On today’s Lunch with Norm, eCommerce Advice from Apprentice Star Serial Entrepreneur from Andrea Lake. We will be discussing common hurdles sellers may see while scaling. We also talk about having the right resources and mentors to guide you in the right direction, and action steps for future entrepreneurs to take right now. Starting in 1999, Andrea found passion by building and scaling over 14 companies including StickerJunkie, YogaJunkie, Delinquent Distribution and more, many of them featured in Wired, Inc, Forbes, as well as on TV on Good Morning America and The Oprah Winfrey show.
Early internet maven. First web company in 1999. Andrea has started 14 companies, including: StickerJunkie, YogaJunkie, Delinquent Distribution (which owned the sales rights for merch on Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, The Walking Dead, and more), Quarantini, and Power Chick Mafia. She or her companies have been featured in Wired, Inc., Entrepreneur, Forbes, as well as on television on: Good Morning America and The Oprah Winfrey show, among others. Speaking Credits include Summit, YPO, CU Boulder, and Harvard. She is also known for her deep run as a contestant on The Apprentice.
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Episode: 206
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Andrea Lake – Internet maven and serial entrepreneur
Subtitle: “Ecommerce Advice from Apprentice Star & Serial Entrepreneur”
Final Show Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlL23xLlOQ0&list=PLVIz0IewRSqDUVXG_IAXsVx9ZWE8_Vanz&index=8
Back on Lunch with Norm…Joining us on today’s show, we have Andrea lake, serial entrepreneur & Apprentice star. We’ll be talking about the common hurdles would you see come up while scaling resources and mentors to guide you in the right direction, and, action steps for future entrepreneurs. Andrea started her first web company in 1999 and has build and scaled over 14 by now, these include StickerJunkie, YogaJunkie, Delinquent Distribution and many more.
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Norman Farrar 0:02
Hey everyone it’s Norman Farrar aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with Norm the Amazon FBA and Ecommerce podcast.
Norman Farrar 0:22
Okay, you heard me hype this up the last podcast this is going to be one of my favorites is one of my favorite ladies. Anyways, on today’s show we’re going to be talking about the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. Our guest today is an early internet adopter. She started her first website in 1999. She started over 14 companies, including sticker junkie yoga junkie, delinquent distribution, and I like this one power chick mafia. And once you see and talk to her and experience Andrea Lake, you’ll understand why she is a power chick mafia. But anyways, she’s also been featured in Wired, Inc, entrepreneur, Forbes, you know a few of those. And I am going to touch base with her about her. Donald Trump expects you to be a contestant on The Apprentice. So we’ll be talking to Andrea lake in just two seconds. But boy wonder where are you?Is my beard still funky?
Kelsey 1:26
It’s a little funky, but I like it. It’s okay, being funky. Let’s go. Welcome everyone. We got a great turnout already welcoming Manny, Andrew, Jessica Rabbit, Simon,Rad Doctor Caz, thank you guys for joining. I’m here over in Toronto, Canada, let us know where you’re watching from. Also, if you’re new to the show, you can head on over to our community. That’s the lunch with Norm Amazon FBA and Ecommerce collective Facebook group. That’s the best place to go and join in on a community. Let me see we have a great show today. We have a giveaway two that we’re going to be talking about shortly. So stick around for information on that. And of course smash those like buttons. Share this episode out to your communities. If you know anyone who is an entrepreneur or looking to become an entrepreneur, share it with them, take them in the comment sections. And yeah, we can’t wait for this. It’s gonna be a great episode. Andrew has been on the I know this guy podcast with Norman before. So it’s gonna be great to have her back and yeah, super excited about this episode.
Norman Farrar 2:36
And she also killed it in the clubhouse. We had a clubhouse room with her in the past so I’m just loving it. And I also want to just give a quick shout out to you know, Jessica, Andrew Manny. Simon, the troublemaker Oh my god. I’ve got stories about him in London this week. Rad and also not Ricki Lake, Simon. Andrea Lake. Oh my God, he’s already starting. Okay. And also, Andrew is gonna like this. We have a guest here. Daniel DiMasi, who’s already been on the podcast as well. So I know they’re good friends. But before we get to that, we just want to give a quick shout out to solarize. Solarize is the sponsor of this episode. solarize is your comprehensive solution for your everyday business needs. It’s everything you need to grow and scale your business with just one click. For more information call it contact demon this team over@solarized.com All right now, sit back, relax. Enjoy the episode. Hey, lady.
Andrea Lake 3:44
Hey, how are you, friend?
Norman Farrar 3:46
I am doing awesome. I have been telling everybody how excited I am about talking to you again.
Andrea Lake 3:53
I’m excited to I love being on here. Another shout out to Daniel the masa. Thanks for introducing us Daniel. Daniel is one of my business partners at my company. You guys can check out T shirt junkie.com and Daniel is awesome.
Norman Farrar 4:05
He is awesome. He always I always enjoy our our we we get together around December for the boat parade. Have you ever been to the boat parade down in Fort Lauderdale?
Andrea Lake 4:15
No, I haven’t. I’ve never been to Florida in December. I’ve been in November for our Oh,
Norman Farrar 4:21
you gotta go. It’s so cool. But anyways, yeah, we have our cigars sitting there watching the boat during that time period. So even one of the things the small little points I forgot to even mention. Is that you Daniel, another partner. You sold over a billion dollars worth of T shirts. Yeah.
Andrea Lake 4:42
Yes. So Daniel DiMasi, who’s on here owns di epic I on delinquent, which had the exclusive sales rights on the merchandise for Minecraft world of warcraft Call of Duty Walking Dead that did not suck and win more businesses. One of our business partners started combat flip flops and he’s been on Shark Tank and The other one started tap out clothing, which of course everyone has heard of.
Norman Farrar 5:03
Pepo. No, it’s just yeah, I think everybody’s heard of that one.
Andrea Lake 5:11
Oh, so maybe not, you know, I feel like if you’re not, I guess I guess if you’re younger and you’re not into MMA, maybe not.
Norman Farrar 5:17
Maybe not. Look, there’s so much to talk about. And especially with, you know, being an entrepreneur, a lot of people here. They’re new sellers, they might have come from a different industry. They’re selling on their own, and they’re just experiencing, selling for themselves. And they’re finding out that every day is not just, you know, bubblegum and unicorns, or whatever they call it. But it’s a tough go like an entrepreneur. You experience your first of all, it’s lonely. Second of all, there’s everybody’s after you one way or the other. What advice can you give to people that are just new to being an entrepreneur?
Andrea Lake 6:01
Yeah, I mean, honest to God, you got this. And when people are coming after you, for one reason or another, every single person has a dream that they wish that they were doing and people that actually aren’t doing their dream are gonna behave, sometimes not as nice towards you, whether it’s a customer that’s being difficult, or whatever, but you got this Go live your best life, you’re on it.
Norman Farrar 6:23
Right? Doing it. Just taking that step, right. Just say, I’m going to take that risk is you know, 50 60% of the way there.
Andrea Lake 6:31
It really is actually, the best advice that was that I got from Jack Canfield. He has a book success secrets is like an old school motivational business guy. And it was do five things extra every day for your business, it could be sending an email approaching a new customer, whatever. But if you do five things each day for your company, you’re going to do like, over 1500 things in the year, these little small steps. And it’s really, really about doing the next right thing. That’s it. All of these, like, overnight success stories are just total bullshit. Like, you don’t see the 10 year like when I launch a new company, does it go? Well? Yes, it does. Because I’ve been in business for 20 years. So when you hear it like an overnight success story, generally it’s someone’s third or fourth or fifth company.
Norman Farrar 7:15
Right. And nobody talks about failure. Right. They all got the Lamborghinis. And they’re, you know, yeah, yeah, nobody talks. So let’s, let’s talk about that for a second. Um, failure, is it something that should be expected when you’re building a business?
Andrea Lake 7:35
So when I first started my companies, I did not have a lot of failure for I’m gonna say, the first seven years, and then and then what but I but, but like, I was excited, every time that I sold a $20 T shirt. So I had like, I had a different mediation of standards. But then I started to my company started to get bigger and bigger. And one of my distributors, one of my huge stores, it’s 625 locations, Mr. Rags, was a US chain store. And they owed me $910,000. That was a completely normal amount of purchase orders back and forth to be open on their books, and they went out of business. And they did not pay me.
Norman Farrar 8:18
And he had no foot to stand on.
Andrea Lake 8:20
None. I talked to my attorneys, and they were like, I didn’t even have like my attorneys back then I talked to an attorney, and then I got a second opinion. And he was like, girl, you are so far down the food chain, you if you hire us, it’s gonna cost you another $40,000 to get your name on their receivables, which you’re like already on to even potentially get paid. But you are so far down the line and through their pants, you’re never getting paid.
Norman Farrar 8:42
Oh, man. That’s,
Andrea Lake 8:45
yeah, it was. It was horrible. So I went from like, so frickin flush to like, just nothing overnight.
Norman Farrar 8:53
One of the things that I’ve learned, I don’t know if you do that, I’m sure you do this. But what especially with Amazon business, there are you know that certain emails are going to come from Amazon, just making your life and living nightmare like suspensions. And one of the things that we do we try to plan for that. So it hasn’t happened. But we provide like risk evaluation. So okay, if this happens, yeah, then here’s our game plan. And we kind of do that beforehand. And we put that into our project manager or management tool. So you can sort of prepare and it helps you it helps you in a little, a little bit. But you just got to be resilient, don’t you?
Andrea Lake 9:37
You really do because that I think it happened and it happened and whenever it happened is the reason that we started sticker junkies I spend like 99 of that happened. And it’s the whole reason that I started sticker junkie because I was like, Oh wait, I was selling a lot of stuff to chain stores, which is a very large purchase from one single client. So I was like I actually need a company. also to where I’m selling really small dollar sales to a very wide audience of people. That way, if one or two, two of my really big clients had an issue at the same time, I’m not, you know, going to go out of business. So that was a risk mediation actually starting sticker Genki, right?
Norman Farrar 10:16
No, you had you’ve started over 14 companies? Yeah. What are some of the things? What are? What are some areas that you look at before you jump into a business? What type of planets and stars have to line up before you enter?
Andrea Lake 10:34
So it has to be fun. Number one, it has to be this that wasn’t always a requirement for me, but it is now. And it has to have to like see a pathway forward for it to make money. Like a lot of money, and then and then I have to have the right team on it. Because there’s been a couple of times where I’ve had a great, great idea. And I just don’t have the proper team executing on it. And it just is never gonna work when that’s the case.
Norman Farrar 11:02
So it’s the team skill set. So that’s even that’s a whole other rabbit hole is how do you hire the right team? So yeah, what are some of the things that you’re looking for when you when you’re hiring the team? So they are the right people?
Andrea Lake 11:16
Well, I think to like take it backwards to say no, we have a lot of starting entrepreneurs on here, right? Yeah, yes. So so so this is that because that’s a little bit more like, I can afford to hire a good team do you know, so but when the beginning I couldn’t, so then what I would do is I would just assess, like, when you’re very, very starting out, I would assess all of the things that actually made my company money, because in the beginning of one of my first companies, anti establishment clothing, I was doing everything I was running the Credit Card orders, I was, you know, packing the boxes, shipping the boxes, doing the labels doing everything. So I hired my very first part time person, and I just wanted somebody that was honest, and competent, and could type past that was like a big skill of back then. And then I made a promise to myself that every hour she was there, I would be doing sales calls. And and now it would be internet marketing or something else. But this was you know, 99 around then. And the very first shift that she had, I had her come work before hours. And it was she was $10 an hour, which was that was normal back then. That was actually really good pay back then. So it was costing me $40. I mean, $1,500 in sales on the sales calls. And she was leaving that day, I’m like, you’re full time from here on out, because all I should be doing is focusing on making my company money. So like in the beginning, I would I would do everything you can to focus on making your company money and have somebody else do it. Because I was like, Oh, I guess I’m never packed in boxes again, have somebody else do all of the easier stuff, you know, because you’ll be shocked at how much faster your business grows.
Norman Ferra 12:53
Right? So all those little repetitive tasks are taken away from you so you can concentrate on growing the business. That’s right. All right. Now what about when you when you’re looking at other successful entrepreneur and the traits they have to building their business? What are they
Andrea Lake 13:11
stick to itiveness you’re gonna get knocked down, stuffs gonna happen, um, you’re gonna have unexpected expenses, just just all of the stuff that like there’s there’s two things I think make an incredibly good entrepreneur. One is risk tolerance, you have to be able to handle rescue cannot freak out when stuff is not going well. And you truly truly have to be able to immediately be solution oriented. If you get caught up in the problem of everything that’s going wrong, that you’re just not going to make it
Norman Farrar 13:40
great up before I forget, which I usually do around this time. We do have a giveaway today. And it’s an awesome giveaway. And I’m going to add to that giveaway as well. So, and yes. So you have given like an incredible giveaway. Thank you so much. And if you want just explain exactly what it is.
Andrea Lake 14:01
You get $150 gift certificate to sticker junkie.com. So that’s enough to buy like anywhere from 300 to 500 depending on what size and shape and everything that you want. stickers for your company. Yay,
Norman Farrar 14:15
that is so cool. So thank you so much. And I thought well, okay, if you’re gonna cuz you’re so you’re so special. I thought I’m going to add to this as well. So, anybody who wants to join the wheel of Kelsey today, hashtag we’ll have Kelsey tag two people, and you get an extra entry. I’m also going to throw in a 30 minute consult. Okay, so it’s a combination $150 from Andrea, and you’ve got a 30 minute consult with me. So that’s yeah, so there we go. So hopefully, fries, but Daniel can’t say, Daniel that’s great. Hey, you know, I thought if you’re doing it, I’m gonna do something as well. So, hey, what, um, you got you, I know you have mentors, and I know there were resources that you’ve, you know, worked with to build your business. Who are they? Or what were the resources?
Andrea Lake 15:17
Well, so when I very first started my first clothing company, I, I reached out to somebody that I just like, he was a friend of a friend. So such a friend said, Can you introduce me, because he had sold a, we’re still friends to this day, he had sold a million dollars worth of T shirts in the last year. And I was like, that is all the money in the world. I’m gonna go do that. So I had this company, my first company rhythm sticks, those juggling toys that you play with the two sticks in each hand stick, but I had to hand make all of that all of the sticks. And I was like, I can just get T shirts printed and sell them? Are you effing kidding me right now. So I, so I had our friend introduce our mutual friend introduced us and I just said, Hey, I’m starting this clothing line. It’s called anti establishment, like kind of offensive T shirts. And will you mentor me and he was like, because like, I don’t, I don’t know anything about mentoring. I’m like, Just meet with me for coffee. And he did. And he told me every single thing that he knew about selling T shirts, and this would have been in like 98. And so I didn’t know anything. And he just was so generous. It’s actually one of the reasons that Dan Daniel and I wrote a book on how to start a T Shirt Company, and like, just give these give this stuff away, give the knowledge away on how to start a T Shirt Company, we also sell a course on how to do it. But it is because all of us had such generous mentors. In the beginning, we have a lot of free content on how to do that. And then and then I have another mentor, who’s very private, I never mentioned him by name, but he’s, um, that he was much later when I was much further down my trail of success. And he’s a multi billionaire mentor guy who’s had hundreds of millions of dollars and exits on multiple verticals, and also is one of the most successful traders in the world. And so, so so once I was at an appropriate level of success, to have that level of mentor he took me on, but when you’re reaching out for a mentor, you really don’t want to try and get the person that’s like, the pinnacle top one directly to mentor you, because they’re quite busy. And it really is great to step ladder up to the next mentor who’s just like, a bit higher than you are. I think.
Norman Farrar 17:30
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s really great advice. You know, going to that next level and stepping up. That’s, that’s, that’s really, that’s perfect.
Andrea Lake 17:39
Yeah. But then I also, if I had the availability today that we have today, if I was starting today, I also would like listen to people like norm and and join his communities, because there are so many people who are at that top level, who maybe don’t have time necessarily, in general to do a lot of personal one on one consults. But like, a lot of us are just putting the knowledge out, it’s like, no, this is how you actually do it.
Norman Farrar 18:05
In our podcast, I don’t know if it was on the podcast, or we were talking about this off off air. But you were talking about, like you get emails, daily, hourly from people that want to reach out, and you’ll have you mentor them. And there were very specific things that you look at, and that you don’t even look at, like the most of them, just, you know, your assistant, takes them and deletes them. But I don’t say she does a thorough job. We won’t say Delete. But there there are characteristics that stand out. And there was one individual who actually you reintroduced me to, but this person that reached out and it was like, oh, yeah, I got to talk to this guy. Yeah. And you know, what, when you’re reaching out to a mentor, what, what were those characteristics? What What, like you had 1000s of people reaching out? You got this one person, put them under your wing, and now he’s a gazillionaire?
Andrea Lake 19:03
Yeah, it’s true. I have a couple of people like that. And all of them approached me the exact same way. So I’m gonna say 9998 99% of the emails or reach out messages, whatever that successful entrepreneurs get our have this company, it’s the best idea in the world. It’s failing right now. If you help me with it, it will be successful. And the response any successful entrepreneur has like, yes, that is probably true. That it yes, it probably will. But I don’t have any time or why would like why would I take you on to this concept that generally speaking is not super unique. Or it’s like I’m just barely, barely barely baby starting out. Can you partner with me? And you’re like, well, that’s not really that’s not really who somebody that’s at the pinnacle of their career is going to partner with. However, the people that got through my radar, and especially Travis, Stephen, who I’m sure assume you Oh, great. So he reached out to me. And the email was very short and very to the point, but it was like segmented in like three bullet points. And it was like, Hey, this is me, I saw you here. I was fired up. When I watched your xy, I was on this movie. He’s like, I saw this movie, I was fired up about it. This is who I am, I was a, you know, professional, I was on my way to the NFL, division one school, and had a career in the injury. So I’ve been studying business, I’ve done this, and this, and this, I’ve had some measure of success. But if you if you had time to even talk to me for 20 minutes, and let me take you to coffee, I know for sure that it would hyper accelerate my success. But I know you’re super busy. So if not, no worries, I’ll see you at the top. And I was like, what I called him, I immediately as soon as I read the email, I called him on the phone, because he got his phone number in there. And that was maybe 10 years ago. And now you know, he went on to like sell six businesses in six years. He’s ultra successful. He’s the CEO of gro flow now and they just raise like a gazillion dollar round, I can’t remember how much they raised. And he’s just a genuinely good guy. And in order to retain me, as a mentor, I would just give him stuff to do, like go this book, go to this thing, he would do it. At all of my mentors. This is the case mentees, this is the case he would do it, he would write back to me and tell me that he did it. And tell me what the you know, sort of results were I didn’t tell him that he had to write me back and keep in contact with me. But most people will not do very basic things. If you tell them to go read my mentor, the billion dollar mentor, he, he gave me a list of 14 books. And he’s like, read these and they were chunky, dense books. He’s like, read these in the next six weeks and get back to me. I read them in for like, wow. So you have to do your the assignments of your mentor otherwise, and and you can’t ask them to fix all of your company.
Norman Farrar 21:58
Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You’ve got to do the heavy lifting. Yes. Well, you know, and that’s something I used to do, especially when I was younger, even now. But if I see somebody that I really wanted to know, and understand and not just absorb, but I’ll ask them to go out for a cup of coffee. And I was very surprised at how many successful business people that are, that will take the time if you buy them a cup of coffee, that will sit down and talk to you. And like, maybe not as a coach or maybe not as a mentor. But you know what, I can fire an email over to the person because I’m not trying to grab and just take take take, you know, and now they’re part of the network, which is kind of really cool. But you know what, you you also started to talk about that you are in the you are in the t shirt space. You still are you have this course teachables which we’ll talk about. Oh gosh, I’m
Andrea Lake 23:02
sorry. No worries, teacher. That t shirt. junkie.com There we go. And what was the t shirt junkie.com URL, but it goes to because teacher was too confusing spell.
Norman Farrar 23:14
Okay, great. But this is perfect for our audience. Our audience are into E commerce, Amazon, Amazon, we hear about saturated markets, okay, you know, in the supplements or into mobile like iPhone case, or whatever it is. I would think T shirts is probably a fairly saturated market. What kind of advice would you give to people that are in these types of markets? How do you how do you beat the competition,
Andrea Lake 23:43
you have impeccably good marketing, you’re impeccably given impeccably good. Tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, you and you don’t talk about your product to Steve Jobs that that was his big thing that he came out with, you’ve never discussed the products the product has never been named, you’re really pushing the lifestyle of it. So even though somebody in the shop maybe is wearing your T shirts, it’s the vibe of the picture behind it. It’s all of the it’s like creating this almost like tribal belonging mentality because we’re at the psychology of selling a t shirt and especially to that prime audience of people that wears T shirts, right? So like eight years old to like 2324 years old. That’s like your prime prime target audiences, something’s gonna wear a graphic print on a T. The T shirt to them is an identifier of who they are. It is an expression of them selves. Which is why the licensed goods did so good for us and then just the funny jokey sort of offensive mildly irreverent stuff because it said like hey, I’m cool. I have a great sense of humor this and that. So it’s so all of the imagery that they see on your website. I mean, now that it is so easy to do good photography, there is no excuse for not having phenomenally good imagery that immediately grabs You so if you want to know what I’m talking about, go to any large T Shirt Company go to roxy.com or you know any of these ones it’s like been forever or combat flip flops and meet or die epic die epic.com Daniel site is a perfect example of this, you go on there, there’s a bunch of skydivers, they’re super effing cool, all the photography is cool. And his Instagram is impeccable because he got his whole audience in on the game. And it’s like a big deal. And when they get posted on dynamics, Instagram, and it’s gamified all of those are really smart things because then you get those really fanatic fans that are constantly posting about you has like the champion, MMA fighters are all now wearing this stuff, too. So his stream looks just like whoa, whatever this is, I want to be that cool person. That’s the skydiving you know, extreme sports guy.
Norman Farrar 25:50
Yeah, and talking about I haven’t talked about this for a long time, and you just triggered this. Talk about extreme dye epic? How many? How many people go out? I don’t know how many. Maybe you will, Andrew. But would you put a tattoo of lunch with Norm on your body?
Andrea Lake 26:07
I know, right? That it’s such an RP clothing companies that all of my friends like all of the all of the people that teach in T shirt Jackie on teacher, we have sections of people that are put our logos on their body, but die epic, I think is winning with the most. It’s crazy. It’s got to it right on there. But it’s crazy.
Norman Farrar 26:28
Oh my gosh. So that’s what we’ll do. If you put lunch with Norm on your body, please tag us so we can put it on to our Kelsey put it on your body.
Andrea Lake 26:38
Yeah,
Kelsey 26:38
I’ve told I’ve told the Patreon group that if they tattoo lunch with Norm on their body, they get a free membership, lifelong membership.
Norman Farrar 26:48
Now, that’s a little extreme, I would have given them a mug, but like, like blog memberships, okay. Okay. And on that note, if you have any questions, entrepreneurship or building a business scaling a business, please put it into the comment section and we will get to them shortly. If you had to do anything over again, what would that be?
Andrea Lake 27:13
I would never worry, I would never put time or energy into worrying. I would always trust that it’s going to be okay, I’m so much better at that I wasted so much of my life being upset at one failure or another, ever and I said this before on your podcast, but every single thing that’s turning your wheels and keeping you up at night right now is not even going to matter to you at all in five years. You’re not even going to remember it.
Norman Farrar 27:40
That that is so true. I remember in my 20s literally getting a bloody ulcer. Yeah. And you know, I take a look at what that was about. You know if I can remember, I’m an old guy, limited memory. But if I remember correctly, what that would have been, it would have just been like, it wouldn’t have been nothing today. Yeah. And the other thing that I found, at least was stress, is that you overthink it. It’s never I don’t know about you, but it’s never it never has been as bad as what I thought it was.
Andrea Lake 28:15
Oh my god. No. And I’m this is from someone who like went from like $1.2 million liquid to $2 million in debt in a week. And I am telling you, that is not a big deal. It’s not the two years that I was like in the fetal position crying on the floor on necessary I never filed for bankruptcy. I paid off every penny It took years. Yeah, but um, but it was like one day finally after being fucking so, so mad at myself and so sad. And so like, I blew up my whole life. I’m failing at life like so dramatic trauma. When I woke up, and I’m like, wait a minute, I know how to make money. I know how to do this.
Norman Farrar 29:01
Just that easy.
Andrea Lake 29:02
It was that easy. Yeah, it was like a switch in my mindset. And I’m like, I’m like, Dude. A million dollars is just on the thing that cost $1,000 1000 times everything that costs $100 10,000 times I’m not hard to make a million dollars.
Norman Farrar 29:15
But you know, what’s crazy is when you when you’re in business, and you’ve been in business, like many different businesses, but it’s it’s usually the same formula. Like if you get it right once. It’s just rinse and repeat.
Andrea Lake 29:30
If you can run a business, you can run any business you have to learn you have to learn what the specifics are of that particular industry. They’re all different. But like, I think that it’s such a mental game. It’s such a mental game of just like knowing like I can do this I got this I’m capable of this. The and also like looking when you when you actually meet a lot of really taught your entrepreneurs you like that person is actually not smarter than I am. And they figured this out. And there’s something really reassuring about that. Of like, I have friends and business partners and super successful friends at all levels of, of like intelligence, but all of them are hustlers.
Norman Farrar 30:13
That’s a key and resilient.
Andrea Lake 30:17
Yes, yes.
Norman Farrar 30:18
Yep. You know, I think that is the the one thing I found they can take failure. And I call it failure to succeed. You know, yeah, you have to have that failure to succeed. If you don’t, I don’t know about you, you. I mean, you said, you know, for seven years, well, for me, it was like, the next day something would have come.
Andrea Lake 30:41
I got really lucky in the beginning, I’m not trying to say I did, it was very lucky.
Norman Farrar 30:45
But it happens. And it’s a learning experience. So we can’t dwell on that you move forward, or you get out you don’t become an entrepreneur. The one of the other things. So we talked about mentorship, but we, we haven’t touched on coaching, and a lot of people are, are, are trying to do it on the cheap, right, they might not have money right now, they put everything into their business, I was always one into investing, I invested in myself, I invested in going to a strategic coach like a, you know, to a coaching program where I paid money, and some good money to learn how to build my business. If it wasn’t a coach, it would be somebody else that I could kind of lean on or watch if I couldn’t become like if they weren’t my mentor. But what do you think about coaching programs or getting into these paid masterminds? Would you would you spend money on it,
Andrea Lake 31:39
I not only would I spend money on it, I do spend money on it, I’m actually texting my coach right now to see if I have this intensely good planner. It’s a 90 day planner that she sells. And it is what runs my whole life. It is not expensive, but any time it’s like I think $97 or something, and it’s a download, so then you have it. Um, but anything that keeps you on track I actually do for right now. Because because I’m starting, I’m in a new project, and it’s an intense growth phase. So I do coaching sessions for four hours every Friday, till the end of the year. Yeah, so that is not normal. Normally, I do like an hour a week of coaching with my coach, I have a couple of different coaches, I use them for different things. But yeah, it is intensely important. Because mindset is the most important thing. It just is, it just is because like, you know, you’re gonna fuck up and stuff is going to happen and people are going to do what they do. And you’re going to like sell a big order, and it’s going to have to be refunded like there’s just stuff that’s going to happen along the way. And as entrepreneurs, we have a choice to let a little speed bump become like a barrier wall, or to just be like, Man, I don’t know, I jumped to my car a little bit. I was going too fast. It’s fine. Yeah, hang on. Okay, sorry.
Norman Farrar 33:01
No problem. So the the other thing too, and I’m not sure if you’re involved with any of these types of groups, but either an E O or a YPO. I like those groups, because you get to rub shoulders with people, like you said hustlers, you know, that have that mindset. And like I know with zeal, and I don’t know if anybody here is entrepreneur or organization, it’s a group that you can join, I think that they have a million and a half dollar entry point. But at is it a million? Yep. So at that point, you become a forum, you you can create this forum and you have this group of, I just call it it’s sort of a board of advisors. It’s non competing people that can give you just honest feedback. And I have a group like I’m out of a Oh, right now because of my travel schedule. But I have a group that’s 2526 years old. I can call them like that get answers. I can call them if I had a problem. And it was a critical problem. I guarantee you that they would be coming over to the house. Yeah, spending the weekend or spending a day trying to fix whatever it is. It’s an incredible organization. But there’s tons of them out there. But he Oh YPO are incredible if you’re looking because it is lonely as an entrepreneur, and you need some guidance, I definitely would would look at it. It’s not really that expensive. And it’s a it’s a write off of course. But um, anyways, so you you do have you are part of I guess it you’d probably be YPO
Andrea Lake 34:44
I both both. Remember both, you can be a member of both. So I was previously in YPO. And I actually like the so for for the guy for you guys listening. He was just only entrepreneurs. That’s it and you have to have $1 million to get in to a group YPO is C level positions at like fortune 1000 companies. They can be family businesses, they can be entrepreneurial business, they can be anything that you’re running, that is doing over 10 million annual sales. Some groups, it’s 4 million summits, 10, the one and 100 million in sales, like they have different requirements for different groups. And they’ll sort you into the right group. But it’s a much, much higher level of a group. But also because it is like CEOs do not have the same problems. As entrepreneurs, you know, they’re dealing with their board, they’re just dealing with different stuff. And then family businesses. I’m like, Okay, well, you didn’t start your own company. Like, it’s cool, though. I mean, there’s badass people running family businesses don’t get me wrong. Also not the same problems, because they’re sort of dealing with usually familial issues, that’s usually the biggest problem. So with EO, it’s just all entrepreneurs that prior there’s a couple of ones prior for people just starting out. And there’s y EC, which I also am in, which is wonderful, which has a lower starting required, I don’t remember what it is, but some lower six figures starting requirement. And then there’s tons of local stuff like you guys, if you’re just starting out, and you just want to connect with other local entrepreneurs, go to your local chamber of commerce and join because you’ll meet other entrepreneurs in your area. And as you scale up, join these other groups join them because like, you know, eo is a million dollars, but if you’re at like, 500,000, you’re like, I really, really want to join, they do have they do have like memberships? Oh, yeah. I love what you say. Thank you for putting that link up there. Great. Did you have other resource stuff? So like, just look around, and you just almost can’t go as long as you don’t, as long as they don’t buy into some multilevel marketing thing? If it’s a really hyper local when when you just can’t go wrong?
Norman Farrar 36:39
Yeah, that’s, that’s really great advice. But yeah, so anyways, check that out. And also, if you’re looking for a coach, I did this at the beginning. So I joined EO, and then got introduced to strategic coach at at that time. Great. So there was different, I think there was a 50,000 100,000 $250,000 $500,000 levels of income, right? If that’s what you were earning. And, you know, if you’re at 50, I want to be with the 500,000. You think you’re getting, you know, ripped off if you’re going with you nailed it? Yeah, there are different expectations, different needs and requirements at a 50,000. If you try to skip up to a quarter million bucks, or half a million dollars, you’re gonna get a whole other group of circumstances. So don’t try to screw up the system and just go because things are going to be geared towards you. And you’re gonna miss the boat if you try to jump too quick. Anyways, check out Strategic Coach Dan Sullivan. I haven’t. I haven’t been in contact with the Strategic Coach forever. I think it was this how old I am. It started like when I joined EO, I think it started that far back it was the first year. I remember when they just started. Yeah. You were five, you know.
Andrea Lake 38:11
I’m really not sensitive. I’m age. I’m 47. And so I’ve been in this game for a little a little bit of time. Oh, it’s only $47 for the plan or use Okay, you guys I’m sharing this link. I don’t actually know how to share a link on here because as a as a person that’s on here as like somebody that’s different.
Kelsey 38:30
So you can just go into the private chat and drop it there and I’ll post it
Andrea Lake 38:34
you’re the best thank you. Oh, and you sent me something in there. So I’m saying I’m so busy that you got it so you guys this in addition to and like I don’t I’m not I don’t even get an affiliate commission from her because this woman who designs this gorgeous which it would be fine if I did but I don’t. This woman had designed this gorgeous planner. It’s called the pink box planner is a very very good friend of mine but it’s a 90 day system where you do a 90 day goal it’s $47 and it is in it is the I have used every planner and I am obsessed with paper and stationery and design is out of control the best planner out of control the best I have ever ever used. One of the reasons is because you print it out and it’s on it’s on eight and a half by 11 paper so a lot of little planners I’m trying to like Yeah, and I have these beautiful color pens. Oh, they’re a little color pens in the planner and it is intensely good but it’s also hyper focuses you on one goal you have your big win every single day. It’s I can’t highly enough recommended it is actually the way that I get so much done. I’ve been using this ever since I found ever since she designed this planner in 2017 I’ve never used anything else and I use it every quarter and we just started a new quarter go get that planner.
Norman Farrar 39:50
I’m gonna get one right after this call pain planner.com Alright, now you know we talked about all these courses and all these lessons. associations that kind of leads me to power check mafia. So let’s talk a little bit about that. You know, who do you have to be? Are there different levels, different tears? I know that there’s a lot of people on here that are interested. But is it just a female organization? Or is it male, female? Let’s talk about that a bit.
Andrea Lake 40:24
It’s just that the women are the ones that are teaching, anybody can buy anything that we teach. But here’s the deal. So I launched power chick mafia, right. Right after really COVID started, it was a plan previous to COVID existing. And here’s the real deal norm. In the last in the last year, I started trading crypto so much and because my, my mentor is a crypto trader, I’ve divested as much as I can from every business and all I do all day long is trade crypto.
Norman Farrar 40:56
Are you serious?
Andrea Lake 40:58
That’s a huge, huge system. So at some point, because I’m running this experiment in crypto right now with compounding returns, so at some point, what once I’ve gotten 18 months down the trail on this experiment, or it probably before it was probably in six or seven months from now, I will be releasing all of that on power chick mafia. But um, you know, so I kind of I haven’t really been working as much on power chick mafia, just because I’m obsessed with crypto, obsessed. It’s ridiculous.
Norman Farrar 41:27
Oh, my E commerce contacts are doing crypto. I’m seeing more and more all here’s the course I’m putting out for crypto this course for crypto. And now you’re doing crypto.
Andrea Lake 41:40
Okay, so when I released the crypto stuff, I’m going to give you guys a secret. When I released the crypto stuff, it will be free. Because if somebody actually really knows how to actually trade, they don’t need to sell shit. When you have compounding returns on crypto, you can go from like my experiment. And right now I took $50,000 I broke it up into 100 different segments of $500. And every single one of those $500 lines is racing to 14 million, like because you do 10% compounding flips 25% 50% 100%. And because my mentor really is one of the best traders in the world, I know the exact actual risk mitigation, correct way to trade like you should only be trading with 20% of your portfolio and saving 80% for drop crashes. There’s a whole bunch of rules that I have never seen any course teach, because the people who really, really really know how to trade will make billions of dollars so quickly that there’s no point for them to teach it. So there’s a lot of really good free content actually on on like clubhouse. And you can take a course to of course, it’s good to have really basic starter knowledge. But in general, the reason that people would release the crypto course is so that their followers would buy the Kryptos that they already purchased low and then they’re gonna sell higher and then tell you to sell.
Norman Ferra 43:00
That’s great. You know what I feel like, remember Connie Chung when she said this just whispered in my ear, and only I will know. So what is the secret?
Andrea Lake 43:12
There are some really good secrets that I can tell people about crypto. The number one thing is understand the asset you’re selling in. Okay, so there’s some every single cryptocurrency actually does something, and then some of them don’t. So that so there’s just like, they literally are called shit coins that just don’t do anything. And they’re rug poles and they just aren’t they don’t have a functional utilization. So understand what the currency does. So just it’s just one example of many, many, many examples. So like helium, which is an intensely cool crypto is the easiest way to explain it. We’re gonna take the next 30 seconds and you’re gonna learn it’s a black box that anybody can buy. Then you put that black box on your roof and it connects into Elon Musk’s low hanging satellite, low hanging satellites, and provides Internet connection that is not trackable, or traceable. And it’s also anywhere in the world because the low hanging satellites are anywhere in the world. And so when I saw like, I’m in Sedona, Arizona, it’s a remote location, if I have two or three or four helium boxes on my roof, I am earning helium tokens by providing this satellite connection to other people. They are paying, you know, a fractional token in order to use my internet access. So right now, the whole internet that we’re on right now is an attention based economy you are paying with your time you are paying 30 seconds at a time to watch a commercial to see a video. In the future you will buy a segment of like that basic attention token or something similar to that and you will pay a content creator a dime to watch their video. Instead of watching that advertisement or commercial which is how it currently works. There’s going to be a shifting into a crypto economic economy from our current time based attention economy that because most people think the internet’s free I’m like isn’t that crazy? asking you all kinds of money.
Norman Farrar 45:03
Okay, so that’s a whole other podcast. Yes. I can’t wait. We got to talk. Okay, so let’s, before we get into some of the questions, I just have one other question for you. So are there any action steps that you’d like to pass along to future entrepreneurs? Like, what did they have to do? What would you provide?
Andrea Lake 45:27
Okay, well, I’m so glad Lisa got back to me with her planner, because what you have to do is have a plan for your time you just do so on this is, these are the best action steps that I can think of, because as we’ve discussed, mindset is everything. So I have a thing that I do in the morning, it’s actually in my planner every morning, I check it off every morning, because I took her planner and customized it for myself because I am that person. So it’s seven minutes, I call it seven dots. 7x 377 times three is seven minutes, seven seconds of meditation, seven minutes, seven seconds of visualization, and seven minutes, seven seconds of appreciation. So I do I meditate silent meditation for those seven minutes, seven seconds. And then I do a visualization of anything that feels good. Do not take into your visualizations, something that’s broken that you’re trying to fix. If you have a problematic employee, don’t fix them in your visualization. Just think about something that feels real good, like exiting your company or, or opening up in your email and getting $1,000 sale if you’ve never gotten $1,000 sale before that type of stuff. Um, if and then with your appreciation, just write down things that you really easily appreciate about your life because it’s called a rampage of appreciation. It comes from Esther Hicks, she’s an amazing author. And I do it almost every day, it’s just whatever is appreciated. All the spring flowers are out, it rained last night, it smells really good. I mean nothing, it doesn’t have to be the biggest the best appreciation that anyone has ever appreciated. I’m just like, I have a good cup of coffee right now. Everybody likes that. So get yourself a morning routine. And then whether you use the planner that I recommend or not get a planner and write down a 90 day plan and come up with a goal because this because there are many good planners this is just I’m fanatically obsessed with this one. And write down your goal. And then every single day, work towards your goal and do the plan are everyday and don’t. Don’t stop and give up on it. If you miss five days, just go go back and start again, where you are no big deal. Everybody has ebbs and flows. Those are my best action steps.
Norman Farrar 47:35
Very good. Yeah. One of the things that I try to do at the end of the day, oh, yes, is plan for tomorrow. So I already have a plan when I wake up. And I try to anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, I send out emails, just you know if somebody’s done something good or interesting. I’ll send them a quick email a quick note, just to say that was awesome. Thanks for Keep up the good work, whatever. But that’s good. All right. You know what? It’s not my last question. i Okay, so I got
Andrea Lake 48:05
time. I’m literally hiking after this. So I don’t have anything else I’m getting to.
Norman Farrar 48:09
Let’s talk about the apprentice.
Andrea Lake 48:17
Oh, Okay. million years ago, you guys are in so long ago.
Norman Farrar 48:22
So I understand. Well, first of all, what was it like being on The Apprentice? Oh, I know what you’re gonna say.
Andrea Lake 48:31
What am I gonna say? Well, I
Norman Farrar 48:33
know that your experience with the ladies in the group wasn’t that great? Well, we already talked about it on I know this guy. So that’s why I said I know your what you’re gonna say. But let’s
Andrea Lake 48:46
actually Kelsey, if you could drop the link to that episode of I know this guy. But it’s my favorite podcast I’ve ever done. It’s literally in a signature line of my email. I love that podcast. And it has so much good information in it. Uh, well, so here’s the deal. I’m gonna, you’re gonna get the real deal. The real deal. This is the real deal. This is so the apprentice approached me. I did Susan pipe. They approached me every season because they’re like, young, hot female entrepreneur come this way. We want you on TV right now. And I was like, I’m really busy. I have a company I can’t like my company then was I mean, it was doing like 12 million annual sales. I’m like, I cannot leave my company and be disconnected for 45 days, like what the hell? So I talked with Mark Burnett, because they were they were wanting me on the show. One of my mentors is like a psychologist who vetted every person that’s ever been on the show. So they were aware of me. And he allowed me to have access to my business. So I finally did it. And the reason my mentor told me to do it was because I had had such a high degree of control over my whole environment. I became an entrepreneur was 18. So I’ve chosen every client, every staff member, every vendor, every everything If someone is an asshole or doesn’t fit in with my thing, I exit them from my life. So he’s like, I want you to understand that you can handle any situation because this is going to be crazy cats. So go do it. So I actually did it for my own personal mental health psychological reasons to sort of understand that I could deal with a non controlled environment, because I never talked about that. But that is the truth if I did it.
Norman Farrar 50:21
Okay, that’s some new information.
Andrea Lake 50:24
So I never talk about it. But that’s true. I mean, there’s
Norman Farrar 50:26
a few things. And I know this isn’t Amazon. But this is I’m just kind of curious, because we’ll talk about how the show went. But during that psychological assessment, it’s also about how you can handle the backlash of social media.
Andrea Lake 50:44
Yes, that’s right. And that would be even more intense now. But the casting process back then on the show was you would go for a week and do intense psychological evaluations to make sure that you have, I have what’s called a survivor personality type. So it’s the type of person that could that could go into an extreme case, like a hostage situation and come out and live a functional life. And that’s kind of what they’re looking for just in case you get really slandered on social media that you’re not going literally not going to kill yourself. So there are tons of psychological protections, from the big good shows. I know that there’s so many shows, I’m sure that not every show. Is that thoughtful. But um, yeah, so you do a week of physical and psychological so blood test you for everything to make sure that you don’t they they test your health in every way. Right. You’re not gonna like have a heart attack.
Norman Farrar 51:36
When you get fired? Yeah. Let’s talk about you getting fired, sir. There was some controversy around that. Yeah. Okay, so what this is just gonna, it’s fun. What what happened?
Andrea Lake 51:49
What actually happened, I have never I still to this day, as you can see in my home, like, I don’t own a TV. I’ve never owned a TV. Now I have Netflix. So like, hello, Walking Dead. I’m watching all of the things. But, but I never owned a TV. So I’d never seen the show. And I I just didn’t understand. I didn’t understand me at all. There was an alliance against me, I didn’t know what that was, I was completely unaware that it was happening. So they show on the episode where I got fired, they show the whole thing like the Alliance making a plan to lie about you in the boardroom, which is exactly what happened. But I like had no idea. So then I just looked at Donald’s because they were screaming and being crazy. And I was just being really like profound poisoning
Norman Farrar 52:26
them.
Andrea Lake 52:27
That’s what they said. That’s what they said, crazy. And so he said, What do you have to say about that? And I said, that was attempted murder. For a game show, like what? And he was like, Well, what do you have to say? And I said, if you cannot differentiate and tell the difference between these three women that are screaming about me and me, I’m willing to exchange the rest of my mind for one year for you in exchange for the equivalent degree of a PhD in commercial construction. And if you don’t see the difference between me and them, then I have nothing more to offer you. Then show this on TV, but this is what happened. And he was Andrea, you fired. I’m like, alright then because so then I the episode airs months later, it’s like eight 910 minutes later, episode airs. And the next morning, he called me on my cell phone. This is when 2005 2006 which is not usual, he doesn’t call people afterwards. He’s like, You made me look so dumb. I didn’t know there was an alliance. I was like, I don’t even know when the lions was. Because like, you didn’t tell me you didn’t tell me that it added to the data. And I said, I said, Donald I to tell you that. And he said you didn’t tell me loud enough. And I’m like, that’s the most Donald Trump thing ever. Oh, that’s he couldn’t believe I wouldn’t defend myself against murder allegations. And that’s why he fired me. He’s like, this has to be true. Because you’re not defending yourself. How could you not be screaming when somebody says that?
Norman Farrar 53:45
Oh, I love it. I love it. And I know we got into a lot more of it when we were talking about on the I know, I know this guy podcast, but let’s, let’s see Kelsey, are there any questions?
Kelsey 53:59
Yeah, we got lots of questions that we can go great
Norman Farrar 54:02
and every year okay, for time, I already knew that this was gonna go past one o’clock.
Andrea Lake 54:07
But literally hiking today. Let’s see if I still have my picture pulled up while you’re pulling up a question. I’m going to share the view of my door I’m going hiking here. Right there on my window.
Kelsey 54:22
I’m jello right. So our first question is from Simon Simon asked what econ platforms are best for print on demand.
Andrea Lake 54:31
Oh, do you know Daniel de masa Can you post our our Facebook, our teacher Facebook group on here. So the best ones for print on demand. It just depends on what you’re looking for. And we have a whole breakdown of them on our Facebook doesn’t cost any money to join the Facebook group. Shopify. Shopify is really good because it integrates with them. The ones that I personally like and use are shirt agency.com and they do a cross between print and demand print under And once you once you cross over and are selling enough units, they actually will screen print for you hold the T shirts and then send them out as as they get ordered. And it’s not a lot like 50 T shirts, and it’s way effing cheaper because it’s like maybe six or $7 to have a fully screen printed finished shirt versus like $14 on print on demand for a shirt. When you get when you get in huge volume, the T shirts only cost like three or $4. But when you’re starting out the more expensive for all sorts of reasons. And then t shirt storm T shirts storm, especially if you have detailed graphics like slightly more expensive, but they make it look like it came from you. This is another one that I personally use and I personally recommend, they will put like anything you send them they will have a sticker deal with them. They will put stickers into your thing if you send them hang tags if you send them special packaging, it looks it doesn’t look like it came from like prenta phi where it’s just in a like crappy little envelope the good sturdy, it’s it looks really nice.
Norman Ferrrar 56:00
What about the I’m kind of curious about quality. So if I go to printer fi or Printful you know, I get a, I don’t know, a Gildan whatever t shirt. Do you have the ability to have the quality of the t shirt so it just doesn’t suck?
Andrea Lake 56:18
So that’s why I would use sure agency or T shirt storm for that exact reason. However, it just depends on what you’re doing. So like for most of my T shirt sales like at one point, I kid you not. I had like the majority of the shelf space in the hot topic for word T shirts. Were my word T shirts. Previous to them, you know doing their own word T shirts. But someone I would sell a t shirt that just said funny words in a cool font. Like um, you know, I’m bad with names. Can I just call you dumbass? That was one of my T shirts. And we sold like maybe 70,000 of them are the 100 that I don’t remember 1000s of them. So for something like that we would print on Gildan or Hanes or whatever was on sale and it didn’t matter. But I you know I have so many other clothing my super like yoga junkie, one of my clothing lines, it would be a soft, sexy female shirt that is fitted that is great. You know, so just depends on what you’re going for. And yes, with T shirt storm and mature agency both, and they’re not the only good ones, but those are my two favorite. You do that? Yeah, and it is perfect for Etsy. Whoever just said that.
Norman Farrar 57:18
Yeah, Simon. Satin. Yeah, it is. Perfect. Oh, and can I send one of those T shirts to Kelsey? Because I’m always calling them dumbass. Yeah.
Andrea Lake 57:30
I actually think that they’re on my cuz I still have an Amazon merch on there. Right? So we can definitely get you on. All right, good.
Kelsey 57:37
All right, a phase asking how can we reach and follow Andrea? Is there a good chance for some people?
Andrea Lake 57:44
Sure. Um, so the best thing to do actually is go to well, I’m at Andrea Lake calm so you can see my whole thing, but there’s not really contact through there. Um, the best thing to do, honestly, is to follow our T shirt and our T shirts site on Facebook because I actually go in there actually read the comments. Because I don’t see him literally I just sit back in my cage and frickin trade crypto all day. I don’t really post much stuff. But every now and again, you know, Daniel and I will get on there and do I think Daniel was we should do a thing we get we get on our do a little live and answer people’s t shirt questions and stuff.
Norman Farrar 58:17
And you’re I don’t know if you’re still doing it. But you’re on club most regularly, aren’t you?
Andrea Lake 58:24
I don’t know. I literally just hike in Sedona and fill out my little neum and trade crypto. That’s all I do. So I got to do that. I’ll show you my sheets. They’re intense, and that I am not messing around even a little bit.
Kelsey 58:42
Next question, and this is the Facebook group, right teacher?
Andrea Lake 58:45
Yeah. Perfect. All right. Thanks, Kelsey. Julie.
Kelsey 58:54
All right. This is from Arthur. Hi, Andrea. I built I’m building a business but I’m a total control freak. How do I get over this and trust other people to help me?
Andrea Lake 59:04
Author? You and me both. So, so I got the best advice from my mentor from my gazillion dollar error mentor on this. And he was like, Andrea, I guarantee that you actually can pack boxes every day. Do you want to spend your days you could actually pack boxes better than anybody else? Do you want to spend your days packing boxes and I was like, fair. So this is how this is how I assess and I’m okay with passing stuff off. Um, first of all, it has to be something that doesn’t direct that I’m not going to ever outsource like somebody speaking to, like, target if that’s my biggest client, you know, that’s that’s a me job. So something that’s going to really control the volume of income that my company makes I am handling that. Um, but just about with everything else if I don’t love to do it, if it doesn’t make like I love to book my own travel because I like love to look at hotel rooms. It’s just that I actually love grocery shopping, I do my own grocery shopping, because I love going to the grocery store. It’s bizarre. Um, so if I don’t love to do it, if it doesn’t make my company money, or if I if it’s something that I must, must do, there are some phone calls that have to come from the CEO. Those ones I do myself, everything else that I count out sources, and I put this expectation on it. If this person can get it to be 80% as good as I do it, that’s really good enough. Is it gonna look prettier? If I check the box? Yes, yes, it is. But I’m not compact the box.
Norman Farrar 1:00:33
Yeah, I had to get over that too. Yeah, can’t be 100%. Yeah, just don’t expect it. You can manage expectations.
Andrea Lake 1:00:41
And you can never scale if you try and do everything yourself. Yeah, just try and get it for far enough long. And even with like, writing stuff, like anything has to be written for my companies. I have an amazing, amazing right hand assistant who was a journalism major crystal. Um, so she’ll send me stuff and it is 80 90% along the way, by the time she sends it to me, and then I just polish it up, brush it up. Okay, that’s it too, if you if you have a thing where you just want to get somebody started.
Kelsey 1:01:11
Alright, next is from Nathan, when would you recommend exiting a company versus continuing to run it?
Andrea Lake 1:01:17
If it’s not fun anymore?
Norman Farrar 1:01:19
Oh, that’s a good one. Yeah.
Andrea Lake 1:01:21
And then, you know, it depends on what type of company you have generally, a company like I’m like a normal CPG company, which is most of my company’s consumer products or switch, you guys are in your generally speaking going to get three to 5x EBITDA on that, that’s going to be the offer for it. So whatever your profit is, you’re gonna get offered three to 5x on it, we are going to sell sticker junkie, like within the next couple years by keep saying that, but we really are, like, I’ve already talked to my competitors. And there’s a slight different price variation there because they already have their operational costs running. So they’re gonna we’re gonna actually get a little bit more because it’s not they don’t, it’s going to be cheaper for them because they’re basically just putting ourselves on top of their sales. But like in general, three to 5x but it’s not on its fair. I mean, it’s normal. It’s, it’s what you’ll get. So if you’re thinking of selling your company in the next two to three years, do everything you can to get your profit up because that is what your evaluation is going to be based on.
Norman Farrar 1:02:10
I know we might have a couple of questions, but just another quick reminder, if you’re interested if you just joined us. If you’re looking for the giveaway today, we have $150 gift giveaway for sticker junkie. And 30 minute consult with me. Hashtag we’ll have Kelsey tagged to people and you’ll get two entries.
Andrea Lake 1:02:36
I have one thing to interject really quickly because somebody asked the best question I’ve ever seen. What kind of coffee do you drink to get the job? What kind of coffee do I drink to get the energy like you? I’m Brad Arad Okay, um I am hooking you up brother. So I have a deal Edie stovetop espresso maker I do this every day and then I put two of these I kid you not my coffee. You are freaking welcome. Dark chocolate peanut butter cups has to be the way Trader Joe’s it doesn’t have to but they’re better because they have a way lower sugar content. And then I do about like this much espresso No, I’m sorry like this much coffee. It’s like the Bialetti makes across between coffee and espresso. And then two of those and then this much of whatever I like the nap pod. You know vegan creamer but whatever kind of creamer you use, and it will be the best coffee of your life. You are welcome.
Norman Farrar 1:03:26
Wow. All right. There we go. You’re hooked up
Kelsey 1:03:30
those golden nuggets for today.
Andrea Lake 1:03:34
If you take nothing else from this call,
Norman Farrar 1:03:37
nothing else.
Kelsey 1:03:40
All right, this one’s from Tony what is the one book you would recommend to read or listen to?
Andrea Lake 1:03:45
I have so many of these but I always I always really recommend kind of the same ones because I’m because they’re older and people don’t recommend them anymore and they’re still so good. Um, but the first one is going to be success principles by Jack Canfield. It is old, it’s been renewed. This is the reason I recommend it. Jeff spent 30 years reading business books 30 years and he would read like a book a week. And then he would take the best knowledge and information from that business book and drop it down into a two to five page paragraph. And then there’s like exercises for you to actually go do implementation in your business. He updated it again, I think like six or seven years ago, but success principles by Jack Canfield, get the actual physical book from Amazon. And it’s just fantastic. I also obviously recommend The Four Hour Workweek, which everybody recommends. And my friend Nikki Agarwal wrote a book called Do cool shit, which is fantastic. And both Tim’s book and Mickey’s book are fantastic because they have a lot of writing exercises and a lot of like actual functional implementation to your thing like read my book, how to how to build a t shirt Empire There we go. Obviously, if you if you’re only if you’re in T shirts, it’s like a textbook on how to start a T Shirt Company, if you’re not in T shirts, and I don’t know,
Norman Farrar 1:05:08
but read it anyways.
Andrea Lake 1:05:11
It’s actually any type of consumer product good. It teaches you how to do any, it doesn’t matter if it’s T shirts or soap bars or whatever it is, it just teaches you how to distribute products and get into stores and increase your online sales.
Norman Farrar 1:05:23
Okay. Any more kills?
Kelsey 1:05:28
At one from Jessica Rabbit, I’m just trying to find it. There was a lot of we’ll Kelsey is, so I’m just sorting through. Okay, once from Simon, I could do personalization on my kids product, but no clue how to communicate this to customers, you have any tips? I think he’s
Andrea Lake 1:05:49
actually not, you need a section on your website that has like a little generator. Like if you go on sticker junkie and you go into the generator, you can see that you can generate your own products. But there are Shopify plugins where you can do all kinds of customization on products to let people be aware that you can customize a product. So it just needs to be a segmentation on your website, and then maybe do some. For the people on your mailing list, like just do a few customized mailers that explain like hey, you can also customize your xyz Christmas is coming up, this would be great for blah, blah, blah, reason.
Kelsey 1:06:22
Okay, and I found the question from Jessica Rabbit. What criteria do you use to evaluate great marketers and decide who to hire? What questions do you ask
Andrea Lake 1:06:31
dollas Dolla dolla bills. So I would do a trial period. And make it really effing clear what your expectations are. This is what I did when I was going for marketers, because I don’t know, I don’t know anything about Facebook marketing, like I do now. But I didn’t know anything about Facebook marketing. And so I ran my own ads to see what I could do. And then that was the litmus. Like, if you can’t do three, if this is what you do for a living, and you can’t do at least three to five times better than I’m doing, then you’re not good at your job. Because I don’t do it for a living. Right. So I ran little tests, and then whatever I could do, I would expect them to do exponentially better. And then I always do, but just negotiate really, really hard and people would say no at first with me, I always end up saying yes, I do not pay set fees, period, I’m like, you can be lazy with a set fee. So I will pay a higher affiliate percentage on the sales that come through your links, but I will not pay $5,000 a month out the gate, I won’t do it. So if you are that good of a marketer, and I give you 10% of my sales, then you can get $100,000 A month from me and sales, you’re gonna make 10 grand off. I obviously I’m on a different scale, but, but there’s just starting out marketers to who should be willing to do it for a percentage and if they are not willing to do it for a percentage, because a really good marketer is gonna be like, how’s your take 15% or 10% or whatever, because they know they’re gonna be able to sell millions of dollars with products and it’s gonna work out way better for them in a set fee.
Kelsey 1:07:58
Okay. Alright, and our last question is from Red, political T shirts or purple? Which ones are popular political T shirts, or artistic T shirts and comments, I guess which one would you lean towards?
Andrea Lake 1:08:13
I someone I lean towards? I think you can do way more hyper segmentation with political T shirts because you can target people really politically. Um, in my audience I did I did do like I did do you know, job T shirts. And then I would just really hyper target like tattoo shops and even online you can tattoo like tattoo artists and people who are really likely to fall in but then unlucky thing is once you do once you do the tiniest little bit of marketing and you have a history of who is ordering from you, then you can do the look like audiences and Facebook’s algorithm is very, very, very good at picking up who’s gonna buy your stuff.
Norman Farrar 1:08:52
Perfect. So I think that’s the end of the questions. Yep. You have never seen the wheel of Kelsey
Andrea Lake 1:09:00
haven’t I’m so excited. Here we go.
Kelsey 1:09:02
So this is actually created from my brother my older brother you know hate on this podcast. So here we go. Enjoy all right. Okay, so this wheel Kelsey is for $100.50 $150 gift certificates to sticker junkie, as well as a 30 minute consult with Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy. So if you are the winner, please email me Kay Atlas with Norm calm. And I’m just going to shuffle this up one last time. And let’s see who the winner is. All right.
Norman Farrar 1:09:56
Who’s it going to be? Kelsey, you should be singing
Kelsey 1:10:00
Alright, the winner is Justin sees. All right, just congrats. Congratulations. So email me at lunch with Norm calm. I believe this was from the Facebook group. So I do have access. Okay. So that should be an issue. But thank you for everyone who commented today I stick with Kelsey, we do this every podcast too. So, if you’re new to the podcast, just come in and see what we got planned for the next one.
Norman Farrar 1:10:29
Andrea? Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your time today.
Andrea Lake 1:10:35
Anytime. Always a pleasure.
Norman Farrar 1:10:37
You are awesome.
Andrea Lake 1:10:39
You are awesome. And everybody that Listen, you’re awesome. Because you know what, hey, listen to podcasts like this puts you ahead of 90% of your competition. It really does. Most people are not investing the time and energy to learn more from experienced entrepreneurs. So you our chicken is just for being on here and listening.
Norman Farrar 1:10:57
Perfect. Well, thank you so much. And I hope we can get you back on sometime.
Andrea Lake 1:11:02
Anytime. Alright, so thank
Norman Farrar 1:11:05
you. And All right, everybody. I told you it would be a really great episode today. I hope you got a lot out of it about your entrepreneurial journey, stick with it. Like I said, Andre is great. And I just wanted to let you know that next podcast we’ve got another brand. This is a repeat guest that’s been on the podcast before the hypnotic Amazon copywriter that Diane bolster is going to be back on Friday. So just to give you a bit of an update there, and just to hone in on your copywriting skills, especially in fourth quarter. The other thing a big shout out to our sponsor for this episode, global wired Advisors, a leading digital investment bank focused on optimizing your business sales process. For more information contact Chris shearling at and his team at global wired advisors.com All right, Mr. Calce.
Kelsey 1:12:05
Alright, so thanks again for watching everyone. We really appreciate all of the love and encourage or engagement that you guys give us. And it looks like you guys definitely enjoyed this episode. So thank you so much for tuning in and sharing your questions and your insights. Podcast wouldn’t be the same without you guys. So
Norman Farrar 1:12:24
it’s my bloody line. Do not steal my line.
Kelsey 1:12:27
If you’re new to the podcast, please visit our beard nation Facebook group, I would steal your line, I would never
Norman Farrar 1:12:35
done it before. And you were going down that road. I was
Kelsey 1:12:39
just about to be fair. But please join our community lunch with Norm Amazon FBA and E commerce collective. Also we have our I’m really loving this our Patreon group. This is our we have like a bronze gold and platinum Patreon group that we that is available. It’s like a mentorship program with me and Lauren. So if you’re interested in group q&a sessions, we do three different q&a sessions a month plus a guest lesson where you can ask all of your questions that you have we give monthly SOPs to everyone and you get your own lunch with Norm mug, and m&ms. So you can go over to our website lunch with norm.com and click on the membership area and you’ll be all set up. I’m not going anywhere.
Norman Farrar 1:13:31
Oh, you think you have all the control? Right? I
Kelsey 1:13:33
Norman Farrar 1:13:37
So join us every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, eastern standard time at noon. And if Kelsey is gonna keep me on screen, that’ll be great. But thank you for watching. As always, you know, we can’t do this without you. This is what he was gonna say Right? But it’s my line. We love you being part of this community, all the engagement that you’re doing like every day in our Facebook group. We could not do this without you. So thank you so much for joining and we will see you on Friday.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
