Give me 14 minutes, I’ll give you my top 40 business advice.

Today's video is what I wish I had when I was first starting my career. Honestly, I wonder how much farther I would have gone in in my career if I had access to the video that you are about to watch today. Now, look, I'm not complaining. I've done okay for myself throughout my career in online business. I've made over $und00 million and I was able to achieve everything that I always dreamed of as a kid. Well, actually, not everything, but I guess that's a topic for another video. Look, my point here is I'm not unaware of how uncommon this is. And a lot of people ask me for advice. I receive thousands of messages every day from people wanting to pick my brain and understand how I see business in general. I think it goes without saying that I can't answer everyone. And that is why I decided to create today's video. I've gone ahead and distilled my core beliefs around business and making money online into 40 hypersp specific bullet points which you are about to see. So, buckle up. Now, before we get started, a quick heads up. A lot of this is going to be very tactical and maybe you won't be able to fully comprehend it. So, if you are a beginner and you find yourself lost during this video, then maybe it isn't the time for you to apply everything here. And if that's the case for you, if you want something step by step built specifically for a beginner such as yourself, I recommend you watch the video. I'll go ahead and leave it in the description below. This is super beginner friendly and it's going to teach you all the principles and systems that you need to follow so that way you can start making money online. With that out of the way, let's get started. My first piece of advice, make a lot of people a little richer and you're going to make yourself a lot richer. Look, one of the easiest ways to succeed in life is to figure out how you can add value to people or businesses, make them more money, and as a default, you're going to get paid a percentage of that. And I wanted to put that first here because a lot of people just overcomplicate business in general. If you look at a lot of the most profitable businesses to start, these are businesses where you get paid a direct percentage in accordance to how much value that you're bringing. My second piece of advice is definitely not one you're going to hear in most podcasts or most feelgood self-help videos. You are going to get screwed over. Be ready. Someone at some point will throw you under the bus to get some sort of short-term advantage. It's fine. It's a part of the game. And I think when you have that expectation going in life, you take it a lot less personally. I find a lot of people are like, "How could they do this to me?" And they spend so much time like ruminating over these things. Whereas, if they just set their expectations clearly at the beginning, which is like, "Hey, life can be very cutthroat. People are going to me over." That's just life. And that's not to say that you should like lay down and take it. No, you need to have super strong boundaries. You need to protect yourself. Like a lot of the 38 other points in this video is surrounding that and how to actually implement that. But my point is when you go into life with the expectation that it's going to happen, you're also going to do everything in your power to protect yourself from it. It just stops the pain and it stops the sometimes months or even years that people go through of like how could this person do, you know? They just make everything about them. And quite frankly, life doesn't work like that, does it? It's not all about you. Humans are humans. They're going to do what they're going to do. Stop being emotional about it. Expect for it. Prepare for it. Plan for it. And let's move on to the third one. And that is that marketing is a license to make money at will. Look, if your goal is money, you need to understand marketing. Someone who understands human psychology, marketing, direct response marketing specifically, will never have a hard time making money. If you know how to build offers, how to run ads, how to create conversions, well, then you have an unlimited license to print money. Look, every top sales guy, either publicly or in private, will admit that being a top marketer, is much better than being a top salesperson. You need to understand that marketing is one to many, aka dozens of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, whereas sales is one to one. So, you just can't really compare the two. Fourth piece of advice, if you're working for other people, if you're working for someone, study their business inside out. I think working at great companies or taking apprenticeships is amazing, but I also see a lot of people wasting their time with it. When they're working in a business, they have their blinds closed and they're not paying attention to everything that's going on. That is a huge mistake. You should be taking advantage of every single business that you're working for in terms of understanding how they operate because at some point, you'll probably want to start your own thing. And by then, you're going to be properly equipped with the right information and systems that you need to run your business. Number five, sell what people want to buy and not what you want to buy. If you genuinely want to make money, you have to take yourself out of the equation and only care about what the market wants and not what you would buy. Next up, today's actions are tied to next year's results. Your days should have a wave of calm to them. They shouldn't be chaotic. You shouldn't need everything to happen today. everything that you do, every move you make is aiming towards the future. So every time you take an action, if you're like, "Wow, I had a like insane kick-ass day." Like this was a 10 out of 10 day. Like I gave it my all. I left it all out on the court today. Don't think that tomorrow you wake up and you yield the results of that. Go to bed that night and visualize, okay, in a year this is the results that it's going to yield. Like everything you do, have at least a one-year outlook in the future of. Once again, I think it's very important to frame your expectations correctly because if you, you know, and a lot of people do have this idea that, oh, I I gave it my all today, so tomorrow I'm going to see the results and then tomorrow or next week, they don't see those results and then they get disheartened. I think a lot of business lessons and life lessons honestly just come down to your worldview and your expectations around when the results are going to kick in. All right, next up, revenue means nothing. Look, I see so many people brag online about how much their business is doing, while at the end of it, they're taking home 5 or 10%. Revenue means nothing. worry about your margins. Big numbers are absolutely worthless if you're working your ass off and taking home a 9 to-ive check. Number eight, own a small pond before you own the ocean. Look, before going into a market that's hyper competitive, instead you should try to hyper niche down and have that segment unlock. From there, you're going to gain all the business insights and operation insights that you're going to need when you eventually move upwards and you have the business capacity to do so. All right, number nine. This is super important. Learn every part of the business so that way people don't take advantage of you. Look, if you don't know the basics of coding, you don't know if someone in your tech team is bulling you with fake deadlines and claiming something is hard when it isn't. And that same concept applies to literally every area of your business. A decade ago, back when I had an agency, I used to write thousands and thousands of pieces of ad copy, emails, sales page copy, all of that stuff. So that way eventually when I did hire a copywriter, he wasn't able to tell me that something would take two days when I knew myself that it only took a couple hours. All right, number 10, contracts, contracts, contracts. Every employee, every client, please do not take other people's word for it. Have enforcable contracts. Look, I have colleagues I've been working with for years and years and years within my company, and I actually do trust them with my houses, my cars, with some of them, some of my actual bank accounts, and they still have contracts within the business. Number 11, have a story to tell. People don't remember what you've done, how successful you are, or how many cars you have, but they remember your story. The more people know about your story, the more people trust you, and they will want to do business with you. All right, next up, you will overestimate the kind of products that people want to buy. A lot of people want to do done for you offers, things that are super complex, things that involve coaches, one-on ones, etc., etc. Meanwhile, one of the most profitable offers that's currently running on Facebook right now is literally a psychic reading delivered through an AI automation. People who want to see their future. Look, for a lot of people, they might think that's dumb, but it works. I'll be honest with you, the average IQ is lower than you think. If you are in this to make money, you don't need to over complicate it. People want easy things to consume. Number 13, protect your word and your reputation at all costs. Once you have a tainted image in the industry, it's very hard to go back. Almost impossible. Your word is your bond. Never go back on it. And at the highest level, people don't do business because they enjoy what you told them on a call or in a meeting. They do business because they talk to five or 10 people and they ask about you. They get a reference check on your character. And depending on other people's answer, they will either do business with you or not. Marketing tactics can't save you when you're sitting at these tables. All you have there is your word. Next up, lose right now so you can win in the end. So many people are focused on short-term cash plays instead of looking at the bigger picture. Look, I'll be honest. A lot of times, even if you're already reputable at your craft, it's actually worth it to settle for a lesser paycheck or do something that's below your pay grade if it means that it will grant you a bigger opportunity down the line. Do not be short-sighted. Being a small fish in a huge operation can make you way more money than being a shark in a small pond. Number 15, make money first, improve later. I see this behavior all the time. People spend months building a product or coming up with an offer, they make it pretty, beautiful, and they waste an ungodly amount of time and resources on it, and when they finally ship it, nobody wants it. In business, you're never certain if your product or offer is 100% going to work. That is why you test it in the marketplace first before you improve. It's a simple lesson, but very few people actually put this in practice. Build the MVP, try to sell it. If it makes money, then sure, go ahead and invest in it. And if it doesn't make money, well then great. You just saved yourself precious time that you would have otherwise wasted. Number 16, your network is a gun and a vest. It's quite crazy because a lot of deals will close simply by letting people know that you guys have mutuals. But it's not just about closing deals. A lot of people will feel less inclined to screw you over if they know that you are wellconed. So that's why I say a network is a bullet and a vest. Next up, people already did the dumb stuff that you're going to do. Read more books. Starting a business with no preparation is dumb. So, please, if you're in the earlier stages of your journey, go read some books. In fact, I made a revised list of seven books that changed my life. And in my opinion, it's one of my most criminally underrated videos that I uploaded this year. So, feel free to watch that video after this. Number 18, how to never lose clients in your life. You see, most people just do their jobs and they don't lift a finger after that. Whereas, if you have a service-based business, if you want to keep clients forever, your job is the least that you should be doing. It's a given. You should do your job and then be constantly adding more value that aren't necessarily within your line of expectations. People don't want to get rid of people that are proactive. Next, results come from depth and not volume. Look, I'll be honest with you. If you're doing a lot of volume of, you just have a lot of people who are actually successful in business are doing things out of depth. They have a certain knowledge of what they are doing. There's a certain knowledge, okay? There's a skill to it. And it's not just let's throw at the wall and see what sticks. It's let's throw then analyze then let's throw some more then analyze and the further along you get in your career it's actually more about depth thinking time planning strategizing. Now to begin with when you just first get started it actually is just about you know blind action but as time goes on depth is the most important thing and that actually takes us to number 20. Understand that you are in it for the long run. You see a lot of times in business you're going to feel stressed out. You're going to want to switch business models. You're going to feel inclined to make a lot of short-term moves. But these aren't chess moves. Okay? you're just tired and exhausted. So, please, no matter what, just always maintain a long-term plan in your head. 21. How to vet people correctly. Never ever listen to what a person says. Look at what they do. And in general, if you're trying to gain an understanding for someone's character, a lot of times you can set these little, I don't want to say traps, but you can set these little tests. Just drop things here and there and see the way that they reacted because then before someone has a chance to actually you over, you already know what their character is. is, you know, one of my business partners always says, "Look, a snake can't hurt you if you know it's a snake." Next on the list, amateurs trust people. Pros have contingencies. Okay? Trust is giving someone a gun. Intelligence is wearing a vest. All right. Next up, understand every single number of your business. You should see your business as this symphony of numbers. And it's this orchestra that all works together in unison. And in an orchestra, if one of the instruments is out of pitch, it ruins the entire experience. That is what your business is like. You need to tune your ear. tune your brain to start to see what numbers are wrong. But as time goes on, it's actually going to be so easy to look at either your business or any other business and go, hm, the pitch is off on this, this number, this instrument, this sounds off. So, if you haven't tuned your ear in that way yet, don't worry, it does come with time. Number 24, build a flywheel. Okay? Most people sell one thing and then they're on to the next. But giant businesses, real outliers, they sell multiple times to the same person and not just the same products, usually far more expensive ones. And that actually ties perfectly with business advice number 25. The first sale is not how you make money. You need to understand the concept of the lynch pin and how the first sale is just a door opening so that way people fully enter your shop and see the rest of the stuff that you have for sale. Next up, measure your team's performance with behaviors and not KPIs. Look, to be honest, you actually don't need to be a maniac about your KPIs if you can track people's behavior. You see, if you can instill the proper culture within your company, well, then 95% of the time, your expected KPIs will come into fruition anyways. So, of course, you should still have KPIs, but you should also understand that they are a symptom of a certain behavior within your company. Number 27, study yourself like a mad scientist. I remember when I started to realize that the business only grew when I was healthy and operating at the highest level. You need to study yourself like a mad scientist. You need to see which kind of things you do in your day-to-day that makes the next day better. You need to have that organized and noted somewhere. Imagine finding out 10 things that if you do today, you know with 90% certainty that tomorrow's going to be a great day. Once you understand those things that help you operate, you're invincible. Number 28, build your offer around negative risk. You see, most of the time when you're pitching something to someone, they're often not concerned about the benefits. They're worried about their investment. So, if you can show them that they will be saved and they won't lose anything if things go south, they are far more likely to buy from you. In fact, you can even take it a step further here and show them that you yourself will end up losing money or losing something else valuable if they don't get their result. That's called skin in the game. That's called conviction. And when customers and clients see this, they are far more inclined to hand over their money. Next up, do not add more to your offer. Add bonuses. You see, it's much better to sell one thing with 10 bonuses than a thing that has 10 features and zero bonuses. People will think they're getting 10x what they're paying for instead of 1x. All right, 30. We're 3/4s of the way through. Behavior beats intelligence. So many people are so proud about their IQ, but being smart means less than you think when it comes to getting what you want in life. Look, there's actually a lot of data out there to suggest that most people with super high IQs are either broke or living paycheck to paycheck. However, people with high conscientiousness, regardless of their IQ, are objectively more successful than the average person, which means the real indicator of success is not IQ, but behavior. Now, don't get me wrong, IQ does give you an edge. But if you don't do anything with it, you're just a Ferrari sitting in a garage collecting dust. The guy who's worried about his future and willing to work himself to death to achieve his goals will become successful. The genius who can't get himself off of his couch will not. Next up, constrain yourself and your team on purpose. I'm sure you've seen this before. If you give yourself 1 hour to do something, it will probably take exactly 60 minutes. Whereas, if you give your team 1 week to do something, they'll probably spend 5 days without any meaningful progress and then do everything in the remaining 2 days. If you can squeeze the timeline of certain things in your business, you can 10x or even 20x your productivity and results. Number 32, this might be difficult to hear. Being assertive is better than being friendly. Maybe this comes from my Russian roots, but in the business world, being friendly isn't correlated with trust. People have been burned so many times by a friendly face. They want someone they can trust, and people trust people who are real. Look, no one's happy and golucky all the time. Be assertive and straight with people. In the business arena, people want a ruthless pro on their side. Someone they know will get the job done, not someone who's just going to say nice, friendly, sweet words. Number 33. As an owner, your job is to do things that don't scale. As a business owner, you shouldn't be doing things that scale. That's actually for your team. You should be doing things that don't scale. You should be thinking, strategizing, coming up with ideas, researching. Your job is to be creative and to set the right direction for everyone else. So, you should actually do things that are unscalable because by nature, that's your role as the owner of the company. Next up, document, delegate, and don't do it again. As an investor, I look at so many businesses, and I see multi-million dollar companies doing this time and time again. Employees have to relearn how to do basic things which as a result slows down an entire operation. Everything that's being done operationally should be extensively documented so that way people don't have to ask you how to do it and most importantly so they don't do it wrong. Number 35, connections are really important. Look, I'll be honest with you, especially as you get further on in life, a lot of business will just come through connections. It's an unfortunate reality. Look, maybe you are the best at what you do, but a competitor with a better network and a shittier product a lot of the times will run laps around you. That's just the game. So, focus on increasing your network little by little. Get into more expensive circles. Don't ever neglect the power of building a good network. It is the ultimate safety net. 36. Manage your nervous system. Look, if you're nervous and you're anxious, your business will reflect that. If you're always paralyzed, your business will reflect that. If you're calm and focused, your business will reflect that. This is a very hard skill to train, but it's incredibly important. 37. 1 hour of deep work is better than 5 hours of superficial work. Shallow work will not move your business forward. Deep work will. In fact, shallow work is very dangerous because that is how you miss small details that can have huge negative impact down the line. Number 38, the business is you. Everyone is watching. Look, I'll be honest with you. Your team is looking up to you and they are constantly assessing if you're a good leader or not. They're always looking if you're on top of your game or maybe you're not. If you're showing up late, if you're not taking it seriously, trust me, they won't either. However, if you're making moves, if you're showing them that the business is moving forward, if you're an inspiration to your team, then everyone will give their best efforts to make your dream a reality. Number 39, how to close 100% of prospects. You see, most people don't close prospects because they don't do any of their homework. When I used to run a marketing agency, I researched my prospects background. I found every detail that most people would ignore. A small detail, a small thing they posted 3 years ago that they probably forgot about. And during the call, I'd bring it up. And as soon as I did, I would see their eyes light up. And that is when you know that you've won the call. After that point, there's nothing you can do to screw it up. It is the ultimate subtle signaling of someone who's a professional and someone who's going to go above and beyond. Number 40, and last but not least, build your own luck. Look, you can't really control what happens in business, but you can increase the likelihood that you're going to get lucky if you're putting more effort and more hours than most people. It's not a guarantee that you win. That doesn't actually exist, but it's going to increase your odds of success. Oof. Wow, that was a long one, but arguably one of the most insightful videos I think I've recorded in a long time. So, if you've watched so far, congratulations for not having the attention span of a goldfish like most people nowadays. Genuinely, and I say this in the most sincere way possible, I respect you for being so dedicated and hungry for this information. You are exactly the kind of person that I make these videos for. Now, if you already have a thriving business, I want you to go and implement everything that we've just spoken about in today's video. But if you aren't making money yet, then I want you to go ahead and click that first link in the description. It's going to take you to my most popular YouTube video this year, a full step-by-step for a beginner that's looking to get started online. And as always, I'm watching from afar and I'm rooting for