Using the Power of Leverage to Grow Your Business w/ Nickie Cobble

If you are laser focused on starting one business, you probably don't need a higher assistant yet. But if you're trying to leverage and amplify your time and amplify your businesses and your side hustles, hire a VA to manage your certain tasks. You'll amplify your income. If they can do it at an 80% as well as you can do it, delegate it, get it off of your to-do list, get it off of your play and start focusing on the 20% that is the most profit generating. Like, if you hate making cold calls, get a VA that makes your cold calls because they might make 100, but you might make 10 because you hate it so much.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, John Mendez.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Walk to Wealth podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to do us a favor and give us a follow, not for us, but because I don't want you to have FOMO. We're bringing on amazing guests all year this year, and I don't want you to miss out on these amazing episodes that I'm bringing on. So, without further ado, let's get right into this one. Anyone that doesn't know you, nikki, tell us about yourself. Tell us your elevator pitch. You know who are you and what do you do.

All right. So thank you for the TF, John. I am Nikki Cobble. I am a young entrepreneur. Just like you, I did go the college route. I went on that full ride, you know, kind of teacher's pet kid 4.7 in high school, 4.0, graduated three years from college and then realized, just like you, I'm not trying to be in the rat race, I'm not trying to make money for anybody else. So by the age of, I guess, 19, I was running my own business and since then now I'm 22, I am running three businesses while contracting for other startups.

Amazing and it's so inspiring to hear. But before we really dive deep into what we're gonna talk about today, take us instead of time machine a little bit. Take us back to little Nikki. What was it like growing up? Where does this entrepreneur come from? What was it like growing up in your household?

Right. So I will say I did have two entrepreneurial-ish parents, so it's not like it did come out of nowhere. I never envisioned having a boss, though my sister she did take the corporate route no disrespect on that but I always kind of saw myself do my own thing. So even in middle school and I feel like a lot of people can relate I was selling. This was big back then. In middle school I was selling tech decks and these little beans or whatever. That can never get knocked down, something like that. So from a young age I definitely was kind of side hustling and then babysitting. So I really, other than two months of waitressing one summer, I have never worked for another person. I was always kind of doing my own thing, making my own cash.

Maybe actually an interesting question, though, because school came, I was still in relatively easy to you, and although I didn't have a 4.7, it came pretty easy to me as well. Where was that flip that made you realize like, hey, I'm actually not gonna go down this road that I signed up for, I'm actually gonna do this other route. Was it during the pandemic? Or was it because for me it was during the pandemic?

I mean, like I said, I always kind of envisioned. I just never saw myself working for someone. There was a part of me that almost assumed it in college, because that is what you are taught. You are taught to obey, you're taught to follow. The curriculum is still based on the industrial factory ages. They want you to just do what you're told, be quiet or whatever. But really it was almost burnout. It was almost. I have worked so hard for so long trying to get these perfect grades to please my teachers, to please my professors, and it was almost like, okay, it's time for me to please myself for lack of a better word and make my own money and not keep making other people satisfied or rich. Yeah.

And that's amazing. It's one of those things where it usually takes a lot and I'm gonna ask, because I know I had a bit of a backlash from the side of this entrepreneur or track what was it like for you? Because, as I said, you grew up, you had the grades, you had everything, you had the full ride and you probably had job offers or opportunities potentially lined up to go down the traditional track. When you made the jump to go down the entrepreneur road, did you receive any? I wouldn't say backlash, but sometime it's like oh, how about you? Maybe you consider it get a job first or something like that. Any of those, I guess, whatever you may call it, but that sounds like they're caring for you, but in reality it's their insecurity. Insecurity is projecting onto you. And what was it like going on the entrepreneur track for the people around you?

Yeah, absolutely so. Inevitably, every single person will face this, every single person. When I graduate, their first question is what do you do? And I will say I'm an entrepreneur, I'm doing this, and immediately, maybe particularly because I'm female too. I don't know if it's kind of worse, it's probably a little bit the same but it's like oh, that's cute or good for you, or call me in a year and I'll get you a job. Because I was getting job offers from corporations. I had great grades. I just knew that's not what I wanted to do, so I turned them down. But you're definitely gonna get people that they never took that leap because you need balls, you need persistency. It's a risk and people are so risk adverse that they I mean pity is a strong word but they will almost show pity on you for taking that leap.

Yeah, it's one of those things that's so funny, how that dynamic work I had. One time I went to church and one of my friends that I pretty much were one of the guys that I went to church with we know each other since almost like super little kids and his mom happened to be at the church that Sunday and so after the congregation we had like a fellowship where we were eating dinner or eating lunch and his mom he was like John, aren't you in the state? I was like, yeah, it's like my mom's trying to get a run-of-state license. My younger, his mom is about a little over double my age she's in her 50s, I'm not mistaken and we were talking and she was asking me for advice on how to get your run-of-state license. And then, as soon as she found out that I didn't go to or I didn't finish college, and she was like the whole world was kind of switched and it's like she's inside of this telling me how, oh, you should finish, oh, you should do this XYZ, and it's like you literally just were asking me for advice on what you should do for your life to get into real estate, which I already got to. And then, as soon as you find out, I didn't finish college. You're going to try and convince me to go to college. You were just asking for my advice. It's funny how the dynamic works and people, especially once you start getting it going, it's like oh, maybe I should be asking you, but until you prove it to them but you don't have to prove anything to anyone, but until in their heads it's proven that you actually managed to find a way. It's hard for them to get over the fact that you were confident enough, you were courageous enough, you were bold enough to take that risk and step into that abyss and not know what's coming out and make it out alive. So let's kind of segue into today's conversation a little bit. You've been pretty much outsourcing and delegating at a very early age and people tell us at this age that they hustle culture. You have to wear all the hats, you have to do, do, do, and you pretty much made a business around the complete opposite and outsourcing. So tell us, how does Kira come about? Where did this idea come from? Is it something you started with somebody else? Is it an idea you kind of all started by yourself? Tell us where it all began.

Yeah. So the idea I was probably running my own business for about a year and again that was as an ISO independent sales organization for a processing company. It's kind of boring, so I want to go into it. It's not important to the story, but I knew because that was right. When I graduated, I started reading a ton of business books, the one being Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, I think and that's when I started hearing about virtual assistants for the first time and how he leveraged them to be able to make more money while working less. And so, self-reflection, I realized I don't like the processing industry. It's making me great money but I don't want to manage it. I want to go start more businesses but have someone else manage my processing business. So I looked into having a virtual assistant. Essentially I spent I went from going eight hours a day on my processing business to maybe one hour a week, and then it allowed me to start two more businesses. So, yes, if you are laser focused on starting one business, you probably don't need a higher assistant yet. But if you're trying to leverage and amplify your time and amplify your businesses and your side hustles, hire a VA to manage your certain tasks and you'll amplify your income just from making your streams passive.

Yeah, and it's something that you come off and make it sound so easy, and I know there's a little bit more steps, so let's get into the technicalities a little bit. Right. When it comes to delegation, as I said, it's hard because most of the time we enter entrepreneurship thing and it's like our baby. We have this kid right, we just birthed this business and now we have to grow this business and take care of this business so it can finally leave the nest and run on its own, and it's something that almost similar to how parents feel with their kids. A lot of people attach themselves to their business and we're always taught that if you want something done, do it yourself. If you want something done correctly, do it yourself. And pretty much we have to give up a lot of that ego and not of that control. So what was that process like for you? Did you have to go through anything? And if you didn't have to really go through a different mindset shift, what would you advise some of the people that are still hanging on to like, hey, I got to be the one that has his hands in every part of the business.

Well, just like you were just saying, you know the one that has to have their hands and everything, and that was totally me. I'm very type A, I think. I think and for the most part, I know that I can perform things better than you know someone who's less experienced at doing it. But at some point you have to realize an order for me to scale, an order for me to stop working in my business and work on it In order to stop being my bottleneck. You have to start delegating, and I don't know who it was Probably so many business books reference I think it's Pareto's Law or something like that, with the 80-20 role, which, basically, if they can do it at an 80% as well as you can do it, delegate it. Get it off of your Tight To-do list, get it off your plane, start focusing on the 20% that is the most profit generating. And that's a lot of talk and not a lot of the baby steps. I know you want some actionable steps, so I'll definitely get into that later, when you want it, or now.

Yeah, it's dive into it. So like, where does one begin? Right, Because not like you just call up a VA and it's like, okay, you work for me, let's get it going. You usually have to do a lot of preparation in advance. So before you even go out looking for a VA, a higher VA, what you have to do is to prepare in advance for your business, for your endeavor, so that you can be ready to onboard as someone to help you out.

Absolutely so, even before the prep of oh, what am I going to have them do? Or I got to start making SOPs, kind of fast forward one or rewind one step or that.

Real quick, real quick, real quick SOPs. As I said, I'm right here with you. Our audience is just getting into entrepreneurship. What's the SOP? Break that down for us SOP.

I will get into that, I promise. But SOP really just means it stands for Standard Operating Procedure and really it's just a list or a guide of instructions or steps on a certain task, even using videos sometimes to a definitely encourage screen recording, but it's really the steps it takes to complete a certain task.

All right, so let's get right back into it. And it's simplicity.

So let's say you are focusing on your one, it's not a side hustle, or maybe it is a side hustle, but you're focusing on one thing your one stream of income. Let's just make it really simple and you're considering a VA. Step one is perform a self-time audit. Just literally set an alarm on your phone every three hours and when that alarm goes off, write down what you just did, how long it took, whatever. You can do it at whatever time intervals, but just really document what task you did in that time period and how long it took. Because most people think, oh, I just need a social media VA, but really they're spending four hours in their inbox a day and they should not be doing that. So really it brings to your forefront of your mind of, oh, this is how I'm spending my time and this is where it's being spent. And that is step number one by far. So step one perform that time audit. Step two analyze your time audit. That is how you will determine what skills and talents your virtual assistant will need. So step I guess step three, step four-ish, kind of in between, is start gathering the SOPs or the stand-in operating procedures that you would want to give them, because there is preparation work required Not much, but they're not mind readers. They need steps in order to function, particularly because they're likely going to be remote, and then start sourcing and recruiting, which there's two methods you can go for sourcing recruiting. So if I want to let you chime in for a second, and then I can keep going.

Yeah, so I want to dive deeper into a little bit with the SOPs part, and you mentioned earlier too, you need to focus on the profit generating activities. Some people call them money making activities but the 20% that drives your business how do you start to analyze that? A lot of people don't know really what it is that drives their business. They know roughly what it is that they do. So for anyone at the beginning, how important is it to find out your metrics and things like that so that you could be on top of everything and you could actually have a hard number that you can look on and say, hey, okay, when I do this I get XYZ in return and when I do this I get less XYZ in return.

It's extremely important, but it's not always quantifiable. You can always say, okay, if I reach out to 10 people on LinkedIn, it leads to a profit of $5 per lead. I mean, it's not really that quantifiable. But I would say you just analyze the tasks that not only are profit-generated like some are extremely obvious, like sending out 100 email marketing campaigns a day, or broadcasts a day, or making X amount of sales calls, or you know what's profit-generating, whereas sending emails or not sending emails, just cleaning out your email, or doing data entry or stuff like that that is $10 an hour work that you should not be doing. So not only should you be delegating the $10 an hour work, but you should also be delegating the stuff that brings you no joy or no passion or that you suck at because those are not going to get done. If you hate making cold calls, get a VA that makes your cold calls, because they might make 100, but you might make 10 because you hate it so much. So delegate the $10 an hour work and delegate the stuff that you hate at or suck at.

I'm going to take a little bit of a tangent here because I'm genuinely curious. You have so much fire. What keeps you going? What is your engine? What is fueling you? You have so much and you have all these business. We're going to take a little bit of hiatus from our main topic of our conversation, but I can't help but wonder.

God, I wonder that every day too. But it's just in me. I'm just really. I kind of just know my value. I know that I am capable of achieving seven figures, which is definitely my goal, your goal, it's all of our goals, and I'm impatient about it. So I want, I'm going to get seven figures. I know I'm capable of it. That's what I'm on this. That's not why I'm on this earth. I have other values, but I'm just in a rush to get there and earn it, and that's what you have to have as an entrepreneur is A lot of it is the boring work. So you just got to be able to fail and be consistent and be persistent. I just I'm blessed to be able to go about it in an optimistic way.

Yeah, let me play devil that okay, really quickly, because from a lot of the we talked about earlier big fish right, a lot of these bigger fish that gets a certain point in life where they have it all always say that to slow down, just take it out there. It's not an overnight thing. It is going to take time. It is going to be a while to enjoy the process. How do you not lose yourself in this? I have to get to this goal and actually stop to smell the roses. What is your process like for enjoying the journey that you're on and not trying to just fast track everything and then wake up one day and like, oh, all the time that I spent working on this just slipped through my hands?

Great question. I'm 100% guilty of trying to press fast forward and not enjoying the moment. I'm so guilty of that. But really it is as lame as it sounds. Definitely scheduling in time where I'm like, okay, I am going to dinner with my friend, or we're going to the beach, or I'm going on this vacation, it has to be scheduled or else it won't happen. That's me. Some people probably have to schedule out their cold calling whenever I have to schedule in fun time. That is a good point. I definitely think scheduling free time is my secret to not burning out. But everyone's going to be different, yeah definitely 100%.

I'm not doing this to throw curveballs at you, but I'm genuinely curious because, I just said, we hear so many different things from so many different people. Not all the time do we get to hear from someone else. That is our age, that's doing it right now, in real time. Let me ask you what does your life look like now, being an entrepreneur? That changed from before you really got heavy into this owning multiple business? What does it look like with your social life and the people around you? Because a lot of times, most people our age are still trying to figure it out. They're still trying to say, hey, I don't know what I want to do myself, I don't know what I'm going to master major in, I don't know where I'm going to get money, where I'm going to go after college. A lot of people are still just figuring this life stuff out. What did your social life start to look like as you started to grow, not only as a person but as a business owner, and realize that not everyone around you is on this hyper fast track to where they want to go?

So an instant decline in friends? Well, not like no hard feelings. You read books and you argue surround yourself with and there are a lot of people our age who are very confused. They're not ambitious, they're kind of jumping from job to job or still not really pursuing a career, and I really didn't want to be too affiliated with that because I didn't want that to slow down my ambition at all or absorb some bad qualities. So there is absolutely no shame in kind of gently cutting ties or associating yourself less with people who are not on the same path. Unfortunately, in my area I live in a beach town so there's not a lot of people in my area who are my age who are really ambitious. They're all older because they're all retired millionaires. So I have gotten a gravitated or an older friend group, which is fine, but my social life has decreased and a lot of entrepreneurs that you're listening to will relate. You know they kind of feel isolated, maybe like guilty for not going to bars more or something, but it's not something that brings me too much joy, so not a big loss.

Now, 100%. I was always that guy. In high school and college as well, I was the party guy. I had never smoked or anything like that. I was just like you need someone in the circle, I am your guy, let's get this party jumping. And for me it was one of those things. I ended up starting to drink socially after college, but I never, ever, was that type of person to just get super wasted or drunk or anything like that. And as of recently, I was just like there's really no point in ever drinking again. Honestly, I just been thinking because, honestly, as a, we're both in the business of working with our minds and anything that can, I guess, derail you from working at your best, and it's like there's no real point. So I'll save it for birthdays. I didn't think, well, my own personal birthday. And aside from that, yeah, to the point where it's like it's not going to help me get to where I need to get to and it's like that is critical as we get closer and closer to getting over that hump, that edge. Let me ask you another thing too. As you mentioned, it's hard for us to find people that understand us and feel isolated, right? Mm-hmm, being another young person is entrepreneur space. A lot of people think that older people, rich people, don't want to help them out, don't want to help them get to where they want to, and that they're just part of the evil 1%. What's been your experience as another young person that's been getting it going and figuring it out?

I've had actually fantastic experience with older people and I have put myself out there a lot. I did attend a lot of networking events where only older people go to, and fortunately I kind of live in a wealthy area of Florida, so they just happen to be either retired or currently working millionaires. My advice is to go up to them and not at all talk about yourself. Don't talk about your business. Just say, hey, I graduated with the Full Red Scholarship and I'm doing X, y and Z and I only ask questions, ask questions about them, what they want. People want to talk about themselves and then offer value, say, oh well, I'm actually really good at copyright error, I'm really good at I can organize your email or provide them value. And that is when they will perk up and owe you a favor or want to help you or want to assist you or just see your ambition. I mean, people want to give back, but they don't want to give back to someone who's only in it for themselves. Yeah, 100%.

Have you read Dale Carnegie's book, the how to Win Friends and Influence People book? Absolutely, yeah, it sounded exactly like you're spitting out something from that book, because that's what he talks about. And so for these networking events, most of us like being the youngest person in a room. I mean myself. I also go to a lot. I'm actually going to one after this and about an hour after we record this, but I've been. One thing I did. I didn't make a lot of money last year. One thing I did better than most people is I networked my butt off. I have so many connections. You could drop me off at any airport in a country and I'm good, I'll figure it out. I can make a call or two and I'm set forever. But like, how was it like going to these networking events, putting yourself out there, putting yourself in uncharted waters and figuring it out and being, as I said, I hate to keep bringing the word young, but not too many people on my podcast are my age, so I'm going to use it for this episode and just figuring it out being the youngest person in the room.

Yeah, I love it and I think at first it can be overwhelming, but it's such a superpower. I mean, you stand out, you people want to talk to you. You go up to people and you instantly have something to talk about, or they want to ask you a question or the funniest thing and then I've gotten the most luck with and sense of referrals and work. As I went to, it's called FAVAB. It's basically a veterans organization for old white male veterans that are like 50 to 80 years old. And here I am, like this 22 year old girl who's not a veteran, and I just show up and I got so much referrals because I just I talked to them, I asked about you know what, what they're doing, and they all just happen to own businesses after the war or serving or whatever. And it really is. It's just not a superpower but it's a weapon you can use.

Yeah 100%, and maybe I should too, because you mentioned earlier about providing value. Did you have any limiting beliefs that you had to overcome in terms of like, oh, these people have already made it, these people are already successful, they're already made around in their life. They could probably hire out or buy anything they want. They probably don't need anything. Were there any of those kind of limiting beliefs that you had to face once you got into it?

Not really, and I'll only say like I'll admit that I'm just cocky and I don't think I mean, I think a part of it is, you know, confidence. I've always kind of had it, but I truly think you can see characteristics in others and kind of just absorb it, and so if you're listening to this, I truly believe you can just go in there and just for 30 minutes just exude confidence, steal my confidence and really just provide value. And if they already have someone who's their assistant or making their videos or doing their copyright, okay, like that's not a big deal at all. Worst that can happen is they don't need you. Best that can happen is you unlock a connection that will expand your network.

Yeah. And so let me ask you what was your elevator pitch when you hopped into these networking events and they ask you hey, who are you? Like, what do you do? What was your day, especially when you were starting off? Like, what did you say when you walked into these networking events?

It changed a lot, not only because I was focusing on one business at one point. So one it was my payment processing, another one it was just outsourcing, which was outsourcing. I mainly pitched that one and then another one it was just a digital marketing at one point for people. So it kind of did change based on my atmosphere and who I was actually talking to. But it really was just kind of the copywriting trick to focus on the benefits and not the features you know, so focus on the value that you can provide to them and not the stuff that you do, if that makes sense.

No, 100%. For anyone that doesn't understand like a feature is. Let's say you have heating seats Cool. What does that do for me? What's in it for me? The heating seats will make sure that your butt is warm, especially here in the Northeast. We don't have the luxury of being a beach town. We're cold. I mean today's a beautiful day actually, but just yesterday it was like 30 or 28. And in the wintertime it gets like below 10, right, it gets colder even further up north, but it's like. Heating seats is the feature. The benefit is that your butt will be warm when you drive and it's like 10 degrees. That is the benefit. What's in it for them? And being able to share that. Let me ask you, because I know for me a lot of this stuff was YouTube University that I learned battle testing it, just throwing myself out there figuring stuff out. How do you pick up these skills? I know, was it through maybe a professor at college? I'm assuming it probably wasn't. But where do you pick up these skills? Copywriting, as you said, outsourcing, digital marketing when did these skills that you're in tool belt start getting acquired?

Yeah, so, like you said, definitely not college. I was an actual entrepreneurship minor, but they still don't really teach entrepreneurship nonetheless. But really it is absolutely trial and error. But before that, it's just like you said. It's I consume books, I read business books. I have them all behind me Podcasts, youtube videos, mentors whether they're I mean, I consider people on YouTube like at my let, like we were talking about a mentor of mine. I have never met him, might never meet him, but he's still a mentor to me if I consume enough of this content. So all of that, let's say you specifically want to learn one skill and that's copywriting. Watch copywriting videos on YouTube, listen to the podcast and get a book all at the same time. If you do three at once, you're going to pick that up three times faster.

Yeah, 100%. And let me ask you you mentioned mentors. What were some of these people that kind of guided you, who were like your invisible guys that helped you along the way? Because a lot of the time, as I said, most of these people couldn't prefer, like university they're not million dollar entrepreneur, business owner people and at the time they're just reading off the curriculum and not to knock them at all. But I said they're not at my, let they're not. You know the big household entrepreneur names. So who else did you look after and look up to when you were all figuring out this journey?

So in my personal life, obviously I got a shout out of my dad, my dad's a big mentor, you know, entrepreneur and then, like you were kind of saying to YouTube, mentors I definitely recommend and listen to like a Lewis house or he's a school of greatness. Alex Hermose he's a young book. There we go. Yeah, a hundred million dollars offers and he's young. I don't even think he's in his 30s, he's 34. 34. Alex Hermose at my lead, bradley all those great people and I focus on a different mentor during a different skill set I'm trying to pick up, so it's not all scattered, it's like phases, and then in person, I do have my own. I'm actually working for a coaching agent, working with a coaching agency right now. So, personally, sita Mungali is another mentor of mine. He's kind of big on Instagram as well, so you all should check him out.

Let me ask you, though you mentioned to another key point. I don't want people to skip over in your phases. How do you get to the same? Because a lot of the time, when you're jumping into this entrepreneurship game, it's like you just want to consume all the different books, all the different podcasts. It's a little exciting. It's something that, as you said, when you don't really get taught this stuff, that's cool. And then you finally get your hands on a lot of this stuff, it's like wow, I want to learn everything. So how do you get focused down and know what season that you're in, what phase that you're in, so that you can strategically pick out mentors and people to look after that benefit you in your position at that point in time?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, as you are building your business, there are different steps of building a business, so that kind of determines what phase I'm about to get into. Like, when you're setting it up, you'll want to watch YouTube videos on maybe making an LLC or how to set that up and how to set up your CRM and certain stuff like that. There's kind of no mentors for that, that's just kind of certain YouTube channels but not really mentors, but then it really gets into okay. Well, now I really have to focus on client acquisition and that's when you start researching it on YouTube and Google and you'll find books and then you'll find YouTube will plug the most watched people. That's how you find Alex Hermosi right, he's huge on client acquisition. And then you'll go to sales. Well, then you'll hear about Jordan Belfort, who's Wolf of Wall Street I actually he was a mentor for me at once, ironically and Bradley, who's also in sales, and Grant Cardone, who's in real estate and sales. So really it's focus on the skill and I love the analogy of like you know there's a lamp in your room and that provides light and that's great, but then there's a laser and you know that can cut through walls or whatever. That's kind of what your focus needs to be like. That's how you're going to acquire your skills. Faster is focus. Don't try to do sales and marketing and copyright all at once.

You know in a hundred percent. That was my issue and I'm very fortunate where I could kind of almost anyway keep up with it, but I was so distracted, learning too many different things. But it is this entrepreneurship game, when starting up is just a game of putting tools in your tool belt. I want to ask you, where are you taking all this? Like, you have three, what three or four business now and you're only 22. Like, where is this headed for you? Like, what's, what's the end goal for this?

Yeah. So what should be reassuring for your listeners is I don't really know. So all I know right now I haven't it's cause I have a million things I want to do. Right, I want to be the next Alex Hormozzi. I want to be a mentor and influence not an influencer I hate that word, but you know someone who can reach millions and or a coach, or a public speaker, or own my own agency, but I'm almost too young and too new to focus on one of those. So right now I am just saying yes to kind of everything, not that I want everyone to be a jack of all trades, because that, you know, master of none kind of thing.

But wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on hold. On that I finished the quote. Jack of all trades, master of none, but still better than the master of one.

Oh, I actually didn't know it ended like that.

Yeah.

Oh, thank you. So I am saying yes to a lot, just to gain experience, but eventually, once you become more specialized, definitely start being pickier and saying no 100%.

And now let me ask you what are probably been some of the most helpful tools that you've picked up so far in your tool belt that you've been using that have helped you continue to progress and continue to grow.

Ooh are we talking about like skills, like.

Skills or my son or anything like in general, like what's helped you grow them? Well, it could be like a mindset shift or mindset tweak that you might have made. It could be the actual like here's a sales script that made me, you know, 10x my business, or whatever it may be, but what are some of the tool belts that you've used to help you grow. And it could be let's spin it up into phases, right your beginning phase, your kind of middle of the road phase and, like your tool belt now phase that you're currently at.

Well, in the beginning it's absolutely not a skill, because in the beginning you're not going to have any skills Really Like, if we're being honest, you're going to think you do but you kind of don't. So it's all mindset it is. You're going to fail every day, but you're not really going to acknowledge them as failures. You'll take them as lessons, you will learn, you will pivot and you will keep going. In the beginning, it is about consistency, being persistent and doing the boring work period Because you're going to want to quit about 80 times. Now I'm not saying like, if you hate something, yeah, you can choose something else if you hate it, because that's never going to be sustainable, but you get the point. Next, honestly, I think the next phase of importance for me and for most is, like you were saying, networking. It is really getting out there, meeting people, opening the doors, going to events, using your LinkedIn, just being more social, because that really is a shortcut is who you meet. It is a shortcut. In phase three really is starting to niche down on that, like I'm the best at X, y and Z or I can do this for you because don't be that jack of all trades. It's important as an entrepreneur, but then you really do have to specialize. Right now, I really think the most value I provide to businesses. I'm really good at seeing systems, so I'm really good going in there seeing how they're spending their time and going. Oh well, you actually need this CRM because it consolidates three of the apps you're using right now. Or actually, if you just make this form, you can save three of those steps. Or I'm really good at consolidating systems and streamlining. That's not going to be for everyone, but that's kind of where I found myself.

And now let me ask you a follow up question to that how do you get good at the skill of portraying that value to someone else? Because a lot of times we have the conviction, we have the skill, but then explaining that to someone else is where it usually gets lost. So how do you get good at that skill of portraying and explaining your value that you present to someone else so that they'll be willing to take you on, especially when starting off?

I mean kind of like how you presented it, it really is having the conviction. That really is half the battle, like you can't sell something that you don't really believe in, you know it won't come off as believable. So really truly believing that you can provide value for that person and having that social proof, whether that's testimonials or whether that's doing like a sample for them to actually prove, hey look, I did this for you. So really having that conviction and then having proof to back it up, and if they're not interested, there's no point in forcing it in my opinion. I mean, sure, follow ups important, but after about seven touches they don't see it. Then move on.

Yeah, 100%. Now let me ask you, because you mentioned testimonials Usually when you're starting off, you don't have anything. What's your thoughts and idea? Because a lot of people say, when you're starting off, work for free. And a lot of people say, hey, you should charge with your work, don't work for free for your nobody. I remember, literally on one of my YouTube shorts that I posted, one of the guys that I interviewed he's a public speaker's friend of mine he mentioned that, like what he mentioned, and automated him. He was like would you rather work for the guy that pays you $15 an hour that runs the grocery store, or would you work for the guy for free that makes 10 times what the grocery store owner makes? And then one guy commented oh my goodness, it must be nice if. What about all the people in this country that can barely pay rent or something like that? And so it gets so deep instead of we? So I want to hear your perspective on this idea of working for free.

When you're in the beginning and you're hustling and you do need social proof, you do need testimonials, and it's also like if it is someone that does have a valuable network, let's say I think it's like no brainer, do the free work. I think it's absolutely worth it. It's going to have a huge ROI. They're going to refer you to people. You're going to get that social proof. I don't think. To my knowledge, I did a lot of free work. I definitely deeply discounted everything, but that's because there was a cost to me. Like, if I'm paying a VA, I kind of want to at least break even, but then charging what you're worth, you're never going to really charge what you're worth. In the beginning You're going to significantly increase your ticket, for sure, but in the beginning no lie I definitely had testimonials from my parents and my uncle and you got to do what you got to do.

No, 100%, 100%, and a lot of the time. When it comes to that, it's not like a fake testimonial. They're actually speaking to your character. They can't speak to your business yet per se, but they're speaking to your character and you run the business. So it's like if you're a good person, most likely you're going to go out and to do good work. At least make your best effort to do good work because you want to do good by the other people. So don't not be personality testimonials as well. And I want to ask you you mentioned a higher ticket. Let me ask you what was the biggest thing that you sold?

if you don't mind me asking, oh, uh, oh, uh, oh, uh, oh, uh, oh uh. I guess as weird as it's myself I was, I do. It sounds terrible, but I've contracted myself out to businesses and other startups and right now I'm working with a accounting software startup Don't know if I get disclosed a name or anything yet, actually probably can't it's revrexcom, and so basically I am helping them with their CRMs and website on the side, and I got to charge 5500 for like a week of work. So that was really exciting for me because it wasn't even like my business, it was just like oh sure, I'll help you out. And I got to charge a lot because I was able to prove myself, provide quality work, communicate quickly and it's worth. Now I have some years behind me too, so it helps yeah.

Let me ask you what was the journey like? Getting comfortable selling high and higher ticket stuff, like at 5500,. A lot of people our age don't even have that money in the bank, right, a lot of people are high age, like 5500,. That's a lot of money to most people our age to grasp and some people will, in a swipe or in a check, send you it in full, even in rights. But it also it's like asking for that, right, it's something that you have to usually get over when you're not used to. So let me ask you what was it like starting to sell higher and higher ticket prices items? What was it like finally breaking that four figure threshold of like, hey, I'm going to charge a thousand to four, five thousand dollars, and you know what was that like?

Yeah. So it is definitely intimidating at first, especially being young. I mean being young people just associate you with less credibility, less experience, less skills, everything. So fortunately I was. I worked with them for a while and so they knew what my worth is and then, as the things that were asking kind of escalated, so did my price. But really it's stuff like Alex from Ozzy was teaching, where really you throw out the highest number you can think of. The worst that can happen is they negotiate down. So really I probably would have taken 2,500 easily, but I said 5500 and they were like, okay, and I mean, that's how and it's easier via email, right? So you don't have to like, look at that high, but really know what you're worth, know the value, be able to back it up. So be able to give them an invoice and say here's what I did for you, here is what it's worth. And not, you know, don't ever give an invoice based off time, do it based off of value. It didn't take me long to do that, but it's worth way much more. So definitely have the balls to charge high and if they negotiate, they negotiate.

Yeah, and that's one of those things where you mentioned too don't charge based on your time. That's why I never understand why people are pushing so much for the minimum wage thing, because it's like literally just provide more value, boom, problem solved. And there was this one guy. He made like a funny video about it. He was like if you work at McDonald's and you're flipping patties, they'll probably pay you like 10 bucks a month, but if you learn how to whistle and you whistle while doing it, it might give you an extra dollar or two. It's like little things, like how you could provide more value, do things a little bit better, entertain people. And Hermosie, his $100 million offer book, helped me out a lot and it really breaks it down in a way that's easy to grasp. So now I just started getting closer to wrapping up. Nikki, where can we find you? You dropped a ton of nuggets and I know we took a bit of a hiatus. We talked about we were supposed to talk about delegating, but I let my curiosity run wild when can we find you? Where can we connect you if you wanted to learn more about your journey and what you got going on?

Yeah, so personally I pretty much only have Instagram. So that is just my name. So that's Nikki and I CKIE cobble C-O-B-B-L-E. I spell Nikki weird, I know. And then, if you really are, you're a hustler, you're a side hustler, you're an entrepreneur and you'd want to grow and delegate and get a VA. You don't even need to buy anything from me. Let me just talk to you and I'll help. Just like this, I'll help figure out if it's even worth it. So my website for that is just wwwyouroutsourceaidcom.

Amazing. Now it's time for a rapid fire round. Question number one what is the most impactful lesson you've learned in life?

Oh, my goodness, that's a deep question. Right off the bat, the most impactful lesson I've ever learned, god? It's probably something extremely cliche, like there's no such thing as failure, just lessons, or something like that, because if you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to learn how to fail, get up and try again. So I'm going to stick with that.

What is the most admirable trait a person can have?

Oh, admirable. Gosh, I'm really cocky. I'm a kind of cocky person and confident, but I also think humility and generosity is huge. Like, just like how to win friends and influence people, really flipping the script and asking what do you do, how can I provide value to you? Having that humility and that generosity from my pure stance, I think that's extremely important.

If you had to change someone's life for one book, which book would you recommend?

Oh, I might have to reference it again. So how to win friends and influence people is what opened my mind to this whole world. That was my first personal development book I ever read. Now, when it comes to business, the two or three books I recommend the most are the one thing. Four hour work week. Atomic Habits is also good, but that's not really business. And maybe I'll throw in that Alex Ramosy book $100 million offer is that captures a lot.

I mean, if you like the one thing, stay tuned, gary Keller. I'm gonna have him on the podcast sometime next year. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it. Actually, I do know exactly how I'm gonna do it. I have a plan and I'm already playing in place, but let's see what is the legacy that you're trying to leave behind.

The legacy that I'm trying to leave behind. I guess that's really similar to just emphasizing the grind and getting out of that rat race. For people our age because we really are conditioned to want to work for other people and just okay, go to school, get good grades, work for someone else, retire at 65, die, and I don't want that for me or anybody else our age I want us to have passive income, I want us to be able to travel, I want us to be normalized. So I don't know if that's really a legacy, but that's something that I do. It's an idea that I want to help normalize.

Yeah, no, 100%. And if someone wanted to embark on their walk to wealth today, what is the first step that you recommend?

Embark on their walk to wealth. I'm going to go back to kind of outsourcing, slash, delegating, but not really is. Just take down one step of send alarm every three hours or something and write down what you were doing and how long it took you to do it. Because you were to succeed in anything, to start scaling, to start working on your business, you really have to know where your time is going and to how to optimize it, optimize your time, and that just starts with a simple time audit. So I would recommend that.

You've now finished taking the first step. Now let us help you take the next one. Subscribe to our newsletter at walk to wealthcom. That's, walk the number to wealthcom, so we can keep you moving on your journey. We'll see you on the next episode of walk to wealth with John Mendez.