@0:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship.

This is your host, Mr. Flores. Today I am here with Doug Brown, the CEO of CSL Strategy and sells revenue and profit growth expert.

I'm very excited about this conversation because folks, you know how much I truly love talking about scaling and creating generational wealth.

Before we get too far, Doug, introduce yourself. Who is Doug Brown?

@0:58 - Doug C. Brown

Well, if I knew that, Gabriel. I wouldn't need all that therapy that right now.

@1:05 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You wouldn't need all that therapy you both.

@1:09 - Doug C. Brown

First thanks for having me on this show. really appreciate you having me here. You know I started working at the age of three and I worked with my dad's business at the age of three.

I swept floors actually for 25 cents a week. And I loved it because I was around the adults and I got a shiny quarter at the end of the week.

And back then you buy a lot of candy for 25 cents. I probably went into a diabetic coma or a few times when I was a young guy.

And I worked with my dad's business through all the way through when I got out of high school. And then I ended up going into the military.

always had side businesses growing up. After I got out of the military I went to college because that's what you're supposed to do.

And I was selling music. equipment through college and it was an awesome job because I get to work with all the bands that you know many of us at that time were listening to on the radio and um and you know I I had my degrees and I decided well you know I'll try a shot at the degrees and I went and worked for a hospital because I had them in biology and nuclear medicine and I realized and I'm in a business and it's not what I wanted I didn't know what I signed up for I wanted to help people so I decided to take a sales job for a corporation and I did and became the number one person out of over 300 reps at that company and during that process somebody asked me would I like to be a coach because I was helping a coaching company with their telecom services and I was giving them all kinds of advice on how to grow and scale their business and and I said well I used to play some semi-professional soccer.

Yeah, that was my response. I didn't even know what the hell they were talking about, Gabriel. And so they said, no, no, no, let me tell you what we're talking about.

You could be a business coach. And I said, well, that sounds like kind of fun. So I did. And along the path, I helped this guy named Jay Conrad Levinson, Gabriel, he was what they called the father of guerrilla marketing.

And I helped him grow his business a bit. And he introduced me to a guy named Chad Holmes, who wrote a book called The Ultimate Sales Machine.

I then asked them, can I be a coach for your company? And they said, yes. And I became the number one selling coach within the first six months of their business.

And that just kind of led on to me working with more and more companies. Eventually, I became the president of training and sales for that company, and then a small stack figure named Tony Robbins wanted to buy into the company.

So I ended up becoming Tony's president of sales and training for those companies for seven years, and it just kept going.

So we worked with thousands and thousands of companies through those things. And that's where I really learned the methodology that I deploy through working with these thousands of companies, and I look for the overlapping things that, what got them to move from point A to point B?

What are the metrics? are the optimization points? And that's how I ended up, you know, doing what I'm doing today.

I know it's a long breadth of answer, but I mean, that's how it happened.

@4:29 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

This is a perfect segue, because I love here in the history of the entrepreneurship growth, just so I can dig into it a little bit.

So we're gonna go ahead and bring it all the way back to age three, please tell me what the heck was your parents doing at age three, that they kind of get out there and start working.

@4:47 - Doug C. Brown

So what business did your parents have? So my dad owned an electric machinery, electric motor repair business. So we did new sales repairs, industrial equipment.

repairs and I still don't know all my brothers went through the same path right we all started very young I was thrust out in front of clients by the age of about five and a half to six and I would sit there and write orders and take you know take tags in as we call them back then so I was getting orders in I'd figure out the cost of parts I would sell these parts and then I got 25 cents an hour so it was like whoo-hoo you know I was like really in the dough right but what always stuck in my brain was okay we just bought a part for dollar we marked it up to two dollars and we sold it at two dollars and I just sold say eleven of them today so that means I made eleven dollars off these parts I'm getting paid 25 cents an hour so if you do the math I like I made more selling the parts than I would have you know and so I think that concept of the

kind of kicked in at that point. And all my brothers went through the same path. I don't know, I never had a chance to ask my dad, he died young.

Was this by design or did you just need low-cost labor or what was it?

@6:15 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

don't know.

@6:17 - Doug C. Brown

And my mother, she was a nurse, but she sold Avon and she was very successful at Avon. She made more money in Avon.

I don't know why she loved being a nurse. So that's probably why she stayed as a nurse. But she was always that connector type of person.

And I remembered traveling around with her when I was three or four years old. And we'd go to the Avon parties and people would place their orders.

I'd be putting all these lipsticks and bags, fulfilling the orders. we would figure out what her commissions were on the product sales.

And so again, I think, I don't know, I never asked my mother that question either, but you know, maybe they needed a babysitter and nobody would take care of me.

I have No idea, you know, but I do know that that schooling Actually led me into understanding the power of leverage and and I always loved entrepreneurial ship because I just Looked at that as that's freedom Right, I didn't even when I tried to work for companies or corporations I always tried to pick jobs that had some type of entrepreneurial freedom to it because I didn't want to be stuck in a cubicle I didn't want to you know have somebody being able to tell me this is what you can only make Those type of things.

Um, so yeah, that's how it all happens. Um, and I wish I had the answers to those questions, but I don't so Um, and I loved your mom.

@7:42 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I got to tell you my mom also Dabbled in the avon world, you know, so I think there's probably it was the other candle one I can't remember exactly the oh yeah, there was a My goodness is avon candlelight and well, the other one.

@7:57 - Doug C. Brown

Mary k was the other one.

@7:58 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

think there you go I'm telling you, think it's kind of funny, I always believe that women are like the first true entrepreneurs in the world, right?

They're the ones I truly have to do at all, even at the home base sometimes. so much respect to your mom and your parents for teaching you at a very young age to do amazing work.

Now, not only did they teach you about the business, but then you kind of pivoted, you went from being an entrepreneur to going to education for biology, nuclear medicine, very difficult education, let me mind you.

Tell me about that process and then tell me about your transition. Did you end up going into the health care industry or did you just straight transition to entrepreneurship?

@8:38 - Doug C. Brown

Yeah, so my thought was to be a doctor, right? Because you know, all my friends thought I was crazy growing up because I had all these side businesses and I you know, we had a body shop, a Christmas tree, retailing store, you know, locations, you know, we were dabbling in the flower business, we had a landscaping company,

We just tried all these things. Most of the people that I hung around with except a couple of my friends who were entrepreneurial, they didn't get it.

The thing is, I always had way more money than I needed while I was going through high school or even grade school.

loved the fact that if I wanted something, I could go buy it. If I wanted to buy something from my family, my mom, my dad, my girlfriend, whatever, I could just go do it.

And as I got a little older, I realized, even I want to have more money than I need. I guess we could call that healthy greed really when it comes down to it.

I was looking at maybe becoming a doctor because as an entrepreneur, especially when you're young, you don't really realize it's a pathway.

Even if you're hanging around with all these people, my dad had business. is that, you know, we'd hang out with the CEOs and I'd listen to the conversations, but I never really, you know, we grew in a background from a background that was, you know, we were poor and then we were middle-class and then we were, you know, slightly above that, right?

But it was never like, we never had business entrepreneurial conversations se. was always, we worked and we made more money and we could leverage through those disciplines.

So I think what happened was, as I was going through that, I was like, and, you know, what am I going to do?

Like, you know, like, and I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs have felt this way because I've talked to them, you know, they're like, well, I don't know, could I do that?

And then your brain kicks in, well, I can monetize this, I can monetize that, I can monetize. And it's like, well, you know what, in my generation, Gabriel, it was like you have to get an education in order to be successful.

And so I said, you know what, that's what I'll do. I'll go back. can get an education. And so I meandered around in the school system for a long time because I couldn't figure out the major I wanted.

I was like, well, I'll learn languages so I can communicate better with people. then it's like, well, are you going to do with languages?

know, you can't have a job just with languages, right? So it was like, well, what are these hard skills?

And I always liked the medical field because I liked helping people. And so I ended up getting my first degree in biology.

And I remember my brother, my oldest brother, I was walking across the courtyard from the library at the university I went to.

And he said, Doug, you've got a ton of credits. What are you going to do with all these things?

And I'm like, oh, yeah, I probably should do something. I've got a degree in biology. So, you know, I'll go in the medical field, and then I'll go be a doctor.

And so I got my degree in nuclear medicine to get my pathway there. You know, it was probably the dumbest thing, but the best thing I've ever done.

you know, when it comes to education, because I quickly learned when I got into the hospital setting, like, this is not what I thought it was going to be, right?

And the other reason I did that Gabriel is because I was still in the military during the time that I was there, and I could be promoted to an officer's rank with the degrees that I had.

So that was, that was the other thing, you know, because, you know, if you're putting the same time in, but you get paid twice what you're getting paid, why not, right?

So that's kind of how it came along. And then what I really, really, really wanted to do, this is going to sound like coming out of left field, is I really wanted to be a professional musician.

@12:42 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Oh, interesting.

@12:43 - Doug C. Brown

Yeah. And I discovered that through going through the biology degree, because I was taking music courses minor, and I always played in bands growing up.

But then when I took the job selling music equipment, I got to hang around with you know, members of Arrowsmith and Billy Joel's band and Paul McCartney and the wings and Boston and Jake Iles and you know the name the Eagles.

I mean, you know You're young guy hanging out with these guys and you know, it's the people to hang out with for sure Yeah, yeah, and you know never occurred to me to ask them for hey, can I get tickets to your concert right?

would just Like can I come backstage and you know like I'm hanging out with these guys selling them gear um and You know that's what I wanted to be and but I was like so confused during those, you know Like many people are when they're in their early, you know late teens early 20s, right?

um, and so I've said, you know what I'm gonna get something that's stable And that's what I did and then I came out of that with $20,000 and student loan back then which was a lot and I realized this is not what I want to do and then

And I was like, well, maybe I'll go back and be a musician. And then I was talking with a very, very good drove from the band Boston, right?

And Barry said to me, you're a great musician. And you know, we're going on tour now, and we're going to be on the road for 300 days this year.

And I said, in a bus, he said, And I went, I don't think I want to do that. You know, I don't want that as my life.

I want a family and things. So then it kind of further like, OK, let's find something more stable. So Barry's like, why don't you just go to music school?

And I said, all right, I will. I went to Berkeley College Music, and I got in. And so I continued my education.

And so out of all of that kind of spun out like, OK, you love to communicate with people. You love to help people.

You love to move people, because that's what music was all about. people emotionally, right? And looking at all of these things, I was like, you know what?

I was successful in selling music equipment. I was successful in other disciplines. I was successful in my dad's business.

Why don't you get this thing in sales and try? And that's what happened. And that's when I ended up in a corporation that I was the number one rep out of the, you know, I think there was 323 reps or something.

And I was selling so much, Gabriel, that the CEO called me one day and said, you want a $450,000 a year job?

And I was pretty flattered, you know what I mean? I was making a good six-figure income at that point, but $450, that like, take that and apply it to business and teach businesses that you're not.

in X business, don't sell, you know, laser guided, you know, things for whatever, or you don't sell, I mean, you're not in the business of medicine, you're not in the business of manufacturing, you're not in business, you're in the business of sales, and you just happen to be manufacturing a product that you deliver, right?

And so I started looking at business that way, and then I started helping companies, and I started coaching for that, you know, for check homes, and then I was helping companies on my own on the side, and I was like, okay, well, if we take this, and we look from point A to point B, what do we got to do to get from point A to point B?

And so what I did is I started creating this whole methodology, which is we just need a series of 11 things that we do in a business in order to get predictable, reliable, and manageable revenue growth.

And I just kept duplicating these things over and over. And man, I had great results. with these things. So that's kind of how it started, the process started and how it evolved.

@17:05 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You know, one of the things you keep mentioning, which I'm very intrigued to dig into, leverage. Tell me more about how do you define leverage and what do you mean when you're talking about leveraging business, you know, and how do you leverage it in a way that you continually to progress forward.

@17:25 - Doug C. Brown

Yeah. So I first learned about this. I was reading an article that said, you remember the Budweiser horses?

@17:34 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I don't know if you know. Oh, yeah, the old Clyde's deal.

@17:36 - Doug C. Brown

The Clyde's deal. Yeah. And, and I was like eating this and it said, well, one Clyde's Dale can pull like that.

I can't even remember that, you know, like, I don't know, 10,000 pounds or whatever it was, right? I don't know what the number was.

It was some, you know, big number. Certainly a lot more than I could tell.

@17:54 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

can do that. And so up in the morning.

@18:00 - Doug C. Brown

Because some days I have that issue, it's like, how do I get 170 pounds out of bed, but it could pull 2,000 pounds.

don't know what the number was, but then it said, well, if you have six clides dales like they had pulling the Budweiser thing, it wasn't like six times or 12,000 pounds, it was like 60,000 pounds.

And I said, huh, well, it's a principle of physics, right, when it really comes down to it. And because I had a degree, sometimes connecting the dots back, because I had a degree in nuclear medicine, I had to do nuclear physics, and I had to do all these physics courses.

And I was like, okay, so if you have a lever and a pulley and you know, I'm thinking back to all this stuff, like, why can't we apply the same concept to business?

In other words, If I'm going to make a sales call, for example, right? And I do this all the time, people, what do you want out of a sales call?

You're going to make a call? What do you want? And they say, I'd like a sale. And I say, make sense.

What if you don't sell it? Well, then I hang up. What else do you want out of the call?

Do you want to be positioned as an expert? So you can ask for referrals. Do you want to possibly find a cross-sell opportunity within the organization you're calling?

Do you want to make a friend? Do you want to get involved in a networking aspect? I would just keep going on and on.

What are the six or seven things that you want out of everything you do? Because imagine if you could make a phone call, make the sale, get a referral, be invited to a networking event where there's four APEX decision makers in that networking event.

you know, so we're expanding the sale, potentially increasing the buying frequency, all of these things you can do from one action, that's leverage.

And so, you know, why not go into, let's say, we're selling corporate sales and why not go into a corporation, like, you know, some of my clients that I've sold to have been Procter & Gamble, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, you know, into it, things like that.

Well, Procter & Gamble has so many locations everywhere, Gabriel. They don't even know they have locations. Like, I worked with a place in Louisiana, there was another one 90 miles away in Texas, they didn't even know that it existed.

Right? But what if, like, I did with Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Procter & Gamble and other companies, you know, you start with one or two or three locations, and then you end up with the whole state, and then you end up with the state next to it, and then you end up with the region, and then you end up in, you know,

another region and corporate, you know, in St. Louis at the, at the, you know, headquarters. Why not build that into our plan as leverage immediately, you know, as a strategic objective?

So I look at leverage as one of the strategic objectives that you get out of every single thing that you're doing.

And most people don't do that. It's instead of a, they look at it a one-for-one relationship, I look at it as a compounding potential interest relationship.

And so, you know, and that's what we teach people to do.

@21:34 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You know, I think one of the things you mentioned, the compounding relationship, you know, I always tell people, you know, I work in healthcare.

there's a very unique industry in the fact that doctors in the doctors and nurses, right, the healthcare professionals, nope, necessarily want to talk about the revenue piece of the healthcare, right?

Because they're, their focus is really, you know, supporting patient care. However, it's the administrative CEO, CEO, right? They're the ones really focusing how do we build revenue and so one thing I always talk about and I really like that you said it is I really focus on building relationships right because to your point and goal is to get a referral to get a complex referral case I want to heart transplant from your community right but like as Doug mentioned what happens if I don't get that heart transplant what's what else is my ask I drove four hours away to have lunch with this doctor.

What else am I wanting to do right and I really like that that piece because that's kind of like it starts to basically starts my sales funnel right.

Okay my ultimate goal is for them to be a loyal consumer right and send me referrals and now I have an influx of you know complex surgical cases.

Well okay well what's the one above that right well if you start from the very top I'm just trying to create awareness of what I'm doing.

Right become like Doug mentioned trying to be the subject matter expert in that region so if if you know they're not going to center and referrals oh wait but.

And what one of my colleagues is actually needing some of your guys's service. We'd love to talk to you about your complex surgeons.

So I always look at business as it's like chess. Like I'm playing chess for every move. I'm trying to set myself up for the next move.

But the end goal is monopoly. I want to own the whole day board, right? And it's like the way you build the relationships and the value streams you created is important.

And I'd be interested to understand one of the things you mentioned, let's go through the process of a sales call.

Your goal ultimately is to get a sale. But for those individuals at home that are listening, with that mindset in mind, what would you encourage them to kind of start thinking of our questions?

Maybe you should start asking on that phone call or maybe even other objectives of that phone called these individuals should start thinking about versus just thinking about only the sale.

@23:54 - Doug C. Brown

Yeah, I think we'd start with the objectives first because the objectives then lead to the questions that we ask.

Right? so, you know, if somebody's making a cold call, firstly, I just want to step back one second. The purpose of a cold call is not to make a sale.

The purpose of a cold call is to get to the next step of the process. Right? And that's another mistake that people make.

They're trying to close a deal on the first, on the first call.

@24:22 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Everybody was not that ABC, right?

@24:25 - Doug C. Brown

I'll always be closing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Glen Gary Glen Ross thing has kind of gone sideways that, you know, and faded from today's way of doing selling.

Because, you know, now information is so prolific that, frankly, marketing and sales are no longer separated. And please, no email folks on this.

you know, the reality is it's never been separated. But it was divided.

@24:59 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

There you go.

@25:00 - Doug C. Brown

Right? So, you know, I was in the military and I went in, you know, one point in the artillery, right?

So, I look at, I also, you know, hung out with everybody else in the infantry as well. So, you know, the infantry runs out into the field with the artillery gives them air, you know, gives them firepower coverage, right?

that air coverage or the firepower coverage, that's marketing, right? The people go out out on the field, those are your salespeople.

So, if you, if we have a mismatch between those two things, bad things happen and on, you know, and, and, and business the same thing.

And so, I would ask, what are your objectives first? And one of your objectives must be to make sure that we're actually talking to the real true apex decision maker, not just

a title. And so if the objective is to get to that person, then regardless of who you're talking with, that's one objective you want to get.

Like you just said, you want to maybe a referral, right? The second thing is that I would say as an objective is how do you want to be positioned?

We want to look at our positioning. Do we want to be positioned as an expert? Do we want to be positioned?

And by the way, the answer is yes, you do. There's really no, but do we want to be positioned?

Let's say that we're dealing with a highly Catholic hospital or something, right? That's going to be handled slightly differently than a hospital that they're known for just aggressive profitability, right?

So we want to do we want that's another, you know, objective. How do we position for that? How do we position for, as you said, referrals?

I like the position for not just one referral, but multiple referrals, and I would like to find out if there's any other opportunities within the organization's internal expansion or external expansion.

So all of these things you want, you know, I would advise people just to write them down. when you first write them down, it's going to feel potentially a little clunky because they're not used to it, Gabriel.

And from there, then you could start to weave in your questions into the conversation. Simple one on referrals would be, do you have other departments or divisions that potentially also could use these, having these type of challenges or looking for these opportunities?

And if they say, yes, well, that opens you up for the next question, right? I I would map it out, put down the objectives, then I would map out some of the questions.

And here's a little thing for everybody. When you're mapping out questions, you're looking for a yes state answer. So don't ask a question that's an obvious no, right?

Because what you're really looking for them to do is go, sure, yeah, right? were trying to move the member, we're moving from step A to B to C to D.

And the other thing that you're always the wanting to do is in your questions, please ask yourself this question.

Is this going to make them go, whoa, yeah, wow, I want to hear a little more of this? Or, yeah, so what?

heard that 20 times, you know, because if you're asking questions on the latter, then what ends up happening is you're actually pleading your opportunity to get to the next level.

So again, these are little points of leverage, Gabriel, right, along the path. And this is not manipulation. This is pre-planning.

@29:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yep.

@29:00 - Doug C. Brown

Right. so that would be what I would recommend. No, start with the the objectives and then that's when you want to, you know, sit down, write out some questions and put it to the test.

It might possibly going to get a yes state out of this. Am I going to lower the buyer's fear and increase the buying confidence?

Am going to have them raise their eyebrows out and go, whoa, I would like to hear more about that?

Or are they going to go eat? Yes. So what kid, right? And that's how it all starts.

@29:32 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, no, I agree. And so folks that are listening, let me put this in a practical sense for you into my own specific industry in healthcare.

So very much what Doug's saying. So the top of my funnel, the top of my cell slash marketing funnel is awareness piece.

So what am I doing? Now my end objective at the end of my funnel. My goal is to either increase the referral volume with the community, to create.

an integration with that community, right? So I either have like some actual either collaboration or strategic partnership. Or lastly, how do I actually employ the physicians that are in that community?

So again, those are three objectives I'm trying to get to, right, to create a loyal relationship. So the top one is the tactics I'm doing to understand the community is traveling CME program.

So I'll go out and say, hey, by the way, I have an expert that talks about heart transplant. love to come to your community, talk about it.

We'll provide a credit. It's free to your team. So that's the value, right, a free credit, because again, these healthcare providers need this educational credits.

Now, during that time, as Doug mentioned, I'm also identifying who is actually asking questions during those traveling CME conversations, and then post conversation, who's referring to that program, right?

So now I'm starting to see, okay, now, now those folks that they're referring, those now go to my evaluation step, right?

Now it's very important that I do not leave the awareness stage and go to the evaluation stage until I have no

the needs of the community because once I get into the valuation stage, I'm going start asking questions that are going to benefit my system, no longer benefit in yours.

But so it's imperative that I first acknowledge and represent and help support the community needs. Now, the evaluation and then the marketing piece on that stage is going be like flyers and facts, sheets and newsletters, right?

Now, when you go to the evaluation piece, no longer am I doing education. This is actually in person one-on-one conversations with the provider hour because to Doug's point, I have now identified the CME phase, I've identified who is the apex, who is the decision maker, right?

So now actually having meetings in the evaluation stage with the decision maker. So the marketing side, what are they doing?

They're no longer doing flyers and fact sheets, but now they're actually getting market data for me. How many patients actually live in the community?

How many people are insured? How many patients do our insurance cover? How many people actually travel out the community for care?

hospitals do they go to? So we're getting a lot of information and insight because it's also imperative for us to understand, is there

juice worth the squeeze.

@32:01 - Doug C. Brown

Okay.

@32:02 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Now the next section, once we've identified an opportunity, okay, so the next section is conversion. Now I want to convert you from a referring provider to, okay, now we've identified an opportunity to do a shared patient model, right, or a collaboration or something.

So that's that conversion stage. Now once I've done the conversion stage, that's where the contract people come in. The marketing piece kind of goes away at this point for this stage because again, this is going to be more contracts, more conversations, intertwining things.

Now don't make it wrong. Marketing will be a piece of it because obviously if we're doing an integration, they're going to want to know, hey, how can we use the brand, right, what's the brand guidelines, so on and so forth.

But that's more of a conversation like, here's what you get with the relationship versus how is marketing going to intertwine with that conversation.

the last piece is a loyalty. So once we've actually, once we've solidified this relationship, now I've a shared patient model.

Now it's about me recurring going back to that community. Hey, how are things going, how are we doing, making sure that they have access to, you know, whatever needs they do, continuing to build that value proposition.

Now, folks, again, I tell you this, this is the strategy I use. I've been health care for over 22 years.

This sales slash marketing funnel is transferable to almost every business. You just need to change your tactics and your objectives a little bit, right, to align with yours.

Like Doug was mentioning, the marketing segmentation piece is also important. You know, the message that's going to go to the apex, the decision-shin maker is going to be different than the message that's going to the gatekeeper, right, the gatekeeper is the person that you have to actually work with them to schedule the time to meet with the providers or meet with the clinic or so on and so forth.

The message with them is going to be much different than the communication I'm giving to the providers, right. And so also understanding what message you're going with, because again, you have to create value for the gatekeeper, right.

The first thing that's going to let you into those meetings, what's the value to them in their entire clinic?

community, that's what you're focusing on. Then when you get into the provider side, now it's like, what is the value to me and my patients specifically?

How are you going to make it easier for me to upload these complex cases, communicate back, the last thing I want to do is send a patient to you, and they're upset about the care that they give, so it's really about creating that loyal, and that's what creates a loyal referring provider on my kind of industry.

Again, it's transferable, the marketing sales funnel, just making sure that I really like what Doug said, starting with your objective first, so you have to know what is my true north, what am I trying to accomplish, and then start to think about how can I get there?

To Doug's point, you might get a note at the beginning, might get a couple of notes, but you got to keep on figuring out what's the value proposition to get you in front of those individuals, so then you can kind of start having the yes conversations, the yes dates, right, the yes dates conversations, you know, so I really do like that process.

this and that strategy, especially Doug, you know, I would love to be loved to hear your kind of sense, do you use like a cells in the marketing funnel?

@35:08 - Doug C. Brown

And do you feel they are transferable to an extent across all industries? Well, we're always, we're not, we're selling the people.

So, you know, anything that relates to one person can be transferable, what changes the messaging and sometimes the delivery of the messaging, right?

So as you said, you know, if you're, if you're dealing with the CEO or you're dealing with the person who's answering the phones, it's a different message, right?

And, and sometimes people have a hard time remembering this Gabriel. So what I always tell people is like, look, let's say that you are, I don't know, a 17 year old male and you are trying to date, I don't know, Tammy, right?

And Tammy is this, this apple of your eye and you want to go out with her. she, she accepts a date.

Now you've got to go pick her up at her home and you're going to meet Tammy. mother and father.

You better not use the same messaging you're using on Tammy with mom and dad.

@36:05 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

That's a great analogy. That's a phenomenal analogy.

@36:08 - Doug C. Brown

like it. Right? Because dads have to grab you by the hair and say, you ain't taking, you're not taking my daughter anywhere, right?

And the mom might even be poor, you know? So the, you, we are dealing with people when you're selling.

And what I loved about what you have is you have a system. And a system is transferable. It doesn't matter what country you're in.

The values and culture might be a bit different, but it always systems can be used and transferred. And that's a form of leverage because you take something that's already working.

And, you know, since you're in the medical field and I was in the medical field, I can concretely tell you that, you know, if you're going to put in from a technician standpoint, you're going to put in an IV, right?

you're going to what we used to call thread the needle into the arm, right? Thread the needle. If you're going to do that, it does not matter what country you are in.

People's veins are all going to act the same way, right? So the same thing applies to the systems that you were talking about.

And you know, we're constantly looking in that system for how do we expand it? What is the optimization points?

You know, you had mentioned like loyalty. So then the question is, how do you when you build that loyalty?

How do you expand that? Maybe you put together another event, but you have something there or maybe someone else is running that event, putting it together and you're getting the leverage of their energy and their efforts, but came out of the first thing that you were doing.

And if you don't know about your messaging or you don't know about the system, if you're measuring these things and looking at the data, the metrics, then what happens is the metric.

The math will tell you a story. And so, you know, especially with messaging, because there may be some overlapping messaging between a CEO, between a physician, between the person who enters the front desk, between the IT person, right?

That they all collectively care about. And once you understand that, if they're all in the same room, you can bring that point up and everybody will be going, yeah, yeah, applies to me.

So, we want to pay attention to all of that within the system, but what I love Gabriel is, and most people don't have, is you have a well-defined system.

So, yeah, it's transferable.

@38:38 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I got to be completely transparent. built this, like, referral funnel, like three, four years ago now, and it has been absolutely a godsend for our organization.

the point, I actually created a one-pager. It's kind of a target readiness strategy. So, essentially, to look at all of our patient service areas, right, our markets quote unquote.

And they'll say, where are we at? on the sales funnel, right? Are we at the awareness stage or with the evaluation, conversion, or loyalty?

And then we want to go. And so every quarter, we come back and we look at that one page or, hey, have we moved from the awareness to the conversion or evaluation stage yet?

so, what has happened? If not, what has happened? And to Doug's point, looking at data is going to help you.

Now data will never give you what you want, but it'll always give you what you need, right? Data should be used as directional, but it's still the salesmen, the individuals that are boots on the ground that are going to provide the additional insight.

So let me give you another example from the healthcare perspective. We use claims data. Well, claims data is only processed once every six months.

So there's a bit of a six month lag. So let's say, for example, looking at data, I'm like, oh, man, I've noticed this clinic is no longer referring to me.

Oh, what's going on? better get over there. Well, if I had been doing my due diligence and being in the community, I would have known that a provider six months ago, that was loyal to our system, either retired or left the organization.

Or whatever it might be so I already have that insight so the data shouldn't be as surprising to me Right, however, it is directional so it's gonna help you determine are my strategies and outreach strategies working are marketing tactics working or do we need a pivot?

Right, and then also creating that KPI's key for key performance indicators for your marketing and for yourselves Just so you kind of stay on track for where you're going right is it's gonna be really important now Doug, you know one thing I don't think I have yet to ask you this What you went through nuclear school you are a nuclear med school and you went through biology What what was your actual first?

@40:39 - Doug C. Brown

entrepreneurial endeavor it seemed like you know, you you kind of went through up to the court I would say first entrepreneur endeavor after all the health care work so So when I decided to leave the the world of the medical field And I took that job it was in the telecommunications sector

And I met a gentleman, his name's Richard Minovino. Richard was about 35, 40 years older than I was, but he was super successful.

I mean, he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And I met him and explained to him who I am, what I do.

And he said, you know, why don't you come by my office and let's talk once a month or something like that.

So I would drive literally two and three quarters of an hour to get there, sit with this guy in his nice 1,800 square foot office and we would just have business conversations.

And he told me a story that he said, you know, when he got out of the military, and I think I reminded him of a young hymn, you know, when he went up, you know, 38 years prior to, right?

And he said, I had a mentor and my mentor told me this. He said, I want you to look up in the sky.

What do you see? He said, clouds. He said, cool. What come from clouds? Rain. Okay, so how does rain come down?

He said, what do you mean? He said, like the rain, does it just pour out one big bucket? He said, no.

He said, well, it comes down these little drops. And he said, okay, now I want you to think of these drops as a penny here, a dollar there, a quarter here, five dollars here.

And he said, I want your job to be in an entrepreneurial world for you to create as many raindrops as you could possibly drop down.

And then I want you to live in Portland, Oregon, where it rains most of the time during the year, that type of thing, right?

And he said to me, said, Doug, we're going to always do well. But if you really want leverage in your life, you want to create.

recurring income and he said so you think about it anytime somebody picks up a telephone I get paid and you can too so and he said you're already doing this for a corporation you're selling three to five year contracts they're keeping the contract you're getting paid one time how would you like to get paid for the next five years and so what I did is I entered into the telecom business is my first thing and I called it telecom auditing group and I audited phone bills and I became an agent for that industry and what ended up happening Gabriel is in my first 15 months I ended up generating almost a million dollars in sales which I was getting 20% recurring income and so I think was like excuse me like a hundred and ninety four thousand dollars a year recurring income on top of my salary so I was like well

This is pretty good. Maybe I should do this. And that was my next entrepreneurial venture. And I had that company for five years, and then I moved on into the training space with Chad Holmes and Tony Robbins, and that income kept paying me for 11 years after that, and when I stopped.

So that was my next, you know, my next foray into an entrepreneurial world. then, you know, I just had invested in different things and trying to get the recurring to continue, whether it was real estate or whatever it might be.

Because one thing Russ Whitney always taught me was you make your money in business, but you park it in avenues other investments.

It's kind of like the Robin Kiyosaki thing, right. Which I mean, Russ owned 38% of rich dad poor dad.

So that's probably, you know, he probably taught kiyosaki. I have no idea. But the, but that's, that's where I've always tried, you know, my next venture.

And then any other venture I look into. I now especially ask if I'm going to do something, how do I get the leverage out of this that I'm doing for long term versus short term.

So that was the next step.

@45:12 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You know, I really like that concept because the way I kind of look at revenue too. I think I think it is like a big lake, right?

My bank account is a big lake and essentially I'm trying to create streams of revenue to maintain that level of water.

So I can use the boat and the jet skis in the summer, right? And have those opportunities. And I really like that process.

And then, you know, creating folks like it shouldn't be a shock. I started this, you know, podcast three years ago.

Before I even started recording, I intentionally went and got the shares of entrepreneurship trademarked. I went and got the shades of each trademark because the goal when I'm building out this podcast, you know, so hopefully a larger organization, YouTube or whatever it is.

If you guys want some money. I'm happy to license out this podcast, can use the Shades of Entrepreneurship brand, right?

Because again, the value and the consistency of the conversations, the value of the content that we bring on like Doug, really remarkable guests that have a lot of experience and free education for everybody that's listening, right?

And so I'm trying to build this up in that way. And then same thing with the nonprofit, you know, the nonprofit, as I mentioned.

I'm not sure Doug, if I mentioned this yet, we have a nonprofit Latino founders, our goals that help scale a hundred Latino businesses here in the Pacific Northwest to a million dollar rate current revenue in five years.

We've raised over about $600,000. We have a 10 week business, agnostic, business accelerator program. We also have a pitch competition.

Now our pitch competition, it's once a quarter in different locations. So for example, folks, we had one earlier this year in Bend, Oregon.

Now the winner of that location, we call it a community pitch competition. We gave about $10,000 in unrestricted grant funding at that.

at that event. However, the winner of that event was invited to pitch Portland a couple of weeks later, where we gave out $30,000 unrestricted grant funding.

And again, the goal is to kind of create synergy and collaboration across to our communities. Our county lines tend to be a divider for a lot of states.

And so we're really trying to cross pollinate our communities through this accelerator program, through the business program. But to Doug's point, the way I'm building that thing, we're building it so we can scale it nationally, internationally, because I want to be able to come back five, 10, 15 years later, and not be running the show, but still be able to look back and see this going, right?

And so how would you recommend, know, there's a lot of folks out there that I feel like they're always, they're, you know, this is kind of the advice time, right?

advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur or somebody that they're unsure if they should be making the step?

@47:57 - Doug C. Brown

What they should be getting into entrepreneurial? Just a more more advice on being on entrepreneurship being a successful entrepreneur.

Oh Well, don't expect it's always gonna be easy It's not I mean Here's the thing about free enterprise a lot of people argue the fact that it's ruthless is why it works So my advice would be always think about this equation Money in money out equals something and you always want that equals something to be a positive and So many entrepreneurs They don't think about this concept Gabriel and they end up burning their runway So what does that mean?

So let's say, you know, you had mentioned a ten thousand dollars and there may be thirty thousand Let's say somebody won those two things and they have forty thousand dollars to work with and And their burn rate is now forty four thousand

dollars. They got 10 months. Okay. So every month, if money's not coming in, there is 4,000 going out. And in 10 months, there's no more money.

And most entrepreneurs don't think like this. They think like, oh, well, I'll have that big sale coming or I'll help this.

So when you look at the money and money out equation, I want people to think short, short, short, medium, long, short, short, short, I call it SSML, right?

And what does that mean? Go after short wins when you're starting out, especially right at the beginning of the month, get some money through the door.

Don't always work on long term projects unless you have the cash to carry it because money will be going out, like whale hunting, for example, it's very expensive to hunt on very super large accounts.

And those accounts take a long, on time, right? I mean, I have NASCAR as a client that we had under a belt and it took us 28 months to get NASCAR to do business with us.

So we had money going out through that whole process. We had a business that could sustain that. So I would always look at that metric, especially if you're a solo entrepreneur or a founder-led sales company.

And the next piece of advice I would say is, how do you actually get something done if you don't have to do it?

So you want to leverage yourself through other people and other systems and other processes because one of the mistakes that people make in entrepreneurship is that they have their grip so tight on something, Gabriel, on the pulse of things, which is fine, but it's so tight that they're restricting the growth because they don't trust anyone else.

So we set up systems and process that give us feedback like you're saying, hey, in 10 years, I don't even want to be

either per se, I'll be the figurehead or I'll be one of the guys that is proud that this happened, but I want the community to flourish and there's going to be other people.

And folks, here's the upside news. There are people who are a lot better at the stuff you don't want to do.

@51:15 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes. Very true.

@51:17 - Doug C. Brown

Right. so again, money in, money out. I could fix my own plumbing in the house, but it might take me two days to do something that a plumber could walk in and charge me $500 to do.

And they get it done in an hour. Well, I just saved myself two days worth of, now what if I took that and prospected for a new client and ended up getting a client at, I don't know, $80,000.

I'm better off, $80,000 pay him or her $500. So you might have to give up some things in the company that, because I find too many entrepreneurs hold on to they like, I got to have a hundred.

send of all of this. And you know, 100% of a small number, if that's your goal, that's fine. But if your goal is to build something bigger, then you're probably going to have to give up something to get there.

But when you remember money and money out, you know, we were talking earlier about VCs, right? Venture capital is not always the right play for a company.

@52:24 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes, correct.

@52:25 - Doug C. Brown

Right. And so in fact, it could be the absolute worst nightmare that somebody actually does because venture capital people are looking for a multiple return as fast as they can get it.

@52:37 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Correct.

@52:37 - Doug C. Brown

So folks, if you're going to take money from someone, and it's not clear, trust me, they want it back quickly, just as you probably would.

So you've got to be prepared for very high rapid growth, or the C firm will take over your company Yep.

they want their money. So I think it really, everything we're talking about, Gabriel, those are a couple of his advice, the main thing that we do with everyone who walks through our doors as a client here is we get them truthfully clear, not subjectively, objectively clear on what is the real goal that we're trying to do because entrepreneurs think that they can monetize every little thing on the planet, every Christmas tree bulb on the tree, and you know what, they can, that's the problem, right?

But that's the problem, and I say it's a problem because there's only three or four bulbs on that tree you actually should ever be monetizing to get yourself to probably a hundred million dollars in revenue, but if we're so focused on so many lights and that money out goes out faster than the money comes in.

@53:57 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yep.

@53:58 - Doug C. Brown

So I would say... very truthful clear plan, short term, with the idea of entrepreneurial eye in the pie, know, happy ears, you know, for the future.

But let's focus on the next 12 months. What are we doing on the next 12 months? Because then you get there, and then you focus on the next 12 months.

Of course, you can have a vision for the bigger future. You know, I'm not trying to say you can't.

But if you're projecting out 15 or 20 or 30 years, there's so much stuff that happens. If anybody doesn't believe this, I'm going to say one word, pandemic.

Yeah, doesn't think the same thing. All right. you know, regime changes, presidential elections, all of these things affect different things.

And so if you're out 15 years, it's nice to have a vision. But don't please understand that that vision that you have is probably going to not be the same path you're thinking about today, in most cases.

So that's why you want to have a clear, truthful goal. Because you can build a plan around that, Gabriel.

@55:01 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yep. Yep. I agree. And, you know, I really love what you mentioned about the burn rate calculator, folks. If you have not, or if you're not using it, even in your own personal finances, you know, use a burn rate calculator.

And what essentially we'll say is if you were to stop making revenue today, how long can your business last?

And then also think about the not necessarily think about vertical integration as well when your organization, you know, we're talking a local entrepreneur here in the Portland area, they out they source water from the spring.

I'm like, okay, well, I want you to think about you outsource the truck driver. So what is the cost of actually owning a truck?

What's the cost of you hiring the truck driver? What happens if that private spring runs out of water or if the owner, okay, what are you, what are you twisting, right?

you pivoting to? so understanding all those variables are important, because as Doug mentioned, you know, the VC is their goals scale and sell, right?

However, having an exit strategy, because again, it's either out of necessity, the Because, you know, a life changing moment happened, you got sick or your partner passed away or whatever the case may be, right?

Having those nuts and bolts in place are going to allow you to have a better exit because I one thing I'm starting to learn is as founders and entrepreneurs, we overvalue our company quite a bit.

And then once we actually go to the valuation and we see what it's valued at, we're like, whoa, that's much lower than anticipated.

But, you know, you really want to make sure some of these things are in place and to Doug's point, sharing the policies and procedures I use ClickUp.

I'm not sure if folks are familiar with it, but essentially all of our documents, all our policies and procedures are onboarding our executive community search of biases, all of that on ClickUp, right?

it might be on a shared drive or somewhere else, but I'll end that document there and then I'll let them know exactly where that document lives, who the owner is, and when it was last updated.

Because again, on a yearly or quarterly basis, I want them to come back and check those, some of those policies out to make sure we're still alive.

Because as Doug mentioned, you know, there might be a regime change in some of these some of those work at work policies might change, right?

Like we've recently seen and so of the 2008 real estate crisis was another big changing point in all our lives.

There's a lot of things that occur that you can't plan for to Doug's mentioned that 10 15 year pipeline.

But if you're doing, you know, one year sprints, you know, like, we're actually working right now and doing some sprints for the nonprofit and kind of Doug's point, one of the first things I identified is what is actually the best return on investment?

What sprint I'd be focusing on first? And guess what we said, Doug?

@57:42 - Doug C. Brown

Sales and recruitment, I hold it.

@57:44 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Dang right. did market and sales. We got to get out there and build it out. Now, don't get me wrong.

We have sprints that are kind of running like a parallel universe. So we're making sure, you know, the websites up to date and, you know, the policies have been reviewed.

But then the day if we're not making any sales and we're not marketing, nobody's going What the heck we're doing and we're not going to make any revenue, you know, and I was I was at I was in Los Angeles at an event.

@58:07 - Doug C. Brown

I don't know if you know who Jay Abraham is Jay was a kind of a famous consultant of consultants years ago.

And this was like 20 something years ago I was at this event and and Jay did something brilliant. He like invited entrepreneurs up.

Who have been having some success or have some challenges and they get at the microphone. They say, this is how I built my $17 million company.

This is how I built my $10 million company is built my $5 million company. And to my dismay, the audience was like, Oh, I've had enough of this.

I don't like I'm writing all this stuff down Gabriel.

@58:44 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Like, Oh, God, she's what, you know, here. Right.

@58:47 - Doug C. Brown

But the next lady up said, I have this nonprofit organization here in Los Angeles. We feed homeless. We do this.

We do that. You know, we've got 200 and something people that's in. the organization and, and Jay said, well, what's your challenge or what are you looking for?

And she goes, well, you're damn near out of business. And he said, well, tell me. And she said, well, I can't really pay the bills.

I've got this going on, that going on, this going on, this going on. And he said, well, why are you doing this?

Well, it's the mission. And he said, well, here's what you want my advice. She goes, yes, cut half your staff and make yourself profitable and then build a sales team to go out and start selling for your organization.

She goes, I can't do that. He goes, then you'll be out of business within three and a half months.

So you're highly intelligent for focusing, know, I'm not just for this, but for many things. But, you know, in business, remember, we started this conversation off, right, April, you asked that question.

It's like, what business you in? You're in the sales business. You're all businesses are in the sales business. Microsoft is in the sales business of selling

computer software and computer hardware, and other things. But most people, when you say, what business you're in, they'll go, I'm in the software business.

I'm a chiropractor. I'm an attorney. I'm in the law business. No, if you don't have patrons walking through the door that you get to represent and they're paying you money, you can still have your law degree, but you're not going to be a practicing lawyer.

mean, it's that simple. So no matter what business we're, we must focus on that particular issue. And I'm so happy because the number one thing nonprofits have challenged.

@1:00:42 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I mean, we're like, again, to your burn rate calculator, we start looking at the burn rate calculator case, we're getting no grant funding, raise no money, we got a seven month runway, right?

brought in the executive director. And to your point, we've had opportunities to scale beyond the position. the West, but I have been caution it because, again, operational costs.

Now, I'm starting to do cost analysis for our events. What does it truly cost to run a pitch competition, the vendors, the catering, the venue, all the time we actually spend coaching, pitch coaching, these individuals, and get them ready of, well, if I were to do that across the country, okay, now I'm adding air flights, all these other things.

I still want to give out the crux of it is to give out unrestricted grant funding, right? So then I'm starting to think, okay, well, if I do this outside of the state, I'm going to need X amount of money in order for it to just be viable, right?

And so that's what we do. We, if they're interested in coming to us, like, hey, this is how much the competition costs.

I'm going to give them the entire breakdown. However, I'm willing to work with you and your community to identify philanthropists that will help support some of the thing, maybe a lodging, right, for a local hotel or, you know, airline providing some air costs.

And again, we'll provide them opportunities to market so they'll, they'll get their, you know, opportunity to again create another sale because that's their goal too.

They're going to work with a nonprofit, put their brand out there with the goal of hopefully our entrepreneurs become like a business class of Delta Airlines or Alaska Airlines, wherever the case may be.

And again, it's a kind of have to, not necessarily quid pro quo necessarily, but you have to create value.

What's the value between each of the institutions, right? And then just being mindful of your growth. I think every entrepreneur is going to have an opportunity to continue to scale, but it's very important to know what the cost is to scale and can your operations with that, you know, because some people scale too quickly.

@1:02:41 - Doug C. Brown

Oh, and they implode when they do that. Yep. you know, again, the formula is start, sell, sell, stabilize. Then sell, style, sell, stabilize.

Scale, you know, it's that type of thing, right? Now, you can have maybe stabilization a little earlier and scaling a little bit earlier, but if you don't have the funds to actually scale.

Yes. Ridiculous things happen. And give you an example, Gary, I had a client, they installed utility poles. thought it was a fascinating business.

Because it's something I never would have even thought of. You get paid to actually install a utility pole. I thought it was done by the utility companies or whatever, right?

This guy grew from 3 million to 17 million in under 18 months.

@1:03:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Wow.

@1:03:42 - Doug C. Brown

when I talked with him, I said, what's your profitability on the company? He said, I have no idea. And I said, okay.

How much money do you have in the bank? And he told me and I said, that seems wonderful. really, really, really low.

He goes, well, yeah, I think we're not getting money in as we should. And I say, can we take a look at your books?

And we pull them up and I'm like, you got $12 million owed to you over 90 days, some of this running over 100 and over 180 days.

What's up? He goes, I don't know, others can get out of hand. I said, brother, you're out of business within two or three months.

And he's like, I know, I've been a little stressed over this thing. I'm like, who's your bookkeeper? Oh, a friend of my daughters.

Okay, let's talk to the bookkeeper. Did you call the us these people to send you the money? No. Did you?

So all we did, Gabriel is we just started placing calls. And he collected It was almost $12 million within 60 days.

And people on the phone literally said, I didn't know where to send the money to. I was wondering where the heck you were.

And this is what we're talking about, like maybe an operational process that gets out of underneath, but finance needs to be there too.

All of this has to be integrated as you scale. So if you don't, big things can happen and sometimes big things are amazing and sometimes you know, like Zoom, you know, but sometimes, you know, big things can happen, like in DMACC Bank.

if you don't know who they are folks, look them up. I think they would have fifth largest bank. no longer, you know.

@1:05:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah. So.

@1:05:42 - Doug C. Brown

Yeah.

@1:05:45 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I love it. Doug Brown. Now Doug, those folks that are interested in learning more about you, maybe they want to connect with you online.

How can they find out more about Doug Brown and CEO cell strategies?

@1:05:55 - Doug C. Brown

So I would type in Doug C. and see the little initial. People ask me, what does that mean? And I always say it's charming.

But the reality is it's Charles. And so, and the reason I say type in Doug C. Brown, because Doug Brown was a professional hockey player for the Detroit Red Wing.

@1:06:17 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So he always comes up and people get close.

@1:06:20 - Doug C. Brown

so Doug C. Brown, you can type that in anywhere. can type in revenue growth expert or whatever. it'll come up a million places.

However, my LinkedIn is Doug Brown 123. My email is Doug at ceosalesstrategies.com. The company number is 6035950303. And Gabriel, is it okay if I give away a resource?

Yes.

@1:06:50 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes.

@1:06:51 - Doug C. Brown

So I was, we have a lot of resources. Like you, you were mentioning, right, you're putting these things out.

So I have what we call the ultimate attraction and conversion guide, and all the things that people need to know or should know about how to attract and convert clients at a better rate.

So it's an assessment that they could do. I'd like to give that away, and if that's okay with you, and they can get that at WWW CEO sales strategies, forward slash the word guide, G-U-I-D-E, and it'll ask to put their name and email in there, and then it'll be emailed out to them.

ACTION ITEM: Add Doug C. Brown's info, transcript, video, blog, guide link to theshadesofe.com - WATCH

But that's a great resource for people.

@1:07:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

We've got a lot of great feedback on that. I love it. Doug, see Brown. again, folks, if you forget, all this conversation, get to the end of our podcast, you're like, what the heck, I just happened, and so much information.

Well, you can subscribe to the Shades of E newsletter by visiting theshadesofe.com. I'll have Doug's information. We'll have a transcript.

of this conversation as well as a video of this conversation. We'll probably put a blog out there for this conversation as well.

So there will be a lot of content on the Shades of Entrepreneurship website as well as the guide that Doug mentioned.

We'll make sure that is on the website as well. So again, folks, please check out Doug's CEO, Sales Strategy Information, a lot of good content, a lot of good advice on this conversation.

And again, please subscribe to the Shades of Entrepreneurship podcast by visiting the Shades of E.com. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Although I do not dance. So that kind of helps that kind of ruins my algorithm on TikTok. But Doug, I appreciate you so much coming on the show.

A wealth of information, I think we could have probably spent another hour talking to be honest with you. But again, I'm very fortunate to be able to host a show because of individuals like you come on and share just massive amount of wisdom.

ACTION ITEM: Subscribe to Shades of Entrepreneurship newsletter at theshadesofe.com - WATCH

@1:08:55 - Doug C. Brown

And so folks at home, I really hope you've been taking some notes. Doug, any last words before we go?

No, thanks so much for having me on here. appreciate it. I had a really time and, you know, I would, my last words would be that people should be subscribing to your newsletter.

I'm actually going to subscribe to your newsletter. I didn't know you had one because here's the thing with conversations like we're having, if you're having these with the other people, which you are because we checked out your podcast beforehand.

And, you know, people can get this type of information, even if they summarize this information, like, I don't use chat to BT or Gemini or whatever, AI, right, summarize this conversation.

And then folks, over time, looking for patterns in the, in these summaries and, you know, I mean, to pay somebody to teach you this type of thing and you're getting it for free, you know, I bow to your feet on that one, Gabriel.

@1:09:50 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So thank you. I keep telling everybody, I'm extremely selfish because I interview all these entrepreneurs and I get free education out of it.

So I'm very, very fortunate. Again, folks, please visit the shades of e.com to subscribe. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.

 Thank you and have a great night.