How to Rebuild Your Business After Losing Everything Overnight (A $100M Navy Veteran's Playbook)

Kayvon Kay0:00Imagine waking up at 6AM to find a $50,000 a month business gone. Google rolled out an update overnight. Every site you ranked fell off page one, and you have to be standing at attention in a navy uniform by seven. That was Douglas James. Within about two and a half months, he was back at 50,000 a month. He went on to build a coaching company that crossed $100,000,000 in revenue, then lost over $11,000,000 in two quarters. And that low point led him to build LeadFi dot a I. We get into the past he spent years running from, why success never silenced it, and how he chooses between the comfortable door and the scary one every single day. This is a From The Vault episode, a conversation first released in season one that we're bringing back for another listen. If you heard it the first time, I think something new will stand out. If it's your first time, you're in for a good one. This is the Vault. Let's unlock it.

Kayvon Kay1:09And we're back on another episode. And today, we have the myth, the legend, the one mister Douglas James. So happy to have you here. I know that we've we've crossed paths couple times to get to this show. You were telling me before the show you just came back from LA. So I wanna say appreciate you early morning being here with us. How are we doing today, Doug? I'm excellent, Kevon. Thank you so much for having me, brother. Yeah. I really, really appreciate it. Can't wait to get in because I know you have so much to share and give here. Just for those that are listening, tell us who is Douglas James? Yeah, man. So

Douglas James1:45I was... You know, I married two beautiful daughters, gotta start with that. A man of faith and, you know, served ten years active duty, you know, in in the Navy, United States Navy. I eventually found digital marketing, realized I didn't wanna be in the Navy for twenty, thirty years, I and started to make a lot of money. Right? I I started to work with a lot of local businesses, helped them generate leads, got really good at running ads. And, you know, after about six months, I was making my annual salary that the military was paying me on a monthly basis. So I... That got the attention of a lot of active duty, you know, guys that I was working with. So they were coming up to me, hey. How do you do this? How do you make money? And so I just got into coaching, you know, and I end up helping over 10,000 active duty members transition into the online space. We scaled that company up to over 100,000,000 in revenue, helped a lot of people, did a lot of good. And, now I, you know, am building a company called LeadFi, which is a software that helps business owners identify real time buying power when somebody like opts into your funnel, your marketing, you basically know their exact credit score, their income, how much they can spend on the credit cards, all that stuff. So we're focused on that now. But I I just love disruptive technology. So anything with, you know, AI, blockchain even, you know, all this stuff that people are, like, scared of that don't know how to use and, you know, that's that's inevitable. That's gonna be around for the next fifty, hundred years. That's gonna really transform how we work and shop and eat and like everything, you know, find spouses or whatever the case is. I love that stuff. So, you know, I consult equity for a number of companies doing so. I'm doing a lot of stuff, but at the end of the day, for me, it's just always been about, you know, helping other people get to where they're trying to go. I remember early in my journey, from when I got out the military, I was reading, you know, Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins. And I just remember the quote, man, it's help other people get what they want and you'll have all you want in life. And that always resonated with me because I was hyper successful in the military because I was focused on my sailors and I just transitioned that energy to people on the outside

Kayvon Kay3:59in the civilian world and entrepreneurial world, and I was able to find success. So I'm a big believer in giving. If if only it was all that easy though. So I wanna really deep dive in here. Yeah. And and, you know, we... If we go back, you're you're in the Navy again, obviously, thank you for that service. Let me ask you this. What was it you said that you found digital marketing? How how did you find digital marketing?

Douglas James4:23Yeah. Good question. I I mean, I legitimately was just... Well, let me tell you this story. So I... It was, 2014, 2015, somewhere around there. I... You know, the the data, it's, probably late twenty fourteen. I get back from a deployment. I was in Papua New Guinea, Fiji in The Philippines. It was a humanitarian mission. We were literally building schools for kids out there. Right? And it's still to this day, it's some of the best work that I've ever experienced or done as a human being. Right? You know, over there, it's very rural. Like you go there, people don't have clothes, shoes, or just the, you know, kind of like modern things that we're used to. So I remember the last day we were... I think it was Roja City, we're in a super rural part of Philippines. And, you know, I was a... I'm a corpsman or was a corpsman and I work with the Seabees. The Seabees are the construction battalion. So if they... You know, anything that needs to be built, they build it and I go to make sure they don't hurt themselves or take care of them if they hurt themselves. So I remember we were going up this hill, this really high hill, and we're carrying boxes of crayons, coloring books, you know, stuff for the kids. And we get up to the top, and we didn't see a kid the whole, like, few weeks we were there. And we get up there, dude, there's literally hundreds of kids. And he just ran up to us, hugged our legs saying, thank you. Thank you. USA. USA. Like, it was... I remember it, like, clear as day as yesterday. And I just remember just feeling this super euphoric feeling of, like, of what it feels like to do amazing for someone else. And I've had validation and feedback from people over the years, but to actually see it in the the eyes of kids, I was like, holy crap. You know? So it made me... It really shifted my way of thinking at that point because I was in the Navy at that point for only five years and I had just made e six. So if for those that aren't familiar, e six is like a high level supervisory position in the in the US military. Like, I can be in charge of hundreds of people. And I'm 86 in five years when it takes the average person twelve years. So that goes to show you like how much of a like go getter I was. Right? Yeah. You keep it short. But, you know, I felt like I did all I wanted to do in the military. And then having this experience with the kids, was like, man, how do I do more cool shit like this, but not just with my time, but monetarily so I can have a bigger impact. So those kinds of like shifts were were happening in my mind. And I, you know, I wanted to have a family too. I wanted to have kids. Yeah. Right? So I get back from that deployment. My girlfriend, Sonya, was waiting for me, which is my wife now. We solidified our relationship, eventually got married, had two beautiful daughters. But, when I got back, I immediately started to Google and search things. I'm like, dude, how do I, you know, make money online? How do I fire my boss? How to kill my job? Dude, so I was like searching things that a lot of people searched when they're lost and tired of their job and like, you know, sick of the rat race. Right? I was doing all of that. And that kinda landed me on finding search engine optimization, SEO. Right? I would go you would go to Google, you see the ads at the top of the search. You're like, why are these businesses here? Right? And why do I wanna click them before anything else? Because they're at the top. Yeah. So I found a guy on YouTube talking about SEO and how he's making all this money. And so I started just to learn from him. And this is back in this is back in 2014?

Kayvon Kay7:50Yeah. Like, last Like, just like the the... I call it the second wave. Like, was that fur... Well, there was like the three wave, but like the first, you know, the first wave is like the early two thousands when, you know, it was what it was. And then I find, like, the 2008 was a wave, and then 2013 to about '16 was another wave. So you got in, like, early Yeah. And you saw what was going on. I wanna just go... I think it's super important because what I'm hearing from the story, like, something really changed on that trip. Like, something really changed in you perspective. It was almost like you had you had, like, an internal, external transformation. Can we talk about that? Because I I believe your business is a direct reflection of who you are on the inside. And if you're confused and scared and lost on the inside, your business is gonna be confused, lost on the outside. So for you, it seems like something really clicked.

Douglas James8:41Yeah, man. It's interesting point to... Point out there. So, you know, this kinda dates back probably a lot further than even that short story. You know? And I'm I'm not gonna go too deep on this, but, you know, I I came from a childhood that was pretty chaotic. You know, I kind of experienced things that really no children should ever experience, and I have two beautiful daughters. So, you know, if you're you're a parent... You have kids. Right? Yeah. I got two girls myself. I got Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, dude. So you know your kids, like, you're... They're sponges. You know, their daddy's Superman. Like, anything he does or mommy does, it's like gold. They take it as truth, you know. And, you know, I saw things growing up that, you know, I I should never see. So I I now have, an example of what not to be of a parent, you know, so I wanna pour the best I can into into my kids. But what I found, you know, through that experience of, you know, trauma, going to bed, not knowing if I'm gonna eat, you know, physical, verbal abuse. So it was just all all the things you can probably imagine, to be honest with you. But, I ran away from home at, 16 years old, you know, because I was fed up with that lifestyle, you know, and that eventually got me into military because it was either that, go to college when I was, a 1.4 GPA high school student or or... Yeah. Yeah. Actually, yeah. You know, I I got caught shoplifting at Target at a young age too. So, you know, I... You know, and I did go to jail for for like a night, you know, and it was horrible. It was either that jail or like homeless, you know, so go to the military, you know. So I found what I was doing though is I was like burying my head in the ground like an ostrich and just focusing on success. Like, that's all that mattered to me. Like, be great, do good, and everything else will figure itself out. And that worked for a good amount of time, and a lot of entrepreneurs do do that. But, you know, but what I found, at least from my experience and a lot of people that I talk to, they're usually running from something. Like, what is it you're running from? Right? And for me, I was, like, running from dealing with those memories and that trauma that I... That cooped up over all those years, you know. And, you know, I I hit the high rank in the military. I made a bunch of money, helped a lot of people, did a lot of good, married my beautiful wife, had two daughters, created a non figure company, on my way to my second non figure company. You know, doing all these things, but what I realized is success doesn't silence your soul. Right? Yeah. You have to address those internal things that are that aren't in you. So I did add one step, one point, turn around and look back and say, hey, I'm not gonna allow this to live rent free in my brain anymore. You know, I'm gonna forgive and let it go and move on so I can have growth and sustainability for my own family, for my own kids. Because it was showing up on how I led, how I might have shortly reacted to my wife, you know, all of these things, making bad decisions at times with money. Like, I'm not perfect. I've made, you know, bad decisions in business life in general, you know. So I had to let a lot of that go, you know. So that transition was like paramount for me because I was whole... It was holding me back, like, you know, like a ball chain wrapped around,

Kayvon Kay11:55my ankle. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I hear... I I see a lot of entrepreneurs and, I mean, I think a lot of people go into entrepreneurship with that type of, I would say, past trauma. You know? It's to prove something. You know? They're they're... It's to prove them... To prove their story wrong and prove and to prove everyone else, you know, right or whatever it might be. But let's get in because you said, you know, a $100,000,000 company. That's, you know, that's not that's not small business there. Like, you know, that that takes a lot of work and takes... To me, it takes finding or cracking that code. Like, what was that? So you've said you found SEO, then you started getting into SEO. How how did you going from SEO turn into, like, a $100,000,000 business?

Douglas James12:37Yeah. I... So SEO allowed me within about five months to replace my annual salary in the military on a monthly basis. I was making around $50 a month. Okay. About doing what? Because I wanna be very... You know, for people that are listening, like, what does that even mean? Like... So what I would do... I I was helping local businesses get ranked high on on Google. But Okay. Specifically what I was doing... So that's like the overarching. But what I would do is I would create these micro micro websites, like in the small cities. So like I live in San Diego. In San Diego, there's these sub cities, you know, Escondido, Chula Vista Yeah. Encinitas, and they all have maybe a 100 to 300,000 people population. So instead of ranking for San Diego, I want to rank for Escondido. There's only 200,000 people there, so I can get a site ranked super quick for a carpet cleaning company or a dentist or something because nobody's going after it. Everyone wants San Diego. Right? They're forgetting about the micro city. So I would get a site ranked, my own site ranked within like thirty days, sometimes a week. Number one for dental, carpet cleaning, auto detail, limousine company. And then I would just basically get... I would find the... I would I would target a business owner, I would get their personal contact information. A lot of it lived online on Google. A lot of these mom and pop businesses, like, they'll put their personal contact, like, on the the website. Back in 2015, it was super easy. Or you can use a tool like Sales Genie and pay 50¢ and get their phone number anyway, their their cell phone. So I would do that and then boom, rank the site number one, all of a sudden, boom, it's blowing up with leads. People are calling the phone number, texting, emailing, and I would just redirect that traffic instantly over to that business's cell phone number. Now they're getting called like crazy, like, what the fuck? Why... I'm getting all these leads to my phone. This is amazing, but what the heck is going on? So I will let that run for a day or two, and then I'll call them up. And I would say, hey. Hold the door here. Okay? This...

Kayvon Kay14:40Wow. Wow. Not cutting you off, but wow. You're telling me... See, this is so gold. This is this is what most people don't do. They don't... You were actually building the site, ranking the site, getting people to call. Like, let's call this... This is a dry cleaner in in a in a small town in San Diego. All of a sudden, his phone's going off the hook going, I don't understand why, but this is amazing. And then couple days, let's call it let's call it what it is. Maybe a couple weeks, couple days, maybe even a month later, you call them and say, oh, by the way, have you noticed that you've gotten some more calls and... Yeah. That's me. And... What? I love it. I love it. Keep going. I just wanted to make sure I was hearing this correctly. Okay. You got it. Yeah. I would call them and say, hey.

Douglas James15:33And I would... Every single lead when they got a call, they would hear a whisper message, new lead from Douglas James. And then the person started talking. Right? So they kept hearing Douglas James when they picked up the phone. So so... What? Yeah. So why... How do you do that? It's through the call software that I was using. You can do a whisper message. Hey, new lead from Douglas James, press 1 to receive. Right? So they would click 1 and then instantly be connected to the person that was calling my website for limousine party bus services. Whatever it might be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and then I would say, hey, this is Douglas James. How's those leads been working out the last couple days? And it'd be like, dude, this is amazing. We gotta sign up. Like, well, I don't know you, but I love you. Like, let's let's get it done. And then what were your packages going for? Would just... I would just basically sell them, like, $20 a lead, you know. Oh, okay. So you're selling leads. Awesome. Okay. You're selling leads. Yeah. Yeah. I was I was selling leads. So every time someone called...

Kayvon Kay16:31Every time they received a phone number in their CRM, I would just charge them $20. That's it. Because... And you could control that because you were... You knew how many calls were coming in because you were building it. That's it. That's it. Wow. So you control that whole kind of supply chain. You weren't relying on them to tell you how many leads they were giving you. Not at all. I own the website. I had the the tracking. I knew how many leads and calls it was generating. I had all the calls recorded,

Douglas James16:55literally everything. So if if if they didn't wanna do business with me or they wanna try to screw me over and say, hey, do you wanna pay you? I would just turn it off and and then I would immediately send it to another business owner.

Kayvon Kay17:06You know? We're gonna take a short break to thank today's partners.

Kayvon Kay17:10Let's be honest. Most people spend more time researching a new laptop than they do researching their own investments. That is a mistake. If you're a business owner, investor, or someone who follows markets because you wanna understand where the economy is headed, you need good information, not more noise. That's why I wanna tell you about Weiss Ratings Plus. Weiss provides independent ratings and research across stocks, ETFs, cryptocurrencies, banks, and more, helping investors evaluate opportunities using data instead of hype. If you're looking for a smarter way to research investments and make more informed financial decisions, Weiss Rating Plus is worth a look. Go to weissvault.com and learn more today. That's weissvault.com. So it... I... I've I've myself, I've created a lot of businesses. I've seen a lot of people come up with ideas that just go nowhere. There must have been something before this... A greatness that that that that you knew that clicked. Like, what was it that thing that everyone... Because I... Everyone can go try this, and it's not gonna work. But something changed for you, something worked for you where you're like, I got this. Mhmm. What was that? Like, if you can recall, what was the thing that just turned everything on for you?

Douglas James18:29Yeah. I had super fast success with that. And, I mean, what really what clicked and solidified in my brain was the first dollar I ever received. You know, I remember getting a check for, like, $7 because my first deal was actually... It was a big deal and they and they actually negotiated. I eventually settled in on like 20 to $30 a lead, but they wanna do performance. And it was actually better for me because they gave me a third of their net margin. Right? And I remember my first check that they ever cut me was for, like, $7. And I was like, holy crap. This works. You know? And I took my wife or my girlfriend at the time, which is my wife now, out to dinner. We celebrated, and we did it up, the wine, everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. And that's when I'm little. This this is it. That... Because my... I have a I have a mentor. His name is doctor Jeff Spencer. He was he was an Olympian, and he trained, like, 40 gold Olympians as well. And he was with Lance Armstrong through, like, not all nine Tour de France's. And, yeah, he's a... He's like a OG. He's a Yoda. He's 78 years old. But anyway, he talks he talks about how there's a, there's a roadmap to success. And it starts with, a daily grind period where you do work, but you don't necessarily expect a certain result in the short term. You just put your head down and do the work and you trust the process. That's it. You just trust the process and you do the thing until something happens. And that's what I did. And it's not until you get a result that belief is established because you're basically riding on hope the whole time. So until you get a result, that's when you're like, oh, this does work, I have a result, I've proved it to myself, now it's even easier just to keep going through that daily grind phase cause you're always... You know there's a belief at the end of that tunnel. So I just put my head down dude for two or three months learning this. And all that money really came in in the back half of that five or six months. So I almost made no money for about three months to four months actually. And I just kept I just kept building and doing doing my process. So that that's really what like, you know, solidified it for me. But here's here's the kicker with this dude. The way I was ranking sites and the way I was learning from to do this turned out to not be so great. So what happened was one day, and I had about 20 something clients paying me somewhere between 1,000 to $2,500 a month back then. Okay. Yeah. And they were all ranked number one on Google for all their perspective, carpet cleaning, auto detail, whatever. And I wake up one day and all my sites disappeared from page one of Google for their perspective search. And I'm like, what the f? My clients are calling me. Yeah. Oh, what's going on with the leads? You know, I'm like, I don't know. And then I get an email from Google that says Google released a new algorithm update. It was called the Penguin. I'm like, what the is this? So basically, was it was flagging people that were using Black Hat processes to ranks websites. I don't know what the... I don't know what black hat was. I was just following what the YouTube guy was saying or what the guy was learning from. Turns out

Kayvon Kay21:48the way I was doing it wasn't it wasn't like they didn't like that. Right? Yeah. Actually a lot of them. Because that's a... It's very important what you just said there because some people don't know that. I know that a little bit because I I... I've dabbled in the Google space. Right? There's like the... This concept of black hat, which is nowadays, I I could be wrong. Like, not many people dabble in that because it's just, like, it's not a long term play. Yeah. How would you... How do you explain Blackhat?

Douglas James22:15It's probably... I would probably just say it's ways of loopholes or or gamifying systems and manipulating systems to get the the result. May... You know, in in some ways, maybe not compliantly, what I'll what I'll just say. It's just going going around their policy, finding loopholes. Right? And black hat could be considered for a lot of... There's white white hat ways to do things and black hat things. But then there's the gray area. Right? And then people will say the gray area. And... Yeah. You know, honestly, when I think back, a lot of it was was gray zone because Google's policy has actually changed many, many, many times. Because of these things. Yeah. And now you got things like AI. So now they're writing terms and conditions about all kinds of things that weren't even relevant ten years ago. Right? So this is always a navigating a transforming landscape that we're having to deal with, but it's basically saying like there's the right... Kind of the right way to do things and kind of the wrong way to do things. Right? Yeah. That that... And and I was doing it, I guess, the wrong way, but you had no idea because you were just following this guy on YouTube and you were like, this is working.

Kayvon Kay23:24So going back to that story because we're leaving this on the cliffhanger, like, so what happened? So now you're getting success, you're feeling good, you know, fast forward, you're taking a life out on dinners, and you're looking at this going, okay. I'm making more money than I ever made in my life in a month than I would make in a year. And it seems like you were, you know, well, obviously, 100,000,000, but I call wildly successful. But before it became a 100,000,000, you're, you know, doing x amount of dollars a month and then boom, you wake up one day and it's like it's over. It's like someone shut off the taps. What do you do? Yeah.

Douglas James23:57Well, at that point, most of my clients were like, this is a scam. Like, screw you. Basically, like, they had a very negative reaction, unfortunately. You know? And I, you know, I was like, what what I'm... I'm sorry. Like, what do you want me to do? But I did have a small handful of clients that were, like, willing to hang out and, like... Yeah. They trusted you that knew that you were not doing this Yeah. On purpose. Yeah. And it wasn't... Everyone was, you know, but some people, you know, they're short-tempered. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Thing that goes wrong, they bail out, whatever. I had like five or so clients that were like sticking around. So I I was like, look, I'm gonna learn Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Like, because I would look... I'll go on Facebook and I would see the little, you know, sponsored ad and I'm like, okay, that's something there. Okay. I'll go on Google. I see the the the sites rank the top. Let me figure out how to do that. So now now now I started looking at that. And, of course, I sucked at it. I didn't know what I was doing in the beginning. Lost like almost all those clients or after two weeks, thirty days they were gone. I had one client that stuck around, it was my first client, the limousine party bus company. And they were like, dude, let's just figure this out. Let's go back to a performance model. I'm like, okay. So I really put my head down, learn Facebook ads, learn Google ads. And, yeah, and after thirty days, they cut me another check for like almost $8, you know.

Kayvon Kay25:16There's so much. I wish we had so much time. There's so much things I love to talk about from the entrepreneur perspective of that kind of moment where you're at the high and then you'll lose it. And when you do, I believe, when you have good relationships and you do good things, good people will stay around because you just said they're there. They they can see the long distance versus just a short distance. But you as an entrepreneur, you're sitting there in that... Even that first thirty days, you went from making all this money to no money, learning something so uncomfortable back to the drawing board. What's going on with you in that moment? Like, how how are you staying in the game? How are you keeping it above water and not, you know, losing your hair and and and freaking out?

Douglas James26:03All I gotta say is I had the belief. I knew this world was legit. The online marketing world in general. I just... I... But I'm... I was smart enough to realize that SEO is not the play. I need to pivot. Right? And that's when I noticed ads. Right? And I would find people online talking about making $4 with $1, know, on paid ads because it's literally like an ATM machine that gives you instant returns, you know. So I was at that moment, I was just extremely extremely determined. And yes, I was very very frustrated because I basically lost my $50,000 a month business overnight. Instantly, instantly. Like, you know, it was devastating. It it truly was. I I I show... And and I had to show up to work the next morning in uniform. Right? So this happened at like 6AM. I gotta be at work at 7AM in uniform and attention checking in. Right? So...

Kayvon Kay27:05Yeah. Dude, it was... Are you talking about you're still in the military this morning? I'm active duty. Yes. Oh, I had no idea. Sorry. I thought... Okay. So I I thought you're... I I assumed. See? Don't ever assume. I I assumed you were already done. So you're in the mill... I'm not laughing. I'm I'm I'm... You know? Yeah. No. I cannot... This is... If anybody who's an entrepreneur can understand this stress, you're you're trying to sit there in active duty while this is going on behind the scenes. My god. Like, I... Again, the strength, the resilience, the determination to stay in the game. There's no joke there. And I'm gonna assume back then, you didn't deal with your shit either at that point. You hadn't dealt with this stuff we were talking about earlier. So you got all that trauma coming up in so many which ways. Yeah. Man, you were a... You must have been a wrecking ball inside.

Douglas James27:54I I was. But here's the thing. The success and drive to figure out business buried the trauma. So that was a good thing. Capped it. So that was good, but I was very much like, dude, yeah, I was I was a wreck. I was a wreck. I was at lunch, I was taking two hour lunches. I was going to meet clients during lunch, changing out of uniform, getting into street clothes. Yeah. You know, sometimes showing up late to work and leaving early, you know, like I'm I... You know, my superiors in the military didn't make my life transition easy either. Right? I did not give them a good reason to take it easy on me either. So... But I... Yeah. I was still active duty for four years doing this before I got... Actually got out, you know. So I was making like... By the time I got out, was making already a couple $100 a month when I got out the military.

Kayvon Kay28:48Wow. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's not gonna make those superiors happy either. Right? There's gotta be a little jealousy there. For sure. And then you're not also doing the rule, you know, going against the rules. That must have been very challenging. So so what happened going back? This is wild. I love the... What a great story. So going back, everything falls apart. You then figure out... You're... You you looked at... Again, being forward sight, seeing the future, you see ads,

Douglas James29:14you see the Google ads, you start learning it, you start growing it. And you're telling me it was only thirty days. Literally, it was only thirty days later, you're right back at your first $8,000 check again. Yep, Thirty days and then only about two, two and a half months, I was back at 50 k pretty quick. Wow. So I just... Once I figured it out for them, dude, I just took that same case study and I I took that money and I did my same strategy, but instead of waiting two to four weeks to rank a website, I could turn on a Facebook ad or Google ad and immediately get leads that day. So I just took the same websites that I made, which were just basically one page funnels. Right? Yeah. And Back then. Yeah. And I would just run traffic to them and start getting calls again instantly.

Kayvon Kay29:58I would To the same pages that you had. To the same pages that were already on Google, they were just on page 20 of Google. Exactly. So instead of relying on Google to send you the traffic, you're just paying the traffic to go there anyways. That's it, you know. And the phone numbers started

Douglas James30:13blowing. And then all the clients came back. Some didn't, but all of... Most of them came back and then I got even more clients back. So I got the 50 k like within like two months and then that grew to 6 figures pretty pretty quickly after that.

Kayvon Kay30:29Then... And then how did that company...

Douglas James30:32Because that's kind of a agency service company. Right? How does that company grow to a $100,000,000? So that company didn't. It's the coaching consulting that got me up to those numbers. Right? So so basically, you know, I was not quiet about making money when I was in the military. I was telling my colleagues and and friends that I was, you know, serving with. I bought like a 200,000 Mercedes and... How do you not? Really? How do you... You know, you know, I got... I gotta say it, like, even me, like, how do you not when you're

Kayvon Kay31:07surrounded with that type of mindset... And I'm not saying it in a rude way, but there is a certain type of mindset of someone who's making $80,100, 120 k versus someone who's making million dollars a year. And you know that. There there there comes a different mindset there. How do you not want every... And and a person like you who wants to help people, and you're seeing them struggle, and you're seeing them in this mindset that doesn't serve them. How do you not flaunt it in a way and tell them that you can help them and show them? I mean, that's what I do with my agency too. I try to help all my friends that are stuck at that 6 figures. I'm like, hey. Like, come over here and you'll make couple 6 figures at... From working from home. What are you doing? What are you doing struggling and working for the man? Right? So I get that. So so I love it. Alright. So you're you're you're... I'm just I'm just picturing it right now. You're the captain in the military driving in in a $200,000 Mercedes,

Douglas James32:03and everyone's going, what is going on? I mean, if you wanted a if you wanted a target on your back, I don't think there was any more bigger one than that. Any military base you drive on, you gotta stop at the check station and show your ID. Yeah. Every time I would roll up, the guys that were on duty to check the ID, they thought I... They were getting like, oh, like, I gotta... This is about to be an officer we have to salute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm and I'm like an e six active duty guy, which is good high position and active duty. But I'm not an officer. Yeah. Not officer. They get my ID and they look at the... They're like the the double take, like, what's going on here? Because

Kayvon Kay32:39E 6 in San Diego with housing is probably about 6,000 a month. Yeah. Well, there you go. Okay. So... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your car payment was $6,000. Or at least a third that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that... That's that's awesome. Okay. So then you said then you turned into a coaching business. So because you were so loud and because people... Eventually, people are like, what do you do? I wanna teach you. I wanna learn what you do. Instead of doing the thing you're doing, you started teaching people the thing you were doing, and you ended up making more money. Yep. Yep. This comes up for a really big discussion because I see so many people market against that or so many people say, oh, they didn't do the job. They're just teaching people how to do the job. And what people don't realize, I think you and I agree on this, is because we're in the same space, there actually is more money teaching people how to do the job than it is doing the job itself. But you gotta become a master of that job if you're ever gonna actually teach it properly and be able to have the impact. Like... So do you find that that's, like, that statement to be true? Do you do you find that people confuse those two things?

Douglas James33:53100%, dude. Michael Jordan, Tony Robbins, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, they all have coaches. They all have coaches. Right? And people they... You know, if there's somebody somewhere you wanna be, you have to go find people that have done it, right? And you can eventually outshine and outmaster them, right? And that's the point of being a good apprentice to be to to eventually do better, right? So I had a... I've had many mentors and coaches over my life. I've spent multiple... At least a couple million at this point over the... Over a decade, you know, for different coaches and mentors. I've, you know, networking and... Or with some of the biggest people that you probably know that we've been in similar rooms with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? And even worked with them, done business deals, ran their ads, all the things, you know. So I'm a huge, huge believer in that, you know, because I've experienced it firsthand. When I first started, I was learning from some guy I didn't know who the heck he was on the Internet. Right? That was technically a mentor. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So... But I think what people... Like, if I didn't have the story I had for you the last thirty minutes and I just came here and I said I did a 100,000,000 in coaching, you'd be like, you know, oh, you're one of those guys that that coach people to do the thing that you didn't actually do. It's like, no. I actually did the thing. You did it. Yeah. I actually did the thing, and now I'm... I legitimately taught people. Right? So that's the difference. And what happens is in our industry, the Internet marketing space coaching industry, there's a lot of bad actors, fly by marketers. I've been around for ten, eleven years. You've been around for a long time. You've probably seen a lot of these kids that come in and make it a cup... A couple million and you never see them again, or you might see them pop up a few years later and they got the next thing that they're trying to sell. Right? But, you know, the the market has been hit for over a decade now hard with Facebook ads. Right? So buyers are way more sophisticated. They know what's going on. They know what an ad is, you know. So you need... You really need to build trust rapport

Kayvon Kay36:00fast, and you gotta... You better be genuine because if not, you're gonna have a high cost per lead, high high cost per ad. Right? Yeah. It's gonna be... I mean, I I think we live in this world too where people just don't trust anymore. So not only is it being genuine, is it... The the amount of trust. They're they're they're very aware, and they have to... And there's so much trust and credibility that goes into it and authority that goes into it to be successful. Again, you and I would both agree. This isn't 2017, 2018. Two thousand seventeen, eighteen, we we blew up a company at 38,000,000 eighteen months. You're not doing that today the way we did it back then. It's just not gonna happen. Right? So I I get... I I totally get that. So then now you have the coaching company. So you figure it out, man. There... There's so much nuance in the story, which I absolutely just love. And the fact that you did the job before you got paid. I just want everybody to understand that. You did the work without even knowing you were gonna get paid. But you did the work and you did it well that it got you paid more than you could ever expect. And then when things went to shit, it's part of my language, instead of quitting, instead of sucking your thumb, you put... You dug deeper, rolled up your sleeves, and asked the biggest question, now what? What do I do? Where do I go? You sound like you figured that out pretty quickly. Thirty days later, not only are you doing more than you were when the thing blew up, you're double that. And then you turn this into a coaching business where now you're coaching people to do the thing that you mastered. And from there, that coaching business goes to a 100,000,000. What was it in the coaching business? Because a lot of people have coaching businesses that can't even get it to, you know, 6 figures a year, let alone a 100,000,000, you know. What was it that changed for you there or connected or just the thing that took took it off or you said, I finally found the formula?

Douglas James37:50Yeah. What I'll say is I have another mentor, his name Randy Massengale, and he says there's two tyrants of leadership. So there's scrutiny and expectations. So whenever you do or succeed or better yourself, you create space between you and other people. Right? They're they're here, you were here, now you're here. They get uncomfortable with that. So they're either gonna scrutinize you or expect things from you. So number one, scrutiny. I told you my superiors did not make it easy for me. They actually tried to get me kicked out the military, had my rank and money taken from me, thrown in the brig, all the things, dude. They were not happy, but it got kicked up to the CEO of the command. He's like, hey, you didn't break any rules here. You can have a nice day. And I was in there with my superiors and I about face and left and I could the steam coming off their head. They were so pissed. So I had to... I cruised out the remaining 3.5 in the military making 6 figures a month and nobody could f with me basically. And I just did my time honorably, you know, I got an honorable discharge. I did my time, I did my job, and and and I built my business. That's a scrutiny. The expectation part is a beautiful part, you know. I had a master chief come up to me, e nine, this is the highest rank you can go active duty. Hey, man, I'm 45 years old, been in navy for twenty five years. I'm getting out next month and I don't wanna sit in a classroom full of 19 year olds. Will you teach me what you do? Because that's what you do. You go... You have to go back to college and get your degree and all the... Whatever, e d, all that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Went home, created a course, gave it to him, worst course you've ever seen, uploaded to Dropbox, and the next weekend he landed a client making 1,000 a month. He came back he came back, gave me $900. And I and I joke and I'm like, dude, where's the other 100? Thought you made a thousand. It's only 900, you know. But, no. I was very grateful, but that's when I realized people are willing to pay you for what you know. Right? So, I just doubled down on that. I I realized there's a lot of that whole system active duty to to even get finding a job. There's a class you go through called taps. It's like a week long.

Kayvon Kay39:51And the system's broken, bro. It's it's like horrible. I went through it. The the best they do is show you how to set up a LinkedIn profile and do Yeah. A resume. Like, that's it. You know? So that's the typical... That... Let's... I don't wanna go too deep in there, but that is the typical person teaching the class who's never done it themselves. Exactly. They haven't done anything. They don't know anything, and they're just teaching it scholastically. And scholastic does not work in the real world. Not at all.

Douglas James40:17Not at all. So I I realized there's a massive opportunity here to help military transition online. So I doubled down on it, created official course, all the things. I created programs that went from do it yourself to done with you to done for you. Then I started having masterminds and in person experiences and all the things, sold packages up to $55,000, you know, and we we got to the point where we were actually building marketing agencies, running ads for them, and closing their first client for them. And then keeping them a franchise in a box is basically model work at the end of it. And that was my top tier program and we did all that in about two or three days at my penthouse in San Diego. Wow. Okay. So that's kind of like the journey that I've been...... Penthouse actually many years ago, might have been have been in that penthouse. Yeah. It was it was a while back. Right? But... Yeah. So... And then I didn't just help veterans, dude. Obviously, it turns out a lot of people wanna know how to make money. Right? And if you have something real that works, you know, a lot of people will be willing to invest with that. So we work with... Work with surgeons, nurse practitioners, the bartender at TGI Fridays, like, all over the board, dude. And, it's been highly highly successful. But what I found that worked best for me because lead quality is always an issue. So the way we solved it back then is we would we would actually target higher sophisticated type of investor people or or net worth people. So I would speak to the nurse practitioner that was running around the hospital floors for twenty, thirty years servicing patients and she's tired. You know, she wants to be at home with the kids or the grandkids and she wants to turn her her career experience into an online business. So I say, well, what what if you're a lead provider for medical, private medical practices all over the country? You have twenty years a nurse practitioner, you know and speak the lingo, now you can be the go to lead provider to provide new patients to their clinic. So I would do that for the for them. The the the guy that's been roofing for twenty years. Right? The, the the the guy that owns the restaurant that's that's tired of the restaurant, but has twenty years of running restaurant experience. You know? So now he's going out helping restaurants all over the country generate leads. So that's how I would get them to transition out of their career and get into the online lead generation space, and those people were willing to spend 25 to even 50 k

Kayvon Kay42:42to come learn They would. They they got the money and b, they they have the experience and they know what their experience is worth. They're not fakers. They actually... They've done it. So for sure, that makes sense. Yeah. I love that. And then and then what... So why the transition? Well, you went from this $100,000,000 coaching business, and now I know we go into the SaaS product. We're gonna do a part two on that one because this is just so fascinating. But just just to leave us on the hook there, what... Like, what was the transition to change from the coaching to to a software?

Douglas James43:18So when you're... I spent 30,000,000 on ads. We were spending at peak about 1,000,000 a month on ads. Right? And I... Because we're selling high ticket, I couldn't look at my p and l month to month. I have to look at it over a quarter because I knew two months were gonna be in red, one green... One month was gonna be green, but it's gonna be like boom, like this and make the quarter look good. I had two quarters back to back in the red and I lost over $11,000,000. And that's ad spend, payroll, tech, legal, all the things you can think of. Right? Lost a whole lot of money, conversions drop, we didn't know what the heck was going on. I hired the best of the best, couldn't figure it out. Maybe it was ad fatigue. Right? You know, lead quality was an issue. Marketing team said the leads were great because the applications had high income, but the sales teams got... Guys are like, dude, they're broke. Like, they're they're lying on the application. So I basically got introduced. At that point, I was at my lowest in business trying to figure it out. Got introduced to my partner, Eric, who's been in the financial world for the last twenty years. He was working on some technology but had no idea how to put it into digital marketing. And I came and I'm like, dude, let's partner. I can... I know I can fix this for you. So we came together and I created leadfi.ai. And basically what it does, right when somebody gives you their name, email, phone number, I'll get you their exact credit score, how much money they can spend on their cars, their annual income, debt to income ratio, even pre approvals for additional funding. And I can also get, like, all their assets. So four zero one k, IRAs, real estate, stocks, bonds, CDs, ETFs, like everything, dude. So now, without a shadow of a doubt, you know if they're financially capable or not, you can inject it into your sales process, how you run your ads online. It's beautiful now.

Kayvon Kay45:01It is. And I and I know a little bit about it because we discussed it, but I definitely wanna go deeper into it for you on part two if if if we if we may. I'll ask you this one last question as we come to an end because I just... The the resilience, the determination you had, the... Just I even... I love the entrepreneurship of, like, getting the job done before they even pay you. Someone is sitting there and they're listening right now, and maybe their business isn't working or they're they're they're on the cusp. If you remember, the cusp of giving up what is comfortable to go in the abyss of the unknown for a better life, what would you say to them?

Douglas James45:42Man. So what comes to mind is this quote from Virginia Satire, she's like a legendary author, and the quote is, most people choose the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. So yeah, that hits every... I get goosebumps every time I hear it. So picture this, there's two doors, Right? Door number one, the life as you know it. Same job, same career, same business, whatever it is, you're not happy, you're not fulfilled. Right? The same car, this... You know, all the same stuff. Right? 99% of people will go through door number one because they're certain of what they're gonna get, but they're miserable there or unhappy or not fulfilled, right? And that's very unfortunate. Door number two, it's all your goals, dreams, aspirations are behind that door, everything that you want, a better business, multiple locations, scaled, the white picket fence, a new house, the better education system for your kids. All the things are there, But it's hard to step through that door because you're not a 100% sure like, wow that's going to play out. It's it's... It seems super high risky and it's a miserable feeling to go through that and take that risk. But I got to tell you, man, every single multimillionaire, billionaire that I ever met, I always ask them, hey, door number one, door number two, they're door number two all day. Yeah. You know? And I... Even Damon John, you know, had a conversation with him. And Damon John said, hey, door number one for me was driving a taxi in the streets of New York, wherein if I was gonna get stabbed in the neck, right? Door number two got him FUBU, which is a multi multi billion dollar brand. So, you know, choose your heart. They're both tough, right? Which one is gonna bring you more success fulfillment opportunity for you and your family? So I as entrepreneurs and myself, definitely, have to choose your number two daily because it's a daily discernment. It's hard every day. Right? I get up, there's days I don't wanna do shit, I don't wanna take calls, do all the things, but I gotta think about why did I start this? Why am I here? And my kids, my family, my faith, those are the things that really push me forward. And when I see the impact that I have on other people's lives and I know what I know is gonna change their life, I I feel it's my moral duty, my moral obligation to show up every day for them. Right? Yeah. Door number two is where it's at, man. Always choose. I love it. So you... In life, you got your options.

Kayvon Kay48:12Door number one, it's comfortable. At this... A way of saying it was like this. If you go through door number one, your life will be easy. Your your life... What is it? Your life will be easy, and that's why you'll live a hard life. If you go to number two, your life will be hard, but that is why you'll live an easy life. So I love it. And again, Douglas, thank you so much. I... This story is incredible. I appreciate you.

Douglas James48:36People that wanna get to know you, they wanna find you where they're coming. Yeah. Go... I mean, Instagram's probably the easiest place to go there. Douglas shames should be the first one to blue check, but I think the handle's at the douglas shames. My main website is leadfi.ai.

Kayvon Kay48:50You can check that off if you like as well. Awesome. Alright, Douglas. Thank you so much. Alright. Thank you, Kvon.