189: Live With Purpose, Overcome Limiting Beliefs and Focus on One Thing with Author, Entrepreneur, and Speaker Joe Apfelbaum

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert Plank Show Episode 189 live with purpose, overcome limiting beliefs and focus on one thing with author, speaker and entrepreneur Joe at full bomb, hey everyone and welcome back to the Robert Plank show. We talk about making money and building an online business. Our guest today is Joe at Phil bomb, and he's the CEO and co founder of Ajax union, which is a digital marketing agency based in Brooklyn. Joe is a public speaker, a certified Google trainer and a published business author, and he's the host of the popular podcast, CEO Mojo. And we're gonna talk about building an online business and lots of fun stuff today. So Mr. Joe, how are things with you?

Joe Apfelbaum 0:42 Oh, things are just amazing. Life is so great. I'm so fortunate. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm

Robert Plank 0:48 excited to have you on, and I'm glad that you're on. So I mean, what's, um, what's what's been on your mind lately, and what do you have to say about building an online business? So

Joe Apfelbaum 0:58 on my mind lately is, how do you live a life of purpose, the life that you don't just live a life of purpose, but living also a life on purpose, doing everything with intent, doing everything that aligns with your philosophy, and knowing what to say no to. In terms of an online business, there's never been a better time to build an online business where more and more people are buying things online and doing things online. And for me, the way that I see building a successful online business is having a solid plan, knowing what you want to accomplish, not just doing it for the money, but doing it because you're super passionate about solving a problem, super passionate about adding value. Too many people go into a niche just because they think that they're going to make the maximum amount of money in that niche, but they're not really excited about the niche. And what ends up happening is they try to get rich quick, they try to make money, and they don't end up really adding enough value as somebody that would be passionate and excited about that niche. So if you really want to be successful, you have to be passionate, excited about what you're doing, simply because it might not make money, so you're not going to have a good time if it doesn't make money. If my business didn't earn money, I'd still be having a blast running it. Thankfully, I'd figured out a way to make it make money, because we're the best digital marketing agency in the world. We're super amazing. But I love marketing. I love digital marketing, I love technology, I love creativity, I love the people I work with, and I love our clients. So that's why we're able to have these types of amazing results, because we have amazing people doing amazing things. If you don't love your business, if you don't love what you're doing, it's a problem,

Robert Plank 2:42 right? And that makes a lot of sense, especially for people who are trying to get through those first few rough years, or get through, you know, whatever it takes to grow the business, to get to the fun part. And so, I mean, what are your thoughts on so there's that aspect of it. But then what are your thoughts on people who have sort of the other extreme of the problem, where they have a lot of passion for something that will not make money. Like, how do you figure out if you're in the right place,

Joe Apfelbaum 3:06 if you have a lot of passion about something and you haven't figured out how to make money doing it, the question you should be asking is, how much value am I actually doing? How much value am I actually adding? Because if you're adding enough value, money will follow. So how can you add even more value with what you're doing? I was just speaking to somebody that that is a religious scribe, and we were talking about what he does and for the parts that he's charging for. He makes a living, but he doesn't make quite enough. But then there are so many other things that he's simply not charging for. And I was like, This is so valuable. This is the reason why people come to you. This is the reason why people would pay you, and you're not charging for any of that stuff. Once you flip it around, once you do the other stuff that's not quite making you a living. Don't charge for it, but charge for the service. Charge for the stuff that you really stand out with. And that's what people that's why people come to you, and that's what people would pay a premium for. So you really need to change the way that you think about your business, and you need to cross pollinate what you with what you love doing, and kind of like mix it with something else that is more monetizable. So sometimes you might love doing photography, but you may not realize that just doing photography for you, know, just landscapes or whatever, might not make it for you. You might have to do photography for pets or photography for weddings and so on. And kind of like shift your change a little bit. So instead of taking pictures of buildings, take pictures of smiling couples and so on, so just shifting what you're doing within your same industry, and figuring out where the money is that it will align with your passion. That's sometimes what a lot of people need to do, and sometimes people are so stuck thinking that that their passion cannot make them money, that it ends up not making them money because they can't even see how it could possibly make them money, because they have this cell. Limiting belief that doing this passion is not going to make me money, or there's somebody in my life that's stopping me from being successful. They don't really want to be successful because they don't want the other person to judge them. Or, you know, there's a lot of other issues that that are really much deeper rooted when you see somebody that's doing something that they're actually passionate about and they're not. And you know what? A lot of times, it has to do with where they are in their life, right then maybe they need the support, or they need to give back to support in a certain community or in a certain something, and that's why they're involved with something. But they're really not passionate about that thing. They're really not excited about that thing, and they're excited in the moment because of the people around them, but it might be time for them to change and to get to something else that will really get their juices flowing. So, you know, it's a matter of like, how much value are you adding? Is this something that you really love doing it? Are there other issues in your life that are stopping you? What's really at the core of this? Why are you not making money,

Robert Plank 5:59 right? And I can totally relate to a lot of that stuff. And what, from what I'm hearing from what you just explained a lot of those examples, was like, there's the fear of success, thing that's holding a lot of people back. Another thing that seems to hold people back is that the support system they have are people who maybe aren't successful or kind of discouraging, and that leads to all this guilt with the money. And then another thing I heard in there was that to overcome, that if someone has a really good reason why, like, a really good, you know, mission, purpose, kind of like how you mentioned about, about your agency, how you guys want to be the best in the world, that kind of overcomes a lot of the things that we find ourselves stuck in, I guess.

Joe Apfelbaum 6:38 Yeah, and look, a lot of times it has to do with you. Mentioned something, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You are the average of the five things that you spend the most time doing. So if you look around in your life and you see, are you hanging out with people that are more successful than you, or are you hanging out with people that are just as unsuccessful as you? You know, believe it or not, there are more successful somebody is, the more they want to help other people. I see this over and over and over. I see a lot of very unsuccessful people saying, if you do this for me, I'll do this for you. And I lead I see a lot of very successful people saying, with a with the mind of abundance, I'll do anything for you. You have to do nothing for me. That's a success mindset. If you don't have enough of those people around you, if you don't have enough people that live in a state of abundance, that are willing to help you and support you and cheer you on. So it's about living in a state of abundance. That's the key. The key is, live in a state of abundance. Hang around with people that are in a state of abundance. Are you with me?

Robert Plank 7:36 I am and so does that? I mean, it sounds to me like if someone is stuck with the wrong crowd or the wrong mindset. I mean, how do they get out of that, and how do they get those better friends and take those steps that they're supposed to be taking when

Joe Apfelbaum 7:49 you change yourself, when you start changing yourself. So a lot of people get stuck on, oh, if I hang around with the wrong people, I need to change them. No, you don't need to change anybody. When you start improving yourself when you become amazing yourself, all the people around you either become amazing with you or they become allergic to you. And most of the time, they become allergic to you. They become jealous, they become resentful, they become the people that try to put you down and say, Who the hell are you to do that? Who the hell are you to be great? Who the hell are you to be successful? And when you say, No, I don't care. I'm going to be successful. I'm going to do this there. You're going to become detached from them automatically. People are either going to love you or they're going to hate you. Most people are just busy beating me mediocre. So they're not loved and they're not hated by anyone. They're living they're playing it safe. If you're playing it safe, you're never going to see the true success. You're never going to be able to get motivated. You're never going to be able to go out there and make that impact. You can't play it safe. If you want greatness, if you want to take your life to the next level, you got to start taking your life to the next level in wherever you are, and that means reading more books, developing yourself, figuring out how things occur to you, writing, reading, listening to podcasts, getting out there helping other people. Ask yourself, if you're not successful, ask yourself, who's less successful than you, and how have you helped them lately? Who's there's always somebody that's less successful than you. There's always somebody that has less than you, always, no matter where you are. I recently saw a thing, there's this person that's driving, that's, that's, that's driving their bicycle, and they're thinking to themselves, Oh, I wish I had a you know, there's somebody driving like a car, like a decent car, and he looks and he see somebody is driving an amazing car, you know, like a really high end car. He's like, Oh, I wish I had that amazing car. And there's somebody driving a crappy car, looking at the guy that's driving a decent car, saying, Oh, I wish I had that. And somebody that's driving a bicycle looking at the guy that's driving a crappy car, saying, I wish I could afford and somebody that's, that's, that's walking, looking at the guy in the bicycle, is like, if I wish I had a bicycle, I'd be able to walk further. And somebody in a wheelchair looking at the guy walking, thinking to himself, only I had legs and I could walk, right? There's always somebody that's worse. Off than you. So finding that person asking yourself a What am I grateful for? Do you have legs? Are you walking? Are you do you have an online business? A lot of people don't even know how to get started with an online business. And there you are complaining that your online business sucks. Find somebody that doesn't have an online business and help them get started. And then you yourself find people that are more successful than you and ask them, How can I add value to your life? And when you start adding value to other people's life, even if they're more successful than you, there's something you could do for somebody else. Go out there, find those people and then learn from them, see what they've done. Ever there's somebody out there that has done it before. It might have to do with working harder. It might have to do with working smarter. Might have to do with buying an e book. You know, I used to be very against buying e books for myself. I used to be very against investing in books and in seminars, and now I'm totally forward. I have somebody recently said, Joe, why do you have so many coaches? And I thought to myself, Why do I have so many coaches? Because the coaches are adding so much value. But I used to be the guy that would say coaches, coaches are a waste of time. The reason why they're a coach is because they don't know how to be successful themselves. And that was a self limiting belief that was wrong. And I proved it wrong by hiring coaches and paying coaches $2,000 an hour to help me grow.

Robert Plank 11:15 And that's cool, and I keep I've experienced that too, and I've heard that over and over that, you know what, once you it relates back to that abundance mindset, once you kind of pay the right for the right people or the right tools, and it's going to come back multiple times, as opposed to just kind of, kind of saving your pennies. And you mentioned that, that video about the the guy in the in the car, looking at the guy with the smaller car all the way down, the guy in the wheelchair. And I've seen that, that video too, and I'll, we'll post it on the show notes for this interview. But sort of along those lines, I mean, what are your thoughts on if someone is, is too content, right? Like, because, and I can, kind of, I can relate to everything that you just mentioned about how, you know, like, it's, it's tempting to to focus on others instead of myself, right? And by by being helpful, instead of trying to change people that sort of like redirects that, that whatever, that energy or whatever, for me, and then it leaves me open to being like, okay, like, I'm open to a moment to my fault and my mistakes and stuff like that. But what I've seen from some people is that some people kind of look at it and they say, Well, hey, I'm doing pretty well. I'm better off than most. And they just kind of use that as an excuse to not take action. So what are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on people who are sort of too content with that?

Joe Apfelbaum 12:32 Well, there's, there's a very big difference between between being satisfied and being fulfilled. And a lot of people don't make a distinction between being satisfied and being fulfilled. It's okay to be satisfied, it's okay to be fulfilled, it's okay to be fulfilled. But if you lose your hunger, if you're just satisfied and you're not hungry anymore, then you're gonna be you're gonna slowly be living a slow, painful death. You need to always keep your appetite up. You only need to always keep your hunger alive for success. Hunger alive for growth. If you're not growing, you're dying. That's the that doesn't mean you don't be feel fulfilled. That doesn't mean that you're not proud of what you've accomplished. You can say, oh my gosh, I am so happy. I'm better off than most. I'm so grateful. But use that as fuel to not only help others, but help yourself get to the next level. You always have to be growing. And those that know that, they're never they're never satisfied. They're never satisfied. Yes, they're fulfilled. They live their the beautiful day. Every single day, they're like, Wow, this is my ideal day. I'm living my ideal life. But if I get my eye off the ball. Well, let me tell you, everything will fall down like a house of cards. You need to keep growing your competition's out there. They're going to bite your head off. They're going you got to live your life with hunger. You can never be satisfied. If it's your body and you're like, Oh, I could do 100 push ups. I never have to do a push up again. You know what's going to happen? You're going to become a person that can't even do one push up anymore. Very, very soon. You if you could do 100 push ups good? Could you do 200 Could you do them standing on your head? Could you do them with six kids on you could you do them with with a weighted vest? You know? Could you take it to the next level? Don't be don't be satisfied. Because when you're satisfied, what happens is you become complacent. You need to constantly be on edge. Need to constantly take things to the next level. Feel fulfilled that you can do 100 push ups. Feel fulfilled that you're generating a million dollars, but generate 2 million generate a million dollars in profit, generate a million dollars in profit without having to spend all your time in the office. Generate generate more money, help more people. Start businesses for other people, like, what can you be doing to support the world more? Your calling is not to just sit around and collect some fruit and sit around and watch the fruit. No, your collect. Your job is to collect some fruit, pull out the seeds, plant them, start an orchard and show other. People How to Start orchards.

Robert Plank 15:01 That's a good attitude. But so what are your thoughts on? So if you, if you strive to be fulfilled and not necessarily satisfied, right? Like, don't be like, basically, like, full of food. But what are your thoughts on? So, like, I've got to have that drive. I've got to keep on, you know, bettering my best, or however you want to call it, but, but do you think that there's a trap some people can fall into on just like never being happy and being so driven that they don't enjoy the moments? And what's the answer to that? Of

Joe Apfelbaum 15:31 course, of course, the answer is, it's art. There is a skill, which is, there's a skill, right? Being having the hunger and having all that, that's something you got to build like a muscle. You got to constantly keep growing. And then there's whether or not you're fulfilled. That's it. That's art, that each person's that's a very individual journey. That's a very individual journey. You could have a guy who's, I know, a guy who's a multi billionaire, he doesn't feel fulfilled, he's angry, he's upset, he's not in control of his emotions, but he he made a lot of money in his life, and he's going to continue to try to get bigger and get more money and make more money and make more money. But he's miserable. He's miserable. There's a lot of wealthy people that are miserable. The question is, can you be in a state of happiness? Can you be in a state of fulfillment no matter what's going on in your life, and if you're not doing the self work to do that, no matter how much money you have in the world, you're never going to feel fulfilled, you're never going to feel peace, you're never going to feel happiness, you're never going to feel joy. You have to do the work. You have to do the work, otherwise you're going to end up suffering no matter how successful you are. A lot of people are sitting there, they're like, if I had a better idea, I'd be more successful. If I had this, I would I would have that. No, you don't need to have anything. You are amazing. You are incredible. You deserve the best right now the way that you are. It doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for more, but you need to realize that where you are right now is where you need to be, and you need to be present in the moment and not get caught up in what the most successful people in the world sometimes can get caught up in, which is not being in the moment, not feeling fulfillment, which is an art, and it's very individual to each person. And that

Robert Plank 17:11 makes a lot of sense. And it sounds like the way that you're describing it is that it's like, almost like a daily sort of, sort of thing. It's never quite done. And because it's different to each person. There's no easy answer, and we have to just always be making that effort to not have that negative self talk and to have all that fulfillment and that passion and stuff

Joe Apfelbaum 17:31 there's there's a certain level of awareness that we as human beings need to have, and that if we stop having that awareness, we lose the awareness that awareness is where are we right now? Do you even know that you're breathing, Robert, do you even know that you're breathing? Do you even know that you're sitting? Can you feel your feet on the ground right now? When was the last time you thought about how your fingers feel? When was the last time you thought about your forehead? I was recently walking down the street and I see a guy walking and his head's all crunched up, and he's walking with intent, and he has this thought in his head, and I think to myself, If only I could stop this guy and make him think about his forehead for a moment and relax his forehead, because he's putting so much pressure on his physical forehead because of whatever he's thinking about. His entire foreheads all scrunched up, and he's putting tons of pressure there. And he's walking with intent. And the walk is he's not working out so hard. He's working his mind. There's something stressing him out big time, and this. And the second I tell somebody, when I see somebody, I say, what's going on? Can you breathe? Can you calm down? You look like you're not calm. You look like something's going on. And they tell me what their problem is. Suddenly I see their forehead relax. Suddenly the scrunches go away, or they get calmed down. Or when I make somebody laugh, suddenly their facial muscles relax, and I see there's a very, very big difference, and it's so powerful. And if, and if we if we lose that awareness, if we get caught up in the day to day, and we don't take a moment and step away from our life, take a moment and step away from what we really want, from what really matters, if we don't take a moment to if you have kids, to take a look at your kids and just look at them, just enjoy them. Stop trying to make them perfect. Stop being a helicopter mom or a helicopter dad, and sit there and just enjoy their laughter. Enjoy how they're able to be free, free from an agenda, free from a mission, and they're able to enjoy life. If you can do that even for one moment, even for one second, you're better off than most human beings that are completely unaware that most human beings are sitting there and they're killing themselves with stress and they're suffering when you could just take a deep, deep breath right now and relax.

Robert Plank 19:36 That's pretty powerful stuff. And when you're talking about all this, like awareness sort of stuff. Like, what keeps hitting home for me is that it seems like, like we all have, like, 1000s of things every single moment that we're doing just on automatic pilot, that, you know, we have to because we subconsciously need to breathe, subconsciously need to, like, have our facial muscles do this or that. But then you mentioned, you know, breathing, or my feet on the ground, and then I. Can't not think about my own breathing, right? Or I can't not think about my forehead. So it sounds like half the battle is just people realizing that they're doing these things, and they're just kind of in a in a runaway, sort of, sort of infinite loop, and they need to figure out what they're doing and change little things and and awareness seems like half the battle. Yeah,

Joe Apfelbaum 20:20 awareness is a very, very big part of the battle, and if we don't take a moment away from everything to become aware, then we get stuck on the plan. We get stuck on the tasks that we planned a while ago that may not apply today. We're just doing the do because we set a habit to do the do, and we forget that. Hang on a second, the do is not working. I got to change it up. But we never stop to strategize. We never stop to wonder, are we ruining or there's a reason we have a headache because we didn't drink enough water, like we have a habit not to drink enough water. So drink more water. Drink more water. Be, be have the energy that you need. Energy doesn't come from eating more food. Energy doesn't come from potato chips. Energy doesn't come from those calories. Energy comes from oxygen. Energy comes from from you, from you being able to have your cells create energy. It's not the food that creates energy. So like, if you think about a lot of these concepts of awareness, like we're not we're not even aware. We're just doing things that are counterproductive and that are not giving us fulfillment, that are not giving us happiness, that are not doing our best, and it's just a bunch of habits and stuff. So you look at a person that's just not being successful, it's not because they're not smart, it's not because they're not capable. A lot of it has to do with number one, awareness, not being aware of how they're spending their time and what they're doing, and then just not testing and not challenging themselves and just living within their own self limiting beliefs. I always say, don't just have a purpose. Live with purpose. Don't just have a purpose. Live with purpose. What that means is, even if you're going to breathe, breathe with purpose. Take a deep breath. Breathe with purpose. Fill up your lungs completely. And a lot of the stress that we feel has to do with us just not breathing. So if you want to market yourself and you want to be successful, you got to show up like a marketer. You got to show up with creativity. You can't have all those things stored in your brain. There's a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen. Have you heard of it? Yes, I have such a powerful book, because he says, your brain is not a storing tool. You're not sitting there storing stuff. And a lot of us just try to store all our tasks in our brain. Your brain is supposed to be a creative tool that comes up with ideas and brainstorms and solves problems, but if we're just all stuck up, all cluttered with our to do's and our task list and all that stuff, we don't have the bandwidth to use our creativity and you know what's gonna make you money. Know what's gonna make you money online, that creativity, you taking the passions and the skills that you already have today and using your creativity to be able to monetize that in a whole next level, way,

Robert Plank 23:03 awesome. And what I'm hearing a lot in those last couple remarks, and in a couple of those examples, is that it sounds like a lot of people are just going after the symptom and not actually the cause, like if they don't feel well, or if they're not creative, they're kind of putting a quick fix on it, or a band aid on it. And it sounds like, for a lot of people, there's something more, more deeper that needs to be fixed. And so I kind of want to switch gears a little bit, because, you know, we're getting into some really deep sort of stuff. And I want to talk about you. And I want to talk about, um, kind of where you were before you set up all this stuff, before you had Ajax union, and sort of like, where you were before you you had all this stuff figured out. Can Tell us about that a

Joe Apfelbaum 23:42 little bit. So I was, I was an entrepreneur that had, I remember, so like, take me back married, for, for, for, let's say, three years. Just bought a home. I'm an entrepreneur. I have a full time job, and I have seven side hustles, right? I'm doing I have a construction company. I have an IT company. I have I'm fixing computers for people. I'm selling stuff on eBay. I have a web design agency. I'm doing graphic design for people. I have this little advertising website. I'm doing some real estate, and I have all these stuff, all the stuff going on. I'm up till three in the morning. I'm working, working, working. I'm severely overweight, and I am still I'm plowing through, plowing through, plowing through, putting my relationship on the side, putting my own health on the side. Never exercising, never eating, right? Just like keep plowing away, drinking more Snapple, having more sugar, more caffeine, more cigarettes. And I didn't realize. I didn't realize that I wasn't living a fulfilled, happy life, like I was always happy, but it was always something missing. It was always quality missing. I've never I never was I couldn't relax, because when I relaxed, I was always disheveled. I'm relaxing. I can't. Relax. I gotta make more money. I gotta make more money. I gotta make more money. I gotta make more money. I gotta work harder. I gotta, I gotta be financially independent. I can't, I can't spend one second doing anything. And then I realized one day, like looking back now, I realized I could have been so much more successful if I would have just focused on one thing that I was passionate about, and I spent the time strategizing. And I didn't know any of that stuff back then because a I was thinking about tactics. I was thinking about I like those. I was looking for the right idea. I was hoping that if I did all these things, one of them would struck straight, like I would strike rich on one of them. Magically, I didn't even have a plan. So it was like I was looking for magic back then. I was like, I have a full time job, so I'm getting my some of my bills paid, and then I have all this other side stuff. I wanted one of them to become magic, and none of them ever became magic. None of the side things became magic. It didn't. It was until I found the right partner that helped me focus and believed in me more than I believed in myself, that allowed me to be able to create Ajax union, have the vision for it, and then grow to be one of the fastest growing companies in the United States, who were number 178, on the Inc 500 and then even continuing to grow, having dozens and dozens of employees servicing over 1100 companies. And kind of like really turning this company into a major success, but I needed to turn myself into a major success along the way. That means I needed to lose 80 pounds. That means I needed to become more aware. That means I needed to become a writer when I was afraid of writing. I needed to become a public speaker when I was deathly afraid of public speaking. I need to be comfortable being a persona online when I was a when I was the private person, the person who was afraid of having his photo online and instead said, I'm a private person. I need to learn how to network with billionaires. When I was afraid of getting in a room with paupers and having a conversation, I was frightened to speak to a guy who was successful. So am I supposed to be successful if I'm afraid to be next to people that are successful? Now I moderate rooms of billionaires. Now I moderate rooms at the top, top of the line. You know the people that who have made it or inherited it, but made it.

Robert Plank 27:09 And, you know what? All that stuff, it reminds me of, what's that quote? Like, always do what you are afraid to do. And, and that's pretty cool, because it sounds like you went from where a lot of people are kind of spread too thin and hoping that one of the one of the ventures, or one of the side hustles, kind of will, like, win the lottery more or less. And then you did all those things that that you talked about so far, right? You took care of yourself. First, you got your health in order. You found the right, you know, team and the right partner and stuff to get you focus on just be really good at the one thing, as opposed to just being spread out on all these other things and switching gears and putting out fires. You

Joe Apfelbaum 27:46 know, one of the biggest things that I used to, one of the biggest self limiting beliefs, was people say, Okay, what's your 10 year plan? And I'll think to myself, 10 years, are you kidding me? What's my three month like? What like? What am I doing in the next year? What am I doing in the next month? What am I doing? Forget about 10 years. I don't, I don't know what's gonna happen. Doesn't 10 years don't matter. 10 years don't matter. Most people think 10 years don't matter what who cares about 10 years? 10 years is so far away. But if you have a clear picture of 10 years, people underestimate what they could accomplish in a decade, and they overestimate what they could accomplish in a day, in a week and a month, and even in a year, they overestimate what they could accomplish. But in a decade, everybody underestimates what they could accomplish. If you could set a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge goal, like a massive monster goal, for a decade, and then every single day work on that goal over the decade, you're going to get very close to that goal. You're going to exceed your expectations, because a decade is a long, long, long time. And I never, ever planned for a decade. I never sat there and thought, in a decade I want to do X. I never did that. And if I would have done that, and I looked every single day, what am I doing today towards my goal in the decade, I would have, I would have gotten much, much closer, much faster, much further. If you look at Warren Buffett, right? You take a look at Warren Buffett, there's a chart that says how much money Warren Buffett had when he was 1317, 21, and so on. He the first time he ever had millions of dollars was in his 30s, like if you think about it, he started so young, so young, till he had 620 million, and then he eventually had a billion, and then eventually he had 65 billion, or whatever he has. Now, it took him a lifetime to build that. It took him a lifetime to take the guy that's the richest guy, or one of the richest guys in the world, and you put him up there, and you're like, how was he when he was 21 How was he when he was 17? How was he when he was 30? And you'll see he just, he just stuck to his thing. He did his one thing. He did it really, really well. He took a lot of risks. You know, he's not the average person. You. Again, do you want to do what he does? No, not necessarily want to do what you do. You have to be comfortable with your plan. Success is very, very different to each person. Most people don't know what success means for them. They're busy measuring success based upon somebody else's success. Success is very individual. If you want to be successful making money online, you need to think about what success looks like for you, not for anybody else, for you personally,

Robert Plank 30:25 that's some pretty deep stuff, and it kind of puts a lot of lots of scary things into perspective for all of us and so, so can we talk about Ajax Union a little bit, because that you mentioned a few times, and you mentioned that like you're you're you're right, you won these awards, and that you're the best in what you do, but could you kind of tell us about like, why you're the best and what sets you guys apart, what makes you different?

Joe Apfelbaum 30:47 Well, Ajax union is a digital marketing agency. We do B to B lead generation. We help companies that are 10 million to $100 million in revenue generate leads online. When we started our company, we were everything to everybody. Finally, we decided to focus that we were going to do SEO for small business. Small businesses, and we did that for a long time, and then we wanted to take things to the next level. So when we did SEO for small businesses, we were the best at doing SEO for small businesses. We came up with a plan, articles, blogs, classified ads, directories, social media. We helped small businesses for a very small monthly fee, be able to get massive search engine optimization. It worked really, really well. People saw a great return investment, and we had amazing customers. When we wanted to take things to a whole new level and impact organizations significantly, we realized that we had to really limit ourselves in terms of how many clients we could service at once so that we can really make an impact. We had to hire very, very high end employees, get very high end customers, and our focus now we're the best at what we do, because we penciled and we looked and we said, Okay, we want to be amazing marketers that have the best technology, the best creativity and the best communication. Are we the best quality designers? No, we do okay. Design Are we the best quality content writers? No, we do okay. Content writing. So you know where we're the best. We're the best at getting you results. If you're looking for a performance based digital plan, if you're a B to B Company, and you're looking to acquire customers and you have a marketing budget, we can help change your business, because we specialize in this. See, a lot of people don't specialize. They're all over the place. A lot of agencies, they don't want to leave opportunity on the table. We say no to 90% of the people that contact us, and we refer out to a lot of other agencies, because we know what we're good at. Say they say, know what you're deliberately bad at, and we know what we're bad at. We know where the when we say we're the best. We know what we're the best in. We're not just the best in everything. I as a human being, and you as a human being, you suck at something. The question is, are you willing to admit what you suck at, and are you willing to brag about what you're the best at?

Robert Plank 33:01 And that's awesome stuff. And that kind of comes full circle with with what we're talking about. As far as, in the beginning, people might, might need to kind of cut up the things they do and look at what they're good at, what they're not good at, what makes money, what doesn't make money. And in the same relation of your journey, where you know you were trying to be the jack of all trades, and what you realize that you're bad at these things and good at those things, and you realize that you can do what you personally are good at, and then have someone else do and so I think that everyone listening whatever business that they're currently building are probably in the same kind of situation where they can take that inventory, they can take that stock of all these things that they're maybe doing, and they can just focus on what their business is, and have you guys at Ajax union take care of the marketing and the results and what you guys specialize in. Yeah,

Joe Apfelbaum 33:47 a lot of times they already have a marketing team in house, but for some reason, they're not executing. And they come to us and we're like, Okay, I see, we see you're not executing on the most important things we can execute for you, your team is not going to be able to give you the results that you need, because they're just focused on doing all the day to day stuff. And we come in, we look at it from a results perspective. We get to understand your business. We do a workshop with you, and then we just start executing. And then you suddenly start seeing results, and your business starts growing.

Robert Plank 34:15 Awesome. I love it. So where can people go to find out more about you guys,

Joe Apfelbaum 34:20 to find out more about Ajax union, you can go to www dot Ajax union.com. A, J, a, x, u n, i, o n.com, to find out me, about me personally, you can go to Joe applebaum.com, J, o, e Applebaum, you can Google me. You could search me on LinkedIn. I put a daily video on Facebook, so you can check out my facebook page at facebook.com/joe Applebaum, I'm also, I'm pretty active on Instagram and Snapchat and all that other stuff. So go check out my stuff. I have a podcast, CEO mojo.com I'm also on iTunes, and I have a TV show on grow time.tv where I put a weekly video how people can grow from average Joe. To CEO. I'm putting the finishes touches to my book, average Joe to CEO. You'll be able to find out more information about that on Joe. Applebeem.com perfect.

Robert Plank 35:06 So when you were talking about having that giving mindset, that abundance mindset, you sure weren't kidding. You definitely have a lot of stuff to be able to check out. Yes,

Joe Apfelbaum 35:15 absolutely. And for me, the more I put out there, the more I give, the more I get. But I don't do it. I don't give so that I can get. I give because I genuinely feel fulfilled when I know that I'm impacting your life, when you're listening to this right now, and I created an aha moment, whether it was a book tip, whether it was a concept, an idea, something that'll change your life, I know that I'm changing people's lives because I get the feedback. So it's very, very powerful when I see that in real action, perfect.

Robert Plank 35:43 So everyone should go to those websites. Ajax union.com Joe afflemon.com CEO mojo.com, and grow time.tv man, I think that a lot of people should listen to this show, maybe 234, or five times, maybe even once a week, Joe. So I want to thank you for stopping by, because it was awesome. Pretty powerful, life changing stuff. So thanks for coming by my

Joe Apfelbaum 36:03 pleasure. I really enjoyed doing it, Robert. Thanks for interviewing me.

Robert Plank 36:07 Thanks for listening to today's program. Start from the beginning or view past episodes at Robert plank.com/episodes, you.