How a Simple T-Shirt Created a 7-Figure Business with Clay Mosley: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how a simple t-shirt created a seven-figure business. To drop these value bombs, I brought Clay Mosley into EO Fire Studios. After job hopping for 10 years, Clay started a digital marketing agency in 2015. He grew it and sold it in 2019 and now owns Drippify. And Fire Nation, as long as you're growing and you're not losing money, you can be happy and an introvert gets their energy drained around people.

0:38They have to go back home and recharge. Extroverts are the opposite and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Clay and our sponsors. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's franchise funding guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings. Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies?

1:19Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Clay, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? First of all, thanks for having me on the show. You know, there are so many things, so I had to narrow it down to actually two of them, if you don't mind, one personal, one professional. Uh, the professional side of things is that you don't have to have a big social following to be successful in business.

2:06You just don't. I'm a very living, breathing example of that. Uh, I don't have a big following. You don't have to have millions. You don't even have to have thousands. Uh, it's just all about what type of relationships you have. And we can dig into that later if you'd like. Um, the personal side of things is you don't have to wake up at 5am every morning because I'm also an example of that. I sleep in every day. That might change. Wait a second. You have a 10 day old daughter. How are you sleeping in every day? Oh, that's what I was going to say. It's only been 10 days. It's changed a bit. It has changed a bit.

2:44Crazy stuff. I will say sleep is really my biggest focus in life right now. I've probably gone to the extreme a little bit. I literally just announced to Kate about a week ago. I'm like, you know how we used to go start like going to bed at nine o 'clock like that means we would turn the tv off like take the dog out go upstairs i'm like i want to back that up to 8 30 because i know it sounds like we're really old but you know nine o 'clock by the time we take the dog out brush our teeth do this do that get in bed it's like 9 40 i'm like and that's just too late because all of my deep sleep comes before midnight i know that because i track it on my aura ring so now uh we're starting to head upstairs around 8 30.

3:23I'm, I'm a happy camper. I'm, I'm in bed by nine, nine, 10 asleep, hopefully by nine, 20, nine 30 getting, um, seven to eight, sometimes eight and a half hours of quality sleep. But if we go down that, that, that kid routes that I think we might be going down like you, uh, that's, that's gonna change. Now, are you a night owl or early bird just by nature? Oh my God. I, I don't believe anybody's a night owl. I think anybody who was a night owl has like ruined their circadian rhythm and then, and then fooled themselves into thinking that they're a night owl. And I always tell night owls, and this could be you, if you think you're one, wake up at 5am for 30 seconds.

3:59I'm not saying you should wake up because I don't wake up at 5am. I wake up at 6 to 7am, but wake up at 5am every single day and tell me if you're still a night owl. And I'm telling you, your body will be so thrilled to get back into a circadian rhythm of like a nine or 10 to six to seven timeframe. That's just my opinion. Yeah. No, you sound like my wife now. So like, she tells me the exact same thing. This could be a whole episode on sleep. Let's just throw the whole t-shirt idea out the window. But no, let's actually talk about introverts because a lot of my listeners are self-professed introverts.

4:33So can you share some strategies for starting a business as an introvert? I want to clarify what I think an introvert is because I think some people think it's one thing and some people think it's another. Because I don't want to – I don't want people to get confused on introvert versus shyness or timid, being timid. So what I think an introvert is versus an extrovert and this could be debatable but this is what I – my views on it is that an introvert gets – their energy is drained by being around people. And they have to go back home, I guess you could say, to recharge, whereas extroverts are the opposite.

5:14They charge by being around people and their energy is drained by being at home and being by themselves. So that's kind of what I think an introvert versus extrovert is. So I am 100 % an introvert, but I am not shy or timid at all. So I just want to clarify that before I get into that. Well, that's important because I will say that more people than not identify as introverts. I will tell you that with 100 % certainty, it is so rare that I meet people, sometimes I even think especially in the entrepreneurial space, who identify as an extrovert. I mean, I do, but I really feel like I'm not even just in the minority.

5:54I'm in the vast minority of people that truly identify as an extrovert. And honestly, I think as I get a little bit older, I'm kind of starting to go a little bit more towards that introvert line anyway. So maybe I was like in the 90 percentile younger, maybe like a 60 or 70. Now, I don't even know. But let's talk about the whole introvert thing and, you know, just the overall ability to grow a business being an introvert without knowing business, without knowing sales. I mean, it seems like you have three strikes to get you already, but you say, no, no, no. tell us more. So back in 2015, I definitely had all the strikes.

6:32So I don't know if I mentioned this in my bio, but I worked for 10 years after graduating college and I basically job hopped. I was not a good employee at all. And I worked a variety of different jobs. And then I got fired from most of them. And then I got fired from the last job in 2015. And so I had decided, I said, okay, well, I think I'm basically unemployable at this point, at least on paper. And I couldn't even get an interview anywhere because I had a terrible resume. And so I had that strike against me. I'm an introvert. And then also, I did not know anything about business. I didn't know anything about sales or marketing.

7:15And I said, I think I'm going to start my own business. I don't know what I was thinking. But I said, I think I'm going to try to do this thing. It sounds really, really awesome because I see all these people, they're successful doing their own thing, being their own boss. And I said, I think I could do that. And so I decided to be a freelance web developer. And because I was kind of doing it on the side, I taught myself how to code. And I was like, I think I could do this. And so I don't know, like I was kind of between a rock and a hard place where like I really had no choice but to make it because I couldn't get a job.

7:52and that was it. I had to make money. And so I was kind of forced to do it. But what helped me get through that as far as the introvertedness is I had a plan of expectations. So I think like anything in this world, whenever anyone is disappointed or something doesn't go their way, It's all about because their expectations didn't go right. Like they didn't have the right expectations in their mind. And so I made sure that I had the expectations of, okay, how is this going to go? Because going to like a local networking meeting to try to get business was absolutely terrifying to me. Plus I suffered from a little bit of social anxiety.

8:42And so the plan that I had was like, okay, I'm going to go into this thing. I'm just gonna go and just try to meet like five people. That's it. And so once I meet five people, then I'm out. And so that was my expectation. That was my plan. And that's what I did. Every single time I went to a new event, I increased it a little bit more. Maybe instead of five, I saw seven. Maybe instead of seven, I saw 10. And so I just kind of added a little bit on each time by having a plan and setting those expectations. Now, Fire Nation, setting expectations, by the way, that's one key thing that a lot of entrepreneurs do incorrectly.

9:23They have these grandiose expectations for what's going to happen after a week, a month, a year. And I love the Tony Robbins quote. I say it a few times, at least a month on this show, which is people overestimate what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in a decade. I mean, a decade, you can literally change the world. Like, that's no exaggeration. But a year, man, a year can go by quick. And if you're going to be disappointed because you're not accomplishing everything you had these grandiose expectations for in a year, then, hey, like you might want to quit. So don't have these outsized expectations for a year.

9:57But, hey, shoot for the moon for that decade because, man, the sky is truly the limit. And we're going to talk about some really cool things about everything we talked about and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. When I first launched Entrepreneurs on Fire in September of 2012, I had a feeling it was going to be big, but I didn't know how big. Fast forward to May 2014, not even two years later, and Kate and I were traveling Europe on our first ever completely unplugged vacation. No emails, no interviews, everything for the business was handled ahead of time. From the beginning, location independence has been a high priority of ours.

10:32We love to travel and we love the freedom of being able to pack a bag and hit the road on our own terms. While we were away, we thought it'd be great to make some extra money to host our place on Airbnb. We figured since we were gonna be staying in homes throughout Europe, why not also host ours in the States? If you're like us and value location independence, think about it. While you're away, your home could be working for you rather than sitting empty. It's a great way to make some extra cash to put towards your next home project, bucket list goal, or future vacation. Your home might be worth more than you think.

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13:33That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to download your free franchise funding guide today. So Clay, we teased this at the top of the show. Actually, before you were on, I was talking about it a little bit. It was the story of a simple t-shirt idea that created a brand identity. Tell us that story. This is a fun story. It happened by accident, I think. I did not like going to these networking meetings. And I got tired of just pitching myself over and over and over again, just saying, hey, I'm Clay Moseley. I'm a web developer. And I did that, you know, I don't know, a couple dozen times at least. And so I thought to myself, which is funny, because I thought this out of laziness.

14:22I thought to myself, I'm just going to have a shirt printed up, screen printed that just said web designer on the front. That's all it said. And so I didn't have any branding. I didn't have my logo on it. It was literally just a black t-shirt that I bought and it had in white letters, web designer. Literally, that was it. And so I thought every single networking event I go to, everyone's going to instantly know what I do without me even saying a word. And so that's kind of how this was born, this idea of this t-shirt. I want to know what the whole story behind the t-shirt was, how it built the brand identity, like really break down that entire process.

15:08It actually became my identity. And I, every single day that I went to work, I, where I knew I was going to see somebody, a client, a prospect, a coffee meeting, whatever, I wore that shirt. And so I just got kind of got in the habit of doing that. And then when I hired my first employee, this was a year later. So I started my marketing agency in February 2015. I hired my first person in April of 2016. And she was like, I want one of those shirts. And I said, sure, like it, it's not branded or anything, but I, you know, let's get you a shirt printed. And so she did, she got, uh, I don't remember what it said.

15:53I think like marketing geek or something. Um, and then the rest of that year, by the end of 2016, we hired two more people and we were at four people and they were both, those two new people were like, well, I want, I want a shirt. And so we came up with these like titles, like web geek, marketing geek, social media geek. And by the end of 2017, we had 11 people. 2018, we had over 20 people. And everybody wanted a shirt. And so everywhere around town, and it became our brand where it's like, hey, anytime you're out in town and you are going to any kind of event, you know you're going to meet a prospect or a client, you have to wear the shirt.

16:37And we did it across all our social media like you have to wear the shirt and what's funny is the shirt all the shirts we never and we never branded them none of them had our logo on it it was just it was just the title and it would it got to the point where people would see us out in public and they go oh you work for this company and like oh yeah yeah we do because they're like i recognize that shirt that's that's kind of where it got to to like how it became what kind of our brand identity is like this silly little t-shirt because i decided i was too lazy to pitch myself at networking events that's what it became and so it's like kind of crazy so what do you really want our listeners to walk away with with that story i mean you know you learned a lot i really feel like there's some lessons in here that we can really make sure our audience gets about what it means to, you know, do something, say, you know what, there's a little traction here.

17:37There's a little momentum here. How do I double down on this? Because it just feels right. The biggest thing that I would take away from this is brand, how important brand is and how consistency is, is it how important consistency is? Because even though this t-shirt did not have our logo on it, it represented our brand because we were very consistent. We did it all the way across the board for every person on our team, across all our social media. We, it even, uh, kind of the style got reflected on our website. And so brand is, it doesn't have to be about how fancy a logo is or something like that, as long as you are consistent, then people will remember you.

18:31Because I see some of the ugliest logos out there of big companies that I'm like, how is that a logo? But people remember it. I don't know if I can say it, but there's a moving company that has these little hand-drawn stick figure letters. they're a bit they're a pretty decent sized moving company like they're they're at least regional if not national um but that's they're consistent right like no no graphic designer would ever design something like that you know what i mean but they're very consistent with their brand and now and that's how people remember them so we all hear about the importance of goal setting i mean i'm not gonna lie back in 2016 i launched one of my most successful products ever the Freedom Journal, which is about accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days.

19:19But you have a different angle. You have a different take on things. Talk about growing a business without arbitrary goals. In business, you always hear in all kinds of coaches say this and everything, and I'm not saying they're wrong. It just wasn't my cup of tea. But they always say you got to set numbers, you got to set goals, and then you got to try to hit those goals, right? Like, as far as like numbers and so that's what I did you know that everybody says to do that and so I set these these goal numbers and and I tried I would try to hit it my problem was and I'm sure a lot of people listening they fall into this category was that I set a number a realistic number which would be a very good number to hit but I would fall just short of it which in reality the growth that I made that year was very, very good, but I fell short of my goal.

20:19And so mentally, it was kind of disappointing to me. And so I remember, I think in our second year, I think we wanted to be a million dollar marketing agency, like a million dollars in a year. and I think we made$966 ,000 which the previous year we did$500 ,000. So that's a really good growth. But I remember thinking to myself, man, I wish we had gotten that extra$40 ,000 to meet our goal. And so I kind of had this feeling of disappointment in myself and I'm like, and finally I read this book. The guys over at Basecamp, I can't remember their names, but they wrote a book called Rework. And they talk about how you shouldn't have like just these arbitrary goals.

21:14Like as long as you're growing the company, as long as you have growth, then you should be happy. And so like that's what I changed my mindset to that. I was like, okay, well, as long as I'm growing, I'm happy. As long as I'm not losing money and I'm growing, I'm happy. because like the thing about these like setting goals and these numbers is like, okay, why did I choose a million dollars in my head? Why did I say a million dollars? Like where did that number come from? I don't know. I just kind of pull it out of the air. Like that's exactly where that number came from. And so like the next year could be like$3 million.

21:50Okay, where did that number come from? I don't know. It just sounded like a really good number. And so like there's no meaning behind it for me, at least me personally. And so I changed my mindset to like, okay, as long as I'm growing, I'm happy. So that's kind of why I don't set arbitrary goals. So Clay, we talked about a lot of stuff today. We talked about being an introvert. We talked about growing a business without knowing business or sales, about your t-shirt brand identity that you've created, about growing a business without arbitrary goals and without focusing on just these random numbers or these random goals.

22:28what's the one takeaway you want to make sure that we get from everything that we talked about here today? And any call to action you have for our listeners, any directions, anything you want us to check out, and then we'll say goodbye. Patience, right? You can achieve a lot of great things or at least a couple of great things in a long period of time, but like in a year, it may not happen. You know, you could grow towards that. But over, you know, 10 year span or seven year span in my in my case, you can achieve a lot of things, a lot of great things. So like patience is the key for entrepreneurship because I think people, when they don't have patience, they get bored and they switch their mind or their efforts or their focus to something else.

23:20And then they never achieve growth because they keep having to start over. And so I would say patience, consistency, keep at it and things will happen. I promise. Call to action. You had mentioned a call to action. So like what I do now is I am I act as like a fractional CMO, chief marketing officer. So I give all these like really great marketing hacks that are really unconventional. So I would encourage you guys, if you want to learn more from me, is to go to get dripify.com slash fire. And that will get you invited into my community. and the very first thing you'll see is a tactic that will get you 1 million plus ROI if you do the tactic.

24:06Boom, Fire Nation, you are the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with and you've been hanging out with CM and JLD today so keep up the heat. Head over to eofire.com. Just type Clay in the search bar. His show notes page will pop up with everything that we've been talking about here today. And one more time, Clay, give us that URL call to action. GetDripify.com slash fire. G-E-T-D-R-I-P-I-F-Y slash fire. So is that GetDripify.com slash fire? Yes. Boom. Clay, thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

24:47Much appreciated. Thanks for having me. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Clay. and Fire Nation's successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's franchise funding guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings.

25:28Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.