Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey we're back.
Speaker 2: We're black, We're but but but but brown, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition,
Speaker 2: and this dude today we're extra black. You know, I
Speaker 2: love the extra black days. We have the amazing Arlon
Speaker 2: Hamilton and the stew right of applause. Super excited. So
Speaker 2: fortunately man's not here. Baby got sick, but you know
Speaker 2: I got her. She was really disappointed because she wanted
Speaker 2: to be here to meet Arlon because she is the legend. So, Arlon,
Speaker 2: you accomplished one of my dreams. I remember when I
Speaker 2: first started my business, I was like, why is there
Speaker 2: no funding for black women? And I said that, you know,
Speaker 2: one of my dreams would be able to get enough
Speaker 2: money that I've made myself to create a fund, you know,
Speaker 2: for black women. And when you did it, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I just I just so I'm jumping
Speaker 2: ahead of myself. One, I would love for you to
Speaker 2: introduce yourself to the audience who might not be aware.
Speaker 2: If not, go hit to Google orland. She's amazing, but
Speaker 2: kind of like, what is your story? How did you
Speaker 2: get here? Who are you?
Speaker 3: Well? Help, that's my alarm telling me that my times,
Speaker 3: it's like the whole hour. But so I have a
Speaker 3: venture fund called Capital, and actually what you just described
Speaker 3: is still my dream for the full fund to be
Speaker 3: all of my capital. Okay, right now, I have investors,
Speaker 3: and then I contribute a great deal to the fund
Speaker 3: ultimately for the true impact I want to have and
Speaker 3: the autonomy, and for it to be about truly black
Speaker 3: women getting to have a full say the goal. You know,
Speaker 3: you always have to have bigger and bigger goals. So
Speaker 3: one of mine is to have a very large fund
Speaker 3: that is my family office essentially. But backstage Capital has
Speaker 3: it started less than ten years ago when I was homeless.
Speaker 3: I was sleeping at the time, sleeping on the floor
Speaker 3: of the San Francisco Airport that was my home. I
Speaker 3: would get on a commuter train in one direction or
Speaker 3: the other, either to San Francisco City or to Silicon
Speaker 3: Valley each day, go out and pound the pavement with
Speaker 3: meetings and trying to make things happen, and then it
Speaker 3: would come back as late as I could, because I
Speaker 3: did not like being there to the airport. Today, we
Speaker 3: have invested in more than two hundred companies led by women,
Speaker 3: BIPOC and LGBTQ plus founders amazing. It was certainly worth
Speaker 3: all of that and all the in between. And even today,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know when this comes out, but
Speaker 3: today I posted something where I just had to vent
Speaker 3: because of all the shenanigans. But yeah, that's really the
Speaker 3: investor story. And what I love about it too is
Speaker 3: is all that it has made spring fourth, which is
Speaker 3: dozens of other funds that have been born because of
Speaker 3: you know, inspired by or because I put a check
Speaker 3: in that's you know, to help them, or whatever the
Speaker 3: case is. Because the case was made the case study,
Speaker 3: we were the case study of the blueprint. To me,
Speaker 3: that's really exciting. And then all of the founders, of course,
Speaker 3: who then employ so many people and then go on
Speaker 3: to get more funding and generate revenue. And I love
Speaker 3: being at the airport and seeing one of my portfolio
Speaker 3: companies at a store or you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: like walking into Target or seeing something crazy happen online
Speaker 3: with a viral moment. Those are the moments that really
Speaker 3: get me. So that's the main story. From that, I
Speaker 3: have written two books that have come out. What the
Speaker 3: first is called It's about Damn Time Order Like you
Speaker 3: walk like you're reading the Hunger Games. Read the It's
Speaker 3: about damn time first, and then read my latest which
Speaker 3: came out this year. Your first million.
Speaker 2: So well, one, I just want to thank you because
Speaker 2: you know you you were like such this amazing pioneer
Speaker 2: in a space where I mean I just couldn't even
Speaker 2: I didn't even ask for money because I was like,
Speaker 2: I know the answer is now.
Speaker 1: And also too, I didn't even know how.
Speaker 2: I was like, that's not even a skill set I'm
Speaker 2: willing to develop because word on the street is not happening.
Speaker 2: Since So one, I want to thank you, Yes, because
Speaker 2: of you. You know, we have things like Fearless Fund
Speaker 2: and other funds that come out that if not for your.
Speaker 1: Presence and your success.
Speaker 2: Quite frankly, it's just you know, you made the case
Speaker 2: that this is feasible, this is possible, and this is
Speaker 2: necessary and quite honestly, when we succeed, other people succeed
Speaker 2: as well. We are the rising tide that lifts all both.
Speaker 2: So one, I wanted to thank you for that. And
Speaker 2: then two like make your first million because I know
Speaker 2: you have a pot. You had a podcast where you
Speaker 2: talk to like place to watch girl.
Speaker 1: I know all about you.
Speaker 3: It was all in the business. The podcast is your
Speaker 3: first Million. That's why I named the book. That it's
Speaker 3: been on for four and a half years as an
Speaker 3: audio and then with the last few months it's been video.
Speaker 3: In the last few weeks, we've really cranked things up
Speaker 3: on the video side. So so yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Now I was gonna say, so what is the book about.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, you know, make your first million, but like,
Speaker 2: what's the full premise and why do you think we
Speaker 2: ought to make our first million?
Speaker 3: So the book really it's a guide for entrepreneurs and
Speaker 3: the subheading is why you don't have to be born
Speaker 3: into a legacy of wealth to leave one behind. I
Speaker 3: would you know. It kicks off with a really funny,
Speaker 3: funny and fun introduction where I talk about how I
Speaker 3: won they call it winning, but you'll see one Jenny
Speaker 3: Jackson's prized truck at auction in Beverly Hills. It starts
Speaker 3: with that story and tells you kind of where I
Speaker 3: came from and what that momentment to me. And then
Speaker 3: it really gets into this mindset shift of if I'm
Speaker 3: in any given room of underestimated founders and I ask
Speaker 3: the room, who here thinks that they can generate a
Speaker 3: million dollars, not even in the next year, but in
Speaker 3: their lifetime. Only a few hands go up usually, So
Speaker 3: this mindset shift of first of all, yes, you can
Speaker 3: after meeting with, investing with and becoming a millionaire. After
Speaker 3: investing with speaking with hundreds of millionaires over the past
Speaker 3: few years, I have learned that almost anybody can be
Speaker 3: a millionaire. So that's the thing. And of course we're
Speaker 3: talking about two different things. One is making your first
Speaker 3: million and one is being a millionaire, though two different things,
Speaker 3: and we talk about that what the difference is in
Speaker 3: the book, Okay, and we then talk about the importance
Speaker 3: of us having collectively the power of billionaires. So one
Speaker 3: of the things I want to do with my main
Speaker 3: north star is that I want to help create and
Speaker 3: catalyze one thousand new millionaires in the next decade. And
Speaker 3: by that I mean truly trackable be able to do that,
Speaker 3: because as we know, one thousand million equals a billion
Speaker 3: and what it represents is we sometimes think about billionaires
Speaker 3: in a negative light because it's usually it's one person
Speaker 3: with a lot of power. So what if the same
Speaker 3: amount of money conceivably right we're controlled by us now
Speaker 3: of course, I'm not stopping anybody from becoming a billionaire,
Speaker 3: any of us from becoming a billionaire. Go do that too,
Speaker 3: But I think we always skip the pieces in between,
Speaker 3: like when we're thinking about it, we either don't think
Speaker 3: we can do it at all, or we're thinking I
Speaker 3: got to be a billionaire to make any kind of
Speaker 3: difference in the world. I believe that collectively we will control,
Speaker 3: we will have power, control, leverage higher quality of life
Speaker 3: potentially for us and our people if we get together
Speaker 3: on this mission.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3: Let's all, let's all have a mini I call it
Speaker 3: in I n I empire. I have this right. So
Speaker 3: I talk about that a great deal and kind of
Speaker 3: introduced that thesis. And then the fun part. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: How okay do I believe that it's largely so? I
Speaker 1: like you. I didn't. Well.
Speaker 2: Both my parents were immigrants from Nigeria. I was a
Speaker 2: preschool teacher for many years in Newark, for about ten years,
Speaker 2: and the session happens, I lose everything and I start
Speaker 2: the business, the Budgetista, just to pay bills, I mean one.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to go back to them.
Speaker 1: Although teaching is not quite corporate America it's still felt
Speaker 1: overwhelming and rat racist to me. So I started a business.
Speaker 2: Yes, just to work for myself and also to be
Speaker 2: of service. That's why I became a teacher.
Speaker 1: I did not. I can't say. Did I anticipate becoming
Speaker 1: a millionaire? Yes and no.
Speaker 2: Yes, from this weird standpoint that when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: almost everyone's grandmother. I would come visit, like my friends
Speaker 2: if they had a grandmother, they would speak lifeful for
Speaker 2: me and to say, baby, one day, you're gonna be
Speaker 2: a rich lady. That happened so often that it became weird. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I just said, okay, miss such and such. I mean,
Speaker 2: I didn't grow much money on one.
Speaker 1: Of five kids.
Speaker 2: And so the Buganisa does well in the last fifteen years,
Speaker 2: especially in the last I want to say seven or so,
Speaker 2: let's have we made over fifty million dollars gross, which
Speaker 2: you know, even saying it sounds crazy like what but.
Speaker 3: Largely that thank you, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2: But largely a lot of that money has been I've
Speaker 2: put right back into the community and the people who
Speaker 2: work for me. Obviously, because I don't have fifty million,
Speaker 2: although I'm still am a millionaire. So I could not.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you know what I mean so
Speaker 2: is how were you able to kind of figure out
Speaker 2: that tend it's even the teacher and me. I mean,
Speaker 2: certainly I understand how money works better now, and when
Speaker 2: people come to me and they're like, oh, I want
Speaker 2: to be a millionaire too, I'm at a loss because
Speaker 2: I feel like so many things were like the timing
Speaker 2: of when I did things, you know, so like how
Speaker 2: did you work toward creating like a systematic way to
Speaker 2: teach folks how to make a million?
Speaker 3: And also the thing is it's going to be a
Speaker 3: little different for everybody. I think there are just some
Speaker 3: some some general things that can be applied to a
Speaker 3: lot of people and like choices to make. But the
Speaker 3: really what you just said is kind of what I've
Speaker 3: done is I've studied people like you. Okay, I've studied
Speaker 3: Not only am I observing and championing, but I'm studying
Speaker 3: as if it's a case study, like I'm doing a
Speaker 3: Harvard business case study or Okay, And so I believe
Speaker 3: now that I know, don't I didn't notice these metrics
Speaker 3: about you your work. I've just heard about you for years.
Speaker 3: What what I would do in this case is I
Speaker 3: would study, Okay, what all the different pieces of what
Speaker 3: you did, What part of it was luck, what part
Speaker 3: of it was a happenstance, you know, happened to be
Speaker 3: this year that this took off, and da da da
Speaker 3: da da. But what part of it is repeatable? What
Speaker 3: part of it can we shave off three and a
Speaker 3: half years for somebody else, even though seven years is
Speaker 3: an an incredible feed. Like I was just with you know,
Speaker 3: Terry Igioma, I was just hanging out.
Speaker 2: We would just just for it. But everybody Arln and
Speaker 2: I were both in Puerto Rico. Literally, I just got
Speaker 2: back last night for what of our friends, Rachel Rogers,
Speaker 2: which is funnily enough, she has a book called you Know,
Speaker 2: we Should All Be Millionaires, and it was called the
Speaker 2: ROI Conference Return on Investment, and so Arland was there,
Speaker 2: although I did not see her there, which is funny,
Speaker 2: but now we're seeing each other.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, everybody was there and it was like this.
Speaker 3: It was wonderful. So Terry and I have have had
Speaker 3: really great conversations, and she's speaking at my event in April,
Speaker 3: your first Million Live, and she is done, you know
Speaker 3: in that right sixty million in the last four or
Speaker 3: five years.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: And I've studied her the people who are like like
Speaker 3: you and Terry, who are who are just creating these
Speaker 3: case studies and create you're creating a blueprint. So there's
Speaker 3: there's studying people, there's interviewing people. I spent the last
Speaker 3: four and a half years interviewing hundreds of millionaires for
Speaker 3: my podcast and otherwise to see if they could you know,
Speaker 3: like before somebody becomes an investor in backstage, I talked
Speaker 3: to them, okay, and we have several investors, so et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And so you can distill that, you can
Speaker 3: deconstruct that, distill it and then give the information. And
Speaker 3: you know, let's be really honest. Let's be super honest here.
Speaker 3: If my book could make everybody a millionaire, I would
Speaker 3: be a billionaire. You know what I'm saying. It'll just
Speaker 3: over said none. It is in there's only a certain
Speaker 3: percentage of people who will get the book even after
Speaker 3: they hear this today. So if you get the book
Speaker 3: after you hear this today, you're you're in a certain tier. Right.
Speaker 3: There are only a certain people, certain number of people
Speaker 3: who get the book who will actually read it or
Speaker 3: listen to it in its entirety of that percentage, which
Speaker 3: is already dwindling down, there are very very very few
Speaker 3: people who will implement and execute on what I need.
Speaker 3: You know that with courses and with books and with
Speaker 3: all the things there are only and see this I
Speaker 3: have observed for years. It has not changed. It is
Speaker 3: tried and true. And that is the difference. That's why
Speaker 3: if someone can say.
Speaker 2: What you why.
Speaker 3: Isn't everybody millionaires and how to do it? Because of
Speaker 3: what I just said. Yes, because there are people who
Speaker 3: just and this is not a I'm not judging actually
Speaker 3: I know it sounds like I am. I'm not judging it.
Speaker 3: I'm saying there are people who just simply knowing it's possible,
Speaker 3: is warmth enough for them. They can go with that.
Speaker 3: I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to pick
Speaker 3: up the book, have it in my house. It's on
Speaker 3: a shelf. I'll glance over at it every once in
Speaker 3: a while, and that's enough for me. Then there are
Speaker 3: people who, by reading it and saying somebody else can
Speaker 3: do this, I believe somebody else can do this, that's
Speaker 3: enough for them. And then there are people who have
Speaker 3: this hunger in this drive that they probably, like you,
Speaker 3: may relate to this. They can't find too many other
Speaker 3: people who feel that way. They feel a little bit outsider.
Speaker 3: Ea Like with you when you were a teacher, I
Speaker 3: bet you had all kinds of plans and ideas.
Speaker 2: Girl, when the kids went to sleep at naptime, I
Speaker 2: was reading books. I was like, I was like, Yett, yes,
Speaker 2: I had this fire burning.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: Right. So if you're listening to this right now and
Speaker 3: you just heard fifty million dollars and you're like what,
Speaker 3: how why? When it's because you simply went further than
Speaker 3: most people are willing to go. You simply stayed in
Speaker 3: it longer than most people are willing to do.
Speaker 1: Where here is a collection plate.
Speaker 2: Hope you understand that, Arland, is because I was going
Speaker 2: to ask, like, honestly, I was going to ask you.
Speaker 2: I said from the book if there is like a
Speaker 2: core message?
Speaker 1: Because I get this all the time.
Speaker 2: Because to your point, Arland, it's like, how from preschool
Speaker 2: teacher to I've owned several businesses, you know how from
Speaker 2: preschool teacher to making over fifty million dollars in business
Speaker 2: in a relatively short period of time. I'm forty four now.
Speaker 2: I stopped teaching preschool at thirty. I didn't really start
Speaker 2: my business until well thirty.
Speaker 1: I made my.
Speaker 2: First million in business gross by the time maybe I
Speaker 2: was like thirty five, and then I made eight figures
Speaker 2: in a year or when I was thirty seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ten million, my first ten million in a year,
Speaker 1: you know. And then after that was.
Speaker 3: Just like COVID, you know, and everybody was at home.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, we had that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was hard, but I noticed, you know, that
Speaker 2: first one hundred thousand was actually the hardest, you know.
Speaker 1: And then because it was a mindset.
Speaker 2: Shift from especially from one hundred thousand to a million,
Speaker 2: it was like I have to expand the way I think,
Speaker 2: and from a million to ten million was like I
Speaker 2: had to almost deconstruct myself. I was just talking to
Speaker 2: a friend of mine this morning, and I was encouraging
Speaker 2: him to listen to people and to think totally different
Speaker 2: from him. One of my my business partner, my former
Speaker 2: business partner, Jabrill. One of the things I love about
Speaker 2: Jabrill is that he is a time traveler. It took
Speaker 2: our business coach to let me for me to realize
Speaker 2: because Jabrill and I at one point, I couldn't understand
Speaker 2: some of the ideas he had. They seemed so out there.
Speaker 2: But Jabrill was so good at going five ten years
Speaker 2: into the future seeing what was going to happen and
Speaker 2: bring me back. So I'll be like, I don't you're talking, Gibberis,
Speaker 2: because but sure enough I am living in the reality
Speaker 2: that Jabrill predicted five ten years ago, and I'm like, Aha.
Speaker 2: So this morning I said to myself and my friend,
Speaker 2: I said, I want to learn how to time travel,
Speaker 2: because that's a skill set hopefully I can develop. So
Speaker 2: to your point, one of the mechanisms to growing wealth
Speaker 2: and becoming a millionaire is sticking with it longer and
Speaker 2: being willing to go further than the person before. So
Speaker 2: is that are those the two like major core things
Speaker 2: or something else that you've seen in millionaires?
Speaker 3: That's it coupled with the mindset shifts of okay, you
Speaker 3: can and you're worthy of. Okay, because you can and
Speaker 3: you're worthy of, people tend to when I'm talking about mindset,
Speaker 3: people tend to kind of blank out a little bit.
Speaker 3: It's like that didn't teach me how to get the
Speaker 3: ten thousand in my bank account tomorrow. They're like I need.
Speaker 3: I need the tactical, you know, And of course I'm
Speaker 3: going to give you the tactical. But if you don't
Speaker 3: believe you can or that you're worthy of it, it's
Speaker 3: not never going to happen. It's just not gonna You're
Speaker 3: not gonna act. Did you accidentally become a millionaire? No?
Speaker 3: Did you accidentally write? It's not going to happen like that?
Speaker 3: And so yes, those are That's really what it boils
Speaker 3: down to, is this focus and like even more granular,
Speaker 3: a focus of just twelve months. When is the last time,
Speaker 3: And I'm asking you and your audience, when is the
Speaker 3: last time you stuck with something day in and day
Speaker 3: out for a full year, regardless of the results.
Speaker 1: Well, why do that?
Speaker 2: Like my book, I have a book to get Go
Speaker 2: with Money, And I said I this book is going
Speaker 2: to be a Newark time that seller, come.
Speaker 1: Hell or high water.
Speaker 2: So it was two years of day and day. I
Speaker 2: must have read that book like two hundred times. Editing, editing,
Speaker 2: we write, we write, we write, editing, Eddy and then
Speaker 2: market market market market, market, market marker. Two years later,
Speaker 2: we're still marketing that book. Uh huh, Because you're right,
Speaker 2: I see so many people two months saying girls not working.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what exactly there? So what I did was,
Speaker 3: I can't remember what month it was, but it was
Speaker 3: a few months ago for one of my groups, entrepreneur groups.
Speaker 3: I went back and looked at my own list of
Speaker 3: things that I was working on. And for many reasons,
Speaker 3: one of my main business model is an investment fund,
Speaker 3: so I am not a full time entrepreneur. On the
Speaker 3: other side, although I am an entrepreneur, which makes me
Speaker 3: a better investor. And I say that, but I have
Speaker 3: several companies, so I guess I am a full time
Speaker 3: I'm just doing both. But I look back and I said, okay,
Speaker 3: the things that I started a year prior, how many
Speaker 3: of those things I finish? And I went through and I,
Speaker 3: one by one I listed, like what I was working on,
Speaker 3: and I found so many different things that if I
Speaker 3: had simply stuck with it for a year, they would
Speaker 3: have made each lane would have made at least a
Speaker 3: million dollars, like easily, like water blowing. And for some
Speaker 3: of it, I showed where I stopped it on purpose
Speaker 3: because it was taking away from the focus that I
Speaker 3: needed for this other thing that made more than that, right,
Speaker 3: but for the examples were so interesting to me because
Speaker 3: it was my thesis that would be the case, and
Speaker 3: then to see it laid out was so powerful. And
Speaker 3: so it's truly again, this is one of those things
Speaker 3: that the majority of people will just kind of hear
Speaker 3: and go in one ear out the other. But what
Speaker 3: I'm saying to you is that imagine you're playing this
Speaker 3: episode again a year from now, and in this moment
Speaker 3: this year, you made a decision. I don't care that
Speaker 3: it's January. We're all making all these kind of claims
Speaker 3: that what we're going to do whatever month you hear
Speaker 3: this in you made a decision that you were going
Speaker 3: to stick with something for a year, and you weren't
Speaker 3: going to take every opportunity, or you weren't going to
Speaker 3: stop and to go through this other thing because this
Speaker 3: looks better, or you weren't going to add on for
Speaker 3: income streams because I'm supposed to have seven. You're not
Speaker 3: supposed to have seven when you start. You can have
Speaker 3: seven eventually, but not when you start, because you'll never
Speaker 3: get anywhere. If you were to focus for a year,
Speaker 3: the results you would get would be incredible. You talk
Speaker 3: about your book, it does not surprise me in any way,
Speaker 3: shape or form that you stick to things because look
Speaker 3: at your results. Danielle Leslie talks about how always said
Speaker 3: yeah for one year. It took her two years to
Speaker 3: make her first to really make her first million, and
Speaker 3: then from that she's never made less than the year before,
Speaker 3: which is incredible. She said, for the first eighteen months
Speaker 3: she did she just had a webinar once a week,
Speaker 3: every single week, every single year, and then eighteen months
Speaker 3: and it just grew. And then at the eighteen month
Speaker 3: mark something happened that was an inflection point, and from
Speaker 3: that moment on she was now making six figures a
Speaker 3: month and she couldn't stop it if she tried. If
Speaker 3: she had stopped at month four because she only had
Speaker 3: seventeen people show up to the webinarp, then she wouldn't
Speaker 3: have gotten the skills needed to be ready at eighteen.
Speaker 2: Yes, I wish people understood that that the first few months,
Speaker 2: even a few years, are not actually about the earning,
Speaker 2: it's about the learning.
Speaker 1: Gun she will she.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't have answered the question that came up in month seven. Yes,
Speaker 3: so she realized this is a blocker for twenty seven
Speaker 3: percent of people. If I should simply answer this question
Speaker 3: in my first ten minutes of this webinar, more people
Speaker 3: would convert. Yes, I'm just making that up, but that's
Speaker 3: one of the things. Yeah, right, she wouldn't have had
Speaker 3: created the confidence. Yes that I bet if we looked
Speaker 3: at video footage of her first month and her eighteenth months,
Speaker 3: they're like night and day.
Speaker 1: I bet.
Speaker 3: I mean, she's always been charismatic, but I bet you
Speaker 3: there are so many things you can list off that
Speaker 3: would have been different.
Speaker 1: I think people don't understand that.
Speaker 2: It's like I call it, like you have to gather
Speaker 2: the keys, right, So let's just say, you know, door
Speaker 2: twenty on your journey is the millionaire door, and if
Speaker 2: you have the misfortune of jumping straight to door twenty,
Speaker 2: the millionaire door, you don't have the key because guess what,
Speaker 2: the keys in the box at door ten. But the
Speaker 2: key to that box was at door five, and then
Speaker 2: the code to that box was at door too.
Speaker 1: So you don't really actually.
Speaker 2: Get to skip steps, even if you get all the
Speaker 2: way to the end very quickly, because you don't gather
Speaker 2: the lessons you're gonna need to maintain the million you're seeking.
Speaker 2: There's so many things I go through now that I'm like, ooh,
Speaker 2: that's right, I forgot I learned that year two. Oh
Speaker 2: thank god, you know, like or I'm like, uh, like
Speaker 2: I'm struggling with this thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, did I do that thing here four
Speaker 1: that helps to fix the thing?
Speaker 3: Sure? Did?
Speaker 1: And so the development go ahead? Sorry, go ahead, Ireland.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm going to cut you off. Yeah, okay, can
Speaker 3: I ask you just I know that your audience knows
Speaker 3: this left and right, but I'd love to understand what
Speaker 3: is your business model? What what made the fifty million?
Speaker 2: So my initial business model, the Budgetista, is like the
Speaker 2: I call the business of Tiffany.
Speaker 1: So that's like influencing.
Speaker 2: Speaking spokesperson, work books and like one offul little products.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, but the Budgetista allowed me to start this other
Speaker 2: business call the Literature Academy, which is an online school
Speaker 2: that really made the bulk of my money. We have
Speaker 2: graduated about one hundred and fifty thousand students. And when
Speaker 2: I first started that, it was like ten bucks a month,
Speaker 2: and now it's I think, like fifty bucks a month, but.
Speaker 1: We're always having to sale.
Speaker 2: But so currently we have about twelve thousand students and
Speaker 2: then people take it for about a year they graduate out.
Speaker 2: So that's where it made the bulk of my money.
Speaker 2: But I also had like this digital marketing component to
Speaker 2: my business where we find a product or service that
Speaker 2: we like, we partner with the organization to market that
Speaker 2: through the Budgetista because such a trusted name.
Speaker 3: So yeah, what does the course teach?
Speaker 2: So Literature Academy teaches there's a foundational course where I
Speaker 2: call it on financial homeness, So it teaches you how
Speaker 2: to budget save, get out of debt, fix your credit,
Speaker 2: earn money, invest, be properly insured, create a financial team,
Speaker 2: increase your net worth and estate planning. So that is
Speaker 2: like the if you think about your core course, that's
Speaker 2: the core course.
Speaker 1: It's ten ten.
Speaker 2: Courses in this core course, yes, and then after that
Speaker 2: we have additional courses. Think about it like if you
Speaker 2: were going to be in school outside of your normal syllabus,
Speaker 2: you would have these other like extracurricular kind of like classes,
Speaker 2: like there's tax classes and business classes and all these
Speaker 2: kind of surrounding classes. Probably about fifty or so of those.
Speaker 2: So people join because they want this handholding. So the courses,
Speaker 2: we had these women from Stanford come in study the
Speaker 2: academy and help us upgrade it and make it better,
Speaker 2: like a year or so ago. And so although the
Speaker 2: course might each class that you take might be an hour,
Speaker 2: we chop it into five to eight minute segments, so
Speaker 2: it's really bite sizable, but enough for you to learn
Speaker 2: the lesson. So you take these ten classes, you feel good.
Speaker 2: And if you want to take these kind of like
Speaker 2: auxiliary classes.
Speaker 1: Those are also included. Those are all pre recorded.
Speaker 2: But then every month we also have like a day
Speaker 2: or two of live interaction and with the other students
Speaker 2: as well as instructors and course providers.
Speaker 3: So, and I know Terry said that a lot of
Speaker 3: hers is from word of mouth, is yours? A lot
Speaker 3: of marketing, paid marketing, content marketing, word of mouth. What
Speaker 3: would you say is the order?
Speaker 2: So I would say paid marketing first and foremost, then
Speaker 2: word of mouth, and then because the budget needs to
Speaker 2: kind of like provides what I call almost like you know,
Speaker 2: how you go to school and you have to take
Speaker 2: like your pre courses before you could take your.
Speaker 3: One on one class.
Speaker 2: Yes, so the budgetes is like the prerequids. A lot
Speaker 2: of things that budgeties to are free, super basic, so
Speaker 2: when you learn there and then we say, okay, you're
Speaker 2: ready for the next thing, which is the Limatary Academy
Speaker 2: when you want to take your finances.
Speaker 1: To the next level.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, but paid marketing still is like, although it's
Speaker 2: not my favorite, it's still the number one driver for
Speaker 2: the academy. But we are shifting our business model. I'll
Speaker 2: let you know if it works by getting like that,
Speaker 2: because I feel like my ideal business model is the
Speaker 2: one I started with with the budgetista, which is the
Speaker 2: black women who come to me should not have to
Speaker 2: pay that. Instead, they are all these huge organizations that
Speaker 2: benefit off of black women, and I'm like, no. So
Speaker 2: they used to like the United Way, for example, when
Speaker 2: I first started, used to pay me to do classes,
Speaker 2: and I would do the classes for free for the community.
Speaker 2: And I love that model because the community really came out.
Speaker 2: I went from five people per class to two hundred
Speaker 2: and so for the academy. This is the shift I
Speaker 2: wanted to go toward instead of like marketing marketing marketing
Speaker 2: and having individual people sign up. I am now looking
Speaker 2: for part corporate sponsors to say I will sponsor a
Speaker 2: thousand people for scholarship to the Livature Academy.
Speaker 1: That is the shift that I wanted to shift toward.
Speaker 3: Have you already found success with that?
Speaker 2: No? No, we're just literally this is the year. I
Speaker 2: was like, let's don't you know, go ahead?
Speaker 3: Can I give my opinion? Or yes?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 3: You did not ask for it, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I would love it.
Speaker 3: I've learned to ask people if they want it. I
Speaker 3: love that. But to me, it sounds like you have
Speaker 3: a six hundred dollars a year product.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, is that what you It's three hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a year.
Speaker 3: Three hundred dollars a year because you said maybe fifty
Speaker 3: a month, but it's maybe a six month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have because we always having like on dis guy.
Speaker 3: Gas, So three hundred dollars a year. So this is
Speaker 3: just my opinion. My opinion is for what you just
Speaker 3: listed off, that's the value that you give. That's a steal.
Speaker 1: I know that's a steal.
Speaker 3: And if somebody I have a lot of free on
Speaker 3: my Orlands Academy online and yes a lot of people
Speaker 3: go through it. But you can see unteachable, you can
Speaker 3: see I don't know if you teaching teachable or I'll think, okay,
Speaker 3: so on teachable maybe elsewhere you can see from the
Speaker 3: free the free courses, how many people complete it versus
Speaker 3: the paid courses. In every single course that is free
Speaker 3: has fewer has more people signed up, but fewer people
Speaker 3: completing the course. And so what is that? Rachel says,
Speaker 3: When they pay, they pay attention, right, So I love
Speaker 3: the fact. Here's what I'm going to say. The truth is,
Speaker 3: I love the fact that you want to do that.
Speaker 3: That's your instinct is that black women should not have
Speaker 3: to pay. But I have to tell you, if they
Speaker 3: pay that nominal fee to be in the room, you're
Speaker 3: going to probably get more out of it because they
Speaker 3: have skin in the game. And black women are not
Speaker 3: like we are all we are. We contain multitudes. We
Speaker 3: are doctors and lawyers and teachers and executives and retail
Speaker 3: people and people that work at fast food restaurants and caretakers.
Speaker 3: We are all these things. And I know what it's
Speaker 3: like to have zero dollars and to be hungry and
Speaker 3: to worry about where I'm going to sleep that night.
Speaker 3: But I also know what it's like to say I
Speaker 3: have a goal, okay, and my goal is to get
Speaker 3: into this Stanford two week boot camp that costs thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars so I can be around these millionaires and
Speaker 3: learn and then get into it. Okay, and then meet
Speaker 3: my first investor picked off the thirty million dollar fund
Speaker 3: that would go on to invest in two hundred companies.
Speaker 1: Okay, I see something. When they pay, they pay attention.
Speaker 2: So even if I had like a so not all
Speaker 2: scholarship or even a matching scholarship to say you do this.
Speaker 3: What I think, what I think would works. So what
Speaker 3: you have done works, so I would not stray too
Speaker 3: far from that. That's my main core. Okay, keep doing that,
Speaker 3: keep that flywheel going where the paid is working, as
Speaker 3: long as your profit margins are reasonable, like if it's
Speaker 3: if it's five percent profit margins, but if you have
Speaker 3: a healthy profit margin, keep doing what you're doing. Pay
Speaker 3: attention to how the pricing is changing with marketing. Add
Speaker 3: a little little bit more content marketing that's free at
Speaker 3: a little like take advantage of the tiktoks of the
Speaker 3: world and the Instagrams of the world and the linkedins
Speaker 3: of the world. Do that. Put some money into content,
Speaker 3: because that's what I'm really going heavy in. But I
Speaker 3: would keep that flywheel going because it's working. Okay, And
Speaker 3: then I would even go the other way of where
Speaker 3: did they go from there? Can they graduate from there?
Speaker 3: Because there are going to be some people who are like,
Speaker 3: I love this, this was this helped me get to
Speaker 3: a point where now I want to pay you one
Speaker 3: thousand or two thousand dollars. Can I be in the
Speaker 3: room with you?
Speaker 1: I'm getting that more. That question has been coming.
Speaker 3: Out all I have. Can I have weekly calls with you? Know?
Speaker 3: Whatever you were able to do to sustain, don't do
Speaker 3: anything outside of what you can sustain. I think that's
Speaker 3: where you go. You don't have to and it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be the hamster wheel. It doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be like, oh, I'm just selling all the time. Because
Speaker 3: you have all these different you have the free to
Speaker 3: get the men to make them understand. Is this for you?
Speaker 3: They graduate to the three hundred year, which again is
Speaker 3: a still based on what you just describe, and then
Speaker 3: for those who said, what happened in that course change
Speaker 3: the way I view things. Therefore, I trust you and
Speaker 3: I want to go to another level. Is there another
Speaker 3: place you can take me? Can you take Can I
Speaker 3: be like you? Sisky? How did you do what you do?
Speaker 3: Talk to me about your company? I'm willing to go
Speaker 3: into the thousand dollars program for that. I'm willing to
Speaker 3: go to the event that you put on the cost
Speaker 3: of thousand dollars whatever it is. That's what I would do.
Speaker 3: And then on top of that, what you could do
Speaker 3: on the side is you could have corporations who see
Speaker 3: the value in what you're doing, do some scholarships for
Speaker 3: specific one off things for groups. Maybe it's for HBCUs,
Speaker 3: maybe it's for black women who are in domestic partner.
Speaker 1: With the shelter or something like that, exactly.
Speaker 3: Exactly, because they are not going to be thinking about,
Speaker 3: let mean three hundred dollars, but just as a blanket,
Speaker 3: none at all when the foster is working.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was why Ireland, where can the girls get
Speaker 2: your book?
Speaker 1: Because I hope you ought to say this was a masterclass.
Speaker 2: For I mean, I am a To me, a good
Speaker 2: teacher is an even better student, and so I am
Speaker 2: just absorbing and grateful for all that information. And so
Speaker 2: this is why we had Arlan on the show, because
Speaker 2: it's one thing to do a thing, live a thing,
Speaker 2: but to be able to teach a thing, it's something
Speaker 2: completely different. And so if the girls are wanting not
Speaker 2: just the girls, because we have lots of people who listen,
Speaker 2: but if they're wanting to purchase your book, is what
Speaker 2: is it called again?
Speaker 1: Your first Million?
Speaker 3: Your first million? You can go you can follow me
Speaker 3: on Instagram at Arlin was here, and there are all
Speaker 3: kinds of lists, or you can go to your first
Speaker 3: Million dot live and get the book from there. I'm
Speaker 3: also on a book tour for Forever. That's yes, it's
Speaker 3: going so well. And I'm in New York right now.
Speaker 3: Actually I live in Los Angeles. I'm in New York.
Speaker 3: I'll be on the Tameron Hall Show in a few
Speaker 3: hours and others apparently, And so yeah, your first Million
Speaker 3: you can pick it up at multiple airports across the
Speaker 3: country as well. I think it may even be in Target,
Speaker 3: but you know, that's a rumor that I've heard. I'm
Speaker 3: want to check it out as soon as I get
Speaker 3: a chance to. But what I want to do and
Speaker 3: I don't know, I know that we can probably kind
Speaker 3: of edit this. I would love to talk to you, Tiffany,
Speaker 3: because we're a time is running out. I'd love to
Speaker 3: talk to you about my event in your audience, because
Speaker 3: there's a way we can work together, okay, and I
Speaker 3: want to be able to give maybe you can record
Speaker 3: after this, like the the way that they can get
Speaker 3: into the event with your discount.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, because your event is in April.
Speaker 3: The event is April ninth through the twelfth. It's in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. I'll just say here a few of the
Speaker 3: people we have showing up. So, speaking of teachers, I
Speaker 3: know you watch you have it Elementary? Yes, okay, you
Speaker 3: know Ava the principal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see, hilarious.
Speaker 3: He's going to be our host.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's awesome. Is that incredible?
Speaker 3: She's our host. They all also want everybody to before
Speaker 3: they get into the who's going to be there? Who
Speaker 3: are all gonna be there? I want you to understand
Speaker 3: the venues. So we're gonna have a day and a
Speaker 3: half of expo across two ballrooms at the JW. Marriott,
Speaker 3: which is where if you ever saw Pink the singer,
Speaker 3: dancing on this and singing on the side of a
Speaker 3: building in downtown l A a few years ago for
Speaker 3: an award show, that's the building she was on. It's
Speaker 3: connected to the Peacock Theater, which is where the Emmys
Speaker 3: were held just a few days ago. So if you
Speaker 3: saw the Emmys or any clips from the Emmy's That
Speaker 3: is where our second half of our event will be,
Speaker 3: which is steps away from that hotel. So it's all
Speaker 3: on the same campus. So just imagine you're there. You're
Speaker 3: in a great seat because it's a theater, so it's
Speaker 3: rising seats, you have a great view of the stage.
Speaker 3: It's not a ballroom where it's flat. And then Ava
Speaker 3: from Rabbott is doing the hosting. On top of that,
Speaker 3: we have an evening with Isa Ray.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I love what.
Speaker 3: She is doing, like a very special event with us
Speaker 3: the April tenth at the Peacock Theater evening of so
Speaker 3: we'll have somebody open for her and then like an
Speaker 3: opening conversation that she will do well. I'll speak in
Speaker 3: fireside with her. She is flying out that same night
Speaker 3: to go to an event, so she's making it happen
Speaker 3: for us. That's why we're doing it on April eleventh.
Speaker 3: All day long, you'll have Sheila Johnson, the first black
Speaker 3: book Facilionaire. Just read her book, Her Through the Fire,
Speaker 3: incredible book. Get that book now. If you read that
Speaker 3: book or listen to the audible, you'll want to come
Speaker 3: to the event. To hear her speak. Rachel Rogers will
Speaker 3: be interviewing Sheila. I've asked her to do that because
Speaker 3: they remind me of each other and it's fun. I'll
Speaker 3: just do a little side note. A few days ago,
Speaker 3: Sheila's chief of staff has been with her for twenty years,
Speaker 3: told me that I remind her of miss Johnson from
Speaker 3: when she met her twenty years ago. Oh that's amazing,
Speaker 3: isn't that incredible? Yes, so that was really cool. I'll
Speaker 3: interview it. Rachel. Talk all about her events, you know,
Speaker 3: the good, the bad, the ugly, all the behind the
Speaker 3: scenes business side of that. For anybody who wants to
Speaker 3: put on events. Lamar Tyler, who I'm speaking at his event,
Speaker 3: you will be there. We will have Rich Paul, who
Speaker 3: is Lebron's agent, who has who was also Adele's husband
Speaker 3: by the okay, he has done six billion dollars of
Speaker 3: deals for his clients, including Lebron. We will have Gary Vaynerchuk. Okay,
Speaker 3: Gary Vee. If you want to learn how to mark
Speaker 3: kid without spending money or with spending very little money.
Speaker 3: He's going to take us through that and how he
Speaker 3: has a massed a fortune and also a masked that
Speaker 3: fortune by gaining attention from people. Okay, now we can
Speaker 3: each do that. As we walk out of the of
Speaker 3: the theater. We have Lauren Chen who sold her company,
Speaker 3: her plus sized clothing company, to Universal Standard just last year.
Speaker 3: We have Sunira Madonni, who started a billion dollar company
Speaker 3: with her brother after being turned down by twelve banks
Speaker 3: and told by her boss that her idea was not smart.
Speaker 3: She started the company on her own and built it
Speaker 3: to a billion dollar and I'm talking exit. She's exited
Speaker 3: the company. Okay, it's not just on paper. Yes, And
Speaker 3: we just have more and more and then this is
Speaker 3: really exciting. TLC the legendary TLS close out the event
Speaker 3: with a performance of renal level performance at the Peacock Theaters.
Speaker 3: There's more and more and more that have not I
Speaker 3: have not mentioned here. So you're going to get the inspiration,
Speaker 3: you're going to get the understanding, but you're going to
Speaker 3: get the learnings because we're doing orlands Hadely Live and
Speaker 3: we're doing multiple other things. So be in the building.
Speaker 3: You'll get your code to use, because I want you
Speaker 3: to have a special code to use.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll talk.
Speaker 2: We'll put that in the description notes and where's the
Speaker 2: link where people can register.
Speaker 3: For your first million dot Live.
Speaker 1: Also for the book and the event. Okay, I love.
Speaker 3: That there's a book tour. If you go to the
Speaker 3: book tour, there's a pop up across the page that
Speaker 3: gives you to the book.
Speaker 1: I love that. Thank you so much, Arland.
Speaker 2: You have just been one just so inspirational, but two
Speaker 2: thank you Like that that was really I'm always open
Speaker 2: to receive, like how can I do better? How can
Speaker 2: I show up more fully? And so I what you
Speaker 2: just share with me about my own business, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: that absolutely makes.
Speaker 3: Can I say one more piece? Of course the re
Speaker 3: Another main reason for that idea is that, like I
Speaker 3: encourage people to work with corporations because it is a
Speaker 3: good model, but it is its own fresh Hell yeah,
Speaker 3: it is its own. You now got to be beholden
Speaker 3: that there sch It is a long sales cycle, so
Speaker 3: it'll take forever, and if they put you in the
Speaker 3: bucket of philanthropic, they'll treat you as such. Okay, and
Speaker 3: you don't deserve that. So there's that play too, So
Speaker 3: it's okay to have it in the background as something
Speaker 3: that you can get, take or leave before your model
Speaker 3: shift would worry.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Arland.
Speaker 2: I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have. Again,
Speaker 2: your first million dot live for both the event and
Speaker 2: the book. If you're not following Arlin, what are you
Speaker 2: on on social media?
Speaker 1: Again?
Speaker 3: Was here?
Speaker 1: Yes? Please? Are a playing yourself? Congratulations on all your success.
Speaker 2: I will continue to cyber stalk you because I just
Speaker 2: love being motivated by black women doing the damn thing.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, thank you,