185 Beyond Profits: Eddy Pham on Building Ventures with Heart and Purpose

[00:00:00] ck: Welcome to noble warrior. My name is CK Lin. This is where I interview entrepreneurs about their journey to master their purpose, joy, and success. Today's episode. We have an innovator with three decades of experience in direct response marketing. He's been involved with hundreds of products, including some of the brands you probably know.

Acton stylus, Snuggie, lean, mean fat grilling machine, George Foreman grill. And most recently has founded CompleteRx. com to democratize access to prescription medications. And upswingpay. com to lowering credit card processing fees and complete card as the rewards and savings platform. Please welcome Eddie Pham.

Thanks for joining.

[00:00:45] Eddy: Hello, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:49] ck: So Eddie, one of the things I want to get people started right away is I really love not only your prowess when it comes to product development, but [00:01:00] how you speak so directly About your belief, you know, you don't hold anything back.

There is no filter. So why don't we start there and how have you developed that and how has that either, uh, enhance your career or harm your career in some way? Um, I don't

[00:01:18] Eddy: think it's ever harmed my career because I am very forward. It saves a lot of time and at the end of the day, I believe people respect that.

Um, I'm not malicious about it. I don't, you know, there's no name calling. It's just let's get to the point you're paying me to give you a finished product. So I want to do it as fast and as efficient as possible. So it's not about hurting feelings or anything. It's about you hired me as a professional.

And, um, you should listen to me when, when I speak, not in the sense that I'm not being humble about it. It's just a sense of, you know, I'm trying to help you get your dreams developed. And, um, rather than you telling me something should be this when I know it doesn't work. I'm dealing with that right now with the NFL, [00:02:00] uh, Major League NFL, um, icon.

He wants to bring a product to market and he's still thinking of the 90s stuff. And I'm like, that's not going to work today. You got to add an app to your program that you want to use because people need technology. They feel closer to their phone than they will to you ever. Got it.

[00:02:19] ck: So, so tell, tell us a little bit about, uh, uh, direct response marketing industry as a whole.

Because here's the thing. You probably get, uh, pitches all the time. I have this brilliant ideas. I can't really tell you unless you sign NDA and et cetera, et cetera. Right? So, so that's, that's one thing. And the other thing is, Oh, Snuggie is so easy. So simple. That's stupid. Oh, I could make something like that as well.

So tell us a little bit about the industry or so that way people can get an idea of what it is.

[00:02:55] Eddy: Well, the industry as a whole, I mean, people think it's just putting a commercial on TV that used to be 28 [00:03:00] minutes and 20 seconds long. Now, a long form is about five minutes and 40 seconds. And because people have lost that attention span to watch something for 30 minutes, that's not a show.

And, um, So we can say a lot in five minutes. I can say a lot in 30 seconds to sell a product, but you know, the industry in itself is, is driven by data. Data is, is God. You know, if you use it correctly, we know, you know, what colors we need to make, what, what product it needs to do. No, the air fryer is an old technology and it was brought back by new wave.

And, you know, everybody has an air fryer. And the reason why there's so many different versions is because it wasn't patentable and in, in, you know, everybody just made their own version. There's probably a hundred different versions of a hundred, a hundred different brands, probably maybe more, you know, um, you just walk down the target aisle or Walmart aisle.

There's at least two dozen different brands. And I think the air fryer is way bigger than George Foreman grill was ever. [00:04:00] Because, you know, one, there was only one George Foreman Grill, and nobody knocked it off until, you know, years later. And two, You know, people just wanted that brand name and because it was the only one air fryer is a technology.

It's not a brand. So, um, I love the infomercial or the direct to consumers where it's called a transactional marketing is what is being rebranded as because every movement that we make. Is transactional. I'm a transactional person. I post something because I wanted action to happen, you know may not be Um financial action, but it has to be an engagement of somehow So if i'm collecting data or collecting your credit card or whatever it may be It's an action.

It's a transaction Okay,

[00:04:42] ck: so the direct response industry is a really, really interesting industry for from my perspective, outsider perspective, it needs to be so simple that the generalized public gets it. But it needs to also be defensible. So that way people [00:05:00] can knock it off. You know, when people think about Atkins, okay, you just, you know, there's certain protocol you follow, like, I didn't even know you can turn into a large company that way.

Even Snuggie, Snuggie knockoff. Ugly right you mentioned in some other podcast you mentioned earlier. So why? How do you find that balance between such a simple idea, but yes, still defensible.

[00:05:22] Eddy: Um, it's speed to market, speed to market always wins. So a lot of times you don't need patent because if you have the money to back it up in media, in fulfillment, in logistics, you'll be, you'll be anybody else.

So I always say, I mean, it's a very hard thing to say. You can have all the money in the world, have a great idea and speed to market may not win because you know, When we get to the product I'm working on now, there was companies 10 years ago that made a product that I'm working on today. They failed because they were too, too soon to market.

They were too early. And, you know, timing, you know, as we all know, matters [00:06:00] in, in businesses like Uber would not have worked out in the nineties, but it worked out the time it came out because everybody needed to get economy. Um, that's why I love direct response or transactional marketing because everything we do, we sit around, I sit around with my expert friends and they, you know, we talk about products that we can make and just having fun, you know, hey, what if we did this?

What if we did that? You know, like I'm a big coffee drinker, um, hot coffee, not necessarily cold coffee. So I always said, excuse me, um, let's make a A thermos like a high grade like a yeti with a battery pack, you know that heats your cup up you know, not just in the sense of like, um Amber that's out there and I love that company.

I love his story in the sense that it can boil water So and my second favorite thing is ramen noodles instant noodles So if I can have boiled water on the go with a battery pack, I would love that. So i'm actually working on it There's a couple kickstarters [00:07:00] Um out there now doing it, but they're failing and they've been in process for two years and I support hundreds of kickstarters Hundreds of Indiegogo campaigns because I love inventors.

I love helping their dreams and I reach out to them and say, Hey guys, you know, I see you're having a hard time with your post. Let me help, let me point you to somebody that can help you make your, your widget. So, and a lot of times I, I get my money back and they'll send me the product because I do want to help.

You know, it's not always about making money.

[00:07:27] ck: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one thing I appreciate about you, man. I mean, that's, that's helpful. That's visceral, you know, you're always trying to help. And you have a, how do I say this? You have a kind heart, but a sharp mouth.

[00:07:41] Eddy: Yeah, I do have a sharp mouth. Gets me in trouble every now and then.

Depends who's in the room. Okay,

[00:07:46] ck: so, so what I'm hearing you saying between the lines is not, it is about the product, but it's not about the product. It's about the speed of implementation. How quickly you can not only test out the ideas, test out what works, whether or not there's a [00:08:00] demand for it. And then, um, build up the infrastructure.

So then when you scale quickly, when the numbers work, you can, you can basically beat the market based on, you know, how quickly you can meet that demand. Is that an accurate

[00:08:11] Eddy: reflection? A hundred percent. Yes. So we want to make sure when we bring a product to market that we have distribution, if it's going to go to retail, if it's going to go to a Costco, cause Costco is different than retail.

If it's going to go to a general dollar, if it's going to go on a CVS shop, all those are just, all those are retail forward facing, but they're all different. Um, um, executions. Costco is a very different execution than a Walmart. So I've worked on a product that's been in Costco for 28 years. When I first worked on it 28 years ago, I didn't think it was gonna work because I tried it and it didn't work on me.

It's called Focus Factor and it's a memory enhancement, um, product. It's a pill. And Costco doesn't hold anything for 28 years if it's not making money. So obviously it must work for a lot of people. That's [00:09:00] what matters. It didn't work for me. That doesn't mean anything. I see.

[00:09:04] ck: So now there's some limiting beliefs that I have personally.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. And so in my mind, before I've done the research of a direct response is really good for physical goods, you know, everyday consumer, you know, man, vitamins or whatever the thing, right, you know, air fryer, it's this type of like home widget goods. are really effective because everyone, you know, needs to cook something, eat something, et cetera, et cetera.

But I had no idea that your start with actually educational info products, Kevin Trudeau's thing that are done. Right. So, um, that actually broke my limiting belief. I was like, Oh shit. You know, I didn't know. Uh, infoproducts is still usable or sellable on with a direct response channel. Can you maybe, you know, help me out and just elaborate on that a little bit?

Is it, is it literally every product is okay to sell via direct response or there's some,

[00:09:56] Eddy: I think, I think every product, every category [00:10:00] of industry can be sold direct to consumer. So infomercial. It's a word that, you know, was made up in the early 80s and, you know, it's been made fun of. A lot of the celebrities, you know, turned down big positions to be an infomercial product because of, you know, the humor it made.

Um, now everybody wants their own product. May it be an infomercial product or not, but they want a direct to consumer product. So Yes, I started with mega reading, mega math, mega spelling with Kevin Trudeau and huge, huge products and early 90s and that gave us the funding to do tangible products. So, I think anything can be sold direct to consumer if you can tell the story correctly in 30 seconds, 1 minute or 2 minutes.

Um, look at What makes a direct to consumer product is a call to action. So you see a lot of commercials that are like L'Oreal. They don't have to say where to buy it from. Everyone knows who L'Oreal is or Gillette. You don't have to say Gillette. com. You don't have to say go to Walmart. You don't [00:11:00] have to show any of those things because those brands are so massive.

They're evergreen. Um, But a direct to consumer product is, um, has a call to action. 1 800 number, a website, go to your local, local CVS to pick it up, whatever it may be. The chyrons will be on the bottom of the screen. So that's a call to action. That gives us a discount in media buys, um, because it's a call to action.

And also, um, makes a, makes a transactional, yeah, and trackable 100 percent trackable because we can pinpoint every dollar spent like in, you know, downtown LA versus Nashville, we know which one worked better.

[00:11:37] ck: Yeah. Okay. So is there any product that's. You know, not suitable, maybe like an iPhone or something because it's so expensive, like, is there's price point an issue for like, Oh, no, I don't think so.

Thing is so top price, like, yeah, you know, it doesn't work.

[00:11:55] Eddy: Um, I just think that higher price products, like I have a friend putting, making a helmet [00:12:00] that's infrared that helps grow your hair back, makes it thicker, longer, whatever. Um, but the. And it's over a thousand dollars. He has a, you know, a directed consumer campaign.

Very classy, very well done. And I spent a lot of money on it. And there's an audience for that because, you know, even a middle of the night when it shows, there's going to be an audience look at that and say, you know what, I'll scratch up a thousand dollars or twelve, twelve hundred dollars to get that.

Um, I don't think there's any category that can't be sold. You know, I mean, you have FanDuel that's selling their app on, on commercials. You have, you know, just about every FanDuel. The, the, the gambling, isn't it called FanDuel? The gambling app? I don't watch TV, so I don't know. Yeah. No, so I don't, I don't either.

I only watch platforms. But the, um, yeah, FanDuel is a gambling app that, you know, it's an app that they're selling on TV. They're pushing you to download it. So massive company in Vegas. And what's hilarious to me is that they're in Vegas, but they're not allowed to be used in Nevada, which is funny to me.[00:13:00]

Yeah.

[00:13:01] ck: So, so not to drill on this too much, but I think this is an important part, right? So it's direct response. More like a, like an impulse buy, like it needs to make it, people need to make that transaction decision quickly. Oh, I don't have hair. This thing could, you know, if I spend a thousand, it can give me hair.

Like,

[00:13:19] Eddy: like that. It's a very, um, it's heartstring driven. Or terror driven or informational driven. So you want to use one of those tactics to get somebody. So if the heartstrings would be, you know, the hair growing back. Oh my God, I want to look like I was 20 again. Let me, you know, buy this moisturizer that CK uses.

Cause he has amazing skin, you know, or grow

[00:13:40] ck: my hair back. A lot of people ask me on TikTok, like what is your skin care ritual? Yeah.

[00:13:45] Eddy: What do you, what do you do? You have glass skin anyways. Um, yeah, it was just, uh. You know, you want to go after the mass consumers because that's what direct to consumer is you want to go as many people as you can, because, you know, if I'm launching a new product, [00:14:00] I am launching a new athletic product that's coming out, you know, in the next month or two and.

We're not just going to go after the athlete. We're going after the parents because they're the ones who buy it. They don't want you to buy the product for their kids. So their football players or soccer players there, you know, whatever, um, kids that will use a cleated, um, athletic shoe in their sport. So those are the people we're going to go after because the parents have the credit cards.

So we're going to make sure that that commercial is going to show in between. Um, the soap operas in between Judge Judy, in between Judge Joe Brown, and all those shows that have the parents that are home at that time. So we're going to show it at dinnertime, show it early in the morning, play it on the radio on, on, um, on rush hour.

So we know the time to show and what DMAs to show it in. So DMAs will give us, you know. What the psychographics and geographics and the financials of, you know, the consumers in that area. So, um, every category is [00:15:00] different. So that's why I said earlier, you know, data is King data is God, because if you use it correctly, you have a pretty good campaign.

[00:15:08] ck: Interesting. So as you know, I'm an expert when it comes to mental mastery, right? Anything involving the mind, limiting beliefs, reinforcing positive ones, da, da, da, just use me as an example. Like, how would you help me craft like, Hey, CK, here's a product you can make and build out a campaign that way. Yeah, I mean, if,

[00:15:31] Eddy: if, like, just what your expertise and your experiences in, you know, the mental health and, you know, just grabbing your, you know, your Zen warrior and everything else that you do, I would put that in an app, you know, playing the right music in the back of the binary beats and telling a story like people like that stuff nowadays, you know, mental health is so important and there was a long time I didn't believe in, you know, greater mental health because I'm such a stubborn person that, you know, yeah.

I didn't understand mental [00:16:00] health. It took me a long time. It took me years, you know, probably 20 years to really understand it. And now I'm a big proponent for it. So, I think with UCK and what I know about you as a friend, is I would make an app, a SaaS model product, and It's mailbox money. Keep it real cheap, like 19.

95. And, um, one time buy. Not a, not a subscription model. And get, play the right, get the right music behind it. Tell the right stories. Affirmations. People love affirmations. People love, um, wishboards. All that stuff. And just remind them, you know, wake up. You can do this. Blah, blah, blah. So, um, that's the stuff that I believed, like if I was going to brand you, I would do that and it probably, I could probably build that all out in less than 10 grand and make you millions of dollars.

[00:16:46] ck: Let's go man, okay. I mean, okay, so let me actually double click on couple things. Okay. Yeah, so affirmations do work, right? And because it's repetition, right? Because you're reaffirming [00:17:00] your program in your mind You're subconscious in a particular way and meditation works, right? And you know by normal beats these all work These are all things that work question.

I have is That's a really interesting point that you mentioned. One time payment instead of subscription. Why, why, why, why, one time versus

[00:17:17] Eddy: subscription? Because you want, the way I look at it is, you get somebody to pay the 20. And regardless if it's 1, 000 people or 1 million people to do that and giving you the income to build your next product because now you have to build brand equity because one, you know, not many people are Joe Rogan, you're not a Joe Rogan.

I'm not a Joe Rogan. So you got to build your brand, your foundation, you know? Um, so once you get that first product out there and I always say, make your first product, your last leader. In a sense, you'll make money from it, but then you're going to build up a word chest to make your second product because now CK Lim has a bigger name.

So now you can charge the nine 95 a month, you know, I'm going forward. So, and you can do them at the same time. You just, you know, you [00:18:00] can build your big product, but take a little piece of it and do it for 20 and start building your brand equity. And that's not how I would do it. If I was going to build a SAS model for mental health.

So,

[00:18:10] ck: so on that note, Eddie, let me. Because we come from like different angles, right? I'm more of the high ticket offer, very specific kind of people, very educated, aware, they're ready to invest in themselves. That's my approach. But you come from the world of mass marketing, right? So let's democratize this, make it 9.

99 or whatever, super affordable. What's what tell us about the tension between the high ticket versus the low ticket? I would tell

you

[00:18:38] Eddy: the exact about it. My personal example would be like I know your audience I didn't know you well enough, you know, you're way fancier than me and the way I look at it is You're gonna you you want to Tony Robbins audience you guys are gonna pay You know, thousands of dollars to hear a speech, this, that, and the other.

Um, I want to mass consumers because to me, my [00:19:00] world is volume. So for you to get to the Tony Robbins or any, anybody in that realm, anybody with brand equity, you have to start somewhere. Tony Robbins was nobody when I met him in the early 90s. He was literally nobody. And at the same time, we had the same attorney and he wrote his first book in our attorney's office.

And I always, cause there's pictures of him in our attorney's office, him writing the book. And I was like, Um, I think I've launched more than Tony. Why am I pictures up in here? So we just joke and, um, you know, you, you have to start somewhere. So getting. For you to get to that, you know, the person that will spend 5, 000 a month or even 1, 000 a month, you have to have brand equity.

You just can't come out of nowhere. And, um, to do that, you gotta, you know, you gotta build a word chest. Then you can rebrand yourself, you know, just like, um, Tucker Carlson did, you know. He was not who he is today, you know. 20 years ago, he was not who he is today. So if you look up the old stuff, you know, I would not have liked him then.

So what

[00:19:58] ck: I'm hearing, again, you didn't say [00:20:00] this explicitly, but what I'm hearing between the lines is about building credence platform, you know, monetize with a low ticket and then, you know, build up the brand equities, uh, the brand equity to become this, you know, person with brand with their credibility.

And then, and then, and then the higher ticket clients. Yeah,

[00:20:23] Eddy: I mean, it's perfect. Perfect example of the atmosphere we're in today. You know, a lot of people are running for office, you know, presidential office. And, um, they're, you know, good, bad or indifferent, they spend a lot of money getting their brand out there, like their platform, tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to make that happen.

So, they didn't start from a small place because they just jumped into the biggest race in the world and now they have to raise all this money. So, if you were going to go after the Tony Robbins audience, um, you would have to spend tens of millions of dollars just to make a blip because they don't know you.

And so that's why I say you got to start [00:21:00] and build yourself up and it becomes a hockey stick You know, it grows really fast. Once you have the numbers behind you because now, you know, you have different levels of achievement You know, this is for the the 995 guy. This is for the 5995 guy. This is for the 999 Dollar guy so and people are going to trust you because you build brand equity over time Not, you know, one day you woke up and you wanted to run for president.

[00:21:25] ck: Yeah. Thank you. So let's segue to, okay, thank you for that. The mini consult. We can

[00:21:31] Eddy: talk, we can talk about your app after.

[00:21:34] ck: There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, let's talk about filtering for ideas because I, you mentioned many, many times in many different podcasts, personal conversation and otherwise. Ideas are a dime a dozen.

So, as a product developer, your job is to find the gems to say, hey, I can pour gasoline on this fire, this little spark to you know, help them make money and make the kind of impact they want to make. What are the criteria [00:22:00] for you when you evaluate hundreds, if not thousands of ideas?

[00:22:04] Eddy: So, for me, I make it as simply as, would I buy it?

And a lot

[00:22:10] ck: of my friends You call yourself the jaded

[00:22:12] Eddy: consumer. Yeah, I'm a very jaded consumer because I've made everything that you can imagine. I know what things cost. I've been to 63 countries, looking at factories, making products all over the world. So I know the absolute cost of something or pretty, pretty close to it.

And I'm pretty good as a, as a consumer, what I would pay for it. So as a jaded consumer, I look at whatever widget and say, would I buy this? And what would I need to tell myself to purchase this? So, because there isn't anything I really need. Um, and there's, you have to look at, there's a need and there's a want.

So, and it's a fine line to sell somebody the need, the want is much easier. You know, the shiny new object. The, you know, the cool new car, whatever it may be. So, that shiny new object is much easier to sell than the need. Because people don't want to be told what they need to have, [00:23:00] you know. You want to, you want to, you want to people to know what they want to have.

So that shiny new object is much easier to sell. So that's why a lot of commercials are, you know, I always sell the benefits, not the features. So if you tell, talk about the benefits of a product, how it can help you subliminally people are listening. But if you talk about, oh, it's made of titanium, it's made of, you know, sapphire glass.

Nobody cares. Nobody cares. No, they just want to know it's going to turn on and it's going to make a phone call or whatever the product is So if it's going to fry my steak better if it's going to make my french fries crispier They want to know what the benefits are. They don't care what the features are.

So i've learned that ongoing over 30 years

[00:23:41] ck: So there's a clear need and there are some ways to appeal to their desire, right? There are one correct. Is there is there a way in it? Actually before I double click on that one I also, um, you didn't say this, there's also a money making opportunity. And from what I know of you, there's also a personal [00:24:00] affinity, personal connection.

Is that, is that an accurate recap

[00:24:03] Eddy: from, you know, Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I don't really, yeah, as a, as a professional, I don't really look at products and say, you know what, I'll do this because I like the guy. I don't want to waste your time or my time. So especially waste your money, um, cause I'm not free.

So my thing is I look at and go, can I really put this in the marketplace and help people? Like I'm working on an athletic shoe product right now that I don't play any athletic sports. And so I look at it and go, this is a great product. This is a fantastic idea. I've never in my life played a cleated sport, you know, football, soccer, baseball, any sport with that wore cleats and moving forward.

That's what made me better because I answered questions. I weren't asked of a person who doesn't play sports. So, and keeping the product at a very low 20 price tag, um, I'm going to hit a bigger marketplace because when I started researching cleats. I didn't realize cleats [00:25:00] were so expensive. So then you look at the baseball mitt and the bat and the bat and everything else that parents have to buy, you know, hockey would seem to be that most expensive sport that I looked at and golf was up there.

Um, but baseball and soccer are pretty big sports. So focusing on those two sports for this new product coming out, it was a huge opportunity and being able to get a patent on it was even better because now the big guys looked at and go, wow, this little company made a hiccup. In our industry, let's just purchase them because I build things to get acquired.

I built things

[00:25:32] ck: for that's something. So you don't just think about the top line revenue from the direct response, but you also think about the possible acquisition. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Uh huh. That's interesting. Okay. So maybe you can share, I mean, I'm not an industry insider. So what are the economics?

Like, Hey, if I, for example, in Silicon Valley startups, they're thinking about 10 X, whatever of the APT, whatever. So when you think [00:26:00] about what goes into your mind, is it just, let me make X revenue and then they're going to do a five X on it, pop up with possible acquisition partner,

[00:26:09] Eddy: whatever. Each industry has a different, um.

Valuation number or multiplier. So my new company is a data data company information, and it's also FinTech. So because I own a bank, I own merchant rails, and I own a product that will help a financial literacy. Exponentially grows my, my multiplier. So looking it up and talking to my mentors in the finance world, um, our company will be in a 30 to 40 X multiplier.

You know, that's not unheard of. I, when someone tells me something, I cut it in half. I said, okay, let's use 20 X. So at a 20 X, I know my goal number to get an offer from an Apple or Google. Cause those are the guys who are going to watch this product because. Apple, Google, Facebook, they know everything about you when you're on, [00:27:00] when you're behind a keyboard, when you're on your phone.

They know everything about you and their sister companies. They don't know anything about you in IRL, in real life. So when you're just walking across the street, getting on a bus, going into Target, doing whatever, they don't know any of those movements. So our new product will help with that and help, you know, people save more money because of the platforms that we built.

So I'm excited. Um, I, I built this new company to grow it exponentially and we haven't even launched yet. We already had two offers.

[00:27:32] ck: Amazing. Congratulations. Um, early congrats, man. This is good stuff. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. So. There's a, most people don't know this about you, but you're actually quite a devoted, you know, spiritual person.

So how do you balance, you know, one of the things that I teach clients is finding sole market fit. Because most entrepreneurs, they just talk about product market fit, right? Hey, is there a demand? Can I meet the demand? Everything that we've been talking [00:28:00] about so far. I have, we haven't quite talked about the soul resonance, right?

Like, why am I doing this? What's, what's my purpose behind it beyond just making money. So can you maybe, you know, clarify for yourself, like, you know, how do you stride that balance between Um,

[00:28:20] Eddy: I mean, on the spiritual part, like I'm not a religious person, very spiritual in the sense of, you know, I believe I'm here because of a greater power, you know, and what I do at this time on earth, um, I mean, I had great parents, you know, my dad was Sicilian.

Roman Catholic hardcore. My mom was Buddhist, so I grew up in a Buddhist Roman Catholic household, so I took the Buddhist side, as you can see behind me. Um, I, you know, I always believe that we all should do. Good for others and ourselves you can and just like you know When you're on a plane make sure you put on your mask before you help somebody else You have to help yourself first, you know, and it's not a selfish [00:29:00] thing.

It's just like, um self help is not selfish You know, so I you know, i've learned that it took me a long time to learn that but and not everything is transactional when it comes to business, you know, I do look at it like I am blessed enough to say, I don't really like this person. I say to myself, I don't have to do business with them.

I'm blessed enough to say that, but if I really like you, I wear my heart on my sleeve and I will jump in the fire with you. You know, if I'm going to invest monetarily or my time, or if it's a good cause, because you know, like when I help crowdfunding campaigns, I don't know them. I reach out. I email them.

I introduce myself. I'm like, hey, I see your your updates and your challenges that you can't get this battery made or you don't understand what you need to do and you're you're you're telling your Your followers and your supporters and they're getting angry. So I reach out as a human being saying hey, I can help you with that This is what you need to do and they're so grateful You know, I'm just a person that truly wants to help entrepreneurs because that's what built us well, [00:30:00] you know, is ingenuity, is individuals, you know, just, you know, helping each other as human beings.

So I'm not any more important than you, CK, or anybody else. It's just the fact that I have a different skill set. You have a different skill set than me. And, you know, I love learning. Like, I try to read a book a week. I used to read a book every week. Now I'm about three books a month. So, I love reading, I love learning, and, you know, I don't read Harry Potter's or, you know, Twilight, I read real life stuff.

[00:30:29] ck: Yeah, you're, you're, one of the things that's really obvious for me from the very beginning when we first met is you're a very practical guy, right? You're, yes, you're deeply spiritual, but most of our conversation are like down to the brass tacks, right? Like, what are you going to do, and what are the tactics, and here's what you could do, and da, da, da, da.

So, and hence why. It's really cool to have a conversation because we can zoom out on the spiritual stuff. Uh, we can also zoom in on the material world, tactical things. Exactly. [00:31:00] Yeah. So, quick question. This is, this is, uh, a little bit evocative, okay? So let me gonna, let me preface that before I ask this question, alright?

So there's this debate about whether direct response product contributes to consumerism or making everyday life easier. So on the one hand, this is like a little bit of a criticism of response. And then the other one is, the other, the other side of it is, hey, we're actually just making our life a little bit easier, whatever that looks like.

So how do you see, you know, as an insider, um, how is it, how is it making that positive change for society?

[00:31:40] Eddy: Yeah, I I actually agree to both of those, you know, depending how you're asking me. So on the consumerism, yes, we we move a lot of product making our lives better. So think about like the products like remember a body by Jake, all of his exercise equipment, um, taking all these big equipments that you saw at a gym and reducing it down [00:32:00] to a home size and making affordable.

So That makes our life easier or taking an air fryer or you know, these new toast toaster ovens that do a lot of things They do they do rotisserie. They do air frying they do convention ovens. So makes our life easier. And yeah, it creates Consumerism so i'm i'm on a i'm on a battlefield for both of them I mean, I agree to both of them because you know when you make something easier a widget faster better cheaper People are going to buy it.

It's just evident. So We use a tool of, um, I'm the marketing to get it in front of as many people as you can. So when I do an ad, you know, if it's TV, radio, print, internet, social media, influencers and all everything in between, um, that's a, you know, an omni channel approach going after everybody all at once.

I'm gonna hit six at least 65 million people and I look at it. I back it up going I just got this in front of 65 million people. I need 10, 000 people to respond out of those 10, 000 I need a very small number to actually purchase to [00:33:00] click through then I know I can keep moving forward because that number just keeps growing because then I use those Because I love social media and I love review platforms, you know, I use those And, you know, I, I focus on them.

So those people, I mean, you know, this as a tech person, you know, we go after, you know, if somebody, um, really gave us a great review, we scrape their social media to get all of their friends and family. And we, we blast them with our information, like your friend said, you know, so we let them know that this was posted or we use your post and we just keep reposting it.

So it works and it's free.

[00:33:36] ck: Yep. So, so the effectiveness of social marketing, digital marketing, I'm not questioning that at all. I totally get that. The, the question was around the, the moral compass, right? That the ethics behind it, because let's say I'm not, none of your products, but let's say some crappy, some other crappy products.

They're very, very good at, you know, um, digital marketing and they [00:34:00] get the thing out there and then it's pretty shitty. So they use it twice and this thing breaks and it goes into the, you know, the wasteland. Now we're just accumulating a lot of waste, right? So in your mind, when you think about that moral compass part of it, like how do you think about it?

Is it the nature of the question?

[00:34:21] Eddy: Excuse me, I've been a part of a lot of those products and I question myself, like, why am I doing this? I mean, there was a time in the early nineties, I did it because it was my job. And I made a lot of products that I didn't believe, I didn't stand behind, but they made a ton of money for the owner.

So I'll tell you a perfect example. We had a product called Hair Regrow. It was a concentrated shampoo. Hair Regrow. It was called Hair Regrow.

[00:34:47] ck: Okay, so it's the benefits in the name. I like it. That's good.

[00:34:52] Eddy: So all it was was a concentrated shampoo, you know, without the fragrances [00:35:00] and everything else. And it felt different.

It felt more industrial, so people loved it. And did it grow your hair back? I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you. Did it make a hundred million dollars? Yes, it did. And in the early 90s, that was a lot of money. Still a lot of money today, but it was a lot more back then. And, um, did I feel good selling it?

It was my job, you know, so we I didn't hurt anybody I didn't you know It was a 20 shampoo that people got on subscription model for now was before subscription models was a thing So in 1992 when it came out, um, we had tens of thousands of men and women Using it because they felt that it made their hair grow and I truly believe that you know, the um The person, yourself, can really achieve certain goals in your body, like, if you, hope is a very powerful thing, you know, it's a very powerful thing, it's not a business plan, but it's a very powerful thing internally, so if you're using this product and you're hoping that your hair grows back, I truly believe you [00:36:00] can wake up your follicles, I mean, that's just me being a mental stubbornness, um, I believe that, you know, you can control your body a lot more than you truly believe, so hope, in that aspect, is so powerful, Look at when people pray, you know, they hope and they pray.

That is a very powerful tool I'm not saying I use that for selling products, but you know, I've never sold a religious product in my life I couldn't imagine selling one, but I know how I would do it if I did

[00:36:28] ck: Okay, so let's, let's just, just for fun, let's talk about that for a moment, right? How would you do like a manifestation product, right?

Like, kind of like a faith based, you know, positive thinking?

[00:36:41] Eddy: Yeah, I mean, um, I mean, a perfect example, I have a friend creating a crystal, different crystals. He believes that, you know, crystals have different energies, and I believe it too. Um, but I'm not into it so much where I'm going to wear crystals all over me.

Um, but he's telling a story that he's, um, gonna Embed the crystals into clothing [00:37:00] and it's going to make you wake up better, make you, and again, it goes back to that personal belief, that hope, but he's really driving it on the spirituality of the crystal, where it came from, how it was made, how, you know, You know, God's hand had to have made that blah, blah, blah.

But I think it's fantastic. And I mean, I'm going to help him, but it's not my campaign. I'm helping him as a friend, you know, and over lunch, that's my payment. I get paid for lunch and, um, but I give him my input and I love doing that every now and then. So to all of your listeners, I always tell people if you want an hour of my time, take me to lunch.

Yeah.

[00:37:37] ck: Awesome. And I really, really appreciate that. So, okay. So a little bit of a segue. Um, um, okay, actually, before the segway, what I gather is if it doesn't harm people, if it offers a positive outcome, whether it's placebo effect or whether it's the, the actual product that [00:38:00] does what it's supposed to do, these are basically your line of, you know, moral competencies essentially.

Okay.

[00:38:08] Eddy: Yeah. I mean, I always want to, I definitely want people to get a benefit from it in the sense of. What do we tell them why they're buying this product? So if it was to help their hair grow back thicker, if it was to make a, um, French fries, crispier, whatever it may be, you know, I want, I want to actually deliver that because as a guy who gets on the plane to go to the other countries to watch the manufacturing happen and test the product, you know, I want to make sure it works and we, you know, and now with the laws are so tight, I definitely make sure it works.

[00:38:37] ck: Oh, actually, I didn't know there are laws. What are the laws?

[00:38:42] Eddy: Yeah, I mean, you can't make testimonies anymore. You know, just because you put a guy in a white jacket, a doctor's jacket. You know, and he says something, you as a consumer, believe that that is a medical expert saying something to you. So, our old friend Big Paul, when I first met him over 20 years ago, [00:39:00] he watched an infomercial, excuse me, I was at his house, and he was like, oh my god, that's FDA approved.

And I was cooking in his kitchen, and I looked up at him, and I knew the campaign very well. And I was like, what did you say? And he goes, that product, that diet pill is FDA approved. I said, that's not what he said. I said, he said it was FDA lab approved. It's an FDA lab approved product. That means the FDA once used that lab or has certified that lab to be used for the fda A the fda a never said they approved that product.

That's what you heard. And he was like, oh my God. So he learned something that day. Just 'cause it's a FDA app approved lab doesn't mean the DA approved that product. So

[00:39:42] ck: you can't use medical looking person to make some kind of. You know, implied claim. Essentially. Yeah. Yes. You can have a consumer saying like, I used this product was amazing.

Correct. Yeah, you

[00:39:56] Eddy: can't, you know, testimonies don't go that far anymore. You know, [00:40:00] they were big in the 90s. They were big in the early 2000s. But nowadays, social media has squashed all of that, you know, because now I'd rather use CK's Recommendation that this product work rather than spending 10, 000 to tell you this product work.

You are much more valuable to me and to your followers than that 10, 000 I would have spent to reach your followers.

[00:40:22] ck: Oh, got it. So it's more of the kind of like podcaster or expert, you know, niche, uh, what do you call those guys? Niche, um You said celebrity or influence. Yeah. Influences works way better.

Got it. Okay. Yeah.

[00:40:37] Eddy: Yeah. 100 percent because, you know, I use influencers. I, I, I have a lot of friends who are actual influencers, micro and major. My friend Ryan has 22 million followers and all he does is product valuations and. I personally don't follow him because I'm his friend and I don't like his, his, um, videos.

They make no sense to me because I'm an actual product [00:41:00] expert. He's the guy who opens a box and says, Oh, this doesn't leak, you know? So I'm just like, Oh my God, that's so horrible. But hey, you got 22 people, 22 million people to follow him and he makes a living doing it. So I applaud him for that. So,

[00:41:13] ck: okay.

So a little bit of a segue, right? We hear stories about how Spanx got started or this, this lady, Jamie Kern. The co founders of it cosmetics, you know, they use, you know, direct response as a way to help them get started and all those things. Beautiful story, you know, the struggle and the triumph. Amazing, right?

If you were to help them do Spanx. Again, uh, how would you have done it differently or could that have alleviated their suffering and struggle? You know, all that.

[00:41:48] Eddy: Yeah. I mean, I love her story, you know, I, I love, cause I love the entrepreneurial story and her resilience and I give up in a product that I didn't know was a thing.

I mean, cause I'm [00:42:00] not a woman and I don't do drag, you know, so there's nothing I don't need to, you know, I would never have looked at that product, but, um, it was. You know, it was a need, you know, women needed it. And it actually helped so people could relate and you know, she seemed trusting, you know when she sold her product So i've read that her whole staff is all females, you know, which makes it help, you know, good, bad or indifferent It is what it is.

It's a woman owned company. So I love her stuff I would have just been able to explode it more in front of millions of people. I mean, she did it, um, grassroots word of mouth, getting it going. Yeah, she did pop up pop up stores, you know, and so just take that pop up store where, you know, a thousand people might've seen it, a hundred people might've tried it on and a dozen people might've bought it, you know, out of taking that same pop up concept, you know, using actual footage and selling that story to [00:43:00] 64 million people.

You know all at once every day and then people look at and go. Oh my god. Did you see that commercial? Let's go look at it and drive the traffic to Nordstrom's or wherever that pop up store was. So that's what you want to do. I mean, that's the power of media. That's the power of social media now. So if you use it correctly, you can really have a great CPA, your cost per acquisition, because that's the one number you can't control in anything.

So you don't know, you, you, you'll forecast that, you know, this cup will cost us five dollars to get people to click through and to purchase. Something might go viral and it costs us nothing. You know, a message may not get across and my cost has 20, you know, cost per acquisition. So you don't know until you start looking at all the data.

[00:43:47] ck: So, so, um, so Eddie, here's an interesting thing, right? So I don't know, do you know Alex Formosy, the teacher, the online guru that teaches marketing and offers and stuff like that? Okay, perfect. I

[00:43:59] Eddy: don't know personally, but [00:44:00] I know the

[00:44:00] ck: name. Right, but you know the name. So part of the teaching methodology is.

Hey, let's have you have, you can call it a hundred million dollar offer. Basically it's offer so good people feel stupid to say no. So then, then after that do a organic posts, right? Media and so on and so on. And then you scale that with paid media. Because then you're not just throwing things in the fire and hope that you, you know, it's kind of, kind of a thing.

So as a paid media guy, do you agree with that sequence of events or you might forget about, you know, like basically just use paid media as a way to accelerate the create the offer creation.

[00:44:43] Eddy: Yeah. I mean, for me in my world, paid media is champion because it creates the earned media. So paid media, you know, we'll get hundreds.

Thousands or millions of people to buy a product then you're going to get the earned media because people are now talking about that product [00:45:00] So unless I'm an influencer or a famous person, you can't start with earned media I mean unless you're one of those two things unless you really have a huge following the earned media is already there But I'm neither one of those people so I have to buy I have to use paid media to drive earned media So earned media is way more valuable, of course but You can't get to even, even with, you know, big product, big brands, you know, you look at Jake Paul, you know, he launched his drink, you know, great.

And he's got tens of millions of followers. And you look at Mr. Beast, who I'm presently going to be working with on my new product. Um, you know, these guys are untouchable, but. They created their platforms, you know, I love influencers more than I love celebrities because celebrities were created by a studio by a by a big conglomerate influencer created in their kitchen, in their living room, in their garage by themselves with a dream, you know, so.

I have way more respect for them because they went through the, the hardships of growing themselves without no, without money, you [00:46:00] know, they're probably their investments were their cameras, their lights, their microphones and their computer, you know, and that will, that probably was hard for them to buy at the time, but now, you know, like my nephew Jalen, you know, he has 6.

4 million followers. He hustled he worked and again, I don't follow him because I don't like his content, but I support him because he's my nephew Um, but you know, I earned media. I love earned media. I've never been good at it I've never I I can fake earned media by using influencers and relationships that I have and make it look earned But it's not truly earned because when something goes viral, you know how that works, you know, it's exponential growth, you know, and I would like to know who the wizard behind the curtain is that makes things go viral or the same wizard behind the curtain that makes, that cancels somebody.

I'm like, how powerful are you? Or what tools are you using? Because as I'm, as a marketer, I'm fascinated by those things. I read about it. I try to learn as much as I can. Earned media is just exactly what it is. [00:47:00] It's earned. You don't, you can't control it. And you know, making something go viral, you can't, you can't make things go viral.

You just can't, you know,

[00:47:08] ck: yeah, I mean, it's, it's an art and a science, right? What's that guy's name who wrote zero to 1 million follower. He's also part of that guy's name, but anyway, so, so he has a whole dojo essentially to where he studies these viral media and then try to pull out the science, the patterns behind it.

And obviously it's an art, so it's not like, Hey, I just duplicate all these, my stuff will go viral. I

[00:47:32] Eddy: mean, I don't think you can put that in a box, you know, I don't think you can, you can analyze it, you can subset it, you can look at it and cut it up and say, you know, it worked here, it's not going to work here, I don't care if you're selling a Yeti cup and Yeti 2, you know, I say Yeti because I love the Yeti product, I love that they came out with something that everybody already had, and they made it way more expensive, way high quality, and they built a community, so now they're a massive company, I love that, I mean, I think, [00:48:00] On a personal level getting to the product development stuff if you believe in a product that you can sell You know, and your friends and family support it, not, not because they're your friends and family, but they like your product, you know, and they, they sell it and then they see, and people see it, you know, you're starting to build something, you don't have to be this giant conglomerate that's at Walmart, you know, selling products to be successful, you know, I mean, I, I, I love Etsy stores, you know, I'm just very new to Etsy last two years, and I'm very personable, you I reach out to the, to the creator on Etsy, like I buy a lot of leather goods.

I love leather stuff. And I'm like, I write to them. I'm like, this is

[00:48:38] ck: intense. Yeah, all of it.

[00:48:41] Eddy: All of it. All of it. And um, I, I just basically like I follow up and I'm like, I love what you do. I love your craftsmanship, you know, and I, I just talk to them. And I'm like, Hey, I'm going to have my friend post this and, you know, what happens with it, you know, because I do try to support people, good, bad or indifferent.[00:49:00]

Some people are like, why do you, why do you care so much? Just because I'm a human being, you know, that's why, you know, you and I are part of metal. Like, why do we care about being better men? Because, you know, I say I want to be a better man, better uncle, better brother, better friend, you know, because I want to be around the same people that I want to be become.

So that's why I'm a part of an organization you're a part of. Yeah.

[00:49:22] ck: Well, actually, Jim, on that idea for a second, right, you appreciate the community portion. You're obviously very involved. You're a human, you're, you're a people person. That's, that's obvious, right? You love human beings. How, how would you use direct response to promote a community?

Like, you know, others or religious. I, I

[00:49:45] Eddy: know I can, I can exponentially grow metal by myself,

[00:49:50] ck: you know? So let's like, yeah, I mean, I

[00:49:54] Eddy: mean Metal is not unique in its own sense. It's a lot of men's groups There's a lot of you know, [00:50:00] better health groups or better the self groups out there and that's been around for a long time I don't know them all.

I only know metal and I love what they stand for. I love Ken and his crew I love my friends that I made into including yourself I would take that, make a sizzle reel, and just keep playing different versions of that sizzle reel on every platform to get in front of as many people. They just started doing that.

I don't know if you've noticed on social media, they've just started doing that because it works. And it's actually inexpensive if you, I mean, the editing is the most expensive piece, but if, you know, their whole crew does the editing in house. So as long as they can start growing that, which, you know, I think they should have done when social platforms were created, they probably have 100, members all over the world.

But, you know, the scamdemic really helped the middle because it grew exponentially because now people can become local because of zoom. You know, that's the one, I mean, one of very few things that came out good out of the whole COVID thing is that, you know, [00:51:00] people became closer in the sense of using digital technology.

Um, but metal in itself and other groups like that, um, I would do it like any other infomercial. Direct to consumer. I would get in front of as many men groups, many men, um, places that I could. Literally starting at 18 and up. I would, I would be all over them. So I'd buy data lists if I didn't have it already.

I would scrape websites and get email addresses. I would promote, I would do banners on those websites. So I would just do it online, you know, and maybe on, um, Some am stations. So you want to be a better man, a better human, you know, better brother, better uncle, you know, think about metal come as a guest, you know, learn what we do.

So see who we speak with. See who speaks to us, you know, stuff like that. I'm like, just put the benefits out there of what it is. And then, you know, because we all know it, you know, you get three Saturdays for free and some sessions during the week for free. And I love [00:52:00] that, you know, because it's not a hard sell.

No, you can't come in unless you buy in, you know, That's the one thing I love about it's not a hard sell and once you get it and you truly truly want to be a Better person you will join especially when you go in the breakout rooms and you meet great people like when I met you in person I was like what first one of the first things I said to you is like when I talked to you online I was like, wow, he's such a robot and when I met you I was like, I was like, well, he's still a robot I was like, are you a robot?

[00:52:29] ck: That's an ongoing joke, man. Thank you. Thank you for helping me being more human every time we see each other. So, okay. So looking forward, so what are the future exciting things that's happening in, you know, um, directly industry, you know, whether it's the AI or the video gen, you know, generation type things that's like.

Ooh, I can totally clone CK as a robot and sell, you know, speak Spanish and Russian or [00:53:00] whatever the thing, like, is there anything that you're really excited about? Yeah, I mean,

[00:53:03] Eddy: AI, I'm a huge fan of AI, good, bad, or indifferent. I use it every day. For hours a day and, um, I learned everything.

[00:53:13] ck: What, what, like ChatGPT or some

[00:53:15] Eddy: other?

Yeah, ChatGPT, um, Claude and a few others. Oh, Microsoft just launched a new one that I'm using for graphics and I like to learn. I mean, I love learning and I'm fascinated. As a human being, as a person, I am fascinated how someone sat there and said, let's create ChatGPT. As a product guy, I would not have even known where to start.

I'm like, my mind is blown when you know, like my bio that I gave you, I just put in a couple of things. Cause my, I called my ChatGPT, Justin, I named him Justin. And I'm like, Justin, um, I speak to it. So it types everything out and basically give me a professional resume. And boom, I got it. I read it. I'm like, I sent it to you.

I've never had one. You know, I have [00:54:00] publicists who have them, but I don't have copies of them because I don't like to talk about myself, but here I am talking about myself.

[00:54:06] ck: Well, I mean, it's a great journey, man. Um, so are there any specific things that you are really excited about, you know, how to use, you know, for example, AI tools to help you.

You know, be a better direct response marketer. Yeah. Is there any specific use case that you're just like, Ooh, I can really see this thing, you know. I can,

[00:54:25] Eddy: yeah, I mean, I, I think, um, for me personally, I can only talk about myself. Um, like chat GPT as a perfect example, learns about you. I actually scared myself a few months ago because I told Jackie P get GDP or Justin everything about my new product that's coming up.

My new fintech card that's coming up, told it everything, the schematics, everything. And for some reason I freaked out for 10 seconds and I was like, Oh my God, is this on the internet? Does everyone know if they ask Justin what the complete card is, will he answer? [00:55:00] So I called my friend. I'm like, hey, can you ask your JATCPT what complete card is?

And he was like, and he knew where I was going because he was, he started giggling. He was like, Eddie, it's not on the internet. That's just your little world. I was like, Oh my goodness. So I use it. I mean, that's a good thing that it didn't broadcast out all my secrets, but I use it for writing now. So I have to hire less writers for scripting.

Even jingles. It's made me amazing jingles and Because I give it keywords and I'm not a master of it because I've met friends who who know way better prompts I'm like, oh give me a copy of your prompts because I seem to use the same ones that work for me and maybe because They do different things like I don't code.

There's no part of my life that I would ever code, you know Um, but i've learned to use excel much better. I've learned to you know to be a better writer I thought I was a good writer before justin came out and so when I write something I drop and paste it into justin i'm like [00:56:00] My prompt is make more concise and I was like, wow, that's good English right there.

So I love it. I mean, for any business owner startup, I mean, veteran business owner, whatever. I think people should use it. Technology is there to be used and we can learn a lot from AI. AI is just an amazing tool. Like I use it. I have another AI recipe. I think it's called, I just tell I have tomato eggs.

Um, I have this ingredient and it tells me all these things I can make. I'm like, what? So, because I love cooking and I was like, I think that's just, and I do it just for fun, you know, it's like that, that food network show where they open up the basket and they don't know chopped. They don't know what's in the basket and they got to make something.

It's just like, you know, I, I, I tell, um, the recipe AI, you know, these different things and it gives me all these recipes that I could make. And I'm like, Oh, that's fantastic.

[00:56:55] ck: Okay. So on that note, since, since you have a game with your friends, like what can we make? [00:57:00] You know, I can imagine you doing like a mini hackathon or a product development workshop or even like a dinner, right, where you have a random ingredient, like here is the demographic and psychographic and this is the age and this is their spending habit or whatever, these are the shows they like.

You know, what can they make? And then you use, yeah, everyone can use their strategy PT book in a group and like, come up with like 10 different product ideas and, you know, that could be fun. I want

[00:57:27] Eddy: to be. Yeah. Yeah. That would, that would be fun. Yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll start a game night at the house.

[00:57:32] ck: I mean, to me, that's like super fun, you know?

Yeah, no, for sure.

[00:57:36] Eddy: So, no, I mean, I love technology and I am a nerd self proclaimed, you know, in a geek. And so when there's a new shiny new tool out there, um, I did get on JackQPT late in the game. Because I heard it in metal all the time and a lot of times I don't jump on the boat when everybody's talking about it.

I got on it less than, I would say, eight months ago. It hasn't even been a [00:58:00] year. And I learn fast. I'm a quick learner. So I was like, oh my god, I was like, this is fantastic. Why didn't I get on this years ago when it was there? So I

[00:58:09] ck: don't know how much better I'd be. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the next best time is today, right?

So you're not late at all. Exactly. In the grand scheme of things, it was super early. Yeah. Speaking of Mr. Beast, you had mentioned him earlier. Did you know that he used AI as a way to speak Spanish in Russia now? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So can you see you, can you see that as a way to help you get into foreign markets?

For example, let's say you work with an influencer, you can use this. AI technologies who help you make, you know, localize media effectively.

[00:58:47] Eddy: No, I think because I don't know. No, I'm very excited about because I'm an expert at the U S marketplace. You know, I can sell just about anything in the U. S. I can't.

I mean, I know the bigger markets like [00:59:00] China, Korea, you know, Europe. I'm not an expert in those marketplaces. So with my new product, I am licensing those regions to local experts, local business people, because it's a banking product of fintech product. I'm using banking experts out there, and I love it because one, um, Justin tells me a lot of things that I didn't know about Europe, the Europe market.

So I read it and I'm like, okay, that's fantastic. So when I have my conversations with my counterpoints over in these other countries, I look at it and go, I bring these things up. And because they're local, they forget about it because they live it every day. So, because it's new to me, like when I learned to sell a product in Japan, I actually went to Tokyo and I don't know if you've ever been there, everything is in like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in your face.

They think differently. They're everything. I mean, we think we're on the go. We got nothing against the Japanese and they work harder than we could ever, but they play harder than anyone I've ever met. So it's two extremes. And so their signage is different. [01:00:00] Everything is, I won't say everything's anime, but it looks like that.

It's like boom, boom, bright lights. So I had to learn to create ads. To sell in that marketplace a long time ago because I don't think that way And even then I had to hire an expert to help create those ads, you know back in the mid 90s So it was just I mean every community every every Culture every region is different.

So you may think you know because you love italy You may think how to sell products italy. You don't know You know, unless you live there and you're a part of the

[01:00:32] ck: culture, so, so let's say if someone wants to either work with you or hire you or collaborate with you, what kind of, I guess, you know, because when I, when I think about this, I think in containers in time, also in investment, like buckets, right?

Every, every bullet. It's like a, it's like an experiment. So, yeah. How many bullets and what's the container, what kind of things should they think about?

[01:00:58] Eddy: Um, first of all, I mean, I [01:01:00] always

[01:01:00] ck: like product dependent for

[01:01:02] Eddy: it. Yeah, no, I, I always ask the first two questions you want to be rich or famous, you know, and it's a very honest question, you know, every person I've ever worked with, I asked him, you want to be rich or famous, you're doing this because you want people to know your name or you're doing this because you want a better life for you and your family, you know, the lie is always I want to be rich.

That's the lie. Everybody wants to be famous, you know, because I've worked with them always, always, and that's a drug I've never taken. There's zero part of me that wants to be famous. I don't care if you know my name or not know my name. So, almost, I would say greater than 70 percent of the people I've ever worked with, they want you to know who they are and what they've made.

And they get upset inside, internally, that you don't know that they're that person. So, very few people have that self esteem that, I don't need you to know my name. You know, because I did this for myself and my family and my legacy. You know, that's a strength. Like, [01:02:00] I've worked with very, very famous people and they explained to me the drug of fame.

I've never taken it. I've never desired to have it. I know very famous A list people I hang out with and I can see they have the same look in their eye. You know, fame is real. It's a real drug. Good, bad, or indifferent. And once you understand it and what it looks like, then you know how to deal with it.

Because, you know, It's, it's amazing. You know, you watch all these, um, like, The Voice, America's Got Talent, you know, um, all these shows. I love those things, you know. Are they doing it to have a better lifestyle, or do they want to be famous? You know, you can tell somebody to come on the stage and they just want that 50 minutes of fame.

You know, you can tell, because they have zero talent. You know, and it was fun. It was funny to them, and the show needs drama. But, but the people that truly, you know, you hear the, I love the behind the scenes stuff. Um, I love hearing the backstories because, you know, we grew [01:03:00] up in Chicago, the inner city, you know, we didn't know how to do anything and we played the drums, you know, this is the one I watched last night, you know, and now they're a Vegas show.

They didn't win. They, they, somebody in Vegas saw them and they're like, you know what, we can make a small show out of them and they made a lifestyle and they seem very humble about it. So, stuff like that, like, you, everyone lies, they want to be rich, everyone. You know, because once they make the money, then they're like, what else do I have?

How do you not know my name? Oh, I made this widget. You don't know my name. They get really upset about it. I've seen it. So it's hilarious to me.

[01:03:36] ck: Yeah. I think the, um, the desire for Tony Robbins calls it significance, right? The desire for that self importance, that significance. It's a real thing. I think it's very primal, right?

Cause we want to be significant, you know, evolution, biology. We want to be significant in the social status, right? The social strata. So we want to, you know, people to know like, Hey, we're high status. [01:04:00] Humans.

[01:04:01] Eddy: Yeah. Yeah, I know. I, I don't know why I'm, I'm opposite. I don't know. I don't fight it. I mean, it's not a fight for me.

It's just a decision I made a long time ago. Like, I don't give you know my name or not. You know, a lot of people say you want to be famous enough where you walk in the room and everybody you'd never have to introduce yourself. I'm like, well, that's just. Ignorant. I would always introduce myself. You know, I would never assume someone knew my name, even if I was a keynote speaker, and I've been a keynote speaker for many places, you know, I would still always introduce myself.

It's just, I think it's arrogance.

[01:04:34] ck: But the original question was, how long and how much should people embarking on the direct response campaign? Is it dependent or is it just like, Hey, general rule of thumb, you want this much money, this much time? Like, how do you advise?

[01:04:51] Eddy: Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know that formula.

Um, everything is not a cookie cutter to me. You know, everything is different. So the. [01:05:00] The avenues of getting where people know your product may be all the same. That obviously the message is a hundred percent different to product. You know, if it's, um, this, this cup or a sports shoe or a sex toy, you know, how much money did it take to make it?

How much research and development do you have? Do you have patents on it? So there's so many variables that, you know, each product is different. So there's some products I would tell people, you don't need a patent for that. Do you have money to go to market? You know, that always be my first question. How much?

What's your budget? You know? Oh, I have a half a million dollars and I look at it. I know the concept and I'm pretty good at it. I'm like, we can launch this with a half a million dollars. Do you have it today? Do you have to go get it? You know, do you have to raise the money? So obviously, Absolutely. It's not obvious more money doesn't make it more successful.

I think more money makes things less creative. I'm against more money I really am because I've launched amazing things on a shoestring Because I've been challenged [01:06:00] every time and I love it because it makes me think outside the box and like now I'm using AI to write things for me that will save thousands of dollars because you know I know the key prompts that I need to put in to create a really good script for TV or radio, or even online, you know, to promote like my new prescription platform.

We wrote it, you know, a couple of weeks ago, we've tested it and it's off the charts. I mean, only because, you know, we, we understood what the keywords were that people needed to hear the benefits that is giving and all the features on the backend, why it's better than the products that are on the market today.

So. A. I. Is amazing. So that saves you a lot of time and money. You know, money is always a key because it's not endless. You know, even Elon Musk is not endless or, you know, um, there's, you know, time we can never get back. So when do you want to launch? Just like I'm talking to an NFL player, very [01:07:00] big NFL players retired.

They want to bring a product out before the next football season. I'm not a sports person. So I'm like, when is that next season start? You know, And they told me in, in, you know, it's like four months, I was like, you want to build this whole product in less than four months and get it sold before the football season starts, I was like, well, you're going to need, you know, at least a million and a half dollars.

And that wasn't the issue for them. They're like, can you build it? I'm like, I can build anything you want. I'll build you a weapon of mass destruction if you paid me, but it's just, you know, I have to find a marketplace first. Is it, and I would never just take someone's money. This is the most important thing.

This is just me. If I don't know the marketplace. I won't take your campaign because it's just a failure then. I don't know football at all. Zero about football, you know, am I a fan of it? No, I'm a fan of the business of football, you know, how much commerce it creates revenue. Yeah. So I call my friends up.

I told them the [01:08:00] names of these guys, these three football guys, and they were like overhead over heels and like, Oh my God, those guys were so big. They knew everything about them. I said, if they came up with a sports product right now to help you be a better football player, you think it would sell? They were big fans.

And they said at the same time, no way. I was like, that's what I needed to hear. You know, no matter how much money you throw at it, um, it's just a different world now. These guys were big in the 90s. They're reintroducing themselves because there's a 25 year anniversary of their greatness. And I was just like, guys, I'm like, I don't want to burst your bubble, but who, who knows who you are besides 50 and up.

That's how I look at it. But that's not your audience. You're trying to sell to the, you know, the 14 to 18 year olds who want to be better football players. I'm like, you got to convince their parents and their parents aren't even 50. So, it's a struggle and I mean, it was, it was a reality check for them.

And that's what I do. I mean, I give reality checks. I mean, it's my truth. I do the research before I say yes or [01:09:00] no.

[01:09:01] ck: So let's actually segue to what you're working on. There's one thing I know about you. This is, again, let me know if I'm projecting this on you. You are really keen on democratizing access, whatever it is, whether it's medication or, you know, whatever.

So, so that's something I really appreciate about you. So you're working on a couple of things, parallel entrepreneur, which I love. That's amazing. I unheard of. I haven't met one and now I have. Great. So, tell us some of the projects that you're working on and why you're so passionate about them.

[01:09:33] Eddy: So, I mean, as an entrepreneur, I've always heard over the decades, you know, people's um, merchant processing is so high or they're getting shut off because they made too much money or they didn't make enough money.

So it's a very fine balance. Merchant processes like when you swipe, tap, or insert your credit card, you know, or now using your phone to make a payment. So that is a big business. And it's a business of value, um, I bought a company called upswing pay [01:10:00] Um to become part of my bigger company my fintech company And the reason why I wanted it is because I truly want to help entrepreneurs May it be the small mom and pop's pizza shop or the big mlm who keeps getting shut down because they make their money like this You know, so it's a fine balance and i've learned From the outside, as a business owner, you know, how to make sure that my mids or my, my rails don't get turned off because I'm making too much or I'm not making enough for the, for the, for the bank that month.

So buying upswing pay, I focused first on going after the taboo industries, the cannabis, the CBD, the firearms, the MLM, the startups, um, online gambling and stuff like that. Things that are taboo to most banking companies. I bought a bank. To approve it. So we do the underwriting, we do the merchant processing, we do it all.

So, I'm building a true fintech ecosystem that is not going to get shut down because you believe in this president or that president or these politics or [01:11:00] that politics. There's no cancel culture in my company. You know, it's just about business. As long as you're not harming somebody and you're not making threats, you know, just like any other, you know, um, terms and conditions.

Um. Then I'm not business as usual. So, if you're selling candles, you know, because you're an MLM, or you're selling, you know, um, water that helps you get healthier, you know, out of Utah, that, you know, I don't really care what the product is, as long as, one, I can help you stay open, reduce your fees, because as a business owner, you're just excited that Stripe or PayPal or any of these big companies approved you.

As a startup like oh my god, I can take credit cards now, but you don't really look at the fine print how much it costs Let's just say it's 2. 9 for every swipe plus 25 cents for every transaction I remove the 25 cents because I don't need that and I start at one and one point one percent So one percent is for i'm visa mastercard.

You can't get away from that You got to pay that. [01:12:00] So anything above 1 percent is gravy to me. So that's why Stripe, PayPal, and all these on Square, all these guys grew exponentially because one, they made it very easy to get a merchant processing. Um, service rather than going to chase or B of a, which is a tool to get them to give you access or, you know, be approved.

So Stripe, and I love them because the ingenuity of FinTech made it much easier. But with that, you're paying higher fees. You know, they say they're lower. Yeah, they're lower than Chase and B of A, but they're still higher than the mom and pop merchant processors like myself. You know, I'm not a big company.

I've only owned it for two months now, maybe just under two months and already we're going to do a hundred million this year in revenue. So, you know, and that's just what the business we brought in the last two months when I took over. So now, you know, and that's a small number, like I said earlier.

Merchant processing is a game of value. You don't make a lot of money off that, you know, it's one to 4%. [01:13:00] So it's not good business. If that was my only business, you know what I mean? But it's not my only business. I have a big machine. They got to feed.

[01:13:07] ck: Okay. So, so that's, that's one company. So what's the other company that you

[01:13:12] Eddy: work with?

So the other one is because I truly believe that people should have prescription medication. I've been in a prescription game since 1996. And, you know, we heard about Mark Cuban's Cost Plus, you know. It's wholesale plus 15 percent plus 5 plus 5. It's a great product. Mark Cuban is a good guy. You know, he brought this to the mass public in the United States with 700, Oh, I think he has 800 prescriptions now and each one of them is, you know, a line item.

Wholesale plus 15 percent plus 10. That's your cost. Just to let you know and your audience know, the average cost of generic prescriptions is 9. That's the average cost. So if you're an average pill taker, it takes four prescriptions. So if you're taking four prescriptions, you use his model, you're well over my, my [01:14:00] number.

So I'm a one number, 2495 individual plan. You get 1100 prescriptions covered with no copay, no, no. Additional cost and it's called Complete Rx. Complete is my brand name and I spell it Q M P L E T E just so I can have SEO and I can have other things that I can own. So, and I love, I like the letter Q. I don't know why it just looks cool.

So, um, you know, I built a whole platform from ground up working with all the PBMs in the country to get 3, 150 prescriptions for free, you know. for one price. So if you're a family of five people, it's 54. 95 a month for all of you to get all your prescriptions. You know, we don't have a cap on it. As long as your pills are within our formulary.

We have actually 21, 000 prescriptions that we can cover. The other 21, 000 are free. It's discounted heavily because we negotiated with the pharmaceutical manufacturers to give [01:15:00] you the industry lowest price. So if something costs 1, 000 retail, it might only be 200. That's what Mark Cuban is doing. So he's giving you the negotiated retail price.

Um, or the wholesale price, I'm sorry. And we did the same thing, but we have 21, 000 other pills that we can have access to, but we have 3, 150 that are actually free. And, you know, only out of those 3, 150, only 40 of them are like the mainstream. You know, your diabetes, your, your, um, chronic pains, your heart pressure.

So those are the ones that cover the 40 and those are the biggest pills in the world, and they're all free. With us and even your, your tensors and your, you know, your testing, um, strips for diabetes, all that stuff comes with it. So I'm pretty excited because, you know, I get really, I don't have any kids. I get really sad when I hear about school shootings and it's all mental health and back to mental health is like, if that person just had help, they just took their medication that they were prescribed.

You know, maybe they couldn't afford it. Maybe they, you know, fell off [01:16:00] the wheel or whatever, you know. It's, I mean, we're in America, the greatest country in the world. You know, not to get political, but it is. We have access to just about anything. Good, bad, or indifferent, does prescription pills cost too much here?

It does. That's why companies like myself, like Mark Cuban's, like GoodRx, all exist because there are loopholes to get all these things. You know, much cheaper. Mark Cuban's made it very public, um, and made it very famous that you can get your pills cheaper. And I'm gonna use all of his advertising against him.

Um, and follow like because I think I'm, I'm good at what I do everywhere. He posts his ads. I'm going to buy an ad right after. So when you, you just saw Mark Cuban's ad, let us tell you about us. So that's good. He may not, he may not like it, but that's okay.

[01:16:48] ck: That's okay. I mean, it's, it's, uh, marketing, it's commerce.

And you had a third one, right? The complete card.

[01:16:55] Eddy: You want to talk about that? Yeah, the complete card. So basically, Um, I worked on a company called [01:17:00] Plastic. P L A S T C dot com. No I. Um, sorry, I have a flea or something. Um, it was a Host card emulator. So host card emulation means you take a card and you put it into another card.

It's just like Apple Wallet That's host card emulation technology. Very simple technology where you can copy another account number into one place So plastic, only coin, swipe, swipe These were all cards that were on the market over 10 years ago and they all failed and as I said earlier I think they were too soon to market people weren't ready for it you know to have one card with all of your cards built into it because like You know, I love uber and all these, you know, food delivery companies.

They wouldn't have existed in the 90s technology was there You know, we had cell phones in the early 2000s. They exist now because it's a gig economy. We all need that So I and the same aspect i'm building a card called the complete card. It's a card with this with apple Watch [01:18:00] screen built right into it has all four radios of communication wi fi bluetooth cellular and and gps all built into the card I'm using a qualcomm snapdragon chipset.

Um, very expensive and all into a card that is no thicker than the american express Um mastercard platinum mastercard or platinum american express card. So 1. 15 millimeters thick Um, you can still use it like any other card and um, it's literally I tell people It's your apple wallet inside a credit card.

It holds a thousand cards So if you have a gift card ck and you're walking into a tj max I think you're too fancy for tj max, but if you were walking into a tj max Um, the card will light up or your app will light up and it will say hey You have a 25 gift card loaded in your wallet. It will remind you to use it because it's got gps and um geofencing technology, so basically it You know, um, it'll remind you to use your old gift card So we're gonna hurt the gift card industry in breakage [01:19:00] because they bet on you losing it or not using it So in the state of california, they don't expire and I think like 13 other states gift cards don't expire, but we lose them You know, so now you're going to have a wallet that you can put your gift card in you can even do that with apple Wallet or or samsung wallet, but with our wallet you can um My favorite thing is the financial literacy part.

So Discover card is very good about giving additional cash back if you eat at restaurants Some master cards are really good at that. So when you load those specific cards into our wallet When you sit at a restaurant as part of the discover network, it'll say use your discover card. You'll make an additional five percent cash back You know, it'll remind you because you've linked it to our wallet and whatever card you're using or if you're going to a hertz or a national car rental or Marriott or Hilton, it knows you're there and it says, Oh, you get an additional day free or day rental because you're part of the complete network.

So we've already signed up 3 million [01:20:00] merchants to our network to give those exclusive discounts, discounts you can't find online. So I'm pretty, I mean, we built a platform first. Because hardware wasn't available when I came up with the idea. The Apple Watch wasn't even on the market yet. So when I first saw the Apple Watch on a commercial, I knew it was coming, but when I actually saw it, I was so excited because I'm like, that's our display.

So we went and bought. That's the display we're gonna use. So the display that they have, the screen. We went and bought a bunch of them, took them apart, and said, this is it. This is it. The screen itself is paper thin. You know, everything around it, the sapphire and everything around it, is thick. So, we don't need all that stuff.

We just need the screen. So, and it's very low voltage, so it doesn't take a lot of power. The battery didn't exist yet, and thanks for Elon Musk, you know, battery technologies come leaps and bounds. So now we have a flexible battery that can hold 15 days worth of charge. So you could charge it twice a month.

But, you know, as consumers, we charge, overcharge things. You know, we always, I never [01:21:00] overcharge my laptop. I never charge it overnight. I never charge my phone overnight. Like, I don't know why people do that.

[01:21:06] ck: Oh, wait, you just, what, what? What do you mean overcharge? Say more about that. No,

[01:21:12] Eddy: yeah, like when you leave your laptop plugged in, All night long.

It's not good for it or your phone. Yeah, you need to let it do its thing, you know, because it's actually going to make it less, um, less. Less, um, um, efficient the battery itself. Wow.

[01:21:33] ck: I didn't know that. Yeah.

[01:21:36] Eddy: And I know everybody does it. I don't. So, I mean, the new phones and the new laptops, and they'll hold their charge.

And when they shut off, they're off. You don't need to keep charging it. You know, like I'm generally never at a hundred percent.

[01:21:51] ck: This is a mind blowing information.

[01:21:55] Eddy: It's tech. I'm a, I'm a nerd.

[01:21:57] ck: Um, Hey Eddie, I [01:22:00] really, really appreciate your time. Is there anything else that you think we should talk about? I didn't ask

[01:22:03] Eddy: you. Oh, no. I mean, I love this. Thank you for the opportunity, CK. And when you're ready to do your app, you let me know.

Oh, man,

[01:22:11] ck: you know it, baby. Um, hey, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge you. Eddie, I just really appreciate, um, the sincerity and earnestness of how you're helping. You help people from your heart, you help people with a very tactical way, and you help people face the truth. You know, you tell them what it is, whatever it is, you know, the uncomfortable truth, the comfortable truth.

You tell them what that is. I really, really appreciate, um, your taking, your genius, your experience. in democratizing access to, you know, all these things that the three projects that you just mentioned, I think, especially with the medic medication ones, you know, that's, that's huge because, you know, people suffer because they don't, they can't access the medications that [01:23:00] they need.

So thank you for the work that you do really.

[01:23:02] Eddy: No, no, thank you. Yeah, I don't think people should make a choice that they should eat this month or get their, you know, Diabetes pills, you know, you should be able to have both, you know, you should eat better then you won't need your diabetes pills But no, thank you CK.

I appreciate what you do in your audience and you know, just you just you in general So, but thank you for having me