The Raymundo Show
The Raymundo Show
Business Sensei ( Mentorship)
In this episode of the Raymundo show he discusses the importance of mentorship in business. A business mentor help you achieve your professional goals, lead by example and guide you in your career Listen to special guest, Darrell Evans, discuss how to learn valuable business skills and grow your business. Tune in to learn more.
EG. it's your hosts? Ray Mundo. Welcome to my show. Well, we laugh, learn. Relate. And find ways to make our lives better. But this is episode 41. The business sensei. Shit. I've been wanting a mental since I can remember. How often for a brief time. But I didn't take advantage. And. The more you learn successful people eventually have somebody to guide them. On the way there. Some cases even cut. That time in half. It was worth learning more about, but that's. That's what we do here but let's get into it Let's go let's go. And today's quoted a days by a poll. Soderbergh. More than mere teachers. Mentors are often. Emancipators. Free and artists from poor technique. Clouded vision and personal uncertainty. That's dope, man. Cause sometimes it's takes somebody that has the gift. Of bringing the best out in For you to get the best out of you. I feel like. Even if you get to a certain level, You're going to need someone to help you level up. It's like Goku in Virginia when they. When they do that dance and they become like super saying, I forgot the number, but. It was in one of the movies. But you think about it? Um, you know, Michael Jackson didn't win championships, but he got with Phil Jackson. I said, Michael Jackson Michael Jordan didn't win championships that he got were Phil Jackson. Tyson, one of the greatest fighters of a. who comes up kind of often on the podcast. He had a trainer. who helped him become the best then you got. You know, speakers, you got actors. You got people that, and all. Industries. That need that God is to make them become their best. So that's why those managers. All those people in lead positions. Are important. Cause that's like free mentoring. You know, until you make enough money to hire somebody, to make you more money. This is a guy following Myron golden. And one of my goals is to get into his$155,000. Program. Cause. I mean. You paid at his goal is to get you to a million dollars. And if he gets it to a million dollars, he gets more people. So it was like a win-win situation. Yeah, man. And. There's only so much I can say on this matter. So, you know, it was only a matter of a time Before i had somebody help me with this one Let's get into the episode. The business sensei.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:So on this episode of the Rayo Show, uh, you know, we talk about business, we talk about a little bit of mentorship, also marketing, which no matter how great you are, if nobody can't find you, then sometimes it's like, what's the point, So on this episode, I got a serial entrepreneur, investor, co-founder of Yoku Local, uh, internet marketing. he's helped, uh, entrepreneurs and companies generate over a 300 million in revenue since 2011. So he's been on fire, like, like me jam for a while. and personally he has six businesses, which, uh, You, his time management gotta be impeccable. let's give a warm welcome to Dar
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Let's go, let's go, let's go.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:loud. Welcome. Welcome, brother.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Thank you man. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. I appreciate, appreciate the warm introduction and uh, it looks like, looks like my camera wants to try to act up a little bit.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Hey, it's all good, man. hear you clearly.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Beautiful, beautiful. Yeah. So yeah, just a small correction. I don't have six businesses currently. We actually, uh, that six businesses over the journey. But, uh, in the last 12 year, in the last 12 years alone, we've actually helped hundreds and hundreds of companies. I wish I bought some of those businesses cuz we we helped them do, we helped them do a chuck of change, you know, so, But thank you for having me on the show.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:uh, No problem. Thank you, man. Um, I appreciate you bringing your expertise, uh, and good energy and, We'll find a way to, uh, help them on those listeners, especially if they're, Oh, well I didn't realize this still play. Especially if they're trying to get in, that entrepreneur mindset and, make entrepreneur moves
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's right. That's what it's about. That's what it's about. Happy to, uh, help the audience any way I can. I'm gonna open book, man. It's been an interesting journey over the last 30 years, and so I know what it's like to be starting. Uh, I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs that are just getting started. Maybe they jumped from corporate. Maybe they decided to take the side hustle to the main hustle, whatever that may be. I'm empathetic to it all. I ain't never forgot where I was when I was sleeping on my grandmother's couch and, uh, and, and, and took it seriously. Yep.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:man. You gotta, I mean, it is, you gotta stay humble, man, cuz you know, it could be going in the, in the blink of an eye. So,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:A hundred percent
raymundo-theraymundoshow:when I see people like yourself and in, uh, positions like this and you know, you still make sure you never forget. You make sure you let it be known, you know? That's awesome man. We need to all remember.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's right.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:We don't wanna let you know, we don't wanna let it get to our head. I've had in the past, like, I had success and you know, I've got, I've lost my little, I've lost my humbleness a little bit, but, you know, I was young. I was like 20, I was 24, 25. Real estate
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. Yeah. We all do it. We all do it. You all do it. Think we're a little bigger than we are. Think we're a little better than we think we are. Think we're a little bit more invincible.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:believe me, I, You know, I get
raymundo-theraymundoshow:tell you, does somebody tell you, sit your ass down,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or someone or something. One of the two, you know? Yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Um, so tell, tell my listeners, uh, where, where you from and what you do
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that man. Again, super humble to be here, man. Appreciate the, uh, the opportunity. So, you know, my name is Dar Evans. I started, uh, as an entrepreneur when I was in college at the age of 20. And as, uh, Ramo said, you know, I've had some businesses over the years and over the last 12 years we've been focused on, um, really helping install mid-size companies, grow and scale their businesses online. Everything from professional service companies. I mean, think, think lawyer, doctor, cpa, all the way to home service companies. Think air conditioning companies, landscape contractors, pool contractors. To think software as a service companies to think, um, we've had a few eCommerce companies as well. Um, and people ask me sometimes, uh, how is it that you have such a broad range of companies that you can help? And maybe we'll get into it today, but it really has to do with a, a six step framework that we apply are a recipe, if you will. Just like, I'm a big foodie, so I realize that when I go to restaurants, there's, there's certain things that have to go in certain meals, whether you wanna put'em in there or not. Like you can get fancy with some of the extras, right? You could take it to the next level. But for the vast majority of people, if you want a good, delicious chocolate cake is gonna have eggs and flour in it, right? I mean, you can get, you can get fa you get fancy later on. But, so that's all we've done is I boiled marketing and sales down over the last 30 years to frameworks or recipes that apply to human behavior, not. The product, not the service. So where I differ in my strategy is we, we study human behavior and once we understand human behavior as it relates to, uh, the journey that they may go on to buy a product or service, we insert our client into that journey and then it makes marketing in sales a little bit easier.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:man. That's, that's a, that's a different approach. That's like really thinking outside the box. Like when I hear people doing things like, you know, reading psychology books. Or, using, uh, personality types or anything like that. I'm like, Wow, you really, I feel like that's when you really serious about it, you, you taking every approach from them. Cuz everything starts with the mind. And people, start, you know, when they, when they wanna purchase something, they start with emotion. Uh, and if you're able to capture that,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:I can see why. And then, and then on top of that, you have a system, right? So you can reproduce the, you know, you can reproduce the same results and you can have that banging ass chocolate cake that mama used to make.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's right, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's facts, right? I mean, here's the thing. Once you realize that most of us humans do the same thing, like, I'm not sure I, I heard this from, uh, one of my mentors. He's like, I'm not sure how martians behave. We'll figure that out when we get to Mars or whatever. But as long as we're selling to humans, human behavior, human desires are all, they all stem in the same direction. We all have these basic human needs. And so if you understand a human's basic needs and then understand what would make them want to move forward towards that or move away from that, then your job is simply to find your product or service inside of meeting one of those six basic human needs. The funny thing about sales, we talk about it a little bit. I think you wanna talk about, you know, a little bit about that high ticket conversion recipe. We'll get to that in a little bit. But what I realized years ago is that we really don't sell anything to anybody. If we do it right, we are assisting them across a journey or through a journey from their desire to want to solve a problem and insert our problem or our product or service into the journey that helps'em solve it. They are the ones who make the decision. You and I talked offline for a hot second about real estate. How many houses did you really sell? You didn't sell nobody a house. You didn't take somebody to a house and get them to decide to make an offer on that house. You invited them to see a if, if you, I sold real estate 17 years too, so I know for me, I selected homes that met their criteria, guided them to the property, let them ex discover the house as they would've liked to envision themselves living there. They decided which one they wanted to live in. I just handled the negotiation of the paperwork, but I didn't sell them the house, right? So it's funny how we say selling real estate. Well, what did you sell? What you sold was your relationship with the individual buyer or seller in order to trust that you could help get them to the finish line. So what I say,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that trust
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:it's all about trust, right? So for me, I say your job in sales is to sell the idea. Get them to believe that you are the pr, the right professional to get them to the finish line. But they determined the finish line.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:And I, I, you know what I think is awesome about like, online sales that you using the formula to guide them. like, if you were there and every step, there's something that covers a need all the way to the purchase. Like,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's right.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:I just find that amazing that you're able to put, That's what I'm saying, robots can't do, You know what I'm saying?
Don:think again
raymundo-theraymundoshow:AI can't do that. Like that's in depth, you know?
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Not yet. Not yet. I mean, it may get there. Not yet. You know, the way I look at it, um, the way I look at it, and I've always looked at it, especially since online, and I got online in 2003, and that was where I was in a different industry and I wanted to get leverage. I wanted to stop repeating the same thing I was saying over and over again. But what I really understood was the job of an online mechanism or a process is to replicate the human experience, right? So if someone goes online and they don't wanna talk to you, or I, let me give you the best example. I bet you every one of your listeners at some point have either thought. Or have wanted to go to buy a new car or buy a used car. And they, of course today everything is kind of online, but they went to a real car lot and they've been through this really, really bad experience. And that is the minute they get out of their car to get onto the car lot, it's like a, a a, a pack of vultures, right? Come chasing them down and it's like whoever gets to them first, right? And then they hug on you because they know if you walk off too far that another salesperson's gonna get the sale. And I remember going through that in the eighties, late eighties when I was getting ready to buy a car and it was the most disgusting thing. Like, Dude, I just got outta my car. You practically in my car, do let me get out this joint. Right? I mean, so. I just thought about that experience and it was horrible. Then I bought a Toyota later that was a Honda. Then I bought a Toyota later, a Ford, I'm sorry. I bought a Ford Explorer later. Same process. This was all before I got into the digital space, and I just said, as a consumer, what do I like and not like when I walk into an establishment and the high pressured aspect of the sales. And I'm like, I just don't like any of it. So when I got online, I said, Okay, I needed information about the product or service. I needed to understand the options. I needed to understand the financing. I did need to experience or demo the car to see if it was the right car for me, but I could leave that person out for a long time until I need to get to the paperwork. And so when I think about online, the consumer today, if they wanted to talk to us, they would've booked a meeting. But if they're on our website and they have not converted yet, it's because they are not ready to engage. In a dialogue with the sales process. So the way we think about it is how do we take all of the questions that they might be asking themselves about the product or service that led them to our website, and how do we just get the website to, as best we can replicate the human experience, but be what I call a resourceful, sorry, a helpful resource versus what I think of as most salespeople, especially the them thirsty ones. They're annoying, they're annoying paths, right? So
raymundo-theraymundoshow:never wanted to be that one man. Never.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:No, no. So online, how do we, how do we do that? And I think some of that's getting lost in some of the funnel hacking and all this crazy words with funnel. Like it is getting a little overblown, right? I would say let's be a, a helpful resource and um, and then we, we'll talk about when we get to the conversion process, but if we understand the conversion process and what makes someone buy, not buy, then you'll be a helpful resource and then the sales will take care of themselves because, You help them anyway, Right? Help them. They'll decide when it's ready for them to buy, so hopefully that helps.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:actually, um, I wouldn't mind getting into the conversion conversation.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Okay.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:yeah, just cause, I don't know. I feel like, you were able to incorporate, uh, different methods, you know, like in, in, in the world where like the versatile and options are so like, you know what I'm saying? It's so, there's so much, you are able to take all of. From the personality to the, you know, to the analytics. It seems to me like, I feel like you incorporated numbers, everything, so I think that's the main, but yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:man, Yeah, but I'm super simple though. I wanna make sure everybody listening, uh, understands that I try to keep things simple. I'm a minimalist in my life. Like I, I can't do complexity. Um, I try to keep things as simple as possible, which I think is maybe what led me down this path of what is the simplest thing I need to do, right? In order to, uh, build trust with my prospective customer, get them the information that they need and just get out of their way. Right? Again, if I'm being a helpful resource, my job is not to follow them around the store. Meta, metaphorically speaking, right? My job's not to follow'em around the car lot, right? So let, let me give you two big things that I think, uh, helped me think about this. One of them was a, a framework that I actually learned. It was apparently created by ibm and I learned it in the nineties when I was selling real estate and, and, and other face to face things. And the framework is called bant B. A and t right stand. It stands for budget, authority, need and timing. And it was used back then as a sales qualification, a prospective, you know, a prospect qualification, uh, process. And while I got taught, I got taught it that way, I also realized I could apply it to just general marketing in general. So here's what I mean. It is important that we understand if a client or prospective client has the right budget to buy the thing that they're trying to buy, that we sell. Number two, we, they have to believe that we're the trusted authority, right? They, they have to be, This is the distinction. We, as a salesperson or, or as we're selling our goods, we have to make sure we're talking to the person who has the authority to make the purchase. But the way the flip goes in marketing is I wanna make sure they believe that I'm the right authority. They should buy. I changed those. I, so it's, it is equally important to make sure they have the authority to buy it, but I also wanna make sure that they believe I'm the authority they should buy it from the N stands for need. Obviously we gotta make sure they need our thing, but it's not us deciding that they need it. It's not a, I don't think it's sale, a certain sales script that we can convince someone that they need our service. Going back to that idea of helpful resourcing. And then the last piece is timing. I don't care, You know, I could walk on a car lot today and my car technically could be busted, but I don't have to buy a car today because I could take Uber for a while. I could take my wife's, I could take my wife's car, I could beg, borrow my daughter's car. I can go rent something for a minute. I can go to Touro. I can, I got options. So just because my car is broke down doesn't mean I need to buy yours. So timing is where a lot of sales people mess up. So here's how I think about it. I don't control budget. I don't control need. I don't control timing. My job as a marketer and as as a salesperson of goods and services, my job is to build trust and authority and double and triple down on that, such that when their budget gets right, when they think their need is, is appropriate and their timing is right. That they
raymundo-theraymundoshow:of you first. Uh,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's right. And I first came up with this when I was early in my financial services days, right. Outta college and then eventually real estate and, and, uh, lending. That's when I figured it out. I'm like, Oh, got it. If the person is transferring from the military base in Texas to Vegas, but they get their orders in July, they may not be here until March. There's no real reason to start talking about exactly what the house should look like and what the financing should look like, because it, it's gonna look different. Right. So then I, So that's when it all settled in. Let's talk about the actual sales call itself, cuz this is where people get jammed up. Over the years I've been through Ramono, I'm telling you man, I've been through more sales training than most people probably listen to this call, all the big names, all the greats, I respect them all. But over the years, I've kind of boiled down the sales call to about six or seven questions. Now, I'm not suggesting that they all happen on one call. What I'm suggesting is if the sale is gonna happen, we are gonna answer these seven questions. Here's question number one. When someone gets on a call with me, whether they booked at our agency or whether they're work, wanna work with me as a coach or a consultant, or whatever the case may be, and any business it works, the first question you should do is ask them why are they here? Like, why are they on the call? A lot of sales people, they get caught. They get caught up trying to get into a pitch. They get caught up trying to present the product, the features, the benefits, the this, the that. And my job when I first get on a call is to. I ask, Why are you here? So I may say it like this. So Ramono, uh, appreciate you meeting with, uh, meet me meeting with me today. Um, you reached out to us and I'm just curious what's, uh, what's on your mind? Why did you, uh, decide to book a meeting with us today? And my job is to then shut up and let them talk. And sometimes they'll talk for five or 10 minutes. They'll tell you what's wrong, they'll tell you what the problems they've been running into about whatever it is they're trying to solve. question number two.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Wait. Oh wait. Let me before you get, before you get number two. Uh, It's so true. Um, back in, I didn't wanna be one of those pushy salesmen cuz I personally don't like them myself. There's nothing like being able to buy something without feeling any pressure. Like, like it feels like somebody is actually listening to you.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:correct,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that I've ever dealt with. Made me feel like they, they still gonna go on with life if they don't get the sale, that's the one that I want to give the sale to. Like, you know that like attracts like, um, and I went to a seminar, with Tom Hopkins who sold, uh, I think he sold 365 houses in a year. And he said, the, the way, yeah, the way you bring their guard down is by asking them questions. And the que that questions that they answer will lead them to their reason and from their reason. And that, and it actually work for me, man. I, I,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Tom Hawkins was, he was about, so, uh, early, Funny joke, 1992, Tom Hopkins training. I went through this. I went through a training, 1992, Tom Hopkins. Same
raymundo-theraymundoshow:yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Oh, you, oh, you, oh, you went to it.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in real estate. I started real estate in 1992.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Oh, you know what, that leads me to another question be, All right, so what was the job you did right before you. Um, got into the, you know, until you kicked in the investor door.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:So I, so technically I've been an investor since my, my twenties. But you talking about, um, before the agency or
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah. Like before you, like I said, before you even got into investing. Like
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:so, the big job was I spent a lot of years at Taco Bell and I was a general manager. I started as a fry cook, but I was 16 years old. And before you knew it, I was a general manager. Uh, and, and so when I got to college, the joke is, I, I was a fry cook and I just did my job good because that's why I was taught, I was raised to do my best. Right? And before you know it, uh, I tell the joke, I don't know if this is exactly what happened, but. They, I had like a four or five hour window to, to do my work under the, at the fryer, you know, hot polyester, hot polyester thing, sitting at this 300 and something degree fryer. And I used to just get it knocked out in like three hours and then I didn't have nothing to do for like an hour, hour and a half of my shift. So they just started repurposing me through the store. And before you knew it, they made me a team lead. Then you, before you knew it? They made me an assistant manager. Then before you knew it, they sent me to California. And they were like, Hey, you should be a general manager. And I'm like, Uh, nah. I just was, I was just frying a minute ago, you know what I mean?
raymundo-theraymundoshow:So,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. A couple, couple years later. So I decided to stay home and go to school and, and so they asked me to take over a store. So at 20 years old, after about three years with Taco Bell, I took over a store, uh, doing about 850,000 a year. And then I ended up staying at that, uh, company while I worked through college, while I had started in real estate, while I started my business. I was the guy who was trying to figure things out quickly. Uh, so while I was in school to get a degree, I knew entrepreneurship was in my blood. So I was trying a bunch of different things. but that was what I was doing.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:uh, do you still eat Taco Bell or you.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:I still get, I still shop by every now and then. Yeah. Once in a while.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:You ever thought about like getting, buying a franchise or something like, That'll be like, Yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:nah, nah, no. Let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you what I respect about, I learned a lot from Taco Bell. I'm gonna be honest, but one of my, uh, fraternity brothers is in the franchising business, and he said to me, Darrell, you've been outta the game for 26 years, 27 years from the restaurant industry. He said, You ought come and buy some franchises. We need more minority uh, owners. And so he did perk my interests, but because I had an affinity to Taco Bell, and I know I don't, I don't know if I would ever do it. Um, but I, I saw his point. His point was you wouldn't be running the restaurant, you would just be owning it. And I'm like, I, I just, I'm not interested in, in the restaurant business, low margins, number one. Um, yeah, I I, I'm not sure I'd be interested. It's not my, it's not my gig.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:yeah, especially like, you know, something like a pandemic can just.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. It gets, it, it gets interesting. I love food. I'm a foodie, but I, it's just never been one something I wanted to invest in. I. I, I wanna invest in companies that I, um, not just that I like and understand, but, um, I like high profit margins and, uh, I try to, to invest in things that I can, um, I can really help grow and scale restaurants. To me, they, you know, it's like having a bunch of'em. You gotta have a bunch of franchises that I think to make'em work or a bunch of locations to make it work.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:you gotta be in your sha shit. You know what? We owe
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's right. Shaq, Yeah, that's, that's, that's what Shack is showing the blueprint, right? I mean, magic, I think Magic did his thing with it. Shaq is certainly, uh, he's certainly about it. Certainly about it. So,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:so speaking, you know, this is a perfect question to ask next for, since we talking about, we're talking about taco bro. What was the process like, uh, for you to get out the, like the employ mentality? and how do you help others do the same?
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Great question, man. So listen, so I think over the last, uh, 12 years specifically, and I've been actually coaching entrepreneurs for about 17 years, but I. The mindset of going from employee to entrepreneurship, it really comes down to, internal motivation, right? I often say that, I often say that when you work for a corporation or a company, they set the rules of engagement, tell you the time to come in, time to take a break. What's your job description look like? They give you your assignments, your jobs to do'em, do'em well consistently over a period of time. They review your work, they give you some raises, they get you some time off, they get you some health insurance. When you, when you slip over to entrepreneurship, the first mind shift that you have to take is that I have to be con, I have to be, uh, accountable to me first, not to the company. And so you gotta the idea that if it's, this is a slippery slope when I say this, but it is important. It's a slippery slope to say if it's going to be, it's up to me. Right? See, in corporate America, I do my job. Somebody does their job, somebody does their job, someone does their job, and it brings together the outcome, right? And a lot of mentality, a lot of people that come into the entrepreneurship space, they, th they're, they're good at this one thing, but they don't realize that entrepreneurship is a whole number of things that have to come together. And so, but the mentality of how do you shift the mindset is, is, are you willing to keep commitments to yourself? What kind of commitments am I talking about? Are you willing to say no to hanging out on Friday and Saturday? Are you willing to say that my hours for working on my business, even if it's a part-time business, my hours for working on my business? Look, when I started my digital marketing agency, or started down the path to digital marketing and realized I knew I could help people, I was still the owner of a mortgage company. right. So I'm the owner of a mortgage company during the day running operations at a mortgage company, and I'm working on digital marketing and my skills in digital marketing, I'm doubling and tripling down on them between eight o'clock at night and midnight. My mom used to come by the house and my daughter at the time, who's getting ready to go to college right now. Yeah, my daughter would swing, My mom was swinging through the house. My daughter would be watching Disney movies and my mom would see me at the computer and she'd be like, What are you doing? And I like, I'm, I'm getting ready to change careers, is what I'm about to do. And she says, Well, what are you, Why are you always at the computer when I come, come through? And I said, Because this learning and developing this skill is better than me going to back to school and getting an MBA or what have you. I said, This is, this is school. This is my school. Right. So if I'm studying to get it, I mean, no, no knock to an mba. I, I thought about going back to get it and then I was like, It ain't gonna get me none cause I'm an entrepreneur. So I think those two distinctions is, are you willing to put in the work? Are you willing to keep commitments to yourself? Are you willing to say no to the, to the, to the, um, Look, if you're serious about entrepreneurship, you're gonna say no to life in a lot of ways. You're gonna say no to the parties. Uh, you're gonna say no to all the hangouts, all the birthday parties, all the movies. You're gonna do that for a season. And I remember one of my mentors taught me, and not that I, I had to be taught this, but I had already been doubling and tripling down on this sort of entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial drive. But I started to feel guilty. Like, you know, I remember one of my friends and I, we got, we have words, and he was like, Man, you don't come around no more. You know, Uh, it's like, you don't got, you know, like, you ain't, you ain't cool with us. You don't hang out with the fellows no more, this and that. And I'm like, Man, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to work on me, man. I'm just trying to work on me. And so, uh, it's not because I don't, Yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:but I'm sorry if if you, if the person's not there, I'm so, they like, they really don't understand, like, I had the same conversation with, with certain friends and I'm like, Yo, I'm not like, you think I don't wanna be playing video games or, or, or talking to you or listen to some what? Like, like I, I wanna do that, but uh, I felt like I had a lot of time to do that. Now I gotta do this so I could enjoy the time when I do that.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's right. That's right. No, it's so I think that's the big, That's the big thing. Right? And I think the other big thing when you're leaving corporate to come into the world of entrepreneurship is getting some mentorship early on. And I tell people all the time, everybody wants to go online and read blogs, YouTube videos, follow influencers. That's not mentorship. Your job is to find somebody who's done what you're trying to do and get as close to them as possible and pay as much as you can afford to pay. Let them help you cut your learning curve. Right. And so to me, I've always paid for coaching and me. and it was because I was very clearly able to say, I don't understand all this stuff and I ain't got time to go figure it all out. This cat here undone something, how much it costs to get close. I never forget this call I made, I made this, I made a call to this cat named Bill. Uh, I made a call to him. I met him and I found out what he was doing and I'm like, Man, I need to get around this cat. So I see him at the gym one day randomly, and I'm like, Man, I should see, can I take him to lunch? So I walk up to him being all humble. Uh, hey, excuse me. Uh, you know, we met, uh, couple, three months ago, whatever. I don't know if you remember me, but can I buy you lunch? And by the way, when you ask a really successful people to go buy them lunch, it's, it's not the best, uh, use of their time, but.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:You know, they don't need you to.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's correct. That's correct. So here's what he did. So he said, yes, we scheduled lunch and, and Ramono, I'm gonna tell you man, he picked a lunch joint, right? And I'm, I'm embarrassed to say now, but it is one of them funny things. I remember not knowing where it was, although it was in my city. And I remember he told me how to get there and I pull up and he says, Pull up at the v i p and he goes, And I gotta pass for you. And I'm like, Cool, cool. So we get to the restaurant and I'll never, I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was in one of the hotel resorts. This place was lit. We, we sat down, we sat down. It, it is funny now, it wasn't funny. Then we sat down and we looked at the, the menu people come over hand. The menu, the menu opened up. And, and yo man, I don't think there was no dish under 30 bucks. And I'm, I'm like, know, I, I probably got 60 bucks for the lunch. You know what I mean? You know, I'm used to Applebee's or some stuff.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Hurt felt.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Wait, hey my man, my man, to this day, I now never forget to look on his face. He, he, he had no intention on let me pay for lunch, otherwise he wouldn't have, I mean, he knew I was just getting started in a career and so he, he had no intention. Now, I didn't know it, but I'm freaking to, I'm like, Okay, he gets to eat. I'm just gonna sit there and have some water. Right? You take some notes. He saw the look on my face and Maddie, I'm literally like, just about, for lack of a better phrase, you know, wasn't in my pants. Right. Uh, you know, and so he, he, uh, we get the conversation started, this and that, this and that. And, and he indicated to me, Hey, I got this, I got this. And I was like, So now I've invited this really top producing, high successful dude. And then he granted me the favor. He was like, I know this cat can't afford this restaurant, but he already had. So what happened was, the punchline was he had another meeting at the restaurant after my meeting, which is why he booked, he, he told me to come to that restaurant. So it was a lesson learned. But what it was, one of the most valuable lessons for me that day was I was, I stepped outta my comfort zone, and I was willing to sit down with somebody and, and we became friends. We still, we haven't talked in a few years, but, uh, it, it was just one of the best things you could do. So my point is, as an entrepreneur, do what you can to get around successful people and be willing to invest. See, I didn't even, I didn't have much money at the time, but I was willing to invest. Too many people say, Hey, and I get this all the time, and it drives me crazy. Hey, can I get on a call with you so I can pick your brain? What? Wait. Mean you ain't offering me nothing, You know, you ain't offer me none. You didn't even wanna buy me a cup of coffee? None.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Almost lost my life savings in the v p room. You understand what I went through
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:You know what I'm saying? You ain't offered me nothing. You're just like, Oh, I seen you popping online and this and that. Can I just get on a call? Pick your brain. So, um, but I really mean that though. Seriously. Find, find a mentor, find a coach, find a guide. There's no, there's a phrase, I don't know where it came from. And I think it goes the best time, The best time to get a map is before you enter the forest.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that's that's a sense, that's a, that's a line
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:even know who, I don't even know who came up with it, but I heard it somewhere along the line. Don't get a map. Don't wait until you're lost in the forest before you start asking for directions. You know what I mean? So I just learned that early days and I've stuck to it. And even to this day, I have a coach. Even to this day, I'm in a mastermind. Even to this day, I still. Even though I have a level of success and people look to me for advice, and I, I, I don't assume that I got it all figured out. And that is why I wake up every day and I keep working on me. I keep working on my craft. I keep working on my mindset because I don't have it all figured out. I get hit with the same economic storms, the same pandemic that hit everybody. Listen to this, hit my company too, right. I'm not immune to that. That's, that's, uh, that's like the blowing of the wind. We all get, we all get blown up.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Man, I'm, I'm glad you really, I'm delighted that you shared that because
The equity. More Mundo after this commercial break. Was good. Yeah. I'm proud and happy to announce that. All three Patrion tears is up. Each with its own. Per can benefit. You want more moon? No, you get more mono. virtual version. I tried to be a little bit reserved. You know, on the regular platforms. But each. T it puts you more in depth. With who I am and where I'm at to go. So. Sign up to the show. Go to www.patrion.com. A forward slash the Raimundo show. Sign up is pretty easy. yeah. And I'll see you there don't just meet me there. Greet me So Snoop dog But anyway back to the show
raymundo-theraymundoshow:like, you never stop learning. Like, school just didn't make, I feel like reading or learning as fun as it, as it as it could be. And then you become an adult and then just whole world of things you can learn to make you almost feel like you, like you got, like you got a superpower. Uh, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, some people had a, in, in comics, either they touched a media or alien gave them powers, or they came from another planet. But now when you read, You're taking a little bit of a whole bunch of experiences
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Come on, come on.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:and utilizing it and making it your own to develop your own story. That's, That's, what I love about That's and the thing that you're still doing that and you're successful. That's the point that I'm trying to make
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:you just nailed it.
Malcom:Like the construction noise in the backgroud Right? When I say coach, mentor guide, look man, everybody listened to this, can afford a book, right? And everybody, if you pick up a book and get one thing outta the book for$17 or whatever it is, you won. won because if you worked one on one with the person who wrote that book, it's gonna cost you thousands. So, so when I pick up a book sometimes, and I do this all the time, I will hear about a book. Matter of fact, let me tell you this funny story. I heard about a book, I'm gonna call it 2014, and it meant nothing to me. Even though it was being high praised and all this stuff, it meant nothing to me at that But I bought, or I didn't it, I remembered it. 2016, I'm running into a problem inside my agency operations and I need to figure to solve And as I do, I, I spend plenty of time thinking. And so I said, Why do I think I've come across a book that I think has the answer to my problem? And I couldn't put my finger on it. I leave. It had been a couple of days. I get in my car on a Friday, I'll this. Get in the car on Friday. I'm about halfway home. I'm at a stop light on Las Vegas Boulevard to the south side of the city. And it hit me the name of that book. I went home. I, it was called, it was called Scrum by Jeff Sutherland. it's, uh, it has to do with software development and things like that. Now, why in the world would a book about software development have anything to do with a digital marketing agency? And maybe we could save that for another call. But we had an operational efficiency problem, and I was remembering what I heard on the podcast or the video about the scrum methodology. Anybody listening to this show right now can Google the scrum methodology and find this, uh, conversation around, uh, by Jeff Sutherland. And I said, I wonder if Scrum could help me with operational efficiency in my agency. That's what led me get the I read it that weekend. I came in and talked to my team about it. A matter of fact, I didn't order it on Amazon. I went down to the borders or the best, uh, Barnes and Noble and picked it up at the, on the shelf. Because I needed to get it done. That's how pressing the problem was. when you got a pressing problem, you know, don't wait. Right. When you get inspiration, don't wait. Right. That book showed up two years earlier, and I didn't need it at that time, but when the time came, my mind recalled it and I was like, You know what? I think there's a book about I I, have time to call and look for this guy, Jeff, and probably maybe not even afford what his services were. Maybe he wasn't even doing coaching. that$17 book, uh, changed operations over the last seven years.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that's also, it looked like every time you went through an experience, you made sure that you got something from it and you, and you made it part of something else. You know, whether it was taco Hell, whether it's, uh, real estate.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Whether it was, uh, you just mentioned the, the method, the need, the authority, the
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:bat,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:bad, bad. Yeah. So, yeah. You know, sometimes I have those where like, I, I learned something from this book and I'm like, Wow, I wonder if I could take this part from this book and think from here and then make my own course
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:would work for me.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. There's no blueprints, man, that just work for everybody across the board. And when I share my frameworks, it's a piece of my journey over 30 years that I've either learned and or adapted somebody else's teaching. Right? Scrum was meant for, for example, Scrum was meant for the software development world. I'm using it in my agency, right? So to your point, it wasn't about, It was the mentality of the process that I brought into my world. The functionality of it can't work in the same way it works in a software company as it does in an agency, cuz we're, we do different things. But it was, I needed a better process for efficiency and better output and a way to compress time. Again, not not getting into the weeds here.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Mm-hmm.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's, to your point, I think that's part of the journey of life, right? We are in, we, we are always growing from something into something else, right? We're never static. Nothing ever is static. Even the, the, the, the desk that I'm sitting at is not static. It's energy that is in motion. It's just not moving at a place where I can see it, right? Everything is energy. And so to me, there is no such thing as steady state. Like, we're always moving. Our bodies are always moving. Our businesses are always moving. Our relationships are always moving.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:The
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:either moving in a, the world is moving there. It's either moving in a direction you like or a direction you don't like. But, you know, I think, uh, one of my mentors was calls at the law of polarity. There is no one side of anything, right? There's a positive and a negative. There's a, never a one sided piece of bread. There's never a
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Or one side of piece of paper. Yeah, we said at the,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's no one side of anything. Yeah. A shout out to, to Myron Golden. Uh, who, who, who,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:I think that's what I heard that
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:That's who I heard it from. I mean, I never heard it that way, but when he said it, it's like there is no one side of anything. Like, there's two sides of everything. So if things ain't going right, there's a better, there's a right way on the other side. You just gotta go to the other side.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:focus on that side. Yo,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that should have like, yeah, like, I don't know that that should be all over social media, but of course only negativity for, you know, or negativity or, or showing off, you know, blows up. But, uh,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. man.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:um, I want to ask you, uh, how, how could someone, I mean, I don't know if it's like the same question, but how does someone develop like that entrepreneur, that entrepreneur DNA. How did it, how did they, uh, like what's something that can start them on that journey?
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:So I think it's interesting, right? I think it's easier to look at someone's history and find the entrepreneur dna because I think entrepreneurship can be learned. However, I think a lot of people are entrepreneurs wrapped up in something else that they've been doing. For example, I talked to a teacher who left her teaching job after 18 years, who's now an entrepreneur, and I, I listened to her and we were on a coaching session. I listened to her, sort of knocked down that I'm, I'm not an entrepreneur, I don't have entrepreneurial traits. And I said, Well, a minute, let's talk about something. So you mean to tell me that when you led and taught students over the last 19 years, you didn't know how to build a vision for your students'? And she said, Well, yeah, you didn't know how to, you didn't teach them a step by step process to get them successful in learning and passing tests and succeeding. Well, of course you weren't consistently showing up for yourself at that job every day for, you know, 18 years beating on that craft. I, I said, so what we have to be careful of, and this is an exercise I remember going through myself in 2008, is when we pivot away from one thing into this world of entrepreneurship, we, we don't leave the skills that we developed working for someone else. Right. And being good as a leader or a professional somewhere else. And it's not like we gotta learn these new things. We gotta learn p and ls that we may not have had to deal with. We may have to learn products and shipping and fulfillment and whatever, whatever the business looks like. But what I often say is that people that succeed in entrepreneurship and how do you build the DNA of it all is a, uh, my, It's funny you mentioned the word DNA because I use a phrase called superstar dna, and I think every human has one. And that is some sort of skill that you are, you'd be willing to say you're the best in the world at. Right. So there's a process that, that I use or that I, uh, uh, an assessment that I use with, with my team and my students where we figure out what that is and when, when we find out what it is, we want you doing as much of that as possible. And then we want you outsourcing everything that isn't that much as possible.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:the 12 work week that's all I learned that
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:right? It's not, Yeah, in the four hour, week break is great, but more so I don't want people to, I know for me, there are certain things that I have to do in the entrepreneurial journey in the last 20 something years that every time I had to do them, if they were on my to-do list, if they were on my project system, if they were on my calendar, the minute I saw them, they drained my energy. Right. For me, it's graphic design. If I have to involve myself in graphic design, anywhere in my business, anywhere for my clients, I'd rather go to the dentist and have some teeth pulled. I'm just I'm just saying, I, I just don't want to be involved. I don't, I'm just telling you. But, but I'm, you know, as much as I'm joking about that though, everyone listening to this knows what that is for them, right? If you hate sales, gosh darn it, don't do it. Find somebody else who does it. If you don't like the marketing, then you've got to find someone else to do it. You can't stay up until 4:00 AM every night because you've signed up for some, not stupid course, but you signed up for a course and you're trying to figure out all the steps. No, no, no. You're wasting your time. What is your gift? Find out what your gift is and then delegate the other things and, okay, well, Darrell, what if I'm just getting started and I don't have any money to delegate? Okay, well, I'd like to, uh, kind of agree, but there's places like Fiber Up work. There's children. I remember my daughter helping, helping me with one of my business when she was, she just did stuff because she was just good with technology. I had her editing videos at probably age 13. Right. Not because I expected her to be a good video editor, but because she had the skill enough to follow the process. Right. And for me, the process is arduous and, and I under, I understand it. So I guess the thing is, is that DNA comes from really understanding who you are in your natural mode of operation and for your listing audience. I'm a big fan of the Colby A Index. It is, It has been a part of my toolkit since 2003 or four, probably 2004. And I mean, there's, there's disk and there's Myers Briggs and there's all these other assessments, but they all look at your personality type or whatever. I'd like the Colby because the, uh, psychologists who put it together, Kathy Colby, she says that when you take her assessment, you're gonna understand your natural mode of operation, how instinctually you're gonna behave in the environment that you're working in. And for me, I'd rather know how I'm going to behave. And so, for example, for me, I spend the majority of my time envisioning things in the future, meaning I'm a visionary, which is obviously, you know, what I do as a ceo and being able to see results for people that, uh, call on me for help. But the second best thing for me to do is assessing the facts, which. I, I'm a person who knows how to diagnose very well so that I can prescribe solutions very well. The last thing you want me doing is the technical. you know, you don't want me building all the widgets or you don't want me doing all that. It's not that I can't, but that's where my energy's going to get drained. So when we're doing, when we're operating in our dna, we are getting the most out of ourselves, most out of our businesses, and the most out of our team. And here's the key. If you hire other people to do a job in your company that fits their dna, they will stay with you for a long time because they don't view themselves as working in a job. They view themselves as executing on their gift.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:And it's a big distinction. A lot of people hire people to do a job. Then they give them training and tools and resources. But if the person has no natural instinct to do it, it doesn't matter how many training resources because it's outside of their natural mode of operation, right? So for me, again, graphic design is one of them. Accounting is another one. Um, Excel spreadsheets is another one. Now I can analyze the spreadsheet all day long. Don't ask me to build one. These are just things that if those come up in my world, I've gotta get those to someone else and then let them bring back the data, because then my mind works better in the analyzing of the data, not building the data set. Does that make sense?
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah, of course. When, when you mention Kobe, I thought you were gonna say, Oh, the mama mentality. I wanna say, Yeah,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Oh, I'm a co so, hey, I'm a, I'm a Laker for life, So Kobe
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that's,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:mentality for, for sure. But no, Colby, k o l b e k o l b
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah. Uh, that, that's hilarious. Cause the mentality speaking about the, Oh. So I think that's dope cuz it takes pressure off people. Cuz people feel like when they become an entrepreneur, they gotta do everything. Like it's, it's almost impossible to do everything, especially things are changing. The world's always moving and you're not, you're not gonna be, I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't know if you heard the saying, uh, I saw, I saw it on one of those Instagram videos. I'm, I'm gonna use it on the show one day. The jack of all trades is the master of none, but still better than the master of one
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Ah, Ah. Didn't hear the, I've never heard the last hook of that. Yeah, yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:out to social media
Carla:HI Raymundo
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Hey, there you go. There you go.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:No, but it's dope to, to get everybody's strengths together, you know? And next thing you know, you summon in, uh, Captain Planet You know what I mean? Everybody got strengths. Ah, you know,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:So look, if you wanna, if you wanna build a big business, you wanna build a good business, right? Um, you know, I'm a, I'm a movie fan. I like the Avengers, I'm a big fan of the Avengers and all that stuff, right? And, and so you gotta think about it, right? Each of them are superheroes in their own right? See, but in order to, you know, and, and look man, let's keep it a hundred. They had a, they had to go there cuz my man, right? right. You know, uh, it was a battle and it took all of their strength, all of their unique gifts. And I, I, I love the analogy because in business you have to have. People with different strengths. It's not about who's better than another, Right? I mean, sure. You could look at, at, um, the, the little friction that, what's the name, you know, Ironman and Captain America had, that had nothing to do with who was better as a superhero. It had to do with an ideology of an issue when they did civil War. Right. The bottom line was it takes everybody's strength to come together and build something. And when you have a company, small or large, you have to keep doubling down on making sure, and this was something I learned back in 20 oh 2005. I read the book Good To Great by Jim Collins, and one of the main principles I pulled outta that book that sticks with me still to this day is my job as an entrepreneur, as an investor, whenever I'm working with companies, an advisor, whatever, is to evaluate, do we have the right people on the bus for the. Like, do we have the right people on the bus? Number two are, whoever's wrong for this trip, for this journey, for this stage where we're at, we've gotta get them off the bus. So get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus. And then here's where the work comes in, around this idea of superpower dna, Colby Index, et cetera. And that is get the right buts in the right seat.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Uhhuh.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Right. And you, your work as an entrepreneur to do that, and that includes you as an entrepreneur. What seat do you belong in on the bus? And let me be clear, I've had entrepreneurs who were in the front and should have been in the back because they were in the front, because they think, Well, I'm the, I'm the entrepreneur. I'm the owner, I'm the CEO of the founder, so I should lead the bus. No, no, no. Your job might be a different role in the back of the bus. Right? Just take your role and do that. Well, it doesn't mean you've gotta be upfront. You know, one of the companies I work with, there's a co-founder and, uh, there's just two co-founders that funded, founded this company. They're now a 20 billion, I think they're a 20 billion company, 28 billion company, depending on the valuation. And one of them you've never heard of, you never heard of him.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:You only hear about the, the one founder who's out front. The other one is, is the product specialist in the back. You, you never hear from him, right? So everybody don't have to have a mic. Like, I love hip hop and stuff. Yeah, I love, I love rap concerts and whatnot, but everybody don't gotta have a mic, right? So, so, so, you know, so the thing is, is what is your superpower? What is your strength? And are you executing on that? Because any minute you're not, you're actually just slowing down the process. You're slowing down the car. Uh, even if you mean well, We're beating on this mindset thing. But even if you mean well, like I'm gonna learn this, I'm gonna figure this out. Well, maybe you shouldn't figure it out. Maybe you shouldn't.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah, maybe you should.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:knows how to do it.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah, maybe you should figure out how to find somebody else, right?
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Right. And again, a lot of times it's all over. Well, you think we're gonna have to invest a ton of money there? There's resources all over the world today. All over the world, right? So,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:You gotta, be resourceful.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. Gotta be open.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:speaking about team, what type of environment do you. Have in place for them to excel in their positions.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah, it's a great question. No, it's a, it is a great question. So it's funny, right? Uh, so we have an environment of failure. we have an environment that rewards people for taking action based on their best understanding of the problem that needs to be solved. Getting data on the output of their action such that it opens up a feedback loop to say, Did we do it right? Did we do it wrong? Did we get the result? Or did we not get the result? Did we get part of the result? But not all the result? What do we need to do next? And so we have this feedback loop that is constantly improving. So in digital marketing especially, there isn't any such thing. It was a winning campaign because the campaign, while it may have come to an end, there's always another campaign. There's always another product. There's always another sale. There's always another initiative. There's still a company, you know, lawyers don't hire us to help them get clients in July, August and September, and then they go hibernate for the winter, right? They need customers every month, right? So we're always on this feedback loop. And so our, our environment is one of training, coaching, and one of supportive, um, action taking. And so when people make mistakes in our organization, like the, you can get in trouble in my organization by doing nothing. Like if you take action and fail, your job is to show up in what we call our sprint meetings and talk about what you did and ask for where you need some assistance or where you need some help. and that's kind of what we do. And then we just coach to success. That's kind of the way we do things at our agency. We give our team a lot of tools, a lot of training. Lot of, uh, uh, room to grow into different, uh, areas of the business or areas of skill set. Um, but more importantly, we have a 15, 20 minute meeting in the morning, sometimes 30, uh, we call it a sta a kickoff for the day. Then we have a wrap up at 1230 in the afternoon and in between, I'll talk to'em, right? We have a chat system, we have a project management system, but we start the day, here's the objectives for the day. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Great report back at midday, 1230, what did you get done? What did you get done? What did you get done? What's continuation for the afternoon or tomorrow? We repeat that cycle week by week on what we call our sprint process, which is also something that I pulled out of that book Scrum from, from years ago. And I give my, Yeah, so I, so I give my team, So first of all, I gotta hire the right people. Number two, I've gotta coach them to our expectation. Make sure they understand the objective that they're trying to reach. And then if they go off left or a little off, right. My job is just to come up and put the, you know, like bowling, you know, when kids, you got nine months old now, but when you take them bowling, you can go to the bowling alley and ask them to put up the
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Right? So in the,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:for me,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:so, so in business, our job is to make sure they have the bumpers, uh, if they drift off to left or right, but your job's not to try to keep them from drifting. That's just not human nature. So that's the kind of environment we try to work in. And, um, we focus on client results and, and we coach to the result. We don't coach, we don't coach, um, uh, we don't critique. We coach is probably the best way to sum it up.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that's awesome, man. Like, I'm about to, I'm about to sign the application, man. Send me one on the send me, send me one on the email. But that, That's the true leader man. Like, not not the title, but making you wanna work for the making you wanna follow the path that they let, that they, that they set out. Um, that's why I
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Let me say this last, Let me say this last piece. I've said this a number of times and it's, it's landed a few other places, so let me see if it lands here. Our job, when you start hiring a team, building a team, your job when you hire people is to get, is to explain your vision clear enough in a clear enough way so that they can see that their superpower aligns with the outcome of that journey. Right? So articulating a vision, a lot of times those entrepreneurs, we say what we wanna do, but we don't say why we wanna do it, why it's important that we do it, the problems that we're gonna have. Like nobody, nobody has a problem when trouble happens until they were promised a journey with no.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:that's so, That's so true. Yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:See, Right? I mean, we have, we have thunderstorms here in Vegas during the summer because of the monsoon that comes through and they come through and just, they, they just drop, I don't know, if you look back on the news a couple, couple weeks ago, you'll see that some of the casinos were flooded. I mean, we have some pretty heavy ones. Uh, and again, this ain't no big deal cause we don't have hurricanes and all that. But the point is, they come in out of nowhere, they drop a bucket of water and it floods in our valley in different, different places. The reality is, our job during the storm is not to try to stop the storm. Our job to calm ourself through the storm, right? Knowing that the storm will pass. Entrepreneurship is nothing but storm after storm after storm. If you keep it a hundred, if you're really honest with yourself, you're in a storm continually. Even if that storm is a micro storm or if it's a major storm pandemic major. 2008, if you were around in business eight, nine, and 10. Major small things. You know, other, other types of storms could be supply chain. If you're in that caught up right now, supply chain for some companies, you know, could be major, could be minor. Your job is, is to make sure people understand that this is where we're going, this is where we're going there, these are some things we might run into and this is how I think you can help us get there. Um, I'm always a big believer that I don't have, none of the success our agency has is, is because of me. Right. It's because of the team. Right. How I participated. Yes. But we are a team even though I'm one of the owners team. Right. So it's our job. Do I have specific things that I can do that are my supervisor? Yes. But as a team, we have helped companies do over 300 million as a team. And that that's teams plural. Because I've had different people working with us over the last 12 years, so none of it's all me. I've got a unique perspective that I, that is my superpower and I'll never let that be, uh, sideline. But the reality is it's about team. We can't get there without everybody else.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:That's awesome, man. You just, you just sounded like LeBron after he had a, a quadruple double talking about his a team, you know,
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:yeah, yeah, yeah,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:No, but I, I love that. Cause like even if you get the mvp, I love when they win something like that and they'd be like, Yo, you know, I think Steph Curry did it. Like, yo, this is for all of us.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:yeah.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:I think that's important cuz you can't
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:He went off, he went off on somebody. He went off. They were like, Hey, what about, what about this, uh, MVP award? He was like, What are you talking about? We just won the fourth championship. Like, you wanna talk about my MVP award? He went off on her. I remember seeing.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:No, but that, Yeah, man, that's, I I just think that's awesome cause like that's just like your, your humbleness reminding you like, yo, yeah, you, you did your thing, but you had helped doing your thing and y'all did y think together and look at, with, look at the results. You pop in champagne, you know, you, you at a parade.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:days it don't feel like we're popping bottles. But I, I'll tell you, and it's the interesting part about digital marketing, I was just talking to somebody earlier about this, is that unfortunately, unlike a sports analogy where there's a start of the season and end of the season, our clients always want more. And sometimes that does get tiring,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah. Yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:They always want more. Like, so we can succeed, we can be winning, but they're always, you know, we're always one meeting away from them saying, What's next? What else can we do? So sometimes we don't get a chance to breathe, right? Sometimes we don't get a chance to breathe. But anyway, it's, it's, it is part of the, the process of growing a business and growing companies. Like, uh, you're always on, right? You're always on.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:This is my, my signature question I didn't get back to on the last one, but, what role does fear play in your.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:I'm, I'm afraid more than I'm confident. fear for me is something I do battle with on a regular basis. Uh, I'm afraid we're not doing enough for our clients. I'm afraid that I'm not doing enough for my team. I'm afraid that I'm not paying enough. I'm afraid that my best person's being recruited by somebody. I don't know. Uh, I'm afraid that whatever, right now the problem is, or, or not the problem, but what my, what I, my muscle, the muscle, the muscle I've developed is not to sit. because those are just natural thoughts, right? Um, my, you know, right now current times, like inflation's going up, consumer goods are high. Supply chain is kind of wacky for a lot of my clients. Um, you just don't know. So I say that fear is, is something that I spend some time with, but I'm also, I've done enough work mentally to let it come and go, right to, to sort of like self talk, right? When something happens bad or you run into a tight situation, you, it's easy to drop back and forget how you've made it through all the other part, you know, crap, right? So if you've made it through all the crap in your life to get to here, then why are you afraid to go to the next step, right? So everybody's been through something and we were afraid of it, right? Uh, one funny story. I used to, um, I'm not the best swimmer on the planet and I never was taught to swim. I just kind of learned by being in the pool and whatever. I wasn't the big swimmer and we didn't spend a lot of time in the pool. As I got older, I started traveling and I started taking cruises and I used to go, I see people going snorkeling, and I used to hear it. I see it on tv and man, my fear for swimming, it really wasn't my fear of swimming. It was my fear of drowning that used to keep me from doing it. And I had associated, Anytime I saw the people with the mask on and the things sticking outta the water, my association was water automatically was coming down my mouth. And I believed that for a long time. Like, it won't work for me because blah, blah, blah. Well, I finally went snorkeling for the first time 2007, and I struggled because I was in my head because of preconceived ideas that were false, right? We say f fear is false. Evidence appearing real. You can talk yourself into it and you can talk to yourself is easily out of it. On that trip, I, uh, I let fear get to me the first day out, fear got to me a little bit less the next day out. And what I began telling myself was, You are not going to not experience this. And you were hurting yourself by telling yourself this bull,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:all these people in the water ain't drowning, all these people in the water got the same contraption on their head with the same life belt or whatever it is, and they ain't drowning. Get over it. So I, I joke about that because I just got back from going snorkeling, uh, on my son's birthday cruise. And it's, it's now second nature to me. But I think fear is, is something that, um, it comes and goes with all of us, but at the end of the day, it's all self talk. Right? And the last thing I'll say about fear is this is the vast majority of things we're afraid of. Will never happen. So even if they did, why live it twice? And I got that from Will Smith. I got that from Will Smith and Will Smith made a comment about skydiving and it was a video somewhere on, I probably with social media, maybe you two. And a lot of times we worry and get afraid of things because of our own self talk. And the funny thing is, 90, 95% even studies say that that 95% of what we are worried about never happens. And so why live it twice? Cuz if it happens, you're gonna have to live it again.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Yeah, that's true.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:So why live it earlier? Why live it in advance? And so I've just developed, and it's been years, I make it sound easy here, but it's years of meditation, years of of, of, uh, self talk development, personal development, really just beating on my own personal develop. But to say that I don't get afraid. I'd be a lie. I'd be a liar. I mean, I ain't gonna lie to you. I didn't know what was gonna happen when the pandemic hit. We lost 57% of our business in 14 days at the agency. You got to be super careful what you start saying to yourself in that little short day, in that little short window, Right? So, you know, we're still here, we recovered, all that good stuff. But you gotta be very careful with your story that you tell yourself. Because a lot of times you'll make, you'll make up a story that isn't real and it'll be real to your brain because of the way that you, uh, support it with external and sometimes internal, um,
raymundo-theraymundoshow:is internal
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Right. Mostly internal or you could look externally. Right. So let's be clear about what's happening externally. Yeah. Inflation is going up. Gas prices are high. Uh, my bag of Doritos that I love. Cool Ranch. My bag of Doritos used to be a buck. 97 is 4 49. That's true. That's just what in my area, that's just what it is. It's not 8%. I can assure you that they said 8% is inflation. Eight, eight and half percent is all time high. Well, let's see, 1 97 to 4 49 is not 8%. For anybody who's not really good at math, that's way more than 8%. So the reality is those are external truths. But that doesn't, that doesn't mean I have to internalize that, right? Things aren't necessarily unaffordable, It just means today they're higher than they used to be. And that comes back to my mind shift method, the way I process things. So, but fear, I think it's, it's something we all can't get around. It's just something we gotta learn to, to navigate, uh, effectively.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:I always ask that question just because every time I do an interview, every time I do public speaking, I'm facing it. Cuz there was a time that I was so unsure of myself and to the point that if someone told me to tie my sneaker on the spot, I would be like, uh, you know, I, I almost like forgot how to do it just cause I'm on the spot. So like, I've come a long way in facing my fears and I'm continue to do, I just had, I told you I had, uh, two, uh, high profile and that was Nervewracking, but I got through it and the episodes came out great. And I, um, you know, I just, it's just the beginning man. But, uh, I wanna thank you, man. Like, this was, this was an awesome episode. Like, honestly in, in the, I think I feel like. 30 minutes in. I feel like you nailed, you know what I wanted you on the show for? I was like, yo, he got it. And then we got like, like 40 more minutes of bonus. But, um, I appreciate you making people like you going out there staying humble, helping other businesses. the way you build your team, the way you use your life experience, the way you look at things. shit. I can see you, I can see that going from 300 to like a billion in like 10. Yeah. I know. You, already, you already met, you already. You already visualizing it, you're seeing it, you're smelling it. You know that that's the life when you use that method. That's the lifestyle you live. But I know you gotta go. So just let the people know where they can find you, where they can talk to you, where they can get coaching from. You
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:Yeah. I appreciate it, man. First of all, just thank you, uh, for, for being a host and, and having, uh, the space to allow for the conversation. And, uh, congratulations on, on your big name guest that you had the big, big high profile. Um, you know, keep doing your thing because listen, people don't understand podcasting is a little bit more challenging than it appears to, to, to the listener, right? I mean, there's a lot that goes into it. A lot of work. I know it's probably something in the neighborhood of five hours a week just to produce, you know, a couple good episodes. So, uh, thank you for doing the work, but people can find me. Listen, if you're enjoying the Ramono show, Um, you can listen to my show. I've got a show called The Mind Shift Podcast. Wherever you're listening to Raymundo show, uh, you can just open up the directory and look for the Mind Shift podcast with Darrell Lemons. And if you've liked anything I've had to say today, uh, today, uh, you can just kind of follow my show. Let's do a few episodes and connect with me there. It's got kind of all the, all the places you can hook up with me, ig, you know, my website, whatever's good. But, uh, if you, if you listen to other shows, love for you to listen to mine. Appreciate it.
raymundo-theraymundoshow:Well, I appreciate that, man. I'm definitely a listener. I'll definitely be tuning in cuz I'm trying to shift my mind on a whole nother level, man. But we wish you nothing for success and more success and more love and great energy, all that you take care of.
darrell-evans-theraymundoshow:to you. Same to you, brother. Thank you so
raymundo-theraymundoshow:All right. You got it buddy.
Wisdom takes time. A mentor can help shorten the gap. They could show you the way. Even let you know where you at. Damn, that sounds like a GPS. But all they want is the best for you. The ability to bring out the best in you. Paid him to make you better. It's a way to invest in you. Your study guide, because life is constantly testing. You. They blessing With experience to make sure that you're serious about taking things to another level. A lot of greats had a mental as some Because they know accountability is part of the math. Some still don't understand, even though it was written in plain English. Personal chain of, for the body. Meditation coped for the mine. Sensei and martial arts. financial planner for your finances. They can take your learning curve. And hit it out the park. Yo Massachusetts got me B. And make sure you always finish what you start. Get you a business sensei like Daniel son in Colbert car. Or Darryl Evans, whose information is in the show notes. So give them a try, but I want to thank you for joining me. On the Raimundo show. This was a great episode. I'd like to thank Darrell. For dropping all that info. Well, I apologize for the, for the sound. Even the video was kind of I got so much information that I'm already applying. And he's a great guy, man. I honestly want him to be my mentor. But I hope this helps you out. On eventually getting a mental. some people will do it for free. they out there, man, just. You got to show them that you really bout it. But stay safe. Yeah. Till next time. Peace. Love. out.
