How SaaS Academy Turned Consulting Experiences into a Coaching Enterprise with Johnny Page

Dustin Howes: 0:27

Hey folks, welcome to Affiliate Nerd Out. I am your NERDA Rater, Dustin Howes. Spread that good word about affiliate marketing. You're going to find me every Tuesday and Thursday at 12.15 Pacific Time, so please consider putting it on your calendar, smashing that subscribe button and being here for some live Q&A with the guest. My guest in the auditorium today is Johnny Page. He is the CRO over at SAS Academy, Johnny, welcome to the auditorium, sir.

Johnny Page: 0:57

Hey, hey, I love it. I love the intro man, the NERDA Rater. Is that what you said? Yes, I am a NERDA Rater.

Dustin Howes: 1:03

Yes, I made up my own word.

Johnny Page: 1:05

That's perfect. It's going to be here. Man, Appreciate you having me on.

Dustin Howes: 1:09

Awesome, johnny. I've been such a big fan of what you guys are doing as a product and helping other companies out, and the content you guys produce and put on YouTube and on the internet. It's just fabulous. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Johnny Page: 1:24

Cool man, I appreciate it. We say all the time a marketing will serve way more people than our product ever will. So good to hear that you're finding it useful. And yeah, I appreciate that.

Dustin Howes: 1:35

Yeah, beautiful. All right, we're going to have some live Q&A going on, so drop anything, any questions you have for me. That, johnny, in the chat, and we will get to that Big question of the day for those that are watching what are you doing to upscale? What kind of training are you doing right now to upscale? Tell us about it in the chat and I want to hear about it, but without further ado. Here, johnny, who?

Johnny Page: 2:00

are you. I am the Chief Revenue Officer over at SAS Academy. I'm also a data three. That's a big part of my job description as well. But, yeah, I run our revenue team and I'm the executive sponsor for our core program. So SAS Academy the company's got three programs that all serve B2B SAS founders. Our core program is called SAS Academy and I'm the executive sponsor of that program. So run our full team and make sure that not only do we have, you know, lots of B2B SAS founders in our pipeline and you know we're going to have their sales on our marketing team but that they come over and have a great experience once they join SAS Academy.

Dustin Howes: 2:43

Beautiful. All right, if you would like to be in Johnny's seat, come be my guests, fill out the application at dustinhowes. com, slash nary and get in the hot seat. Talk about affiliate stuff. So, sas Academy, let's get into it. What do you guys do and who do you serve?

Johnny Page: 3:01

Yeah, we're a group coaching program for B2B SAS founders. So we help SAS founders find their perfect exits, typically working with companies that are as early as pre-revenue. So they got a product and they don't know how to go to market. Our growth accelerator program services those clients all the way until they get to about 10 K and monthly recurring revenue. Our SAS Academy program services companies from 10 K to 250 K in revenue. And then we've got a boardroom program, a high end mastermind for those founders that are making that transition out of builder mode and into leader and pushing beyond five million in annual recurring revenue.

Johnny Page: 3:42

So, yeah, we serve B2B SAS founders in a unique model. You know it's quite common. Most companies or founders are used to working with one on one, with consultants or with coaches. We take a group format to this. So not only do we have hundreds of playbooks and a curriculum that we coach against, so it's a methodology to growing SAS companies. We pair our clients with an executive coach to help them work through implementation and they get access to all of our clients. So not only do you get access to a coach to help you learn about what you're doing, you've got hundreds of peers that have either gone through it or going through it at the same time. So it really is an ecosystem. I think the easiest thing to compare it to would be the experience you get if you went to an accelerator or an incubator. But those those take equity or lots of funding to get into in SAS Academy is designed for the bootstrapped founder.

Dustin Howes: 4:32

So yeah, hope that helps beautifully said. I love that. And is there a delineation between? Like, there's some SAS products that are that cost $20. And then there's some SAS products that cost thousands of dollars. You service all of these kinds of companies All.

Johnny Page: 4:50

B2B SAS, like if you're, if you're charging $20 is probably not the only product in your, it is probably not the only price point in your offering. But yeah, we've got your company is B2B SAS and we're focusing on all those. So that does exclude like marketplaces. You know two-sided marketplace would not a great fit for those Anyone. B2c would not a great fit. But whether you're product led growth or you are doing demos or your enterprise sales motion, yeah, we service all of them.

Dustin Howes: 5:20

Excellent, all right, and tell us about, like, some of those major benefits you kind of went over them. Like the one on one coaching, like having an assigned coach, seems like a really good idea, but what are some of those other major benefits that you guys have for your clients?

Johnny Page: 5:34

Yeah, cool thing is, I have a cheat code here because I used to be a client of SAS Academy, so I ran a SAS company for about seven years.

Johnny Page: 5:40

I joined SAS Academy as a client in 2017 and I exited my company in 2019. So the benefits are I had worked with many different you know coaches in a one on one setting. They're really. The unique dynamic of this is not only are there playbooks Look, most of the time you go sit down with a one on one coach and they're going to tell you the same thing They've told hundreds of other clients before, so you're spending really high value time having them explain to you how something should work.

Johnny Page: 6:07

Our approach, as we have curriculum, we have content playbooks. So, for example, we've got I've got it pulled up right here a strategic partner playbook. So, rather than one of our coaches sitting down and teaching you how your partnership program should work, we've got that in curriculum. So you're going to meet with your coach to work through the implementation of. What does this mean for me? So the time spent one on one is high value, building context and helping you work through implementation. And then you have a whole community of companies and founders that have done this as well.

Johnny Page: 6:37

So it really is the unique combination of coaching, content and community that put a founder in a situation where it's going to be very difficult not to grow. I think you've heard quite frequently. You know you're the sum of the five people you spend the most amount of your time with. So if you say, hey, I want to be a successful SaaS founder, how many SaaS founders are you spending time with right now? How many successful SaaS founders are you spending time with? So this is putting people and founders into a community of not only those that are working on the same tactics, but those that are developing the mindsets and the behaviors to reach the level of success that those founders are aspiring to.

Dustin Howes: 7:16

You know, and the sense of community is a big portion of this, and everybody's going through the same kind of turmoil and some hurdles that others are and having that sense of community is a big plus for those. Do you guys have events that you go to to coordinate? And I assume you have, like you know, sessions online as well?

Johnny Page: 7:35

So you meet with your coach I'll tell you how the interactions are going to meet with your coach about one to two times per month in a one on one setting, and then there are group coaching sessions. So we've got marketing experts, sales, customer success, finance, etc. In a group setting. So these are experts in specific areas you can go. They're going to teach first and they're going to answer your questions. There's about 10 to 12 of those every month.

Johnny Page: 7:59

And then we do three events per year. We call them intensive. These are two day events. We go in person. We bring in world class experts, but more importantly than what we teach at those events is the connections that are made throughout the room. We get about 250 or so founders in a room and man the energy. I am not exaggerating. I say that the trajectory of my life changed the first time I went into those events. It was the first time that I was in a room full of people who are passionate and excited about the same things that I was. You know, building. You know being a founder is a lonely. It can be a lonely path, and so to get into a group like SAS Academy and you get connected with some peers that were building the similar types of products in a similar space was invaluable. So, yeah, it really is a full ecosystem and a lot of its anchored on that community component.

Dustin Howes: 8:50

For sure. The sense of community is extremely strong in the affiliate space. Like I would never be at the level of passion I am for affiliate marketing, it wasn't for my mentors like and learning from them. And coming to a place like affiliate summit every year is where we all group up and hang out and have that camaraderie. That's why I made my own community of performance marketing manager where folks can come and and enjoy that community as a partner manager.

Johnny Page: 9:19

Yeah, I love it, man. So much of what we do it's not about where we're going, it's about how we're getting there and who we're getting there with. Right, like, think about how much time you spend actually being there.

Dustin Howes: 9:29

Yes.

Johnny Page: 9:30

What we're after versus how much time you spend going, like you know, being around, the strong sense of community that makes you better, that challenges you in really, really great ways. Support you Like it is. It's the spice of life.

Dustin Howes: 9:41

Yes, yes, and having that accountability to put those new theories and ideas into place is so clutch, and having that community around you that push you to that level is super important as well.

Johnny Page: 9:53

Yeah, totally.

Dustin Howes: 9:54

All right, and something I saw on your website that you guys have is a number of just like pops off the pages you guys advertise that you're going to increase MRR by 209% in six months. That's an incredible number. Can you tell me a little bit on like how you guys get to that level?

Johnny Page: 10:13

Yeah, I mean so most of the time. There's three levers that we're going to look at. When a company, when a SaaS founder, joined SaaS Academy, we look at, there's a concept that they're called the growth ceiling, and so in a recurring revenue business, there are three levers we can pull to help you grow. The first lever is how many new clients are we bringing in? Oh, it's kind of obvious. The second one is what is our turn rate? How many are we losing? And the third is what's our average revenue per user, per account? So we're going to look at one of those three things and we're going to zero in most of the time.

Johnny Page: 10:43

There's when founders joined SaaS Academy. There's no lack of hard work. It's a lack of focus on the biggest constraint in the business. So we've got a methodology for finding the biggest constraint. We've got incredible curriculum, playbooks, coaches that help attack that constraint and pretty quickly unlock revenue that the founders are. They're not far away from. It's a matter of extreme focus, accountability, and this also speaks to we're typically working with companies where adding another 20K in revenue 30K in monthly recurring revenue does end up being 209% growth. So this is harder to do that when you're working with a company 20, 25 million. We are focused on earlier stage SaaS. That like less than 250K in MRR in our core program. So to go find the that growth quickly, it's just a matter of focus on the biggest constraints in the big business with some great support with our community coaches and our playbooks.

Dustin Howes: 11:42

Beautiful. That's an incredible value for what you get in that. I've got a comment here from my buddy, nick, who is in my community. He's talking about communities, which cannot be celebrated enough. Come and hang out. He embraces this. He's miles away on the other side of the ocean and he still makes the meetings. Love Nick's attitude. He'd actually be a great candidate for your role that you guys have opening at SaaS Academy. Oh sweet.

Johnny Page: 12:11

Come on over, nick.

Dustin Howes: 12:46

Well, I'll have to make some kind of introduction to our team and get that rolling. But all right, so you're talking about those growth attributes, you're going after the lowest hanging fruit and doing some small tweaks to get that company rolling again and get that MRR. What do you see as like the biggest hurdle that SaaS companies face when they come to you?

Johnny Page: 13:12

Yeah, the focus is a big part of it. It's like founders we cannot help but see opportunity and we love saying yes to things, and a lot of times founders are putting effort into an area of their business. That's not the biggest constraint. And so, yeah, biggest growth hurdle is a lack of focus for founders. So we come in and this I think you had planned on chatting through this, maybe it'll help. I'll explain how we do this in that first 90 days. How do we help founders find that focus? But, yeah, biggest hurdle is a lack of focus. It's just why we've engineered our program the way we have.

Dustin Howes: 13:53

Lack of focus, I mean.

Johnny Page: 13:56

I fail at that every single day.

Johnny Page: 13:58

It's on the right thing. It's on the right thing. You know, business is the matter of it's. There's never a shortage of good things to work on. Hmm, in fact, like either good ideas ideas are cheap. It is focused on the right Problem like where is the constraint? Is it our new? Is it the amount of new clients are bringing in? Could be a marketing constraint, could be a sales constraint, could be a positioning constraint. Is it how we onboard our clients? Is how we retain them. Is it our? Is our price point actually Correct? Is it how we package the product? So there's a constraint in your business and if we find that constraint, solve the constraint, growth is the result. So a lot of times it's just focus on the right thing. That's holding the founder back.

Dustin Howes: 14:39

Fantastic, all right, switching gears. I'm gonna go jump into our sponsor of the day and pay some bills here, so excuse me, while I talk about the next side and our ever evolving space, here, one game changing company stands out. That is the next. So they've got an all-in-one affiliate and performance marketing automation platform. They've got eight products in one suite that help publishers, affiliates and affiliate networks scale their operations, with call tracking, leave distribution, clip tracking, email, sms marketing and more. And this is not an One-size-fit-all tool. They're customizable, they're unique and they're designed to maximize revenue and create the most efficient workflow possible for a given affiliate or performance marketing network. So help support my content creating addiction, by using my link at dustinhowes. com slash Fanexa and schedule yourself a demo today. Dustinhowes. com, slash Fanexa and Awesome. And switching gears back into a Tie in this whole thing. Since this is an affiliate nerd out session. What's your background in affiliate and have you dabbled in this much?

Johnny Page: 15:59

Yeah, you know, as sass Academy, we're just pushing into this space. So I'll answer this question in two ways. One, what do we coach our clients through? And then to what is, where are we at in the affiliate evolution? So we oftentimes Start with partnerships. We say, hey, let's take it, let's go deeper with a few To learn how can we position our offer and how do we develop a relationship that is mutually beneficial. You create a win-win-win for our, our partner, our company and the clients that we serve.

Johnny Page: 16:28

And when we learn in that environment, now we can go a little bit more broad. We know what our offer should look like for an affiliate, we know how to attract the right affiliates, and so that's where we're at. It's a Academy. We've we've got about a dozen or so partners that we worked really deeply with over the last 12 to 14 months and Are now just now pushing into launching an affiliate program, because we understand how to position you, understand how the handoff needs to work from introduction into our pipeline, and how to create that win-win scenario. So I like starting with partnerships first and then scaling out into affiliates, and we're in the middle of that process right now. In fact, that's why we've got a In an affiliate manager job opening right now we're looking for the who it's gonna lead that that charge for us.

Dustin Howes: 17:16

That that is correct and it's been an honor working with you Through this process. Like curating the right way to build an affiliate program is my passion and I'm so honored that I me and Dave got to work together throughout this process. But we're looking for the affiliate manager opening for this team and if you want to be part of this, ask out of me, team ping me, dm me. I can get you in and take a look and see if you're gonna be a good fit for this company. But one of those things with this position is a a System that I don't really hear a lot from clients and that is you guys are willing to pay for the top talent, like you would much rather Pay for somebody that is going to be good than then like budget it out and what. What is your theory with your hiring process Over at saskademy?

Johnny Page: 18:08

Yeah, I mean a players pay for themselves. So, like I want you know, the comp plan is not is always going to. For now it's gonna be engineered where there are variable, there's variable component to it along with the base, but the right person it's gonna pay for themselves several times over. So yeah, we're, we are a high-performing team. A hiring process is a pretty in-depth Process to make sure that when we make a hire that it is a great fit for the team. And you know, comp is just one part of that. There's a is a an exciting culture and you know, team over at saskademy, that is the results of that, those, those mindsets and that methodology.

Dustin Howes: 18:53

Yeah, you guys are building an incredible culture and Embers beers always talks about how cool that culture is and how fun it is to work with you guys and I've seen it firsthand working with Dave and Appreciate what you guys do and building that up, so I hope we can get this affiliate manager in the door. That's gonna be that great culture fit and an absolute slayer as the rock star affiliate manager.

Dustin Howes: 19:16

Yeah, I love it and so as as like an Academy, like you guys are selling a course, a community, that you have to get to a certain point before an affiliate program makes sense for you guys. But on the flip side, sass companies that you're helping to like suggest when to start an affiliate program. What are when's the right time to start for those sass companies?

Johnny Page: 19:43

yeah, there's exceptions to everything, but In the early days of a sass company we encourage clients and in fact, if we're coaching and working directly with them, we focus on one channel and most of the time your affiliate channel is not gonna be your first, it's not gonna be the first channel you're. You're focused on right. It might be paid media, it might be, you know, cold outbound. We focus on one channel first and then, when we've not only pioneered that channel but we've operationalized it there's playbooks as consistent execution in that channel and we know we are. We're not going to just change out one working channel for another. We've got a solid process in place. Then we stack another channel on top of that. So you know the wins. The right time to start it is when you know you've got a great Operation in channel working right now and you're ready to go push into the next one. And and oftentimes you got to start to answer the question of who, not how right, if you're gonna add that additional channel, it's just got to be a team that's ready to support it.

Johnny Page: 20:45

Dustin, I'm sure you've seen, you know, half baked attempts at affiliate and then you get reports back from those that have tried to say, oh, it didn't work. For me. It's like, well, you know, there are very few layups out there, there's no free lunch, right, like you know. Sometimes you can, you know, go pop $10,000 into Facebook and start to get some lead flow and feel like you've cracked. You know paid media, but for the most part, like to really work a channel.

Johnny Page: 21:08

Well, it takes consistent, deliberate effort over long periods of time. And so you know affiliates that same way. We'd say, hey, it's most likely not your first channel. There are some exceptions to that, but it's a day. You know, normally that second or third channel that you push into and we, like you know, testing that in the partnership phase. How can you go find five, six companies that you work really well with, create a mutual partnership and then, when you've got the the, you know some early Findings and some learnings from that partnership strategy. Now we know we've calibrated our approach and go a little bit wider with an affiliate model absolutely love that strategy and Second or third channel, that would be on the generous side.

Dustin Howes: 21:50

I feel like if you're not a B testing your for conversion rate optimization, like you are not ready for an affiliate channel yet, because you have to be in that point of like good affiliates are gonna sniff out a good website that converts, whether so you have to have your your stuff together before you start inviting random people to come promote for you. And I love that strategy of you know finding your your top five partners, like your ideal client or not necessary clients, but ideal partners that are gonna be a bit immediately and you're able to do some, some work for you, and Also just love the mindset that you have. I don't get that with every client. Everybody thinks affiliate's gonna turn on like this, but you you know it's a long game.

Johnny Page: 22:37

Yeah, 100%. And look, I'll give a good Tactical approach that we we work with our clients. When you're trying to find those first five, we say take your, go to your, let's think about your ideal customer profile and then ask who else do they fund? Where else are they spending money? Yeah, who else do they follow? And then, where else do they spend time? Where do they frequent? So we call it fun, follow, frequent and you make a list and there's somewhere in there your first five partners who else are spending money on? Who else are they following, where else they spend time? Somewhere in there you'll find your first five.

Johnny Page: 23:13

You know, learn a ton in those first five you know partnerships. That's then gonna help the little bit more one-to-many approach. On affiliate, you got it like you know Dustin. You got to know what your offer is, gonna know how your product is positioned. You had to really arm your affiliates to be successful. You just don't do that if you haven't put in the reps on and on a you know partnership program or in some other channel. I like partnerships as like a baby step into affiliates.

Dustin Howes: 23:36

Okay, excellent and well said. And there's a way to do both. You can have your, your partnerships early on and start to curate that, those Relationships, and then open up your affiliate program a little later on to the masses. But those ones that are gonna be really great evangelists of your product are the ones that you want in first and to show success. Now your earnings per click is gonna go up and that's gonna be really appealing to affiliates that are in your program or thinking about joining. So there's there's a lot of levers there and I like I love that first five approach and Just honing in on them to make sure you know we we don't want to rush this kind of thing or with an affiliate program, watch a lot of times.

Johnny Page: 24:21

Yeah, yeah, look we. So we use this terminology all the time of like when are we pioneering a channel and when are we operating Right? So we are pioneering is? There's a lot for us to figure out. You're only doing that with one channel at a time. I, and until you get one channel and now we're operating is hey, we know what it looks like to be successful here. I know my conversion metrics, I know how much I got to put in the top to get ex out of the bottom and we have a playbook and a process and a team that supports that channel. Like that's what it looks like to operationalize.

Johnny Page: 24:49

Most founders, unfortunately, we just like doing new stuff. So we kind of get bored with something that's working and we want to go push into the next thing before we operationalize it and just end up changing like one working channel for another working channel. So, whatever it is, it's like stick to it, stay disciplined. This is what I get back to, that original like what's the Achilles heel for most founders? It's a lack of focus. Is just staying on it long enough, really drilling that well, and then, when we can, you know we operationalize it well and now we can go push into that next, next one. But no, don't, don't pioneer two channels at once. You just make it much, much more likely that neither one works.

Dustin Howes: 25:24

Yeah, great, great tidbit there. I love that strategy. And again, if affiliate is your first channel, you were wrong. It should be. It should be through your or maybe even five, like affiliate should come last. Everything else should be running properly before you get rolling with that. So what about affiliate programs that you guys teach when you're telling your sass, your clients that are coming in and in your Academy? Where are they seeing success in this world? Like, what are the best partners for sass companies to get?

Johnny Page: 26:04

Well, we run them through that process of that fun follow frequent, I'll say doesn't like the stage of companies that we work with. There's. It's not frequent that we have companies where affiliates are their primary channel, Like we're working for companies that are less than five million ARR For the most part. We certainly have some that are higher, but I'm telling the lion share, the 80% or five million in ARR or under, and that is we're still like going hard in the paint on those first channels. Right, they're still probably, you know most of them are still working that first or second channel and they're just, you know, getting into affiliates. You know there are exceptions. There are certainly some B2B sass examples. I think you know ClickFunnels is probably the most you know well known B2B sass product that has done really well with affiliates, but it's not, it's not the. It is certainly later stage, more mature company that pushes into that. And so just due to the stage of companies that we're working in, like it's not, we're not playing in this space as frequently as you might imagine.

Dustin Howes: 27:07

Okay, got you. That makes sense. Now, what about affiliate? Like who should the affiliate manager fall under? Like what team? Is it marketing? Is it sales? What's your opinion here?

Johnny Page: 27:20

Yeah, the lens I look through is sales does one to one, marketing does one to many. Okay, so affiliates to me fall under marketing. Yeah, we've, you know this is and, but the reality is we're hiring an affiliate marketing manager so they'll report into our director of marketing. But it's a it's a cross functional role, like they're going to need the support of sales. You're going to have to, you know, work quite frequently with our director of sales to make sure that when we're bringing prospects in from our affiliate channel that there's, they're met with a sales process that makes sense for where they're out in the buying process. So I would say you know we're we're still a relatively we think of ourselves as a small, nimble company and aims to communicate well cross functionally. So they're going to report into marketing. I think it makes sense to report into marketing. It's a one to many function there and, um, yeah, we'll collaborate quite frequently with sales.

Dustin Howes: 28:18

Yeah, and I think that's the the norm, right, probably 90% of companies are putting it in the marketing bucket. But Some companies want to get fancy with it and sales like attribution Maybe they're, you know, a little less or lower on that sales funnel Coming through the affiliate channel. So it makes sense to bucket it.

Johnny Page: 28:40

I guess it just depends on the company though I just think about, like in our, in our weekly and monthly Rhythms, in our quarterly planning and marketing. We're oftentimes thinking of one to many. We're thinking of how can, how do we expand our reach in sales? We're focusing on how do we improve our one-to-one conversations. Okay, it's focused on the individual. So it's like which strategic conversations, which operational conversations make the most sense for that affiliate manager Be a part of.

Johnny Page: 29:06

It's the one to many, right, it's knowing what is happening, what's working in our paid channels, what's working in our Organic what's working, what content's working? Really well, that's the context. It's gonna help them be a better affiliate manager. Not, hey, what objection are we overcoming it? You know how we're handling an objection in a sales call. Or you know when? When should the deal be closed out of the pipeline versus, you know, kept on there for another week? So those are the conversations are gonna have in the, in the sales Meetings, and it's just not gonna add as much value as if they're they're part of that marketing ecosystem.

Dustin Howes: 29:37

Yeah, and I'd like to see marketing teams collaborate as well. It is. It is a struggle for the affiliate marketing industry as a whole to get along with the other marketing teams because a lot of times that you know that conversion rates might be higher than other channels and and the cost per acquisition it's going to be lower than the other channels. It always seems like a battle that I have with other marketing teams, but Honing that in and making a good team effort and everybody's on the same team is super important.

Johnny Page: 30:10

That's a culture problem. Like it's us versus the problem Like we, we we fight for ownership of our problems, not over wins. It's as a county. It's like, you know, we we are here to serve the customer, like we are here to make sure our clients win and, however that happens, it's a win, regardless of which channel it is. So yeah, I'd say you know, if you have lack of collaboration across your, your marketing team, you've probably got some, some issues in hiring or in leadership.

Dustin Howes: 30:36

Yeah, and it shows like me working with Dave this whole time, with you guys as a company. You guys are always on top of it. When you get assignments, you get them done, and I really appreciate that as you being, you know, willing to do the work and get the things done that you need.

Johnny Page: 30:55

Yeah, you know dust in the mindset that drives that. We cannot expect our clients to show up and be great clients if we are not great clients of the people who we work with. So, like we, we give feedback, we follow through on what we asked them to do because it's what we want our clients to do. So it's like it's by leading by example and it's just an energy you put out into the world Like this is how we show up and how we want our clients to show me tend to attract people who do the same thing.

Dustin Howes: 31:21

Beautifully said, awesome, all right, switching gears as we wind down any. Any tips out there for those young entrepreneurs that are in the sass realm or or not, but like what? What are some of those best tips that you like to give the young ones that are up and coming?

Johnny Page: 31:37

Yeah, I think it's. You got to go get into the room of people who are doing what you want to be doing. We can, it's easy to hide behind the keyboard, to get into our Instagram and our YouTube feeds, but you pick up so much by by physically sharing a room with people who are doing what you are doing, so go. If you don't know where that room is at, you can create it. I've got so many clients that in their own towns and cities they create, you know, a founders hike or they're hosting founders dinners because they want, they're trying to be around people who are doing the same thing they're trying to do. You can learn a ton by watching, but, man, you it just there's a lot.

Johnny Page: 32:14

We say all the time it's what's caught, not what's taught. You catch something from being in the room with other people. So either go find the room or make the room. Don't hide behind the keyboard. It's really easy to to feel like we're being productive and like we're still learning and growing by consuming content. But, man, going and seeing it applied it out in the wild, go see it somewhere else. So find someone who they think differently than you do. It's a matter of adopting a mindset that sees problems and sees reality from a slightly different perspective. I mean, you just don't get that by, you know, watching, exclusively watching YouTube videos, or hiding behind the keyboard. So yeah, I'd say, go get in that community and then, and then second, just default to action, action and then reflection hey, where did I learn from that?

Johnny Page: 32:59

What worked Well, what didn't? The faster you develop that Reflective muscle and paired with action, it's just that becomes an inevitable process that you you find traction and see the growth that you're after.

Dustin Howes: 33:12

Fantastic, well said and yes, implementation of the lessons you learned is so clutching this industry to strengthen that muscle for the future. So, all right, john, I'm taking enough of your time. I really appreciate you dropping all these nuggets out here. How do we connect with you guys?

Johnny Page: 33:28

Yeah, you can go to sasacademycom. Tons and tons of free content there, lots of playbooks and resources we say I shared with you earlier. Our marketing will serve more people than we ever will, so there's a ton of incredible stuff over there. If you want to follow me personally, my Instagram's Johnny page 13 Still trying to get after that original Johnny page, but Johnny page 13 On Instagram and we've got, yeah, sasacademycom will take you to all of our YouTube channel, linkedin, all that stuff, yeah all right, fantastic, all right.

Dustin Howes: 34:02

So my lesson of the day, my biggest takeaway here you know it's just another reiteration of the sense community is Incredibly important for you to get new ideas out of and then to go implement. Having that Success party along with the train Incredibly helpful for for you to continue on in your journey as an entrepreneur. So thanks for Putting that in my mind and pounding it in. I it's, it's what I know, and you just really emphasize love, love, your, your, what. What do you call that? But not a credo, maybe, but like it really comes out.

Johnny Page: 34:42

What do you, man? I mean their core values, yeah, we, yeah, or just beliefs? I think we are the. Our behaviors are the sum of our beliefs, and the Deeper understanding we develop around our beliefs tomorrow understand why we act the way we do. So if we don't like the results we're getting, we got changed. We were acting, want change where we're acting, that change what we believe. So, yeah, man, I appreciate you having me on here. I love what you're doing is the first time I was in the, what you call the Urgitorium. All right, cool man. Yeah, I appreciate you having me in here.

Dustin Howes: 35:16

You got it All right and we appreciate having you in here and dropping all these knowledge bombs. Next week on affiliate nerd out, you're gonna see tide, the range and Jorge Bartosa, so come join me on Tuesday and Thursday for that and with that, have a good one. Folks, keep on recurrent, take care. I.