Billy Gene Shaw: John, the answer is yes, but let me tell you why. So, four years ago, I was ready to ignite. Let's start there. But I've been listening to your podcast for that long.

So, one thing I wanna do to start off is just congratulate you on what you've accomplished, but more importantly, your consistency, man. I know what it takes to create content, as I'm a huge content creator. And for you to be this disciplined is huge, man.

So, when I was listening, I actually started listening when I was living at my mom's house, trying to figure out how to be an entrepreneur. And then fast-forward to 2016, we just finished a little shy of $4 million for our company.

John Lee Dumas: Unbelievable, and now you're a sponsor on Entrepreneur on Fire, which is insane, that's how it started.

Billy Gene Shaw: That's right.

John Lee Dumas: And you and I were actually talking offline the other day, which I think is a funny story, is I was listening to a 2012 – maybe it was 2013 Life on Fire event − Nick Unsworth had released it – when Gary Vaynerchuk spoke, and there was this question in the back from Billy Gene. I'm, like, that can't be the same Billy Gene, and it was. So, you listened, you consumed the right content, you went to the right conferences, you invested in yourself. Here we are today.

And, Fire Nation, Billy is the world's smartest digital marketer. He serves as the president of one of the world's leading advertising schools, Billy Gene is Marketing Inc. He's taught thousands of entrepreneurs and small-business owners how to turn clicks into customers. His renowned camp, Customer Acquisition Masters Program, teaches marketers how to use social media to get ROI for local businesses.

Billy, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro, and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Billy Gene Shaw: Sure, man. I think what that doesn't cover is my passion for changing the education system. My mom worked for the County for about 30 years, and she was never able to get a promotion because she didn't have a college degree. And so, now, she brought me up, like, "You have to go to college. You have to go to college." And I went to the University of San Diego. It was about $40,000.00 a semester.

But what's so messed up about that is that, today, for entrepreneurs specifically and marketers, college, I think it's the biggest legal scam in the world, man. And I know that may be strong and may offend some people, but people are leaving with a ton of debt, and they're not leaving with the skills to actually get out of it. But, besides that, my personal life, I like Xbox a lot.

John Lee Dumas: I like how you can sum up your personal life in one sentence. But, no, those were strong words. I don't really wanna jump away from that because I've actually spoken out, not like 1,000 percent negative against traditional school, but basically myself saying, listen, if you're gonna be a doctor, if you're really gonna go down that path to be a lawyer, Lord knows why, but if you're gonna do certain things, yes, you do need to go down that traditional route.

But, for the other 98 percent of us, man, if you could take those four years back, if you could take that $40,000.00, $80,000.00, $400,000.00 in some cases, debt load that, by the way, these poor 22-year-olds, you know, when you're 17 or 18 years old, you don't know what you're doing when you're racking up $20,000.00, $30,000.00, $40K a year in debt. You don't know what that means.

Billy Gene Shaw: You're just doing what you're supposed to be doing, right? You're not even paying attention to it. You're going through the motion.

John Lee Dumas: And the sad thing is, too, and we won't get too much on a tangent on this, but you think you're gonna make $75K after you graduate, and maybe you will, but you're, like, "Oh, I can pay off that debt quickly if I'm making $75K a year." That's not how it works. That's just not how it works. You'll be paying that off for 20, 30, 40 years, doesn't matter if you declare personal bankruptcy; it's still on your back.

But, anyways, Billy, I wanna focus this back on you, but just to know that we're on the same page. What's your area of expertise? What do you crush it in? Give us a value bomb there.

Billy Gene Shaw: I'll tell you, man, all of the money that I earn comes from one skillset, and that's the ability to bring customers on demand to any business in the world. I genuinely believe it's the most lucrative skillset that exists. If you can walk into a business, take out your laptop, phone, and internet connection, and literally, within hours, maybe the next day, bring them business, you will never have to worry about earning income.

And so, I do that, leveraging paid advertising, so paid Instagram ads, paid Facebook ads, paid YouTube ads. That's my specialty, man. And ever since I mastered that, business has really taken off.

And to kind of parlay off what you're saying is one of the craziest things I've seen is that, like you just said, to be a doctor or an attorney, you've got to go to school for eight, ten years, six years, pass the bar, acquire hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, do a residency, all of these things.

But, for some reason, entrepreneurs feel like, "What do you mean? I didn't make money in one week? Hold on. Wait a second. I'm not rich after one month. Oh, my gosh, what's happening?" It's crazy, man. It's crazy.

And so, if I can leave your audience with anything today, it's I'm gonna tell you guys the truth that I guess a lot of people aren't telling you, is that it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot of studying. You have to actually be great at something to earn income.

John Lee Dumas: I think patience is a word that is really underutilized in our world because it takes patience, Fire Nation. It takes waking up every morning, like Billy gave me credit for, for waking up every morning and releasing a podcast episode, by the way, for 200 days before I ever made a dollar.

That was 200 days releasing an episode. It wasn't two weeks or two months. It was 200 days. And then it wasn't just like everything happened. It was still a slow building process from there.

Billy Gene Shaw: John, what kept you going? What kept you going – because most people will quit on Day 30, maybe Day 15. So, you're 200-plus days in. You're not making any money. You're not seeing anything. I'm sure you had bills to pay though.

John Lee Dumas: I did.

Billy Gene Shaw: So, how the heck did you even continue on?

John Lee Dumas: I had a clear vision from Day 1, which really helped me, and that was, listen, I wanna create the show that I wish was out there that is gonna serve an entrepreneur or a budding entrepreneur, Billy, like yourself when you were living at home with your mother, that could wake up every morning and know there was going to be a valuable interview with a successful entrepreneur telling about how they failed, lessons learned, aha moments, how they turned into success.

And over those 200 days, I might not have been making money, but I was getting emails, social media Tweets, by people that were saying, "Hey, John, this is really helping. This is starting me on the right path. This has changed my life."

Billy Gene Shaw: So, you focused on those little micro wins.

John Lee Dumas: I focused on the micro wins.

Billy Gene Shaw: I love that.

John Lee Dumas: I did.

Billy Gene Shaw: Love that.

John Lee Dumas: Now, you're unique, Billy, in a lot of ways, and I'm excited to be hanging out with you in a couple months here – actually a couple weeks here in San Diego, which is gonna be super cool.

But I was working out with my virtual trainer just a few weeks back, and he's a great guy, and I do three days a week virtual with him. And we flipped it on for zoom for one of our workouts, and he was holding up a thumb drive. And I'm, like, "Dude, what are you doing? Why are you holding a thumb drive up to the video?"

And he's just, like, "Because this is awesome." He's, like, "I just got this in the mail a week a week ago from your sponsor, Billy Gene, and I'm obsessed with this." He's, like, "What else can I get from this guy?"

So, you sent him a thumb drive, and that's one of the things that we promote on our show for you, for our listeners from you. What are some of the other unique things that you've found that have really been successful? I mean, that's just outside of the box. Tell us more.

Billy Gene Shaw: Man, I'll tell you what, I think the – let me give you a very short story. So, when I was at my mom's house, I went from literally making no money, like you were talking about, to making $10,000.00 in a day, okay?

And then let me tell you what happened is I ran an advertisement on Facebook. It was a video ad. And it was so simple, but I was running advertisements for a client. I don't remember who it was. But, basically, I recorded the whole entire thing.

And so, what I did is I went online, I created this ad, and I said, "Hey, guys, I just recently sold $100,000.00 worth of products for this company. Do you want to see how I did it?" And I literally created a free video – there was no charge – showing the exact ad, the exact targeting. I gave away everything.

And, John, all I did after this is I said this simple little phrase. I said, "Hey, if you want me to do the same for your business, click the button below." That was it. That was it. And then it took them to an application where they filled it out.

And then I just started getting these notifications, like, [beeping sounds] on my phone again and again and again. I said, "What the heck is this?" And there were people scheduling on my calendar.

So, I woke up the next day, and I didn't even know what to sell, man, because I wasn't expecting it to work. And people were, like, "Hey, can you teach me how to do that?" I'm, like, "Sure." So, then I was a teacher. Some people were, like, "Hey, can you do this for me?" I'm, like, "All right." So, then I was a teacher.

So, what I've consistently learned in my whole entire business model is this: Do something great, document it, and share it with the rest of the world, and people will ask you to do the same for them. That's my entire business.

So, the flash drive that we give away for free, which has some of my best performing ads at copyourads.com. You guys can go there. Literally, I'm not charging – I think you pay the shipping, and if you're not willing to pay $5.95, then you're cheap, and that's why you're broke anyway.

But, anyways, you can get the whole thing. And I go through so many free case studies, and that's what I think he stumbled upon. And so, yeah, many, that's how it all kind of came to fruition.

John Lee Dumas: I love that. I love just being unique, being different. And, by the way, Fire Nation, if you're listening and you're, like, "Oh, easy for Billy and John to say. They've both become great at things," well, guess what? You can become great at something. You just can't start broad.

Keep niching down until you find that one thing. Maybe it's gonna be Instagram ads for chiropractors in Southwest Montana. Guess what? I bet, in one day, you can become the best person in Southwestern Montana to run Instagram ads for chiropractors, guarantee it.

So, just keep doing that until you're the best there, and then do things that don't scale, those one-on-one schedules that Billy was locking in. He was doing things that don't scale. But what he learned from those one-on-one conversations, he could scale to the nth degree.

Billy Gene Shaw: Exactly.

John Lee Dumas: And something that we were talking about, too, Billy, that we were both serious about is a billboard. We were thinking, should we get a billboard? That might make sense, honestly, just because billboard pricing has come so far down because everybody's perception is, you know, everybody's on their phone. They're not looking at billboards. So, that's really true.

Billy Gene Shaw: And I pulled the trigger on it, so next month −

John Lee Dumas: Did you really?

Billy Gene Shaw: − when you're in town, dude, yeah −

John Lee Dumas: That's awesome.

Billy Gene Shaw: − right when you're leaving the airport, you're gonna see it big there. And so, it's gonna be fun to test digital marketing tactics −

John Lee Dumas: I love it.

Billy Gene Shaw: − with the billboards. It'll be fun.

John Lee Dumas: I love it. I would love to know that because, you know, and this is what Gary Vaynerchuk says, is it's all about attention. If you can get the right-priced attention, then it's gonna win every single time.

So, Billy, you have quite the story. We've already talked about it a little bit. But where do you wanna go from here? I'd like to kind of move into now a time that you really struggled because, right now, we've been really championing you because, obviously, you've done some great things.

Billy Gene Shaw: Thank you.

John Lee Dumas: But what was one of the most difficult moments you went through, maybe even after, post your first initial success? What was the worst moment that you experienced?

Billy Gene Shaw: It would be hands-down – so, remember this, both of my parents, they didn't graduate. I think they maybe went one time to get their associate's degree, but they never had a formal education or anything like that.

So, in regards to learning a business, how to actually run it, I had no idea how to do it. Now, keep in mind, I went to the University of San Diego, which is a great business school, and I didn't learn that.

So, when I was starting my company, when I was paying my employees, bro, I was just going to the bank and getting cashier's checks. There was no payroll or anything, tax. So, anyways, I was kind of running it like a fool.

And I had two kind of – I had three things happen all at the same time. And so, one is I had a client who was paying me about $30 grand a month. I had another client who was paying me about $8,500.00 a month, okay?

And then I didn't know anything about taxes. So, imagine this, John. You lose the big client that's paying $30K. Shortly after that, I lose the client that's paying the 8,500 bucks. Shortly after that, I find out that I owed money in taxes. And it all happened; it was like the perfect storm.

And, truth be told, bro, I didn't know how I would have to get out of it. And I was working from my house when I was by myself, so I had employees coming over every day. And here I am, like, sitting on top of this huge world of debt and stress, and I felt truly lost. But, now, I also have the challenge of I can't translate that energy to my team.

So, I had to figure it out, man. But that was a crazy low because I just genuinely felt like it was all gonna crumble, and I didn't know what to do. So, I was sad. I think I cried for about 15 minutes.

John Lee Dumas: Sure.

Billy Gene Shaw: And then, six hours later, I got over it, and I just started getting on the phone and selling again, and I ended up diversifying. So, I learned from that mistake. I can't just have these kinds of heavy-hitting clients because, as soon as they're gone, I was crippled.

And so, now, I kind of went into franchises, and that's why I really started to focus on franchises and ended up working with some of the largest franchises in the world.

But that was the transition, kind of the story in short, man. But that was a dark time. That was a dark moment, I should say.

John Lee Dumas: Nothing wrong with a big, fat, ugly cry every now and then, Fire Nation. Just let it out, release it, and then come back.

And one thing that Billy was talking about is you have to just have all sides of your business under control if you're gonna be running a really healthy business, and it's tough when you're starting. I get it.

But that's one reason why, when we do our income reports for EOFire, we bring our CPA on, and I bring my lawyer on the show to talk about, to make sure you're doing the right things with the quarterly estimates and that you're protecting yourself, if trademarks make sense, or all these different things.

And so, just try to make sure that you're always looking to inject knowledge into your business, just making it more healthy, and that's the key.

Billy Gene Shaw: And then, too, John, to piggyback off what you were saying, like, man, I think John just hit it on the nose is, like, now I have business attorneys, now I have CPAs and CEOs, but when I was growing, right – I don't think John either −

John Lee Dumas: No.

Billy Gene Shaw: − we had these things. We learned about them. But, honestly, we probably both learned harder ways than what we should have if we had the proper guidance in that.

So, the one thing I'll tell everybody listening is don't try and figure it out. Don't think this business stuff is something that you see on Shark Tank, and all of a sudden, there's a million dollars. It doesn't happen like that. And so, learn from other people's mistakes. Don't learn from your own.

John Lee Dumas: Let's talk about one of your greatest ideas. We talked about a bunch. I'm excited to see how the billboard works out. The thumb drive's been fun, some different things. But what's one of the greatest ideas you've had to date? Tell us that story.

Billy Gene Shaw: Sometimes the great ideas aren't that great, but it was great because of the result that it came out with.

John Lee Dumas: The result.

Billy Gene Shaw: And so, actually, someone paid me, and they called into my office, and they said, "I wanna talk to Billy Gene one-one-one." They're, like, "No, I don't think so." And he's, like, "All right. I'll give him 1,000 bucks for 15 minutes." I'm like, "Okay, fine. Let's see who it is, right? Let's see if they're being serious."

So, anyways, I ended up jumping on the phone with this person, and they just wanted some feedback on the advertisements that they were running. But, through doing that, I found out something about their business, and it was this: They were charging a lot more money than I was for a similar service that they were doing on the education side. I ended up so inspired from their call, helping them, and I learned, like, oh, my gosh, I'm crazily leaving money on the table.

So, two days later, I told my team, "We have this new program coming out. It's called camp," which you mentioned before, "and this is what we're gonna charge." And it was, like, $5 grand for six months – I don't remember, something like that. But, anyways, we just started selling it. And I'm not kidding you. With that program and that model, we've had $100,000.00 days, John.

John Lee Dumas: Wow.

Billy Gene Shaw: And, again, I could have been doing that, though, a year before, two years before that maybe. But I just simply wasn't asking because I didn't know it was possible. So, my greatest idea was probably to copy genius. You know, hey, this is working for them, and let me do it, too, man. And asking for more money is probably the greatest mistake that your audience is making right now.

That client I mentioned earlier that was paying us $30 grand, when I was gonna go into that meeting and say $30 grand, I really was only gonna hit them with $15,000.00 because I was afraid, and then I talked to my dad on the phone right before the meeting. He said, "Billy Gene, are you kidding me?"

John Lee Dumas: Double it.

Billy Gene Shaw: That's right, man, and so I did.

John Lee Dumas: Nice, nice.

Billy Gene Shaw: Yeah.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, just think about it. Think about the value that you're going to bring. And if you're gonna be dealing with the right people, then what can you do? You can scale up your price. You can scale up your value. You can keep doing those things and having those conversations that Billy Gene got paid $1,000.00 for, has made him hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not now into the millions of dollars −

Billy Gene Shaw: Millions, yeah.

John Lee Dumas: − because why? Because he had that conversation. He was willing to have that and learn. And there's a great quote is that, "Good artists copy; great artists steal." We're all standing up on the shoulders of giants, Fire Nation. You've just got to now take that and inject your personality, inject what you want, your pizzazz, and make it happen for you because it's not about reinventing the wheel. It's about making what's best for you, your business −

Billy Gene Shaw: Exactly.

John Lee Dumas: − and, of course, your clients. So, what are you most fired up about today, Billy? Obviously, it seems like camp is crushing it, so maybe that's it. But I'm just curious. What's got you going right now?

Billy Gene Shaw: It's the opportunity. So, for example – and you're very familiar with the digital marketing space – but everyone listening right now, hear this: 99.999999999 percent of the world is still only using print advertising and direct mail.

There are very, very, very few companies that actually understand the true power of paid advertising on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and whatever other platforms are coming up. So, the market is wide open. It's moving so fast; you can't learn it in school. But you can learn it in a fraction of the time that it takes to go to school, and it's way more affordable.

So, that shift with the education system, put it this way, John: I'm thinking about investing into a live studio, like, theater to teach live, not exactly like a school, but just weekly classes. I'm already doing livestreams. Why not just have a live audience, right? That's moves I'm thinking about.

But there are all these opportunities that exist right now that no one's taking advantage of because they're unwilling to learn something new, period.

John Lee Dumas: Wow. Fire Nation, this is the world that we live in. You can literally say, hey, this weekend, I'm gonna learn about Facebook ads. Then I can turn around Sunday night, and I can know for a fact that I'm gonna know more about Facebook ads than 99 percent of the population.

Billy Gene Shaw: It's crazy.

John Lee Dumas: You won't know more than Billy Gene. You won't know more than Billy Gene, but you will know more than 99 percent of the population.

And that's why, when I had Ray Higdon on a few times on EOFire, he talks about ILT: Invest, learn, teach. You invest in yourself, time, money, whatever that might be; you learn the content; and then that's when most people stop, Billy, but not you, not me. We turn around and we teach. And that's why we're generating seven-figures-plus of revenue on an annual basis. So, that has you fired up.

What would you say is the best place for people to start if they wanted to learn things along these lines? If you could just say, hey, this is the direction that you should go if you wanna learn more about this wide-open space of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube advertising, where do you go?

Billy Gene Shaw: Go to keysvsdegrees, V-S, keys, V-S, vsdegrees.com. And so, I'm super passionate about education, right? But what I do is I send out a monthly key that's really a flash drive, but it looks like – it's designed as a key.

And every month, I teach a different skill, things you'll never learn in school, like Facebook advertising or Facebook Live, or right now, I'm teaching about Facebook Messenger ads, which, if you're a local business owner or working with them, and you're not using Messenger ads, you're losing the money. The opportunity is so wide. It's easy. And there are so many things like that.

And so, what I love about the business model is guess what? This is how people need to learn now. I think the biggest problem with college is they present it as if there's a finish line to learning. "Oh, I got my bachelor's. I'm done." "Oh, I got my master's. This is so great." What? That's when you lose. The second you stop learning is when you lose. It's just backwards.

So, yes, you should pay us money every single month, and I'll teach you something new that's gonna help you survive in that year, yeah.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, keysvsdegrees.com. That's keys, V-S for versus, degrees.com. So, check that out, and don't go anywhere because Billy's gonna crush the lightning round after we thank our sponsors.

Billy, are you prepared to rock the lightning round?

Billy Gene Shaw: Woo, always, let's go.

John Lee Dumas: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Billy Gene Shaw: Nothing. I wasn't one of those who was kind of on the fence, should I risk it, or anything like this. I was hungry, man. My dad's always been a salesman forever, and I was, nah, nothing. I can't even lie, nothing; I'm ready.

John Lee Dumas: What's the best advice you've ever received?

Billy Gene Shaw: Make it happen. I mean, 99 percent of the problems that you guys are dealing with right now, everyone listening, myself, John, is just us being unwilling to do something we don't wanna do. So, just shut up and make it happen. It's generally the best advice anybody will ever give you.

John Lee Dumas: What's a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Billy Gene Shaw: I think I am the best teacher in the world at times, but it's only because I'm the best student. I'm obsessed with learning. I wake up, and I watch a podcast, YouTube videos. I'm still registering for webinars all of the time, just to learn that one, two things. I'm still attending conferences all of the time. I'm still paying for consultants all of the time. I'm still looking for mentorships all of the time because I'm that much hungrier than the next guy to get better.

John Lee Dumas: You are hungry. I love that. Share an internet resource like Evernote with Fire Nation.

Billy Gene Shaw: I'll give Russell a shout-out with ClickFunnels right now.

John Lee Dumas: Yes.

Billy Gene Shaw: I'll give Russ a shout-out. I know you're a big fan, too, and I was there at the conference at Funnel Hacking Live. But, yeah, ClickFunnels, you guys should all have it.

John Lee Dumas: Did you hear him give me the shout-out?

Billy Gene Shaw: Yeah, I did, I did.

John Lee Dumas: Heck, yeah.

Billy Gene Shaw: He gave you a big shout-out. You got minutes, man. You got minutes.

John Lee Dumas: I got not just seconds; I got minutes, which is huge. But, Fire Nation, I'm a big friend and fan of Russell, as well. If you go to EOFire.com/click, you can check out an hour and a half webinar that just last month, myself and Russell crushed. It was fun.

Billy Gene Shaw: Boom.

John Lee Dumas: We talked all about ClickFunnels and about funnels and about everything. Check it out, EOFire.com/click. If you could recommend one book, Billy, what would it be, and why?

Billy Gene Shaw: Scaling Up by Verne Harnish, I think it was. I think so.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, that's it.

Billy Gene Shaw: Yeah, Scaling Up, man. It was just – it's tactical. I'm a big fan of learning something, being able to open the page and doing, like, right there. Obviously, John, with the Freedom Journal and everything that you're doing, you're a huge fan of that, too, taking action and combining that.

And so, everybody, I think, Scaling Up is, in regards to growing a legit, real business that's paying taxes and all the things you're supposed to be doing, it was the biggest blueprint for me.

John Lee Dumas: Billy, let's end today on fire with a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we'll say goodbye.

Billy Gene Shaw: I will tell you all this: Right now, if you open up your bank account, and you're mad, it makes you feel sad, you're angry, it's, I promise you, because you don't have enough skills, meaning your ability to do what others can't or won't do is very low.

And the second you decide to commit to something and become great at it, which means you'll spend years without getting paid, and you'll do all of the stuff that you hear all these entrepreneurs talk about, then you will start to earn income.

That's why multilevel marketing is so popular because there's no barrier to entry, so people can just get in right away and become rich overnight, so they're excited. But look at the highest-earning careers, as we spoke about earlier: doctors, attorneys, etc. You've got to put in the work. That's the best thing I can give you.

And if you really wanna learn the most lucrative skillset in the world, then that's when you call Billy Gene, right? Go to keysvsdegrees.com, and I will teach you these skills, so that you can raise your earning power because you're broke right now, or you're mad right now because your earning power is low, and that's what I hope you do.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, not to go on another tangent, but it's just – because you did make the comment, and you're right, Billy – you made the comment that lawyers, doctors are the highest-earning, quote, unquote, salaries right now out there.

But I was in law school for a semester, and I thankfully dropped out, and that was all I did was one semester, and it was the best decision of my life. But my jaw dropped when I learned the average lawyer makes $80,000.00 a year, and this is nationwide −

Billy Gene Shaw: Wow.

John Lee Dumas: − so that even includes New York City and everything averaged out. And you've done more than that in a day. So, yes, Fire Nation, lawyers, doctors, you can make a lot of money and salaries, etc., whatever, whatever, but this is 2017. This isn't 1977 where that was really the case, where that was the highest you could go.

There's so many opportunities out there if you're willing to work hard, if you're willing to learn, and if you're willing to keep listening to EOFire because you're the average, Fire Nation, of the five people you spend the most time with, and you have been hanging out with BG and JLD today.

So, keep up the heat, and head over to EOFire.com. If you type Billy in the search bar, his show notes page is gonna pop up with everything that we've been talking about today, best show notes in the biz.

But the incredibly strong call to action here, visit keysvsdegrees.com, keys, V-S, degrees.com. Get over there, sign up, get the awesomeness from Billy Gene himself.

Billy, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we'll catch you on the flipside.

Billy Gene Shaw: Thanks a lot, John. It's been a blast, man. You're the real deal.