Hanging Out With Neil Patel - Part 2

My afterthoughts from our “consult day” with the LEGENDARY Neil Patel…

On this second part episode Russell talks about working with Neil Patel and what some of the cool things he got from him are.

Here are some interesting you’ll hear in this episode:

• What the biggest internal benefit of working with Neil is.
• What the biggest external benefit of working with Neil is.
• And find out what the differences are between how Russell does things, and how Neil does things and why both ways are awesome.

So listen below to hear some of the cool things Russell got from Neil Patel to help him see his business through a new and different lens.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone! This is Russell, and welcome to Neil Patel Part Two of Marketing In Your Car.

Hey everyone! So I just finished our one-day consult with Neil, and it was pretty awesome. So we had a good time, and it’s kind of reconfirmed to me the power in what we kind of talked about in yesterday’s podcast. So if you haven’t listened to that one, yeah, pause this one, go back to that one, and then come back.

So I was talking about, you know, how to compress like a decade worth of experience into a day, and hiring people who are amazing, and paying them to have them come and do that with you in your company and get a new set of eyes on what you’re doing. So we had Neil come out today, and I suppose you don’t know Neil Patel.

You can go see Google and he’s all over the place, but it’s been interesting because one of the big jokes was like everything that we do to grow a company, everything he does is completely opposite. And they’re both really, really good, but both of us focus on one and not the other.

So I had a chance today just to pick his brain on what he’s doing and how he’s doing it, and really figuring out how we could take those concepts and build them into a system of what we’re doing, and hopefully use that to dramatically grow and increase all of our revenues and everything.

And so it was exciting, and it was fun to see. Not that it’s simple, because it’s not, but just to see simplicity of like, “This is what I actually do day by day, like, this is the process, this is how I do it, this is why I do it, this is…” and showing us that and like, “Wow, that’s doable!”

Like I can actually do that. It’s not that difficult, and so anyway, it was exciting and it was cool from that standpoint. So that’s kind of like the core benefit, right? That’s like the main reason why I wanted to do it, but there’s a lot of like really cool external benefits that come from experiencing this as well.

And it’s funny, I look at some of the companies that hired us and me to come out and do more one-on-one consulting stuff, and I haven’t done a ton of them, but the ones I’ve done, I have noticed similar things.

Like one of them is, is you build a really solid relationship with that person, it’s like I feel like Neil and I and our team are like, we’re close friends now, which is kind of cool. Where there are things that we’ve kind of figured out from being here that I’m going to help him with in his company.

He’s going to be helping us with ours, and now it’s kind of like this really cool mutual ability to work together, which wouldn’t have been there. Or at least, it wasn’t there before. I mean, not that we couldn’t have done it through other methods or other means, but it’s kind of like what I mentioned.

You know the whole concept of either working your way in or buying your way in, and it really speeds up the process if you go and buy your way in a lot of times, right? So that was like one thing that was really cool, we got from everything.

It is that, another cool thing is, everyone’s got different connections. There are all sorts of connections and he asked the people that we don’t, and so he was making introductions and connecting us to all these different people and resources we need to get where we needed to go, which was really cool.

He also like he took it like, my goals and my focus for our company, versus like what Neil’s — they’re very different, like paths where we’re trying to go, and there’s definitely pros and cons of each of them, but he was able to kind of help me and us see why he’s doing what he’s doing, and the value that we can get from looking at that and modeling it.

You know, we may not have the same end goal, but looking at what he looks like, for example, what’s interesting with ourselves, our company, what we’re focusing on is revenue, right? Like how much money can we pull out and put in the bank? But that’s what we look at, but his goal is the opposite.

He’s trying to get mass user base and then sell for a huge multiple down the road, like that’s kind of his angle, what he’s trying to do on his, and so his goal is less, like “I don’t really want or need profit, I just need more customers and more customers and more customers.”

And that’s the side that he’s really focusing on hard, and so it’s kind of interesting because you see, you know, you see those two different variations and it’s like, well, how can we do what we’re doing to stay profitable and then but also add what he’s doing just to amass the user, you know, increase the user?

Like how can we do it profitably? And anyway, it just gives you a whole different perspective on how to look at your business and what you’re doing, and all those kinds of things, which is fun. So I really enjoyed that.

What else was cool? A lot of cool things… Oh, the other cool thing, which was kind of interesting, like seeing how he and the really successful software companies are…

You know, like their actual funnel, how do they generate traffic virtually, upsell the lead, like the whole process and path, and looking at different steps, I think, in that funnel that I haven’t really — or we in our team haven’t really focused that closely on.

One of the big things he said is like, “You guys have more traffic than you need. You just need to fill a couple of these holes.” Which is funny because like that’s almost word for word what I would have told someone. I was consulting, but because it’s my own business like I didn’t see that.

Like we’re trying to focus on jamming more people in, as opposed to filling holes at the same time, and it’s just fun having a new set of eyes and looking at conversion points and what we’re doing, what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong.

And in fact, we set up a bunch of split tests while we were there, and it’s going to be fun to see kind of what the winners end up being, next day or so.

Anyway, it was really, really cool to get a new perspective, meet a cool person and look at our company, our business, our future through a different set of eyes, through different lenses. I think it’s something that was really valuable for me and for our team, which should be valuable for you guys as well.

So not saying you need hire Neil or me or anyone, but I would say look at your company, look at your business, look at your life. It might be a relationship, it might be weight loss, it might be whatever it is, but you can go and spend the next 10 years trying to get to where you’re trying to get to, or you can find someone who’s gone that path.

Find out what it costs for a day of their time, hire them, fly them out, and just get them to look at what you’re doing, and I promise you will shave off years and years of time by kind of making those little tweaks.

That’s kind of, I guess on my side, just some of my advice and some of my thoughts after going through that process today, and it was really, really cool.

So I’m heading home now to go play with the kids, going to go jump in the pool and have a good time, and then I’m probably going to head back in a little later tonight.

We’ve got, I think I told you guys yesterday, our whole team is here for a Hack-A-Thon, and so we are working our butts off, and it’s been really, really fun, and so they’re there at the office. They’re working right now, and I’m going to go play with the kids for a bit, and then head back in and…

Man, I totally almost got in a wreck right there. If you wondered why I was like speaking slow for a second, it’s because this new car, the Corvette that I’m driving — which is the car given away for our Dream Car Contest — it’s a stick shift and I’m getting used to driving a stick again, and so I’ve got my phone.

When I’m recording this on my left hand, I’m trying to shift and steer with my right hand, and I totally just almost… Anyway, it would have been awesome, but we survived it. You and I, we’re all here together.

All right, guys. Anyway, I don’t know where I’m at, but I will leave you with that for today. I hope you guys are having an amazing time, learning a lot of stuff and growing your companies, and with that, I will say goodbye.

We’ll talk to you guys soon. Thanks, everyone!