture with nothing starting from scratch.

Why did your parents, why’d your family do that? Like, did you know the language before you came here or It was really. 

Josh: No, we spoke English there. You know, it’s a, you know what is it, English colony or whatever, you know, colonized by the British, if you will. Yeah, I mean, my dad, you know, you know, he was so, he, he was a banker.

He was in banking in South Africa. And, you know, he was, he did very well for himself back home. And he saw like things were getting bad just based on what he went through growing up and where he saw the country was going. Cause there’s always like, you know, not civil war, but you know, the war between you know, the local people.

And then, you know, there’s, you have Indian people there, which is, you know, we ended up there because of the British, you know, and the South African native people, you know, they’re there, they’re upset at, you know, the British were taking over and, you know, obviously there’s always like a conflict and stuff like that.

And so you know, he just wanted better life for us. And this was the way out, you know. So him and my mom, like a year or two after I was born, this would’ve been like, I’d say 91 maybe. They, they took a trip to America, so they came here to visit and I guess they saw, you know, look at the lifestyle here, and things are so different and it’s safer, there’s so much opportunity.

And so when they came after that first trip in like 91, they came back and that’s when they started the, the process for us to, to move over here. Yeah. It’s 

Ismail: crazy because like I said I, I’ve been thinking about moving to a different state. Mm-hmm. talking to my wife about, Oh my God, is it worth it?

What’s the risk? And I’m like, Man, these, our parents and like all these other immigrants just moved to a whole different country. Yeah. Without a second thought. Like they bring their families. I, I think it’s because of the allure of a better life. Right. That’s really what it boils down to. It’s a shot at a better life for your family and people take that shot all the time.

Alright, so you, you mentioned,

[00:11:45] Luggage you carried to America.

Ismail: all right, you came here with nothing. What’d you have in your suitcases, by the way? Just clothes. 

Josh: Yeah, I think clothes. Just a little bit of toys and. I don’t know. I can’t remember. I always try to think back like, we don’t have any pictures. I just, it was like old suitcases.

I remember like having to drag these things, like help my, you know, my mom, my dad cause there was eight suitcases cause there was four of us, right? So we each had two. So I had to carry my two. And then like, I had to help, you know, my, my dad 

Ismail: and my mom. Yo, you know what’s crazy? Like if I was an entrepreneur back then, I would’ve invented the wheels for luggage.

Like, how did they not have wheels back then? Brows, . 

Josh: The one, the handle broke on one of them. I know that for sure. Like, I just remember the handle broke and it was so annoying. It was this gray suitcase. It was like a cotton gray suitcase and it was so heavy. It was the heaviest one out out of all a

Ismail: That’s what I wonder. Something like, the first time I got in one of those luggage that you roll, I was like, wow, this is like a lesson in entrepreneurship. It’s such a simple idea. And I’m like, how come all these years we’ve been lugging 50 pound bags and nobody thought to put wheels on ’em. So simple.

Josh: Yeah. To like luggage through like Paddington Station. I think one of those too. Cause we had to switch from, we had to go from London to heat throw, you know, one of the connecting flights and man trying to get those suitcases to the like through the, in the terminal, buy the tickets. I just remember like, you know, there was like a struggle, but we’re on mission, you know, and we got the job done.

And I, and I think that’s, you know, seeing my dad go through, you know, that kind of stuff that kind of installed, you know, that kind of mindset in. You know, 

Ismail: you said by the time you were in high school, you got at lay of the land, like mm-hmm. what was, All right. So you came here with nothing. You didn’t know anything.

Yeah. Couple years ago by, you’re in high school now, what does things look like 

Josh: for you? Yeah, I’m, I understand the culture. I understand how things work, how to generate money you know made friends, you know, finally like, feel part of society instead of like, you know, the term fob , I’m fresh off the boat, fresh off the boat.

Yeah. So no more fresh off the boat. I’m part of, you know, you find, you know, a set of people that you hang out with and you know, you’re No, no. And you, you’re no longer the fob person. So learning the style, you know, high school, you gotta like dress good. You gotta, you fit in, you know what I mean? That’s what we’re trying to do.

And so dialed in all that by 

Ismail: Yeah, I seen some old pictures, bro. Back in the day. You , we all, we all have the similar style bag of clothes and everything. Yeah, 

Josh: exactly. Yeah. So, you know, and then finding where to buy the bag you to what brands to buy. I remember one time I bought like Fat Farm was, was real popular, like ninth grade, right?

And , I went to this shoe store and I was like, Man, why is this so cheap? Cuz this, this, it was like half the price of regular fat farms. And so I bought ’em. I was like, Oh man, I got a good deal on this. Warmed the school, and I realized that the pee was backwards, . So I got teased the whole day and I was like, Oh my God.

That was just the worst. So I, I went that same night. I forced my mom to take me to the store and I bought some real ones. And I think that’s where I got my shoe fetish from. 

Ismail: You mentioned all, So, all right, so speaking of shoes, you mentioned

[00:14:50] Initially, how did you start making money?

Ismail: learning how to make money, where the opportunities were.

Uhhuh, what were you doing back then? Like gimme, I, I know one story with Nike. Mm-hmm. I don’t know when that comes in, but like gimme an idea of how you started trying to make money early 

Josh: on. Yeah, so I was like always into computers. So, you know, I would just be looking online for like, ways to make money and there was a lot of, I don’t know how, I guess YouTube maybe, or I would just end up on these like forum websites, you know like Warrior Forum and stuff like that.

And looking for ways to make money. And there was always a new product or you know, a launch happening like, Hey, learn how to make money doing this and make money doing that. Like put money in the envelope and send it to 10 people. Like I was getting caught up in all that stuff, you know? Cuz I didn’t really know how to decipher like what’s actually real, but I just knew there was like, ways to make money online.

I was just at the bottom of that. And then ended up So I was mowing lawns as well, so I would be mowing lawns, that, that would be one of my things. To make money, I would cut the lawns in the neighborhood then try to look for ways to make money online. I stumbled upon, like at the time, grills were real popular, the ones that, you know, Nelly and Paul Wall.

Yep, yep, yep. So I was always looking, always looking into that. And so ended up finding a website that said, Hey, you can sell these grills for us and be a distributor. So I was like, Oh man, this seems like a good opportunity. So I, I applied and they approved me and they were out of Atlanta, so they sent me like you know, like a startup kit and a price list and everything like that.

So I would take all this stuff and I would set up at a barbershop, at a barbershop that, that I used to go to in, in Garland, Texas. And he rented me a spot, I think for like a hundred dollars a month. And I would sit in there all day. This was before I had a car or anything like that. So I would get a ride by a friend and I would sit in the barbershop and I would like any people come in for a haircut, I would go up to them like, Hey, have you thought about getting a grill?

You know, I’d have like a, a booklet printed out for them. They can look and try to sell, you know, sell them like that. So I spent all day in there all summer long. And then one day this guy came in with a a black trash bag and he had Jordans and Nikes in there, and everybody got up . And so I’m like, Man, this guy’s product is like hot of their mind.

And so that’s kind of what led me down, you know, that path. I was like, Hmm, I’m selling the wrong thing here. So that kind of led me to like, okay, well how, you know, I saw the reaction that everybody got for that. Let me go look and see if I can find this online. Or where did he get it from, You know? So that’s so 

Ismail: many super interesting things there.

Like, for example, why, like, what about you, me, like, not many kids do that. Like, they go to a barber shop, sit there all day and start selling grills, like going up to people and, and pitching and selling. Mm-hmm. , 

[00:17:40] Your working style.

Ismail: why did you have that in you? Where does that come from? 

Josh: I don’t know. I, I, I don’t know where they came from, like me having to like sell all my stuff at the flea market.

When we moved over here, I just always liked selling stuff. Like yeah, it was, I never knew where it came from. Like when I was small. Also, like my dad, you know, he was a banker, so a lot of his friends were business owners. They would, you know, we would go visit their businesses and go to their houses.

They would have nice houses and, you know, see like just seeing witness business being done all the time, you know? My dad, one of my dad’s banks, he was at a mall. And so I would go, go to work with him like on a Saturday, you know, and then I would walk around the mall and, you know, the, like, some area off the mall, you know, they, they’re more like negotiations, you know, like the little carts in the mall, you know.

So I’ve just been around, I guess, negotiations along or transactions if you. 

Ismail: Yeah. And that’s kind of, I didn’t tell you this, but the story behind the name of Bound to Be Rich or this podcast is, most people that make it usually have stories like that where they do things that were not normal growing up.

Like what you did in that barber shop. Yeah. I love that. But that’s not normal. Yeah. Cool. I’ve got similar stories to, like, when I was a kid, I would, I used to set up like a store and sell all my old toys to all the other kids on my block. Mm-hmm. , like some random stuff like that. Yeah. Like, those are things that are not normal and are signs of people that are bound to be rich are bounded to be successful.

Right. So, Okay. So you, you,

[00:19:07] Getting into the shoes business.

Ismail: you have that in you for whatever reason. I don’t know. I don’t know if we could ever answer that, like, why is that in us? But for whatever reason it’s in us. Yeah. And then you saw people get excited about shoes. Mm-hmm. , Right? So then how did you capitalize on that? What’d 

Josh: you do with that?

Yeah, I won one comment I do wanna make, So the owner of the barbershop, like he was one of the first persons to believe in me. Like because I, I went to that barbershop to get my haircut right all the time. And so I developed a relationship with him and and then, you know, when I found this business idea, I went up there and I talked to him.

I was like, Hey, this is my idea. This is what I wanna do. And then he was like, Yeah, that’s, that sounds good. You know, I’ll give you, I’ll give you a shot. You know, And sometimes you, you just need someone to believe in you like that. And why do you believe in you? I, I guess he, like, he saw, he saw something, maybe he saw something like he saw himself in me.

You know, like as a young, someone that just wants to make it, you. Hmm. And he would always tell me, I, I got the nickname Grill. He called Merily, you know, cuz I was selling grill. So he was like, grill a and every day he would say Grille, one day you gonna own half a downtown. I always remember that. He always that 

Ismail: That’s awesome.

Like that, that right there, that positivity. Mm-hmm. That encouragement. You can’t put a price on that, that you need people around like that. You 

Josh: do. You do. You know, And it just came like, I mean, it was my barber, you know, he cut my hair and now he’s the one kind of, you know, dropping into me. And yeah, it’s funny cuz like I ran into him like three months ago, you know, and we took a picture.

I was like, Man, you, you don’t know what you did for me. You know, like just that, that you just need someone to believe in you. So yeah, the Nike stuff. So yeah, that guy comes in, everybody just goes ballistic and I’m just hating on him . And I’m like, I’ve been up here all day trying to, you know, trying to sell one thing and then this guy just comes in.

So yeah, get online. All right. Ended up on Alibaba, I think for the first time. You know, this was like probably 2006 started like, Oh man, this is, this is where everything is coming from, right? In China. So I was like, okay. Found a, you know, sent off a couple of emails, then hit it off with this one guy.

Shout out to John Lamb. His name was John Lamb. So me and John we would spend hours just chatting on Yahoo. I think it was Yahoo Chat or Yahoo Messenger. And he was in China, in Chinen. And you know, he would be showing me like the new Nikes and stuff like that. And I’m like, Okay, let’s, let’s place a small order.

You know, let’s see how it goes. So I started off, you know, just like a hundred dollars order, Got like three or four pairs of shoes, you know, size 10, the most popular size. Got him in, took pictures. I had my website 2007. The website was called Come Get fresh.com, . And I built the website in Yahoo sites, so that was one of the first websites I ever built and how I actually learned how to start building websites.

So I had that going and then he would give me all the pictures of his whole catalog to put on the website. So I had that, you know, put all the information, had my phone number, had everything. I even had the website on the, on the, on the trunk of my car. So I went to like fast signs. I was like, Hey, gimme this.

I need this website in vinyl , you know just to, to put on my car. So I would be advertising for my website on my car in high school, . So had that. And then I would go to class every day and I had a catalog. So before class started, I passed the catalog around and people will like, look at the catalog, look at the shoes, and if they like something, I tell them, Hey, give me a $20 deposit.

I’ll, I’ll place the order for you. I’ll order them, and then when they come in, you can gimme the rest of the money, which was $80. I would just sell ’em for a hundred dollars a pair. And so you know, I would take orders every day. So I would have, you know, I have cash. Then come home at night tell, you know, John, what order I I needed to get, what pairs then we’ll come up with the price, negotiate the price, then he’ll gimme the total.

Then the next day I take all the cash and sometimes it would be, you know, a thousand dollars, 800, 500, that kind of stuff. I go up to Albertson’s, go to the customer service. That’s where the Western Union was, you know, like 2007, 2008 walking up there. So I fill out the form to get the money tracking control number wiring, you know, a thousand bucks to John Lamb and, and Sheen.

And yeah, then we would come back, give him, give him the code and you know, did we do the transaction like that? 

[00:23:27] Fear of getting scammed.

Ismail: How’d you know as a young kid, like with all that money, how’d you know you wouldn’t be scammed? 

Josh: I got scammed once or twice. So the, the way not to get scammed is like, you’ll do a small order first, like just one pair of shoes.

Like, hey, you just want a sample. And then You know, if they don’t, if they stop responding or whatever. But I would look at their website and I would chat with them. You know, I would stay up late at night because, you know, that’s the time difference. And I’d just talk with them, you know, and ask ’em about who they are, how long they’ve been working there, about their family.

You know, pictures like we, like, we, we became friends. We became friends, like real good friends. And it got to a point where he was actually sending me shoes before I paid them . And like every week the orders were getting bigger and bigger. And so I would actually have to ship the orders. So the way to get around customs is you change the zip code.

So it routes through New York because the New York Customs are like, I guess a little bit less stricted than the California Customs. I remember one time I had a big order of like $400 it was like 30 pairs of shoes. And it came to DHL and it went through California because I didn’t change the zip code.

And the lady called me, she’s like, What are you gonna do with all these shoes? I was like, Oh, it’s for me. You know, I ordered for me and my friends. She’s like, Well, do you have, do you have a license to import this? I was like, No, I don’t. Was like, Well, if you don’t have a license, these, I go in the garbage.

I was like, Oh my God. So I ended up like losing that whole shipment for 

Ismail: shoes. Yeah. I, I’ve got a similar experience with, I was importing some stuff overseas as well, and I didn’t know all these things. And you learn through experience where certain places that I guess the customs investigate more. You, you lose some inventory and then you learn not to do that again.

Mm-hmm. . So, okay. So how do, you’re hustling, You’re in high school, you got this relationship, you’re doing really well, selling the shoes. Mm-hmm. , how does, 

[00:25:23] Getting into Nike’s radar.

Ismail: how do you get a Nike’s radar? 

Josh: Okay. Yeah. So I don’t even know how I got a Nike’s radar, honestly. But so, you know, me and my supplier, we have a good relationship going.

He’s like, Hey, do you mind if I use your name on my website, you know, as a review? And I was like, Sure man. We’re best buddies, you know, So homepage of this website, he got my, my name on the homepage front sent dead center. It says Josh Pater, you know, great quality shoes, you know, Dallas or whatever like that.

So I think maybe he was on their radar or somehow was. And so when I came home from school one day, opened up the mailbox, it was Nike Corporation versus Josh Pater. And they actually had a screenshot off his website with my name on it. So they were like, you know, we got you , we got you red-handed. So there was nowhere around that.

And like they had, they had my Yahoo website. They had like his website, they had my name on their, and then, you know, it was like copyright infringement. This was like, yeah, early 2008. Welcome to the 

Ismail: big time. 

Josh: Mm-hmm. , Jumping off the Deep End . 

Ismail: So they were suing you for copyright infringement. And now these shoes, were they like real shoes or were they fake shoes?

Did you know? Did you not know? 

Josh: No, I knew, you know, they were fake. But I mean, the quality was so good. I mean, back then, you know, as a young kid, you wanted to have the latest fashion, but you know, you can’t afford a $200 pair of shoes. You know what I mean? So this was the next best option for me and for all my classmates,

Ismail: And you, 

[00:27:03] How did you Sell the shoes?

Ismail: you were selling mostly the people, like around you? You weren’t selling online to like people you didn’t know or were you 

Josh: yeah, it was mostly, mostly around me. I mean, I had big visions of trying to, to sell online. That’s why I made the Yahoo website. But I didn’t know how to market it back then, you know, So it was just, Like a place for people to go to view pictures if they needed to see like, all the options I had.

Ismail: All right. So they were su suing, suing you for a copyright infringement. Mm-hmm. Obviously I’ve gotten a letter like that too. Maybe I’ll talk about it a little bit later, where you’re young and it’s scary and I’m sure they, they have a number in there for what they’re suing you for, right? Or they’re offering as a settlement amount.

Right. How did you resolve 

Josh: that? What happened? Yeah. The, I mean, that number was 50 grand and I mean, whew, like that thing we talk about coming from home. Coming home from school and like you had a good day. You know, you just kiss your girlfriend, dropped her off at the house, you know what I mean?

Like, life is good when you’re in high school and you’re a senior, you know, like, you’re like, you feel unstoppable. Then you come home to this and it’s like, oh man, everything just comes to screeching halt. Yeah, so we ended up settling it. I think it was, the settlement was about 5,000. My sister helped me do that.

She knew an attorney and I think she the attorney told him like, Hey, this is just a high schooler, you know, not someone. Maliciously , you know, doing millions of dollars of transactions, you know? 

Ismail: Yeah. They probably run into that a lot though. I’m sure there’s a lot of those people around, but they, they, I see where they’re coming from.

They have to stop that. Right. So, and I think by law, if they don’t make an effort to stop everyone it’s harder for them to defend their copyright. So I think that’s just kind of what they have to do. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it’s that five grand’s probably a lot or most of all your profits that you made, so that must have been tough.

Josh: Yeah, I think my dad paid for it though. I think they didn’t ask for it. But my sister handled it in California. I, I don’t know exactly what happened, but so like, 

Ismail: was, was your dad mad? Was everyone upset at you for doing this or were they like, Yeah, this kid got chops 

Josh: Finn No, they knew. I mean, I had packages going everywhere.

I had packages going to my sister’s house, my aunt’s house at friend’s house. I mean, every, any person who knew me, I asked him like, Can I ship a package there? Because I had to, I had to randomize the shipments, you know, No paper trail . 

Ismail: It’s, it’s funny cuz I have a very quickly, I have a very similar story where I don’t even remember the product, but it was like, it was some like hair.

Iron dryer or something like that, that my wife loved and I saw, she’s like, Everybody’s into this thing now. It’s amazing. And I found it on Alibaba. Oh, I 

Josh: think I know what you’re talking about. I think I did try to sell that . It was like Australia, some Australian brand, right? Yeah. It was 

Ismail: some like hot thing.

And I’m like, All right, what is, what is this? So I bought it on Alibaba cuz it was a lot cheaper. And I’m like, Okay, direct from the source, you know, cheaper. It makes sense. Right? Right. And I actually, I bought a real one, like my wife had a real one and I, I bought a couple samples and I compared them and I’m like, Dude, this is the same thing.

I, I, I like went over with a fine tooth comb and I could not tell that it was real or fake. I’m like, all right, this is real. Mm-hmm . So I started selling that on eBay. And it was going really well. Like, I had my house turned into a fulfillment center. Like I think that the post office put like a special tag on my, my front door that they had to scan every day cuz it had a lot of packages.

Oh. But eventually I got a letter from this beauty, this beauty brand. I forgot the name of this product, but. It might have been chi. It might, Yeah, it might 

Josh: me. I think it was one of those. 

Ismail: Yeah. And they’re like, You’re, you’re selling fake product. We have proof. We bought one of yours from eBay, 50,000, hundred thousand, something like that, of a settlement.

And I’m like, Oh my God. Same thing as you. I’m happy things are going great. Right. And that’s a big punch to the gut right there, . So, And I honestly didn’t know it’s fake. Yeah. Like I actually tried to test it and make sure that it was real, and it seemed real to me. Yeah. But I guess there’s these little things that are secret that they, that the creator of the product knows.

Mm. That I didn’t know. Yeah. And I had the whole thing with you where I’m a, I’m just this, I’m not doing a big operation. I’m just this guy. Yeah. You should go after the people on Alibaba. Alibaba. That’s what you should go after. Exactly. 

Josh: Right. Hey, what about the other people, like on, on eBay? Like, I knew other people were doing it too.

Ismail: Yeah, they, those are the big fish. I’m just over here selling like a couple here and there. Yeah, exactly. And I got lucky where I just said, Dude, I got no money. Like, I understand what you’re doing. I’m sorry. You know, here are the, here’s the people I bought from, but I got no money. And they eventually left me alone, but it was kinda scary.

I’m not gonna lie. 

[00:31:26] Why did you do a job?

Ismail: okay, so you’re hustling, grinding I’m kind of doing the same thing, right? Mm-hmm. . Then I know you got a job, right? So what happened bef like you’re hustling, grind and things are working, you’re making money, but then you end up trying to get a job. Why’d you do 

Josh: that? Yeah, I mean at 16, you know, I always had a job.

So my job career path was, you know, I was bagging groceries at Albertson’s at 16. Then from Al Albertson’s I went to, I had a job at a as a, how do we call it? They make these l e d trucks that drive around with signage on it. Mm-hmm. . So I would work, it was a small business and actually I worked there for about three years under the owner.

And I learned a lot as I, I was like his right hand man handling a lot of, you know, operational stuff, Pictures, videos, that kind of stuff. So this was like during high school. And then after that I went to Bank of America. This was around the time that I graduated. This was 2009, 2010. And then after that I was at Experie Experi.

Was the last job that I had from Bank of America. So I always had a job. This was always like a side hustle. Cause I knew like, I’m not gonna be able to work forever. Like, I just psych psychologically I wasn’t able to work for someone else. You know, like 

Ismail: But you still had the, like, you seemed like you were always grinding and hustling on the side mm-hmm.

but you still had a foot into like, the safety of a job. Yeah, exactly.

[00:32:50] Advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Ismail: What advice do you have for people that, you know, they wanna be an entrepreneur, they want to do something on their own but here you are and there’s a lot of people like you that also like, have a job until they’re ready. So how do you advise people to think about that?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, you know, I would recommend always keep a job until you find something that’s actually working. You know? Cause I went through so many things, right? I mean, selling grills, mowing lawns, importing fake shoes you know, I was a wedding dj. But all throughout that, you know, I kept my job because at the end of the day, you do wanna get financing to buy a car.

You do wanna get credit cards, You do wanna, you know like I wouldn’t have been able to buy any of the real estate. I have if I didn’t have a job to prove the income to the banks, you know? So that, that was my reason for keeping it until I found something that was able to replace my income.

And I was at a point where, okay, I didn’t have any big financial transactions coming up for maybe two or three years that I can make the transition. . Mm-hmm. . 

Ismail: All right. So that, so then let’s dive into, obviously you went into the photo booth business. Yeah. 

[00:33:50] Getting into the photo booth business.

Ismail: What were you doing right before that, and how’d you get into it?

Josh: Yeah, so, so after the Nike lawsuit I still had the skills, right? This is another thing that you always wanna work on. I, I tell people this all the time. Skills are the only thing that gets you paid in this world. Okay? So, the skills that I learned from the, from the shoe business was how to build a website.

Okay? So, fast forward now I, I meet a, I meet a guy and he’s like, Yeah, I make money from this blog. And he has a, an like a Japanese anime blog, and he’s making a thousand bucks a month off just the ad ads on the blog. And I’m like, What? What? It was so confusing to me at first. I was so blown away by this.

And he logged into his account and he showed me, like his Google ad sense and all that. And I was like, Are you serious? Like, you just get paid to own like a website, You know, I’m not sorry, C Reactivated . So he showed me his blog and I was like, Oh, wow. So when that night he left that same day, I, I stayed up all night, like researching, okay, how to, how to make money from blogs.

Through Google ad sense and banner ads and stuff like that. So throughout all that I was like, okay, let’s call you, you find a niche keyword, right? You do your keyword research, you find a topic, right? So I remember I had this topic like, oh yeah, this is one of my best ones. First time home buyer tax credit, 2012.

That specific keyword got typed in like 2000 times a month into Google, and there was nobody that had a website exactly like that. Alright, Wait, 

Ismail: wait, wait. That’s so random. So let me, let me dive into that. You actually, 

[00:35:27] Long Tail Pro: Keyword research software.

Ismail: you looked like traffic and then you just found something that was getting a lot of traffic.

You checked if there was people talking about it. Is that the whole 

Josh: process? Yeah, yeah. So this software I was using Long Tail Pro, it’s a keyword research software. And so you go in there and you type in like a seed keyword, right? So maybe you can type in like home buyers or you know, shoes or you know, home anything, like anything You can tell lawn care, you know, any topic.

And then it would, you set the filters, right? So you type in a seed keyword, then you set up your filters, you tell them, Hey, I needed to be at least five words long. I needed to have a search volume of at least 2000 a month. You know, sh with a keyword, difficulty to rank under, you know, 50 or 20 or whatever.

So you set the parameters and then the software will split out these keywords. So, Then 

Ismail: that’s how I, But then, then you would just like look at that list and look to see like you would search them and see if there’s any good content on them, right? Yeah, 

Josh: exactly. Yeah. You would look at, to see the difficulty.

You’ll see what like whether other people have found it or there’s, if there’s nothing at all and or there’s just crap. You know, if there’s like an article from 98 on there, that’s a good opportunity for you to come in and give Google what it needs, 

Ismail: you know? So do you think that would still work now?

Or do you think that’s kind of all tapped out 

Josh: by now? Oh no, it still works. It’s just a little bit more difficult and Google has caught on for it. But I mean, this model, this model is gonna be a little bit harder to do. But I mean, this is also the premise of, you know, SEO that’s still relevant today, you know?

Ismail: So, yeah, I, there’s all these crazy stories of people that find that one little keyword, that one little niche, one little product, and then it ends up being a multimillion dollar business, cuz no one’s focusing on it. So, Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I, I’m curious to see if that still works now it sounds like maybe, maybe it’s something worth looking into.

Mm-hmm. 

Josh: Yeah. I mean, you would have to build a brand and, and build something substantial. The way I was doing it was more like a quantity thing, right? It was a, it was a cheap website with five pages at most. I paid someone and Fiver to write the article, which was crap. But if Google doesn’t have anything else to pull up for that keyword, And you just gave Google some fresh content and your new website, and you can, you know, you had a couple of back links, maybe a couple good back links.

It was easy for you to write back then, you 

Ismail: know, why, why’d you decide to not write it yourself? Cause I, I actually wondered this all the time. Should I hire someone to write it or do it myself? You said you paid someone off Harvard to do a bad job. Why don’t you just do it yourself? 

Josh: Well, I don’t know the time.

I’m a terrible writer. And I mean, I think, you know, the, the, the people that I was learning from, like on YouTube and on the forums and stuff, like, they were just like, Hey, just we have a good writer, you know, on fiber. Just go on them and use them. Got it. Okay. Yeah, and I mean, it’s not like somebody’s gonna come there and it’s gonna, you know, read the article and change their life.

It was just more to get people to the website. They click a ad and then they go to wherever else they need to go to. 

Ismail: Interesting. So you’re kind of like a middle man. Exactly. You’re not trying to write a novel, you just want to get people to the site. Yeah, exactly. And this, this is a common theme that comes up with you we’ll get into later.

It’s lead gen. You’re like a lead gen master. And you were doing this back then even with the site. 

Josh: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I mean, shit, if I, if I kind of contacted some, like mortgage brokers or something, we would be having different conversation now. , if you 

Ismail: knew back then what you knew now, that things would be different, 

Josh: but you know this also, So this is how I learned seo.

This was 2010. So yeah, the website did really good. And I had a plethora of websites. I had probably 20 different websites I, I ran at one time building from scratch, keyword research, get the articles pop on Google. Some of them would, would hit, some of them would not, you know, But at the end of the month, like, Hey, you know, I got a couple, you know, let’s say maybe five out of the 20 we’re producing, you know, about a thousand bucks a month.

Okay, that’s fine. Let’s, let’s trash the other 15. Let’s keep the. Let’s just let them keep running. See how long you know, we go for and then let’s make five more, you know? So that was the whole model. And then Google caught on one day. So this, I was working at the call center at Experi and the credit bureau this time.

So I still had the job going, but still trying to figure it out, you know, on the back end. So Google does this huge update called Penguin. It’s a Google Penguin update. And Panda they did in the same year and overnight every, like, there were people that I was following that had hundred of websites.

They got wiped out overnight, Like literally woke up the next day and went, everything went to zero. And your websites went from like page one, number one spot to like page 100. So you know, everybody was panicking and I was like, Oh man, here we go again. You, I had to restart everything. So I just like, I took a break from it cuz I’m like getting frustrated cause I’m not able to find something.

Can work long term and sustainable. And so during this time I also was like I was always passionate about music and stuff and so I, I had DJ equipment at my house and I would be DJing you know, friends and family’s weddings, just, you know, casually, you know, whenever they needed, you know, a dj.

So my friend, I have a friend who went to a wedding and he saw a photo booth there and he calls me up and he says, Hey I think we should look at this photo booth thing. You know, I went there and I saw it and it wasn’t that great. And so I was like, Okay, well I don’t, I don’t have any other projects going and Google just wiped me out, so let’s give it a shot.

And so that’s how we got into the photo booth business. 

Ismail: So he came to you with the idea mm-hmm. And then he just kind of jumped in. You didn’t really think much of it, you just kind of jumped into it cuz you had nothing else going on. 

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I mean, I’ve been, I, I’ve, I’ve experienced, I know what it was like to do weddings, like as, as from the DJ perspective, you know?

So yeah, I 

Ismail: was like, 

[00:41:25] Success of photo booth rental.

Ismail: So you got into the rental game with the photo booths, Right. And how did that go? Like how, did you have a certain point where you started to see like, Hey, this is working much better than everything else I did. Or did it, was it a slow. 

Josh: No, it wasn’t a slow grind. We, we hit the, the, we hit it running.

So I knew how to build websites. Boom. We had, we had the best website, you know, out of any of our competitors in Dallas, I knew SEO boom. We were like first page of Photo Booth Dallas. That’s why I named the company Photo Booth Dallas. That search term had already 500 searches a month. So we named the company Photo Booth dallas dot com was already taken, so we named it.org, llc.

And that, you know, we built a website, got everything good, bought, you know, got the back links done, got the SEO done. I mean, within three months we were on page one. So, Wow. This is another lesson that all the skills from my failed endeavors I was able to apply to this. 

Ismail: And I was just gonna say, I love that you made a point of that because you, you gotta fail a few times before you make it.

Right. But it’s not really a failure if you walk away with a skill. Mm-hmm. . So I love that. You, you make a big point of that. I think everything that you’ve mentioned so far in the story, you took a skill from each one. Yeah. Took a skill from each one. And now you, you kind of combine them in this odd niche of like a photo booth rental.

Yeah. And you end up hitting the ground running and making a ton of money, 

Josh: Right? Yeah. So we, you know, I was, I was still working at Experie, Experian this time, Credit bureau. Luckily I actually applied for a different position where I had full internet access. So this was a big thing cause you know, I would, I would sit at a computer all day.

It was a call center, you know, And in between calls we could, you know, freely browse the internet. And this is where, you know, I would learn a lot of stuff as well. So another key thing is try to get paid to learn if you have a job. I was texting with with my wife’s brother the other day, and I was like, Man, you spend, I told him, I was like, You spend all day on social media?

He’s like, No, I was just one hour. And plus I got paid to do it. I was like, Don’t get paid to waste time on social media at work. Get paid to learn, learn a skill, or learn something. Hmm. I love that. Yeah. And, and that’s what I did. So during the day when we just got started, I was still working. I would be posting ads on Craigslist.

I had three different accounts, you know, would use like a, a vpn log in with three separate accounts and post three separate ads that look completely different. But they offer the same company you know, with Craig’s, like, they started to pick up on that. So you had to like, change the title, change the pictures, change the emails, like change everything.

Well, was 

Ismail: that worth all the effort? Cause I remember at least recently I looked at that so much effort into putting the new listings, making them all look different. Are you, were you getting enough action back then to make it 

Josh: worthwhile? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, back then was, that’s the only thing that was around.

There was nothing else. There was no Thumbtack, there’s no Facebook, there’s no five mile, there’s no let go. There was nothing. 

Ismail: So 

[00:44:18] Finding the business tactics.

Ismail: how’d you find that tactic? Like, that’s what I like about you, is you can talk about the big picture, but you can get into the nitty gritty. Like, this is how I did the sel, this is how I built the website, this is how I did Craigslist.

How do you find those tactics? 

Josh: Well, you always like, I don’t know, you just gotta find a way to manipulate the system. Like we’re, you know, with the, with the websites, we’re like manipulating the Google algorithm until they caught up, right? So with Craig says, I’m like, okay, all the traffic is here. All our customers is here.

Like, how can we do better? How can we post more ads without getting banned? So then, you know, you just do some research on that and you know, these strategies will pop up. 

Ismail: You know? Did you find that the, the Craigslist customers were cheaper? Or did you not have that experience? Man, 

Josh: when you’re starting off that stuff doesn’t really matter.

You know, , we just took whatever we got, you know, we were humble. You know, 

[00:45:02] Sharing the story of the first event.

Josh: the first event that we did, Now that story is funny. So we, we built the photo booth in Thanksgiving of 2012, and then we did our first event on December 6th, 2012. It was a DJ and a photo booth for 500 bucks. I have the check here, I’m looking at it right now.

She gave me a hundred dollars deposit. That was a good deal right now. Now that package would cost 1500, right? So, Yeah, we, we get to the event we, we set up I forget my laptop to dj. I had to, I had to DJ with two iPhones back then. . Wow. Thank God. They had the, the, the headphone jacks, you know, So I had to left Channel was on one iPhone right channel was on one vote.

And, and DJ did and we had an in jet printer. It was a HP or Cannon printer. The, it took like about two minutes to print out each photo. We had a paper cutter and that’s how we did it, you know, that that was the first event. 

Ismail: And so, so I, I love to harp on that for a second because I find in my experience, people look at like, whatever you wanna do, whether it’s a photo booth company or like, I have friends that wanna start YouTube channels and they look at these big successful YouTubers and they’re like, Look at their videos.

It’s so much high quality production. I have to do that. Mm-hmm. , and I think you just mentioned your first gig. Yeah. You have to look at where people started. Right. Not, not where they’re at now. You have to do what they were doing when they started and you just made it work. You had ink jet, you were cutting the pictures, you were DJing from an iPhone.

It doesn’t matter as long as you just get going. Yeah, 

Josh: exactly. That, that was it. And, and we did, We just kept going. And it was crazy. We, we got this call for, you know, Osakis, They sold like a hundred thousand, a million cases of beer from the Dallas location. And They had that most, most interesting man in the world, you know that actor they have?

Yep, yep. Yeah. They had that guy there and we did an event for them and, and they found us on Craigslist, you know, and so you, that’s 

Ismail: crazy that the, even those people are looking on Craigslist. That’s crazy. 

Josh: Yeah. Because like I said, back then it was, that’s the only place to go to. Like, it was either Google or Craigslist, you know?

And you know, they had a monopoly on the market, you know, until all these other services started coming out. And I remember, actually, I’m glad you brought that up cuz I remember seeing this graphic of a screenshot of the homepage of Craigslist and all the apps that have replaced each connection off that page.

I’ve 

Ismail: seen that too. I’ll put that in the show notes. Cause it’s fascinating. Like that’s how big Craigslist was. Like they turned each category into a whole like, billion dollar product. Exactly. So it’s crazy. I’ll put that in the show notes. That’s a great point. 

Josh: Yeah. So yeah, that’s, you know, we got good.

And so on the background, we got the, the website going right, the SEOs kicking in every day. We posting ads on Craigslist, we’re doing YouTube videos. We’re just doing, you know, what, what we can. And then you know, just a little bit of Google ads cuz we don’t have too much budget. And so, you know, a combination of that.

Then the SEO starts kicking in, you know, pretty big into the front page of Google. So now people are typing in photo booth. Now we’re starting to get a lot of corporate gigs. So our first big corporate gig we did was for p pk. You familiar with them? The bathroom spray? Yeah. Sounds 

Ismail: very 

Josh: fancy. . Yeah.

Yeah. So they’re actually based outta Dallas here. We go to meet with them. We had two meetings. They’re like, Hey, we’re gonna do Dallas and Atlanta. It’s gonna be three full days. We want branded photo boot. We’re gonna have a model there where they shirt off. And they’re exhibiting at a trade show, right?

So they the trade show has all women in there and they had a male model you. And the model would like wrangle in the woman, take a picture with him at the photo booth, collect a email address, and then push them onto the sales staff. Right? And they collected like 6,000 emails just in Dallas over three days.

It was crazy. Like it worked like, like I was blown away about how effective this thing worked. And I was like, Okay, well we got something big here. 

Ismail: So that was, that was your first exposure to companies using the photo as a marketing tool? Yeah, and we 

Josh: were, we were like, we didn’t know what we were doing.

They were like, We want branding. I was like, Oh God. Like how do we brand this booth? Because the boots back then were like the road case style, you know. So what we did was we went to fast signs and we got corrugated plastic the sheets, right? You can, So we cut like panels. So we got their branding, put it on the panels, we cut the panels to size, and then we’ve outrow the panels to the photo booth.

And then we had some like shower edge trimming for the edges. And it looked clean. It looked clean and simple. You know, and, and we just got the job done. We had to, we had to give them what they want and they knew what they want and we had to deliver it. So we would, when we went to close that deal with them, I remember sitting at the table at their office, there’s like five staff across from us, the husband and wife who run the company, and me and my business partner.

So we talking with them. Then we pull out the proposal and we slide it over to them on the desk and they look at it and, and they say, Wow, that’s it. My God. And that was $12,000. And like we calculated this, we did like mileage calculations for like Dallas to Atlanta, how many hours it’s gonna take, plus air, you know, plus like the cost and then like, you know, hotel, lodging, and man, like that was a big blow.

I was, don’t look back. What’s that movie with the two guys sell the, the military. War, 

Ismail: War dogs. Yeah. Ward. Yeah. The comedy, the comedian Jonah Hill, I 

Josh: think. Yeah. Yeah. He, you know, and then they go and they’re like, You came in a hundred million less or something like that, you know, And then he starts scripting

Ismail: I mean, I guess that’s you learn that once and you don’t make that mistake again. Yeah. That, 

Josh: that is true. That is 

Ismail: true. So let me, let me just understand this, because it sounds like at this point, you and your partner, are you guys doing everything? Like, did you have a location yet? Cuz you said you went to meet the corporate client you’re doing Craigslist, seo, all this stuff.

Is it just you two doing 

Josh: everything? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m handl all the marketing stuff he’s doing, like he, he handle actually most of the, like the building, the photo booths, the, the photo booth software like the contracts for the events, like dealing with the customers and stuff like that.

Mm-hmm. , I was more like the front end marketing, well I guess back end marketing stuff. Mm-hmm. . 

Ismail: So then that kind of obviously started taking off. If you start getting corporate clients paying you 12 grand a pop, maybe more in the future. Yeah. It starts working really, really well, right? Mm-hmm. by the end of the rental.

[00:51:18] Growth of photo booth rental company

Ismail: Cause eventually you went to something else, like how well was it doing? Can you give us an idea of like how big a photo booth rental company 

Josh: could get? So. Well then, so the first year we did like 150,000. The next year we did about 400. The following year we did about 700 I think about 700 a year was the max that I got it to.

Before I realized, like, okay, the year I made 700, we did, we did , coincidentally we did like 700 events, a little over 700 events that year. And I was like, this is insane. This is too much for me. So the, the following year I said, This is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna do less events, but we’re gonna make the same amount of money, but we’re gonna keep the, we’re gonna make more profit.

So now my motto is like, I don’t care how much, you know, people always flexing about how much they make, but what I care about is the net profit. You know? And to be honest, like just to fast forward to where we are today, like our 2019 was, was was crazy. Right? We, and for 2020 we got crushed, but we actually did a higher net profit in 2020 than we did 2019.

So That’s wild. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s about how you run the business and understanding, you know, the, the metrics of business. And a lot of people, you know, they’re engineers, they, they wanna start a business or they’re designers and they don’t really understand you know, 

[00:52:36] Selling Photo Booths.

Josh: how to do business and what the banks are looking 

Ismail: for.

But, but you, you got to 700,000 revenue. A lot of people would dream of that in, in a photo booth rental business. Mm-hmm. , why did you decide to shift into I think the next thing was you were selling photo booths to other people. Like how’d you make that decision? 

Josh: Well, like everything started that year that it was so crazy because, I mean, I kind of look back, my health was, you know, not the best.

Every weekend I was work, I was working seven days a week. You know, I was we worked at the week in the office, right? We had 15 photo booth. So Monday you get, get in the office, you open all the photo boots, you check them, income, paper, make any fixes, do updates, right? By Wednesday, you’re like prepping for the weekend, you’re in contact with the customer.

It was just, it was too much. And I was like, there’s gotta be a better way to do this. So that was another lesson that I learned was that’s a scaling problem. You know, when getting involved in, into a business, you know, there’s only a certain scale. So I knew what the rental business, in order for me to make more money, I had to get more fold boots and more people.

So my expenses with that kind of model expenses are going up with income. So I had to make a decision then, like, okay, what’s, what’s the long term play here? You know, to achieve the goals and the ambitions that I have personally, Is this gonna fit my life 10 years from now? So I had to make a decision like, okay, I think let’s not do as much events.

Let’s do more higher quality events, charge more money, make more profit with less events. And and that way we can, you know, have a breather and, or like, you know, instead of doing 10 events a weekend, let’s do three and make, you know, close to what we would’ve made on 10, but not have to manage 10 people.

Ismail: It’s, it’s kind of funny cuz in the beginning when I was asking you, you’re like, Hey, when you start, you gotta be humble. You take whatever you can get. Mm-hmm. And that’s how everyone should think when they start. But then once you start having some success, then you can start being a little bit more picky and shifting to focus on higher profit clients and stuff like that.

But in the beginning you gotta just hustle and grind and do whatever you can to get going. Right. But it sounds like you started, all right, so you started focusing on higher profit, like less events, higher profit ones. Yeah. How long did that go and when did it shift to selling to other. Companies like photo with equipment.

Josh: Yeah. So, so I would say probably 20 13, 20 14, you know, every, you know, I was walking events, right? Thousands. I’ve worked thousands of events myself. So people ask us like, Hey, you know, you get people coming from outta town, right? So maybe someone came in from Kansas City, right? And they come to Dallas and they, you know, obviously the photo booth trend maybe has not caught on in their city yet.

And they see this, they’re like, Oh my God, I’ve never seen this before. Where can I, you know, where like, I would love to do this. This seems like so much fun. You know, I’m, I’m from out of town and I’ve never seen this. And so they’re like, Where can I get it? You know, where can I get it from? So I’m like, Okay, well this seems to be an opportunity here, you know and 

Ismail: let me just jump in here because I know a lot of people that get that comment now.

Mm-hmm. and they’re like, Dude, mind your own business. Stay, stay away from my business. Don’t try to steal my idea. But you have the mindset like, Hey, It’s kinda like that guy walking in with the trash bag in the barbershop. Everybody wants it and you’re like, Hey, there’s something here. Right? Same thing here.

Instead of getting offended, when people ask you, Hey, how can I get in this business? Your mind shifts to, where’s the opportunity here? Maybe I can sell to them, maybe I can help them and, and benefit in some way. I just wanted to point that out cuz a lot of people still have the mindset of, Hey, figure it out on your own.

Don’t ask me, This is my business. Learn the hard 

Josh: way, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And someone told me, Look, if they’re gonna start a photo booth business, they’re gonna do it with, without you, you might as well be the one to sell it to them. . 

Ismail: Yeah. I’m, yeah. I’m sure you’ve heard this quote too, of like in the gold rush mm-hmm.

who made the most money. Yeah. The. Levi selling the jeans and the company selling the pickaxes. Right? They made more money than people digging for gold. So selling tools to people is where the real opportunity is not really necessarily like chasing the end results. So this is something I’m shifting more towards personally in my mindset in my businesses.

And I think Josh, you, you started doing this a lot earlier where you, you made that shift into selling tools. Yeah, 

Josh: exactly. That’s a good point. That is a very good point. And, and I usually, anytime I’m looking at a new business venture, I try to, to run it through that formula. Like, okay, am I actually doing the work or am I supplying the, the, the industry that’s doing the work?

You know, like, Yeah. 

Ismail: I mean, the way, the way I was thinking about it too is like, you can make a great living with a rental company. Like you just said, you had the 700,000, the people get to more, There’s people that get to a little less, but it’s, it’s a great living more than you make it your job. Right.

But at a certain point at least for me personally, like everyone has their own way of doing business, right? I was looking at ways of, do I wanna compete with people or do I wanna benefit from the competition? Mm-hmm. , sell them tools, sell them software do a conference and bring people together. Yeah.

Sell them education. I think there’s. I do both. So there’s a ways to benefit from the competition and there’s also ways to compete and make a living that way too. 

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There’s show him Oh yeah, undercover billionaire. Yeah. He’s like you know, try to figure out how to partner with your competition, you know, And you know that that is true.

That’s true. And some, some people, sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you can’t. But not everybody’s competition, but you know, the most successful one. Cause if you look I remember watching this documentary series on Netflix, I think The Men Who Built America or something. Oh 

Ismail: my God, I love that.

That was awesome. 

Josh: Yeah. Remember when they, they got together and they burned all the, the railroads remember? So that the cars would become more popular. 

Ismail: There’s some crazy stories and like, that’s all true stories too. Yeah. 

Josh: So imagine like these two tycoons, you know, got together and, and, and like, basically, and that’s why we don’t have, you know, a lot, a big rail system like most other countries in America, you know, because they destroyed it a long time ago to make us dependent on our motor vehicles.

And so, you know, that’s a good example of how two big competitors can come together and. You know, make an industry, sadly. I mean, they did a different fashion than you could. Right. 

Ismail: I strongly recommend people watch that series. I love that series. My favorite part was when Rockefeller, I dunno if you remember this, where the railroads were like hard line negotiating with them to ship oil.

Oh yeah. And he didn’t like their price, so he is like, you know what, I’m gonna just build pipes. And he just built a pipeline for oil and that’s how the oil pipeline started. He wanted to get, he didn’t wanna use the railroads cuz they were negotiating with him. So yeah, the ingenuity a lot of these guys did bad things.

It was a different time in America back then. Yeah. But like, the competitiveness, the entrepreneurialism, it’s just a great series, I think. Yeah, yeah. For sure. All right, So you,

[00:59:22] Your Photo Booth International journey.

Ismail: you started hearing people asking you, How do I do this? How do I do this? You saw the opportunity, Did you just shift totally away from doing events yourself and focus on that?

Like how was that 

Josh: journey? No, I mean, you know, I grew, that was my first baby, the first successful baby, you know what I mean? And so we couldn’t just like, you know, turn, turn on it. So I mean, we, we still did that. You know, I ran two companies at once. It was tough because, you know, we, we were like, I had to focus, split my energy up, you know.

But by that time, the rental business, it was on autopilot. And when I say autopilot, I mean, It’s, it had a great website. The marketing was, was automated. It, you know, we had the lead leads coming in every day. We had the follow up sequences, we had the processes, we had the CRMs, we had the contracts, all the, I guess we were out of the startup phase at that point, if you will.

So I could focus more my attention now on starting something else from scratch, . And so, you know, we started Photo Booth International. And the reason why we named it that, because I was like, look, I got, I got pigeonholed, it was Photo Booth Dallas, because when people think Photo Booth Dallas, they thought, you know, Oh, we are only doing rentals in Dallas.

Cause we got a lot of corporate clients that wanted to book us outside of Dallas, you know, and they would always ask us that, like, Oh man. So I was like, All right, we’re gonna go international. So that’s how we named you know, Photo Booth International. And then started the same process over, you know, website, SEO marketing, Google Ads you know, and then started implementing funnels like that.

But yeah, just running ’em at the same time. Mm-hmm. , 

Ismail: did you research like for photo with international? Did you research that? All right. Hey, I’m hearing people ask me about Photoable business, but are they searching for, Did you do the same keyword kind of thing? 

Josh: No I didn’t because I just, I knew that.

I knew the volume of people cause I had firsthand experience, you know what I mean? 

Ismail: So I’m I’m curious I know that this grew into a huge thing. Did you always just focus on people searching for, Hey, how do I start a photo booth business? Or did you ever branch out into people that are looking to make money and then try to take people who wanna make money like the, like the young Josh Panthers of the world looking on warrior for ’em and convert them to like, Hey, you wanna make money, here’s a good opportunity to make money.

Or did you just stick to people that were looking for for photo booth business from the get 

Josh: go? No photo booth business from the GetGo make money is, is hard to compete with. Especially now when you know you got Ty Lopezs with the Lambo and you can just buy social media marketing 2.0 at 9 97 and you can have everything you want in the world.

You know what I mean? . So you like, I don’t wanna compete with him cuz he’s technically and make money. You know what I mean? So I, I feel like, okay, let me focus on my niche and let me dominate my niche. Cause I know my competitors don’t know as much as I know. To be able to take over the industry or, So where do,

[01:02:08] How do people get ideas to start a photo booth business?

Ismail: where do people get that idea then from your experience, where do they get the idea to start a photo with business?

If, like, if you look up how to make money online, that’s not what you see. So where does that come to them? 

Josh: They, they see it at event you know, and I mean, like what we’re doing right now, podcasts you know, YouTube videos maybe, maybe they’re searching on YouTube for how to make money and, you know, they accident, you know, YouTube suggests a video like that.

But mo mostly from events, I would say. Cause a lot of people we talk to, they’re like, we went to event that. We saw a phone booth there and we thought it would be a good idea. You know? Yeah. That, 

Ismail: that’s what happened to me. So, 

[01:02:42] Did you build a photo booth?

Ismail: alright, so you were built, like, when you first started selling these booths to other people, were you still building ’em yourself or, Cause I know you fly to China a lot.

Did you find a manufacturer? Were you building ’em yourself first? How’d that get going? Yeah, 

Josh: so when we started selling , we were in three storage units. I remember this, like, we were in storage unit and we had three locks and one whole unit was just for like all the components and stuff that we built.

So yeah, I was building everyth. You know, would, we would build it, you know, install the software, test everything and then, you know, package it up and ship it. So yeah, I was a lot of hands on process you know, with that. We didn’t start, you know, like the stuff that we get from China are, are the, the metal fabrication, you know, like still the build out is done here in Dallas.

So, you know, a lot of people hate like, you know, China and stuff like that, but there’s only so much you can do and, and they, they’re only good at certain things too. You know what I mean? Like, from my experience, 10 years dealing with China, they’re. Good with, I would say the, the people that I’ve worked with.

Now, obviously there’s people, there’s some companies that have figured that out, but the quality control, like what seem like if something is working, it’s good enough for them. You know what I mean? So there’s certain things that can be done overseas and certain things that can’t. And so what figured out is you know, we get the, the raw materials, we get the metal manufacturing done.

That stuff is just cheaper to get done than paying someone skilled labor here in the us. So that stuff comes in from overseas and then we install electronics like the, the the screens, computers, cameras, all that stuff here in Dallas. We do all the testing and everything here. And then, you know, we, we ship it out.

It goes through like 120 point inspection by two separate people. So we, we make sure that, you know, whenever they get a photo booth, it’s, it’s ready to go, you know? 

[01:04:33] How big did Photo Booth International get?

Ismail: So it sounds like you started by yourself first in a storage unit, and I know I’ve seen videos now of like touring your office, you’ve got a lot of people working on it.

You’ve got people doing 120 point inspections. Mm-hmm. , how did that blow up so much? Like how big did the photo Booth International get? 

Josh: Yeah, so I would say probably how did it blow up? Let’s see, How did it blow up? I, I think we saw the problem that we solved was. We came from the rental business.

And I think a lot of people who have, who are selling now, or I don’t know, I would say like we, we sell, like they, it’s a one stop shop. Okay. A lot of people who sell photo boots, they may not give you the education part, they may not give you the experience part. They’re not doing YouTube. You know, a lot of people, you know, they see us.

They, they like what we do on YouTube. We do a lot of free training. You know, I spend a lot of time, you know, teaching on YouTube. And so we give them that. We give them the community, we give them business contracts, we interview and follow up with our customers after we’re after the sale. So a combination of that makes people trust us more than our competitors.

And we’re friendlier. A lot of people have just told us, Look, you guys pick up the phone. You’re friendly, you’re easy to work with. I treat people the way I wanna be treated. A story I like to tell people is like I went to buy a truck of a couple years ago $40,000, like a Silverado, Texas edition.

I go to the dealership, we go over test drive, we come back in. I asked the sales rep, I was like, Hey man, I’m thirsty. Can you gimme a bottle of water or something? And he told, he tells me, Oh, we don’t have water here, but there’s a water fountain by the bathrooms. And I was like, just, I was so, Wow. , I’m so irritated by that.

You know? So, When you buy a booth from Photo Booth International, you know you fly in from out of town, we send a lamo to the airport, pick you up, we take care of your hotel, You, you come to the office, I’m there. Right. Almost no one nowadays who’s a business owner meets their customers. I go in personally, we are going to eat, we eat.

So we had a couple not a couple of lady come in from Mia, shout out to Mia. She came in from Indianapolis on Thursday. So she flew in. She stayed you know, at the H Agency. We put her up there, sent a car to pick her up to bring her to the office. I met her. We lunch together, we sat down, We spent about three hours.

You know, I showed, talked about the company, how we’re gonna help her, showed her all the videos, you know, helped her pick a booth. No. And she spent like $12,000 with us. So nobody’s doing like, you know, when they say go the extra mile. Because nobody’s there. I do that and I love that every day. And our customers can see it and it’s on YouTube and nobody else is doing that.

A lot of my competitors who don’t even know who there, who’s running the company, they’re not on YouTube, they’re not doing podcasts, you know, so, 

Ismail: so many, 

[01:07:21] Issue of Scalability.

Ismail: so many points. Like first I would just, I’m just curious, why do you do that? Because like before you talked about the rental business and you kind of talked about the issue of scalability.

Mm-hmm. , like you always being there and meeting them. Yeah. How scalable is that really? Like, so why do you do that? Even though it seems like it can’t scale. 

Josh: So only if they come in, obviously to not everybody’s coming in, you know what I mean? To, to buy photo booth. You know, I would say a couple times a month we get people to, to do, to come in.

So most people, you know, they, they’re on the phone. You know, they’ve already watched a ton of my video, so they already have, you know, that kind of relationship with me, if you will. But this is, I’m just talking about like if they, when they come in to the showroom now if you took, take that 12,000, the same 12,000, I had to do the, the two city three day event with the rental business.

But I got to make the same 12,000 spending just three hours with, with Mia, you 

Ismail: know, have a, have a lunch at the Regency, 

Josh: you know, . Exactly. Well, it was lunch at our office. We, we ordered the lunch at our office and we sat down. But I, you know, cause I look, I’m like, look, what’s the, what’s the experience I want when I’m If I’m dropping 10 grand, like I under, I, I think I think it’s more like just a character thing for me.

Like, I wanna know, like I wanna show them I’m appreciative of them spending their money with me. I know they work hard for their money. And they want, you know, it’s a big investment for them and it’s gonna make them feel better if I go in and, and how much ego would I sound like I live 30 minutes away.

I’m not that far. I don’t have any kids, you know, And I’m like, No, I, I’m not gonna go meet them. And they ask to, they ask to meet me. They’re watching my videos. You know, they ask, they speak to the sales reps. I, you know, I’m not, I have sales reps. I’m not the one picking up the phone all the time. You know, I do pick up the phone and, you know, we need, but if, if my sales rep, you know, D was the one working with her, she said, Oh my, you know, hey Josh, she would like to meet you.

She’s coming in on Thursday from out of town. Now. Somebody took time out of their life to fly in during a pandemic from out of town. And I’m gonna have the ego to say, I’m not gonna meet them. That’s just a horrible business. You know what I mean? And I can just like that kind of ego that’s gonna kill you long term.

You know, the trust that I got with me. And now she texted me the other day whenever she was leaving yesterday. She’s like, Josh, thank you so much for the hospitality. I’m so glad I got to meet you. I’m looking forward to starting my business. 

[01:09:42] Influence of social media.

Josh: I mean, 

Ismail: that’s such a, that, that’s business right there, right?

It’s trust people the relationship that’s business. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m just thinking about that. And I feel like you know this, and we’ve talked about this before, where people wonder, Hey Josh, is it worth making all those YouTube videos? Or with me, Hey, what are you doing with the podcast? Like, is that gonna make you money?

Mm-hmm. . But what I don’t think people don’t realize is that when someone’s listening, like to me and Josh talk for an hour so far and still going, or if someone’s watching hours and hours of Josh’s videos on YouTube those are the buyers. Those are the people that trust you. They feel like they know you.

They’ve been around you. They’re listening to you. They’re watching you. Mm-hmm. when the time comes that they need a booth or they need something, you don’t have to sell ’em like they’re sold. It’s just easy. Exactly. So that investment in that kind of content you can’t really directly measure the roi, but it’s massive.

I don’t know if you 

Josh: agree. Yeah. I’ve had people come in that I’ve never met before and 15 minutes, like Josh, I’ve been watching a videos for over a year. I’ve been thinking about this. Here’s my credit card. I want that booth right there. No sales. No. I have to do nothing to close. Just here, so I’m ready to go.

I, you know what I mean? They’ve watched every single video of mine. And I mean, 

Ismail: so that, that tells you right there, it’s worth putting the content. I mean, I know there’s, like, I’m curious to hear how you think about this. Cause sometimes you put all this effort into making content, videos, whatever, and it doesn’t get a lot of views.

Like it maybe it gets like a couple hundred views that doesn’t get like thousands and thousands 

Josh: of views. Yeah, look, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re five years in on this deal and I just barely passed 11,000 subscribers. You know it’s a lot of hard work. A lot of times I have to like mentally prepare and figure out, okay, what are people struggling with?

How can I help them? How can I relate it back to something that I did? You know, And then I just recently bought on a full-time editor to help me edit the videos. Cause I used to edit a lot of the videos myself. I enjoy doing, you know, some of them because like I have a specific like thing in my head knowing to get it out, you know?

And then, you know, we have someone now that helps without social media and stuff like that. But the trust that you build, it’s the trust thing. You know? People still don’t grasp it. I tell Photo booth people all the time, you know, they all do the same video. They get to the event, they set up, they get their phone in portrait mode, and then they, they hit record, they record the booth, and then they record the props table, and then they do like a 360 off the event.

And that’s it. That’s not gonna be enough. Nobody’s gonna hire you for that. That’s garbage. You know what I mean? Like, you need to be on there as a business owner. Hey guys, this is Joshua with Photo Booth Dallas. Thank you so much for watching our video. This is our photo booth here. I can do this. We’re gonna come in, we’re gonna get there early.

We’re gonna set up on time. We’re gonna bring extension cords. We’re gonna have extra income paper. These are our props. We spent thousands of dollars on them. They’re gonna be customized. We got this cool backdrop here. I’m gonna be at your event. I’m the owner of the company. I’m gonna take care of your guests.

I’m gonna make sure everybody gets a picture. I’m gonna make sure Grandma gets a picture with, you know, the bride and groom. And we’re gonna take care of you. So if you’re ready to, to book your deal, give me a call right now and I’m gonna help you. And then they watch the video and then they call me.

And then I’m the one actually picking up. It blows their mind. , I can tell how many times attendance would go to the event and they would come back and tell me. They’re like, Yeah, when we got there, they were like, Oh my God, are you Josh ? You know? 

Ismail: So I know a lot of people that actually like big players in the industry that got their first booth from Photo Booth International.

So clearly it got really big. Mm-hmm. . But there’s one. 

[01:13:14] Story of hiring an employee.

Ismail: A story that I’d like to hear about. I don’t know the full story here, but I think if I’m getting this right, there was an employee that you have that I think you still have, and I think you, you saw him at Chipotle or something like that, and you said for whatever reason, you’re like, All right, I wanna hire this guy.

Can you tell that story? 

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So Alex Alex had been with us. You know, he, he left you know, when the pandemic happened and stuff like that. He’s his younger guy and he was, he has really strict Indian parents. So his parents were like, they wanted him to, you know, go the more traditional route instead of doing sales.

But but yeah, so Alex was working at Chipotle. I would go to Chipotle all the time, and he would always talk to me. He would always greet me, acknowledge me, ask how my day was, you know, rest of the people are just, they’re miserable, right? They just come in, they just, Okay, cheese, gu, blah, blah, blah, you know, and done chicken or beef.

Chicken 

Ismail: or beef, you know, . 

Josh: Yeah, exactly. And it’s so annoying, right? And so, yeah, Alex was there, you know, he’s just always in a good mood. He’s always smiling. It’s like energetic, like, you can tell, like, this guy’s built differently, you know what I mean? So so I, you know, I go there a couple times, you know, until I get to know him, meet him,

The first time I asked him, I was like, I was like, Hey, man, you ever heard about photo boots? He’s, he looked at me the strangest thing. He didn’t know anything. He’s never seen one, he’s never experienced one. He was like, Man, what the hell is this guy talking about? And I just left it at that. I was like, Oh, okay.

I was like, Yeah. I was like, Okay. I was like, nevermind. So I I just kind of dropped that seat. Then I come back and then oh, actually the first I was like, Yeah, I have a job opening. And he is like, Oh, okay. It’s like not. And he said, No, I’m good right now. And I was like, Okay, that’s fine. I was like, So I go back the next time, this was like a couple weeks later and he is asked me, he’s like, Hey, you still got that job opening?

I guess something had had happened up there that he’s not, he, he wasn’t like happy about staying at Chipotle. And I was like, Yeah, I do. I was like, Here’s my, here’s my number. And he was reading a book at the cash register. It was it was, it was a sales book, The Ultimate Sales machine, I think.

Oh, that’s my 

Ismail: favorite sales 

Josh: book. Yeah. So he was reading that book at Chipotle at, and he had that next to the cash register. He showed it to me and I was like, okay, because most of the time when I hire people, I have to teach them how important education is in self-improvement. Now this guy has already solved that problem for me, you know, So I have to spend less time doing that cuz he, he understands the value of that right there.

I was like, Okay, man. Like we need to sit down and talk. I was like, Here’s my number. I was like you know, you can come sell photo boots for me. You know, I’ll, I was like, What are you making right now? He said, he was making like, I know, $10 or something. I was like, All right, I’ll, I’ll give you $1 more than what you’re making right here.

You come more up for me. So I eat and then I leave and then he calls me 10 minutes later, he like, Hey man, I just quit my job. I’m gonna come work for you boy. 

Ismail: This is like the W of street. You seen that movie where the guy sees the, he is like, I’ll quit my job right now. Exactly. Tell making, so, yeah, 

Josh: continue.

So he he was like, Man, this guy kind of crazy. I’ll give him a chance. You know, he was a younger Indian guy and like, it kind of reminded me of myself, you know, like, I wish someone came and gave me that opportunity, cuz I needed that whenever I first came here. You know, like I needed mentoring. I needed someone to show me the way, but I had to kind of figure it out my own.

So I was like, Hey, I was alright, fine, come on, come to the office. You know? So the, you know, he comes we hire him, you know, he gets started. I think he made his for sale, like within I think within, within two weeks he made his for sale, which is like a record, like going from not knowing photo booths.

Like anything. He didn’t even, like, he looked at me, the strangest thing. Like I just told him like a ufo, like I have a UFO spaceship for sale or something like that. . And you know, and he did good. He did real good, you know, and he invested in himself and he just talks with the customers real good. And he makes them feel like, you know, friends and family.

And that’s, that’s all, that’s what I’m all about. That’s how, that’s how he made me feel when I came to Chipotle, you know? And that’s how he was able to be successful, you know? And that’s kind of our motto here, you know, it’s like pbi family photo booth, international family, you know, we, we talk to people like that, you know, we don’t talk to them, you know, it doesn’t matter what color background or credit score, you know, whatever.

We try to help everybody as the way we can. Best way, you know, we can. 

Ismail: Yeah. I, I love that story. I’m glad I asked about it because I think people often ask like, where do I find people? How do I hire good people? Yeah. And I, I find myself doing what you did where you look around where you go and you can tell who’s good.

You can tell who’s goes up, off and beyond. Mm-hmm. like you just said, everyone at Chipotle is like, Oh, black beans or pinto beans. And then you got this one guy always bubbly and asking you, Same thing with me at Starbucks. Like, you come across people that just, even in like menial jobs, they still show.

They go above and beyond. So if you have them in a position in sales where you can like really empower them and they can make more money and you incentivize them, imagine what they can do. So yeah, I 

Josh: started poaching because what I realized is it resumes are just worthless. You know what I mean? Like if someone, if I hire someone the first day, they’re doing the job.

I like, So if you come for sales, you making sales calls the first day. If you’re building photo boots for me, you’re building photo boots the first day. I want you to fail. If you’re gonna fail, you’re failing right away. You know what I mean? And, and I gotta see whether you can, you got, you can do, you can last here around me, we can be around this job.

You can, you can get the job done. Cause a lot of the times, and this is my own mistake, you know, I’ve hired people based on what they put on their resume and it’s completely opposite, you know, And they can’t do the job. And, you know, we’re already three weeks in and I’ve wasted so much of time with you.

So I now, I’m, I’m, I’m, I, I make sure you can do the job first. You know, whether you work for free or paid or you know, I see you do the job somewhere else and then you go, you know, then we move forward like that. 

Ismail: Do you feel pressure, like a risk like this kid just quit his job immediately to come with you?

You don’t know if he’s cut out for it. You don’t know if he’s gonna do good. What if it doesn’t work out? Or did you not feel that kind of pressure? 

Josh: I could, yeah. Like subconsciously I guess a little bit. But I, I mean, I knew he could just go get a job anywhere else and make you know, what he was making.

Cause it wasn’t a significant amount. It was no added benefit to his life. Right. Working at Chipo. You know what I mean? It’s just, he’s just a, a cog in the machine or something. Right? . Right. So I knew what I had to offer him and just being around me, I. Who would kill to be around, hanging around millionaire all day, You know what I mean?

Not to sound cocky or anything like that, but I would’ve done it. I mean, I, you know, if someone told me, Hey, come work for me, I was dying for that. I remember so many times when I was in high school, in middle school, like, I wish someone would just take me under their wing and show me the way. You know what I mean?

Ismail: And yeah, I guess you’re willing to do that because like you said, you saw a little bit of yourself in him, otherwise people would listening, like, how would you do that? Why would you waste your time? It’s not help. Like you could focus on growing your business. Where are you gonna focus your time at mentoring people that are gonna leave eventually?

Right, Exactly. Mm-hmm. . So

[01:20:12] Benefits & Working of Click Funnels.

Ismail: I’m curious to also hear Josh about and I know you’re like a, you’re really big into online funnels. Yeah. And even the company click funnels, which if people don’t know the ceo, I think his name’s Russell Bronson. Is that right? Yeah. Russell Bronson, Yeah. He is a really popular entrepreneur.

I remember seeing him like on the Profit TV show. He’s a master at online marketing, specifically in funnels like he dissects funnels. He even built this tool click funnel to let people build their own funnels. But you’ve mastered that and I think I know you’ve, you got this two comma award twice where it’s verify that you’ve driven over a million dollars of sales through it’s two different funnels, which people can’t do that once.

And I’m curious to hear you talk about funnels, like why do you find them so effective? Would you recommend people doing them? Like what’s the benefits of using them? How do they work? Et. 

Josh: Yeah. I mean, funnels you really, if, if you’re just getting started off, it’s probably not a good fit for you.

You know, just being honest cuz it takes a lot to understand. It took me a while to. Understand the concept, how it works, and just having a funnel is not gonna make you successful. You know, I’m gonna clear the air about that. A lot of people, they, Oh man, I bought, I got ClickFunnels, and it’s not working.

Like it’s not gonna work. You still have to drive traffic to the funnel, then convert the traffic into. Leads and then sell the 

Ismail: leads. , I I just, I, I hate to interrupt you, but this is something that recently happened to me where I had a family friend. He’s like, Hey, I’m starting this business. Can you help me make website?

I’m like, No problem. I’ll make you website as a favor. I did it for him. Yeah. A couple months later, he’s like, Hey man can you shut that down? I don’t wanna pay for the hosting. You know, it’s not working. You know, we tried. Yeah. I’m like, Bro, , you gotta, you gotta drive traffic to the website. It’s not just you put a website up and then you just make money.

Like, if it was that easy, we’d all do it. Right? Right. So people don’t understand, it’s also effort in driving leads. It’s the mark. Like there’s more involved. So I’m glad you brought 

Josh: that up. There’s the effort here, here comes the effort part again. You know so we, you know, when we started off with ClickFunnels we had a established business already having traffic, Right?

I told you, we talked about the seo, we talked about the Google ads. Okay. So we had that part figured out. There was already traffic coming to the website. All we did now was we inserted click funnels in the stage between after the traffic, right? So that allowed us to convert more leads. Now, when people think like, what is a click funnel?

You know, that’s always something I get, like, it’s, it’s this page that you send people to, to get their information and you can sell them stuff too. So I actually did a presentation in one of the Click Funnels conferences, and I talked, you know, I talked a lot to newbies and told them like, Don’t try to sell stuff in funnels right away.

Just try to collect leads first, and then. You know, sell the leads on the back end. Cuz it’s much easier to do that than to have people buy something, pull out their credit card and buy something, you know, in your funnel. So, you know, I wouldn’t say it’s for the amateur or the newbie business owner getting started.

Although they do have a good one funnel away channel challenge that they’ve launched where they actually walk you through and mentor you for one month to do that. So but if you have a established business and you want to take it to another level, then that would be something good.

Like some clients I take on personally I did, I did this for a tinting company Tritech tinting his year in Dallas, and he he, he was like, Do I wanna get set up with Click Funnels? I was like, All right man, let’s take a look at what you’re doing. So he’s spending about a thousand bucks a month on ads.

He’s bringing people to his website, but his website is like, there’s like 35 pages on there. I was like, Look, it’s, it’s too much, you know, for someone just looking for tint. I was like, Why don’t we, you know, we put a funnel in there where they fill out the form, they get a coupon and you know, they get some you know, $10, $20 off their 10th installation.

So we did that for him and it’s working great. You know, he’s got like a 40% conversion rate for the landing. It’s he’s getting a ton of leads now instead of just traffic, you know, it was before it was just traffic through the website and you. As a, some people get excited about that, but I don’t care about that.

I’m, I’m talking about conversions. What, how many people are getting converting, you know, So now it’s like he hired me to implement the click phones for him and now it’s like turning into leads. But he already has an established business. He has traffic. Okay. So that’s a, that’s a main thing.

That’s the most important thing here. That, that you wanna understand. 

Ismail: So, so my experience with funnels I just started re Cause I remember hearing you talk about all the time I see it on other places online. I’m like, Alright, let me, let me implement. My own funnel. Mm-hmm. . So I actually started doing this on my, on my wizard site where I sell courses mm-hmm.

And when someone, the way I was doing it was I already have people that wanna buy a course. Right. And I wanted to implement the funnel to upsell down, sell them other things. If you don’t wanna buy the course, here’s some other things you can buy. Yeah. Or if someone’s already buying the course, they immediately get prompted to like, Hey, here’s another course that we have, or here’s another digital content that we can sell you at, you know, X percent off.

And I was blown away by how many people like bought more just because they’re presented with an offer immediately after. Like you said, it’s hard to get someone to get their credit card out, but once they have it out, that’s the time to say, Hey, you want this, you want this, you want this to, mm-hmm. , it’s, it’s the reason why when you go to a grocery store or whatever there’s all the things by the cash register mm-hmm.

you’re more likely to buy more when you’re already committed to buying. So yeah, I personally found it very effective in selling more and increasing my average customer value. 

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, like I said, the, the two foundations, right? You had the traffic, you had to establish business, you know, like if you were starting from scratch and you were trying to like build a whole wizard, you know, foundation inside click funnels, and that’ll be a little bit more challenging, you know, and probably frustrating for you.

Ismail: So then let’s, let’s dive into that next. 

[01:25:53] How to follow up & nurture leads.

Ismail: cuz you’re also a lead gen specialist. This is what you talked about at pb n y. People loved how detailed you can get on lead gen tactics. So, all right, you have the funnel once you have leads coming in. Yep. To capitalize on them. What about getting leads?

Like, and I know this is maybe a course that’s coming soon on Wizard that maybe we can talk about afterwards, but you’re the pro at lead gen. How do you generate leads? Where do you start to think about that? 

Josh: Well, everybody’s confused about that because there’s so much of conflicting information.

So the first place, you know, just like it was 10 years ago when I started, is Google, right? I covered in, in detail in, in my ClickFunnels presentation, I covered this Facebook. Everybody’s so excited about that. Facebook ads, you know, it’s the big hype, It’s the cool thing to do, right? But at the end of the day, if I run a plumbing business, right, If I mow lawns, I can’t target someone on Facebook.

But yet, My phone is sitting right here, you know, and I’m gonna get ads for this later now because it’s listening, right? But it’s funny, it’s funny, I was, I was, I was, I was in the bathroom the other day, right? I got, I got an ad on Facebook for roofing I 35. Roofing was the name of the company. I screenshotted it.

I was like, You guys are just wasting you. You just burning money. You might as well burn money. You know what I mean? I’m not in my bathroom scrolling. Facebook you know, people go to Facebook to, to get away from their problems. They go to Google to solve their problems. So if your business solves a problem, you need to be on Google.

So I eliminate everything else. I start with Google. We do the keyword research. Okay? How many people are looking for this product? Okay. Or a service, whatever you do. I just took on a gym client, right? So I’m looking at local gyms. Dallas, I’m looking at personal training. Dallas, I’m looking at Jims near me with the geographic of Dallas.

Okay? So I look at those factors and that the numbers don’t lie in Google. Okay? Google says there’s a hundred people searching and it, it costs $2 a click. That’s cool. All right. So I know like, okay, I can give Google like $50 and I can roughly get 25 clicks, right? So, and I, that’s the sim, the most simplest way to do it.

That’s where I start. And most of the time, you know, when I talk to business owners, like, Oh, I tried Instagram ads, I tried Facebook, I tried everything else and it doesn’t work. I’m like, What happened to Google ? You know, it’s the most highest quality traffic, you know, highest intention. 

Ismail: I, I think you just hit the nail in the head because people go to Google with search intent, they actually type in like, I want a photo booth rental, right?

So they want one. They’re telling you they want one. It’s more, it’s a less friction lead gen source, right? They’re, they want it. You have it, it’s easy. Right? On Facebook, people are scrolling. So yeah, I found what, what’s effective, at least, I don’t know what you think, but for me is I. Go on Google ads to get leads.

And the people that don’t book, like they click on your site maybe they look around and they don’t get around as the booking it, Those are the people that are retarget and do remarketing on social media. Exactly. And that way they, it’s just a reminder to them, Hey, you came to our site. You didn’t book a photo booth.

Just a reminder, if you want one, click this link. It’s, it’s more of a warm lead as opposed to just being some random thing that you see. Scroll through 

Josh: Facebook. Now, all of my customers that I, that I help consulting for, that’s, that’s a strategy. That’s the one two strategy. I only do retargeting on social media.

You cannot go and find someone who’s interested in, in roofing, in lawn care, in photo booth rental. You can’t, I mean, that’s the bottom line. There’s people who have been able to do it, you know, congrats to them. I don’t know how high quality the lead there are. You know, there’s people out there that’s okay.

Facebook ads for photo booth business owners. I don’t know how you can, like, you can target people who have got recently engaged. Yeah. But all you, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. Why would I do that when I know somebody’s typing photo booth rental Dallas and I can just pay $5 to get that lead?

That’s a better lead for me. But people are getting sucked into, you know, the hype and stuff like that. So I keep it simple. I do the, the one two Google retargeting if they don’t fill out the quote form or the, the lead form retargeting with with the ads on, on Facebook. And that is just, that’s the best way.

That’s a tried, true, tested way. And I mean, that’s how I do it in my business. There’s no secret, There’s no secret about that. . So let, 

Ismail: let me ask you, if you don’t mind, I’ll put you on the spot just to get some advice with, with like, let’s say my Wizard site where I have digital courses that I’m selling.

Yeah. Let’s say, And how to sell virtual booths, how to grow your event business, blah, blah, blah. I’ve got an email list, I’ve got a following. You already know I have a following in the niche. How do I, how would you recommend I go about promoting that with ads? Would you go on Google and do ads pay there or would you focus on doing social ads?

Because it’s, it depends on the product too. Like what you’re saying makes sense. But maybe if you’re selling a education product specifically to photo with business owners, maybe it makes sense in that sense to go on social media. I, I don’t know. What do you think? How would you 

Josh: handle that? I mean, you’re more off a high end product.

I just can’t imagine someone being on Facebook than dropping over to WRA and dropping five, $500. You know what I mean? 

Ismail: So you’re saying it’s probably not 

Josh: worth focusing there. Yeah. Now you probably want, what you probably want to do is you probably wanna make some kind of free download PDF or something like that, Legion to like filter them, then do the nurturing sequence with the email marketing, you know, and then, then introduce them to withdraw afterwards.

Ismail: So the problem with that is, again, go back to effort, right? So that takes a lot of effort to not just effort money to pay for the lead. If you’re doing paid ads give ’em a free content, nurture them, and then hope to solve ’em that line. What if it doesn’t work and you wasted all that money getting leads and you wasted the time creating all that content?

Or do you think it will work? You just gotta 

Josh: tweak it, man. You can. So let’s talk, let’s, let’s, let’s go deep on this. So you can get someone on fiber to, to create a a worksheet for you or, or some kind of downloadable PDF based on, you got two courses on there, right? They can like distill some of the information and you can give them some value into a PDF that may cost you maybe a hundred bucks, 200 bucks, right?

And then now you have your, you have an asset that you’re gonna consistently give people for free. You can make a, this is built on WordPress, right? Where’s drop? Yes, Yes. You can make a page, a landing page on there. So you, you don’t have to use Click Funnels per se, right? And then you can make your landing page, you, you got the email form there to collect it so you can deliver their free pdf.

And then you running Facebook ads, you know, and you, you don’t need to run, you know, a lot. I mean, you could do it for like a dollar, $2 a day and see what happens and see if that works. You know, to just to collect email addresses. 

Ismail: You’re saying in that way, it’s worth doing it on a Facebook because it’s, it’s just a free content that you’re giving.

If you’re trying to sell a high premium course, you would just not do it on Facebook. But this is different because you’re giving free contents away. Is that right? I think 

Josh: with, yeah, with Facebook you’ll need to like build up your trust with them. Cuz I like, I can’t imagine someone just dropping Facebook and then coming over here and spending 500 bucks.

Hey, you know, like you have to, like, even with us too, we don’t just, when they come to the website, we don’t try to sell ’em a photo booth right away. You know, we give them information. We, like, we have a 45 day email sequence that teaches them, tells them about stories tells them about, you know, the opportunity, my story educate them and build that trust with them.

And I think that you can do that fairly cheap and fairly automated, but once you have these systems set up, you can, you’re gonna be able to leverage it, you know, for the long term, you know. Hmm. 

[01:33:18] Your Online Business strategy.

Ismail: So you’re saying it’s different because you’re selling, you’re selling a product that people that are looking at start a business, right?

You’re selling the physical product, The education. I’m just doing the education for people that are already in the business. So you still think, and again, I just, I’m, I’m digging into this it’s not easy. Ask advice publicly, but I think people listening can get value out of it too, to see how you think.

Yeah. You’re saying for me it’s worth creating some kind of digital content to give away pay for ads on social media, have them click on the link they put their email in to get the free content. And that way you know that these are already people who wanna learn more about growing their photo booth business.

And then you have some automated email drip funnel where it goes out. Yours is 45 days, whatever it is. You make one where you slowly nurture them, you teach them, you add value along the way. Mm-hmm. , and at the end you sell ’em something. Is that, Did I understand it correctly? Yeah. Yeah. How do you know that’s gonna work?

Josh: I mean, that’s, that’s what I used in my businesses and that, that’s worked. It’s hard common cold traffic to like, unless people know you. So let’s say if someone in the industry hasn’t heard of you $500 is a big commitment to get them to whip out their credit card and pay. You know what I mean?

So you have to build that a lot, that along the way. That’s, that’s really the only way to do it. 

Ismail: So that, that’s basically what I was, So my, my strategy and I’m sharing this openly, is that I already have like a devoted following in this industry. So I first sell the courses to my email list primarily, right?

I, I might post on social media group like once or twice, but really it’s my email list. Mm-hmm. That money that I make. My plan is to reinvest it in ads to make the business scalable and grow it that way. Would you agree with that? 

Josh: Yeah, I would agree with that. But running an ad directly to a $500 product, that’s just gonna be wasted money.

What I’m trying tell you to do is run the ads to something free, collected email, at least you’re getting something in return, and you can remarket to those emails over and over 

Ismail: again. What would you put in the email campaign afterwards to nurture them? 

Josh: I would, I would maybe just give away like maybe one lesson of, of the courses, like a sample lesson.

I would do that. Maybe, you know, you gonna do the pdf what else You can do some success stories of other people who have gone through and been able to increase it. 

Ismail: So my last question here is that, 

, like with your example, you’re selling the photo booth business, right? For me, I feel like, do I need to have different funnels for each course?

Cuz all right, this course is how to scale your photo booth business. This course is virtual booth. Would you create a different funnel for each one or would you have one funnel and, you know, sell each course in it at different times while adding value? Yeah, 

Josh: I would do one, one funnel. Having multiple funnels is, is very hectic.

It’s a lot to manage. It’s good. Gotcha. You know what I mean? I mean you can do it, but and, and the, and the reason why I’m saying this is because. Just the fact of the tracking codes, the analytics tracking on, Cause each funnel is a separate website essentially, right? So you, Yes. If you got, you know, five courses on there and you got five funnels, that means five separate tracking codes, five track, five separate conversion tracking codes.

And that just gets ballistic at some point and there’s gonna be a mess up somewhere. And that’s why I like, you know, the way we do it, we, we drive everybody to one, one website. And one website uses one funnel. And the one funnel is what I got over a million dollars. And that’s what they preach. You know, it’s the one funnel away challenge because they try to tell people like, look, don’t do five funnels at a time.

Get one funnel to a million and then work on the next funnel. You know? And I think you can do it because it, it’s in the same niche, you know what I mean? Like, if you were doing like courses on like woodworking work, you know how to make wood and sell it on Etsy or something like that, then that, I would say yeah, probably a different funnel cuz it’s a different type of business, but you’re all gonna be in the same industry.

I think one funnel will be good enough for you. It’s gonna be easy for you to manage, it’s gonna be easy for you to track, It’s gonna be easy for you to scale when you make changes and do ab testing, it’s gonna be easier for. 

Ismail: Awesome man. Thank you. I might have to pick your brain more offline, but I hope people got value out of listening to a specific example like that cuz I think it shows how you think about generating leads and building funnels and automating, cuz that’s the whole beauty of these online businesses now, even with a rental business where it’s physical mm-hmm.

The sale happens online in almost all cases. So you have to learn this skill like you were talking about. That’s a very important skill. Marketing online. Mm-hmm. , if you know that you can make it in, in a lot of different fields, maybe every single field out there. But I, I, I did want to give a opportunity, cuz I know I’ve been twisting your arm to create a, a course on lead gen cuz people love your content at the conference.

I’m working on this , 

Josh: I, I gotta deliver now I gotta over deliver it even when I did it on there. So it it’s in process. I got some good stuff. I’m, I’m gonna keep it, you know, I’m gonna keep it simple. It’s gonna be actionable. You’re gonna be able to implement it right away. What I don’t want you to do is if you buy this course on there and you don’t do anything with it, okay?

So at the end of each video, we’re gonna give you an action step to do and you’re gonna go do that before you watch the next video. Cause the worst thing you can do, and I get annoyed by this too, is like you, you. You go to conferences, you come back and you’re so overwhelmed with the amount of information, what do you work on first?

You know, or you read a book and like someone is like, What book are you reading now? I’m like, No, I’m taking a break now. Like, I read a book, then I take a break to execute on it. Then, you know, maybe a month, two months later, then I, then I start looking at the next book. So I’m in execution mode. That’s what I need you guys to do whenever you’re going through the course.

Ismail: Yeah, and I think people, what people really appreciate about you is that, and they probably see this so far in our conversation, is that you, you talk about the high level, what you need to do, the strategy, this is why it makes sense, this is how you should do it, But you also get into the nitty gritty.

Like even earlier on, you mentioned using Long Tail Pro as a keyword research tool. Like you give exact tools to use, you show them how to use it. Mm-hmm. It’s like you give the blueprint step by step of how to make money and people just have to take the steps. Right? At the end of the day, no one’s gonna make it for you.

Mm-hmm. , they’ll show you how to do it, but you have to take the effort and action into putting it into place. So

[01:39:35] Way to connect with Josh.

Ismail: I’m gonna have a, a link in the show notes to a page hopefully, I dunno if it’ll be up and ready by the time this episode goes out, but there’ll be a page up there for you to opt in to be notified once it’s ready.

And I think, Josh, you said you had a phone number where people can text you and give you requests for stuff to cover in the course? 

Josh: Yeah, so it’s 9 7 2 2 8 4 0 5 0 6. That’s, you can text me directly and chat with me if you guys have any questions. You know, I always like chatting with entrepreneurs and meeting new people, so feel free to reach out to.

And now 

Ismail: I’ll have that number in the show notes as well. 

[01:40:06] Working with your spouse.

Ismail: one other thing that, a couple other things I wanted to get into Josh, is I noticed you work with your wife mm-hmm. , which I think that’s amazing. That’s what I want to do. A lot of people don’t have success with. That doesn’t work out. So I’m curious to hear from you, how do you make that work?

Like, why are you guys, were you both entrepreneurial and that’s what you met, that’s what was attractive about each other? Or did you just get her involved in the business? How does that work? 

Josh: Yeah, we’re actually total opposite. And that’s, that is one of the reasons why it works because we, we are opposite.

So she’s, she was not entrepreneurial. She was raised you know, in a Mexican family. She grew up poor, you know, it was five people in a two bedroom apartment. So, you know, her mom was like, you know, go to school, become a nurse, You know, that kind of stuff. That was the American dream for. And then I come along and I’m like, I hate that kind of strategy.

Go to school, all that stuff. I mean, unless you doing for like, you know, doctor, attorney, lawyer, that kind of stuff. So it was a, it was a big challenge in the beginning cuz I had to show her like, look, there’s another way to, to win at life. And it’s not just going to school, becoming a nurse and, you know, going through the, the normal rigmarole.

Right. So it took, 

Ismail: but, but how challenging is it really, if you have like a $700,000 revenue company and you’re growing this other thing, like, was it really that hard to convince. 

Josh: Well, it wasn’t like that in, I mean, we didn’t have 700 in the beginning. Right? This was, you’re talking about 12. Gotcha.

You know, in the beginning like that. And so it got to a point when she came aboard to help with the rental business. This, she came aboard in 2014. She would come home crying every day. She was a pharmacy tech. Her schedule changed week by week. So we didn’t know when she was working week by week, there was a lot of favoritism.

People below her were making more than her. So those factors plus my growing business and I’m like, Look, it’s only gonna make sense for you to, like, it doesn’t make sense for you to go get another job and you’re gonna have to deal with the same, you know, managers and pay and scheduling. It’s the same thing that everybody deals with that has a job.

You know? So like, well, let’s just try it. If it doesn’t work, you can go and, and get a job somewhere else. You know? And it took, you know, a long time for her to get over the fact that it’s not just my business. You know, it’s not, you know, a lot of wives say, Oh, I helped my husband with his business. You know what I mean?

The mind shift happens when it’s like, this is our business and we’re building it together, and we’re gonna build an empire together. And that, that takes five years. I’ll just tell you five year battle, you know, not a battle, but it’s a five year thing that you have to work with and get on the same page.

And, and you have to be on the same team. A lot of the times people are rowing against each other. They’re not understanding, you know, and I’ll just give you like a quick example. Like the house I I live in right now. We bought this house last December. We bought it for 350,000. The, we thought this was gonna be our forever home.

The market is so hot right now that the value of the house has gone up 150,000. We decided to, to like, Hey, let’s put it for sale and let’s move. Let’s take that money. That’s a good financial business decision. Now, most people’s wives would be like, Oh we, we love it here. It has a nice kitchen. You know, I don’t wanna move again.

You know, that kind of stuff. But finances on the same page. Like, Hey, let’s, let’s do this. This is a good financial thing. Let’s upgrade. Let’s go somewhere else. You know? And so I think a lot of times a lot of the energy is spent in conflict or disagreements and not being on the same page or not having the same vision.

You know, we, we sync up and we have the same vision, we have the same outcome. Where do you see yourself in five years? Okay. We want kids. We want the kids to play outside in the lawn. I wanna teach them how to ride bikes. I wanna go fishing with them. I wanna do the things, you know, that I did, you know, play outside with them.

I don’t want them to be inside with, you know, with iPads and stuff like that. And so, you know, we try to make sure we’re on the same page and we sync up. And, you know, it took a long time to get to that. But when that does happen, the benefits are just crazy. Like right now, she’s, you know, she has I told her, I was like, Hey, I’m gonna be on a podcast.

You know, she brought me coffee and she supports me and we support each other. And you know, we, we got a lot of this from Grant and Elena Cardone, you know, that’s, that’s, you know, our people that we look up to and we kind of their role models for us, you know, and, and you know, Jasmine has had Elena on her podcast and she’s went to her masterminds, you know, and I’ve invested significantly with Grant.

And they talk a lot about that, about building an empire together and being on the same page. And you know, they have it all, you know, or not, you know, they have it all and they’re working on themselves and they, they tell us that all the time. You know, they have a plane, they have, you know, billion dollars worth of real estate.

They have a family, they have the health, they have a business, and you can have it all. And if you get over all the small things then you see like, okay, well they can do it. You know, Grant didn’t grow up Rich. He was a drug, you know, a user. And, you know, he was able to make it. And so you just take these principles that they teach and implemented into your own lives, but really implemented, not just go read a book and think like you did it.

You know what I mean? Like syncing up and being on the same page and having the same vision to build an empire. That’s, you know, the operating system, you know, that we, we, we live by, you know, and it’s not emotional, you know, like a lot of people think. When we moved into this house, they’re like, Oh man, it’s so big.

It’s nice, you know, they’re, they’re gonna be here forever. Like, when we told people we, you sold our house, that we were selling our house. Like, they were like, Why? You know, what’s going on? And it’s such a nice place. Like that’s emotional reaction, you know what I mean? It’s not Empire strategies. And so it’s just an example of, you know, being on the same page and, and the vision that we have and, and syncing up.

But it takes a lot of work. It did take a lot of work and a a lot of investing in ourselves over the years. You know, masterminds, Tony Robbins podcasts, books, that kind of stuff. But it’s possible. And, you know, Grant and Elena are. You know, we see that they can do it and say, Okay, well if they can do it, we can do it.

You know? 

Ismail: I I love that we had an opportunity to riff on that because I totally agree with a lot what you just said. I know. It’s like a power couple where you wanna, you don’t wanna build something alone. Right. It’s, it’s helpful if you have a partner, like a real partner that understands everything and, and is in there with you and you build it together.

It’s more satisfying that way. You can go farther that way. Exactly. And like you mentioned with, with a job, same thing with my wife. I mean, I remember she was pregnant and working at a bank and they got mad at her for taking the sick day. Oh. And I was like, What? I’m like, Yo, you go on tomorrow and you quit in that job.

Mm-hmm. that, like, that’s not the way we we’re gonna live. Right. So, but I find other people. Have a hard time fusing their relationship in business. Mm-hmm. All like having a spouse or a partner in business and working together is very difficult for some people. Mm-hmm. , thankfully me, you, I think we got lucky with our wives that that’s a very important thing.

Probably the most important decision you make exactly in your life. And it’s awesome to see, even from afar with your wife, she’s stepping up a lot. It sounds like she had a journey to get to this point, but now she’s like running the other podcast on her own. Yep. She’s growing into more of a leader in the business.

So that’s awesome to see. So good kudos to her and and for you for helping her as well. Yeah, it’s, 

Josh: you know, I’m really happy for that, you know, and when people tell me like, Oh, it’s tough to do with your wife, and, you know, I also tell ’em like, this is the person you trust the most in this world. Like, if you can’t do this together, Like, it’s very questionable to me.

You know what I mean? I mean, that’s my, that’s my personal outlook on it, whether they believe it or not. Like if there’s anybody you should be able to build a business with, they should be a wife, you know? Definitely 

Ismail: true. I, I think it just depends on the people. Like some wives, some husbands, they’re just not into business at all.

Like they just don’t have that, Right. That in them, like we talked about from the beginning. Like, you have it in you, she has it in her maybe you have to pull it out of her a little bit more, but it was there. Some people just don’t have it. And, and no matter what you do, I don’t know if you relate to this, not just about your wife, like friends, family, people asking Josh, Hey, give me advice.

How do I become like you? Some people I give advice and they just, you know, from experience, they’re just not gonna do anything with it. And I don’t know why. I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. I just boil it down to they just don’t have that in them. Mm-hmm. , like, I dunno if you relate. 

Josh: Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. A lot of people are, is like that . And that’s just the truth, you know? I just I used to try so hard to try and make them change. Like, look. Yeah, like, you know, there’s a family member that, you know, he works at that the rail, he drives the, the trail, the Dallas area, rapid transit and. You know, his schedule, he knows his schedule at, at like 3:00 PM for the next day.

So like every day his schedule changes. He doesn’t know what it is. And I’m like, Look, man, you’re making, you know, okay, $25 an hour here. I was like, You can literally go, you can start a car wash business. You can start a Amazon delivery business. You can start a lawn care business. You can do some, some home service.

You can wash windows, You can do power washing. You know, maybe in the beginning you won’t make as much as you’re making at the job, but at least you get your life back. You get your health back, you know, But he’s, he’s stuck in there, you know, And it’s sad. But, you know, this is a, like, I try to help him as much as I can by sending him, like, motivational stuff and all that, but some people don’t have it.

You know? That’s fun. You know, 

Ismail: nothing. I’ve done the same. And, and, and I, I just, I recently came to realize like, we have good intentions. We want to help people grow. Some people they don’t wanna grow, right? Some people, they’re, they’re happy. Like, I have friends that say, You know, All I need is my cup of coffee.

You know, my cigarette. And I’m good. I’m happy. Good. Good for them, bro. I mean, I sometimes, I wish it was that easy for me to be happy. I don’t know. It, it’s a blessing and a curse to have this fire that we have where that’s true. You want better, you wanna do better, but like, when will you be really happy?

Cuz there’s always more to do. There’s always another level to get to. The empire can always grow more, right? Mm-hmm. . 

Josh: That is true. Unsatiable, , like, never happy. That’s one of my traits, you know? But I mean, I don’t know. Some people think it’s a curse. I, this is the way I am. I’m happy, I’m happy, striving for more, I’m happy when I’m doing stuff, you know what I mean?

I’m happy when producing, I’m unhappy when I’m not, you know, I, I can’t just spend the whole day like, just sitting on the couch, you know? I can’t, like, that shit even just kills me. Like, I gotta get something done. We gotta get some business. I dunno. That’s how I am. I felt like maybe I’m, I’ve wasted a lot of time in the beginning, you know, and I don’t wanna waste more time.

Cause time is finite, you know? 

Ismail: Yeah, I totally agree with that. You kind of alluded to in, in this last few minutes, with all the education that you do that your wife does with conferences within the podcast masterminds I, I’ve also noticed this too, where you invest a lot on your equipment, your computer, your education, and I think most of all your education.

Mm-hmm. , Can you talk about like, why. You do that cuz a lot of people, like I try to sell courses. I’m sure you sell content too. Mm-hmm. They’re very resistant to spending any money on education. Like you could give ’em a $10 book and they don’t wanna buy a $10 book. But then there you have Josh and his wife spending thousands and thousands of dollars programs and flying across the world.

[01:51:21] How is your mindset different from others?

Ismail: What is the mindset difference that you have that other people don’t have? 

Josh: Well I, I know it changes it personally for me. And I’m, I’m confident in myself enough to execute and make it work. I think a lot of people they won’t spend the money because they know they won’t do anything with it. And I think that’s a difference.

Like for me, you know, like I went to Dan Pena, you know, I went to his castle to do a seven day seminar with him. You know, and I mean this is one of the most elite masterminds in, in the entire world. You know, I mean, he’s made billions of dollars you know, buying and selling businesses. And that investment was 35 grand.

Just to go there. And that’s outside of travel costs, you know, with the, the travel cost, it must have been about 40,000. But I knew like going there, it’s gonna change my mindset. I’m gonna be able to network. I’m gonna, I’m gonna come back and be able to execute and I wanna be around people cuz that’s, that’s, that was the next level for me at that time.

But at the end of the day, you know, I’ve, I have also thought about this a lot and I’m so confident in myself that I’ll ex I’ll execute on the information. And I think a lot of people, they just won’t, That’s why they won’t spend the money, whether it’s a $10 book or $10,000 course or something like that.

If they’re hesitant to spend the money, it’s not I, I think personally it’s that they, they know they won’t do anything with the information when they get it. Yeah. I mean, that, that’s such a 

Ismail: powerful thing. Like people are all gonna be wondering like, Hey Josh, you know, how does this guy make millions of dollars?

He’s got a nice sports car, he’s got a big house, and you know, how does he do it? Well, he spent $40,000 in education for one program. 

Josh: That program that year. 

Ismail: Yeah. . Yeah. If you sp like if you add up all the other programs that you do, I’m sure it’s a much bigger number in total. Mm-hmm. , how many people invest in themselves that much?

Maybe it’s true. Like we just said, it’s about belief. Mm-hmm. , maybe people won’t believe in themselves, but you do, you invest and you get it done. And I think it’s a lot of power in like the reason why. Worth paying for education. Sometimes you learn a lot, you get the shortcuts you’re around other people like, think about who would go to that event.

Mm-hmm. . But also when you commit and you pay, there’s a psychological effect that it has on you where you’re like, Yo, I gotta make this worth it. I spend 30 grand, I gotta make an ROI out of this, otherwise it’s a waste. So there’s a lot of reasons why it works. And I find that people that invest in their education doesn’t matter what it is, maybe you don’t have 30 grand.

Maybe you just read books and send to podcasts every day. Those people make it cuz they’re always trying to get better. Right? 

Josh: Yeah. You gotta, you gotta, It’s a step up. You know, It’s not, it’s not a cheap investment, but, you know, I started off, the first big investment I made was in, in like Card University.

I remember spending 5,000 on that in 2016. You know, and I mean, we had one of the best years you know, because of a, a result of that because I spent five grand and, you know, it was, it was a big number for me back then. And I learned how to do sales and I became a better salesman because of. 

Ismail: Yep.

Yeah, I mean, I’ve also spent thousands of on courses. Like, I, I remember spending a couple thousand dollars on a copywriting course mm-hmm. , and, and now people see my emails and they’re like, Yeah, how do you write such great emails? Can I hire you to write my emails? I spent a lot of money and a lot of time investing in that to get better.

That’s why. And now that’s skill. Go back, going back to the idea of skills. If you can sell to an email list, if you can write a copy on website, you can make millions of dollars selling anything. Right. That’s a very important skill to have. Yeah. All right. So let’s shift to investing. Cause I know you’re really big on investing.

I like this about you too. I know you do, you’re doing real estate investing and you do dividend investing. So can you talk a little bit about that, if you don’t 

Josh: mind? Yeah. So one of my favorite stuff, so a lot of people are, you know, they have a business, and you hear this all the time, reinvest all your profits to grow your business.

That is incorrect, boss. You know what I mean? So , what you should do is you have a business, you generating income, you need to take a little bit off the top and invest it into real estate and into into stocks. So, and I’m so passionate about this because I know if I started doing this you know, eight years ago I would have, you know, bigger portfolio of real estate and stocks.

A lot of the time when you reinvest the money back into the business, you putting the money, money back at risk. So if you telling me like, Hey, you got a net profit of a hundred thousand. Let’s say you have a hundred thousand left over, right? Okay, take 25 grand and invest it into real estate of stocks and then put 75 back into the business to grow it.

Don’t put the entire a hundred thousand back at risk. Cause your business may not grow, right? I mean, look what happened. You know, the pandemic, let’s say if you did that in 2019, pandemic came, you got crushed. But if you bought real estate in stocks, those actually did the best that they ever did. , you know, prior to any other year.

So with the real estate so my first property that I bought, it was me and my sister. We bought like a four bedroom house. So it was about 10 years ago. I was 21 at the time. Bought that for 120,000. We sold that for 150,000. I moved, me and Jasmine moved into a condo. We bought that for 80,000, sold it for 120,000.

Then we bought another house for two 20, which I still have now as, as a rental that has, that appraised for two 60 in July of this year and is bringing me rental income. So it’s, you buy a property, live in it, and then, you know, flip it or turn it into a rental income. That’s how I’ve built my portfolio.

And it’s a easy way to do, It’s a manageable way. A lot of people think like, Oh, you know, I can never be a real estate investor. I don’t have a hundred grand. You know, it doesn’t have to start like that. You know, the, the. The condo that I bought was 80 grand, you know, and, and I lived in there and I renovated it myself, and I painted the walls and I, you know, redid the countertop with the Rustoleum kit from Home Depot, and I upgraded the faucet.

You know, you slowly upgraded and it increased value over time, and then I sold it and made some profit on it. And you just keep doing that, you know, over a 10 year period. That’s how you really build it up. I think a lot of people are confused with the time that it takes to, to build these things up, but also confused with what, how much you can get done in a 10 year period, you know?

So yeah, doing that for the real estate just, you know, flipping and, you know, getting bigger properties and, and turning them into rentals. Also, you know, if you have a business, luckily, you know, my business did well enough that we, we purchased our forest building in 2018, so we have the place that we’re in right now, We purchased it for 500,000.

We had to renovate it. It’s a 5,000 square foot building. And I, you know, completely remodeled it. That’s where the showroom and everything is. That’s where we visit customers. I put it for sale for 750,000 in July. And so that’s gonna be, you know, a $200,000 profit, $250,000 profit on that.

And then now I’m looking to move into a multi-tenant building where looking to get the tenants to pay the entire mortgage, you know, and we get free, basically rent for my business. 

Ismail: Sorry. 

[01:58:28] Invest in Real estate.

Ismail: Are you looking for like properties that will appreciate in value or are you looking for properties that generate cash flow when you, when you look at real estate investing?

A little bit of 

Josh: both. Also, like, you know like if it’s commercial property, like I know like, okay, can I move my business in there? Or, you know, can, because you know, owner occupied real estate for commercial, the banks love that, right? So they give preference to that sba give preference to that. Like the SBA deal I’m looking at now they’re giving like 25 year term at probably around 5% interest rate.

And I only gotta bring 10%. Okay, so if I’m looking at a million dollar building you know, I can bring in a hundred thousand for the down payment, get a 25 year note on there. And let’s say, you know, maybe there’s one or two tenants just with one or two tenants in there, and I occupy the rest. Let’s say there’s three spaces.

If I have two tenants, the two tenants can cover the entire note of the mortgage and I can be in that third space for free. 

Ismail: Yeah, and I think 

[01:59:28] House hacking.

Ismail: what you, what you talking about before with the real estate where you, you and your wife lived in there, then you sold it. And I think that’s kind of, if I’m right, it’s called the house hacking where a lot of people do this where because you’re living in the property, you have to put much less money down.

And then after a year or two of living in there, you can sell it, go to the next one and do it again. Mm-hmm. . And that’s how people accrue a lot of rental properties. They buy a home that’s like two or three units, they live in one unit and after a year they do it again. Mm-hmm. Cuz you have to put like three or 4% down or something really, really small.

Yeah. 

Josh: You know, and, and there’s no intention. It just happened like that. And but I always got a good deal on him to start off with. It fit my lifestyle at the time. And then as my, as things changed in my life, you know, it didn’t, it wasn’t a good fit and I could afford something else and then turn that into an asset.

It, it can be done, you know, it can be done for. 

Ismail: People always ask me too about real estate, cuz right now it’s hot. Like even around me, I was flipping properties. I can’t really flip properties anymore cuz it’s just too crazy. The valuations. Mm-hmm. . But if you’re buying for rentals I don’t really care how hot the market is.

Oh, it’s too overpriced. I don’t really care because the money’s so cheap. If you can borrow at a cheap rate and it generates cash flow and that gives you enough of a return, then it’s a good deal. Who cares if it’s, if it’s a hot market, right? You have to look at the return. And then when the market drops, you can buy more in the future.

You don’t have to not buy anything now just because the market’s hot. If the numbers work, the numbers work. Right. 

[02:00:57] Invest in dividend stocks.

Ismail: I’m curious about the dividends because I also do the same strategy where I buy stocks. For people who don’t know, there are like these stocks called dividend ACRs or dividend kings, where there are companies like Coca-Cola, Proctor and Gamble at and t, where they have a track record of like 30, 40, 50 years.

Where every year, no matter what, great depression recession, financial crisis, they increased their dividends every year. And, and the reason why that’s a good investment, and I think this is what Josh does, he can chime in about it too, is yet, say you buy 18 and t stock right now, it’s like $29 a share.

They give you a 7% dividend. So every year you make 7%, whatever that is, like $2. But every year they increase. So that that $30 that you put in, you know, in 5, 10, 15 years, you might be making 15% on that money that you put in. Right? Cause it’s a growing cash flow source. That’s why a lot of people love that.

I, I don’t know what you think, 

Josh: Josh. Yeah. So the, the whole thing, what actually got me started on that so when the pandemic hit, one thing I did was I took note of the people I followed and how they reacted. You know what I mean? And so a lot of the people, you know, people, I mean, everybody was scattered, everybody was scared.

And one person in particular, his name is Stephan James from Project Life Mastery. I’ve been following him for I would say, maybe seven years now. And I actually went to one of his masterminds in his house in Canada. But he’s a big YouTuber and he talks about, you know, living a, mastering your life, every area of it, you know, health, wealth, love, happiness, that kind of stuff.

He, when the pandemic happened, he was, he was cool, calm, collected. A lot of the business people I followed, obviously, like even Grant, you know, he had to let go. A bunch of people, like things were crazy, you know, that kind of stuff. But he was just like really calm and he, he kept making his videos and he, he showed like his port, one of the things that he does is he showed his portfolio and, you know, he has like about a $3 million portfolio and the dividends on that is like just over a hundred grand a year, you know, off that.

And I’m like, wow. Like, he could literally just live his life, not have to do anything ever again, and just live off the dividends while the value of the stocks are going up every year. Like that’s just, that’s not goal. Right. 

Ismail: That’s so powerful. I have, I have relatives that like, they wanna retire and they’re like, Oh, I’ll just sell my house.

You know, I’ll make 600,000 and I’m good. I got 600,000 in the bank. Yeah. And I’m like, Dude, why don’t you put that 600,000 in dividend stocks and make 30,000 forever. Right. Exactly. Like forever. And it goes up forever and you can leave it to your kids. I don’t know, people don’t have that mindset. They just want that cash in the bank, but I’d rather have that a hundred thousand a year and next year it’s gonna be 105 and then 110, and then you can leave that to your kids.

It’s a growing asset. I don’t know why it’s such a hard concept to grasp for people. 

Josh: Yeah. You know, I mean, money is always like that , you know, it’s like everybody’s an expert and everybody has their own opinions on it. But I, I, and I, I, I told you the story about this because this is how I started prior to, you know, March, I actually wasn’t doing stock market.

Like I was so focused on business and real estate, like talks was not even on my radar. But I looked at this guy, I’m like, Okay, this is what I wanna be like in the next recess. You know, like when 2030 comes and we got Covid 20 dropping, you know what I mean? , hopefully not , hopefully not, you know, But I mean, I wanna be prepared.

I wanna be like this guy, I wanna have enough in my portfolio that I’m living off the dividends and I’m fine. You know? And it can, it can be passed on. And it’s such a simple strategy that, you know, people overcomplicate it. I only buy like Fortune 500, like my portfolio at and t Bank of America you know, Coca-Cola, Johnson and Johnson, Like, it’s companies that have been around for longer than me and you have been alive, you know?

And if you like, it just makes sense. You know? I, 

Ismail: I, I think it’s just not exciting. Like I, I remember telling my friend and I’m like, Oh, just get at and t stock. I like that stock you make seven, 8%. They grow every year and they’re like, seven, 8%. That’s it. I’m like, Bro, what are you getting in the bank, man?

What do you, what do you mean? That’s it? Like, so, I dunno. I think it’s the mindset. So hopefully if anyone learn anything outta this conversation, they learn to invest. Yeah. You mentioned that the person that you looked at was calm, cool, and collected. I remember in the 20 2008 financial crisis, one of my mentors, I remember at that time, I was talking to him and I’m like, Dude, Marcus crashing.

It’s crazy. It’s terrible. And he’s like, I just put all my money in the banks, the financial stocks. I’m like, Dude, what are you doing? They’re all going bankrupt. What’s wrong with you? He’s like, if they all go bankrupt, where nobody’s gonna care about how much money you got, like we’re in big trouble. So he knew it was gonna bounce back and he bought it dirt cheap and made millions and millions of dollars just from staying calm.

Cool. And making, taking action at the right time when everyone else is scared. Yeah. So I, I think you’re right. That’s what we aspire to do. 

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I, I share my, my stock portfolio. 

[02:06:00] Josh’s Stock portfolio on YouTube.

Josh: You’ve seen a couple of my videos on there. Like, I’m like, my, my next goal is to get a hundred thousand invested.

I’m at a, I just, I’m close to about 60,000 now. So if anyone wants to check that out, you know, you’re welcome to it. Look at my YouTube channel. It can be on there and I’m sharing to, but that’s nothing complicated. It’s so simple that, you know, it’s not cool. It’s just like the Facebook ad thing, you know, like people go on YouTube and they’re like, Oh, do options and do four x and trade Bitcoin and crypto.

Like, man, you’re gonna lose your crap. You know, you’re gonna lose everything doing that. And there’s a place and time for that. But it’s not for me because I’m involved in other things. I’d rather, I’d rather have, have money for sure. You know, have a, I’d rather have a guarantee than, you know, put it at risk for higher return.

Ismail: Yeah, there’s definitely different strategies for different things. Like you, you wanna preserve and grow your wealth. You wanna go into safer things and, and more secured cash flow. So that makes sense. I, I, I have seen your videos. I like that you are so open about it. You show your portfolio, you show what picks you make, why you make ’em.

Mm-hmm. . So I’ll definitely link that in the show notes as well. I find it helpful, especially to people who, a lot of people are scared of stocks. They don’t get it. Like my friends, they understand real estate. Yeah. I buy the house, I rent it out, I make money, but when I tell ’em stocks, they don’t get it and they’re, they’re scared.

But it’s really simple man. It’s the same thing. You buy the asset, you have the cash flow. I dunno. So hopefully they check out your video and it clicks more for them. Yeah. 

Josh: Couple. Yeah, go ahead. At the point where I’m just like, like I have a condo that I I rent out right now. I paid about 70,000 for that.

But I had to put some money in it to renovate it. Then I had to put deal with the tenant. Not that the tenant was any problem, but any human interaction’s gonna be an inconvenience for me, . But like had to, you know, do the credit report and, you know, screen them and, and and you know, like no matter how much, well you do that stuff, like given the, you never know how good the tenant’s gonna be.

Right? Thankfully, I’ve, I’ve had great tenants but it’s like, man, if I just took that money, like, you know, let’s say 75,000, put it into like dividend paying stocks, you know, Okay. I’ll be making maybe f 1500 a year on that. But the values going up like every day almost . And I don’t have to deal with anything.

And, and I can, I can liquidate in a heartbeat. I’m, I’ve been trying to sell this condo now for six months and and, and I can’t liquidate it. You know, 

Ismail: there’s also costs to selling it and buying it. Yeah. I to, I totally agree with you. I actually worked at a real estate finance company on Wall Street, and I remember, you know, I’m looking into real estate deals.

I still do. I still, if there’s a good deal to invest in, I’ll do it right. But I remember I was like, You know what? I’m curious. Let me walk around the office. These are all real estate professionals. This is what they do, Right? And I wanna walk around and I wanna ask, I asked almost everybody, do you own real estate?

Like, where do you put your money? And almost nobody owned real estate. They all put their money in the market. Yeah. And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Like what you just said. When you look to, I dunno about Dallas, but in New York, if you make 7% on a real estate deal, that’s amazing. Like the cap rates here are so low, Right.

It’s hard to get that return, but you can put that in a stock and make 8% guaranteed. Right. And have it grow every year guaranteed. And you can liquidate it a lot easier. It, it’s no work involved fixing it, dealing with tenants. It’s, it’s just really passive income. Right. Why wouldn’t you do that? Yeah.

Josh: Look, I, at the end of the, at the end of the day, I tell people this, My children are gonna look at me and they’re gonna say, Daddy, what were you doing when all this was going on in the world, when Bitcoin was coming about? When the stock mart was going crazy? When the internet was founded? And like, am I gonna sit there and tell em like, Oh, I didn’t do nothing.

You know what I mean? Or I’m gonna tell him, Look, hey, I, I surfed it, I surfed the wave. And, and that’s how we are where we are, you know? And that’s how we built the empire 

Ismail: for sure. Couple final questions if you don’t mind. So, so you mentioned like Grant Cardone in Ty Lopez and these people, I’m always curious about this cuz I’m trying to get more into social media content too.

And like these people, they have lovers, but they have people that haters, for lack of a better word they think they’re scammy. They post the good life, the jets, the cars. And I’ve seen you post this as well. It’s not all you post, but you do it as well. And I’m wondering, for someone like me trying to get into more active social posting do you do that stuff on purpose?

Is it intentional? Does it work? Or do you think people viewed as scammy, it turns them off? Like how do you think about I guess selling the dream? How do you think about the social media content from that? 

Josh: Man, honestly, I’m not, I’m not a show off person, but I had to do it to get the attention. Cause if I’m not doing it, they’re paying attention to tie right?

And I need to get some of that attention. It’s, it’s all about attention, you know what I mean? Is it in my personality to do that? No. I’m a humble person by nature. But if I, if everybody’s doing, if the other guys are doing it and they’re getting attention and they’re getting leads and conversions and sales, then I have to do it just because that’s what the market dictates.

Now Ty was one of the first ones to do it. Right. We can all proudly say that. And , you know, that’s the truth, right? He started, you know, 2010 with the Lambo thing. But I think a lot of the, a lot of the things have changed now where because a lot of people are getting exposed, you know, renting Lamborghini and, and stuff like that.

And, you know, people talk about stuff that they haven’t done. So I think that’s why I try to be like, a little bit more blended with it. You know, I try to show like my personal life, my travels, my accomplishments, you know, my wife, my dogs, and then, you know, throw in a sports car every now and then that kind of stuff.

So I try to just appeal to, to everyone. But, you know, every day, like social media is changing, the, the Lamborghini stuff is still getting more views than someone sitting in front of a computer, you know what I mean? And that’s the state of the union. 

Ismail: Yeah. I think that that’s a great explanation. Like people get mad at them for posting the content.

Maybe we should look at ourselves. Why do we want that content? Right. And I think the way we explain this perfect, like, you have to give people what they want. Mm-hmm. so you can give them what they need, right? First you gotta give ’em what they want, get their attention, and then you can give ’em what they need, the real education, the real information.

But first you gotta grab their attention. So, yeah, that makes 

Josh: sense. Like, looking back, you know, if like, Ty didn’t show us the lamb, not, you know, I’ve learned a lot of stuff from Ty, you know, myself. And so if he didn’t show the Lamb Guinea at first, would we have already paid attention to. Probably, Probably, yeah, probably not.

So that, I guess it’s effective what you have to do, but I think now people are more aware of that stuff and they’re, they’re kind of tired of it, you know, per se. And like there’s this guy I follow, follow on YouTube, he’s like, lives like a minimalist life, but he has like seven, eight sources of in streams of income.

You know, and he, he kinda shares his life and like the way he has his apartment set up and stuff like that. So I think those stuff are breaking through now and it’s kind of changing from what it was. 

Ismail: That’s interesting. Definitely the minimalism, like Marie Condo and like really focusing on minimalism is definitely becoming a new thing now.

So let’s see how that plays out. I’m, I’m also curious, Josh, 

[02:13:01] Work-Life balance.

Ismail: how do you balance all the different things you’re doing? Like we talked about you’re doing all the rental, then you’re doing all the photo with international, you’re building the booths, you’re flying to China, you’re consulting for people.

Now for digital marketing, how do you manage all this? You’re doing a podcast, your wife has her pod, like there’s a lot you do investing in real estate dividends. How do 

Josh: you do it? There’s four real estate transactions going down right now at this time that we’re talking . So I have four. I’m buying a piece of land, I’m building a house, I’m selling my building and I’m selling my house.

Is that, and my condos for sale. So all that’s going on at the same time. 

Ismail: So what, what’s the secret cuz I, I personally, like I asked someone in the last interview about this too, or I struggle with this where there’s so much I want to do. Yeah. There’s only so much time I have. How do you do it? Do you hire people?

Do you outsource some of the work? Do you just grind and hustle and do it a lot of it yourself? Like how do you handle all that? 

Josh: Yeah, so like the business side of things, you know, we have the team you know, there’s five people on the team. They handle most of that stuff. All. All I strictly do for, for my business is the marketing at which I enjoy and which I’m really good.

Then Mo you know, one thing I’m pointing out and I’m realizing lately I spend, you know, 10 to 12 hours of my day, like all my waking time is spent on revenue generating activities. So whether I’m looking at, you know, the market for stocks, where I’m looking at Bitcoin or I’m looking at new marketing software, or how can we make a new YouTube video, or how can we optimize our YouTube it’s, it’s just spent on, on revenue generating activities that I’m good at and then outsourcing the other stuff that I’m not good at.

And that’s pretty much it. And you know, it, you know, it’s, it’s overwhelming for a lot of people and you know, Jasmine does get overwhelmed. She’s like, Oh my God, there’s so much going on. You know like, and then, you know, we just, my dad just passed away on the 26th and so that on top of everything else, plus, you know, with the Corona, we can’t see our families and all that.

I don’t know, state of chaos is I guess where I’m comfortable at. And then also comes back to like, you know, grants 10 X rule, right? Grant Cardone is like, keep the pipeline full, make sure you have multiple deals going at the same time. And. That’s, that’s just what, like, I, I know I get bored.

I’m, if you will. So I like to have things going on at the same time and stacking stuff. That’s just what I’m comfortable with. And you know, my wife is the opposite, you know, she doesn’t like all this uncertainty and we don’t know where we’re gonna live and we need to find a house to rent to move into.

And all that stuff is happening. So cuz if we’re both like that, if we were both, you know, like me or both, like her , we wouldn’t get anything done. So I think we, we have a good team effort like that. But I mean, there’s no secret. It’s what’s, what’s gonna work for you? And what works for me, works for me because that’s what I’m used to.

And you know, I’ve been doing this for 10 years, you know, I have that that lawsuit actually in, in the office and you know, the date on there is 2008. So if you do that, I mean, that’s 12 plus 2000 ones, almost 13 years. That, and then not counting the years that I started was selling grills and lawn mowings.

You, I’ve been doing transactions for a long. 

Ismail: Yeah, I think what I struggle with is, same thing with a lot of people listening is that you have a lot to do. It’s just hard to focus on what you should be doing. Like what to prioritize Right now. There’s always a lot to do. Mm-hmm. . And then like, when you’re starting something, like, for example, with me, with this podcast, this podcast is not generating revenue.

Yeah. But it’s taking my time. Right? I wanna hire someone to do the, I wanna hire someone to do social media posts, but should I, cause I don’t have revenue to pay for that person. Like, how do you think about that growing in a team. So you do less work. Yeah. But you don’t have enough revenue to pay for the team yet.

Would you hire someone or would you wait? 

Josh: Like for your particular situation? I would wait for me, like, I just, like, for my podcast that I have, like, I just have my, the, the, the person that handles all social media and stuff I just have him do my podcast on the side, you know because I already have that, you know, established virtual assistant.

But for you to go out and hire someone, I mean, it just depends on how much time you have and whether it’s a good use of your. You know, like, do you have other things you could, 

Ismail: I, I will say I can’t wait to see, you know, Josh and Jasmine with kids. Cause I want see how that affects your productivity.

Cause , 

Josh: it’s tough bro. That’s the next, that’s the next frontier. 

Ismail: I’m gonna watch you for some advice when that happens. Cuz that’s where I’m at. It’s tough. It’s 

Josh: calling you. Yeah, we we’re, we’re trying to prepare for that. You know, that’s why we like, I wanna knock out all these real estate transactions, be in a place where, okay, we got enough dividend investing coming in, you know, the rental properties are working fine so that she can take the time off that she needs, you know?

But I needed her the most in the startup phase, right? Like the last, I would say five to seven years. I mean, we’ve been together now for 10 years and we’ve been married for four. So I think a lot of the setup and the foundation of what needed to be done is done and You know, just long as we got everything situated and automated, that’s the time.

Cause we have talked about that, you know, and, and we are getting older and you know, she’s always asking like, Hey, when’s the right time? And I have to explain to her like, Look, we need to, I know you’re not gonna be available to do that. So we need to find somebody to handle the, the books and make sure the payments come in and you know, pay the sales tax and you know, the stuff that she handles.

You know what I mean? 

Ismail: And yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s not gonna be easy no matter what, but like for example, I have a daughter two years old. I have another one coming next month. So I’m trying to record as many podcasts as I can right now. Yeah. Cause I know no matter how productive you are, you could be Superman.

Right? When that baby becomes the first couple months, it’s, it’s gonna be so hard for you to do anything. Yeah. And I find that you don’t wanna feel guilty, Right? So just get ready now line things up so you can take like guilt free time off and enjoy it cuz it’s, it’s a special time. Yeah. 

Josh: Yeah. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

That’s what I’m trying to do, honestly. Cause I, I know myself like I’m a work, I’m addicted to work, you know what I mean? And so like, I don’t wanna be conflicted where I feel like I’m not getting stuff done or, you know, stuff is falling off or getting behind on stuff. So it’s just, you know, the next couple of, you know, months, 12 months, whatever, it’s like we’re going to knock out all the big stuff and try to be as ahead as we can so we can focus on, you know, the baby.

Ismail: All right. Awesome. 

[02:19:34] Any hint of a future successful entrepreneur as a young kid.

Ismail: I got two questions that I end every episode with. So the first one, we kind of talked about this in the beginning. Yeah. Young Josh. Right. So you told me a little bit about it from your perspective. Yeah. I, I know I’ve seen a report card that wasn’t that favorable about you when you were a kid.

So I, if I interviewed people around you when you were younger, like that barbershop guy, your teachers or whoever was around you. Yeah. How would they describe Young Josh Pater? Would they be like, Yeah, I knew he was gonna make it, or would they be like, Yeah, how did that, how did that kid 

Josh: make it? No, they would be like, I knew he was gonna make it.

I would say that a lot of people, you know, have told me that along the way. 

Ismail: What do they see? Like, what was the hints that are this kid’s gonna be somebody back then , 

Josh: they, they like another story I like to tell. So I did a presentation, like, I remember, I think I was in 11th or 12th grade and we had to do, like, remember we had to do like PowerPoint presentations in class app, right?

Yeah. I ended one presentation, like the last slide was like, Alright guys, thank you for, you know, listening to my presentation and if you guys want shoes, I got all the shoes off 50%. So I put that into my presentation, you know, always . Yeah. The whole class started laughing, you know, so it was, it was things like that I guess, that they saw you know, and me passing around the catalog, you know, during class and disrupting class.

And I would come, like, I would even bring one, like I’d bring like the left shoe into class and pass the shoe around. Like I’ve had something like they’ve never seen before, you know? And you know, I guess things like that they, they were picked up on. Yeah, I would say that. So, 

Ismail: yeah, I mean, I, I guess that was gonna be the answer from, from all the stories you shared in the beginning.

What about, we talked about a lot of stuff and, but you know, rich isn’t just about money. So what is a rich life to you at this 

Josh: point? Yeah at this point it’s, it’s about time. Like you said, you know, 

[02:21:20] What is a rich life to you?

Josh: being able to spend the time with the kids and not have to worry about money, not have to making the, the worry about like the bills that getting paid.

And then also helping people. You know, I’m really passionate about that the people. And that’s one of the other reasons, you know, I go in and meet with people. Like, it’s the people that we get. They’re just, they’re different, you know? And it, it refills my soul that like, I know that they’re, they’re counting on me.

They’re looking up to me to help them, you know? And I know that I can deliver for them because I know that, hey, I, everything I know is inside the training that you’re gonna get when you purchase a photo booth from us, you know? And it’s like refueling to me to be able to help people like that. And you know, they take my advice and they ask me questions and I can save them from a setback.

That I had personally, I would say that’s a rich life. It is nice to, it’s not all about money, but if you don’t address the money situation, then it’s gonna be problems because, you know, we’re luckily to be in a, you know, position to like Jasmine’s dad just, you know, retired and, you know, her mom can’t work.

And so, you know, we’re able to assist them whenever we can. And, you know, if we didn’t address the money situation and pay the price and the sacrifices that we made, we wouldn’t be able to do that, you know, if we just had jobs and stuff like that. So even though it’s not all about money, I think that, you know, it needs to be addressed at some point because if you can’t help other people, then you know, it’s kind of selfish.

You know, you just existing to like live and work just for yourself and, and you’re not able to help other people. I think we were put on this planet to help other people and, you know, that ties into like our reason for being, you know, and we all have more potential that we could tap into if we get over our subconscious, you know, fears.

For example, like Jasmine for a long time didn’t post on her social media about her business because she was worried what people would say. And she just got over that fear like last year. And she’s brought in like just a hundred thousand dollars worth of business just from her circle of friends. And 

Ismail: now’s a common thing, like a lot of people feel that way.

I, I’ll admit me too, I kept my social media just personal and then like it’s always kind of. Sharing what you’re doing with like, all the people you know, your friends from school, your relatives from, It’s a bit scary for people. But I, I don’t regret it. I don’t think any ne anything negative actually comes out of it.

It’s just a fear. 

Josh: Yeah. It’s, it’s a fear that you have. And you know, I tell her all the time, like, look like this business could change lives. It has changed lives. And, you know, because you don’t post, you can’t help someone else that’s struggling or that needs the help or that wants to find a business. Or maybe, you know, because you didn’t post you know, like someone invested into some MLM or some other scam and they got scammed.

You know, like I had to get over it, you know, she got over it and, you know, now we can reach more people. And I think a lot of the times, if we get over our fears like even her book, she just launched her book too, you know, she was worried about, she would be criticized and she’s not good enough and she doesn’t have enough experience.

You know, like we’ve been, she’s been, she ran the rental business all 700 events, you know, for years at the time. And she still feels like she’s not qualified. But she got over that, you know, she launched her book and her book was able to help a lot of people you know, with, with the basics setting up a business and, you know, more step by step to running a rental business.

And that’s been, you know, a great help and a great reinforcement for her to, to show her, like, you know you could help people. You don’t have to be at an expert level to help people. If you’re ahead of people, you can still help people who are, you know, a few steps behind. 

Ismail: Josh, Dude, this is awesome.

Thank you so much for being so generous at your time. As, as usual, you over deliver. I remember even at the pb y conference you, you, you went over time. You gave so much value. You came into the Zoom session afterwards and you just kept giving people value and value and value. I don’t know why you do that.

I’m grateful that you do and I think that’s why people really like you. So, I hope people enjoyed this conversation. It was a monster of an episode and I hope they check out all the stuff that you’re doing. I dunno

[02:25:19] Parting words.

Ismail: if there’s anything you wanna plug specifically right now, and I’ll link to everything in the show notes.

Yeah, 

Josh: so if you guys are already established and you need help like, you know, taking your business to the next level, feel free to reach out. I do some personal consulting like that. If you have questions, text me 9 7 2 2 8 4 0 5 0 6. That goes right to me. I’m chatting on there. I’ll keep you updated and motivated.

You know, you’ll, you’ll be basically on my email list, but for text message. But you know, if you have any questions, reach out, down to help anybody. Follow me on social media at next level, jp to, to be updated and, you know, wish you the best. Hopefully you can learn from what I talked about, this is how I’ve created it.

And you can do the same thing, you know, no matter what background you’re from. 

Ismail: And I probably will be on your podcast soon, so I hope everybody listen to this, checks that one out as well, and jumps over to check your podcast out the next level. I’ll link to that in the in the show notes as well. 

Josh: Next Level Business podcast.

Yeah, that’s gonna be fun. 

Ismail: Awesome. All right, Josh, thank you so much, man. Appreciate it as always, and we’ll talk soon. 

[02:26:19] Thank You & Wrap up!

Ismail: Thank you. And there you have it. If you enjoy this episode, please remember to leave our review. I may even give you a shout out and read yours out on the show for any and all resources that we discussed.

Check out the show notes or head on over to bound to be rich.com. Until next time.[/expand]

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