My guest today is a serial entrepreneur, author, and well-known digital marketing expert.

In 1998, my guest undertook his first entrepreneurial venture: a $900 marketing course for cosmetic surgeons.By the time he was 26, he was making $10,000 to $15,000 a month teaching physicians how to improve their sales.

According to Forbes, he’s produced more than half a dozen seven figure online businesses since then.

My guest is a self-described “adventure junkie,” he founded Maverick Business Adventure and Maverick 1000 in 2008. MBA mixes adventure and intimate entrepreneurial networking. MBA is also a philanthropic organization and he has a goal by 2020 of getting 10,000 young entrepreneurs to start their own companies.

He has written several must-read books for entrepreneurs including Maverick Startup, 34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs, and the soon to be released Evolved Enterprise.

Now, let’s hack …

Yanik Silver.

In this 32-minute episode Yanik Silver and I discuss:

• Becoming an expert in just one hour per day
• The benefit of being continuously curious
• Looking for leverage points in your business
• Why the money is in turning the wheel, not re-inventing it
• Once you get the entrepreneurial itch, there is no turning back

Listen to Hack the Entrepreneur below ...

The Show Notes

• Maverick Business Adventures
• Yanik Silver Website
• Yanik Silver Books
• Yanik on Twitter
• Jon on Twitter

Yanik Silver on the Transformation to Maverick Entrepreneur

Jonny Nastor: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at HacktheEntrepreneur.com/Rainmaker.

Voiceover: Welcome to Hack the Entrepreneur, the show which reveals the fears, habits, and inner battles behind big name entrepreneurs and those on their way to joining them. Now, here is your host, Jon Nastor.

Jonny Nastor: Welcome back to another episode of Hack the Entrepreneur. I’m so glad you decided to join me today. I am your host, Jon Nastor, but you can call me Jonny.

My guest today is a serial entrepreneur, author, and very well-known digital marketing expert.

In 1998, my guest undertook his first entrepreneurial venture, a $900 marketing course for cosmetic surgeons. By the time he was 26, he was making $10,000 to $15,000 a month teaching physicians how to improve their sales.

According to Forbes, he’s produced more than a half dozen seven-figure online businesses since then.

My guest is a self-described ‘adventure junkie.’ He founded Maverick Business Adventure and Maverick 1000 in 2008. Maverick Business Adventure mixes adventure and intimate entrepreneurial networking. Maverick Business Adventure is also a philanthropic organization with the lofty goal of getting 10,000 young entrepreneurs to start their own companies by 2020.

He has written several must-read books for entrepreneurs, including Maverick Startup, 34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs, and the soon-to-be-released Evolved Enterprise.

Now, let’s hack Yanik Silver.

Before we get going, I want to take a minute to thank my awesome sponsor, FreshBooks. FreshBooks is absolutely made for people like me and you — entrepreneurs, small business owners, or medium-sized business owners. I don’t know why it took me two years to figure out.

When I moved to online business, I was still printing everything out and just going completely old school, as in dealing with a proper bookkeeper and accountant off to the side, but having to deal with the offline aspect of that. I absolutely hated it. I didn’t know how to write checks for these people. All this stuff that, as my business ran online, I felt like the rest of it should have been done online — the bookkeeping, the accounting side of it.

FreshBooks absolutely now allows me to do that with the app on my phone to the fact that they can integrate fully with PayPal and with my MailChimp account. Then, also, everything is done there, all the reports. You can just email it to the accountant to take care of it. I don’t have to worry about being absolutely disorganized anymore. I want to thank FreshBooks for that and for sponsoring me. Thank you so much.

If you are an entrepreneur or a small business person like myself, I strongly urge you to go start your 30-day free trial today — no credit card, no anything necessary. Just go to FreshBooks.com/Hack, and don’t forget to enter ‘Hack the Entrepreneur’ in the ‘How did you hear about us?’ section. Trust me, you’ll be absolutely happy that you did.

Welcome back to another episode of Hack the Entrepreneur. We have another brilliant guest today. Yanik, thank you for joining me.

Yanik Silver: Hey, Jon. Thanks!

Jonny Nastor: Let’s jump straight into this, shall we?

Yanik Silver: Alright.

Jonny Nastor: Yanik, as an entrepreneur, what is the one thing that you do that you feel has been the biggest contributor to your successes so far?

Becoming an Expert in Just One Hour Per Day

Yanik Silver: That’s a tough one because I ask people that, too, who are mentors and different people. Like, “Hey, if you’re going to define one thing ” They’re like, “Well, it’s really hard to say it’s one secret.”

Throwing it back on me and saying if there’s one thing, I took this lesson on really early in life. If you learn or study on any subject for one hour a day for three years, you’d become an expert, and for one hour a day for five years, you can become a world expert. I learned that from a guy named Earl Nightingale.

I’m constantly looking at how am I growing, how am I evolving. I’ll try and go through a book a week, and I’m just constantly curious. Some of the best people in the world are just constantly curious on how things work, how business models work, how people are doing things in other industries, or even totally disparate places, and trying to make these connections and bring them together. That’s probably the one thing.

Jonny Nastor: Nice. So seeking out more knowledge.

Yanik Silver: Yeah. It’s the growth.

Jonny Nastor: It’s funny because I have a list of questions that I can play off of as I’m doing these interviews. You’re just over 100 people I’ve interviewed in the last eight months — all doing cool, amazing things — and at the very top in bold, it says, “To master anything, talk to the experts.” I believe Tony Robbins said that. When he first started, that’s what he wanted to master whatever it was he was trying to master at the time. He learned that from somebody, and I was like, “There it is. That’s what I’m doing with this.” That’s funny how you say that.

Yanik Silver: Yeah. You’re getting a total CAT-scan perspective from so many people.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, it’s amazing. I started it selfishly, and I get to talk to you people now. It’s awesome. Just a constant thirst for knowledge, reading one book a week is a lot. Is this something you’ve always done, or is this something you push yourself to do?

The Benefit of Being Continuously Curious

Yanik Silver: No, I don’t push myself necessarily in too many places. I really follow what my interests are. At the very beginning of my entrepreneurial career, or even before that, it was really around direct response marketing, copywriting, psychology, general business type stuff. Then now, recently, it’s been getting way deeper into cosmology, or evolutionary theories, or consciousness — you name it.

Wherever my energy is and what I’m excited about is where I’ll put my growth in learning aspect. Not trying to force “I have to read whatever this latest business book is that’s everyone’s talking about” because maybe I don’t need that one right now. Maybe I need something else. I believe things will show up in the right way, in the right time.

Jonny Nastor: What if what you were interested in was reversed? It seems like it worked out. You were into direct response marketing, copywriting. You got fascinated by it. You studied it. Then you got to create a business around it. But you’re probably not creating a business around evolutionary theory and consciousness now. You know what I mean? What about when someone’s not into direct response marketing as their fascination?

Looking for Leverage Points in Your Business

Yanik Silver: I look at leverage. I look at how do we leverage — whether it’s our time or our talents, or an investor’s standpoint, their treasure, so capital. Where can we have the greatest leverage? Learning about direct response marketing and copywriting is a very leveragable skill because I can write something in an email, or web page, or whatever medium, and then have multiple people go there and then take an action.

I learned this way early on. I worked for my dad’s company for a long time. We grew up in the family business. I was 14. I telemarketed for latex gloves, called on my own doctor clients. Then 16, the deal was I got a car if I went out and cold called. Let me tell you, you probably already know if you’ve done this, but cold calling kind of sucks. You got that one-on-one interaction. The positioning’s not even right, so many things going against you.

I really fell into that direct response and copywriting because I was looking for a better way, and one of my doctor clients gave it to me. That was a really big step. Then it just lit me up on fire because I had people responding to an ad that I wrote about an EKG machine or a fetal doppler instead of actually talking to them in person. Then having that encouragement kept me excited. Then I’d go deeper and deeper into it.

Now, if you’re absolutely not interested in any of that stuff, then you need to find other people and resources. There’s a ton of them out there who understand that and get it. You’re going to need that part. I’m a big believer in focusing where your strengths are and figuring out what makes you unique, and really unique in your aspects. So not trying to necessarily get way better at where you’re totally weak at because you’ll only maybe raise up to a mediocre level, but how you hone what you’re really great at and where your natural talents are. Then bring in a supporting cast around you.

Jonny Nastor: That’s smart. What was it in your business that you’ve realized early on that you weren’t good at?

Why the Money Is in Turning the Wheel, Not Reinventing It

Yanik Silver: A lot of things. I’m really good at the idea, the conception, creating the positioning and the brand, and the way something is differentiated, and now, how there’s different aspects of it that create an impact that actually drive business — which is all about the latest book that I’ve written called Evolved Enterprise, which is partially around that.

I’m also really good at connecting really amazing individuals together, like creating a platform or a sandbox for them to play in. Then, I’m good at instigating some mayhem, and some fun, and keeping that inner child alive. Then everything else, not as good for sure. Then finding people that are way better than me, especially around the operations systems part.

One of my friends told me this one time, and it really hit home for me. He’s like, “The money is made in turning the wheel, Yanik, not in reinventing the wheel.” That’s the part that I really like. I like reinventing the wheel. I’m constantly looking for better people than me that are good wheel turners.

Jonny Nastor: The money is made in turning the wheel, not in reinventing. But you were like, “No, I like to reinvent it.”

Yanik Silver: Yeah. If I create enough wheels and have enough wheel turners that are really excited about what we’re doing, then that should be alright.

Jonny Nastor: Are you good at taking advice?

Yanik Silver: I think I am very good at listening to a lot of different perspectives and then deciding to follow my own intuition and gut necessarily. I’m not going to be swayed to totally go against what I think is the right move, but I do like to hear other people’s inputs for sure.

Jonny Nastor: Let’s go back. You said you worked in a family business.

Yanik Silver: Right.

Jonny Nastor: But there seems to be this time in every entrepreneur’s life when they realize one of two things. Either they have this calling to make this big something or a difference in the world or, as mostly seems to be the case, they just simply can’t work for somebody else.

From your family business to deciding that you needed to venture out on your own and that you were going to build something yourself — when did this happen for you?

Once You Get the Entrepreneurial Itch, There Is No Turning Back

Yanik Silver: I went to both of those concepts that you just mentioned. The first was really after 16 and cold calling and learning about direct response and copywriting when I was about 17, 18, and just being immersed in guys like J. Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Ted Nicholas, and anyone else I could find — all the old mail-order type masters. I took my dad’s business from a regional player to more of a national player from the ads that we were writing, or that I was writing, and helping him grow that.

Then there’s this weird switch that went on. At one point, for a long time, I was just like, “I’m just going to grow this and really expand it and build it out.” Then there was a switch where I started doing a little bit of freelancing with a handful of my doctor clients who realized that I was pretty good at marketing. They wanted my help for attracting some cosmetic and elective type patients.

I did that for a little while and realized there was no leverage there — so coming back to what we talked about, which was leverages. Here I was working, getting paid essentially by the hour and working with them and not really leveraging my talent there.

I started learning about other people that were selling information and content, and I’m like, “Oh, this is pretty fascinating.” I literally created an ad that got put in Dermatologic Surgery Journal. Got 10 doctors to raise their hands that said they were interested in more cosmetic patients. This was all the same stuff that I was doing with doctors one on one. Then three weeks later, we got our first order for $900 for this course that wasn’t even created at the time. We wrote back to the guy and said it’s going to be republished and available. Were you going to jump in, Jon?

Jonny Nastor: No. I love that. The course wasn’t even, of course, built yet.

Yanik Silver: I tell people this today, because so many times we feel like we got to have everything perfectly in line, and then we’ll put it out there. But there’s magic in actually putting something out and seeing what the hell happens. I only got one order, but it was enough to give me enough energy and motivation to go create this thing. I told the doctor his card won’t be charged, and it’s being republished. Then I would clock out.

The time that I knew that I was leaving was literally when I was looking at the clock, just staring at it when it’s three o’clock, four o’clock, and waiting for five o’clock, so I can clock out on my dad’s business and then go to work on my own stuff. I’d be at his office literally typing, writing, and creating the new product until two, three o’clock in the morning sometimes, answering my cellphone under my desk and taking orders.

My dad was pretty cool about it. He let me slowly transition out of it where I could take Fridays off at one point. He saw the writing on the wall, but it still was a really, really hard decision. Once you get that itch, there’s really no going back.

I’ve told my stepbrother...