670 – Small can become Big: Tom interviews Nick Gray

Episode 670 – Nick Gray
[00:00:08] 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 670 of Screw the Commute Podcast? I'm here with Nick Gray and he has got an extremely unique marketing method that I'm going to tell you about in a minute. But I'll tell you what, he's worked hard for years. He's been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal. And because of all that hard work and persistence, he's finally made it to the big time and got on Screw that commute. But.

[00:00:54] I'm here. I made it, Mom. Hello to my mom. Tell her you're going to Disney World.

[00:01:01] Now, if you like entertaining, you're going to love this guy and love this episode, I got to tell you. All right. We'll bring.

[00:01:08] Him on. Also, hold on a second. Yeah. Can I just also say yes, I want to say something for any of your listeners, even if you don't like entertaining, I think that Tom and I are going to talk about some interesting things because I am so passionate, one about small business, about entrepreneurship, about turning your passions into your hobbies and to your businesses, but also in teaching people that do not do any entertaining how it can change their lives. So I'll shut up. But that's yeah, and that's what I'm so excited about.

[00:01:36] And I read his book last night and I'm convinced and if I wasn't under construction here at the retreat center, I'd already be implementing because I'm a doer. But yes, as soon as we finish our renovations, I'll be having people in the house. I've had people in the house. I might as well talk to you a little bit now before we keep going.

[00:01:54] Yeah.

[00:01:55] Yeah. This is the Great Internet Marketing Retreat Center, where for over 20, 21 years now, people have been coming and actually living in the retreat center with me to study Internet marketing. So I'm perfectly happy to have people in the house, but they've those people already paid me lots of money. So this is the method we're going to talk about today, is to meet a lot of new people, make a lot of new friends, but I'm all about bringing in the business. So we'll talk about that.

[00:02:26] Yes. Awesome. Great.

[00:02:28] All right, folks, now I want to thank everybody. We just started a Patreon to fund my scholarship program for persons with disabilities. A lot of you know that we've got three people in the program. Two of them are blind and they're doing better videos than I do. So we're just thrilled. They're so inspirational. So I'm doing a pilot program so that I can prove the concept, that I can get these people trained and hired without leaving their home. And then I took a grant writing course, and I'm going to roll it out. As soon as I prove the concept, I'm going to roll it out to big companies and foundations so I can help thousands of people with disabilities. So thank you for anything you can help. We start as little as $3 a month and you know, we've got over 200 training episodes, $1,000,000 worth of free training just from this podcast. So if we've helped you at all, please kick in on the Patron. All right, let's see. Make sure you pick up a copy of our automation book. It's screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Just one of the tips in this book has saved me. We actually estimated it over 8 million keystrokes. That's why I can spend time with prospects and customers and taking care of people and developing products and services and not fighting with my computer. Most of the stuff in the book is either cheap or free, so I'll just go ahead and say you're welcome right now, because if you if you listen to me and and do even a part of what's in this book and this isn't a three page checklist piece of crap, this is 60 page book of all the things I do to automate my business so I'm lightning fast taking care of people so grab that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And also while you're at it, pick up a copy of our podcast app. It's screwthecommute.com/app. You can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:04:24] All right. Let's get to the main event. Nick Gray is the author of the two hour cocktail Party. It's a handbook that teaches you how to build big relationships by hosting small gatherings and told you he's been on all the major media. And New York magazine called him a host of culturally significant parties. Nick, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:49] Let's go.

[00:04:50] All right. Hey, man, Good to meet you. I'm thrilled. I was. Couldn't put your book down last night. I thought this is a very interesting concept, especially for people like me, who, Yeah, people always when I say, Oh, I'm an introvert, they're like, You're lie. And you do. Are you trying to kid? You know, I speak at these big events and everybody's swarming me, but then I go home and hide at my house. So.

[00:05:15] So I want a real thing. By the way, I've talked to people that are like that. They say I'm an introvert who presents as an extrovert.

[00:05:23] That's that's probably a good explanation to me. But. But before we get into all that very unique method, I want to take you back because, of course, a lot of entrepreneurs out there and want to be entrepreneurs. And I want to talk about this museum hack company that you had. I saw your TEDx talk and there was a very interesting concept where you took something you just loved and made a business out of it. But but there's three important questions I have to ask you. You can put them in any order you want.

[00:05:54] Please.

[00:05:55] What happened to the woman who took you to the mat in the first place?

[00:05:59] Oh, my Lord.

[00:06:00] What happened to your long blond hair? And did you get invited to the Met gala? There you go.

[00:06:06] Take it away. Okay. All right.

[00:06:08] I probably done more for the Met than anybody any of their marketers have.

[00:06:13] That's really nice to you to say that. Yeah. So I had a business called Museum Hack that did Renegade Museum tours. I'll tell you what that is in a second. But first, I'll answer your questions. Number one, I ended up I cut my hair. I had long blonde hair because I thought it would help me meet women. It did not. It did not. And it actually was probably bad for business. So eventually I cut my hair and that's a whole nother story. I never went to the Met gala. I would love to. In order to go to the Met gala, you have to be invited by Anna Wintour and then you have to buy a ticket, which I believe the.

[00:06:49] 30,000.

[00:06:50] Price. 30. 30,000. I haven't heard rumors. It was 50,000. Well, so. So even if you get invited, even if you're a big time celebrity now, I have heard that the people who do get free tickets and the secret for your listeners are local politicians. Yeah. And so I actually do have a I actually do have a very good friend who got to go as a guest of a like city council member, as crazy as that sounds. And I thought, Oh, that's the most genius hack ever.

[00:07:24] Yeah, yeah. Throw a party for city council members. That's what I would do.

[00:07:28] Right? And start to befriend them. That's the smartest idea, I think.

[00:07:32] There you go. And so the big one, what happened to the woman who took you there that kicked this whole thing off?

[00:07:39] So I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time probably 15 years ago, and I went there on a romantic date with a woman. And I fell in love that night with the museum, not with the woman, though. And so that's the story. I ended up going back to the museum over a thousand times, started a hobby that turned into a multimillion dollar business. And, you know, I'm I, I wish I could tell you a great story about that woman, but I'll just say the business was more successful than the relationship.

[00:08:15] Okay, That's fair enough. All right. So just give me a quick idea of that business. Now, I know you had jobs before, that you worked for your dad. At least that's all I know of in a in a flight, not a flight simulator, but flight or avionics business, would you call it? Right.

[00:08:33] Yeah. I worked in the avionics industry, which made aircraft electronic equipment, but primarily ones that were used in private jets. So I remember reading that you were a pilot and that you've flown a lot. Well, these would be in private jets where they would have the map for the passengers. But even things like a King Air or like a Polaris, that's like a turboprop, they could use this as well. And basically my father was a mad scientist, always had ideas for businesses. I grew up very middle class, which is to say that we weren't rich. Our house did not have a pool. That for me was like the thing that like rich people had was a pool. And, you know, when we went out to restaurants, we would never get appetizers, drinks or dessert. It was like fiscally responsible. But my dad started this company in the basement of our house and I joined it. After college, I tried to start a software company and failed, and I thought I'd help him out for a couple of weeks. And then I helped him hire his first employees. And we grew the business to about 75 people and sold it to a private equity company in 2014.

[00:09:48] And from what I could read, you were kind of responsible for growing the company. Is that a fair statement?

[00:09:56] I helped a lot. My dad. Yes, I helped grow the company. I did marketing. I helped with sales. It was truly my father's business. He was the mad scientist coming up with product ideas. He was the guy that was thinking of all these products and knew and really kept his foot on the gas. I helped with our marketing. I did all of our advertising, all of our high level hiring in the early days, bringing on people, setting up a recruiting strategy, but to build a big business with 70 plus people doing multimillion dollar contracts, government work, things like that, it really was a team effort. We had so much help and amazing team of employees.

[00:10:38] Well, he also taught you to smile in your pictures, right?

[00:10:42] It's funny you say that. He actually did, because I had a roommate in college who would not smile in any of his photos. And so I started doing that. And my dad was like, why not smile in your pictures?

[00:10:55] Yeah. And then you got a picture of him not smiling. But but I want to tell you a quick radar story. So please. So I was I don't know if you dealt with weather radar at all, but so I was supposed to take people from Pittsburgh to Tampa on a severe, clear day. Beautiful weather. Right. And yeah, so we get up there and then thunderstorms start hitting all over the place and there's weather radar on the thing. But I hadn't been checked off on it. So the people can see this. I say, well, the weather's getting bad. There's a lot of thunderstorms out there. And they point it and they say, well, you got weather radar. Right? And I didn't want to admit that I had no idea how to operate. So so I turned it on. But I didn't know whether to go to the dark areas or the light areas.

[00:11:40] So they're all different.

[00:11:42] So. Oh, no. So I reached down on my left hand where all the fuse the breakers are, and I pulled the breaker for it and I said, you know, that's not been certified yet. We better land and, and wait this out. Yeah, I told you, you have to be able to tell not be able to let the passengers know how scared you are when you're up there. So it's.

[00:12:05] So funny. It really is one of these life experiences. I only have about 22 hours flying, but I'd recommend for all of your listeners for anyone to take a private flying lesson. You can do it for under $100. At any local small airport. There are flying lessons available in your town and they'll let you take the first one, sometimes for only $79. Because why do they do that? Because they hope that you'll get.

[00:12:34] Because you're.

[00:12:34] Hooked. Help you get.

[00:12:35] Almost everybody get took. But here's my lesson for all people that want to do that. If you're really serious about getting your license, go and buy a private pilot kit and and study it like crazy and pass your written test before you ever get in the airplane. Because the airplane cockpit is the worst classroom on earth and you'll just eat up thousands and thousands of dollars because you didn't know to turn this dial or what it means. So I got a 97 on my written before I ever set foot in the airplane and then bam, bam, bam. I was able to I already I already knew what this thing does and I didn't have to wait, you know, blow an hour at 100 bucks an hour. It's more than that now. But to do it. So learn what's going on. And then here's my advice for you, Nick. Yeah, Professional pilots land on the center line. Okay. You might not know what that means yet, but you will. Because I see these people. We flew at this airport that a lot of new pilots were and a lot of home built airplanes were there and people were flopping all over the place. And US pros were begging for bad weather when those people couldn't fly so that we wouldn't get hit. But so professional pilots land on the center line. All right. Let's get back to this. So I want to talk about this this marketing method that you devised. How did it morph from I know you had a vlog and then after the company was sold and how did it morph into making a business out of these parties and writing the book on it?

[00:14:16] So I had my last business was this museum tour business. And I'll tell you what was interesting. You know, we had a very healthy maybe lifestyle business that made a couple hundred thousand dollars a year or that did a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue from the museum tours. It was popularized on TripAdvisor and Yelp and things like that. But the true success came that turned it into a multimillion dollar business was when we did B to B sales for these company team building experiences. And that was really the secret engine that unlocked the growth for us. I got very lucky with that and I grew the business. I had an incredible team and then I actually sold the business to them in 2019 in a seller finance transaction, and they've gone on just to turbocharge the business in ways that I never could have. Wow. That that business has kind of funded me to work on this book as a passion project. And this book for me, I got so many benefits in my life. I met so many cool people. It helped me launch my company and support my business. And then over the years, I've trained dozens of people how to do the same thing that I said, Well, I kind of always want to do a book. What could I actually add value on? And this was it.

[00:15:44] But how did you start doing the parties in the first place and get these methods under your belt?

[00:15:51] I did the parties. When I moved to New York, I didn't really know anybody. And similar to you, maybe I present as like an extrovert who's out here, you know, yelling and on a podcast. But when I moved to New York, I didn't even know how to talk to a stranger at a bar. I did not even know that you could go up and talk to people that you didn't know. I didn't. I was not good at meeting people, but I decided that I wanted to make my own friends. I wanted to meet people in New York. That's why I moved there was to meet people and to have a social life.

[00:16:24] Well, nowadays, Nick, you can just walk down the street and you'll get lots of people, you know, talking to you that maybe you don't want to talk to.

[00:16:32] That's correct. That's correct. It's not always in a good way, Right?

[00:16:35] Is that why you moved?

[00:16:38] I moved to New York because in my twenties.

[00:16:40] Out in New York. Is that why you moved out in New York? Because you're in Austin now?

[00:16:43] Right now I'm in Austin. I moved to Austin about two years ago. I left New York during COVID because I did not want to be locked down right or live. You know, my apartment in New York was like tiny. Like my kitchen was in my living room, and I could see the sink from my bed. It was very small, no dishwasher, no washer dryer, nothing like that. And it's just it's not a place you want to get locked down. You know, you live in New York because you have a tiny house and you live outside. You're at restaurants and theaters and museums. And when all that was yanked away or before it was all yanked, I decided to bounce. And so I became nomadic. And then I fell in love with Austin.

[00:17:24] Great. And probably for the same amount of money you can. You can actually.

[00:17:29] Live like a king out here. Yeah.

[00:17:31] That's true. Yeah. In New York is when you started doing the parties.

[00:17:37] I started doing the parties in New York because I wanted to make friends. I wanted to build my network. I was not successful going out at night to these crappy networking events and loud bars and clubs. I just. I didn't meet anybody. I don't do well at those types of things. So I said instead of going to bad events, I'll build my own event. There you go. Yeah.

[00:18:01] All right. But you had this little tiny apartment. And in the book it said that some people just don't mind that. That makes it more intimate, I guess.

[00:18:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that anyone can learn how to host events and that people are starving. Speaking of which, you should do a meetup for all your listeners and fans. I bet it would be huge.

[00:18:25] Yeah, I have an account there and I just kind of use it to email people, you know? Like I said, Mr. Introvert, I sit home and do all my work from home. But yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff you could do. And I'm thinking we're under renovations here at the retreat center right now. But, you know, I was reading your book last night. I'm saying this is an exact. A blueprint for how to do this down to. And it's funny because I showed you I don't know if it was on this or beforehand. I showed you my book Wake Them Up, which is the presentation skills book, and it has a section on on nametags. Your section on name tags in your book is, is far more in depth than mine is on a presentation skills. Tell them about.

[00:19:11] I'm just I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants you all you started it and I just added to it so I'm passionate about nametags. That's chapter five in my book, and I think everybody should use them even for a casual social gathering at your home. And here's why. Here's why.

[00:19:31] And this is hard to believe, right, folks? I mean, people listen. They say, oh, that's the stupidest thing ever. Wait. Oh, he explains it to you. Go ahead.

[00:19:40] I believe that nametags serve as a visual unifier for your group to show that the room is not filled with cliques. They show that everybody is on the same team, that it's a safe space to meet new people. And it also just frankly, helps. The sweetest sound to anyone's ears is the sound of their own name. I think Dale Carnegie said that. Why not make it easy? Why not make it thoughtless? Why not help people to remember that nametags also are inclusive for people with social anxiety, people that are introverts, people a little shy. Nametags help them. To feel more welcome, to feel included. So that's a big thing for me. Yeah.

[00:20:24] And here's the thing. Folks here won't even let them write their own name tag, right? So it's you write it. You were so specific in the book. Nice, big black, I guess, Sharpie, maybe, or magic marker and big block letters. First name only. Yes. Amazing.

[00:20:44] Yes. And that's that's the huge thing. By the way, parties.

[00:20:48] Have you done like this?

[00:20:50] I've hosted myself. Oh, my goodness. I've hosted hundreds and hundreds of cocktail parties. Many hundreds. And I found a formula that anyone can follow to do it themselves. And I've taught that formula now to over 150 people. So I know that it works. And that's the thing that I want your listeners to know is that anyone can throw a good event. You just need a little bit of structure and people will think you're a genius. They'll think you're the best host ever.

[00:21:18] And even something that I'm thinking to myself, Oh my goodness, this is two bit trainer stuff. You do icebreakers at a cocktail party. Tell me about that.

[00:21:31] So icebreakers are controversial. Let's be honest. The idea of doing an icebreaker, some people might hear them and roll their eyes and say, oh, geez. But here's why we do them. Most adults have not made a new friend in the last three years. 20%. It's crazy. 20% of men, 15% of women say that they don't have a single close friend. I don't have to tell you or your listeners, there is a loneliness epidemic that's happening, and over the last few years it hasn't gotten any better. I want you as listening to this, to host a party, to bring your friends and neighbors together, to help your community, to help to help your friends. Networking gets such a bad rap. But what if you start by adding value? What if you start by introducing your friends to each other? Everybody loves to meet new people, and when you can be that person, you'll be seen as a super connector in your neighborhood, in your town. Anyone can do it. I found how to do it. And one of the things is by leading two and a half rounds of icebreakers, it's a short interruption during your party that everybody participates in. To sound off around the room, they say their name, what they do, and they answer a unique question. Now, the question is not a game of who can come up with the most creative icebreaker. You just want a simple one so I can tell you the ones that I like. Or maybe you have some that you like as well. But the general purpose is just to get people mixing and mingling and give them an excuse to go talk to somebody new.

[00:23:16] And you don't even let them sit down. Right.

[00:23:19] I do not let them sit down for the icebreaker. I ask if you're able to stand so that we can keep people moving. It keeps the energy high. When you sit down, Oh, people draw it. They just kind of drag on and on.

[00:23:35] Yeah, So but I mean, in general, you want people standing during this. Now, this is a two hour segment, right? It's a start and a finish. It's not a Yes drug out thing. That's from what I got from the book.

[00:23:48] That's the key point, that there is only 2 hours. You list both a start time and an end time, and that will increase success. More people will show up, the energy will be higher, more people show up on time. There's so many benefits to doing only 2 hours.

[00:24:05] Now you talk about your core group so that you don't show up with a party that's nobody shows up or one or two people show up.

[00:24:14] That's huge. The core group is your group of close friends. I say five people. The first five people that you invite to your party are your core group. They're the close group of friends that if only they show up, you would be happy. They are going to give you the confidence to invite more people later.

[00:24:33] Now, you also had an online RSVP in the in the book, folks. He shows all these places where you can easily make an online RSVP where the people that maybe don't know you see oh, the other people are going. So I remember one thing I read about that you wanted to invite a nice woman that you had met, but you didn't set this up ahead of time, so you didn't want to look creepy. That, yes, she was the only one responding. You were like secretly trying to get her to your house.

[00:25:08] Exactly. Exactly. Now, what is the marketing? Because you know a lot about like sales and marketing and the mental models of this. I think when you collect RSVP, it creates some sort of a commitment from people that they're actually going to attend. Is there a word for that? Is it a social contract?

[00:25:31] What? Yeah, that would that would, that would, that would cover it. But the, the idea also it's when they see that RSVP of others, it's more of a social proof that this is real it's important and I should shouldn't miss it. Yeah. They don't want to miss out on something that's really good.

[00:25:52] Yes. Yes. I think that idea is interesting to me. I also like showing the names of everybody else who's RSVP, and I've heard that that is called social proof that when you know that there's other people attending, you want to attend it more.

[00:26:10] Exactly. Now, another question I had for you, because this is not a dinner party, right? You made that very clear in the book. It's not a dinner party. It's a cocktail party is one of the names you you had for it. But one of the questions I came up for me. Do you ever hire a bartender or server for these or is that ruin the intimacy?

[00:26:33] Great question. I do, yes. The short answer is I'll tell you this because you want the VIP treatment. Yes, you can do that. I do not talk about it a lot because for many of my listeners and audience, I simply want to provide them the easiest possible formula. But I would say that it is an absolute pro move if you can afford it, if it does not stress you out to hire a bartender who you also have cleaning up and tidying and helping you as an extra set of hands. I always train my bartenders with a little list. I say, Look, this is going to be a small party. There's not going to be 15 or 25 people here. You're not going to be busy the whole night when you're not serving. Here are some other things I'd like you to be doing when you have downtime, tidying, taking out the trash, cleaning, just keeping things organized. And so the door, if the doorbell rings, if I'm busy, things like that. So that's a pro move, I should have guessed was going to take me to the Pro Moves, but that's it.

[00:27:41] The next level pro move is making it easy for them to come when they have kids. And so you tell them about that.

[00:27:52] Well, I think that if you can get a sitter. Get a sitter to make it easy for your guests with kids to attend. And here's why. Many adults use their children as conversational crutches to avoid more serious adult interaction. We need adult friendships. We we need more adult conversations. People are lonely. And, you know, I don't think I should talk too much more about this because I am a 40 year old single male. I don't have kids myself. I'm not qualified.

[00:28:28] Oh, I got you beat by 27 years. So don't worry about it.

[00:28:31] I don't have kids either. Nice, nice, nice, nice. I do have some sections in my book. I've written some articles that I can include in the show notes about how to host a happy hour, how to plan a networking event, what to do with kids if you have kids, how to host an event. But in general, I think that it's important to remember. And Tom, I bet you would maybe agree with me on this, that there are massive benefits to having a healthy network of acquaintances.

[00:29:02] So I'm thinking marketing wise. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:29:05] Right. But that like but.

[00:29:07] Besides that, emotionally, it's a positive.

[00:29:10] Thing to know. Even marketing. Let's take this personal let's take this professional. These are the people that are going to boost and amplify your projects. They're going to support your business. They're going to share, Oh, my friend Tom has this podcast. Actually, you should check this out. Oh, Tom wrote a book about public speaking. You should check that book out. Oh. Oh, yeah. I know someone who just built a retreat center. You got to talk to this guy, Tom. I know on LinkedIn. So that's my soapbox that we need to work on our network of acquaintances in your local town, your local community. You can do it, and all it takes is a simple two hour cocktail party.

[00:29:48] Beautiful. Now I've got two questions before we have to take a short break. Did you ever have to throw anybody out? And what about liquor liability? Does that ever come up?

[00:29:59] Good question. Let me address the liquor liability first. Many people. Wonder about this. What about the alcohol? Isn't this risky? And so, yes, you should absolutely be aware of your guests, especially if they are driving. But I'll tell you this, having myself hosted hundreds of parties and having worked with over 150 people who've read my book and followed up and I talk to them on the phone and email to hear how their party went consistently. They are shocked by how little people drink. Why is that? Because the party is focused on the conversations we drink at loud events, sporting events, nightclubs, things like that that are engineered to encourage us to consume alcohol. When you're talking, you're not drinking that much. You're drinking when you're not engaged, you're drinking at a sporting event, at a loud nightclub where those things encourage you to drink a lot. But I would say that even though this is called a cocktail party, the amount of alcohol that's actually consumed is very low. Does that make sense or does that fit with your experience?

[00:31:17] Yeah. And and also, there are some you made a list in the book of of what type of little snacks to have around to so that yeah. Simple stuff to do besides drink but did you ever have to throw anybody out.

[00:31:34] Oh my goodness. I've hosted hundreds of parties and I have only you know, I think once I had an instance where somebody's having hosted it. No. The short answer is it happens so much more rarely than you would imagine. These are pretty tame events.

[00:31:53] Yeah. And I had to do it once. And we've been doing this 20 years here and one guy had to throw out. Right.

[00:32:01] Yeah. Yeah. But it's so rare. It's so rare. And for the average person listening, I mean, I could share the story if you want to, but I think that for the average person listening, you just need to know it really doesn't happen. And I worry that even sharing the story might turn somebody off from.

[00:32:18] Yeah. Don't don't bother. It's it's I remember.

[00:32:21] By the way, it wasn't a weird situation. It wasn't bad. Nobody got hurt. The guy just drank too much. He was sloppy. And so I had to sort of awkwardly say, Hey, I'm sorry, I need to ask you to go. Let me call you a car. And that's it, right? Yes, It's slightly awkward, but there's nothing bad happening.

[00:32:37] Yeah. No, no Baseball bat to the head. So.

[00:32:41] Tom, what kind of parties are you going to? I.

[00:32:44] I told you about my hobbies. Tax deductible. I also have a site called Brutal Self defense. So supremely skilled and that kind of stuff. But I don't even use a baseball bat. So. So we've got to take a responsive break. When we come back, we'll ask Nick what a typical day looks like for him now. And we want you to get a copy of that, the two hour cocktail party. So we'll talk about where you can get that. So, folks, about 25 years ago or so, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head and that people at my level were charging 50 or 100 grand to teach you what they they knew. And I knew a lot of these people, if you gave them 50 grand up front, they'd be probably hiding in the basement of the Met so they wouldn't have to to help you. And I said, That's too risky. I'm going to turn this on its head and I'm going to charge an entry fee, and then I'm going to tie my success to your success. So for me to get my 50 grand, you had to net 200 grand. Well, people kind of like this, and they knew I wouldn't disappear on them. And here I sit 25 years later and 1800 or so students. So it's it's worked beautifully. It's the longest running, most unique, most successful Internet and digital mentor program ever.

[00:34:08] I always triple dog dare anybody to put theirs up against mine because they'd be embarrassed because I'm a crazy fanatic. I didn't have long hair to cut off, but I'm still crazy fanatic. So. So you get an immersion weekend as part of the year long program here at the Retreat center, we have our own TV studio. We can shoot marketing videos for you. It's all one on one. So you're not lumped in with people more advanced or less advanced with myself and my entire staff. Really, really powerful program. So we'd love to talk to you about it. You can check out greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. I'm very accessible. There's no high pressure here. If we if we can help you, we'll be glad to. So check it out.

[00:34:56] All right. Let's get back to the main event. We got a very cool marketing thing here that I personally am going to do because of Nick. I always like to have young people around because they come up with the greatest ideas for our old parts here. And as soon as we get done with renovations, I'm going to pull one of these off for sure. So. So Nick, what's a typical day look like for a guy like you?

[00:35:20] Well, I have an interesting morning routine, but I am curious. I don't know. I know I'm supposed to talk. Would you mind telling me what your morning routine is? Do you share that information?

[00:35:29] Well, yeah. My morning routine is. Is get the dogs out before they shit all over the place. Okay, First thing, we have three dogs here, a rescue and two protection German Shepherds. Yeah. So I get up about 615 or so. Get ready, get them out, get them, walk the exercise and get them put away. Then recently. Well, I always check email and then recently I just started Tick Tock. You know, I took two weeks of advanced training on Ticktalk before I launched, and it just launched about three days ago. Yes, check email then. I have various hobbies. I have a quad. I'm rebuilding and learning a lot about carburetors. I'm a continuous learner, so I'm always learning something. And then I'm I get a high fiber breakfast and I haven't worked out much lately. I run up and down the steps and do some weight training, so that's pretty much it. But I'm like full speed ahead. On keeping up with all the changes in Internet marketing, which I'm responsible to teach people. So, you know, upgrade our school. And so so yeah, and pretty much this lifestyle business, I've never had a job, so I pretty much do what I want to do. And if I don't like you, you can take a hike I don't have to deal with.

[00:36:59] Nice.

[00:37:00] So, so that's, that's me. A lot of people that have been on here a lot. No, no, my story. But and then I got we got a tennis court here. I got you know, I told you about Fatso Tennis.

[00:37:13] Yeah, that's one of my Web sites. Wait, what's your thinking, by the way, on pickleball? Well, I know you like tennis.

[00:37:20] I do know that it's going crazy, but I have so much invested in tennis training, it doesn't interest me at all to do it.

[00:37:30] But I don't blame it. I don't blame me. I play.

[00:37:32] Tennis. Yeah, I do know that it's going going great guns and awesome. Anytime people are working out and exercising and and increasing their skills, that's a wonderful thing. But yeah, it just doesn't interest me. Like golf. You know, I played golf and worked on a golf course for a summer or something when I was a kid. But I hate golf. I think due to call for hours out there now, maybe you can have a golf cocktail party. I don't know.

[00:38:01] That would be fun.

[00:38:02] Yeah. Everybody's hitting each other with the ball, so. So that's mine. But you get up early, what do you eat? Do you work out what's what's your story?

[00:38:12] So I don't have dogs like you, so I get to sleep in. However, I don't wake up with an alarm. I haven't been good. Gosh, I can't even know. But I do naturally just wake up early. And so I go to bed around midnight or 1230 and I wake up around, I don't know, seven or so, 730. And the first thing that I do is I have a little green sort of powder drink, because I'll tell you why I don't eat a lot of vegetables. And so I have this little green drink mist mixed with water that I hope gives me the the the minerals and vitamins that I'm lacking from from eating these vegetables. So that's the first thing I put in my body. I drink some regular water as well with that. And then I make some green tea, some Japanese green tea called kika cuchi s.a. It's the type of tea and it's low in caffeine and high and l-theanine. And I make that and I try to get outside for a little walk just to get in the sun. After that. I don't know if this is good or bad, but I, I go to a national. Coffee chain, and I fill up a thermos of coffee and I come home and I make this butter coffee. Have you heard of people doing this?

[00:39:36] Yeah, sure. I was. I was. I'm kind of on keto all the time.

[00:39:40] Yeah. Carbs. Yeah, So I do that. But instead of butter, I use ghee and I use ghee and I put some coconut oil and some cinnamon in there. And that's kind of how I start my morning. So, you know, I'm sure I could be doing cardio, I could be running hills. Gosh, I need to go to the gym more as well.

[00:40:01] But, but you take just a thermos of coffee.

[00:40:04] I take what's the equivalent of a large coffee. A large coffee. And I, I drink that until the afternoon, so I'll make it into two different butter coffee blends.

[00:40:21] All right. But are you doing any any kind of work now, or are you just finishing?

[00:40:25] I spend all day. Yeah. Yeah, all day. So as a self-published author, nobody's out there talking about my book. And so I'm lucky to be focused full time on it now. And it's not just about the book. I get to talk to people who've hosted a party. So for example, when you finish the construction of your retreat center and you host an event with my book, I hope that you will call me the day afterwards and tell me how it went, what your favorite parts were, what you want to do differently next time.

[00:41:00] No, you're crazy. I'm calling you the day before.

[00:41:03] Okay, Good, good, good. Yeah, the day before too.

[00:41:08] Yeah. So? So that's perfect. Because. Yeah, even I have. I have major published books too, and they don't do crap for you. You still have to market it yourself. So. So, yeah. So what, what type of things besides podcasts are you doing that market your book.

[00:41:24] So I do the podcasts, I do my own social media. So I too have been experimenting on TikTok and YouTube.

[00:41:35] Shorter handle. Tell me your handle.

[00:41:37] Yeah, please. Please look me up on TikTok. I am @NickGrayNews.

[00:41:49] Yeah, and I don't think I've told people my mind it's digital. Multimillionaire is mine.

[00:41:55] Oh, really? Okay, good. Good. All right, good, good, good. I'm going to add you back.

[00:42:01] Yeah.

[00:42:03] So I do that stuff. Yesterday, for example, I tried to I tried recording a new video for my TikTok, and, oh, my gosh, I tried to write it out beforehand, and that just wasn't good at No. And I probably spent.

[00:42:14] Yeah, they most people say the rougher the better. It looks more real.

[00:42:19] Yep, yep, yep. So all those types of things are what I spend my time on. And I have one and a half virtual assistants who work for me full time and they help me with my emails. And for example, when people read my book and send me an email to tell me that they've accepted the challenge to host their first party, then I add them to a little party calendar that I see every day. And so today I can see that Ben Conrad and Shane are all hosting their first party after reading my book, and so I'll send them all an email. Hey, Ben, don't forget to get a group photo tonight. How's it going? Are you excited? And I kind of do that stuff every day. Great. Yeah, that's fun.

[00:43:01] Those are. You have more men than women that take advantage of this. I would think it'd be either way.

[00:43:07] Those. All that you said were all men. I would say, you know, I've never done a study about it, but I would say I'm surprised that some of the women have the biggest success stories. I talked to a woman in Seattle whose name is Tatyana, and she has a funny business. They do stroller mom workouts and she read my book because she wanted to network and meet her neighbors. She's now hosted four parties from my book, and she said her business has doubled simply from word of mouth. People just think about her and they want to share her story. She said her business has doubled and her last party was the best party she's ever had in her life. Wow. So it's cool for me to hear those things.

[00:43:50] Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's amazing. Are you doing any more major media because of this?

[00:43:56] I haven't done any major media. I don't know how that world works exactly. Are you keen on it?

[00:44:01] Well, I've been on every major network in the world, but still, it doesn't mean you can get on anytime. You've got to be newsworthy, but you certainly are. Especially with your credentials. So you just have to pitch them. I would avoid the publicity. People will hate me for this, but I mean. Well, I spoke in the in the I was like the main speaker at author 101 and the chicken soup for the soul thing for years and and they all ragged against publicity agents because they said one thing we can guarantee you we're going to send you a bill every month for a lot of money but yeah you can pitch yourself to to all these places. You got all these cool hooks and all these these things. I mean, this would be a major fun segment on every morning TV show, I can imagine. Yeah. So, yeah, we can talk in offline if you want. So. Okay, So do you have the Kindle version out or is it only a paperback?

[00:45:02] I have everything. I got the Kindle, the paperback. I even recorded my own audiobook that you can find on Audible and that was a great experience. Yeah.

[00:45:11] Yeah. Did you did you have to format it for Audible or did you get somebody else to do it?

[00:45:16] I got someone else to do that for me.

[00:45:18] Yeah, that's that's very specific. Audio requirements for Audible. I got my book up on there because I did it myself, but to learn how to get it so audible will accept it is the hard part. So, so. So where should they should they buy it off your website or where should they buy the book?

[00:45:38] Please buy it on Amazon, buy it on Audible wherever you want. Where books are sold online. It's called the two Hour Cocktail Party. And I think that this really is I feel so strongly that anyone can learn how to do this and that it can change your life.

[00:45:58] I'm totally convinced after reading over half of it last night, it was very detailed down to every little detail. So you cannot go wrong on this, folks. So Nic's been a blast. Thanks so much for coming on, man.

[00:46:14] Thank you so much for having me. Great to meet you. This was awesome.

[00:46:17] Yeah. So everybody to our cocktail party is a great way from my perspective to market yourself. And I said, as soon as we finish renovations, I'll be doing one and reporting how it goes to but I'll be a bug and to death beforehand and make sure I do it right.

[00:46:35] All right. You won't bug me at all. You won't bug me at all.

[00:46:38] All right. We'll catch everybody on the next episode. See you later.