Tyler Jorgenson – Entrepreneur, Speaker, Radio Show Host

The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Grammar And Spelling Errors 

Tyler Jorgenson  0:00  

And there are so many takeaways from each person. And I could keep, I could literally go down the list or just read through my notes. But the biggest takeaway of all, and as I look through them all is that the people who grow take action, and sometimes that’s the hardest thing as an entrepreneur, is to just go, we’re never going to have all of the answers. We’re never going to know exactly what’s behind the next step. But you have got to take the next step.

 

Announcer  0:27  

You’re listening to business entrepreneur radio. This show was created for entrepreneurs, business owners, marketers, and dreamers who want to learn from the experts of today and drastically shortcut their own success to build a business that supports their dream lifestyle. Since 2011, Tyler Jorgenson has been interviewing business thought leaders from around the world. A serial entrepreneur himself, Tyler also shares his personal insights into what’s working in business today. Welcome to biz ninja, entrepreneur radio.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  1:04  

Welcome out to business angel entrepreneur radio, I am your host, Tyler Jorgensen. And today, I’m going to do something a little bit different. You see, today is episode number 200. That’s special because it’s a big fancy round number. It’s not special because it’s actually our 200th episode. And in fact, it’s well over 500 episodes now of this show. You see, I started it well over a decade ago on an NBC News affiliate station. And we now run live on ABC News Radio every Sunday morning. And then, we stream through podcasts and YouTube. And wherever you’re listening to watching, you’re seeing this now, all around the world. And we have listeners all around the world. And it’s just been a true joy to interview entrepreneurs and learn so much about what is going on in the entrepreneurial journey. I started this show because I wanted a way to reconnect and to connect with entrepreneurs after I went through a catastrophic business failure. During the recession. I was in I was triple invested in real estate and mortgage and all of that and lost everything. And the money was hard. The network and the friends that I felt I lost was the hardest part. And so what I’m going to do today is something that’s different than any of the other episodes I’ve done, because I’m going to be the guest I’m going to be interviewed. And so what I’m going to do is I’ve asked a few different people to ask me questions. I have not listened to their questions, but I did have them send them in, in advance. And so I’m going to watch. First I’m going to go through I’ve got just three or four people that it’s amazing how people say, I’ll help and then you send them a request and it takes some time to get back and that’s okay. But I’m grateful for those that got back to me quickly because we’re going to try to film this. So I’m going to go ahead and bring in my first interviewer. Here we go.

 

Teresa van Athan  3:06  

Hi, Teresa van Athan here, and I have some questions for you. First, what do you think are the three most important habits in order to be a successful entrepreneur?

 

Tyler Jorgenson  3:17  

Ooh, so Teresa van Athan is my big sister. And so thank you for that question. The three most important habits to be a successful entrepreneur habit are a tough thing for me, because I sometimes think that we put too much emphasis on habits and less on discipline. And so in order, I’m going to go through that what three things do entrepreneurs need to do to be successful? One, they need to have a vision. If you don’t have a clear vision of where you’re trying to go, you’ll never know where you are, what your goals are, right? There’s no clear goal, there’s no clear objective, you can’t break that down into KPIs or into a successful business. And I know a lot of people that spend massive amounts of their life circling success because they haven’t defined what it is they actually want. So having a vision and defining what you want is probably the biggest and most important. The next thing that comes to mind in terms of being a successful entrepreneur, is humility and putting your ego aside. There’s a lot of big names and big ego in entrepreneurship. And sometimes they become successful. But the people that I have seen being able to become successful really, really quickly, are those who are willing to learn from those around them, both ahead of them and behind them potentially, in in their success growth. So vision, humility, putting the ego aside. And lastly, the biggest most important virtue of an author of a successful entrepreneur is grit. And the ability to push through when times are hard, the ability to dig deep when it seems like when other people would have quit because that is when the real magic happens is when other Have people have punched in the clock and gone home? And you keep working? So those are the three, I would say, how do

 

Teresa van Athan  5:05  

you balance both fostering creativity and then the logistical requirements that entrepreneurship requires

 

Tyler Jorgenson  5:14  

a good one. So balancing creativity in the in the spirit of innovation and creation, with the day to day stuff, you actually have to do the administrative and all of that, there is no such thing. It doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as a balance. Bottom line, when we talked about grit, sometimes there’s just stuff you have to do that isn’t part of what really fills you with joy in makes you thrive as a visionary and entrepreneur. But if the sooner that you can get your business to a point where you can hire people to handle those things, then the faster you’re going to be able to be set free, you’re going to have to do things that you don’t enjoy, you’re going to have to do things that aren’t the best or aren’t wonderful. But the goal is to do them for as little amount of time as possible. And so I don’t want to balance that. I want to endure it for as little as possible until I can get to the other side and have somebody else take over those responsibilities. For me,

 

Teresa van Athan  6:07  

if you weren’t an entrepreneur, what do you think you would be doing?

 

Tyler Jorgenson  6:11  

Great question. I think if I if I didn’t stay a business owner, I would want to be doing something that has a lot of the same entrepreneurial spirit. So working within an organization in sales or business development, or product development, leading a team, something that has big goals with lots of creativity, and without micromanagement. Thank you, Teresa. For those we’re gonna go to another friend of mine who I’ve known for a long time, and I have not pre listened to this. I’m excited for it.

 

Mike Caldwell  6:43  

Hey, this is Mike from Canada. And we’ve got an arthritis pain relief cream product that sells really well in stores here. But we haven’t been able to crack the code for how to sell it online, we

 

Tyler Jorgenson  6:53  

just find that our cost of client acquisition is too high for our profit margin. And I was wondering what you would recommend that we do. Thank you, Mike Caldwell, awesome guy, by the way. And, um, ironically, I used to own a nutraceutical company in Canada. So I have some experience in selling online to Canada, I’ve sold several million dollars online, as well as in every major mall in Canada, I’ve sold multiple different types of products like this, if you can’t compete on Google and Facebook and get a good cause customer acquisition, then the next thing that makes the most sense, is through working through ambassadors and affiliates, micro influencers, who are and really ones who already have your target audience. But in my experience would actually work the best was getting was working through Google and just finding longtail keywords that weren’t the most competitive, but had people who are looking who are the closest to the buying cycle. So I would keep testing different keywords that maybe weren’t obvious and getting people closer to actually purchasing. And then if I couldn’t make that work, or in addition to I would look at working with influencers and ambassadors who can get in front of those people who already have those problems.

 

Paul  8:12  

My name is Paul Van scenesse. Here to ask Tyler a couple of questions. My first one is if there was only one concept you could teach to entrepreneurs, what would it be? So there’s

 

Tyler Jorgenson  8:21  

only one concept I could teach to entrepreneurs, what would it be? It would be sales. I think that so for some reason, sales have become it’s like a negative thing, right, we hear about the negative adage of the used car salesman, we hear about the negative adage of sales has a negative background or a negative term, but it is the lifeblood of business. And, you know, I had a team member for a while who I actually thought would be amazing in business development and sales. But it was interesting when I pitched it to him. There was a negative vibe to it. And I was just shocked because I’m like men, many times in sales, the salesperson makes more than the than a CEO or make more than the president of the company. Because you’re not limited and you shouldn’t be limited by it to your income in sales because the commission should be you should be incentivized to keep growing and keep doing a great job. But sales and the idea of sales and marketing how well they intertwine. So many times people have a product or a service or something that they deeply believe in. But they they they feel bad selling. And I heard something once something said once that if you firmly and genuinely believe that your product or service can help the person you’re selling to, then you actually have a moral obligation to help them make that decision. See an ethical sales. You’re helping somebody make the decision that they should make the decision that is best for them. You’re helping them overcome their own objections that they’re putting in place that are stopping them from improving their life or their business or whatever it is. So for me if every entrepreneur can understand the importance of sales more than the importance of things like, you know, having a pretty business card or those sorts of things. I think so many times, entrepreneurs and business owners when you’re starting, they get stuck in all the administrative and the things that might matter six months from now, well, what are we going to do when we have 1000? Customer? Doesn’t matter. Get your first one? Right. So focusing on sales would be the first thing.

 

Paul   10:22  

Is there a question you wish somebody had asked you? And what is the question? And what would your answer be? Thanks, man.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  10:29  

I love that question. It’s something I kind of asked waiters a similar question, what’s something that people don’t order? But you think they should? So what’s a question that someone hasn’t asked me? I’m going to start by kind of going the opposite way on that. You see, most people ask questions like, what kind of business should I start? Or what should I do in business or things like that? Some of the questions we’ve had today, like, what should I do to market my business and that those aren’t wrong questions. But I remember one time, I met Seth Godin, an amazing author, and just an amazing businessman. And I was talking with him and I, he asked me, he’s like, Tyler, what are you working on? This was right when I was like, really deciding what I wanted to focus on. And I was like, you know, I’ve got a few cool projects I’ve got in the works. And he goes, Okay, well, and he was signing a book of his, I think the book at that time was linchpin. And he goes, Well, you’ll read on page 17, or whatever was my book, why I don’t think that’s a good idea. And the the end thing was, he was like, you can’t focus on more than one thing. But when I was reading the book, the takeaway was, most people will ask, I’ve decided to do this, how, how can I go be successful in it? Right. So I’ve decided to start this business. How do I be successful? And Seth’s advice was actually to go farther back in the decision tree and say, I’ve decided to be successful. Now, what should I do? And I think that that’s, that’s the big question, right? Sometimes it’s, you know, we’ve already made a decision on what kind of business we have or what we’re doing. And so it’s like, okay, what do I do now to get to the next level? But the question might not be around that business, it might be around you or doing a different opportunity. So to answer that question, it’s, it’s, a lot of people ask me, like, what’s their next step? Instead of saying, like, even checking in, are they are they on the right path? Right. And I think that’s the big challenge is, it’s a fine line between perseverance and grit, and which I’m a huge fan of, and continuing to chase, something that’s outdated are not going to work. There is a horrible, horrible adage that I just really don’t like that is that I hear when I speak at UCLA, when I go and I speak, I’ll hear people teach. If you build a better mousetrap, the whole world will beat down a path to your door to buy it. I totally disagree. Because if they don’t know that you built a mousetrap, they’ll never ever come knock on your door. So if they if they don’t know that that’s there, and one, did they want a better mousetrap? Were they okay with the current mousetrap? So those two big questions are really important one, do you know how to even promote and sell your product, because if you don’t, it doesn’t matter if it’s better, they’ll never find it. And then too, just because something is better, doesn’t mean the market cares. There are a lot of better products that are have been shelved and never sold, there’s a lot of better products that are still not number one in their category. Because just being better isn’t isn’t enough, sometimes being familiar, was more was more valuable to a customer and to the market. So I would say that that is a really big thing to think about is, is the path that you’re pursuing is the product or service or business that you’re building, does the market care. And earlier today, I was I was filming some content with my friend Matt Casino. And we were talking about that exact idea of that if you’re going to launch a new product or service, like the idea of he calls it a lazy launch, and I love that idea. And but my idea is just testing before you invest a ton of time. So test before you invest, and then based on the results scale, or or bail. And I got that from four hour workweek in our previous guest on this show about eight years ago, Tim Ferriss the idea of micro testing ideas before you put a ton of time into it. And there was one project that I was working on that I still think is a great idea about I don’t know, six or seven years ago, a friend of mine and I we saw this product in a when we’re out and we’re like, oh, we should do that. And I sourced the product. I got a couple of prototypes. I put together a basic website and said okay, it’s time to market. And my friend was like, No, we need we need this business cards, because I can’t tell my friends about this business until it looks official. I was like, Dude, there’s no way that what’s going to stop this business from being successful as business cards, like, we first need to find out. If people will buy the product, then we can fancy up the business and make it look pretty. So those are some really important things. Man, we are about halfway through this show. And I’m gonna pause a little bit. And I’m gonna see if I get some more questions and overnight and we’ll finish it up. But if you’ve listened this far into the show, or if you’re watching this far, I first of all, I just really need you to know how much I appreciate you. This show has been a labor of love for a long time where I’ve just genuinely enjoyed connecting with entrepreneurs and sharing my my journey and listening to theirs and sharing their journey on our on this platform. And as I go forward, I think my vision for this show is evolving to where I genuinely want to see a greater reach and a greater growth. And so if you’re here, now, just know that I’m super grateful for you. And stay tuned, because we’ve got more coming.

 

Jared  16:04  

Oh, is that my name on the wall? Over there too. Maybe? Not a big deal. Oh, real broadcaster. Anyway, I’m syndicated. I don’t talk about it. It’s not a big deal. And all seriousness, I’ve been friends with Tyler for a long time. And it’s Jared from Jared and Katie in the morning. And Tyler, two questions for you one. South Africa, how did your experience in South Africa? change who you are, influence who you are help you view the world? And that’s a multi layered question there.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  16:37  

All right, I’m gonna pause it and go for that. So I met Jared, while living in South Africa. I was we were missionaries there at the around 99 to 2001. So that was a long time ago. And his question of how did it influence how I see the world and how it changed who I am as a person, I will tell you significantly. And the biggest thing is understanding the worldview, right. So when you grow up, you tend to have, you tend to share a lot of the views of the people right around you, the people in your community, the people that raise you, and then all of a sudden you if you travel, and you go somewhere completely different than a completely different culture, you realize the entire world may not share those views. That was really, really valuable for me in my development and growth, because I realized, it helped me understand I may not always be right. And this is big, because this applies into business. We have a lot of assumptions in business. And sometimes we think entrepreneurs, and good marketers are the ones who are always right. I disagree completely, I think they’re the ones who can test and find out what the market thinks is right the fastest. So that means you have to have a hypothesis and a theory. But then you have to test the market and see what is actually what is real. So for me, one of the biggest takeaways of going to South Africa is the realization that the world is much bigger than my worldview, and that the market is not just what I think it is,

 

Jared   18:08  

what is your favorite show that you’re watching right now and why? I’m sure this is not what you’re looking for. But it’s me.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  18:17  

Alright, man, it’s my favorite show that I’m watching. That’s an interesting one. Because pan shows have evolved so much where they’re not just like TV programs, us old people would know that TV shows used to be you had to catch them when they were alive or you missed them. And you’d have to wait. So you could catch up a rerun some way later down the road. And so now we have, you know, streaming services and all these things. And it’s really changed how I consume recently, I haven’t been in a consuming binge. But the show that really, really resonated with me most recently was Ted lasso. And a lot of people fell in love with Ted lasso as the second season aired. It was like they discovered it, you know, a year later. But I as much as I love Coach lasso and everything that he does and his attitude and his mindset and how he approaches the world. I love Coach beard. I love what Coach beard and coach lasso have as a one two punch is so powerful. And I think it stands out to me how important it is for entrepreneurs to have people in their corner that are maybe quietly maybe outside of the spotlight, just helping make sure your vision is enacted. And most importantly, getting you back on track when you lose sight of your vision. So the coach last Oh coach beard, dynamic, man, that is something that I think every entrepreneur and every human can learn from I think it’s the the powerful dynamic of a healthy relationship. Thank you so much. Jared is a is famous over on the east coast with Jared and Katie in the morning. So appreciate you taking some time out to join us and, and share your your voice with us today, Jared, I think actually called in and was a guest on the show back in 2011, if I remember, right, so it’s always fun to have a repeat visitor. This morning, I was going through some old notes on as I was preparing a social media post and looking at some of the different people that have been on the show. And over the years. And, you know, the show started early 2011. And it was I say this, it was kind of an accident, I called the show, looking to buy some long form advertising to or some remnant advertising to advertise a product that I was selling at the time for one of my businesses, and the this talk to the CEO. And the CEO is like when you need to have a show. And anyways, like I stopped by the station, all of a sudden, I was on air. And a week later, all of a sudden, I had my own show. And it started as a one hour live show. That was a lot of stress, like making sure people called in, I didn’t have like a whole production team and assistance and all this stuff. So I hope people would remember to call in at the right time. And it’s how I developed the the 28 minute segment though, which is what we do now half hour, which on radio gets condensed 20 minutes for commercials. And because what we would do is I’d start the show with an introduction, we’d go to commercial, and then I’d come back and I’d interview someone, we go to commercial and come back and interview someone. And then we go we go to commercial, and then do a sign off. And it’s real similar to basically now we just do one of those middle sections for the entire show. So luckily, you don’t have to deal with commercials anymore. But I was looking back through I have handwritten notes of almost every single interview that I’ve done. And in early days of the show, there was two to three interviews per show, well over 500 shows. So we’re probably like seven 800 guests that have been on the show. And I have notes from them. And it’s really neat to see notes that I took 10 years ago. And realize that there’s there’s takeaways and things that I still apply into my business today and apply. Because that was the entire reason I created the show was so that I would be able to learn from these people and also be able to share with other people what I learned. And so, you know, as needed, I tagged a handful of the people that were in the show, Alex or Mozi, who was a friend who is a friend of mine and was a friend of mine before he became famous on the on the Instagrams and tiktoks for how much He crushed his last couple of businesses and what they’re doing now with acquisition. And Alex I always learn a lot from because he’s really good at distilling information, I would highly encourage you to go listen to that episode, because it’s kind of like a throwback to seeing the heyday of gym launch and right right before they sold and did some really cool things. Had my friend Bedros cool Ian on the show. And Vedras has a really cool business and a couple of masterminds and some other things. But we did hit the show live at his are at his office and recorded there. And it’s really cool to be able to like see his vision and how it’s come to be. And there’s so many takeaways from each person. And I could keep, I could literally go down the list or just read through my notes. But the biggest takeaway of all, and as I look through them all is that the people who grow take action, and sometimes that’s the hardest thing as an entrepreneur, is to just go, we’re never going to have all of the answers, we’re never going to know exactly what’s behind the next step. So, but you have got to take the next step. And then you can always call an audible, you can always make an adjustment. But if you’re stuck and making sure that the action is perfect, before you take the next step, you’re gonna stay stuck a really, really long time. And so the consistent theme that I saw on all of these people and and we’ve had people who have, we had the CMO of MasterCard, I mean huge companies. We’ve had people who launched brick and mortar businesses and cake companies and silly bands. Do you guys remember silly bands for like 2011 They were super popular. We’ve had software companies and service based companies and we’ve all of these different industries that we featured throughout the years. And the biggest, most consistent thing is just taking imperfect action and moving forward. And at the end of the show our sign off is and I always say now it’s your turn to go out and do something. Because life is about taking action. Life is about doing things and don’t just let life happen to you. Don’t just be a witness to life, right? Be a participant, and that is probably my biggest hope is that anybody who listens to the show, all my business injures wherever you are listening that you actually take action and do something. If you’ve been brainstorming an idea for a decade of something you want to do, do it. It might not work that is better than just sitting on idea forever. Because what’s weird about watch foreigners is they get stuck in this idea that, okay, I have an idea. And now they start to protect the idea. Because it’s such a good idea that what if it doesn’t work? Now that means that idea that I’m now cherishing isn’t good. Yeah, that’s okay. Get used to that, because you have an idea, test it, and either scale or bail, move on, or grow it. And you know, what you might even realize, even if the idea is good, it’s not calling to you. So don’t sit on an idea for too long. pursue it, or set it free, right? Give it to someone else, what I have found, and I talked to a lot of people who wanting to start their own business, or come up with a new product idea. And a lot of times like, Well, how do you come up with ideas? Now for me, I’m never short of ideas. In fact, I almost have too many. And what I’ve learned is that that happens, as a result of moving through the idea, having the idea, being willing to test it and let it go and go to the next one. Because then all of a sudden, it’s like it frees up more. So if you have one idea and you’re clinging to it or, and you’re not willing to test it or let it go, then it’s blocking you from all the future ideas that may come behind it, that might be the big thing that that sets you free, or that changes your life forever. I was talking with a friend earlier today about, you know, a couple of different businesses. And this is gonna get to my second takeaway from reviewing all my notes from previous guests. And, you know, he’s got a couple of businesses already, and he’s looking at another one or two that he wants to do. And we realize like, the only reason he’s really going after these other businesses is the perception of others, not his own joy, or fulfillment or goals. And not only do I think that’s the wrong reason to pursue something else, but also it’s more likely that the other businesses will suffer if you’re trying to do that many different things. Now, I think there’s a point in a business where you can get it to a point where you can then hand it over to someone else to run and grow. And then you can move your energy to a second thing, but I don’t think you can chase two, three or four ideas simultaneously. I’ve often said you can have like a day job, and then start an idea as a side hustle. Anything more than that, and you’re you have you don’t have unlimited time and energy, it’s just something will suffer along the way, whether it’s your personal relationships, your health, or the other, the job or the side hustle won’t receive proper attention. And especially if you try to go to three, at that point, you’re not chasing anything.

 

You know, they say a man who chases two rabbits catches none. And I think there’s a fine balance. And you got to really make that that personal for you and figure out where your energy can go. But for me, the biggest those were the biggest two lessons implement quickly take action, whether even if it’s imperfect, and limit the number of actions you take that that paradox of like how many places you’re you’re trying to act? Tim Ferriss is a previous guest on the show. He talks a lot about how it’s not how much you do in the day. It’s the impact of what you do in the day. So and the idea the analogy is the big Domino. What if instead of having to go over to knock over every single domino individually, and you have to go through and do all of these tasks on this long checklist, and you focus on productivity and efficiency? What if instead, you spent most of the day figuring out what big domino you could push that would knock over all the other dominoes or make them irrelevant. And I think that is that though, that’s my kind of last takeaway of reflecting over the over the past, you know, 700 guests, is that it’s not about doing more, but it is about getting more results from your efforts. And that’s going to be through systems and people and just taking better actions, better quality actions. I was talking with Matt Ticino, we’ll pretend that this is his question. But he, yesterday we were talking I asked him, hey, at the end of the year, we’re coming to the end of the year, should people should entrepreneurs, like slow down and relax and enjoy this season? Or should they hustle hard? Is this the month where they hustle because everyone else is and there’s, you hear two different schools of thought on that. And Matt offered a third point, which I love. And it’s like, I don’t think either of those are right, I think it’s in between. It’s how do you get the same amount of effort or result out of less time. So if you are going to out if you’re planning on allocating four hours to a task, allocate one, but see if you can get this get it accomplished in that hour. And all of a sudden, I think through that I’m like, Okay, if everything I was going to do this week, all of a sudden only took one quarter of the time or even half of the time. I I could hustle here at the end of the year, and have more time with my family. And with my end just to with myself, right to be content and think about what I want to do next. So I think sometimes that the answer is, is not binary, which is a very big thing. When people ask, do you like red or white, right? Sometimes the answer is no, I like blue. And that’s okay. So look for the non binary answers. Most things are not either or in this world. Again, I thank you so much for tuning in here to biz ninja entrepreneur radio. We’ve already have more episodes coming starting next week that are going to be absolutely amazing. I’m gonna keep up leveling the quality of guests and the quality of production and what we bring to you. So if you have guests that you want on the show, please send them my way. And if you could do one favor for me, it would be to go leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts or on YouTube where if you’re watching us, and just leave a review and like, subscribe, smash that like button, or whatever the YouTuber kids say these days. Thank you for being you and for being here and being a part of my world. It means the world to me. And now my business is wherever you’re watching, listening, or tuning in, it’s your turn to go out and do something.

 

Announcer  31:25  

Thank you for tuning in to biz ninja entrepreneur radio. What you didn’t hear was one more very important question that Tyler asks each guest if you want to be a fly on the wall when the real secrets are shared, go to biz ninja.com/vip and get your access today. Remember to subscribe so that you don’t miss any future episodes. And our one last favor. If this episode was meaningful to you, please share this podcast with a fellow entrepreneur so they can grow along with us is ninjas. It’s your turn to go out and do something