‘We think differently. We came to the country and had everything taken away from us. That made us people with nothing to lose.’
Tom Libelt runs Smart Brand Marketing and We Market Online Courses. He has done it all — from owning a coffee shop, a retail store, a record label, and more. Find out how Tom’s humble immigrant roots fuel his entrepreneurial passion.
‘I had to unlearn all of the hustle stuff because you can make a lot of money on these shortcuts but it’s not usually long-term.’
Tom talks to us about his entrepreneurship journey and how taking risks in business seemed to come to him naturally. We discuss
– how door-to-door sales work helps you build a ‘thick skin’
– growing up in a family of immigrants
– unlearning the hustler’s mindset and more.
Reach out to Tom here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomlibelt/
Smart Brand Marketing: https://smartbrandmarketing.com/
We Market Online Courses: https://smartbrandmarketing.com/wemarketonlinecourses/
If you want your own success story of entrepreneurship, find out more entrepreneurship steps to starting a business in previous episodes.
John: Thank you for listening and don’t forget to share this episode and subscribe, my guest today is Tom Liebelt who runs smart brand marketing and we market online courses. He has done it all from owning a coffee shop, retail stores, record labels doing music ‘hip-hop I imagine’. Thanks for joining me Tom, I decided to learn a little bit about you and your history and maybe start off by sharing with the listeners you know how you got started in this world of entrepreneurship and go as far back as you would like.
Tom: Well, going very far back it’s you know, like we spoke before the podcast humble roots man, humble roots, like I was in Poland and my dad would smuggle stuff in from Germany and sell them in a soccer stadium in Poland and I would sort of make those trips with him sometimes. You know, like my job as a 7 year old would be to lay down in the back of the car seat, and when the customs officers came up you know I was supposed to cry and scream and make sure they move away so they don’t search the back seat, and then you know at the soccer stadiums I would help them sell stuffs. And then, you know they dropped me off to other family members that did stuff with Russians and stuff, like it was a very interesting kind of street knowledge type of upbringing, you know but a lot of business, you know like he made money doing whatever he could. You know my mom was a teacher so, pretty normal career but him yeah it was a lot of business stuff. And it sort of you know I guess it planted a seed that does that for us sometimes right? Like we see you know parent and their friends doing something, and I was like, ‘I think I’m gonna be a business guy when I’m older’ like that’s kind of the identity I formed when I was around that age. And also, I thought I was gonna be a musician, and an astronaut. So back then you know three things, you know which two of them I succeeded and the third one is just to much work so I let that go. But who knows right? Like now with the space travel it’s expensive, but it’s actually possible that before I finish this journey I might actually become the third one too at some point, So yeah that’s what happens. But as I move through you know, when we moved to the States when I was around 10 my parents had multiple jobs, a minimum wage, you know zero respect, zero benefits, and I remember going to school and my parents are gone so I’m you know, I’m little still you know 11’ getting on the bus myself I’m coming home with a key there’s no one there right, and I’m thinking okay they’re working so hard and were still broke. Yeah that’s one of the things I remember like it stuck with me you know, like the counselor later at school like ‘what do you want to be? You know like with your behavior and attitude, I was like well I don’t want to be you that’s for sure, And I don’t want to have a normal job because my parents have three and were broke, doesn’t sound like a good deal for me right? And as an immigrant you know the families that we knew from our background, because you know I always compare myself to my background, like the kids that you know, growing up and with all the nice houses and everything, I was like yeah they’re on a different track. They didn’t really have great jobs, you know Polish people in the U.S especially in Chicago where I was, construction, that’s what all the Polish people do. When we went to New York to see some family they did roofing, which again is part of construction right? You know and I was like, well yeah it doesn’t sound amazing, you know I’m gonna stick with my business plan. And that’s kind of how the journey went, you know like I was able to sell some weed in school to make some initial money, you know and then co-owned a record store with a couple older kids because I was still too young to own anything I was like 16. So they, you know and then moved on from there to music. I want to get that up in my system, we moved to New York for that. Worked on recording studios and had my own where I produced stuff, and we had a documentary crew from Poland come in and do a whole thing on us, because we’re doing music and am I gonna have a whole bunch of sales jobs after that, just to kind of figure out how can I make the business work, because you know sales are the backbone of everything. So I kind of went through that and then moved down from that to a coffee shop, realized I hate that, I don’t drink coffee, I don’t like brick and mortars and moved into the online space. And ever since then it’s been just an online kind of journey, you know initially SEO business, then a generic marketing company, then we niched dow a little bit to e-commerce, and then into online courses, then we sort of went full speed with that. And in the, we also published like 5.000 kindle books as a side project, and filmed the documentary in Bangkok on digital nomads. So a lot of stuff right? but it’s like you know it all kind of follow a certain path. You know like every time like I felt and this is how you sell things too to other people. Every time I feel like I’m in this current situation now! I don’t like it, how do I get to the next one, and make the steps for that. And when things get comfortable, make more money again. I’m uncomfortable again, I don’t like the situation and what do I do? or I’m bored, what do I do next? Right? And that’s sort of how everything happens, I get bored a lot and I’m very unhappy with the current situations. Because when things work really well they become boring, you’ve seen it in your business probably. The stuff that works is always boring and then you know you figure out like well, I’m unhappy because I want to scale this business or I’m unhappy because of my project margin or I’m unhappy because I’m spending too much time with clients. You know and this is how different things kind of happen and move forward. But yeah that’s the business journey, you know we all go through the same thing as business people.
John: That’s amazing! That’s a great summary of your life so far, but I want to drill down on a couple of those bullet points that you mentioned.
Tom: Sure!
John: So, if you don’t mind sharing I know you mentioned you were in Chicago, and you kind of had these businesses with others right? Was the reasoning because you had seen it from your dad? Of the hustle, like the mindset of really working hard to make some sort of income or money to survive? Or was it really to get ahead, like because people work for certain reasons right? It’s either to pay for food shelter needs ? or for stuff? And or to fit in right? Because else had nice jeans, nice clothes or whatever. During those early stages was it just trying to survive And fit in for you?
Tom: So initially, it just felt natural right? Like there’s just some things that you pick up and you’re just pretty good at. You know like some kids pick up a basketball and there’s no real reason other than you know like one kid doesn’t like it he puts it away, another just starts shooting and it’s like, this is not bad I’m pretty good at this and obviously you need a lot more practice and training and you know. Like with me I had to unlearn a lot of the hustle mentality to grow a real business, but it actually just came easy to me, you know like when I started selling weed I was actually very good at it. I made a lot of money and no one knew what I was doing, there’s nothing better to do in that profession right? With the record store I was really good at the inventory, I knew what people liked, I knew how to deal with my employees that we had and I had a lot of fun. I started DJing. You know started playing, I said you got to think, as a 16 years old, to DJ because you got his record store at bars, clubs, raves all over the city. I mean that lifestyle was quite fun and it just happen naturally because the older guys that’s what they were getting into. And you know they were like 20 something and everybody’s like, hey Tom let’s come to this bar, let’s come to this college just play, play and I’m just a 16 year old kid which just like, sure! You know that’s a lot of attention and it just became, it felt really natural, like I didn’t really. Later on, when people ask me in my 20’s, why are you working so hard on this business? I was like, well I don’t want to be broke, that was my why, because I looked at my parents, like you know always problems with money. Can I get this? We don’t have the money. Can I see this? No money, you know. So, when I thought about it later in my 20’s in my teen’s I didn’t feel like that because I, you know from the wheat cache and the record store and stuff like that, I had enough in my pocket to you know, feel good and I had enough of the clout because you know DJ owns record store, which I just didn’t really even notice, that anything is missing. But then in my 20’s, when I was like okay, how do I move things forward? It was like, I don’t want to be broke for that. That was my main thing, you know have enough in the bank account where I don’t think that I need to work tomorrow, it was a huge thing for me, that was a huge breakthrough. Even like my mom when she you know, heard that I actually have enough, where I don’t need to work for the next three years. She couldn’t wrap her head around it, you know it wasn’t a huge goal for most people, but for me at that time it was huge. You know going from like, check to check, hustle, non stop, so I can actually sit back and think about what to do next, it was huge. Now my, thinking is more how do I get ahead and how do I fulfill certain things, but in my 20’s very much don’t want to be broke period and in my teens it just felt natural like picking up a ball.
John: You know that’s great insight and I love that honestly, so question I would like to ask you Tom is. In your 20’s I know you came to a realization you have a couple years worth of savings, what was the next goal for you? Because you probably started seeing some of your friends just starting their career right? Starting to get into the workplace, starting to learn a new skill right?, getting their resume up to speed looking at working at big companies or whatever that nine to five rat race and you’ve already been doing that for five, ten years before that right? Like working in your teens. Like who are you trying to associate and mimic? and you know, what guided you to continue pursuing entrepreneurial journeys versus doing what everyone was doing like your friends or colleagues or whatever maybe.
Tom: Yeah, so a couple things happened, I didn’t really have anyone I wanted to be like. You know unlike right now, back then we didn’t have that many people to look up to other than you know like the big big guys in books. So I would read the Warren Buffet book, but that didn’t really apply to me, you know I would read about some ceo from UPS and that didn’t apply to me, you know some huge startup with a million dollar of funding, or you know someone built Netflix. I’m like none of these applies to me, I don’t have any of these connections or type of cash flow you know, or chunks of cash which they had. So I had to pick my own route, and you know with some of the savings I was like, well I’m just going to hustle harder and this is what I said, you know I had to unlearn a lot of the hustle stuff because you know, you can make a lot of money on these shortcuts and you know the hustling route, but it’s usually not long term, you usually hit a wall or you’re about to go off a cliff which you don’t even see. But to address the other question about the jobs. So, there were about three years where I went corporate to get my sales skills up, so my play was that I’m gonna work for every corporation that I can find that want sales people, get trained by them, do some work and leave, and move on to the next one. And I did inside sales, outside sales, retail, I did every type of sale possible you know, from selling nonsense like life insurance ‘selling dreams’, selling Nestle with just bottled water, two businesses B to B I did B to C also, moving services, warranties, you know stuff people love. And I realized if I can sell all this stuff which I completely don’t care about, if I can find something that I like, I’m gonna do really well, and two things came out of those situations two. One, I realized I don’t ever want to work for a corporation again, any of them because I’m treated like a number and I’ve seen what it does to people, I’ve seen the older sales guys, especially in life insurance it was sad. You know like some of these 20 or 30 year old guys that they were just grumpy and you know almost gave up on life, I’m like this is not what I want to be. But I remember playing basketball and one of the guys from the life insurance company, Chinese guy, super smart and he kind of looked at me he’s like, you know what Tom, we’re getting ripped off here, and I was like how so? Well we sell this life insurance which is a monthly revenue for this company, they pay ourselves 6 to 12 months and they make money for the next 30 years. What if we had something where we can sell 20 people and make money for the next 30 years? we’d never have to work again. And you have know idea how much of a seed that planted you know I, first I just played I was like yeah yeah I guess, but then I said home but then I said home and I actually looked at this some little napkin mat and I was like, man he’s right. After a couple of years of selling like that, like you really don’t ever have to work again. I mean as long as your turnover rate is not bad, but I mean even if your not selling a lot just a hundred or a couple hundred bucks, I mean with enough clients like you’re set for life. And I looked at this companies I’m like ‘they are ripping us off’, I can come up with, and that’s where the first SEO online business came from. Because that’s the easiest thing to sell especially back then this is like 12 years ago, SEO was super easy back then and it’s recurring. You know some of the clients that started with me back then, like I would say like maybe nine years from now they’re still with me now. And we don’t do the SEO company anymore really, like we maintain a few clients but we don’t take on any new ones, but you got to think about the longevity with that. Nine years, ten years we’ve had companies paying us every single month since that time, so I definitely learned something from that.
John: No, that makes total sense right? Like, sales is definitely the biggest asset skill set in business entrepreneurship that a lot of people don’t even think of when they start a business, right? They feel it’s product and services you know, they feel like yeah you can procure, you can supply chain, you can operate, you can, but really if you can’t sell what you have then there’s no buyer, right? And that recurring revenue model, I was very interested in that because I worked at yellow pages, I saw it, I worked at affiliate online businesses and I saw how important and how sustainable it is. And just like life insurance it’s more like monthly but they get the rest of the months, right? And the lifetime value of that customer is could be five, ten, twenty years and there’s not much maintenance going on after the initial acquisition of it, so yes it’s a upfront acquisition, might take a little bit more time, effort or resources. But the tenure of it is making sure that you fulfill on your deliverables and they’re gonna be there for you for the rest of your life, right? So understanding that whole concept is interesting. And so question, I wanted to ask you because I know you were residing in Chicago, when did you, you know relocate and how long ago and why?
Tom: Well, in my teens I was around Chicago, like my parents first moved to Chicago then we moved to a town which was like 45 to 50 minutes away, so it was a suburb pretty much but I still spent a lot of time there, and then I, went to school to Florida for a year and a half, audio engineering school and then I went to New York. So all of my 20’s, I would say eight or nine years I spent in New York, my music career, record engineering, all the sales jobs, everything happened in New York, mostly in Brooklyn. And the reason you know I kind of want to mention Brooklyn is because that’s where I had to do a lot of my door-to-door sales and you can imagine that neighborhood was not very pleasant to walk around and sell door-to-door. You know, not the most welcoming neighborhood, so I learned how to deal with some characters, and not only have I learned how to take ‘no’ you know, for an answer without really feeling anything, but deal with some really difficult people. So then, when I moved to the online world, it became super easy, super super easy like it went from difficulty 10 to difficulty 2, you know and it’s just an environment. You know when you’re actually get hit with the door, by the you know, business owner. It’s a little different than you know someone just saying no on zoom and logging off, like I feel nothing you know, so it helped a lot, so I had all my sales training in New York and they sent me around Harlem, Manhattan, Queens I did a lot, Long Island. So I’ve done a lot of the difficult like the real New Yorkers you know, get out of here type of environments which were healthy for me, you know I hated it for a long time but I got to say, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. If I sold in a place where everyone was nice, like maybe somewhere down south like I moved to Atlanta later on, it wouldn’t be the same you know, it’s not the same when someone very nicely tells you to go away, you don’t get that same type of hit if someone’s like ‘get out of here don’t ever come back again, oh you’re a sales guy! And just hit you with the door, right?. So it toughened me up, and you need that in business, you need that in business, you need to have a thick skin, or you’re not going to sleep well at night, I sleep very well.
John: But it also boils down to the threshold, right? You and me, alike, were originally sales people, right? Who got it from the streets to then, learn about the business sense of it all and with that thick skin that you mentioned. A lot of people who start businesses or get into it, their thickness of skin like whenever they get rejected or they get hung up on, or someone you know says no! They break down! Their threshold is so weak, that for us, we can even like get thousands no’s, and that next yes, we’ll make our day, and I would ignore everyone else. Like, because we were trained with a habit of doing things, that doesn’t really affect us emotionally, it doesn’t really you know, connect us in the mind as well, right? Like a lot of people just are weak, I don’t know how to say this, right?
Tom: Yeah. I’ve thought about that, it’s like having stage fright.
John: Yeah. Public speaking, yeah!
Tom: Public speaking you know, it’s a very similar thing, some people breakdown, you know during a speech and others just get up and have no problems with it, but a lot of us are not naturals, you know the thing is if you know what you’re doing, because I, performed on stage quite a bit. You know first as a DJ, then you know with the hip hop and you know. So, like I actually realized that if you really know your stuff, it’s pretty easy to catch your groove when you’re on stage, you know and forget about people watching you. But the problem that a lot of business people have and this is where a lot of those fear comes from, is they’re really unsure of themselves in the first place.
John: Yeah. Self-conscious, yeah.
Tom: Well, even whatever they’re selling, is my service really good enough, is my product good enough. They focus on that much more, than just putting the message across to the person having them buy in and just figure it out later. There’s a lot of emphasis on, why should I sell this? Why should people listen to me? I find that a lot with the newer business people, that’s in the back of their minds you know, like a lot of uncertainty, like no one is taking me seriously and that happens to all of us in our 20’s, just you know, it’s fine get over it, it will be okay you know. But I do find that it blocks people from doing things, it’s like, if you look at my resume and I’ve been asked many many times on podcasts like, how have you accomplished so many things? and there’s no secret, I finish what I start. Most people don’t finish their projects and yet we know that the first 90 percent of a project, and I always laugh is much quicker than the last 90 percent of the project, you know the last 10 percent is like the 90 percent of which no one wants to complete, and then that works with everything, with an app, with anything that you’re building. That last 10 percent is gonna be so annoying, but you’re this close, you’re always that close to finishing it, and if you put enough things out to the world, you have much less stress about how people perceive it. Because you’ve already put many things out and you’re gonna put out many more, then if you’re that person that tries to get this one thing done and put everything else aside and this is your only shot. That’s when a lot of this pain comes from, right? Like if I waited until I’m, now! Any of these things before, but I only waited now I’m finally ready. I’m gonna start an agency, marketing online courses but I have none of the background, nothing associated, no experience, I’ll probably feel the same way, right? So I think that’s kind of what happens, like people don’t put enough stuff out there, they don’t practice enough in public, they don’t finish enough things that they started. Because if you do, you stop caring so much, people don’t like this, so what? I’ll put out something else tomorrow, and you also quickly realize that people don’t think about you very very much, if you put something out they’ll forget about it much quicker than you will, and then you know in a couple of weeks of it they’ll be like, oh I like this out now, I like this. They won’t even remember that you just completely failed with something previously, they don’t, people don’t care. So, I think you know it’s a bit of a mindset thing maybe, I don’t like talking about mindset too much because I think it’s kind of easy you know if you just follow the right steps but it sort of this you know like if you think about creation wrong or putting stuff out of people think, or yeah it’s definitely going to stop you.
John: And I think but see it’s different when you’re an entrepreneur that has been successful and been doing it for so long, a lot of people give up so quickly they put so much time in analysis and they put it all in one egg, one basket right?
Tom: Yeah.
John: And of course if that doesn’t work they give up and they’re like, I’ve tried it I’m not gonna do it again it overstressed me I put so much time and effort and nothing went right. Well, you, me and everyone else and sales or entrepreneurs like how many times do you have to fail or get slammed on you know saying no and people objections, rejections all day long and it doesn’t phase us because I know there’s people out there that need our services, need our products and all I need to do is service the ones that I need it not the ones that don’t need it because there’s a lot of people that don’t need it, there’s a lot of people do need it. Just focus your efforts on the positives a lot of people forget that right? It’s like they put all their eggs in one basket and they’re like, what happens?
Tom: I think you’re much nicer about this than me. I actually tell people like, maybe this is not just not for you, business is not easy.
John: It’s not easy for sure.
Tom: You know I think Elon Musk just put a tweet out which I really liked “If you need motivation in business, you shouldn’t be doing business.”
John: Yeah.
Tom: It’s just it’s not easy right? And putting all your eggs in one basket, what are you doing? Crappy stock investing I mean seriously it’s like what are you picking a meme stock and hoping it’s gonna make you a millionaire? You know it’s just some of this stuff I think it’s common sense if you have nothing after five years but some good analysis then you should go work for a Wall Street firm they pay for that.
John: Well, people have short-term you know, everyone wants quick fixes, quick results, quick whatever it is but in reality in business, in education and skill it takes time to harvest these new skills sets from habits and the more you learn these integral habits of soft skills, hard skills, sale, and personal skills, communication voice right? Like singing, like you you’re going to be dj and singing unless you put in that 5-10 years of like practice daily right?
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
John: Same as athlete, same as entrepreneurship, same as sales, no one sees you doing those things 10 years but right at the top you’re finally successful or someone that they aspire to become, they’re like how did you just become that? Well, no one saw that it took me 20 years to get there but they see you now and they think they wanna be like but they don’t want to do those 20 years.
Tom: Yeah. I mean look I’ve had clients ask me you know I’m really good at educating, I’m really good at this, how do I do the sales part? Easily just take 20 years and put some effort into it.
John: Yeah.
Tom: Yeah. Seriously, like I’ve had people ask me too you know because you just mentioned shortcuts like, oh man how do I turn like twenty bucks into two thousand dollars quickly? I was like, oh that’s super easy you go put twenty dollars in you car and go to work and wait till the paychecks add up to two thousand. I mean look selling dreams is really easy that’s the hustle part that’s when you know the younger us right? That’s what we kinda grow up on that’s what I mean like at some point you have to outgrow that, at some point you need to realize well the long term stuff doesn’t really work with the hustle you know. Like, when you see someone that’s let say, 45 years old on LinkedIn and they said “I’m a serial entrepreneur and often what I think is what went wrong? Right? I’m not looking at this like, oh yeah he’s serial entrepreneur it’s great, what happened? Because sometimes people like that will come up to me and be like, look Tom I’m 25 years of business experience. I was like, no you don’t I looked at your LinkedIn profile you have 3 years of experience 10 times you’ve never actually moved past that third seated on the bus of business you just keep switching the buses like you’re actually don’t have much more experience than a 24 year old that actually did 4 years he actually is better than you and that’s just the fact like pushing through a lot of these things we have. An encounter at work and in business I mean yeah, they’re tough there’s every person will tell you there’s been times where they sat down and started at the wall for 3 days but either you move past it you plateau or you give up that’s the only 3 options you have, and once you are like me and you tasted the freedom and you’re now unemployable you actually only have 2 options get past it or plateau.
John: Yeah.
Tom: That’s it that give up one goes away and if you’re annoyed still like me that still want more you only have one option, get past it you know but that depends on you know your personality where you are on your journey too and how much of a fallback you have you know. If my parents had you know 20 million dollars and you know waiting for me when I’m 30 I don’t know if I have the same drive you know I met a lot of kids like that in New York you know they were in college and they had millions waiting for them when they turned a certain age. They didn’t have the same drive yeah, you know they got put into good spots and situations but they never really made it like some of the people like us would you know not much to fall back a gun. Like I like to think of it as the Russian army in a World War II when they used put only the best in the front so if they turned around to run back they get shot in the back because there was no vest in the back, there was only the vest on the one side of their body and I kinda think of us like that.
John: And I wanna make a quick note on that as well like it’s all about where you’re situated right? Like the position you’re set up in like you mentioned in college, myself included when I was in university I saw, everyone had their vehicles, their parents they had a credit card that their parents was funding right?
Tom: Yeah.
John. And I was working and I was like food stamps, like everything I made was to pay off my debt to get a student loan and to like just eat, survive. I didn’t drive a car, I didn’t even have nice clothes right? And I just want a good education so I can get through the next stage of my life because I needed to survive. So that’s the needs spectrum right? And people are placed and our DNA is different. Entrepreneurs DNA is different than someone that’s put into a situation where there’s comfort knowing that they don’t have to worry because we had no comfort, we had no back up plan, it was it right? It’s like we dictate what’s gonna happen right? And we’re in complete control of it and if you fail then there’s no plan B right? It’s like you’re on the streets, you gotta you know make sure that you can survive to sustain yourself in the future right? And look I think us, as immigrants I feel like the first generation people that understand how hard it is, how the struggle is. A lot of people don’t feel the struggle, they don’t know what it would be like to live like that but we know how it was and that’s why we don’t want to live like that ever again.
Tom: Yeah. That, so when I was in life insurance I was in a branch in Bay Ridge which was very close to a bigger Chinese population and I did training with one on of the Chinese guys and we became pretty much best friends and you know he would come up to me sometimes. Chinese very business oriented much more than polish so I you know always asked him about things like that too business related but he come up to me and say “You know what you’re like a brother to me.” and I said “What about these other guys here?” there’s so many people right? He’s like, “No, they’re too soft.” they’re too soft and then you know I asked him a couple times he’s like you know and he said the same thing like just the immigrant you know background, we think differently, we think differently look we both came I remember he said we both came to the country and we both had everything taken away from us right? All my clothes, my stuff, my toys, my family, my friends, everything I knew was taken away from me, from us and that kind of made us people with nothing to lose you know in my teens, my 20’s and stuff I was like, I had nothing to lose. I mean what else you going to take away from me, what else you gonna do right? So, when a lot of people had this like I came from this comfortable house and I have roots I was like, I don’t have anything here, I got nothing to lose, what are you gonna do? Take away this apartment? I’m barely paying it right now go ahead you know there was nothing like my crap car please, I’d like to get rid of it like there was just nothing and I think that helped and it’s not only just not having a plan B, it’s not having anything to lose at that you know and that made easier to propel myself forward and I think it does it for a lot of immigrants, and that’s the one thing which is hard to explain to a person that’s born in the west, yeah. Everything else is easy to explain but that little part you can’t replicate it.
John: And so, that’s my biggest fear right? Like my son, he’s you know early ages I think he’s like 5 turning 6 and I’m trying to teach them but it’s hard because you’re not living the hard life. How do you go from trying to establish your career in your lifestyle to ensure that your kids’ upbringing is difficult and challenging so that they can be self you know they can take care of themselves in the future right? And these are things as a parent it’s hard to you know set yourself up and try to do things right and that’s one of the hardest struggles that I have at this stage of my business life span and journey right? But that’s parenting that’s completely different.
Tom: Actually it’s not really like I always think of it this way the first generation builds it, second generation maintains it, third one destroys it. So, your sound will be second generation so I always would think of that’s gonna be a maintenance generation. They will hopefully propel it forward plateau not doing anything too risky, I mean if they’re good there’s some you know kids to do that but usually that’s a safe way they shouldn’t be able to mess it up too much and the third generation will probably, completely yeah. So, that’s the way I think of it does all happen right? Like we’re not gonna reinvent the wheel you know that saying is there for a reason because you there’s enough generational businesses and immigrants where they know but again and I’m going to say this from my background because I know enough Polish people that most first generation Polish people don’t actually build anything it’s usually the generation that builds it, the third one maintains it, fourth one destroys it. The first generation usually does not actually have the money or resources, or anything to build enough stuff right? So, if you actually built something as you first generation you are a lot ahead of your peers.
John: Yeah. So, I wanted to now pivot back to where you’re at right now, Tom? So, I know you kinda started this SEO industry business and then you’ve you know dabbled in other type of businesses and now you’re a content creator, course creator, what’s going on? Like, what are you working on? And what are you excited about?
Tom: Sure. So, at the moment we are running a very comfortable high-end beautique service agency. So, we help of course creators market courses, we’ve done over 200 we have a very good success rate and everything’s easy which means I’m annoyed again. So, what we’re doing now is we found another niche and we are building an app in that niche to build something that’s gonna go into quite of a big industry and can scale you know like the competition in the industry makes between 10, 20 to up to a hundred million per year revenue. So, you know I have something that’s working, that’s great and I’m comfortable with and then I have the next project always, always right then the content creation and stuff that’s just extra, I just enjoy doing it but that’s really the moment right? Like as soon as you get comfortable you should get annoyed unless you want to plateau with me it happens every single time as soon as I’m like, oh business is easy, we’re getting leads, have enough clients we’ve been booked for years. The first thing I feel is not happiness, I’m annoyed. What next? What are we doing now? Because there’s nothing there right? Like we can maintain this, like this forever and the main thing I thought about the agency is like, well I have two choices. I think grow the agency which is gonna be a huge headache, lower margins, more clients, more employees, more just nonsense left and right or we leave that as it is which is a good cash cow when you know we’re doing great with the clients so nothing to complain there and we built something that can really really scale, we can make an exit and you know and that was sort of the path we took. So we’re working on that now and it’s in the early stages but we’re already talking with vc’s and you know there’s a lot of excitement around it like internally.
John: That’s amazing. So, when did you decide to leave America to relocate and what was that like?
Tom: Well, I don’t know about Vietnam but in Poland every person that leaves Poland has a dream and that’s to go to America make a lot of money, come back and live like you can. Now that’s, that’s been a dream. What I thought is because I went back to Poland for about 15 years of being in the States, I like it but I don’t wanna go back and live as a king in Poland I don’t like it that much anymore like I like it but not that much. So, I was wondering what if I not make money and come back but kept making money and live wherever I want to, you know slight pivot on the idea and initially I moved around the States a little bit because you know I had the STO business in Atlanta and I was like, well can I sustain it if I’m just not in the city? But you know I’m still in the country same time zones, worst case scenario, I can comeback or fly in you know and it took a bit to kind of you know dial that in because it’s very different you know from seeing clients in person like in Atlanta and then moving into an online, fully online situation. Then, I went to a conference in Berlin this was like maybe 9 years ago and all the people there did nothing but work online and travel the world this was the dynamite circle conference and they told me you know the main conference is in Bangkok that’s where all the bowlers come out and I’m like, oh it sounds like a good place to hang out and I went to this couple of conferences and what they did because I still live in the States is after every conference they migrated. So, some went to Ho Chi Minh City, someone to Taiwan, someone to Chiang Mai like just different spots and they stayed there for months and that’s kinda how I got my feet wet you know I would go for a couple of months, go back to the States and maybe go Europe for a bit come back, go to DBKK and then you know and then eventually after travelling so much I felt so much, I felt super comfortable and I went on a full long term, I’m staying here for 3 months here for 3 months just all over Europe and Asia and has diminishing returns. Once you see enough Europe, enough Asia, enough of these places you’re like you know it’s all kinda the same now and I don’t want to go find another gym, I don’t want to find another grocery store, I don’t want to find you know another coffee shop like I actually want to find like two or three places I like and that’s what I did, I picked you know one in Europe, one in States one in Asia which I really really like and I kinda travelled between those so like Chiang Mai, Warsaw, and Chicago and it’s sort of been the path since then and with Colby we stayed a little longer in Thailand because things have been super easy here so we just moved between Krabi and Chiang Mai back and forth and Bangkok a little bit. But the journey just kinda happened as a pivot on the original dream which my parents had.
John: Gotcha and are your parents still in the US?
Tom: There in the US, yeah. They’re around Chicago and I go see them at least once a year like with Kobe that’s been about two years but in January I’m just like head back for at least five months I think.
John: Okay, that’s good and then like, where do you see yourself in you know in next 5, 10 years because it seems like you’re once you become too comfortable you’re on to the next thing right?
Tom: Yeah.
John: And this is why I see with a lot of entrepreneurs right? They can’t you know just be content with that one thing they’re working on, there’s always side projects, there’s always different things on the go because that’s what excites us right? Like, the same here like I have all these projects and just have fun right? And continually challenging yourself because you’re growing along the way right? And it’s okay to make mistakes as long as you have a lot of different you know buckets out there one of them will hit right? It’s like diversify as much as possible.
Tom: Yeah.
John: Where do you see yourself?
Tom: Well it depends right? Like I get very annoyed with business but I try not to bring that into my personal life as much. So, I’m you know being on Chiang Mai for 6 months then going to the US for 3 months in Europe, 3 months and just having that as long as it takes unless something changes right? Like with the new app we spoke with the couple of investors and one of them was from Dubai he said you know if he invests we have to go to Dubai twice a year, I’m cool with that if I get tired of Chiang Mai then I just think what’s the next city that I love in Asia and it’s Taipei. So, I would move to Taipei and then continue my you know, I’m actually pretty easy with my personal like I’ve seen enough. I have no discontent like I find you know you need certainty and uncertainty in your life if you need the annoyance and happiness. I’m very happy with my personal life but I get annoyed in business right? Because I wanna change that stuff but I don’t wanna change stuff in my personal life I have my systems, I have my friends like I’m actually super super content but that allows me to then put all my anger towards the business and then be like well we need to fix whatever it is, we wanna move to right? I don’t think it’s healthy to do it in your entire life I think that’s when people kinda go off the rails so, I definitely you know target all of that weird feelings into my business and make sure we push that.
John: That’s amazing. Yeah, because it sounds like you know a lot of people look at where you’re at right? And they all wanna be like you but they don’t see what you did previously, struggled, the athletes.
Tom: It’s been a long journey.
John: You had a long journey right? No one talks about 20 years and they see you now they wanna be just like you right? And I always say this like look at any athlete, no one just becomes a Michael Jordan right? Or Lebron James or whatever it takes so many years of you know great perseverance right? A lot of like just hard work so I love that.
Tom: Yeah. The thing is I’ve always thought about people who say that and but do you really want that? Like for example you know like people would say I wanna be so like back when I was younger all I wish I was Pac you know Tupac he was rhyming so well. I was like really? You wanna be shot when you’re 26 and then be in jail how many times and then get shot again in Vegas? And then, I mean really that’s what you’re looking for? Like people don’t realize that if you have my life, you have all of it, that means you now have the memories of having everything ripped away from you when you’re 10. You know like it doesn’t just come like, oh yeah he does whatever he wants to have a nice business like blah blah he’s you know like, no you get all of it.
John: But no one sees that, no one knows you’re all of it, they only see you as that.
Tom: Right, but everyone knows their own situation.
John: Of course.
Tom: And what you have realized is that everyone’s situation is just like that but in different ways. So, all the crappy stuff that you think about your life and all the good stuff you think about your life that next person has the same type of stuff that’s going to be different, yeah. But trust me the more ambitious they are the more dark stuff happened in the past. I always, always find that with the most successful, most ambitious people like they went rough stuff so if you wanna become a person just like that just understand that there’s gonna be a lot of stuff you’re gonna have to learn how to handle.
John: It’s true and being an entrepreneur, it’s not for everyone like you mentioned being in any skill you gotta persevere, you gotta put in the time, and you gotta learn as much as you can, don’t give up like you mentioned right? You gotta follow through.
Tom: Yeah. The problem is that the media over the last 10 years just spouts nothing but business porn. You’ve noticed this.
John: Of course.
Tom: This guy made 10 million of an app, this guy got picked by shark tank, this guy like all they do is show this business porn which is not reality.
John: But that’s what people eat up right? And what’s the attention and what’s gets viewers gets the audience all excited to try it, to you know that’s the whole PR machine right?
Tom: Yeah, but excitement doesn’t sustain you over 10 years you’re gonna have to go trough you know it’s gonna be something deeper, either you pick up the ball and you’re just good at it or there’s gotta be something else. That’s really driving you and then I’ve met people who were not that good at it but they had the drivers and often you know it was something to do with their past.
John: Yeah. I think upbringing the roots, the values, when you’re young ingrain you in so much deeper levels that you know when you are in your teens, when you’re in your 20’s. You kinda see how it’s impacted your life but if you had too much of an easy path it’s hard to endure challenges right? Like, you’re not gonna be in the same situations because you’re never gonna see it right? Like the dark sides of it all.
Tom: Yeah.
John: Right. So, Tom this is been really great conversation I loved it. I know you’re up to a lot going on, stay connected, what’s the best way for people to reach out to you, check you out or hit you up?
Tom: smartbrandmarketing.com if you just go there and hit the contact part like I’m easy to reach and if you need the services it’s wemarketonlinecases.com also very easy to find.
John: Okay, perfect! So, I’m gonna add that in the show notes. I wanna thank you for your time, great insight, great value that you brought to the table. I’m very grateful for having you on the show and if there’s anything you need we can hit each other up you know offline. If you’re ever in Canada let me know.
Tom: Yeah.
John: I’m a big raptors fan, I love basketball by the way so-
Tom: Sweet!
John: I’ll take you up.
Tom: I would love to do that, I’ll actually take you up on an offer when I go to Canada for sure.
John: Yeah, Toronto I mean I, I’ve been here all my life but I love travelling too so anytime I’m in Asia, I’ll reach out to you as well.
Tom: 100 percent.
John: But Tom, great getting to the, this discussion, great on this mindset of entrepreneurs because it’s hard to find someone like you or myself to actually enjoy what we do, so thanks a lot.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. I mean I’m with you, I’m with you on that.
John: Well, thanks a lot Tom. I’ll talk to you soon.
Tom: Yup! Take care.
