Using Data To Make Millions And Avoid Failure With Matt Gallant
Manage episode 309422593 series 3032894
Matt Gallant is a serial entrepreneur who has collected over seven million leads in various industries. He has scientifically tested well over 10,000 different marketing ideas, generated tens of millions of dollars online and built his dream international lifestyle.
He’s known by his peers as “the mad marketing scientist.” Matt’s constantly testing new radical ideas inside his companies. He’s a serial entrepreneur, a life optimizer and a practical spirituality student. He has rewired his brain into hyper-functioning by actively exploring his trauma experiences.
In this episode, we’ll be discussing the darkest time of Matt’s personal and professional life. We discuss the single most valuable skill he has learned to create absolute freedom in his life. And Matt shares his interpretation of failure and how he’s totally transformed his mindset around it.
Key Points From This Episode:
- Being market-centered instead of self-centered.
- Matt’s first real entrepreneurial gig with College Pro Painters.
- How MMA events taught Matt the art of hustle.
- The darkest moment in Matt’s marketing journey.
- Trusting that you’ve got what it takes to make it.
- The value of structured experimentation.
- Why we need to put knowledge into action.
- Balancing the visionary and the integrator.
- How Matt overcame his social and spiritual bottom.
- Are entrepreneurs more prone to addictive habits?
- Why we need to be aware of our character defects.
- Karma doesn’t always have to be a bitch.
- Cleaning house: Matt’s spiritual awakening.
- The power of neuro feedback and forgiveness.
- Four things that create trauma, acknowledging and reversing it.
- Why great data shapes destinies.
- Does failing just mean stopping?
- Overcoming fear: Three challenges you can start today.
- And much more!
Tweetables:
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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Unbound Merino – http://unboundmerino.com
Matt Gallant – http://mattgallant.tv/
Bio Optimizers – https://bioptimizers.com/
Dawson Church – https://dawsonchurch.com/
Infinite Profit Solutions – http://www.infiniteprofitsolutions.com/
Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman – https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Fuel-Essential-Combination-Business/dp/B012HJOBRY
Power vs Force by David Hawkins – https://www.amazon.com/Power-Force-David-Hawkins-Ph-D/dp/1401945074
Letting Go by David Hawkins – https://www.amazon.com/Letting-David-Hawkins-M-D-Ph-D/dp/1401945015
Matt Gallant on Hacking Your Brain– http://mattgallant.tv/hacking-brain-5-days/
Transcript Below
EPISODE 030
“MG: Even when things don’t work, right? Again, I just locate it as data and I’m a very data driven person because I really feel that great data shapes destinies.”
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:14.7] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.
Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.
[INTRO]
[0:00:39.7] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes that failing in a hyper focused way is the fastest way to quit a job, start a business and live a life of absolute freedom in a world that only shares successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories.
Today’s story is of Matt Gallant. Matt is a serial entrepreneur who has collected over seven million leads in various industries, scientifically tested, well over 10,000 different marketing ideas and generated tens of millions of dollars online and built his dream international lifestyle.
He made his first sale in internet in 1996, and since then has built over 39 profitable websites in various sectors in industries selling eight figures worth of products and services online. He’s been called by his peers “the mad marketing scientist” since he’s constantly testing new radical ideas inside his companies.
He’s a serial entrepreneur, a life optimizer and a practical spirituality student. We’ll be discussing the darkest time of Matt’s personal and professional life, you definitely don’t want to miss this. The single most valuable skill he has learned to create absolute freedom in his life and how Matt interprets failure and has totally transformed his mindset around it.
First, I’ve got a lot of travel I just completed and I’m actually heading to New York on Wednesday and luckily, all I need to travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s a shirt from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino. They have clothes made out of marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.
You should wash it but you don’t have to. It’s a traveler’s absolute dream, check it out at the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t get anywhere else and if you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways form each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com
[INTERVIEW]
[0:02:50.3] RN: Let’s go back to really the first time somebody give you money in exchange for a product or service that you created?
[0:02:57.0] MG: My first product was a service, guitar lessons. I was 16 years old, started playing guitar when I was 12 and really got into Metallica playing every day and it got to the point where I could play most of the solos from Injustice For All. Then I did a show at the school and you know, a lot of people were impressed so then some people started asking me to give them guitar lessons. That was my first ever product.
[0:03:21.7] RN: Did you want to be a rock star?
[0:03:23.5] MG: Yeah.
[0:03:23.8] RN: That was the idea?
[0:03:24.5] MG: I wanted to be James Hatfield badly, desperately. Yeah, that was the dream for a while and did the rock band thing, recorded a CD and that was fun. And then online, my first sale ever, I was 19, my first year in university and I was on a news net board and I just sold the training program. I think the guy sent me 50 bucks and I sent him a training program, that was my first online sale which was 20 years ago.
[0:03:51.2] RN: What was the training program or was that your whole plan to put this training program together then sell it online?
[0:03:56.4] MG: No, it was just kind of organic, you know, it was news net board and I was just sharing about training and then the guy messaged me.
[0:04:04.3] RN: You're saying news net, news net is.
[0:04:06.6] MG: This is before forums.
[0:04:07.6] RN: Exactly. But it’s a same idea as a forum.
[0:04:10.0] MG: Yeah, it was kind of the original news board, bold and board forums.
[0:04:15.5] RN: Got it. You posted there, he saw it and –
[0:04:19.7] MG: Yeah, just organic sale. I didn’t kind of run with it but it definitely gave me a strong dopamine hit and I was like “Okay, this is cool.”
[0:04:27.0] RN: You’re like “Wow, why is this dude sending me 50 bucks. I don’t know this guy, he never seen me before.” It had to be a bit of a mindset shift.
[0:04:35.5] MG: Yeah, it was a mindblower.
[0:04:36.5] RN: Yeah, once you’ve got that you’re like, like you said, it’s like a little dopamine hit, in your mind you’re like, “I got to do this more, I got to get this out there.” What was your thought?
[0:04:45.8] MG: Yeah, then my next big marketing experiment was at national inquirer because my aunt had this huge stack and I’d see these weight loss ads, you know? I’m like, “Let’s run a weight loss ad in there” and so we ran a little classified ad. I think we spent like 150 bucks and we got 130 calls.
People would leave their address, it was a logistical nightmare. Way before the internet. I had no copywriting training but I whipped together like a four page sales letter for a book that had I had never even created before but I’m like “To hell with it, we’re going to sell it. If it sells, I’ll create the program.” I got one sale and the check bounced.
But it was a great experiment, kind of fits to the whole topic of your podcast which is the fail on. To me, it’s just data, it’s just experiences. All of those things lead to bigger wins.
[0:05:42.9] RN: That was a cool little experiment because you had enough knowledge to know, you didn’t have to create the product before seeing if there was a market, right? You knew, let’s do a little test, see what kind of data we get back before we actually spend hours and money building the product.
[0:05:59.6] MG: Yeah, exactly. I think for a lot of people listening. If your coach or if your thought leader, one of the best strategies which a lot of guys have done is to sell the program and then create it as you go.
[0:06:13.4] RN: Based on feedback, right?
[0:06:14.8] MG: Yeah. I know one guy, he created this deep, epic program and had no sales. That’s tough.
[0:06:24.2] RN: Which is super common, right? Because I think most people, I think it’s changing. People are getting smarter about how to start a business, how to create products without putting the cart before the horse but I think it’s super common for people still to have this huge idea, not validate it, put the product out there and then it just you know, goes to the product graveyard.
[0:06:42.1] MG: Absolutely. I think one of the big shift people need to make and it’s a tough one is to be market centered instead of self-centered. That’s really tough because at the end of the day, we all want to do stuff that we’re excited about.
We all want to do things that fit our biases but the challenges, sometimes the market doesn’t care about what we love, right? The more we can get back into the mindset of the people we’re trying to serve. Especially if you become really advanced in what you do and something sometimes I struggle with in certain markets. You forget what it was like and you’re completely disconnected from the beginners and a lot of times that’s where the money is.
[0:07:24.9] RN: Yeah, it’s so true. Just to continue the journey. You sold that first product and you’re like, okay, there’s something to this. What was your journey from there?
[0:07:35.5] MG: Well, I didn’t really go deep down that rabbit hole at that time. The next big journey was College Pro Painters. I saw this ad “Make $10,000 a summer.” That sounds good. I applied and to this day, it was the toughest interview process I’ve ever done, it was very intense and got the gig and to this day, was probably the toughest entrepreneurial test by fire that I’ve done.
[0:08:05.5] RN: For those that don’t know, what is college pro painters?
[0:08:09.7] MG: Well College Pro Painters is owned by a company that has mastered the franchising process and College Pro Painters is a franchise that they’ve built, every year they recruit new university students, they train them on how to build a painting company. The marketing side, the hiring side, how to paint, how to do estimates, the whole nine yards.
Literally, within months, you’re going to take people from zero to a functional painting entrepreneur.
[0:08:41.5] RN: What you’re applying for was to actually have your own painting franchise essentially?
[0:08:46.2] MG: Correct.
[0:08:46.7] RN: Okay, got it.
[0:08:49.1] MG: That was my first real entrepreneurial experience.
[0:08:53.0] RN: Yeah, toughest part about that was what?
[0:08:55.5] MG: There was a lot of things, first, it was February and we had to go on the streets in Canada. Actually knock on doors and say, “Would you like a free estimate to paint your house next summer?”
It’s dark, it’s literally minus 20, minus 30 Celsius and you know, you’re getting rejected. I mean, you’re getting like one lead an hour, right? That was just tough on all levels and just facing the fear of cold calling, right?
[0:09:27.2] RN: Knocking on doors.
[0:09:27.7] MG: Knocking on doors, people I don’t know and there was a lot of fear because I’m selling a product that I’ve literally never delivered. There’s always a part of my, in my thinking saying, “You know, what if I screw this beautiful house up?”
That was a legitimate fear because I’ve never painted before. Then…
[0:09:49.9] RN: Were you comfortable by the way just going into these cold calls or is that something you had never done before? Go to strangers, trying to sell something that you had.
[0:09:57.1] MG: Never done. Yeah. That was again the training.
[0:09:59.5] RN: Super –
[0:10:00.7] MG: By fire. Yeah. Lot of fear facing there and – but then, the...
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