0 (3s):
Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Success Story podcast. Today, we'll be breaking down from zero to hero. How I, first time entrepreneur sold everything to transform an industry to drop these value bombs. I brought John Day into EOFire studios. John quit his job and sold everything to launch AV HERO back in March of 2020. AV HERO is now the largest network of audio visual experts in the United States. And today we'll be talking about starting a company in the midst of a pandemic. We'll talk about discovering what you were put on this earth to do, and the fear of the unknown and how to overcome this emotion and so much more Fire Nation.

0 (48s):
When we get back from thanking our sponsors, if you're generating seven to eight figures, plus from your website and you're not doing conversion optimization, you're leaving tons of revenue on the table. Visit Conversion Fanatics.com for a free proposal today and tell them EOF sends you because traffic without conversions is just sad. Online marketing made easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield breaks down big ideas and strategies and to actionable step-by-step processes like her recent episode on what happens when a launch doesn't go as planned, listen to online marketing made easy wherever you get your podcasts. John say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 37s):
Hey, Fire Nation. What's up happy to be here. And John, thank you for this opportunity. That great question. You know, the thing I would say that I believe most people disagree with is the idea that you can be and do anything you want to in life. I know that that's a classic motivational thing, right? You put your mind to it. But my firmly believed that actually we were designed to do specific things and have been given very specific gifts and talents. For instance, if I think about dancing or drawing or cooking, these are three things I'm terrible at and no amount of effort will make me great at them.

1 (2m 20s):
Now I'm telling you, my wife will, she'll tell you the same thing. So I might be able to become average these things, but, but never great. But on the flip side, sales, public speaking music, these are things that come very natural to me. And I'm in the process of becoming great at it. I believe so. I think we need to stop telling people they can be anything they want to be and do anything they want to do and actually help them focus on what they're naturally good at and foster those talents.

0 (2m 50s):
Well, I love that concept. I love that premise. I think it's a great set up to the rest of our conversation today, which is focused on going from zero to Hero and you know, how you sold everything and transformed an industry. So with a title like that, I got to hear a little bit about this journey

1 (3m 6s):
Started in 2007 in the commercial audio visual industry. And a lot of people wouldn't know what that is, but basically, you know, businesses, buildings putting in all the technology for video conferencing and collaboration and meetings, the digital signage, doing all of that. And I was terrible at it. I was absolutely horrible at it. I literally would go to bed every night before this job and would, would like almost have a panic attack just the next day. Cause I was so bad. I was so nervous at selling. I was so nervous at cold calling. I was so nervous because I felt like, you know, my background was, I dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and I, you know, spent a lot of my time just doing music and even into adult doing a lot of music at my church and you know, trying to be a pseudo rock star, I guess, to a degree.

1 (4m 3s):
And so I, I never, you know, my college experience summed up to a semester of voice lessons at a community college in Bellevue, Washington. So being in the, you know, the business world was really nerve-wracking to me and I was bottom of the sales ranker. And I remember hearing conversations with some of our leadership, you know, kind of like fly on the wall. That sounded like they were thinking about letting me go. And it was one day I sat down into this meeting with my boss and a potential customer. And it was like things just click. This is after a couple years though, of pain of pain every day I go into this job and it was like, I was natural all of a sudden.

1 (4m 44s):
And I was, I was asking the questions that I thought needed to be asked and making suggestions. And at the end of that meeting, my boss literally turned to me who had been doing this for 20 plus years, said, man, that was one of the best meetings I've ever been in. And the penny that dropped for me, John was realizing I could just be myself. I could be natural. I could say what I thought asked the question at the crack, the jokes I thought were funny and actually be effective. And so that really launched me off into a career of, you know, sales, enterprise sales, working with some of the largest companies around the United States, in the audio visual industry being number one in my company, making more money than I ever thought that I would make in my life.

1 (5m 30s):
And it really all hinged on the concept of, I'm just gonna be myself and have fun doing what I'm doing,

0 (5m 39s):
Paint the picture. Because you know, after hearing about that journey, you know, here we are, it's March, 2020, and you have this idea, this concept to launch a V Hero, tell us what that light bulb moment was for you. Like that led up that concept, that idea, and then tell us why you started.

1 (6m 1s):
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, like I mentioned, I'd had a good amount of success as a, a salesperson in a relatively large organization. And I felt like I had reached the mountain top. And so I started talking to upper management, Hey, what else can I do? Right. Can I be a, could I sales manager? Can I contribute in some other way? Because for me it wasn't just about the money. It was about the challenge. It was about being able to use creativity to do cool things. And when they came back to me and essentially said, well, we're not going to be able to pay you as much as you're making as a commission salesperson. So we don't think you're going to be happy.

1 (6m 42s):
So unfortunately there's no other opportunities for you other than to keep doing what you're doing. I really started digging in, what else could I do? What else mattered to me? And classic story, I'm sitting in a bar and I'm having a beer and I'm looking at the televisions on the wall and I'm listening to the music. And I had the thought, what would this restaurant bar owner do the manager do? If all of a sudden their technology stopped working, what would they do? And knowing what I knew about the industry, there's not a good answer. Most people aren't going to know who to call, especially if there's a level of urgency and you need to get your technology working, whether you're a business, whether you're a resident, whatever you are, there was no good answer for quick response.

1 (7m 25s):
And so AV HERO just kind of evolved into this idea and it's like, well, let's use the gig economy. Well, let's create a platform that people can go to and hit a button and make it simple and fast. And cost-effective, and, and let's not just take care of customers, but all these experts around the United States that are great at audio visual stuff, let's give them the ability to market themselves and make a greater hourly wage and to have control of their schedules. So, so yeah, that's, that's how AV Heroes started. And man, my wife and I went all in. I mean, as I'm sure your listeners know, John, you know, it's expensive to start a company and we bootstrapped this thing, man, we, we sold our house, quit my job, sold our house, converted my 401k into a funding vehicle for the company.

1 (8m 21s):
And when all in man, and it's been a wild ride since ever since you know about March, March, 2020,

0 (8m 29s):
Man, I mean, that's crazy financial. We're going to talk about what it's like to start a company in the midst of a global pandemic. We're also going to talk about the fear of the unknown. We're gonna talk about discovering the path you're meant for and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, we all want to scale our business. But depending on your goals, the steps might look different and you might have to test a few things out before you find the strategy that will work best for you in your team. That's why you need a HubSpot CRM platform with a HubSpot CRM platform. You have access to things like a sandbox account where you can test various changes in functionalities and a safe environment before they go live without impacting your main account.

0 (9m 10s):
A HubSpot CRM platform also helps ensure your team stays connected with features like team email. So you can connect at team wide email addresses to your shared inbox, turn incoming emails into tickets, or send them straight to your shared inbox. No more questions slipping through the cracks and because your team is probably spread out across the globe, the HubSpot mobile app makes it possible for you and your team to work from anywhere. Highlights include business card, scanning, caller ID, and more learn how to grow better by connecting your people, your customers, and your business at hubspot.com. How many marketing experiments have you done in the last four weeks? How about the last year? Chances are your answer is none, but if you're generating seven to eight figures, plus from your website and you're not doing conversion optimization, then you're leaving a ton of revenue on the table and now is a perfect time to take action and make it happen because know this, you won't scale to the next level and you're going to get your lunch eaten by the competition in the next 12 months.

0 (10m 6s):
If you don't start optimizing lucky for us, our sponsor Conversion Fanatics runs thousands of experiments every year for clients like Clorox. Burt's bees, NBC sports, golf channel, Harper Collins, click funnels, and many more, and they want to do it for you to Conversion Fanatics, optimizes your site for you. So you can get more customers scale up your traffic faster and see an increase in revenue. Best part is they make it super easy. They handle everything. Go to ConversionFanatics.com for a free proposal today and tell them EOF sent you because traffic without conversions is just sad. That's ConversionFanatics.com. So we're back and I'd love to know John, what is it like starting a company in the midst of a global pandemic?

0 (10m 51s):
What was that experience?

1 (10m 52s):
It's obviously we didn't know what we were getting into. We had started development on the platform, AVHero.com towards the end of 2019. And with plans to launch, you know, basically spring ish in 2020. And so when maybe February, you started hearing rumors of a virus in China that was making its way. And then in March, right, everything starts getting more serious and I'm in California at the time. And so, you know, the weekend of literally our planned launch is when California announced the shutdowns and I'm having conversations with my team.

1 (11m 33s):
That's been working with me to, to start the company and, and what are we going to do? Are we going to, you know, we're going to push pause because initially it was, you know, 14 days to slow the spread. If anyone can remember that. And you know, and the consensus was, no, we need to stay the course. We need a launch. We need to go for it. You know, even if things change up, we believe we can still add value. So it was definitely crazy. I would say also exciting, you know, it's like you're stepping into the unknown and the pandemic was nothing, nothing good about the pandemic. But what ended up happening is initially we were going to launch just in San Diego and Phoenix.

1 (12m 13s):
These are going to be our test markets. When everything locked down, it was like, well, what are we going to do? Because businesses aren't open people. Aren't allowed to go into other people's houses, et cetera. And so we just said, Hey, you know what? We're going to open up this platform to audio visual experts all across America. And so we did that. We opened the platform to everyone and we had John around 7,000 people. Wow. Sign up to become AVHero. I mean, just like flooding in and which within a matter of a month or two literally made us the largest network of audio, visual experts in the United States from nothing. So although the pandemic is the worst, that was a really amazing thing that happened for our company.

1 (12m 59s):
And it's been step-by-step, you know, it's like at the beginning, you know, when you're in the middle of something, you, you know, when you start a company, you just want the fire hose, right? You want all the revenue, all the customers all at once. But what we've really seen is a, is a great kind of slow drip, as much as we could handle at any given time and growing into that and just seeing this thing really be very healthy and growing, as I'm speaking with you today

0 (13m 25s):
And Fire Nation, this is where it's so important to be listening to episodes like this and hearing people that are succeeding in all different industries at all different times and all different ways, shapes and forms. And I know this is a big, big question, John, but how does someone discover what they were put on this earth to do?

1 (13m 45s):
That's the question, right. And I think one way, which I'm sure many of your listeners have heard, it's an exercise, you know, with personal growth is, you know, the billion dollar question. If you had a billion dollars, right? What would you spend your time doing? Money's no longer an issue. What would you spend your time doing, stopping and thinking about that. But I think you can also look for clues, right? As a kid. W what did you love to do? Thinking even what did your parents invest money into as a kid with lessons, right? You're, you're the ones that have hopefully loved you the most, you know, or just family or friends or mentors, what did they invest into? What did they see in you?

1 (14m 26s):
And then I think you got to give it a go. I think that you have to sit there and determine, you know, if I had all the time and money in the world to do whatever I want to do, what would I do? And then don't allow fear to stop you, give it a go. And I think oftentimes something that I've found is that sometimes if I've said, there's something I don't like, the truth is I don't dislike that thing. I just don't feel confident in doing it. And as I to try it, I began to do it and apply myself. I realized, well, actually, I, didn't not like this. I just, wasn't confident. And now that I'm doing it, I can actually see that this is kind of cool and, and I'm digging it and I'm liking it and it could be good at it. So, you know, there's a lot of things. I think you surround yourself with great people, right?

1 (15m 8s):
Surround yourself with friends and mentors that are gonna help point out. What is your strengths? Ask questions, do strength, finders test. But at the end of the day, it's all about putting action to your dreams and desires and, and, and taking that first step, taking

0 (15m 27s):
That first step Fire Nation. And this is the thing. The first step is a step into the unknown. And the unknown is scary. It's full of fear, full of doubt, full of anxiety. How can we overcome this emotion?

1 (15m 43s):
I'll tell you what, John. I mean, I, I'm married. I've got three kids, three young girls and everything. My wife and I have done over the past couple of years with quitting a great job, selling a house, actually sold multiple houses, you know, taking the money that we have to invest into this company, because we don't want to just live a normal life. We want to live a great life. And, you know, recognizing that in order to oftentimes live a great life, you have to be willing to take risks, but there's a lot of fear, right? And so I've thought about this a lot. And I've had to process through this a lot. And there's days where I am a frayed.

1 (16m 24s):
I'm like, God, how is this going to work out? What is next month? What is next quarter? What is next year going to look like? And at the end of the day, I think a great question to ask yourself if you're struggling with taking that step into something that is unknown is, and it may seem a little bit morbid or a little dark, but what's the worst that could happen, right? Ask yourself what is the worst thing that could happen? And chances are the worst thing that could happen. Taking a risk towards a dream that you want to pursue is you lose everything, right? I mean, this is what I think. I talked to my wife. I'm like, baby, at the end of the day, we're still going to have each other.

1 (17m 8s):
We're still going to have our kids. No, one's going to die and we're going to start over. So if you stop and think about what is the worst thing that could happen stepping into the unknown it's it's, it's recoverable. It's, it's not that terrible. The other thing I would say a key is recognizing that fear and let's call it faith, right? Use that term of stepping into the unknown. It's really the same emotion. Both of those emotions, fear and faith are expecting something that you cannot see is going to happen.

1 (17m 50s):
They're both the same thing. You're expect it, fear. I'm something I can't see is going to happen to me, faith, something I can't see is going to happen to me. So it's, it's the same emotion. So learning to apply your energy towards a positive expectation towards faith and you know, and believing. And then the last thing I would say about the unknown is, Hey, what's scarier, right? Doing something that requires risk. And like, how's, it's going to go or thinking about, Hey, the end of my life, I've got a bunch of regrets. Cause I never really tried to do something that was in my heart.

0 (18m 26s):
I love how you ended that two hearts because Fire Nation, if you're going to do something, why would you not do it with your hearts? Now let's bring this home. Where is AV HEROes going in the future? What are you really excited about as you're seeing things unfold before you,

1 (18m 45s):
You know, if I could've seen into the future two years ago, I don't feel like we could have prepared ourselves any better than we currently are right now. And what I mean by that is you, you know, you hear terms right now, like the great resignation, right? And everybody is, is, is rethinking their lives. What do I want to spend my time doing? How do I want to live my life? What I want to look, everyone's rethinking that. And it's creating issues in the workplace and for employers, because people don't want to go back to what they were doing. They don't want to go back to the office. They had a light bulb moment mean maybe, and realize that their, their value is greater than what they were being compensated for and that they want time freedom. And so AV HERO at the end of the day, John is I use the term taking advantage, but not in a negative way, but it's really that freelance gig economy and providing these people that go, Hey, I don't want to be underpaid.

1 (19m 41s):
I don't want to be, you know, how my life and my time and my schedule dictated by someone else. I want to make these decisions. So AV Hero provides that platform for these freelance, for these independent contractors. And I see AV Hero eventually being like the Kleenex. If you just talk about the audio visual industry, being like Kleenex for the audio visual industry, it's going to be the obvious choice. Whether you are a resident, whether you are a business, whoever you are, it's like you have an issue with an audio visual thing, TV, speakers, cameras, microphones, wherever you are, AV Hero would be the obvious answer. But the thing that I see that's potentially even bigger than that, John, which is really exciting is really just the concept of what I would like to call the Hero economy.

1 (20m 29s):
And that is a, a platform that allows multiple trades, multiple disciplines, anybody that could be utilized in an on-demand fashion, whether it's an electrician or it's a plumber or it's yard work or whatever, it may be, the possibilities are endless, but the Hero. And eventually, as we prove AV Hero, which we're in the middle of doing, and it's going quite well, eventually that expanding into many, many more things and this whole great resignation and all these people that are like, Hey, I want this control. I want this value. Being able to have their services offered and utilized through the concept of the Hero economy, AV Hero’s slogan has saved the day, right?

1 (21m 14s):
So how many different things out there and people and consumers customers on a daily basis go, man, if I could only have somebody help me with this, well, we want to eventually provide all of those things. And literally what you hit a button, you connect with somebody local, they can get you taken care of for a really reasonable price. So right now we're just in the United States as well. We've had countries, their nations reached out to us, south America, Europe, Asia, wanting AV HERO to expand there. So eventually we will do that. And so the future is bright

0 (21m 45s):
Foreign nation. I love hearing all of this stuff. And this is, I hope really inspiring you as you're sitting back and having your ideas and seeing what problems are in this world that you want to create amazing solutions for just like John's doing here with AV Hero. What's the one thing that you really want to make sure our listeners get John from everything that we talked about here today, then give us the best way that we can connect with you. Any call to action you have. And then we'll say

1 (22m 10s):
By the one thing I would say, John, I want to encourage Fire Nation is don't let fear stop you. I know the pandemic has been terrible and serious, but in, in many ways, just as serious of a pandemic has been the pandemic of fear, which has caused and caused people to become frozen and afraid of the unknown. Don't let fear stop. You. Don't let fear stop you a little exercise. I did when I had the big transition from sucking at my job to be in pretty good at my job is I had this thought, Hey, every day that I show up, I'm going to do the scariest thing first.

1 (22m 57s):
So I'm going to think about what is the thing that freaks me out the most today? Is it calling that person? Is it setting that appointment? Is it going to that? Whatever it may be? What is that thing? That is the scariest thing first. All right. I'm going to attack that at the beginning because once I do that, everything else is downhill and you begin to fear just begins to have a much, much less of a, of a grasp on your life. So don't let fear stop. You don't let fear stop. You would be the thing. The connect with me. Listen, I love helping people. I love helping people and I do not have a consulting side gig where you pay me for, you know, my time.

1 (23m 40s):
I would seriously anyone that's out there that is struggling with fear. That's trying to figure out, Hey, what's next? How can I would love to, to help? I'd love to have a conversation I'd love to creatively brainstorm. So you can connect with me. Simple. John. J O H N @AVHero.com. John@AVHero.com. Send me an email and I would love to meet and help. As far as the business goes, John, what I would say is that, you know, the first 10 people, if anyone's interested in trying Navy Hero, maybe just to do an assessment of your current system, or maybe you have an existing problem, the first 10 people to shoot me an email as well that John and Amy Hero.com, I'd love to just give you a complimentary AV Hero visit.

1 (24m 22s):
Don't worry your Hero. Your technician will still get paid, but the company will take that one on the chin. But I'd love to offer that to the first 10 people that shoot me an email.

0 (24m 30s):
Wow. I mean, Fire Nation, be a speed demon and be one of those first 10. And then absolutely. Let me know if you made that first-hand cutoff. I'd love to hear that at John Lee Dumas on Twitter and John loved talking with you today. Cause our, our audience knows without a doubt, they're the average of the five people they spend the most time with in Fire Nation. You've been hanging out with JD and JLD today. So keep up that heat head over to eofire.com type J O H N and the search bar, his shown page will pop up with everything that we've talked about. One more time. What is that call to action you have for our listeners,

1 (25m 9s):
Two things. Number one, if you'd like to have a conversation about overcoming fear and stepping into the unknown, shoot me an email. john@AVHero.com. Second thing. The first 10 people to send me an email and say, Hey, I'd love to give a Hero. A shot. We'll do a complimentary Hero. Visit again, john@AVHero.com the first 10 people.

0 (25m 30s):
John, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge and your value with Fire Nation today for that brother, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (25m 39s):
All right, sounds great. Take care. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by John and Fire Nation. Are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course, where I teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free for free. freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. If you're generating seven to eight figures plus from your website and you're not doing conversion optimization, you're leaving tons of revenue on the table. Visit ConversionFanatics.com for a free proposal today and tell them EOF sends you because traffic without conversions is just sad.

0 (26m 21s):
Online marketing made easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield breaks down big ideas and strategies and to actionable step-by-step processes like her recent episode on what happens when he launched. Doesn't go as plans, listen to online marketing made easy wherever you get your podcasts.