Originally I met Ed O’Keefe at War Room. I knew he had an extremely successful supplement business and had an agency in Dental space before that he had sold off. What I was very surprised to find out was his humble beginnings and road to success.
Ed shares his path to success and how he’s gone on to create multiple 7 figure businesses plus lessons learned along the way.
Make sure to check out Ed’s new podcast and show at Edokeefeshow.com.
Here’s a few of the highlights Ed shares in the interview:
- How’d you originally get started?
- The ‘Broke’ Years
- The Magic of Being Broke
- Starting Dentist Profits
- How He Selected an Industry
- Dentist Profits after 2008
- The Marketing Tactics that Drove Dentist Profits
- What are people doing wrong with their masterminds?
- What’s the shift from dentist profits to supplement company?
- His Process for Starting Marine Essentials
- People “chasing” too many opportunities without adequate a system.
- Filters and Modeling
How’d you originally get started?
- Grew up with 13 kids.
- 2nd one to go to college.
- Volleyball scholarship and switched from business to nursing.
- Struggling and broke for 4-5 years trying things
- Loong grind.. process
- To 7 figure business in the Dental industry
- Repeated it again from scratch in the health and supplement business
The ‘Broke’ Years
- Went out to become a motivational speaker and thats where the trouble begin.
- Seminar to become a speaker.
- Went through Tony Robbins training.
- Started studying NLP, hypnosis and working with athletes.
- Was broke during this enter time. Coached volleyball.
The Magic of Being Broke
- Noticed the probability of success was higher if they are really hungry or had money and didn’t have the day to day grind.
- I can make $400 a week and in the meantime learn this thing.
- You can work on your artistry or 10,000 hours.
- People get successful at something but it might not be the best success.
- Once you have success you can’t really take on other projects.
- People get so busy getting good they don’t spend time on getting great at things.
- Building a lifestyle on your guaranteed income. You lose the flexibility.
- Hire less and put more money away.
- They have to have a pre allocation plan.
- Being able to ebb and flow.
- he business that you are in today isn’t going to be the same in 2-3 years.
- Sweeney: Investing too much in the present and not in the future.
- What skill sets am I learning and who am I becoming?
Starting Dentist Profits
How He Selected His Niche:
- Went through yellow pages. Highest amount of professions that were advertising were dentists.
- Licensed the rights for their business system.
- Ran a $1800 ad.
- Year to year and a half to get to 7 figures.
- Licensing agreement gave 10% of gross which was way too much.
- Shifted the business into a higher end coaching club.
- Started a mastermind.
- $10 to $12 grand a year and got 10 members on board.
- Best year was $7 million.
- The best move he made.
- Two niche specifics coaching clubs on the backend.
- No real hard costs.
Dentist Profits after 2008
- Consulting started getting cut.
- Should have fired 90% of my staff that day.
- You feel obligated to bring your employees with you everywhere you go.
- Anytime you have a gut feeling that a relationship should change then it’s time for it to change.
- Be wary of obligations.
What drove that business?
- Direct email drops for getting leads.
- Went to the trade magazines.
- Best source of leads are still email drops.
- Easy Health Options dot com.
- You can test a direct email piece.
- Email drop is like being a joint venture.
- In small markets, your students will become your competitors.
- Trademarks and intellectual property are important to hold on to your assets.
- Can you buy access to them? Then do it.
- How he afforded the first ad: Got $10k. Paid off his jeep, put 2.5 down for licensing rights and used the rest on the ad. 30-day payables.
What are people doing wrong with their masterminds?
- Law of diminishing value kicks in for older members. Structure it in a way that makes sense for you.
- From day 1 create it with the end in mind. His example was a Chicago mastermind to keep it close to home.
- What if this is super successful. In a hurry going nowhere. The wrong grind.
- Where do I want to be in 6 months, 12 months and 2 years?
- Set your goals and element all low energy relationships.
What’s the shift from dentist profits to supplement company?
- 4-7 year cycles for him in business.
- When you’re in a small market you have to evolve.
- To run a service business you have to have a strong pedigree of operations.
- Be in a business that could scale and grow an offer to multiple millions.
- Marine Essentials
- Figure out what’s something I want to do?
- Who’s doing it?
- Who’s done it?
- Get expert advice.
- Get a team that sets you up for success.
- How do I surround myself with a team of people?
- Likes outside contractors that have been down the road before.
- Roland will spend 12-14 hours a day accumulating information. Submersion in it.
- The combination of tactics and mindset.
Slightly elevated observer position
- The ‘third’ position.
- Being able to disassociate.
- When someone asks for you to articulate your plan you are forced to take that third position.
People “chasing” too many opportunities without adequate a system.
- The traps.
- What did you use for the system that worked?
- What did you use for the system that failed?
- Set my goal and see my goal.
- Then I go to work.
- Build the system then go find mentors.
Filters
- Your belief system builds filters on what you can believe you can accomplish in what time frame.
- A quick example.
- ‘If you say everything is so expensive?’
- Compared to if you say the following.
- Man I have enough money the world is so abundant I can afford or get what I want.
Modeling
- When your modeling someone, I’m pulling their filters out and mapping them out to replicate something similar.
- You only take the ones that support you best.
- The Art of Modeling Greatness or Replicating Greatness.
- Wouldn’t it be nice if I…
- Go for a walk and say wouldn’t it nice if…
- Com Mirza describes everything as being easy to him.
