As far as I knew, Las Vegas stadiums were only used for UFC fights…
Maybe the occasional monster truck rally or Ocean’s 11 movie, but definitely not a marketing conference.
Right? I mean, the stage shoots actual flames at the crowd — who do they think I am, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson?
That was the last thought I had before walking out to speak to the 9,000 people at Grant Cardone’s 10X event.
Nine. Thousand. People… As in double the size of my previous largest audience, or the size of a small town.
It was super intense — and I learned two important things:
#1. You can do more than you think you can (without it ruining your life).
Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting you go on a 36-hour work bender…
Instead, you can choose to focus your energy more deliberately.
All these 10X speakers agreed that where you focus your energy has a bigger payoff than how much you invest.
For you, that payoff might come from investing time in learning old-school sales strategies.
This goes way back to a lesson I learned from competitive wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu: You can always push harder than you think you can.
#2. Digital marketing is still very new (and that’s very good for us).
It may come as a surprise to you since you follow my blog on digital marketing, but…
You and I have a very niche and state-of-the-art skillset that most of the retail world doesn’t understand.
Afterall, 92% of all retail transactions still happen in physical retail locations.
Many of the 10X attendees run profitable retail businesses — car dealerships, brick and mortar stores, B2B agencies, etc. — but they don’t know what you know.
They don’t know how to leverage the internet to engage people and sell products online — but they sure want to.
You’re part of a small group of marketers who are paying attention to how to spread messages and create a positive sales experience online.
That means you have a great opportunity to get involved while the gettin’s good.
I’ve been in ecommerce for 14 years now, but this event was big reminder how much of the retail world still hasn’t caught up.
So if you feel like you’ve missed the boat on starting an ecommerce business or having an impact in the world of digital marketing, you really haven’t.
And that’s great news for all of us.
Video Highlights:
1:33 The most important thing is to seek out people that are great at what you wanna get great at
4:16 The problem with the chargeback is refunds are also going up
5:50 Power and life comes from groups
6:26 You’re not really investing as much as you could be
7:06 You can push harder than you think you can
Click Here For Video Transcript
I’ve not spoken to an audience this big before. This is pretty exciting. I’m gonna go on stage in a little bit, we’ll get some video on that. I’ll take you around, introduce you to some people, and then I’ll come back and let you know kinda what the main take aways from 10X are. So thanks for watching. Let’s take a look and I’ll be back in a minute.
Ezra: Hey Ezra here behind the scenes with juiced Jarrod Glandt…
Jarrod: There we go.
Ezra: …the vice president of sales for Cardone Enterprises. And Jarrod, you know, you amongst many things. By the way you’re a great presenter.
Jarrod: Thank you.
Ezra: But amongst many things like you’re great at selling, and as we know like selling, you gotta be able to sell well. So if someone’s like uncomfortable selling, pitching, describing their products, or they’re looking to like, you know, up level, to use the parlance of our time, their sales skills, how would they do that?
Jarrod: Well I think that the most important thing is to seek out people that are great at what you wanna get great at. And use them as like what are they doing? You know, like I don’t know a whole lot about marketing, so I was like, “Okay who do I know, or who can I get connected with that can teach me something about marketing?” That’s what this event is really about. That’s why my boy Ezra is here, right? So I would just say you gotta find people that are great at it. You gotta find guys like Grant who have content on making calls, on negotiating deals. Because at some point like everything is a sale. Everybody likes to think sales is a dirty thing, but if you can combine sales with marketing that’s when you can truly like put rocket fuel in the tank and your business can really take off.
Ezra: Yeah. And I like what you said about like everything is a sale, like you’re selling people ideas, you’re selling people stuff all the time, you know. Juiced up Jarrod Glandt. Thanks for coming on.
Jarrod: You got it man.
Ezra: I like your suit by the way too. Pocket square, dude’s got a pocket square. What else we got? Oh damn, 10X, son. Damn. I’m here with Gary “The Great” Cardone, how you doing man?
Gary: Great man, great great to see you Ezra.
Ezra: Thank you for coming on the show. So, you know, you kinda blew my mind just a minute ago talking about chargebacks, because I as an e-commerce business owner doing tens of thousands of transactions a month, kind of assume that my chargebacks look I’m just not gonna win those, and even though I shipped the product and even though I, you know, delivered to that customer, they charge it back I got no recourse. And you said, “Hey like that’s not always the case.” So what is like one thing that most e-commerce business owners don’t understand about the chargeback game?
Gary: Well I think, you know, most e-commerce merchants didn’t get into the business to deal with fraud, chargebacks, and refunds. They got into the business to sell. So it’s just not an expertise you are ever gonna know about. Most big companies will not know about. But look you don’t do your own payroll?
Ezra: No.
Gary: You’re not gonna do your own chargebacks. So companies like ours are just experts on the particular rules of Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and all the other players, and that’s all we’re doing. Showing that you guys are compliant. That’s really the deal about chargebacks. So it is not true that you cannot win e-commerce chargebacks. In fact Google and Apple are both saying, agreeing with our numbers that 86% of these chargebacks are filed frivolously and without, you know, due diligence being done on, that’s where we come in. We act as your paralegal to either determine that you made a mistake, or the issuing bank, or the consumer made a mistake, and that’s all we’re trying to do.
Ezra: Yeah. So let me ask you, because I find that there is a good number of people who are hustling me, and I accept that as part of the business. They’re gonna order my stuff, they’re gonna receive that product, and they’re gonna charge it back, and that with e-commerce today is something that you factor in, man.
Gary: Yeah. And that’s a shame, right? That we have a marketplace that’s growing at such a colossal rate that we have a lot of friction. And friction in markets that are developing like this, the chargeback is friction. The problem with the chargeback is refunds are also going up, are you guys noticing that? Refunds are going up, chargebacks are going up, and declines, the lack of accepting a credit card, is also going up. These three things were supposed to toggle off. The chargeback was supposed to desensitize refunds, everyone’s doing the same thing. So we know there’s abuse in the system. That’s gonna happen as the market develops, part of my job is to make sure that the merchant is doing his job, and the consumer and his bank is doing their job.
Ezra: Where can people find you?
Gary: Chargebacks911.com.
Ezra: Chargebacks911.com. 10X…
Gary: Gold standard of this problem.
Ezra: Gary “The Great” Cardone, thanks man.
Gary: Thank you brother.
Ezra: Appreciate it.
Gary: Can’t wait to see this guy.
Ezra: Yeah.
Announcer: Give it up for Ezra Firestone.
Ezra: 10X Growth Conference is over, and I just clapped my hands really hard on accident. Wow, what an intense experience. What a cool experience to have that many people, that kinda energy all in one room, all going for it. You know, you forget how inspiring it is to see a big group of people all kind of moving in the same direction. And I believe that, you know, power and life comes from groups, right? There’s a lot of power in groups, there’s a lot of support in groups. There’s a lot of opportunity for connection, and, you know, networking, and people to support you, and talk to, and learn from. I’m a big fan of groups and this was a big big group, and they all have a shared lingo. Groups tend to have shared lingo. They have a shared lingo, they’re all kinda moving in the same direction. It was a really fun event. It was a really interesting event.
And what I got out of it was, number one, I think most people only push about…one of the things that people just kept bringing up was that like you’re not really investing as much as you could be. You could be being a little more deliberate, you could be spending more time on marketing, you could be spending more time on selling. So a lot of the presenters were really focused around like, “Hey you’re doing great and you could be pushing a little bit harder in this direction and not have it like, you know, ruin your life or have it, you know…” Like not push so hard that you’re burning yourself into the ground. But the big sort of take away from this event was, you can do a little bit more than you think you can, and that you really ought to do that.
And I find that, you know, coming from a competitive sports background, a background in competitive judo and wrestling that, you know, really you can push harder than you think you can. And I thought that was a really good message to give such a large group of people. It was also interesting because, you know, a lot of these folks were looking to either be in like a different career, or add skill sets on, or learn digital marketing when they have more of a traditional background in selling, or retail, or services. So it was kind of interesting to be in front of a group that… Well, I had never spoken to a group that large. I’ve done like 5,000, 4,000 but 9-10,000 that’s a much bigger group.
And it showed me that like, you know, we think this digital marketing thing is out there, that everyone knows it, but that’s not the case. We’re a very very small group of people. We’re a very niche little tiny group of people who are paying attention to how to spread messages online, how to leverage the internet, how to leverage digital communication, how to leverage the digital medium to engage groups of people in conversations. And so it showed me that like really, you know, this is still a very small group of people who are doing what we’re doing. Who are paying attention to how to engage audiences of people and communities of people with content online, and lead back to sales experiences like getting them to enroll, or donate, or purchase, or whatever it is that you’re trying to do, you know. And that it’s still really early on in the life cycle of this, you know, still 92% of all transactions happen offline, right? At physical retail locations not online. So we’re still at the very beginning of this, and it was a good reminder to see that like even though I’ve been in this for 14 years now, it’s like we’re still real real early and you still have a great opportunity to get involved.
If you feel like you missed the boat you really haven’t, and it was a good reminder of that. So I really enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time to watch this video. I hope to see you next year at 10X Growth Con if you end up making it, or at an event some time soon.
