http://www.markeganvideo.com – Simon Chan is the author of the new book “The Consistency Pill”. He’s a consistency coach and founder of MLM Nation, a business coaching company. In this episode of The Knowledge Industry Podcast Simon tells me how anyone can achieve more by following a 7 step system to be more consistent. For show notes and more episodes go to http://www.markeganvideo.com/podcast To learn how to communicate better on video head to http://www.markeganvideo.com To connect with Simon go to http://www.mlmnation.com
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Coming up on the knowledge industry podcast,
Simon Chan
there’s so much great trading out there. But none of that training will work. No strategy will work. If you’re not consistent, I was definitely not born consistent. But as I learned to develop become consistent, it was really the thing that helped me get to where I am today.
mark egan
So today’s topic is being more consistent the key to success, and if so, how do you do it? My guest is Simon Chan consistency coach and founder of MLM nation, a business training company. He’s also hosted the MLM nation podcast, and his new book is called the consistency pill.
Do you sell online courses or run live workshops? If you have expertise that can help people in life or business, or you even running an online training empire from your kitchen table, then you’re part of the knowledge industry, a fast growing industry, that means that you can learn almost anything, and anyone can create a business around what’s between their ears. Welcome to the knowledge industry podcast with your host, Mark Egan,
Simon Chan
Right Simon, thank you for joining me explain to us where in the world you are right now. I’m in Los Angeles bright and early. I’m excited to be here. And thanks for having me here. Let’s kick straight off with the topic of the day consistency. So I probably could be accused of being consistently inconsistent. Before we get into your background and everything, just in a sentence, what made you want to write a book on this? Well, I’ve been a home based business entrepreneur solopreneur, in the direct selling space for over almost 20 years, 19 years. And, you know, I think you’ve seen the evolution of personal development, and content marketing, where there’s so much good content out there for free. I remember when I first started in 2003, you got to buy CDs, I remember, my first training CD was like $199 for 10 CDs. And I was like, it would pay me to pay that because the only thing back then I knew it, I was a young kid, I was buying a 1299 CDs, right from Tower Records. So since $99, for CD set, and I purchased it. And then over the years, I’ve seen so much great training available for free, right? Anything you ever want to learn it for any subject is free on YouTube, or on Tik Tok or Instagram. But people still stuck. And you see this not just in the home based business direct selling space, you see that in diets, you see them in anything, there’s so much great training out there. But what really is missing, none of that training will work. No strategy will work if you’re not consistent. And I think looking back at my my journey, I was definitely not born consistent. But as I learned to develop become consistent is really the thing that helped me get to where I am today, because I’ve definitely wasn’t the smartest, I made a ton of bad decisions, bad judgments, mistakes, failures, but the consistency has helped me get to where I am. So that’s why I wanted to write a book about it. Because Because I wasn’t born discipline. But if you follow seven components Wychwood a consistency system, anyone can be consistent. So I felt that auditory trainings out there, they’re out there, they’re awesome. But none of them work without consistency. So getting back just on your journey. I mean, we could I don’t know how far we could we want to get back. But um, in a sense, you know, you didn’t start off in this industry. You know, you had a bit of a journey to get there. Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to start in this industry. I mean, I know you’ve said you’ve been here a veteran. You’ve been here since sort of many, many years ago. So how did you? What was your background? How did you get into it? First of all, well, I was born like a shy, quiet Asian kid from Brooklyn, New York. I was always taught, work, study hard, work hard and get a job, right. And I was lucky. I grew up in a upper middle class family and my dad was a doctor, my dad’s basically rags to riches, no money, studied his butt off, became a doctor. And my brother and I, you know, I’m really grateful. We grew up pretty well in school, but I never had much time when my dad, you know, and he was always busy at his private practice at a clinic. And my dream as a kid was to play baseball for the New York Yankees. And I was a huge sports fan and still ending systems of Baseball, baseball cards in the back. And but I just thought that, you know, I’m just, it’s funny. I wasn’t very good in English. And speaking when I was a kid, because English is my third language. And my parents said, Well, you know what? The white kids they’re good at that Asians are good in science and math. There’s focus on that. And the problem was, I was terrible in science and math. So like, there’s something wrong with me. I can’t do English, and I can’t do science and math, but you just work hard study and get a job and that’s what I did. I went to university and study and I actually had a job that I liked, but it was low paying. Right? And I said, Well, this low paying you work hard for 2030 years and climb up the corporate ladder and maybe I’ll get a corner office because all the people I looked up to In a company, that’s what they did. And then I read a book that totally changed my life. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. And that book basically taught you, hey, you need to climb the corporate ladder, you can have the thing where you have cool passive income, you work smart, you get money. And even if you’re not working, you get paid it I actually never knew that concept. My no one ever taught me that my parents didn’t teach me that, you know, I knew about work ethic, but I didn’t know about. It was like what you can work and not get paid. And then when I learned about royalties and stuff, I just thought, you know, you have to be a celebrity or artists to do that. They’re learning about businesses setting up a business. So that got me started. I was looking for different things. I didn’t have any business experience. I didn’t know what to do. But I just read a second book Cashflow Quadrant that introduced me to concept of network marketing. And I was like, What is network marketing? Because a lot of people have a negative perception to it. But the more I learned about it, it it was something that was viable for me, because I was I was considering doing being a franchisee, premium Subway franchisee. And at that time, I didn’t have the money. And then while I was doing the research, I was doing lost soul searching. This was when I was in my 20s I read, purpose driven life. You know, Jesus Christ is a big part of my life. And after done the 40 days of exercises and purpose driven life, I felt like God’s purpose for me, was have a positive impact as many lives as possible. And I’ve realized, well, if I went to so I gotta choose some like that. Maybe there’s network marketing, direct selling thing is the answer. Because even though I’m shy and quiet, I’ve always enjoyed mentoring and coaching others, even when I was in college, university, out, help out in my youth fellowship in my church, I used to help out basketball clinics, in Chinatown, just getting kids off the street, it played basketball, instead, I enjoy mentoring. So the more you learn about direct selling, that’s what it’s about. It’s about having, you know, you make sales, but you got to teach and coach others. So I basically jumped into the fire got started in 2003, went out, did some research, found a company and googled it and met someone online. That’s how I got started. You talked about your background and okay, you know, you maybe didn’t make it in the sports world as you hoped. But what you said that you weren’t born consistent, but clearly, you’ve kind of built up you’ve, by yourself created the success. What do you put that down to? If it was that consistency came over time? Or was it just the fact that you went out the attributes, and despite being inconsistent, you were still able to make it? Well, I always joke, I was never consistent. The only thing I was consistent with was back in university. Hopefully my kids don’t listen to this. But I was consistent in playing John Madden Football and video games to 4am in the morning and cutting class the next day. I never went to class, although actually the sad thing is the third class that was able to wake up and go to the 2pm class. And the only reason I got up there was my parents signed me up for downing a meal plan and the cafeteria closed at two, I’m good at 145 Grab some sandwiches, orange and banana, put in my backpack and attend my 2pm class. But I missed all my morning classes. And and I think God punishes me because even to this day, once a month, I get a reoccurring nightmare that I missed my final exam, because I showed up a couple of days late, or I went to the wrong room because I didn’t wasn’t in the classroom when they announced the location. And I still every once a month I get that dream. But what happened was when I got started, I wanted to I wanted to have a business. So I reached out I got started without me having much success. And I’ve never done sales, or any type of being like my own boss before, right? I think when you’re your own boss, as a solopreneur, you have to understand, you have to be your boss, and also an employee. Right, the boss means Oh, I love to do my own boss. But someone’s got to do that work. Someone’s got to do this income producing sales activities, right? And I wasn’t doing that. But I remember I was listening to a training call by one of my our team I should have these audios uploaded on the internet. Now download them, burn them onto CD. And I was driving back I was visiting my parents in New York driving, driving back on a cold Friday night. And this guy said that well, you know if you work for yourself and so good. You have the money lifestyle. Yeah, yep, I heard that. But I’m not I don’t have any money and I’ve my lifestyle sucks now. So I’m tired of hearing this. I think he said something. So if you’re doing working on your business on the Thursday, and then you take Friday, Saturday off because there’s a weekend and it’s Monday you dreading your jobs, you’ve been more motivated, what kind of side hustle, and then Tuesday Wednesday, you taking off, you’re never gonna make it. If for some reason Mark, I was there. I remember I was in the driveway a cold December night. I stopped and I just rewound that CD and listened to it 10 times. So it’s like, well, that’s my problem. That’s what cause that’s why I’m not getting any momentum. That was the day that really changed my life. I decided to every day, do something. The first thing was every checklist. I had to reach out to five people that there asked five people to buy my stuff every Whether they say no or not, I have had to do that. And I was really, really bad at the beginning. And then I had some momentum, but a real big momentum come and I talk about the seven components of the consistency system. One of them is the most important one is accountability. I had a mentor, that I was just by the grace of God, he came out and was looking for some of the mentor came. And because he was looking for someone that if you got going to increase his, it was increased his commission check. And he stopped working with me. And he pushed me hard every single day. In the best analogy is like, you have a gym trainer. And you push too hard. Not only that, every day, at least twice a day to send a text message or call me to make sure I was on track of my goals. And in the first two weeks, just imagine a gym trainer not only are you meeting the gym, but afterwards, are you eating properly? Are you doing this? Are you did you do sit ups at home, Chick calling. For the first two weeks, I hated this guy. I was like, This guy’s the most annoying guy. So it was like harassing me every day. Every time I’m looking at my phone, he’s calling me early. Even my phone’s off. I wake up in the morning, it’d be like a voicemail from him. I think I can’t stand this guy. And his name is Steve Schwartz very, very successful. And then the big turning point is one day, I’m still stuck on the wait a second. And I’m about to like go learn from someone else I want to learn. I was like, I want to learn from someone else. So someone’s course the wait a second, instead of buying a course. Maybe whatever this person is telling me. The problem is not me problems, not him. It’s the problems me since maybe instead of consider him being annoying. Let me change my attitude and embrace what he’s telling. So when he’s pushing me because he’s proven, he’s making multiple six figures. If he’s telling me do this, do this do this. Or who did you talk to? Instead of like giving excuses? Let me make sure I have what he’s doing what he wants from me. And that was the day that that changed everything. So every time it’s a sign, what do you have for this Friday? Do you have any phone calls set up? Do you have any good prospects? Did you find meet anyone new? Instead of like, dreading that question? I was prepared, like, Hey, do we have any customers potential customers? So yeah, I got John, I got Elizabeth, like a warrant, I get everything lined up. And so because I knew what he was gonna ask him, I just did the work and had the answers for him before he even called me. And that got me into. Yes, yes. So that’s a big part of that’s a big part of accountability.
mark egan
Yeah, cuz I mean, you were describing earlier about how the fact that you know, being able to kind of use your skills coach, other people train other people is really important to you now. And there are a lot of people out there that have great expertise, they’ve got great knowledge. They can coach, they can train, they can do all that. But they’re like you were they were stuck. They’re not making money, they’re not being able to kind of share this with people and earn a living out of it. What do you think having gone through that process yourself? is the most common reason why you have a lot of people out there with courses, coaching programs, expertise, and they are just not making money off it?
Simon Chan
Well, you have, in my late mentor, Jim Rohn, told me you always get paid for the value, you contribute to the marketplace. Right? And so value is content like this content, you’re you’re giving out more right, and it says has to be consistent, consistent content. When I launched my second business and law nation, business trading company, we do a podcast. We’ve been doing it for our end, today’s Monday launched another one over 700 Something episodes since I started I’ve never stopped right and now especially doing social media, they back in the day, you did something you could hide for a while. Right now social media. The good thing is anyone can be an expert you can go and hit the record button right now and give value. Right it’s so easy back then you need a platform media I need maybe speak in my local Chamber of Commerce, I need to get good at events. Now anyone at home can hit the record button give value, you get to listen to you have a lot of value coaches expertise to give, stop holding it to yourself give give give give. So first thing is you got to give take what you learned give it up for free because people are not going to buy from you until they trust you. They didn’t feel like know you like you trust you. And that only comes from consistent content. And says number one right? What do you mean by when people know you like to trust you like people will follow me they know my dog when my dog’s name is they know what I do on my free time like kids baseball like my voice is a little raspy today. I was in a baseball tournament two days which one is actually 11 hours that’s why I do my passion. I coach spend a lot on my boys coaching different teams. If your followers don’t know what you like to do, don’t know how many kids you have what you like to do. There’s no There’s no trust so that comes from the principle people buy from people know like and trust. You gotta let people know who you are right understand social media, do Instagram stories do reels do tic TOCs, LinkedIn, whatever Facebook, let people know you. The second thing is now because of social media people only remember what you did today. So all the great stuff you did before. And I think I fell into this trap before entitlement. I’ve done so much stuff. How can people not mine for me? Because people don’t remember what you did today, they don’t know you have short attention spans, they don’t remember what you did last week. That’s why you have to put out consistent content every single day. Because the great TED talk that you did a month ago with a million views, no one remembers that. They only remember what you did today. What have you done for me lately? That’s what you got to consistently create a routine, give, give, give, show up every day. So when you coming up with your social media strategy, are you consciously saying, Okay, I’m going to do X number of posts, which are going to be valued, but then I want to create this connection and trust. So I’m going to have a set number of the baseball or the holiday or something like that? I mean, are you that conscious about the mix of content you put out? Yeah, I’m pretty close. I have a content calendar with the stuff I put out. I think if you’re getting started in the beginning, don’t think about the structure as much, right? Because that will limit your creativity. I always talk about the first 30 days on social media. If you ever go like Oh, I’m gonna generate a lot of sales from social media. That’s a wrong goal. Because if the first 30 days you show up, chances are, you’re not going to make any money sales from that, because it takes repeated exposures. I’m sure you’ve heard the marketing thing takes about 2527 exposures to before someone buys and probably a lot, a lot more than that now. So but your first 30 days, instead of looking to get goes, Look, you discover your voice, right? Like your style, like Mark, you have a certain style when you run your show, right? And you didn’t discover that on day one. So when you’re doing your first 30 days, I don’t know what it is for everyone to do your personal stuff. I’ve gotten to the point where if I feel it’s in my heart, I want to share something about personal, I do. But I always have something where every day, I’m giving some type of value based content where I’m teaching seven days a week. And if I feel today, well, I had a great, we follow the same. I had a great weekend, whatever, I’m going to share that if I don’t feel into my heart, I don’t share. So that’s I think that answered our questions. Don’t limit your creativity by, oh, I got to do personal posts, just give every day. And then you realize what is what works for every niche is different, that you might niche. It’s very intensive, where every day you have to be given content, and some other niches is not like that. And you only discover that by working posting consistently see what your competitors, and what your industry is doing.
mark egan
To be honest, when you think about it, like anybody who’s had any success, not just in this kind of field, but you know, even something like baseball, you know, there’s you will not find anybody where consistency isn’t part of the key ingredients. So coming back to the book. If somebody were to pick up the book and think, right, I just feel consistencies, the thing that’s lacking, you know, what do you think they’ll get out of reading and what, what are the kind of the main sort of approaches that you’ve gone for to try and get people to be more consistent?
Simon Chan
Well, consistency, number one starts with the mind. Everything starts with a mind. And it’s how you see yourself. Right? If you see yourself as consistent, you start becoming consistent. If you see yourself as growing and getting better. You can be motivated if you see yourself all on that a consistent person. I’ve never done this in the past I’ve never done you’ve had a negative attitude, you’re never gonna get anywhere. No, nothing will help. Yeah, so starts in the mind. If you’re in the sales, is why talk about 10 steps to rejection killer, right? Remain rejection, no one likes rejection saying no, no one buys. And if you can’t get over that, or being emotionally consistent, where you get excited so easily and will get down so easily. You never gonna be consistent. And that you in fact, when I work with people, and I see like new entrepreneurs oh, I want to hit to the topic get so fired up really energetic to get excited so easily. Most of the times people never make it because you get so excited for such a small thing. As little rejection, we just shoot you right down. Right? So number one starts with a mind Africa daily EQ quiz six questions you have to ask yourself each day that helped me be aware of your emotions are learning how to overcome rejection, I’ll give you one or two steps that rejection killers. Number one, if they’re rejecting you, they’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting your message, not you. And it’s also not your loss. Now you losing out on the customer is their loss. They lost out on a chance and learning from this because you have millions of billions of prospects, people, potential customers, but you there’s only one and only you. Right? So there’s their loss. So those are two, two things. And then the last part is a big part of the book is the seven components of the consistency system where if you apply the number one reason why people’s goals fail, because as entrepreneurs, we like to set big goals. For every goal. You need a consistency system in place, because without that system, you’re not going to reach that goal. And people are top achievers who do hit those goals, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not. out there applying all seven of these components to the Golden Sun. And when it comes to your kind of productivity and organization, are there any particular kind of tools, platforms, apps, anything you use to help you to have the yeah, there’s I use a lot of apps. But the two I just mentioned for free that anyone could access anytime. It’s a calendar. Alright, because going back to the seven components, the first component is checklist. If you want to be consistent, you got to be consistently, you have to have a checklist of what you do need to do like Mark, you’ve been very consistent with the show. Correct? Anything you want to be consistent with? Do you have a check? Do you have a chat, that’s exactly what you need to do, right, you need to do a Mic check, you need to watch the preparation checklist. The second thing is you need to create and schedule the time. For every new goal you need to create and schedule the time. Doesn’t matter how busy you are, you create and schedule time for the show. That’s what you’re doing consistently. So something that helps you that a tool is a calendar, use a calendar, you have to schedule whatever you need to do, you got to create and schedule the time and make it a routine. Because if it’s not a routine is not going to happen, you’re never going to happen because of the simple Parkinson’s Law, which basically means everything will fill into a vacuum. Right things have evolved an example of that you move into a new house, and you have a nice closet, Oh, I love this class and keep it nice and clean. But after two or three, a couple of weeks, things magically just go in there and it becomes a huge mess, right? That’s like Parkinson’s Law. Or like you say, I want to do this the weekend, I’m gonna clean, clean the garbage in the weekend. And all of a sudden, a weekend, I have a lot of time to weekend, I can do this, all of a sudden the weekend comes and you haven’t done anything. Because so unless you it’s great and carve out the time is not going to happen. You just gotta be in the calendar. Okay, the count, you think about if you do exercise consistently, I’m just curious, Mark,
mark egan
you know what I did, and then I stopped. And now I am actually trying to get back into it. And as you say, trying to find a consistent time in the day, because during COVID, I was in one place, it was kind of a little bit more predictable. With now I do a little bit of traveling. So it’s going to build but but yeah, I’m not not doing it as much as I should. Right? honest answer.
Simon Chan
So like, if you exercise consistently, I mean, clear back to to the components. Number one, we talked about creating scheduled time you had a routine, right? When the during COVID, the routine routine now because you’re traveling, the routine has changed, then you lose the consistency. Right? So you got to be in the calendar, and you met me you may have like I’m gonna travel. And when I travel, I have a different exercise routine during the day, right? And the other part is the environment, right? Your environment is very important. Where are you going to, we’re going to be here, you talked about what you’re doing COVID, you’re exercising consistently because you had a place to go. But when you’re traveling the environment changes that totally could knock you off your consistency. So getting the calendar and strategically plan to do things out, like when you are for example you’re exercising at home, this is where I do it, if I’m traveling, this is what I do, and put it into an account. That’s a free to anyone could use, I always talk about it. Treat your business like a job. And your calendar is like your boss. Right? If it’s not in the calendar, it’s not happening. So put all your stuff, even your personal relaxation time into that calendar. And so some people wouldn’t do to this, well, that’s very restrictive, there’s no freedom, but the events in the calendar, you’re gonna have more freedom than ever, because you’re gonna get things done. And also, when you’re playing them relaxing, you actually get become happier because you’re not worried about the self because you’ve got a lot more stuff that you have to worry about the things I should be doing. So for example, getting my dates from the morning, I’ll wake up to morning, if everything was the baseball, my wife or everything it is in the calendar. The other tool is a timer. Right. A timer creates urgency. And so we always always done this. I gotta check a few messages while they check my emails. Nixie know he’s spending 3045 minutes on emails and you haven’t got anything else done. We need urgency or urgency. So why is that is because we tend to be like I always talk about the the caveman DNA right? Our DNA is like we like to relax. We don’t like to go Go, go go. We’d like to like sit and sit on the couch and watch too. But relax. Watching TV goes back to caveman days. You know, caveman days, we just want to sleep in a hammock or then we will go any time we will wait the caveman will wake up was number one we got hungry. We’ll go out and get off our butts and go look for food. Or number two, the title game will get up and it will start running. Or number three someone came to steal a woman will get a fight. That’s the only time we will actually the caveman will go up and wake up right. So looking back to school in modern days. When do we when do we actually do our term papers or term papers and essays when we used to do them? Last minute, right? If I remember one time every time I do a last minute I think I had this terrible I hate this. I’m Never gonna do it. And the next time and one time we had a turbulent assignment, I would do it one month in advance. Now sit in the library for one hour and write one sentence, not just yet, but urgency, right? It’s like, what is the most productive day at the job, the most productive day of the job work is the day before you leave for holiday. From when you as you clean the house, the house is a mess, you know, you have no time. But you clean it the day before guests arrives, and all of a sudden, you get it cleaned right away, we need urgency we need so you set this artificial urgency by using a timer. So when I checked my emails, I say 10 minutes, I’ll get get all these emails down. If I don’t get in, I use my Apple watch, or you can use on the phone. Right? Every phone has a free timer. When the timer goes off. I’m not allowed to check the emails for another two to three hours. That will make you go fast, fast, fast, fast. If you’re posting social media is so easy to overthink of this filter is not good enough. Oh, I’m gonna change my words, my emoji 15 minutes, I got to get this post done. Once the time is up, I gotta hit post, I cannot touch it again, that will get allow you to push yourself using dates. You know, getting back to how we how we are we need urgency, the artificial deadlines will allow you to go get more done in less time. Yeah, it’s funny how so many things come back to psychology because you know, at university, I studied journalism and psychology. And I went down the journalism route initially. But ironically, I always say to people, it’s the psychology that helped more, because so many things are related to understanding what makes people tick. And you know, how they lose attention, all that kind of thing that you mentioned earlier about? There’s so much information out there. And if you are doing something like a training business or a coaching business, you know, people would say, well, that’s just going to make things really, really difficult. Because anything people want to find out, they just go on YouTube, and they find it. So from the training side of things. How do you approach that? How do you make sure you know, this runs well as a business? And how do you approach? What’s your kind of ethos towards training? So you get results for people? Yeah, that’s a great point. I think if someone’s listening to this, and they say, Well, my training is different, I have a certain style that no one else does. If you take that type of mental approach, you’re going to struggle and fail. Because the reality is, whatever that’s been taught, is has been taught already 90% of it has been taught, right? Oh, that was in 95%. Someone else is teaching what you’re teaching, but the only reason they buying from you is because they like you. They can relate to you. And he liked your style, who you are. So one of the questions I asked for people do potential coaching for me for a day is because I have a lot of competitors that are just as good as me. And we take 95% as the same thing. I teach leadership, sales training that’s been taught for 100 100 years, you know, what it’s all about? How you teach it your style. So I ask people, why would you even consider me it’s great coaches, it’s always the same answers is, I like to tell you no BS. Okay, you really direct to the point. Or, I like it, the fact that you’re a father, and you do baseball, your kids and you spent all the time you kids, or number three wasn’t my faith doesn’t three common reasons. So it never says because your training is better than other people your training is it’s your style, your delivery. And you know what, I think what my tip for you is beachy for the listeners is, be true to who you are. Right. So if there’s a certain type of person, that you how you are you like to deliver, focused on being who you are, because, you know, one of my mentors taught me, you may repel a certain type of people. But the more you repel, the more you’re attract, right? We’d have it a niche market, there’s a target audience, there’s a target audience, a lot of people who can’t stand my type of training, but there’s a certain type, we put the love, what I teach, right, the way who I stand for, so number, I think number one is be true to yourself, how you teach those that want that person is doing it this way, I got to do that way. Do it your own way, be original, because no one wants, if you’re the same as someone else, then there’s nothing stands out. You gotta be uniquely different. Like people say, I’m different because I speak fast. I’m from New York, if you stop, you’re terrible. I’ll tell you, you’re not good. But I don’t sugarcoat it. It not that may hurt a lot of people’s feelings. But those of you who are not my audience, you know, I talk a lot about my faith a lot. If you don’t like my faith, those people don’t buy from me, but a lot of people walk really strong. Who believe those are the people I attract. So be true to who you are. And it’s never about your content. It’s about whether someone can relate to you or not, can they resonate with you? That’s the thing that’s going to and that’s why your content by sharing who you are personal on social media is very, very important. So it sounds like you know, you’re saying your personal brand, that connection you have with people is a big part of what makes people buy. I know you’ve touched on it, you know built up being yourself but what would be your main advice, somebody listening to this and thinking, You know what, someone’s gonna point that out. You know, actually, I’ve got a lot to offer. I kind of need to stick myself out there kind of be more visible get known. Build My personal brand, what would be your kind of starting point for them? What? What do you like to do in free time? Right? What do you like to do your free time? Do you have kids? How do you look like? Are you married? Are you single? If you’re single, what would your dream wife be? Like? Let people know who you are. Right? And then when you’re talking to social media, talk, don’t think I’m talking to the world. What are you gonna do? Share with one person, right? Think about one person and I know sometimes people worry about security reasons. I don’t want people know my family, my private. Hey, here’s the reality is that if you would, it’s good and bad, right in many ways is scary. But right now and 2022 and into the future, whatever people want to know about you, they’re gonna it’s a way for them to find out about you. Right? You got to go and people to watch someone’s going to scam well, you know what, this was scams do credit card people sim or credit cards, then people are just stealing profiles. So what does that mean that you don’t use profiles or like there’s a greater chance of you dying in a car accident than I’m playing right? Don’t drive your car. You want to be in your listen to this. You want to have content you got to share you have great coaching knowledge. You got to let people know who you are. Right? Like if you are have kids, what do you like to do your kids? Whatever foods you like, what what annoys you? What makes you happy? Right? And if you’re single, what type of like I said, What’s your potential spouse like? Well maybe have bad relationships, be vulnerable, letting people know who you are an example is like when I got into SEO, I talked about my voice is raspy. I don’t know why I think it’s because a lot of yelling into baseball tournaments. I went to two baseball torrents my second son yesterday. And my sister my my oldest son, his team got crushed. He played one game and I crushed then we drove an hour to watch my son pitching his championship game. And they won second place out of 16 teams, but I think all the yelling and like arrest my voice is raspy. That’s that’s an example where like I just gave you some people that oh my god, I gotta be perfect. I gotta get what I’m not gonna. I’m gonna be embarrassed people seek out what I sound weird on this podcast. Just let people know who you are. Because you know what? No one out there is perfect. No one’s out. There is someone that really we know what? Yeah, I don’t only know I had kids, when I was yelling, screaming by I lost my voice. Be a real person. You know, the person, the person that’s perfect on social media, we know that we didn’t live in an age where everything was like Photoshop app, everyone could look at it. Right? So that’s actually not trustworthy. Being the yield real you was good and bad. That’s what’s something that creates connection. Because in order for someone to trust you to buy from you buy your course. They gotta they gotta, they’re trusting you with their money. You gotta trust them first. And that trust comes from letting people know who you are. So like, I’m just sharing about my life. My it’s my kids on social media. So before you even buy, I’m trusting you my family. This is his opener, this is what I am about. And once I trust you, that’s the only time when people say oh, maybe I should buy something from Simon Chen. Right? Be vulnerable. Be a real you. And if you’re a mess, be let people know you’re a mess and make it happen. I think one more thing about this is when you’re sharing your stuff, maybes your challenges. You can be always end you can start with the negative, but always end on the positive. Right always end up so sometimes there’s a difference I got I can’t believe I had a terrible weekend with my kids. I had a terrible weekend. I can’t believe they’re like this. Yeah, that’s no one wants to hear that after a while. Right? Right. But you ended up positive, what’s still in this actual make you grow as a person. So I don’t care where we get my kids. But I learned that this is why I did this, I could do this. Right, you end on a positive because the positive number one puts you in a better state. But also it’s we’re giving value teaching people how to turn a negative into positive. And that’s what people like.
mark egan
Interesting, there was a study done to do with news avoidance by the Reuters Institute, and it was basically showing that in many countries, people were switching off the news or at least consuming less, because just consistently getting negative news had a negative impact on their kind of mental health. So yeah, absolutely. That kind of you’re constantly just putting out negativity, that’s going to come back to you. But um, the other thing you mentioned about, you know, sharing yourself, it’s kind of the difference, isn’t it? Where if you go to, I don’t know, a party or something. I mean, I’ve got kids too. So fewer parties these days, but you meet somebody and you’re talking and you’ve kind of got nothing to grab on to you don’t know anything about them. It’s kind of hard to get the conversation going. But I remember when I worked in broadcasting, when you had well known television presenters, the thing that always fascinated me is that people come up to them and chat to them, like old friends because they knew so much about presenter. They could kick the conversation off straightaway because they knew which food they liked and you know, all their little quirks and which football team they supported and all that so absolutely that kind of connection, I think that’s a really, really good point. That is kind of closing it up. Now. You’ve written the book, and I’m always in all of anybody who gets a book written and finished. I keep meaning to do it. But now that I’ve got the consistency dip, so I can pull it off. You know, firstly, just how’s the process of getting the book out there? And just a final sort of thought on for people who read the book. But what if there was one thing, you wanted them to come away with one message? One thing that maybe just ships that shifts their perspective a bit, what would it be?
Simon Chan
I’ll share with you the seven components, I talked about two of them, right. So if you’re listening to this, you have big goals, you have ambition. Number one, you have to have a checklist of what you need to do every day. Number two, you got to create and schedule the time, create a routine. So whether you’re writing a book, or you creating a course, which I know you’re busy already, you’re not gonna have who’s gonna have time to create a course, Chris, great. Set time every day to work on a course could be who wake up 30 minutes earlier, get it done at 6am in the morning, six to 630 You do that every day, you’re gonna get your course done. Right? Number three is determine the strategy. How are you going to make this course? Right? Are you going to do it? recorded outside recorded indoors? What will you do slides you can do Talking Heads? What’s the strategy? Number four is choose your environment? Where are you going to do it? And sometimes, you know, I have a beautiful home office here like 300 square feet. I really, really do creative work here. I need to change environment. Music was a bit plays a big part. We every one of it, I play a certain song to you Mark Amelie trigger memories of secondary school days. Right? Before I speak on anything. I’m still nervous. I play the same song. I play ACDC thunderstruck, if I play this right before that, I’m still Oh, my goodness, I won’t be on this podcast. And I didn’t know how it’s gonna be like, I’m playing this. I’m like, pumped up. Let’s go, Mark, I’m ready. Right. So it’s like a mental cue, you choose your environment. Number five is tracking. Right. So by the way, again, back to the choosing for our environment, the music, it could be, once you play the same song every time that puts you in the mood to create your course, to put your mood to create what you need to do. Number five is tracking by tracking progress. There’s tools in analytics, tracking how well you’re doing, or were you writing a book how much you’ve written every day, use a word counter, maybe you have 1000 words today, do that for 20, straight days, tracking, number six, using tools, we talked about some of the tools around and number seven, get accountability, right? Just a natural, we show up more better when we have someone holding us accountable. So those are pi, those seven things, think about what goal you want to achieve, what things you want to do. Those apply to seven components, and then you can stay consistent.
mark egan
And obviously, by the book. It’s been great talking to you. I really love the way that you’ve, you’ve clearly thought through your kind of approach to things and why things work the way they do. I suspect you’re somebody who kind of doesn’t just let life happen to them. They’re always trying to sort of figure out okay, how can I do this better? Why did that happen? And I think that really comes through and also love your energy that kind of It’s infectious. I can see how, like you say you people get to know you and they want to buy and learn more. And if people do want to learn more, I know you’ve got the podcast website, where should they go?
Simon Chan
The best place is MLM nation.com MLM nation.com Hey, all my contact and follow me on social media, Instagram, Facebook, I’m Bear IT personal reply back to every single messages may take me a little longer. But I love to connect with all your everyone out there on social media.
mark egan
Great. Well, I think it’s a brilliant message. And I do genuinely think you know, you mentioned that, you know, sometimes consistency is the thing that’s spoken about enough or, you know, it’s one of those things which people know, they need to be more consistent, but maybe don’t pay enough attention to and I think you’re absolutely kind of spot on. And I am knife made me feel really guilty during some things here where you thought you said things and I thought you know what? Yes, actually, I do do that or dammit, I could do that really simple. Yes, I should. So you’ve inspired me. So from now on, I’m going to be much more consistent. So absolutely appreciate your time. I’d love to sort of maybe come and see a baseball game in Los Angeles. Sometimes you do support the New York team then if you’re from New York originally, or do you support a Lakers?
Simon Chan
Yankees fan for baseball, but I’m like a social fan for the price. But yeah, that question. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I wish you continued success. And thanks for being so generous with your insights, sharing of the book and I wish you every success. Thank you for having me, Mark. It’s an honor. It was a ton of fun. You’re awesome. Thank you.
mark egan
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