The 50-Million Dollar Man Exposes Hidden Business Growth Strategies | Joshua Shafran | 312

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March 8, 2021

Joshua Shafran is a serial entrepreneur, media expert, and business strategist. He earned the nickname “The 50-Million Dollar Man” after growing several startups into multimillion-dollar businesses. Joshua is well-known for his industry-leading Net Profits on Demand (N-POD) system and is also the best-selling author of the book, The Profit Prophet, and co-author of The Work at Home Manifesto.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Joshua Shafran shares the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when building their businesses online
The importance of staying focused on your “stupid human trick”
Joshua’s advice for building momentum with your business: start with process goals first
The process of legitimizing, personalizing, and capitalizing your outcomes
Joshua and Dan Kuschell’s experience building and launching a successful business together in just one day

In this episode…

Have you hit a wall in your business and don’t know which way to turn? Are you struggling with burnout, overwhelm, or fear of missing out? After starting a business, many entrepreneurs struggle with building and maintaining the momentum they need to achieve their goals. So, what are the strategies and systems you need to get the ball rolling?

According to business strategist Joshua Shafran, the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make when building a business online is getting too distracted by all the illegitimate noise. As he says, 95% of the options, innovations, and information you see will only leave you feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. That’s why Joshua’s advice to entrepreneurs is to legitimize, personalize, and capitalize your online usage so you can stay focused on your one true business vision.

Joshua Shafran, renowned entrepreneur, author, and business strategist, joins Dan Kuschell on this episode of Growth to Freedom to discuss his expert strategies for building momentum for your business. Joshua shares his advice for overcoming burnout online, why you should start with process goals versus outcome goals, and his method for legitimizing, personalizing, and capitalizing your business outcomes. Stay tuned for more!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com.

Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall in growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. You can do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com. That’s breakthroughstrategycall.com.

In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com. That’s activate.breakthrough3x.com.

If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

Episode Transcript

Dan Kuschell 0:03

Let me ask you a question. Are you in a place where you might want to be building a business that’s built from a place of prosperity versus scarcity, where you’re able to tap into hidden opportunities to be able to understand and unlock an avalanche of hidden opportunities lying at your feet. Well, you know, if that’s the case, you are going to love our guest expert that’s with us as part of the 300 episodes, 30 years series that we’re celebrating today with clients, with friends, with mentors, celebrating this journey that I’ve had in business, and recognize you’re just one breakthrough away. Our guest expert, his name is Joshua Shafran. He’s a serial entrepreneur. He’s a media expert. He’s a business and marketing innovator, a strategist, he’s been nicknamed by other experts “The 50 Million Dollar Man.” And sometimes even “the reclusive millionaire,” as well as a multiple best selling author of The Profit Prophet: Income for Life. Co author, I won’t say who the other author was, but you might be able to guess The Work at Home Manifesto, as well as this product that changed the industry, quite frankly, called Net Profits on Demand, and he can help you find an unlock an avalanche of hidden opportunities and talents lying at your feet. Why do I know this? He’s someone who helped through that for me. We’ve known each other for almost 20 years, Joshua, I believe,

Joshua Shafran 1:35

Yeah, Dan, close now.

Dan Kuschell 1:37

amazing, an amazing journey. And both from our family side of things, as well as the business side of things. And I’m incredibly grateful to have you with us in celebrating this, this journey. Today, so I want to dive right into it. Because we, you know, we, you know, made a commitment. We’re gonna pack a lot of wisdom in about 10 minutes.

Joshua Shafran 1:56

with that introduction. We don’t have time for anything else. Dan, thank you so much.

Dan Kuschell 2:01

Yeah, that killed seven minutes. Right there. Yeah.

Joshua Shafran 2:03

Right. I appreciate you bragging on me. Cuz, you know, I’m not I hate doing that for myself. But thank you.

Dan Kuschell 2:10

You’re welcome. So, so what do you say? I mean, you’ve worked, you know, the better part of several decades at this. And, you know, we we’ve collected collaborated on a lot of stuff over the years, but what do you see are some of the biggest mistakes, Joshua getting in the way of most people’s success in business or even personal development right now?

Joshua Shafran 2:30

Well, it depends on where they’re at in the journey, I think probably, like, if they’re looking specifically for building success online, I think it’s probably being overwhelmed, listening to too much noise, having all the voices in your head and not having a clear, cohesive working plan for how does this work for me, you know, like, if you can get past all the illegitimate stuff out there, I’m not talking about that I’m talking about like, there’s millions of amazing, great things that are innovations that are that are truly legitimate, awesome things, applications, software, you know, SAS products, the technology, all and then different methods of marketing, and so on and so forth. What I’m talking about, like is having a cohesive game plan that’s personalized to the individual, the entrepreneurs vision for what they’re looking to create, and then blocking out anything that doesn’t support that vision. And I think that’s probably the biggest issue that I see. And, and frankly, it’s something that I still have to struggle with, personally, myself.

Dan Kuschell 3:52

I mean, it is I get all right. I mean, at the end of the day, there’s so many mixed messages, right? You got one experts saying this go left yet another experts say no, don’t go left, go right. And so you know, you the voices like are from a lot of these experts, who again, as you said are legitimate, but they they differ in methodology. And this is really important if you’re struggling with, you know, overwhelm, burnout, you know, like dealing with these mixed messages, pay close attention to what Joshua has shared with you here about tuning into the key question, which is how does this work for me, meaning you as you’re watching or listening, you know, right now now, Joshua, again. I’m going to jump around just a little bit here, you know, partially because Yeah, dude factor, but again, you’ve been doing this for several decades. You give me some people, a lot of context, you’ve had ups, you’ve had downs, you’ve had a lot more ups than downs. But why are you

Joshua Shafran 4:48

I wouldn’t say a lot more ups than downs. I mean, in the grand scheme of things like the results, the overall results outweigh the the failures, but the failures outnumber the successes. By far,

Dan Kuschell 5:01

yeah, and you know, some of the, you know, we’ve talked about this over and over, right? For every one winner, there’ll be like six, seven losers, right? And a lot of people don’t have the stamina, mentally, emotionally to deal with that. And like, that’s part of your journey of, you know, decades of experience and work and still being able to play the game and enjoy it and love it and still be able to help people. So So why are you doing what you’re doing today?

Joshua Shafran 5:26

Well, it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, is getting real clear on my stupid human trick, and what it is that I want to contribute and make an impact on the world with. And when I stay centered there, my decision making process is real simple. When I get distracted, and think about all the different things that I could be doing, then I start you know, Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom. And, like, Good news, bad news with me is that I believe that I can learn anything, do anything, and I can create the you know, figure it out. But that doesn’t mean that it’s to be done, you know, by me. And so when I’ve gotten real clear, and stay in touch with what my stupid human trick is, and what and in what I want to do in the world, which for me, is empowering others and empowering myself to boldly mold an unprecedented bigger future on their terms, you know, according to what they determine that to look like for them. And unprecedented is a key word there because it’s never before have been reached, at least by them. And we’re in the way that they want to do it. And I I’m not interested in regurgitating the same old shit that everybody else has done. I want to empower people to you know, live boldly so that they can leave a trail behind them of the different, you know, that other people will put point to as proof and evidence that it will work, but they you know, forge their own path, so to speak. And when I say centered there, life, life’s good.

Dan Kuschell 7:06

Yeah. And speaking of being centered there, right, and, and really focusing on that stupid human trick, right? What do you see right now? I mean, you you’re very prolific at what you do. Right? And you help people get a lot of momentum with what they do. Like, what are 1 to 3 strategies that you see working right now that people would be well served to be focusing on those one, two or three strategies? What are they and, and how

Joshua Shafran 7:32

Start with process goals first, hmm, not outcome oriented goals. And what I mean by that is, get a little bit of momentum under your belt first, and I’m working my working title for this concept is the Law of Momentuming. And, you know, by focusing in, I think that we get bogged down in the details, when we when we think it has to look a certain way, we want a certain outcome. And so then we start second guessing ourselves, then and we get zero momentum as a result of that. And so what a process goal means to me is to number one, focus in on the activities that you want to do, and celebrate the fact that you honored Your Word, and that you got some forward motion in that you don’t give a crap about what it looks like and what the, the outcomes are superfluous. I used to call this give yourself permission to fail. Now, it’s the you know, the the process oriented goals, because as soon as you can get over that outcome, being having to look a certain way, then you’re freed up to start to create momentum, and you’ll find that it actually can build on itself rather rapidly. So that’s one particular method that I highly recommend everybody, you know, if you’re not in momentum, if you’re in a nursery right now, and you’re looking to overcome that, that that is the at least for me, and the people that I’ve shared this with the easiest way to to, you know, create momentum for yourself and get that breathing room. And remember, it’s just like the law of compounding, right? A penny a day doubled it every day 100% compounding for 30 days, it turns into five point something million dollars in that doubling cube, right? But the The secret is that if you stop doubling it, when the when it feels like it’s not doing anything, like on days one through 14 when by day 14 you’re only making like I think $1.68 in that process and you’re saying well, this isn’t working, you never get to day 30 If you don’t, you know allow the process, the compounding to continue. It’s the same thing with gaining momentum towards anything that you’re looking to accomplish.

Start with process goals first, not outcome-oriented goals. - Joshua Shafran Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 9:49

Yeah, and that works and you know, it works in business that works in health, it works in you know, with kids, it works with adults and everywhere in between, you know, I’m experiencing that, you know, law of momentum. concept with my son Kyler you know that he plays football and you know, and we’re in our his third year, you know, and during the week, you know, there’s a lot of the practice time and a lot of the grinding it so to speak in the process work, right, working on the repetitions, working on details, working on footwork, working on ARM angles, working on escape ability, etc, etc. Right, the process, and then once a week, you have the game, and you know, you get some outcomes from the game, right? And it just so happens that his outcomes are also matching up. But when you put the work into the process the outcomes at any time, the byproduct of it is you get results, right.

Joshua Shafran 10:37

Yes, sum total of of your, your process going in for sure.

Dan Kuschell 10:42

Absolutely. What What else? What’s another strategy not to undermine that one? Of course, what would be

Joshua Shafran 10:47

Well, I mean, what I recommend is a process of legitimize, personalize, and capitalize. And so when you’re evaluating anything that you’re looking to build, either, you know, I mean, this could apply to any subject in life, that you’re looking to create a successful outcome that you’re not living right now. First of all, legitimize all the the illegitimate or all the options out there. In other words, get rid of 95% of the options that are clearly bs that just have no business even being considered. Period, not for you. And then the second step is personalize it. So you sift out the the illegitimate stuff, and especially in the online world, that’s gonna, you know, eliminate probably 95% plus of the of the noise that is distracting you that you’re wondering, you know, what your, your, you know, spending time on, then if you personalize it, according to what you’re looking to accomplish according to your strengths, your weaknesses, your current situation, because it changes you know, like, what you’re looking to accomplish right now might be different than what you’re looking to accomplish and three or four years from now, or, or whatever, and then start to leverage it. And there’s always the the core concepts like in an online business, there’s only three things in leveraging it that you have to know about, which is, you know, traffic, your, your marketing system, and which includes your website and the technical stuff and involved there. And the optimization sides of it, you know, like making that better. So the communication, I mean, it comes down to some very core systematic, fundamental benefits and, and, you know, systems and if you can isolate what those are, and stay focused there, and then everything that you’re filtering through that, if it doesn’t support, your personalized, legitimize and capitalize, you know, plan, then you can say, Thanks, but no, thanks. I’m gonna, you know, maybe maybe later lists like, that’s not not, that’s not awesome, but I’m gonna put that on the maybe later pile that I can get back to, so that I don’t feel like I’m missing out and I don’t have fear of FOMO You know,

You sift out the illegitimate stuff and, especially in the online world, that’s going to eliminate probably 95% plus of the noise that is distracting you. - Joshua Shafran Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 13:05

that’s so good as you’re listening or watching right now, again, if you hit a wall, are you struggling with burnout or you feel feeling a sense of, you know, like, Oh, my gosh, like, I’m missing out, or I’m overwhelmed or I just, you know, I don’t know which way to turn. What would happen for you. If number one you focus on your stupid human trick number two, what if you focused on the process goal versus the outcome goal, and realize they come together? Number three, what would happen if you follow Joshua’s advice about legitimize, personalize, capitalize, get rid of the stuff that doesn’t fit sifted out sift and sorted quickly then then focus on your system to be able to leverage the traffic, the marketing system and the optimization now there’s a lot there to unpack. No, I mean, we’re just scratching the surface Joshua. And for the sake of this time together, and by the way, if you’re listening or watching right now you can come back to the full segment of this episode of growthtofreedom.com/300. If you never want to miss an episode you can go to growthtofreedom.com/subscribe, that’s growthtofreedom.com/subscribe. But if Joshua if someone is interested as peaked to go and man I like the way this guy thinks about things and simplifies things and help me get out of burnout and overwhelm. How can they reach you? Where can they go to learn more about what you’re up to brother?

Joshua Shafran 14:26

Well, thanks for that, teeing that up for me, I appreciate the opportunity. They can go visit me at prosperityondemand.com. And there’s some really cool stuff that I’m working on there and it’s just one of the the other you know about a bazillion business models that I’ve been building, but that one is very, very, very near and dear to my heart and it combines prosperity consciousness with you know, in the trenches, real world, like how do you make some sense Some business building stuff happen in the online world.

Dan Kuschell 15:04

So I want to encourage you to go to Prosperity on Demand, to be able to learn how to build a business through prosperity, right to be able to find out how to tap into, you know, working on process goals, to be able to use the law of momentum in your favor to be able to legitimize, personalize and capitalize and as importantly, simplify the process of traffic, your marketing system.

Joshua Shafran 15:29

I learned that from you, by the way.

Dan Kuschell 15:31

optimization, yes, well, thank you, I. Now I’m curious, like, you know, you’re the theme of this episode, or the series of these episodes with, you know, 13, 14, different experts, Joshua, that are sharing their wisdom. In this format. It’s about one breakthrough away, right. And I know both of us Subscribe to mentors and having coaches regularly and you know, being part of these different things, who’s a mentor or advisor that has inspired you, or maybe a favorite mentor or coach that you’ve had that you’d like to shout out?

Joshua Shafran 16:06

Well, other than the obvious, which is my brother from another mother sitting right above me, at least in my view, you. I’ve treasured the time that we’ve been friends, and more importantly, that we’ve had the opportunity to collaborate together, and learn together and grow together. So for me, it’s as much as part of you know, like, I’m, as you can tell from the books behind me and the programs. And, you know, I’ve invested well over, you know, seven figures in my education and mentoring and, and learning. But for me, some of the most meaningful, impactful things are the people that I get to work with in depth, and by far, and this isn’t me blowing smoke, by far the most memorable collaboration that I’ve ever had with anybody has been with you. And that’s been awesome. So I miss that, by the way, brother.

Dan Kuschell 17:00

I feel the same way. Brother and I have been sharing their story a lot lately. You remember it you remember our visit together when you flew into the Hilton? I do. And you’ve had that. Yeah, I think I can talk about this publicly. Yeah.

Joshua Shafran 17:15

Go ahead.

Dan Kuschell 17:16

The Two Comma Club. So Joshua is actually the founder and creator of the Two Comma Club. And I can get into more of it later, at another time, if you want to email us, and we can give you more of the backstory behind it. But he was the founder and creator of the Two Comma Club, this amazing newsletter of insights and wisdom. And I wanted a recurring passive revenue model. Only, I really didn’t want to do the work to write it. And he had like, 20, 25 additions, pre written and pre done. And when I read these things, I was like, Well, if I were gonna write something, I’d want it to be that damn good. So he ended up flying in and we had distribution, we had a client base. And we came together, we sat in the Hilton, you know, you know, you get into a relationship with people and you have ideas. And then you have to go through all the legal bullshit that ends up taking months and months. And then you finally implement like, nine years later, you if you’ve ever been through that, you know what I’m talking about? Well, we came together into the Hilton in the morning, we talked about the idea, we love the idea. And then we started building the idea. And we built the idea. And we launched the idea in the Hilton, we had a few customers buy the idea, like that afternoon. And that chemistry carried forward to some amazing, amazing, it’s kind

Joshua Shafran 18:27

of funny, I went in with one mission not to get off track, but I went in with one mission, which was to to look for how you could support me in my vision, which you did, but I left and shifted everything to support you and to build something even bigger together with you. And I’m so glad I did. It’s amazing for both of us. And you know, we ended up having over what I you probably know the exact numbers, but I think it was somewhere over 5000 paid subscribers on the Two Comma Club monthly newsletter.

Dan Kuschell 18:58

Yeah, which was an amazing business all by itself. And then we built some other businesses that grew you know, phenomenally so I’m incredibly grateful brother for the time.

Joshua Shafran 19:07

Likewise, man, thank you for including me in your favorite people. episodes, man. Absolutely.

Dan Kuschell 19:13

Absolutely. What what’s the one or two action steps you hope someone would take from this quick conversation we had today?

Joshua Shafran 19:19

Sort your email to get rid of the other stuff that you know unsubscribe to anything, even if it’s in the maybe later pile, put it in the maybe later pile and then do yourself give yourself permission to unsubscribe so that you can clear out your headspace and give yourself permission to personalize it so that you can like just because something’s awesome doesn’t mean it’s awesome for you. And you know, like you got to decide and only you can decide that and so be okay with it here. Poof, I grant you permission to make those decisions.

Give yourself permission to unsubscribe so that you can clear out your headspace. - Joshua Shafran Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 19:53

There you go. You’ve got it right from right from the N-Pod creator, the jackal I’m also the founder of the Two Comma Club creator of the Two Comma Club that later was sold to someone you might know but, but nonetheless, take action with what Joshua has shared with you apply it. And if you want to learn more, I encourage you go check out what Joshua, I mean, you can go on Amazon you can see the Joshua has got all kinds of books available. But if you want to get like direct, direct link almost feel like you’ve got him as a guide to your site then go to prosperityondemand.com, prosperityondemand.com. He built it kind of like being a guide on directly on your site as well. It’s almost like having him in your, your your pocket, so to speak. So go to Prosperity on Demand.

Joshua Shafran 20:39

is a really cool on demand video training series that you’ll see if you so if you sync up with what I’m doing there.

Dan Kuschell 20:47

Absolutely. So take action. And Joshua. Man, I appreciate you, brother.

Joshua Shafran 20:52

Right back at you, man. Enjoy the rest of your interviews. Man. This

Dan Kuschell 20:56

is awesome. Absolutely seize the day. Take action. We’ll see on the next segment with one of our next guests expert, you want to come back Go to growthtofreedom.com/300, growthtofreedom.com/300. For the full series, full segments. You never want to miss an episode of course go to growthtofreedom.com/subscribe And oh, by the way, do you know a founder, a CEO, and entrepreneur or business owner that would love to get the value from these insights, this type of wisdom that Joshua has just made available? Make sure to tap him on the shoulder, share the link, share the resources, it’s here for you right now. Take action. There you have it. You’re just one breakthrough away. One breakthrough away from your next big breakthrough. And Joshua has just given you at least five or six strategies you can put in place right now. Seize the day. We’ll see you on the next segment. Thanks for watching and listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com. Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall and growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. Do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com, that’s breakthroughstrategycall.com. In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You get that at activate.breakthrough4x.com, that’s activate.breakthrough3x.com. If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.