How Will the Workforce & Earning Money Change in the Next 10-15 Years? With Jordan Rolband

In this podcast episode, Chris has on Jordan Rolband explore the dynamic world of digital marketing and entrepreneurship. They discuss the necessity of adaptability and hard work for success, the evolving platforms like TikTok and Amazon, and the importance of choosing a career path that aligns with one's skills.

 

The guys also reflect on the future of the workforce, the value of learning from different generations, and the misconceptions about ease in business. The conversation covers the impact of technology changes like Google's updates and iOS 14 on marketing strategies, emphasizing the need for a solid understanding of marketing fundamentals and a willingness to adapt to industry changes. They conclude with plans to further discuss the psychology of digital marketing in a future episode.

 

Follow Chris HERE! IG - @christarta 

Follow Jordan HERE! IG - @iamjrol

 

TRANSCRIPT 

Jordan (00:00:00) - I will change things and where we're going to be in the next 10 to 15 years, like the workforce will be very different, and the way that people earn money will be very different. I look at what the 20 year olds are doing is there's still things you can learn from someone older, right? Like there's always knowledge there. But on the other hand, they're not going to teach you any of the new tricks because they don't understand the new tricks. It's interesting, maybe that a sense of.

Chris (00:00:22) - Ease, maybe things are easier, they seem easier to them, and they really are. Because, you know, when you hit the the real world or the business world, all those tools will help you, right? But it comes down to the fact is, you still have to put the work in. We love everybody alive here today. We're with Jordan Roll Band. Uh, guy I'm proud to call a friend. Was a client. Met him as a client. We actually sold his family's house, I guess.

Chris (00:00:54) - Was that six years ago now?

Jordan (00:00:56) - Six years ago. Yeah. Man.

Chris (00:00:57) - Um, we share our office now, and, uh, you know, I get a kind of a peek into what he does for a living, and, um, it's fascinating to me, and, uh, he's got some great opinions on different things, and we're just going to kind of chop it up on, uh, on, uh, life entrepreneurship and, uh, you know, what goes on. So, uh, what's.

Jordan (00:01:15) - Up, George? Strong opinions in some case.

Chris (00:01:16) - Well, I love that's the thing I love, man, is that there's always clarity around when I, when I ask you shit, there's a clear opinion and a defined reason for it, which is, is, uh, not everybody has that or not. Everybody wants to say that or be honest about their opinions all the time.

Jordan (00:01:31) - Oh, yeah. No. Definitely not. I mean, you know, I think when you.

Jordan (00:01:36) - So anyway. Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me on. Sure, man. Yes. It's nice to, uh, it's nice to be in the podcast room of the office that we share, because I've actually never sat in here before.

Chris (00:01:48) - Right. Make a call or two and that's it, right?

Jordan (00:01:50) - Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Right. It hasn't been on a on a hot mic or anything like that. It's just been making calls. And, you know, I watched the, uh, you know, the work in progress here. Um, so it's, it's come out very nice. So we're happy to be here.

Chris (00:02:03) - Yeah, yeah. Thank you man. Thanks for coming on. I look forward to this being like a regular thing because I think, uh, there'll be stuff to talk about that people will like when they get to know us a little more.

Jordan (00:02:13) - Yeah. For sure.

Chris (00:02:14) - Um, so what's been going on, man? I know that, uh, you've been traveling lately.

Chris (00:02:19) - It's a new year. Uh, your business is is is busy. It's booming. It seems that way. From the outside, you're always kind of managing stuff, which to me, is is pretty, pretty fascinating to see how it goes when you have, you know, over 100 employees all over the globe and product and things like that for you guys that you don't know. Jordan is, um, he's in e-commerce and digital marketing. I think the bulk of your business is e-commerce, right?

Jordan (00:02:43) - Yeah. I mean, basically it's, um, you know, I'd call it like performance e-comm. Right, right. I mean, that's sort of how we label it at this point. So I've been in the performance marketing industry for, uh, for the last 16 years. Okay. And for those that don't know, performance marketing is basically what we call like cost per acquisition marketing. Right? So CPA.

Chris (00:03:02) - CPA all the time.

Jordan (00:03:02) - So for example, you know, if someone has a physical product, pair of headphones, um, they want to sell those headphones, they could come to us, they could come to us simply and just say like, look, I've got these headphones, I've already got a page built out.

Jordan (00:03:17) - Can you guys buy media for me and help me acquire customers? Or they could come to us and say, look, I've got this idea for these headphones, but I need creatives built out. I need, uh, marketing funnels built out. Um, do you have anyone that can do, uh, logistics for me, a customer service, you know, full, full really like full soup to nuts in terms of, like, being able to put the pieces together for me to be able to sell products on the, on the internet.

Chris (00:03:42) - I feel like a lot, a lot of people, if they're watching, have probably seen your marketing and don't don't, don't realize it. You know, I see some of the products that you sell and some of them are big stuff, you know? Yeah, I.

Jordan (00:03:52) - Mean, we've been selling products on the internet now, um, for the last ten years. And so it's, you know, it's been a fun journey. I mean, prior to that, I was working on a lot of lead gen campaigns, which we still do a little bit of today.

Jordan (00:04:04) - Right? So like driving leads for, you know, Medicare or health insurance providers, auto insurance, mortgage, etc.. Um, but the bulk of my business has been in e-commerce, and I am, I would say, with 100% certainty for anybody listening right now, they have seen our products selling on one platform or the other. Uh, we're pretty agnostic in the way that we look at the platforms. And when I say platform, like the marketing platform. So meta, an Instagram, Google, um, native marketing, which would be like there's two big companies called Taboola and Outbrain, and that's basically working out deals with companies like MSN or the weather.com, where you can get distribution on those platforms. And then obviously the big one that everybody's thinking about right now, that's at least for for e-commerce, is just starting to work, which is TikTok. Right? And, um, you know, TikTok is interesting because, you know, everyone's been on TikTok now for the last 3 or 4 years, right? Like that's when TikTok really started to grow.

Jordan (00:05:04) - And to take a step back, I was probably one of the first people buying media on Facebook back in like 2008. I mean, there was a couple guys before me, of course, but I was certainly very early there. And when I think back to the way that Facebook started and the types of products that you would see on Facebook selling, most of them were smaller lead gen type campaigns, right? So auto insurance and at that time, this was like when the economy was going through some crazy stuff. So you would see like loan modifications, debt settlement, there wasn't anything really transactional based, meaning there wasn't anybody selling physical goods or products on Facebook. Obviously. Fast forward today to today, and there's a very healthy mix of, you know, people that are driving lead generation campaigns and products that are actually selling on the platform. And if I look at TikTok, TikTok sort of started the same way. Everything was very lead gen focused for many years. And I'd say over the last 4 to 6 months I've seen a transition happening.

Jordan (00:06:06) - Part of that's probably because of TikTok shops. But I think also now the audience that has lived on Facebook for many years is also now on Facebook. And this is a bit of the older demographic that is used to buying things off of social media, especially when they see things where it's just a quick scroll through, right? Like flash items. Wow, I really need this. An impulse buy, right? They're finding their way onto TikTok, right? And that will definitely change the way that the platform interacts with its customer.

Chris (00:06:36) - So do you see TikTok as like huge growth coming? It's a place to be where if you're going to be marketing or if you want to create content, is that place for to plan on for the next. I mean, look.

Jordan (00:06:46) - It's it's already happened, right? So I wouldn't say it's like, yeah, this is going to be the place to be. People are there. People are making money on TikTok. Creators are making money on TikTok. So that's already happening.

Jordan (00:06:56) - But I think for for businesses like myself and other performance based businesses, there will be opportunities there because there's sort of two sets of media buyers that we look at. Right. There's the first set that I sort of would describe as like a classical traditional media buyer. They're essentially just placing ads on platforms. They're getting people to especially like impulse buyers or people that are just filling out all kinds of forms. They get people to stop. They get them to read their information really quickly in that ad. They get them to fill out some kind of form, and there's an action taken. Right. And this is like very traditional media buying. Then you've got all these content creators, right? And there's so many creators out there right now. And I think there's many creators that have done a very good job at figuring out how to monetize themselves. But there's way more that haven't really figured out how to actually make money online. Right. And so they're making all this content and they've got a good following, but they're not making a lot of money.

Jordan (00:07:53) - Right. Maybe people think they are. But I mean, for those of us that like, know and understand the inner workings and the behind the scenes, they're just not right, but they're figuring it out. And so they also now become sort of a form of a media buyer. Right? They're the way that they promote themselves is different. The medium is slightly different. But the reality is, is that their content at some point becomes transactional, if that makes sense.

Chris (00:08:20) - Yeah, that's the goal, right? I mean, you want to get to the point where you're, I don't know, selling your products, selling your digital products or whatever it is on these platforms. And I think there's a huge market for that. I know I'm a buyer on all these platforms, you know.

Jordan (00:08:31) - I mean, to some extent we all are. Yeah, right. And people always ask me, they're like, well, why would I buy something off Facebook if I could just go to Amazon? Right.

Jordan (00:08:40) - Like it's a question I get all the time and it's like, well, why not?

Chris (00:08:44) - Like, well, I go to Amazon if you're on Facebook and, you know, like like if.

Jordan (00:08:47) - You're buying based on whatever platform you're on, right? And there's there's obviously very different buying behavior. Right. And so there is this impulse buyer. And these are people like yourself to some extent myself you're scrolling through at night or in the middle of the day. You have a quick break. You see something that looks pretty cool, you're engaged with it, and you're like, I'm going to buy that, right? And you buy it right. And that's very different than someone that's going to Amazon with the intent of looking for something specific to buy at a particular time.

Chris (00:09:15) - And that's where the marketing comes in.

Jordan (00:09:17) - And that's where the that's exactly where the marketing comes in.

Chris (00:09:19) - Right. If you can get that, I don't know. What is it. Half a second. You got to get about two seconds.

Jordan (00:09:24) - Right. So you get about two seconds. You get you you grab somebody's attention and either they're a buyer or they're not. Right. And there's, you know, there are metrics that are used to really determine whether that person is a serious buyer or not. And what their intent is, but it's very different than, than, again, someone that's going to Amazon or even doing like a Google search where they're looking for something very specific and it does something. And it doesn't mean when you go to Amazon like you, you know, you go to Amazon sort of the way you're like in a grocery store. You go with the intention of buying five things and you walk out with 15, right? So Amazon works in the same way because they've done a good job. But a lot of what Amazon has used over the years, their tactics have really come from my world. Right. Like I remember when I first started the tactics of like upselling and bundling. I mean, this is things that marketers have been using for years.

Jordan (00:10:11) - It's nothing new. It's just Amazon figured out a way to do it in a more impactful way, in the sense that they were able to keep everybody on platform. Right? Right. Whereas like with Facebook or TikTok, not everything is on platform. The sellers are distributed, meaning they're not they're not all working through the same ecosystem. Right. If you think of Amazon as like an ecosystem, they're very distributed and therefore they're buying different things at different times, at different moments. Right. And it's very much like one off purchases.

Chris (00:10:42) - Yeah. I go to like for instance, I'll use Amazon or Google. Like when I'm shopping for something, I have an idea, like I want something, I need a shirt, or I need a pair of shoes or whatever it is, I'm looking for the other ones, I'm just scrolling or I'm looking for something and it pops up and it's like shit. Like I need, I need this. Like, as a matter of fact, I walk past the table in our office all the time.

Chris (00:11:00) - And you have those foot detoxifying. Yeah, I bought those two years ago. I had Instagram, you know, I'm like, I fucking bought it from Jordan, you know?

Jordan (00:11:08) - Yeah I don't there might have been hours you know not sure but yeah but yeah.

Chris (00:11:12) - Yeah. And you know and and and I got them and I'm like oh these things are awesome. They must be working you know and I and you buy it again or you get the email or the funnel starts hitting you, you know. And and that's the that's how you captivate people and keep them in your ecosystem then. Right.

Jordan (00:11:27) - Very different than like the Amazon process. Right? Yeah. It's very different. Um, I think, you know, for product owners. Right. And, you know, I don't know if our intention was. Talk about like products today. But like as a product owner, you know, like when you really win because the ecosystems are also very different. Right. Like so if you think of Amazon on one side of the ecosystem and then sort of like a funnel or a Shopify on the other side.

Jordan (00:11:50) - You go to a conference or events. There are very few people that play in both worlds. Oh really? Right. It's really weird actually. But the reality is, is that those that figure out how to live within both ecosystems, those are the ones that really win right at the end of the day, because Amazon can fuel your DTC business, as your DTC business can fuel Amazon. And if you figure out both, you have more margin to play with. It creates a competitive advantage. Obviously, you have more eyeballs and now you win. And it's not to say you can't be successful just selling on Shopify or just selling on Amazon, but when you figure out how to do both. It moves your business to a different level.

Chris (00:12:30) - What do you think? What's the opinion on like why some people, uh.

Jordan (00:12:34) - Don't. Bandwidth. It's bandwidth. Right? I mean, if you build it, you have to build a team. And the reality is the skill sets are very different across all platforms.

Jordan (00:12:43) - Right? And again, when you start thinking of each one as its its own separate ecosystem, like it's, you know, can you figure out the crossover between going from Shopify to Amazon or vice versa? How much work is required? Do you have the team to actually do it? The skills, expertise, knowledge, etc. to be successful and win there? Because the you know, the other reality is if you're not successful, you could launch a campaign or you could try to set up something on Amazon. You could either waste a lot of time or money, or just effort in general, into trying to build something that you're not successful with because there's somebody that understands it better than you and therefore they win. Right. And the same could be said with Shopify. Like, not all Shopify sites are created equal. And for the hundreds of thousands of Shopify stores that exist, you know, there's a very small amount of them that are actually really successful. Right? So I know tons of people that sell on Shopify.

Jordan (00:13:36) - I also know tons of people that I understand the inner workings of their business who are out promoting on social media, who are like, yeah, I'm on Shopify crushing it. It's like, all right, you got like a $200,000 business here. Like, that's not really what I would say is crushing you, right? Right. But. But they want everyone to believe that they've got this like massively robust, easy to run business. Well, that's.

Chris (00:13:59) - The whole thing with social media, right? People put that, that, that out there and it's maybe not the reality. Like I have an 11 year old daughter, she wants to start a Shopify store. She's drawing a clothing brand. She has designs, she has logos that she's drawn. And I'm like, look, you know, like we can play around, we can figure it out. I think it's a great lesson in entrepreneurship. It's a great lesson for her to learn and being in business and how things work. But I definitely have to explain to her, like, look, you don't get to go on Shopify and all of a sudden checks start showing up at the door.

Chris (00:14:29) - You know, I mean.

Jordan (00:14:30) - I guess you could be really lucky and that could happen, right? But that's few and far between. And the reality is, is that the people that that generally happens for is people that have massive influence to begin with. Right? Right. So I mean, if the Kardashians, they want to set up something, something on Shopify or really anywhere, they're going to be successful just based on their following. Right? And there are those stories, but that is not most people. And that that's not what typically happens.

Chris (00:14:55) - Just what's talked about most. Yeah, I.

Jordan (00:14:56) - Mean, I mean, you and I have had a lot of these, you know, a lot of these conversations over the last year sitting here. And I mean, I'm not the guy that you would come to and say, what do you think of the the four hour work day?

Chris (00:15:07) - Yeah, I.

Jordan (00:15:08) - I don't believe in that. I don't believe in this whole like everyone is now talking about.

Jordan (00:15:12) - Is there a potential for like a, you know, a four day work week. Yeah. If you if you want to be a very average person, then sure, there's potential to do anything. You could work twice a week. You can probably be average, but if you want to be a high performer, in my opinion, right. My opinion, you've got to put the work in.

Chris (00:15:29) - I've had this conversation with people, um, in my world, and it's like, you know, they don't want to work. They don't think they should work weekends or they don't think they could clock out at five. And I'm like, dude, no. The thing is, is like when you're an entrepreneur, you really have to approach it, that your work doesn't stop. You know, you may have an hour here or there, but like if you work Sunday, if you work Monday, if you work Saturday night, like that's just what it has. You just do what what's required, not what you want to do.

Chris (00:15:54) - Look, you have a global to me.

Jordan (00:15:56) - To me, it's really simple, right? Forget even us to go to the highest level. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, three of the most successful, wealthiest people in the world. Do you think they have a four hour workday? Yeah.

Chris (00:16:11) - I love hearing Elon Musk talk about his work. Like his work. He never stops, right? He lives in his office, right?

Jordan (00:16:18) - Warren Buffett. Yeah. He's like, you know, he's going to be 100. He's still working. Still putting the work in. Yeah. Yep. It doesn't stop. It doesn't. You want massive success, right? Right. There's no shortcuts. There's no cheat code. Putting in the work. Yeah. Of course you could work smart, right? As opposed to just working hard all the time. Because just because you're working hard doesn't mean you're going to have the massive payoff either, right? So there needs to be a few things in place in order to really achieve success.

Jordan (00:16:45) - You obviously have to be in the right industry, right? Right. And when I say that the right industry, that fits your personality for sure. Right. And I think a lot of people, many of us, I mean, I could say even for myself personally, right where I started is very different than where I am today. I wanted to be a watchmaker and a jeweler. Luckily, I had someone that I was working under at the time when I was very young that approached me and was like, look, I've seen a lot of people do this. You're a super great guy, but this is probably not the place for you to be because I don't think you're going to be successful. And while it broke my heart at the time when he told me that I was heartbroken and I was working for a guy, um, in the Diamond District in New York, right on 47th Street, and I thought, like, at some point I was like his apprentice. And I was like, I'm going to get a job.

Jordan (00:17:32) - And then at some point I'm going to take the business over or have my own business here, and I'm going to be a jeweler and I'll fix watches. I'm going to go to the Gemological Institute in the city and get licensed and grade stones. And he basically told me I had terrible hands and terrible lies, and I should find something else to do. And and yeah, at the time I was heartbroken. But the reality is it was the best advice he could ever give me because I do like my hands are basically pre arthritic from playing football and lifting heavy weights my whole life and my eyes are awful, right? I mean, I have Lasik now but my eyes were historically awful. Yeah, yeah. And I can barely type and I can't write. It's the reality.

Chris (00:18:13) - So looking back at that, you got to be super grateful for that message you got early on. I'm very grateful. Yeah. And when you get news like that, it's painful. And you're like, fuck, man, that was my dream.

Chris (00:18:25) - Like, this guy's like stepping on my dream, right? Like I had everything was planned, right? This is what I was going to do. This was my path to success. And you feel kind of it was all taken away from you.

Jordan (00:18:36) - I had a plan, man. Right? I was like, this is what I'm going to do. And and, you know, it's not to say that I couldn't have gone on and been successful. Yeah, but he was probably right in the assessment of I never would have been highly successful because I never would have gotten to the point where I would have been at like that the highest level. Because. Because yeah.

Chris (00:18:56) - Yeah.

Jordan (00:18:56) - Because there were certain things that were probably going to hold me back and having a shaky hand. If you want to become an excellent watchmaker, I certainly won it. Not having the ability, I can grade a stone at like a pretty basic level, and I'm sure with practice I would have gotten better. But the reality is, is that I would see guys that had just as much, much experience as I did that were able to grade a stone way better because they just had the natural ability and I for.

Jordan (00:19:22) - So I think, you know, the whole point here is like finding the right industry or right career, right business path that suits your skills the best.

Chris (00:19:31) - I think also like it speaks to the fact of like there's going to be obstacles, right? The plan that you have is not necessarily going to be the plan that works out. And I don't know this to be a fact, but I'm guessing here when you started your e-commerce business, I don't know that you plan to get to the level you're at. Or are you even plan to have the performance marketing in it, or bringing on clients for that? As things come to you, you have to be able to kind of, especially if you're an entrepreneur, like, mold and grow in a situation and make the best of opportunities and capitalize on things that are in front of you and take your losses, too.

Jordan (00:20:02) - That's all very true. Yeah. Very true. On the other hand, what I would say is that I do very early on that I was a good marketer, right? I knew that I could look at a product or a page, and I could assess whether I believed it would work or not, and more times than not, it would work.

Jordan (00:20:20) - Right. And so that again, if I think of the watch or the diamond where I had where I would struggle to put together the watch or struggle grading out the diamond, I didn't struggle looking at you or page. You knew it, understood the marketing really well, right? Right. And so instead of saying, well, fuck this guy, I'm going to go be a gemologist. You know, when I started to look at web assets, I was like, well, this is where I should really spend my time and double down because I'm clearly good at this, I enjoy it. I could build something big around this. Now you're right. When I initially started out, I certainly didn't think that we were going to build a, you know, what I would call an enterprise level company. It wasn't the wasn't really the plan or the goal. It sort of just happened. But I guess when you're when you're good at something, that's sort of what happens, right? Putting the work.

Jordan (00:21:12) - You understand the work. It comes naturally to you. Well, then, at some point, the only next place you could go is to really scale up, right? There is nowhere.

Chris (00:21:21) - Else. No, there's nowhere else in that. That. That's again like. What did you say 16 years ago? You started it? Yeah. And I can't imagine, like, I know you, you pretty much weather whatever the location is, you're working. You know what I mean? And to me, that's that speaks to the whole fact that, like, you're still at it, even though you've grown that level of business and that's, that's a, that's a lesson to people too, because something I've struggled with is complacency. I'll have a killer year. I'll have this or that going on. I'm like, I mean, I could chill for a week or two or a month, you know, I could spend a month and I always kick myself for it, and I'm not going to let it happen anymore.

Chris (00:21:56) - But to understand that, no, the work is never done. The work is never done. The work is never done. There's no way there's.

Jordan (00:22:02) - Always work, right? Unless you don't want there to be work, unless you are someone that's just complacent and that's look, it's fine to be that way also, right? There's nothing wrong with being complacent if it meets you, if you're happy, right?

Chris (00:22:15) - Exactly. If you're happy, that's the point, right? Yeah.

Jordan (00:22:17) - And and you know, to me, my happy place and, you know, I'm married, I love my wife, I have beautiful children. I love spending time with my children. But my happy place wouldn't be just sitting on a beach all day, right? Hanging out. It just. I like the beach. I love the beach, right? I love Florida, I like the islands, I love to sit on the beach. But it wouldn't be my happy place, right? My happy place is when there is work to be done.

Jordan (00:22:44) - Sometimes when there's chaos going on, I sort of thrive off of chaos, even though I complain about it. But I don't mind the chaos. And there's action and activity.

Chris (00:22:55) - I definitely can understand that. As a chef for 20 years, I had to have the chaos when it wasn't busy in the kitchen. It was like, all right, what do I do? You know, you're finding stuff to do. There's a lot of work to always do, of course, but it's like when I'm kind of like that, the outside chaos gets me focused on what needs to be done. It gives me a priority, a list of priorities in order of operations. All right. This is now this is this. You got you got to handle this in a certain amount of time. And it's the same thing in real estate now. Like, you know, I need if I got five, six deals being negotiated and I'm running around on the phone and pacing around, that's when I can perform better.

Chris (00:23:30) - When I don't have that.

Jordan (00:23:33) - And I would imagine that's like when there's challenges with those deals, right? Like on one hand, you're complaining. I can't believe this is so frustrating. But on the other hand, you're excited. That's like that dopamine hit, right? It's like if there isn't a challenge and the deal is too easy, it's not that exciting. It's not.

Chris (00:23:48) - Exciting. Yeah.

Jordan (00:23:49) - It's not. You make money, right? It's easier. It's less stressful. But there's no like, dopamine rush off of it because it wasn't that hard to begin with. Right?

Chris (00:23:57) - Yeah. I mean, look, there's a kid that works for me, and he's like, yesterday we were talking about this and he's like, dude, he's like. I don't feel like I'm earning the money on the commission check. I might be grateful for those deals, because there's a lot of the other ones that are that are different, like.

Jordan (00:24:12) - Where you've had to work for and.

Chris (00:24:13) - It takes six months, takes eight months or whatever it is, and then you feel like you got paid $5 an hour, you know, like, so those deals exist, but, you know, it's like anything else in, in business, in entrepreneurship like that will always be there.

Chris (00:24:26) - You know, there's always like bumps. And, you know, if you think something's going smooth, you get a call derails everything, you know, or whatever it is. Um. Having that mindset to understand. All right. We just got to solve this. Bring this head on and let's figure it out. You know, like let's just kind of put our cards on the table and see where it lands. And if it works and if it doesn't work, I'd rather have an answer. Yeah. You know, um. So. That being said about what you were saying before, like you love the beach and everything else. Like if you had to say right now what a retirement would be for you.

Jordan (00:25:00) - Yeah, it's it's not something I think about. Right.

Chris (00:25:03) - What? There's people who never retire. You know, I.

Jordan (00:25:05) - Have a buddy of mine, really good friend and he's been highly successful, similar industry, been highly successful. You know, we're a similar age, super successful guy.

Jordan (00:25:14) - And, you know, I talked to him like once a week or so and I'm like, how was your week? And he's like, yeah, I you know, I played golf every day. And I went, I did this and I saw my kids practice. And you know, I worked like three hours a day. And he's gotten to that point where, like, he can he could work 3 or 4 hours a day, maybe even less sometimes, and still be very successful because he's in a business that sort of runs itself.

Chris (00:25:37) - Right? It's built.

Jordan (00:25:38) - Yeah. And he's happy with that. He's very happy with that. I couldn't do that right. I don't think I would be happy.

Chris (00:25:46) - I know a lot, I know. My uncle. He was a very successful doctor. He retired at 55. And like he said, those were the hardest years of his life was when he retired. He had headaches. He didn't know what to do. He had anxiety. He had things that he was never used to not waking up with, with something to do or a purpose, you know? So he got into multiple different things and, you know, more of passion projects, but things that take up his time that he loved to do.

Chris (00:26:15) - And the couple of years when he was like, you know, because, you know, what does America say? You're going to get to a certain point, you retire and then you have nothing to do. And that's the goal. It fucking sucks if you're a high performer, you know, you sit there like, I'm on vacation and I'll go to the beach, but I got to leave the beach. I got to get on my phone. I have to do emails like I have to. I don't feel like I can sit around and do nothing. Yeah, it doesn't.

Jordan (00:26:36) - Like I don't think that makes you a bad person or care about your family any less. I think it's healthy. It's just what you obviously need as as a person, right? And it's the same thing that I need. You know, you asked me about retirement. Like there is no it. I think one is I'm not complacent at this point where I feel like I've achieved the level of success that I'd like to have, right? I constantly believe in the idea of like leveling up in one way or the other, right? Like constantly live my life around leveling up.

Jordan (00:27:09) - And I think even if I got to a point where I felt like, all right, I've, I've achieved, you know, this massive amount of success and no matter at this very high level here, well, then there's something new you could start doing where you're now at the lowest level and you've got a, you've got a level up there. Right, right. I mean, it's just like training, you know, I do I mean, I work out, I've been working out my whole life, but I actually I mean, I recently got into like jiu jitsu and, you know, I had been doing Muay Thai for a long time in boxing, and I wouldn't say that I was like, great, but but I was pretty good. And I got into jiu jitsu and it's like starting all over again because it's so different. Right? Right. And so while I'm a good athlete, I'm in great shape. I'm now back at the bottom. And so it's a it's a whole new challenge now.

Jordan (00:27:53) - Yeah. Right. So it's like now I have something to look forward to this new challenge that's in front of me. Right. And so I think it's, you know, for, for people like us, it's constantly challenging ourselves.

Chris (00:28:03) - And that's where you find.

Jordan (00:28:05) - And I think comparing yourself to I don't ever find myself comparing myself to someone that's like 60, right? Or like, oh, I want what that person has at 60. Um, my mind thinks more of like, what are people at 20 doing right now, right?

Chris (00:28:20) - Well, I see it now, and I and I see the younger generation and I'm like sometimes it it blows my mind. I'm like. The drive just seems different. The culture they grew up in seems different. Their mindset seems different about how they approach things and how they look at work and how they look at, um. Jobs and careers and entrepreneurship versus employment and things like that. And, and I'm, I kind of think there's a, there's a, a scale that's tipping maybe in the, in the wrong direction.

Chris (00:28:48) - I think as far as being a self-starter and a motivator and wanting more for yourself even.

Jordan (00:28:53) - Do you think that though, like, really like do you think it's it's it's like tipping in the wrong direction or do you think it's just the way that they view the world very differently?

Chris (00:29:01) - Because that's.

Jordan (00:29:02) - Because their values are very different than ours, maybe not even their values, but just the the resources that they have are very.

Chris (00:29:09) - Different. Yeah, maybe the wrong direction is not the right way to put it, but it's different for sure.

Jordan (00:29:15) - You know, you and I are both in our 40s, right. So like yeah, I mean, so, you know, we were brought up like in the 80s. We obviously didn't have smartphones or computers. But I mean, I look at my kids now, my oldest one is nine and she's really good on a on a smartphone or a tablet. And I think their ability to, to collect information is very different than the way that we learn. Right? If they want to know, they they can basically figure out something on the spot.

Jordan (00:29:44) - Right? We couldn't do that. We'd have to like go to the library and like dig around. Yeah, ask lots of people questions. And now it's like if my daughter wants to know something, she has that output in like 30s. So it's very different. And I think the way that I will change things and you know, where we're going to be in the next 10 to 15 years, like the workforce will be very different. And the way that people earn money will be very different. Yeah, that.

Chris (00:30:11) - I am that I agree.

Jordan (00:30:12) - And I think that's maybe something, you know, we look at them and I guess my point in saying that, like I look at what the 20 year olds are doing is like, there's still things you can learn from someone older, right? Like there's always knowledge there. But on the other hand, they're not going to teach you any of the new tricks because they don't understand the new tricks. Right? And there's so many things now to make life more efficient, um, and allow you to operate at a, you know, probably a higher level earlier on.

Jordan (00:30:40) - Earlier on.

Chris (00:30:41) - Yeah. It's it's it's.

Jordan (00:30:43) - Interesting.

Chris (00:30:43) - Maybe that gives a. A sense of ease. Maybe things are easier, they seem easier to them, and they really are. Because you, when you hit the the real world or the business world, all those tools will help you, right? But it comes down to the fact is, you still have to put the work in. You can do more work, you can be more efficient. You can do have more work product. I think because of the tools we have and the technology we have. But. I don't know about the the actual building. And like, when there's a problem to go get an answer on your own seems more difficult for the younger people because if it's not right in front of them, if it's not, they don't have it in five minutes. I see roadblocks and obstacles to them. Where? They're less engaged with themselves on how to go about something.

Jordan (00:31:33) - Yeah, I mean that I agree with. Yeah.

Jordan (00:31:35) - But I think the, the work will change. Yeah. That's that's kind of the point to me is that the work will be very different and the work is different now. I mean, look like we're sitting here talking and this isn't something that we could have done 20 years ago. And if we and if we did there, no one would, there would be no one listening like, at all. 100%.

Chris (00:31:55) - Um.

Jordan (00:31:56) - And no one would care. No one would even care to listen. They'd be like, who are these two guys? What are they talking about? Who cares? Right? They're not professionals. They didn't write a book, right? Why do I want to listen to them? Whereas now, because of the way things are, it's very different. And people are willing to listen. You think people are more curious now? There are I think so.

Chris (00:32:14) - I think so too.

Jordan (00:32:15) - In a different way though, like in a very different way, because there's much more information out there, like readily available to you.

Jordan (00:32:20) - Right? I mean, it's it's made me more, more curious about things and the way that I can consume. I can consume much faster now. Right? So I can learn about lots of different things very quickly. Now, on the other hand, as you said. You know, if I think just like thinking about my industry. Right? So, um, someone, you know, 20 years ago, when I first started, you wanted to build a website. Like it was a whole process, right? You had to find a developer or a designer to build out the site, put together like a wireframe for it. Like there was a whole process. The process at times took longer than actually doing the work. To build it right, you had to put all the resources together. Now, obviously platforms like Shopify came around and there's funnel builders, like we've built our own funnel builder, right, to help us build out pages. Um, and we can do everything very quickly today.

Jordan (00:33:06) - Now, that said, just because you could put the site up really fast, right, which you couldn't do years ago, the site still has to be built to sell people things right to market to people. And that's where the work comes in, right? So everybody's like, oh, I could go build a website really quick and have a Shopify setup within a couple of days. Very true. That is very true. But to your point on doing the work like the actual work and understanding the work itself, that is still something that needs to be learned, right? And if you don't have that education and you haven't like studied your craft at a high level, yeah, you can build the site, doesn't mean it's going to be successful. And you could build it really fast, right? Because I guess you could build you could have built a site 20 years ago and it wouldn't have been successful either, right, if you weren't a good marketer. So, so like we've shaved off tons of time on the build out right of things.

Jordan (00:34:00) - And I'd say this isn't just on websites. I'm using that as an example. But in life in general, you can cut out a lot of time and doing things very quickly. You could build a car now faster, you can watch a YouTube. Everything's put together a car doesn't mean you're going to be a good car driver or racer, right? Just means you could build a car because you watch the video driving the driving the actual, the actual work you have to do to use it has to. Be developed over time.

Chris (00:34:28) - You've shown me two pages next to each other, and they look this almost to the naked eye. They look so much similar and once converting way more than the other. That's your craft, right? You understand why you can see differences and stuff like that. I think most of the people, like when you've explained it to me or when you've asked my opinion on stuff, and few times I've, I picked the one that sucks and I'm like, holy shit, like.

Chris (00:34:50) - That's the difference. And it's that little nuance. Like you're saying, you build that site, you build that landing page or that checkout page could make the difference of, I don't know, millions of dollars in sales. You know, it's it's and they're small changes. And I would.

Jordan (00:35:04) - Imagine like this holds true in any industry. Right? I mean, you're obviously in real estate, right. Like there's lots of people can go in and make an assessment on the house. Yeah. But the really good ones can break down every aspect of that house. Why, why and why like a family should actually live in the house. Like why it's right for them. Why it's the right house for a family that may not understand that. Right. And that's the difference between being good at what you do versus being great. Right. And I and again, to the point of like being able to consume lots of information. There's a purpose for that and a use case. Right. But then it's what do you do with the information once you have it.

Jordan (00:35:42) - How do you apply it? And have you actually put in the time, effort and work to develop your skills so you could really take advantage of the information you're consuming?

Chris (00:35:52) - And also I think. I know for me I consume a lot of information, but I have to be able to say like, no, that is not that shit's not for me, you know, because there's there's information on everything. I'm always looking at sales and sales, language and psychology and stuff like that. And I'm like, okay, that's not going to apply for me. This one will. I'm going to I'm going to go with this. I'm going to study this. I think there's the amount of information is almost paralyzing to some people because they'll get they'll go all in on something and say, no, well, this guy said this, this guru, you know, said that. And it's like, all right, they're going to switch direction before they gave the first one a real beta test, you know, in their life, you know, so the information is, is can be prohibitive because there's so much of it.

Jordan (00:36:37) - Gurus to me are. Very dangerous. Yeah.

Chris (00:36:40) - For sure.

Jordan (00:36:41) - For a lot of different reasons. Um, you know, I think one one of the main reasons is that they create false hope for people, but also can provide a lot of misdirection. Right. And that misdirection could lead to loss of time, money time and money opportunity, frustration. For someone to like, you know, decide at some point that maybe what they've been working on, which they really feel passionate about, isn't going to work for them because they've been given misinformation. So I you know, I think there are some people out there that I don't necessarily know if the guru is the right term, but they actually provide real, valuable insights and information to people, and they're people that you should be listening to. And there's a lot you can learn from them. But there are a lot of people who who, because of the way that content is consumed now and the way that platforms work, they just hop on. They provide a lot of really bad, dangerous information to people, and they have millions of viewers, right? So there's millions of people watching them, and they're just giving out all kinds of nonsense to people.

Jordan (00:37:46) - That's dangerous and scary. And I you know, there was I mean, look, as a smart marketer, there's people that I even like fell victim to at certain times in certain projects where I'm like listening to someone and they're such a good, you know, charlatan, as we call them. Like they're so good at what they say and what they believe, you buy into it, and then you realize after 12 months you're like, Holy shit, this is all bullshit. It's all smoking and wasting my time here. Maybe you've put some money into it so you're wasting money. And, you know, you have to rethink your whole strategy then.

Chris (00:38:21) - Yeah. Yeah. They captivate you, man. You know, that's what it is. And and they're everywhere. Um. I only got a couple minutes left. I got to get to a home inspection. We're going to do this again. I'd like to do this every week. Yeah. For sure. Um, or more than that. But, um, as far as, like what you see in the future for your industry, like the short term future, is there many changes coming? Is there like I saw yesterday, there's all different new laws coming for social media and regulations and things like that.

Chris (00:38:50) - Like does that affect you? Will it affect you or what do you see coming as far as the next year? If you know, because everyone wants to be calm now, right. Oh, do you get an econ. Get into this, get into that affiliate marketing, post your links. You know, like what you look.

Jordan (00:39:04) - I think for me, the way that I look at things is, again, having having been doing this for the last 16, 17 years, there's there's changes every year. Every year. Right? I, I've been in industry, I was talking to one of my colleagues and we were talking about like SEO and you know, I've heard for the last 15 years that SEO is dead, but yet I know people doing SEO that are very successful. Right? Right. An SEO should be a big part of any business's mix if they're a serious company. You know, I've, I've heard for years that, you know, Facebook was going to die over after the iOS 14 updates, and yet it impacted things for about six months.

Jordan (00:39:42) - And then smart people figure out how to get around the changes. Platforms adapt. And basically you're back to normal again within 6 to 12 months.

Chris (00:39:53) - As you figure it.

Jordan (00:39:53) - Out. So things always change. You know that we're moving to a cookie less environment. And, you know, this may be a little high level for this conversation. We can break that down at some point. But basically, you know, Google is going to be making some updates here in the very near future. And, you know, there's there's a lot of people that are very nervous about those changes. Right. But I think it's also what tracks you. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think the people that are nervous, they're nervous for a few reasons or they think about it for a few reasons. One, it's a great conversation to have. So it creates good content. Right? Two is you can build product around fear, right? I mean, that's one of the greatest marketing tactics in the world is a fear angle.

Chris (00:40:32) - Here comes the presidential election, man. We're gonna be filled with it. Yeah, right.

Jordan (00:40:35) - So it's fear, right? Right. And then the third one is people just misinformed, right? So they don't really understand how it works. They believe they do, but actually they don't understand the impacts. And so they're just like having conversations or spreading information based on being misinformed or just lack of understanding. Right. And so my feeling is that Google is a great company. They've been around for a very long time. They have some of the smartest people working there. If they're not overly concerned. I don't feel the need to be overly concerned as a marketer. Right. They'll sort of figure it out on their platform. We understand how to build tools and utilize techniques on our side and therefore. What are we really overly concerned about?

Chris (00:41:16) - I feel like and this is from a low level understanding of this. Right. But like you remove the cookies. You're going back to the area of like you just got to be the best marketer.

Chris (00:41:25) - Now you have to capture people's attention.

Speaker 3 (00:41:30) - Yeah. No, I mean yes or no. Yes.

Jordan (00:41:34) - That's true. Like the marketing part of it is important, right? Obviously there's new technology, right? So having a good tech stack and understanding the way that the tech stack works is an important part of it. But that's again, I guess what I'm saying is that's really been a part of it the whole time. Right? Right. Like. If I think of Facebook just using Facebook as an example, pre iOS 14, there was a period of time where basically anyone could set up an ad on Facebook and with very little skill, they could be successful. Because Facebook was so good at giving you data that it was almost impossible not to be successful. Post iOS 14. It did level up the playing field a little bit, right? It drove a lot of the you know what I would say, like fly by night, get lucky, not putting in the work marketers out because they couldn't figure it out.

Jordan (00:42:27) - And so they moved on to becoming gurus because that was easier for them than actually buying the media. Right. But for those that stayed in and understood the the small nuances or the things they needed to do to get around whatever is happening with, um, you know, the pixel and the data, etc. they figured it out, they adapted. And, you know, now it's business as usual. Right? And the reality is, I mean, that's been reflected in the price of Facebook stock. Right? And the way that the earnings have gone up significantly over the last year or so, it's been reflective in the market itself, where Facebook has roared back from a platform perspective in terms of being able to sell product or get people to take an action and filling out a form, etc.. Right. And so you look at all that and it's again, it really comes back down to basic fundamentals. If you're really good at what you do and you put the time and effort in and do the work and understand what it is that you're actually what what your goal is, what you're trying to achieve, then there's no reason why you can't have success.

Jordan (00:43:27) - But if you're just in it for for a quick hit, when things change, there is cause for panic. Rightfully so, because you're not prepared in the first place. You're left.

Chris (00:43:37) - Behind. Yeah, you get left behind. Yeah. Awesome. All right, man, well, thank you so much for this time. Um, put some comments out there. Put some questions down there. We'll hop back on next week. We can go Jordan can go deep into the marketing aspect of what he does and, uh, the psychology behind it, which I find fascinating. And, um, thanks for joining us.

Jordan (00:43:56) - I'm sure. Thanks for letting me.