656 – How to use email effectively: Tom interviews Charles Cormier

Episode 656 – Charles Cormier
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, is Tom here with episode 656 of Screw the Commute podcast? I'm here with Charles Cormier. And when I first heard about this guy, I was saying, there is no way I'm going to have this guy on my show. I thought he was promoting spamming people because he talks about cold email. And when I looked into it a little bit differently, they said, oh, okay, all right, I can have him on the show. So we're going to love what he has to say about that. Plus, he's got a very colorful past here with lots of crazy jobs and stuff. Bring him on in a minute. Make sure you pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And this e-book is just one of the tips that saved me 8 million keystrokes. And I'm not like just picking a number out of the air. We actually estimated at one time and that's just one of the tips from one little app that costs 20 bucks one time. And it saved me 8 million keystrokes. And that's just one of the tips in this massive book on automation, which allows me to spend time with prospects and customers and develop products and services. That's where the money is. Folks, pick your copy up at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. We sell it for 27 bucks, but it's yours free for listening to the show. And while you're at it, pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app and put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:01:59] All right. Let's bring on the main event. Charles Cormier is the CEO of Top Leads. He's also the Founder Wisdom podcast host. And I was blessed to be on that. He's traveled the world with his wife while building the fastest growing startup ecosystem in the world. We want to know about that. And he's a sales guy at heart and nowadays he obsesses over finding product market fit through cold email that's not spam. So, Charles, you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:02:34] Ready to rock and roll.

[00:02:35] All right. Rock and roll and screw. Yes. Sex, drugs and rock and roll with Charles Cormier. Well, thanks for coming on, man.

[00:02:45] I understand that at 16 years old, you got let go from a job and it really, like, bummed you out.

[00:02:55] Yeah, dude, that was, like, one of my first life defeats. You know, I always had the fortune to kind of be in that protective bubble from being from a mid middle class, almost upper if you want. And that was so disappointing to me. I expected to stay there for a while and you know, it's first job and you're so proud and everything and then you understand that they only take you for the holidays. Surprisingly enough, I found out that this is pretty common with like companies they kind of abuse, you know, the the the young people like. Oh, sure. 16 years old. My my brother got let go, too, especially in Quebec, Canada. I don't know if that's a thing, but they just like hire us, pay us low wages and just let us go. You know, I don't have much against that nowadays because I promote entrepreneurship, but that was the first disappointment.

[00:03:45] Well, it led to something which the old saying we have is buy low, sell high. And you were you were selling $1 ties for like 40 bucks. Pretty.

[00:03:56] Yeah. And all kinds of other shit but no that the ties were actually probably my best seller is because yeah they look neat you know even nowadays I see some ties and with like the motives and everything these things are made in China. They cost like $3 and they are sold in shops for 40, if not $50. I even had a website, I forgot the name, but it was something like tie tied up or something like that dot com, whatever. That's funny.

[00:04:26] Yeah. So but it was in researching you, you said you had, like 40 outrageous jobs before you even got in to be an entrepreneur. What else, other kind of stuff did you get into?

[00:04:36] Well, my best job was probably at this golf. You know, I didn't do much and I chilled. And I actually, you know what I did? I passed my hangover. So I had like a period, that one younger period in which I drank a lot, probably for from 16 to or 15 from to like 18, 19. And yeah, I had my hangovers every Friday, every Saturday. I'm not super proud of it, but I went to the golf, you know, it started at two.

[00:05:07] So golf course. You mean you worked at a golf course, right?

[00:05:10] Yeah, exactly. And I was chilling in the cards. I was washing cards and so forth. The most important stuff that I got from this job was seeing the cars in the parking lots, Ferrari's Lambos and all of that and that got me inspired. Obviously a whole bunch of Mercedes Amgs and all these. So that got me inspired, you know. And I, I started asking like, hey, what does this guy do, you know Marciano with the Aston Martin? And then I found out he was like VP at Converse and so forth, you know? So I used to see these folks and sometimes talk to them and that got me inspired. And I guess that was one of the very strong factors that that fed the fire that was started by 50 CENT Well.

[00:05:58] Yeah, these.

[00:05:59] Rappers earlier.

[00:06:00] Yeah, I was researching you. I saw a lot of 50 Cent mentions around there. Of course he got shot, so hopefully he avoided that quite a bit.

[00:06:12] That was probably my path in another life. I got lucky, you know, like I only got a bottle broken over my head in LA, which in which I did an Iron Man two weeks ago. I have this story that I've written over that. But yeah, in another life in in many of my parallel lives, I'm probably dead. That's probably what I chased for, you know, in this young life.

[00:06:36] Well, you know, I'm glad you're on here because I got slapped one time in Montreal, and and I don't really know. No one will tell me exactly what I did. But I always when I'm speaking internationally, I try to say something in their their language. French people don't really appreciate it so much, but most other countries do when you at least try. And so I thought I was saying I was I thought I was saying thank you very much, like merci beaucoup. Right. Okay. But I said merci beaucoup and see your.

[00:07:15] Life in a.

[00:07:16] Way, it's different, right? I think it's like, thank you for your nice ass or something. What exactly does it mean?

[00:07:22] Yeah, but is that is true story because. Yes, that's really freaking funny if it is. Yes.

[00:07:27] Exactly. Well.

[00:07:29] Oh, maybe so. Yeah. You got slapped by women. Yeah. Yeah, that might justify me. My bottle was broke out my head by an American girl, though, in Montreal. So there's a lot of Americans coming up, you know, because their drinking age is 18, but. Right, right. Yeah. And in Montreal, there is a fight culture. You know, we fight a lot in bars. I was speaking to one of my friends and he said that in Australia as soon as you look drunk in a bar, they they can legally put you out, you know. Right. Because of bar fights that used to happen a lot. And they've got laws and they're super clean. But funny enough in Quebec, they, they never really let go of that. Maybe it's because we love hockey so much and we love the fights in the hockey, right? Yeah. A bunch of people die, you know, in bars from getting knocked out and falling and tripping over something. And yet we still haven't really fixed that in Quebec.

[00:08:23] Well, I mean, maybe you should tell me after we get done here what I said exactly.

[00:08:28] But yeah, it's like nice ice bucket is like, yeah, nice ass.

[00:08:33] Oh. So I said like, thank you for your nice ass.

[00:08:36] Yeah. Something like that for poor you. You didn't know, you know.

[00:08:40] I tried. Yeah. Yeah. So. So now you also spent some time in Hong Kong, right? I went to Chinese University in Hong Kong with the executive program one time and. Wow, yeah, it was before the changeover and before what's happening recently. But but what did you do? What did you do there?

[00:08:58] Well, Hong Kong changed my life for the better. So, I mean, at that point of time, you know, I was still somewhat seeing my old friends, you know, which always had obviously an influence over bad behaviors, like who can drink the most. And yet, like I was studying in business, I got defeated my probably second or third life defeat, which was being refused in a law program that I studied extensively for. And I got good grades and everything and did the sacrifice. I was so disappointed when I received the letter telling me no by two universities with a great average of like 85%, you know, like, what the hell do you want me to do? So I applied for business, they accepted me. And then I was like, Okay, yeah, there's not much learn in this business program, but let's, let's travel. That will change my life. And at that point, I already I was already was somewhat successful entrepreneur and I had started a couple ventures. So they sent me to Hong Kong and lo and behold, that totally changed my life because it was the first time that I was alone for like four months, you know, I was like hustling on my business, working like probably 16, 17. Hours a day. I end up meeting a bunch of cool people there. I registered a business, met the future CEO. That would work for me. Sam still a friend up to this day. And basically, yeah, we're just hustling 16 hours a day, going to the gym there, going to swimming pool, running in the mountains, meditating and Tibetan temples. So it was like not the the typical hardcore, if you want, of an exchange student, which was, hey, make friends, go party, go get drunk. You know, no, I just hustled in my little room that was two metres by four metres. I don't know how you would have fit in there, by the way. Tom, I.

[00:10:44] Know I.

[00:10:44] Couldn't feel better, but you know what? My roommate, he was like six foot eight Marcel and he, he, like, fit in there. So imagine that.

[00:10:54] You had a roommate in a two by four.

[00:10:57] Yeah, six foot eight German dude. You know, like and I don't know, man, it was it was weird sometimes. My first roommate was so weird that I got him out, you know, it was a little Chinese guys. Anyway, like, I won't. I won't get into that one. But basically, I hustled my way through, started a bunch of startups there and came back a changed man. You know, I could work from a distance. I could make money on a totally different time zones. I met a bunch of friends, business connections, and from there I never looked back.

[00:11:27] You know, maybe that's where you started your breathwork is because you you had to hold it so long by being in the same room with that big guy.

[00:11:35] Exactly. Oh, man, he stank. But yeah, no head for Marcel. He might be listening to that. So much love to that guy. He asked me for some business advice and I gave it to him. So hope that he's doing well. But yeah, he was humongous.

[00:11:48] So. So now you moved to Mexico, right?

[00:11:51] Yeah. Well, wait.

[00:11:53] Wait a minute. So you moved from a fighting place in Quebec to that they drink like crazy to Mexico? Well, they don't drink. They? Or do they.

[00:12:03] Know they just get passed out drunk every every Saturday on mezcal and tequila. But no Mexican culture. I mean, I have something special for that culture. You know, I was reflecting on my first full Ironman, which I did, and because well, it's funny, because I had mystical moments on these bike rides, you know, my first one was me shedding tears of joys from this culture that accepted me with open arms and changed my life. Totally, very nice people. You know, it's not like we've seen the news, you know, like the gunshots and the the dangerous narcos. No, they're very cool people. I love them. I love I love Mexico. Basically, the the story is that yet and again, I came back after Hong Kong and I met with my friends and we ended up doing cocaine and whores night just another one after like me being not clean because, you know, I was nothing near a drug addict or anything like that, but it was definitely not helping the life I wanted to have, you know, being successful, being an entrepreneur and scaling and being the best version of myself. So after that I said, No more. I'm getting out of this fucking place. You know, I want to be away from that that type of culture for a while. So I booked the first nice Airbnb that I saw in Mexico, which was in this place called Oaxaca.

[00:13:30] I didn't know anything about Oaxaca, and I booked a flight to Oaxaca. It was cheap. It was very cheap. The Airbnb was probably 700 bucks and same thing for the flight, you know. So I was like, by that time I had multiple clients in the real estate realm, so they were realtors. I was doing web marketing for them and I was like, How? And I had a car lease and a bunch of other things holding me back here, but I was like, I don't give a shit, I'm getting out of here. And I arrived in Mexico and yeah, I could adapt to that. My clients did not dump me. That's what I would have thought in my mind, because they would. They were still used to see me and call me and so forth. So I still had the phone number and everything and I could still make sales from a distance without closing them physically, because that's what I was doing. And I ended up meeting my wife on Tinder. That was like six years ago, and yet I just scaled from there. You know, I traveled the world after that with my wife. We did Costa Rica for South America. We did the full Europe. And yeah, that has been humongous growth in my in my life, you know, hockey stick type of growth.

[00:14:40] Amazing. Amazing. And now that I think of it, I got some crazy stories from Mexico, but one of them has to do with language again. So I was down there, one of the guys that taught me to fly. I was a charter pilot for a while and he was an old Vietnam vet, kind of crazy. And he told me he wanted me to come down and live with him for a while. And the tip of the Baja Peninsula in Cabo San Lucas and.

[00:15:07] Didn't I remember?

[00:15:08] Yeah. He said buy a Rolex. And then if you get down there and you get in trouble, you can bribe your way out of it. And he. He told me to say, puede, opaque. Ah. And he.

[00:15:22] Told me.

[00:15:23] Yeah, he told no. But yeah, that's different. He told me that that meant I can pay. Okay, but puedo pagar means I can hit you bigger.

[00:15:35] Okay. Yeah, I got it.

[00:15:38] So he was telling me how to really get in deep trouble, and they'd still get my watch after they beat the shit out of me. Another time I was I was down there at the peso was 100 to 1. You know, it's really cheap to go down there. It was long before you were around. Yeah, you were. You were baby or something when I was my God. And so my friends told me, get some get some silver. So silver is Plata. And so I get in a cab and I tell the guy Plata, and he said, okay. So he starts driving, he starts driving, he drives out of town, heading up in the mountains. And I'm thinking, Holy shit, I just got kidnapped in Mexico. I didn't know what to do. If I jump out, I'm in the jungle. I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm freaking out. I'm thinking, What the hell? And he we drive an hour and a half and the whole time I'm thinking, What am I going to do? This is going to be guys, they're going to kill me. And he pulls into the Pepsi bottling plant. He thought I said Pepsi. So I said, No Pepsi plot. And I got the dictionary and I said, Oh, he says Plata. So he drives an hour back to town and he parks in the same spot that he picked me up. And and he points across the street. So I was like petrified for three for an hour and a half that I just got kidnapped.

[00:16:57] Yeah, well, let's talk about that. What do you do when you're kidnapped? What would be your your reaction as a self defense guy now that you know?

[00:17:05] Oh, well, how many guys are there? You know, I would say I would say I can I would say pueda pagar. I could pay, but just don't kill me. Right. So yeah, I mean, if there's multiple people out and there's nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, they all got weapons. You're screwed. You know, you shouldn't have been there. That's the whole.

[00:17:23] Thing. I never got in any of those situations in Mexico. People are so nice, but I guess I'm different because I speak the language.

[00:17:30] Yeah, that helps. Yeah. You don't look like a mark.

[00:17:33] Yeah, yeah. I'm just chill with them, I talk with them and so forth. And I don't think they want any trouble. I think most people in life a.k.a predators. Well, predators, by the way, deep down, I think they just want to take advantage of easiness.

[00:17:47] Yeah, exactly. Easy marks. Yeah.

[00:17:49] When they smell fear off your back in the cab and you're like at unease and you look at them in the mirror, then they might going to take advantage. But the nearest I've got to that I think was in Guatemala with my taxi cab driver wasn't the night, you know, and I decided not to take an official taxi. And the guy's was really odd. I could sense that he had some things in his head that he wanted to do, you know, but he decided not to act upon. He had a daughter and yeah, he was kind of shady. But yeah, that one I got out of it kind of.

[00:18:20] Well, the in the self-defense course, we, we've showed people interviews with criminals and we showed them pictures of of different people and videos of different people. All the criminals picked the same people to attack because they looked like they're easy, easy targets. But but I don't know. Probably the most scared I've ever been is in Thailand. When the lady boys were trying to get me.

[00:18:49] Yeah, they were aggressive. I got a good story about that.

[00:18:52] One, too, but go.

[00:18:53] Ahead. Go on with yours.

[00:18:55] That's. That's it. You know, you got to watch their hands in there and their Adam's apples to see what they're made of.

[00:19:02] So, yeah, I got in Paris at once with my friend into a two weeks drunken stupor, like two weeks nonstop, you know? And that's after that I stopped wanting to touch alcohol. Then we upgraded to coke after that. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, I've got a bunch of stories from there, but the most poignant one I think is, yeah, there was this lady in the street and that she or he had her boobies out and she was like, Yeah, touchdown. So yeah, like we did, we did exactly that. And while we did that, she reached out in my pocket for my brand new iPhone five at the time I was in 2010 ish or something. And yeah, she stole my phone and then I get to check my iPhone like 2 minutes later, I'm like, okay, that bitch just stole my, my phone. So we go back and we see them next to a car. And yeah, she had like all of her purse and stuff. And yeah, sometimes I get like, well, still, you know, if someone fucks with me, I get kind of crazy. So I was like, okay, yeah, first, this is not a lady, so I can potentially punch them and and it's like, okay, you give me my phone back.

[00:20:18] And then she, she did not. And. Yeah. Since I was drunk for like two weeks, I was punching, but I was punching and in slow motion. So I never reached the target. And basically, she she ended up she got out a canister of pepper spray. But the bear one. Oh, yeah. That shoots this shit like crazy. And she, she got me right in the face and my friends. And then she proceeded to hit us with her purse. And it wasn't a normal purse. It was a purse to hurt. You know, there were fucking bricks in there and it's a heat, you know, it's not a heat. And yeah, we proceeded to get away from that dress and go like up the street, and somehow they had water coming down the streets and these kind of irrigation system, not sure if it was sewer or something, but we, we put that in her face and yeah, that, that was a pretty bad one. But I got my iPhone out of it. That's the good news.

[00:21:13] That's, that's so happen. Those boobs will get you every day every time I'm telling you. Or fake ones. Anyway.

[00:21:20] That was my past life, you know? Just tell you how fucked up it was.

[00:21:23] Well, here's something that you'll get kind of crack up about. See, the reason that would never happen to me is because I'm actually allergic to alcohol. I can't. If I take one drop, I, like, break out in hives, my whole head lights up. And so I had a nightclub for six years and I never took one drop. Most nightclub owners are alcoholics because they.

[00:21:45] Get nothing for you.

[00:21:46] Yeah, so.

[00:21:48] I don't drink anymore either. It gives me headaches, you know, just thinking about it.

[00:21:52] Oh, boy.

[00:21:52] Except when it's bachelor party. I had two years, so I unfortunately got to touch that again. But yeah, alcohol never did anything good. You know, for people out there, there's better alternative one easy one is caffeine. There's breathwork as well. That gets you kind of high naturally. And there's exercise, you know, exercise the best one after you get off these endorphins and all these beautiful molecules popping up in your brain after you're done with a good workout, I mean that there's no better feeling.

[00:22:23] There you go. All right. So now let's get in some business stuff. Now, you said see, a lot of people get excited about business, but you there's a quote of you that says you can't rely on jet fuel ambition. Yeah. What does that.

[00:22:37] Mean? Bunch of those weird ones. But jet fuel, I think it was the analogy to that. Like if you rely just like the keto diet and how humans, they burn fat and carbs for fuel. Yeah. Jet fuel ambition is like very short term. It's very primal. It's, it's like, okay, it's me to today be being high on caffeine and a bunch of other nootropics and being like, okay, I want to, I want to do that. And that's what like most founders come up with, but you need to have higher motivation. So most founders what is that jet fuel other than the one that I just described? Most of it it's money. So I want to make money off of that. You know, I want to get rich and that's cool. But a lot of time when you start, you don't only have you're not going to make money all the time. So you need to have passion to kind of rescue you when the money is is not there, you know? So something that is lighting you up without paying a good example is this podcast thing. I don't really do that for money. I just do it because conversations are good for my brain. I get smarter. It's fun to talk to other people so that that's kind of normal gasoline if you want. And then the supreme gasoline is is indeed, it's the money is the animalistic part of me that is driven to reach that. And when I'm not making money or when my cell cycles are longer, when that cell takes longer for whatever reason, or we hit a crisis or recession, for example, not saying that I'm not making money in those because I've got like nice systems, but if I ever do, then I have the passion that will keep the ball rolling forward. So that's what I meant by that.

[00:24:19] Right? Right. Yeah. It's, it's got to be consistent and long term to to work now from so far from this podcast, I think most of the audience would say, you know, that that Charles is a real introvert.

[00:24:37] But it's weird. But it's like, I mean, I'm 5050, I think from being a nerd that I love spending time by myself, you know, I think, how do you see I think my brain is advanced enough so that I kind of engineer that extroverted personality. I've been naturally extrovert at some points of my life, but I love spending time by myself too, you know? So for example, today, before hopping on the call, I had situation to handle in my team, managing emotions to emotions at the same time to humans. And I don't do that well with that, you know, and in these moments, I need to retreat by myself, do some breeding, get chilled again, and then come. In that arena. That's a good example of me not being that much of a good extrovert and me being like, okay, I don't want to interact with humans for now.

[00:25:29] But you have said and I totally agree, I mean, I live by myself, you know, I go to these big events and speak with thousands of people and and everybody thinks I'm, you know, and I'm totally extroverted, but then I'm like happy to go home and be by myself and just chill and think and stuff. And you. You kind of call that a superpower, right?

[00:25:52] Yeah. I think it's I think it's a superpower. And let me let me just say that being by yourself is also a state of mind. Like right now, like I said, I'm in the work mode. Like my body and my brain's know that it's work because I've been following that routine for so long. I have caffeine in my veins. I'm in the fucking action right now. I'm in action mode, but give me two to 3 to 4 hours and everything will shut down. And it won't be that personality. Of course, it will be a more laid back Charles, a more introverted Charles that is out of the arena, you know, and I think it's indeed a superpower if you can balance both, because both have advantages. I don't always want to be the dominant Alpha Charles that speaks too much, you know, and is the center of attention. I also want to reflect, I want to be self critical and take notes and learn and be the student. So it's kind of a balance between being the slave and the master. I wrote also posts about that I'm a good slave, I'm a good master, I'm good at executing, I'm good at following advice, I'm good at being coach. I'm also good at giving marching orders to people that needs to follow them. And that's a superpower.

[00:27:08] Yeah. And I think especially the not having to be the center of attention all the time. People like you better, they're more attracted to you. If you're you're not just you, you, you all the time. And and you're you're saying, okay, well, what do you do? How are you feeling? You know, people just are attracted to that for sure. Now, there's something that we have in common that has nothing to do with boobs or whiskey or tequila. But for many years, probably before you were born, I've been saying that copyrighting is the number one skill in my entire business career. I mean, I've been formal business 40, almost 45 years now, and even since I was ten years old, doing side hustles, making flyers and selling stuff. So you're kind of obsessed with words, aren't you?

[00:28:01] Yeah. Not as much as I would like to, but I started digging not so long ago in etymology just to tell you the levels of obsession. So I think that's like level probably 8.5 on ten. I plan to reach the 9.5. So I'm now a nerd digging out the roots of words. So like I'm, I use this app, it's called pocket and I save up etymology of words and I go to bed and I read them afterwards. I'm obsessed with the craft of writing something that will entertain someone, light up these serotonin lights in their brain and lead them to some action in that case, which is to book a call with me. I love speaking to humans. I'm in love with humans. That's a good thing about me. I think some people are discussing.

[00:28:51] You know.

[00:28:53] I'm in love with animals.

[00:28:54] Do I have to be in a different way?

[00:28:56] Yeah. Yeah. Well, humans, they're so fascinating, you know, like your story. I'm like my story. It's just fascinating. It's like a movie, you know? I see every people, like walking movies, their biographies, the events that they live in their life. We can learn from, like, literally anyone. So my goal when I'm writing those emails is to get them in front of me just so I can discover who they are, grow my network and learn, and I will do anything to get them in front of me. Well, not not like anything. But I will. I will be, I will say funny shit and I will I will make fun of myself, you know, and I will put it all out there. And I don't give a crap. My ego is not there when I write. And copywriting indeed is such an amazing skill because it makes you a better business communicator and not just business, but communicator person. And communication is the number one skill for all humans. Makes you a better manager, a better thinker. Obviously it improves your sales, but and everything it sells, you know it sells. You're selling someone to go get the job for you, get an interview and then convert them into an employee you sell. You can raise capital if you're good at sending cold emails. We do raising as a service to please you can get on a podcast like with you. How do you think we're here today right with this magic you know and yet like if you have to focus on one scale. Well first, the area I'd recommend you start with at any one if you're listening to this is sales. And then if you want to dive deeper, go with copywriting. Cold email is so much more scalable than cold calls anyways. So yeah. Super scale.

[00:30:35] Yeah. Explain to them what you mean. Because like I said when I first heard it, I just glanced at it and I said, Oh, that's spam. But then I started thinking about it to explain why it's not spam.

[00:30:45] Yeah, spam is the ancestor of cold email. So cold email is like the child prodigy. If you want. Spam is like gone instinct. It's just not relevant. It's bullshit, it's not good copywriting. It's it's not relevant.

[00:31:00] Or it's yeah. Enormous numbers.

[00:31:03] Yeah. And it's trash, you know, and it's using a blue font color and bolds like weird font and whatever, you know, it's bullshit. Cold email, four steps, one targeting the right person. You're right. Icp second writing. Great email. So that's copywriting right there. Third, getting in the inbox, so open rates. So if you're doing that, well then chapeau to you. My hat's off for a B, testing, checking the data and seeing what works, doubling down on that and seeing what doesn't work and killing it. So that's copywriting. I use an app called Apollo that IO they should pay me for saying that and I use SendGrid to get these open rates up. Apollo allows you to get the contacts and to send the emails. I teach people how to do that. I coach people to do the setup and so forth. But even then, after you're done with that, you need to work on your copy by writing every day, every single day. As a CEO of multiple businesses, I still write on a daily basis and I practice, I practice, I practice, I test out different product offers to various audiences. And with that, not only can I sell more, but start new businesses that are working super well so I can get richer, more powerful and have an impact on this world.

[00:32:20] But these emails are 1 to 1. You're picking one person and creating an email for that person right now.

[00:32:28] Well, it's no it's semi-automated, you know, like a semi-automatic gun. So in Apollo, you can add 25 by 25 in the list, and then you add that old whole list or sequence and it sends to these hundreds, if not thousands at a time. And you personalize their first name, you personalize the company, you send a campaign that is specific. So let's say that I target headphones, headphone brands. Well, this campaign will be for CEOs of headphone brands making five. Billion a year and that got funded or are recruiting or are using X, Y, Z technology on their website. So it's that precise. So it's semi personalized, we could say in semi-automated. So it's not like I can add 1 million person at the same time and thank God that would be kind of spam. Right. But yeah, it's semi-automated, so it's highly efficient.

[00:33:21] Yeah. It would have to be like super targeted because, you know, the canned spam act here in the United States and Canada's got got some crazy thing, but $10 Million fines and the GDPR and all that.

[00:33:36] Yeah there's I mean can spam as long as you have your address in there, you have the unsubscribe options, you have your name, you and your relevant. Most importantly, you won't get into problems. Important to mention that what we do here is B to B, so B2C you will get into trouble, right?

[00:33:55] I was just sitting here thinking, man, I don't know. It doesn't sound right to me. Yeah, yeah. B to B is a little bit different because, you know, consumers are just they're ready to hit the spam button and complain and yeah.

[00:34:07] And called the agency. But like business people, they they understand, you know, that this is sales this is a common culture, common practice. And also it's a grey zone, all of that. But if you follow the basic guidelines, try to get the right person with the right offer. And you mentioned your right information at the end of the email and you mention how you got their contacts.

[00:34:30] You're legit. Okay. Yeah, because like I said, I was really like wondering there for a minute because anything more than one person seems like it's unsolicited commercial email.

[00:34:41] But it's personalized, you know, think of it of, you know, even cold calls. You have higher odds to get into trouble with cold calls because people are more pissed off by it. Think of it as just a reporting system. You know how many people will complain at the end of the day, if you're writing a shit and you target with people with what they don't need, they will report you. Even LinkedIn outreach to an extent is under that can spam stuff and I mean LinkedIn outreach, right. Who would have thought? But this can be interpreted in various ways. And also the major factor here is quantity. If you hit a million people at the same time and you're totally not relevant, you are going to get into trouble, right?

[00:35:26] No question about it. All right. Well, we got to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we'll ask Charles what a typical day looks like for him, and then we'll tell you how to get a hold of him. He's got some great websites you want to check out. So, folks, about 25 years ago or so, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head. And the people at my level were charging 50 or a hundred grand up front to help you with this stuff. And I knew a lot of these people they'd be hiding out in Mexico. If you gave him 50 grand, you'd never see him again. So I said, you know, that's too risky for small business. So I said, I'm going to just charge an entry fee and then I'm going to tie my success to their success, which none of these other people would do. People kind of like that. So for me to get my 50 grand, you have to net 200 grand and 1700 plus students later. The program is still going strong. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique Internet and digital marketing mentor program ever online. It's got some unique features in that you get an immersion weekend where you actually live in this estate home with me for an immersion weekend. You we have a TV studio here where we shoot marketing videos for you. Everything is one on one with me and my entire staff. So you're not lumped in with people that are more advanced or less advanced. Like I said, nobody will put I've tripled dog dared people to put their program up against mine and nobody will do it because I'm a crazy fanatic. So so check it out. If you want that kind of level of service and you can check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com.

[00:37:05] All right. Let's get back to the main event. We're here with Charles Cormier. I'm trying to pronounce things right because I don't want to get slapped again from these French.

[00:37:14] Anyone's going to slap you. It's going to be Daniel Cormier.

[00:37:17] Who's that would be good. Oh, yeah. He's your height. Yeah, that guy. So. So tell us what a typical day looks like for you. Do you have a morning routine? You know, I know you're into breathing. Do you meditate? Yeah. What do you eat? All that?

[00:37:32] Yeah. My life goes into season, so my routines will always change every, let's say, 3 to 4 months every quarter.

[00:37:40] So is that because of boredom? You get tired of the same routine or.

[00:37:45] It's not only that, it's just cycling. Things in life is always good. For example, like I'm on coffee right now, but I have periods which I just stopped. Coffee cold ls the caffeine molecule won't have any more effects on me. And yeah, we change we. Constantly change with seasons every cycle that the humans the biology. So I tend to somewhat follow that if you want.

[00:38:09] Bio rhythms is that work into.

[00:38:11] It? Yeah, kind of. It's a bit deeper than that that the way I mean it. But the point is like my routine is not the most exciting right now because I'm training for nine men, which I did two weeks ago, and now I have an ultra run, an 80 kilometer in the mountains that I'm about to do, and that's going to be pretty painful. But the point is that usually, for example, I eat once a day with that routine and with that those events, I cannot afford that because I mean, my body will ask me for more proteins, more calories and so forth. So I eat twice a day. Usually I work out in the morning. Now I don't I just prefer like one big fat workout and but I mean, I have no excuse for that one. Maybe I should just wake up and, you know, start my days working out. But my life changes a lot nowadays in Canada. I change Airbnb's a lot, change environments a lot. So and then place that which I stay. So like maybe I just don't have time yet to figure out that one. So my routine first thing important that you need to know that never really changes is that I'm a big sleeper. Yes, sometimes I do not sleep that much. I tend to cycle that and try it just to get more shit done in the morning. But nowadays I try to sleep in the two digits.

[00:39:33] What does that mean? Is when I'm in my bed and I put my alarm clocks, I like seeing the numbers that my alarm clock will ring in like more than 10 hours. My brain really loves that. He's like, Oh, you have luxury. Even if you don't have if you have troubles getting to sleep, you know, like you lose one hour, you'll still get your 8 hours. So that's, that's my main thing. I said I wake up around like 930, I sleep a lot, then I have a nice breakfast, I listen to a podcast. My first million's my favorite one. I learned a lot from startups and this podcast. After that I open my computer and I get right into meetings. I have 10 to 20 meetings on a daily basis since that's pretty much what I do. I book sales meetings and I'm quite good at it. So I have podcasts in there too and it's probably 20 to 30% of my meets. I have meetings with my team, another 20 to 30 and then yeah, 20 to 30 hours sales calls with potential clients. So that's pretty much what I do. I have a small period to write some emails myself, some cold emails myself every day. And I also have a period to which I outsource a bunch of to dos to my team and monitor these to do so, these OKRs, these KPIs. So that's pretty much my workday.

[00:40:51] Oh, wait, minute wait. You just outlined 20 to 60. I mean, 40 to 60 calls a day in addition to everything else, to workouts.

[00:41:02] You know, it's like 10 to 20 calls, right? Yeah. 10 to 20. Yeah. I don't get 40 to 60 calls. That would be quite exciting. I did it though. I tried to doand. Yeah, it's I mean, if today was hectic, you know, that's like two, two levels of intensity. What is not nice when you have that much calls is that you don't even have time to take your breath and and take notes. And sometimes you forget things and you're late to your other meetings, for example. That was late. Again, I know that's not the best of habits, you know, 3 minutes late. So, yeah, that's that's my day right there. It's like 7 hours per day. And then I have a nice supper. I start relaxing. At this point, I may revisit the computer to classify a couple of things that I missed out on, or write one code email per day, one sequence at least, and I go walk the dog. I go with the wife also, and basically after that I will read a good 2 to 3 hours per day in my bed. I read like 100 book at the time or 150, and I juggle in between that we reading Wikipedia articles which are highly educational and then yeah, the sleep. That's like an oversimplification of my day.

[00:42:19] Wow. You're a dynamo. That's. That's for sure. Now, are you staying at Airbnbs as you travel around the world?

[00:42:25] Yeah, all the time. No. And I mean, I'm I think I'm going to buy a house soon in Oaxaca because we're getting tired of that lifestyle. But it's still the best lifestyle when you start out in life, you know, to change the environment. It's a huge hack to change your mindset. When you change an environment, you can change mindset. So let's say that I'm booking this new luxurious Airbnb with a sea view in Mexico and I'm like, Okay, this is it. Now I'm reaching for the top and I'm going for these new, very ambitious goals. Well, that might very much help with that. And that's the reason why I could grow so much in the. The last couple of years being a nomad.

[00:43:02] Yeah. And I interviewed another guy and his wife. They stay in a country three months at a time because the visas run out. But he made a course on saving money at Airbnbs and it's freaking awesome. He saved like $50,000 in four months. With his negotiating tactics and and I one of my other students bought the course. And the first day he founded $4,400 a month place and got him down to 2200.

[00:43:35] Yes, that's a good deal. Yeah. Must be a very nice Airbnbs at this price in Mexico, you can get luxury for 800 bucks a month.

[00:43:42] Wow. Wow, wow. Well, tell tell people like there's several websites you got going here. You got TopLeads.agency, right?

[00:43:51] Yeah, that's my cold email agency there, which is basically my website, my thoughts link to a bunch of things that I write. If you want to follow me and get free advice that's that's there that you need to do that. And then I have my LinkedIn travels. Cormier I'm the first on LinkedIn and I post a bunch of good shit on my LinkedIn on a daily basis.

[00:44:13] You got the podcast Founder Wisdom Podcast, right?

[00:44:16] Yeah, that would be on charlescormier.com. I have a bunch of podcasts, this is one of them and I interview founders there. I interviewed you there. That's quite entertaining podcasts and yeah you could go listen to that one.

[00:44:29] Yeah. And so it's Charles Cormier, you can find him on LinkedIn Charles Cormier.com or topleads.agency. Well thanks so much Charles. It's been having a lot of fun hearing about your drunken things. And there's only one thing I can say to you is merci beaucoup.

[00:44:52] Thank you for commenting on my ass. I did a nice workout yesterday just for you, Tom, so. Yeah, thank you. I try to equal your. Your podcast. I think I kind of did, but I still think you you beat me on the entertainment part because you're you're just that that type of a guy.

[00:45:06] Well, I think it was mutual. So. So thanks so much, everybody. Check out CharlesCormier.com, topleads.agency. Catch him on LinkedIn and check the Founder Wisdom podcast. All right, everybody, we'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.