Ryan This is a great video. You are such an incredible teacher and, more importantly, an honest and honorable man! The message is right on, and I find myself nodding my head to your stories and the cycles as you describe them :) I remember the exact month that I made the decision to scale. I raised some money, hired some additional people, etc. That decision looked right...until it didn't lol. We were finally about to break through the "s" curve and then COVID-19 hit. As a founder, it's my responsibility to be prepared for the "black swan" event! Whether it's a recession, financial crisis, interest rate and inflation spike, stock market crash, real estate collapse, or pandemic...they always happen. Too optimistic should be part of your playbook - haha. Because, there is where I sat (with no "black swan" safety) waiting to cross the next "S" curve and then COVID-19. Well, we made it through and it, like many companies, was tough, disheartening and, as you said...very self - reflective. I made it through was at the cost of many great people, vendors, organizations that had helped build the company five years ago. As you know, I'm talking about Client Engagement Academy - our online course and education and coaching and consulting website platform. While SaaS education platforms were having a POSITIVE "black swan" event as people rushed to through up digital courses and teach, we suffered as our base price to write courses, certification programs, build education platforms and coaching and consulting programs are in the +$10,000's and money is tight for most. All of this led me to your point in the video where I was deciding how to move forward and regain traction, shore up my financial situation, etc. Thankfully, my 30 years in the financial business and having ridden way too many cycles UP and depressingly DOWN helped me manage through with an open mind. Now here is the incredible part that inspired me to share lol! You and I have an incredible connection and you, unknowingly, continue to help steer my company lol! It was five years ago that you gave me your vote of confidence to co-design, build, run, launch and host the first eight of Digital Marketer's Certification Programs! Obviously, my business took off after that. And, this part you likely don't know. It was two years ago, prior to the COVID-19 crisis, that I went to your event in New York City and heard @gary vaynerchuck speak! He said if you're not dominating LinkedIn today you're a fool. Since lead generation was a core issue for my company and I experienced social media cycle hyper-growth using Facebook a decade ago while building a company with John Assaraf... I went all in. It took five months to get it dialed in and then LinkedIn, as Gary stated, started working for me. I gained over 1,000,000 organic views of my content posts. Me...no agencies, no ads, no slick sales people promising the world. Little old me... grinding it out, and now I had a system to continually start quality conversations with people who know, like and trust me and were indoctrinated with my philosophy and methodologies. I keep going back to what you taught me a decade ago - the importance of your prospect indoctrination email series :) We'll like every crazy entrepreneur...and with the advice of some close advisors who could see the forest from the trees...they told me I must launch this system for other business owners and executives. And Clout Selling™ was born. We've help more than 65 business owners generate over 45,000,000 million views of their organic LinkedIn posts. We are training on how to get sales from LinkedIn. So too huge shout-outs...one to Gary Vaynerchuck for his in - your face presentation. And to you, Digital Marketer, DeAnna and the rest of the crew, who by association, and investing in your programs, War Room masterminds, events and courses over the last decade... have helped shape my current business life! Today I'm reaching the top of the first "S" curve. I want to scale. I'm nervous. I want to go fast and yet, my experiences, as you described in your video, are talking to me...haha. This is why I felt inspired to write this very long comment... actually, it started out short...haha... I felt inspired to share my personal experience in working with you, Richard, Roland, Perry and your incredible team. There is a lot of noise out in the interwebs... one of the biggest challenges I hear people share all the time is you don't know who to trust, which courses to buy, which guru to follow... And I'm here to share that anyone reading this should know that you should follow Ryan and crew...everywhere. If you are a good person, open - minded and coachable, you will gain valuable and sometimes business life - changing insights. Good luck my friend, and please let me know how I can support you. And wink/wink if you have any advice for me about my LinkedIn business... I'm open :)

Your video production, scripting, and visual variety were spot on! Kudos to your team!

absolutely true. I've experienced this. Fantastic communication. The only way is through.

Great video Ryan.

Excited to keep my soul intact 😁

crazy how math applies to company growth who woulda thunk

This video edited really really well. I wonder who edit this video?