From Pit-Digger To CEO. Learning Lessons From The Entrepreneurial Journey.
We all have a story. Our special guest Jeremy Torisk, went from pit-digger to CEO. In his book, Labor to Leadership he talks about his story and what he’s learned along the way. He is going to share with us some of the many learning lessons and wisdom he’s gained from his entrepreneurial journey.
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From Pit-Digger To CEO. Learning Lessons From The Entrepreneurial Journey.
Tim Fitzpatrick: We all have our own story and our special guest today went from pit digger to CEO. In his book, Labor to Leadership, he talks about his story, what he's learned along the way. And today he is going to share some of the many learning lessons that he's had and the wisdom that he's gained from his experience so that we can learn from his journey. Thanks so much for joining me. I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. I am super excited to have with me, Jeremy Torisk from Atlantic Business Coaching. Jeremy, thanks for joining me, man. Thank you.
Jeremy Torisk: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes, I'm looking forward to digging into this. We all have our journey and I love hearing about people's experiences because there's so many different things that we can learn from one another when we share those. So can't wait to dig into this. Before we do that, I want to ask you some rapid fire questions to help us get to know you. Are you ready to rock?
Jeremy Torisk: Absolutely.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay. When you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?
Jeremy Torisk: What does that mean not working? Have you ever heard about TGIF?
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes.
Jeremy Torisk: Around here it's TGIS. The grind includes Saturday and Sunday when you're a small business owner and I own three small businesses. Every day is work. But when your work is your passion and is your calling, then it's something you love doing. I never know what day it is. I just know that it ends in y. Pretty much that's it. I get paid every day. I get to get up and do what I love. Every day. I get to help people. Every day I get to help my son run his company, my wife run her company. And I've got five different spokes on my wheel that I run on this company. What's not working? What's playing? I play every day.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes. So when you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work.
Jeremy Torisk: Especially when it's a calling.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. What's your hidden talent?
Jeremy Torisk: Well, I don't know if it's hidden necessarily. There's a lot of videotape, but I used to be a professional drummer and so I'm about to tomorrow drag the drum set out because my youngest son followed in my footsteps. He's a big drummer and we're making TikTok videos. We're going to play name that tune with famous drum rolls, fills, beats and three or 4 seconds. Name that tune and just make about 50 videos over the weekend and throw them up over the next couple of weeks.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay. So side question. Who is your favorite drummer?
Jeremy Torisk: Taylor just passed. I love him. The Dave Matthews Band. That guy is amazing. And Neil Pert, another one he passed. Alex Van Halen, some of these guys. John Bonzo
Tim Fitzpatrick: A buddy of mine is a drummer and he always was just in awe of Neil Pert from Rush, thank you very much.
Jeremy Torisk: He had the ethic and he was the writer, which is very impressive and not normal.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Jeremy Torisk: I'm going to give you two of them. One of them is called It wasn't given, I was just told. Act at the speed of instruction and I adopted it. It's mine. Matt Thorat, out in California, big real estate investor guy, said it to me and I adopted it. So that just means don't procrastinate. Do things at the moment they need to be done. Do the hard stuff first. Eat the frog. But really advice that I got my very first very large promotion at Comcast when I was running the city of Hyalia supervising construction crews, a guy named Mike Duncan, old timer, permit engineer, contractor, came out to me and said, make the best decision you can make with the facts, the information you have at the time. It's better to make a bad choice than no choice at all. And also when you have limiting facts, then make sure to use your head and not your heart, but make a decision and act, which leads back to act at the speed of instruction.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. The one thing that always stuck with me and I can't remember who I heard this from. Multiple people have talked about is just success in business is all about speed of execution. You got to take action and get things out there. What's one thing about you that surprises people?
Jeremy Torisk: One thing about me that surprises people is that I was homeless when I was 17. I don't have a high school diploma. I was homeless when I was 37 and I had two sons at that point. I've made and lost a fortune and made it again, a ten X. Those are the couple of the big ones.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What does success mean to you?
Jeremy Torisk: Success is seeing a goal through to its natural conclusion. And that doesn't mean achieving a goal. It means seeing it through. Failing is a natural conclusion most of the time. However, when you don't stick with something long enough to give it a chance to succeed, then you have done yourself a mis service because so many people quit just before that last try that makes them successful. However, when your heart's not in anymore, you tried and tried and tried and you've tried and you asked. That's another thing you got to ask, what am I doing wrong? Look at who's doing it. Get with them. And then at that point, if it leads you to something else, then that's a natural conclusion and now you're onto something else. But you wouldn't have that without trying. So that's success to me.
Tim Fitzpatrick: I love that. I've never had anybody explain it that way. It's a very interesting way to look at it because frankly, most of the things we do don't succeed. Where's your happy place?
Jeremy Torisk: Above my left shoulder. It's called the Atlantic Ocean. That's why the business is Atlantic business coaching. Plus the first guy that put a shovel in my hand when I was 20 years old, living in a garage, Charlie Ecker. His business was Atlantic Cable. But I grew up down here in South Florida in the Atlantic Ocean. And the Atlantic Ocean is where I go for my peace. I have two brothers who committed suicide, one brother and one brother in law. And both times to reconcile my part in that was in that water one time in the Caribbean, one time in Atlanta in a body of salty water. For the most part, the Atlantic because I live 20 minutes from it. But that's my happy place.
Tim Fitzpatrick: What qualities do you value in the people you spend time with?
Jeremy Torisk: So I only spend time with very few people physically in my presence. But I share a lot of time with people like you and podcasts and shows and virtual coffees. But they all have to be driven and really driven. They all have to be givers. They have to have a great sense of humor and thick skin because I will dish it out and I like to take it. They have to be positive and they have to be open minded so we can have true discussions like in the olden days when you could actually disagree with someone and find out why and then come around and maybe see things their way. So open mindedness is up there.
Tim Fitzpatrick: So you touched on your journey a little bit. Jeremy, just give us the highlight reel here.
Jeremy Torisk: Oh, gosh. It's one of those stories where it's just put your head down and keep going. It's like the duck under the water with his feet and just keep going and going. The hamster wheel. Because my book is Labor Leadership. It's right in the title. I was a homeless kid, but I worked my tail off as a kid. I used to cut grass from like eight or nine years old. I used to help my uncle stir cement at five years old. I just loved helping and working was therapeutic. And we come from a blue collar family. They just happen to like alcohol and pills a lot. It made for not a very fun house. Well, actually it was fun, but it wasn't very good for me and my sister and brother. But along the way, I learned that success leaves clues. That when I started getting my mind right and two times seven words changed my mindset drastically. The transition of my life trajectory pivoted on seven words that two people said and never even knew the impact it had on me. It gave me a chance to go from reactive, which is what you need to be when you're homeless, to proactive, which is what you do when you start believing yourself. Then when I was proactive, the successes started coming and they started leaving clues. I started getting noticed by the bosses, and I started getting better jobs and just kind of grew from there. And I talked about how every morning we go to the shop and all the installers would be out front talking about how much they drank, how many women they chased, and how many people they fought. And I would sweep the floor, the warehouse floor. No one had to ask me. I just didn't have anything to do with it. I wanted to go to work. That's what I want to do. I like to work. And so that was kind of my journey. And it's never, ever failed me. I'm not the smartest guy you'll ever meet. I'm not the quickest when it comes to learning new skills, but I'm the first in. I'm the last out. I'll never say I give up without having known that I've given it my all, and it's never failed me, ever. Even talking about I've lost a business in everything. I went homeless. I lost five vehicles, 19 employees, $600,000 in debt. I won because it taught me so much about what I didn't realize about business, because I just was the best operator you've ever seen. But the rest of the elements in business, which is the whole second half of my book, it ate my lunch. But when I learned that, and then I learned how to really connect with people again, if I were to continue to not lost that business, I would be right in the middle of the back. I'd be running with the same cable docks today. But because I lost that business, I'm a multi millionaire because I have grown multiple businesses since then to 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, $80 million in revenue and sold one of those businesses last year. In fact, yesterday was my last day. Today's, April 1, we're taping. This was my last day with the last company that I was owner with. And we had to stay on for one year, and we sold that business for $30 million. So I tell you what, that's a clue. Success leaves clues. That's a win. I guarantee you if you're bigger and better and you come to me and you take it off for me, I will be back. And next time I'll sell a business for 60 million within a couple of years.
Tim Fitzpatrick: So you mentioned seven words that changed your path twice. Were they the same seven words, or were they different and what were they?
Jeremy Torisk: My grandmother was generations. When you come from a very dysfunctional family, oftentimes both sides of the family for generations were dysfunctional. So that's what happened to me. My grandmother was just as big of a drunk as my parents were. And after my sister's wedding, I was 20 years old. And I talked to my grandmother at the wedding. How was it? She said, Your dad's new wife just being a typical B word. I know who your audience are. And I said, well, what the heck was she doing? Well, she kept running around telling everybody how Jeremy and Paulette aren't even Ronnie's kids. And so why did they have to be there? Is basically what she was saying. Well, those seven words pretty much changed my life because that's how I found out I'm not my dad's son. But it was a relief because that family was so dysfunctional both sides. And now I have potential because I was told I was dumb. I didn't graduate high school. I told you I was homeless at 17. I was a major brawler. I used to fight every single day. But in over 1000 street fights. When you have no sense of pride, when you have no esteem, when you know you're dumb because people tell you, when you find out you're not related to that, now there's possibility that's the first time in my life I had potential. And then two years later, trying to find my biological dad air quotes. I've set a lot of people before Internet. 1990. And finally I got a phone number. I won't tell you how because it's in the book. It's a really pretty fun story. Even these two seven words are giving away some twist. But the second seven words were when I called that phone number to the office where he worked, the Secretary answered law offices of Do we screw Him and how? I changed the name of the company to protect the innocent. But those have been words changed my life because now I was smart. My dad was a lawyer. I have a lawyer DNA. Now, was it true? Was he smart? No, he was actually an idiot. He died a few years after that. I never spoke with him for more than about ten minutes in total, twice for five minutes. I never met him. I don't even know what he looks like today to this day. And that was 20. That was 30 years ago. But the Proactive kick that I got from that, I'm not tethered to that track. And I'm smart. And from that day on, I was still digging ditches. I was still digging ditches, but I was digging with a purpose and I started getting promoted like we talked about. That's what happened. And both those people, some lady answering the phone or my grandmother doesn't even remember talking to me that night because she's blotto. They don't know what they did to me. But those two people might as well have given me $5 million each.
Tim Fitzpatrick: That's so fascinating, Jeremy, because it's so easy to hear those words and them not have any impact. Right. Because they're very conversational. Right. It's not super profound. But the first one allowed you to detach and not associate with something that was keeping you down. And the second one allowed you to relate and attach to something that was far more empowering for you. At least that's how I see it, which is fascinating because I think most people would have heard those words and just would have kept on going.
Jeremy Torisk: Yeah, been mad, Joanne. That figures. It was jarring. But also it really taught me a lesson of how the opposite is true, too. How I allowed people my whole life telling me I was stupid, how many fights that I got into because I was so angry. When it's just words. But words have power. I'm a professional speaker, and my big keynote speech is called Harness Your Superpower Seven Core Questions to Profound Positive Transformation. And that is words. Your words are your superpower when you can control your words because your thoughts lead to your words and your words lead to your action. So when you control that middle, you can't help what you think. You just can't. But you can control your words and your words lead to action. And so when you can control that, you have a superpower and you could use it for bad. And I don't know, I don't do hero movies. So I can't give you a bad guy. Or you could use it for good. You could be mean, you could lie, you can manipulate, or you can use it for good. You can be positive, empowering, uplifting. And you have your choice. You could be egotistical. That's evil. You can believe your own hype. So you got a lane there. Choose. Your choice.
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Tim Fitzpatrick: So looking back on your experience, Jeremy, what are the top three to five things that instantly stand out for you?
Jeremy Torisk: Well, I have three guiding principles that we base our company off. One is build your brand by building personal relationships. So we're so used to transactional relationships, building transactional. You meet a person and you find out that they are in the market for what you do, and instantly you start treating them like a sale. So when you get rid of that reaction and you start building a personal relationship with everyone you meet, that's worth being in your orbit, then you start really building your brand because you're not selling, you're just helping. And when you let people know who you help and how you help them, and then you ask more questions than you tell, you start learning about other people, and then you can start referring and introducing other people. Once you do that enough, people really start wanting to help you back. And there's a whole thing I just wrote a list of posts about blessing. Don't be a blessing blocker. I've been a blessing blocker my whole life. So that's just let people help you and they get blessed for helping you. That's why I'm so successful, because I help so many people, but I wouldn't want people helping me. So in building these relationships, I can be a blessing to them by letting them help me, by asking for help. So building your brand by building personal relationships. Number two is that drive I talked about. I don't let people in my life without drive. I'm not talking about they're very motivating. Motivations are like baths. They're great, but you need it every day, just like Zig Ziggler said. But drive, will you go through anything? And how do you get drive? You have to examine your whys almost every day, every couple of days, every week, every month, at least every month. Really sit down and figure out why you're doing what you're doing, why you're helping, who you're helping, why the people in your life are in your life. And that will give you drive. It will build it like a callous. And the third one is obviously we talked about it is always be sure to be in a proactive mindset. Get rid of that reactive mindset. Proactive mindset.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Do you see drive and discipline, brother, sister, are they the same? How do you view that?
Jeremy Torisk: You can't have drive without discipline.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, okay.
Jeremy Torisk: But if you have drive discipline, it just comes with it. But if you don't have discipline, you'll never have drive. You need discipline first. Then you'll build the drive. When you understand your whys, the drive is built. But the discipline comes from the Proactive side of your brain going, hey, I get to get up at 4:30 in the morning because no one's around. And I could do some journaling or positive journaling or working out or writing. I get to. So instead of I have to as I get to. Once you do that, the discipline starts to build.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Now in your book, you talk about smart marketing. Obviously, I love to talk marketing as a marketer. Tell us about some of the marketing that you've done that's worked out best for you.
Jeremy Torisk: Well, I can tell you about some of that, but I've learned so much since I wrote that book that I'm not going to waste my time or your time telling you things that you're going to read in that book. That's why I'm writing another book. Right. Because things change. And marketing, what I wrote about was more about traditional marketing, because when I was homeless and lost my company, I went to work for a marketing firm for three years that sold cable and home utilities. So it's kind of right up my alley. But I didn't know about selling and marketing, and I learned a lot. Got a PhD, really had a pretty hard day, a lot of them. Right. Learning that. But I excelled, as eventually did very well with there. But what I've learned since then, can I turn some of those things?
Tim Fitzpatrick: Absolutely.
Jeremy Torisk: There's two things that you need to know about marketing that you saw these two things, and you never have to sell anything again. Number one, find out about your client, your prospect. You have to know who that is. When you find out what their problem is that they don't want and then figure out the results they want but don't have that's, it two things. What's the problem they have but don't want and what's the result they want but don't have. Now with marketing, there's four parts of marketing. The interrupter, which is the headline, let's look at his website. It's the headline. It's going to get someone's attention, right? Reticulated activation system. They see it, they stop, they read it. Your RAS automatically engages. The second part of that is engaged because you're engaged. You're looking for information now. You saw something that caught your eye and I'm engaged. So the sub headline has to be that there's more information coming. Get your information here because when you're interested, you want to learn more about it. Only 1-3% of people want to buy right now. So when you get to this website, I'm the best person to worry. The lowest price is the best quality. Contact us here. Call to action. 1-3% of the buyers are going to do it good. I want the other 97%. How you do that is you actually do educate them. So in the body you got the interrupter, the engagement which is the sub. Then the education is next. Give them information. Give them really good information about what you do, who you help, why you help them, what differentiates you from the others. And now they're going to be okay, I'm in because now they're in. Now the offer is in there and that must be compelling and low or no risk. So what you want to do is all you want. You don't want to sell them right now. You want to get their information. Just an email. Put your email address here. Get the top ten reasons why you need this in your life. And that's the education. They're going to get, that it cost them nothing. Now you have their email. Now you do a drip campaign. Takes between five and twelve touches for someone to make a decision. They're going to make a decision then on value instead of price. And now you can be in business as a value provider instead of the best price. And now you can charge more than your competition because you're providing better value. And I can go on and on about jargon versus really educating and helping and there's so much to learn. I've been blessed and exposed to some really smart people in the last year on this journey since I left at my last industry, I spent a lot of money over $100,000 on coaches last year.
Tim Fitzpatrick: So I want to pull some things out of here. And by the way, thank you for talking about and highlighting you got to know your who. Because honestly I say almost exactly what you just said every day. So thank you for that because now people are hearing it from somebody else other than me. But I want to dig a little bit deeper into this just to get your thoughts on it. What are some of the ways that you have used to get there where you do know what they're thinking so that you can take what they're thinking and put your message out there in their own words?
Jeremy Torisk: I don't know if I'm unique, but my product is helping people and I tend to help my former self.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.
Jeremy Torisk: And I know myself. I know how I was when I was a kid. I tend to help smaller businesses to midsize businesses. I love startups. I do a lot of philanthropy work with kids coming out of high school, starting businesses. I have a proof of concept. My son is 20 years old and out of high school for this is third year last year and the second year we built $350,000 worth of revenue for cutting grass in South Florida. We're going to be over 400,000 this year. Last year we had 8% profit, which sunk. But second year of business, this year we're on track for 20%. Next year we'll have a million dollars with revenue at 20%. It's pretty good business in four years. Most businesses don't even make it over the million dollar mark. So I know how to do it. I've done it non millions. I've done it four or five times in dramatic effort across the country with other companies. And I just help myself. I don't work with people just like I don't buy stock that I don't understand. If you need help that I don't understand. I got someone for you, though. I got a great network. Right. Because I got great relationships.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.
Jeremy Torisk: And then I capitalized on it, I leverage it, I get a percentage of it. It's a referral partner that I give and I get and so we help each other financially or not. Sometimes I just give to give. But why not get some shekels? If you're giving enough and you guys have an agreement, everyone's making money. That's even better.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Thank you for that. Do your referral partner relationships, how are they structured depending on the partner?
Jeremy Torisk: Yeah, it always depends on the partner because there's got to be trust and likability and you have to believe in what they're doing. You got to know that they're helping the client. So that's very top, first and foremost. But if someone's looking for a car, I'm not going to get money for offering a car. If somebody wants specific training on something in their business that I don't have the specialized knowledge for or I don't have the interest or I don't have the time, I've got a bunch of people that do know that. And depending on the size of the business, I may want a piece of that. So for 10%, who wouldn't give me 10% for free business, especially if I'm helping the person in ten other ways in this one Avenue, they know that they pay. They're another quality. They know that they're in our type of value system. Why not? Because I paid when they've given me the stuff I pay. So why wouldn't I pay 10% for someone I know has good values and pay their bills and that they want to grow their business. So it's a two way street, but it's not mandatory. There's other partners. You just give business because you want to make sure that you're a value added to the person's life. So you give them the person that can help them without going through the Hoops of doing an affiliate program or a profit sharing agreement. Why not? If it makes sense though, right?
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. When you're making introductions, you're not doing it because you're getting paid. You're doing it because.
Jeremy Torisk: 99% of the time I'm not getting paid. But I don't do introductions if I can help it. Those are second tier. I'm sorry. Referrals. I do introductions. Introductions is much more powerful and effective than referrals. So when I do an introduction, 99% of the time, I don't get paid, but 1% I do because it's in the vein of what a business model calls for, and it's pre agreed. We say, hey, what if we do this? What if I see this? What if I hear about this and does it make sense? If it does, we go and we put some paper on it, right? Trust but verify. Friends are friends, but put paper on it. And the rest of the people in my life, anytime I do a referral, if I refer somebody, I try not to. I try to do an introduction because it's just so much more powerful than a referral.
Tim Fitzpatrick: When you talk about the difference between an introduction and a referral, because I think I know where you're headed with this, and I want to make sure people get the value from this. What's the distinction there for you between an introduction and a referral?
Jeremy Torisk: So my kid cuts grass and he's cutting somebody's grass, and it just looks 100 times better. And the neighbor notices, man grass. I walk my dogs by your house. I don't even know you. But who does it, right? Oh, this kid Garrett, he's a young kid. He works real hard. He always shows up. His prices are pretty competitive. Crew is good. Here's his number. So all of sudden, a Garrett gets a call. Hey, you cut one of my neighbors lawns. Can you come by and give me a quote? Sure, come by. Garrett comes by and gives him a quote. He probably won't give him a discount. He probably won't even know in the discussion. If the guy doesn't mention who it came from, he's not going to know. But when there's an introduction now, the guy says, okay, give me your phone number and your email address, and I'll do an introduction. So Garrett gets an email and says, hey, Garrett, this is John from Smith Street. And my neighbor Benny here wants to quote, he's a great guy. Make sure to hook him up. Hey, Benny, this is Garrett. He's the long guy. He's awesome. Well, now there's like a little conversation, and Garrett's now going to be able to reward the first guy for giving the referral, but he's also going to treat this guy pretty good because he feels like the guy's proud of him and he loves his work and it has an impact on someone who remembered him and thought of him. So he's going to want to do really good for this next guy to not let that guy down. It's just a whole warm feeling thing and a trust and pride. It's personable. The study shows that a referral will get you X. An introduction will get you X plus or times the multiplier. Whatever it is.
Tim Fitzpatrick: You had touched on the power of words and the way it was described to me was just introduction is a much more powerful word than referral. Right? Like we want to be introduced. I don't know how many of us necessarily want to be referred, so I don't know if that's just in most people's heads or what, but thank you for making that distinction, because I think it's much more powerful to think of it from the point of view of an introduction rather than a referral. I want to transition and talk about sales. So we touched on marketing a little bit. Man, I don't care what business you're in. If you own a business, you are a marketer and you are a salesperson. Period. You're
Jeremy Torisk: You're in charge. Every position.
Tim Fitzpatrick: So let's talk about sales a little bit. What kinds of tips, tricks, things have you learned on your journey when it comes to sales?
Jeremy Torisk: The best thing I say is to get rid of the tips and tricks, and it comes down to science and sociology. People don't want to be sold. They don't like it. What they like is to have confidence when they buy something and they want value in what they buy. So it goes back to the 1-3% of the buying public is ready to buy something. So when you try to sell them, maybe you're going to get them. But when you educate the other 97% of people, when you give them value, by giving them information on what you do, help them in some way understand what you do. Make yourself the value adder. Maybe not the product of the service, but you yourself. Because again, they know you like you, trust you the whole Bob Berg Go give a deal, which he's a buddy of mine, so great stuff, but that's what it is. Most prospects are value buyers, not price buyers. 97% of people are looking for value. So when you offer a report of the ten things that your business does that your competition doesn't, and not even about you, here's ten things you must know before you do X. Don't even make it about yourself, but you're providing that now. You're the subject matter expert. Okay. Decision process is what are the benefits of ownership? What are the objections to the ownership, and what are the selection criteria? Once you understand those three things, you can give the information to answer those questions. When they are ready, they will be in your store buying or on your website clicking. And so that's what the drip campaign is for is by giving them the benefits. And the benefits are not features. Benefits and features. A feature is a result of a benefit. So give them the benefit and the feature and then figure out what the objections are and answer those in another email and then let them know about the criteria. What stat really separates you? Not what we have the best prices? Well, I should hope so. We've been in business ten years. Well, I should hope so. We have the best of integrity. Well, I should hope so. I take credit cards. I should hope so. What really do you do that separates you? So when you answer those questions and you make it easy to see, people will come to you, you're never selling. You are just providing value and you never want to sell on price. So what you do a trick to getting around that is bundling. That's the easiest trick. Everyone's watched architecture, whatever the American pickers, right, the bundle, that's the deal. So when you take Product X and put it with Product Z, now there's no comparison to anyone else on price because you have two things. You can't do that. Now that's not apples and apples. So now you've taken price out of the equation and you could actually sell on value because you're going to make them feel like they got more for the money they're spending. And because they're value shopping, they feel comfortable and confident that they've got more in value than they're paying in money. So that's one little trick that you can do when you're fighting price wars, start bundling, get away from pricing.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, well, I think most of us have heard this, but man, there's always going to be somebody that's going to beat your price.
Jeremy Torisk: Of course, because they're radios and they don't understand how P and L is in business. Like I didn't and I lost everything. When you understand what a real margin is and what overhead is and what we do very deep dives. We have 40 items within your business that we check to make sure you're not losing money on our business coaching. And a big percentage of that is are you priced right and what is your overhead? What is your break even point? And we go deep into all that stuff because once you understand that, then you can start doing this stuff and price your stuff higher than it was before because you're adding more value and really start making profit.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. One of the other things you said that I think is easy for people to miss is that most prospects are actually value buyers and not price buyers. But I think a lot of us, me included at times, think it's about price. And for most of the time it's not.
Jeremy Torisk: No, unless your name is Christie Torisk, who is my wife. I try to tell her about value. She's like, this one is $4 cheaper. My wife is definitely a price shopper. But most people are valued shopper when you can make them see the value. And I kid her because when there is true value, she will spend more. But when you learn that trick and you get some confidence, put some base in your voice, that confidence, know that you're go ahead. I cannot serve everyone. You don't want to be that person that can sell everything to everyone. I got a person who I know I need to sell to, who's going to be valuable. He's going to refer me, he's going to introduce me. He's going to be a repeat buyer. He's going to want to pay more. He's going to do all these other stuff. He's going to be able to upsell them. You're going to be able to get them on recurring charges for something else. And they have a problem. They're going to come to you to solve it. Instead of start going all over the world trash talking to you because you're going to solve their problem. You better.
Tim Fitzpatrick: This has been an awesome conversation, Jeremy. I really appreciate you sharing your story. Your journey has been very up and down. You've experienced some things that I wouldn't want anybody to have to experience. So what thoughts do you want to leave us with today?
Jeremy Torisk: Well, it goes back to act at the speed of instruction. What's got me through my life is it's almost like a shark. Just don't stop moving. Just don't stop moving. That's the kiss of death. I'll show you my LinkedIn page right here. It says, kind of remodel. Our world class athletes need continuous coaching to keep up with the best in their field. So the world class business professionals. Always have a coach. I've got two coaches right now. I got a guy teaching me Ted Talks, and I got a guy teaching me this brand new software that I just implemented in the business that's amazingly automated. And it's going to be crazy. That's Atlanticbusinesscoaching.com that will be up in a week or so. But always have a coach. So no matter what you're doing, even if it's for the fun stuff. I like golf. Get a golf coach, learn something. But if you want to grow your business, have a business coach because you don't know everything. You're too close to the fire. You're just too close. You got too much skin in the game. You got too much probably leveraged margin out there and people that come in with fresh eyes and software that ask the right questions in the right time will get you over the humps. And then just act. Make the decision to act. Make the decision and do it. Do the hard stuff.
Tim Fitzpatrick: I love it, man. People want to learn more about you. You mentioned Atlantic business coaching is going to be up soon. They can always go to jeremytorisk.com.
Jeremy Torisk: Yeah. Jeremytorisk.com. Is right there. That's a pretty good place to contact me. That's my speaking page. I'm a professional speaker so if you have a convention trade shows we do all sorts of shops workshops at companies teaching them anything they need to know about business disc assessments for personality. My harness thing is all about empowerment and employee retaining onboarding hiring practices. Anything business you name it I know it or I know someone who can serve you and then we do remote learning through the esystem it'll be atlanticbusinessinstitute.com that'll be open in about a week or two and I can find anyone $10,000 to $100,000 and 45 minutes guaranteed with $0 to me and $0 out of your pocket for this information so 45 minutes ten to $100,000 guaranteed in any business whatsoever. First day starting or been in business with $5 million of revenue I will find you over 100,000 in that case in 45 minutes I guarantee you. I've never not found it. Never. Zero times.
Tim Fitzpatrick: Awesome stuff. Jeremy thank you so much for taking the time. I do appreciate you. For those that are watching listening I appreciate you as well. Again I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing. If you guys are struggling with your marketing you got to have a plan. No plan is perfect but you have to start somewhere and your plan will outline your priorities and give you clarity. If you need help with that head on over to growthmarketingplan.com. We've got our 90 day marketing plan kit there all the downloads, tools, resources that you need are right there so head on over to growthmarketing plan.com. Thanks so much. Till next time take care.
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About the Host?Tim Fitzpatrick
Tim Fitzpatrick is the President of Rialto Marketing. At Rialto Marketing, we see many businesses battling information overload with marketing. As a result, they aren't sure what their next marketing steps should be to get where they want to go. We help B2B service-based businesses create, implement, and manage a marketing plan to communicate the right message to the right people so they build results that last. Marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the RIGHT plan.
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2 年Thank you for having me on the show! It is always a lot of fun speaking with you Tim!!