How to Go from $0 to $25M with Luke Infinger

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Content is Profit. Today, we'll be breaking down how to go from$0 to$25 million. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Luke Infinger into EO Fire Studios. Luke is an entrepreneur, business owner, and leader who brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the table with a deep understanding of the orthodontic field and a passion for helping practices thrive. He has been instrumental in shaping hip creatives, a growth partner for orthodontists to help them grow faster and easier.

0:39In 3A Foundation, we'll talk about skill versus drive. We'll talk about the key to our success, specializing early, niching down, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Luke and our sponsors. Imperfect Action, hosted by Steph Taylor, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Imperfect Action is a bite-sized online marketing podcast for business owners who want to get straight to the point. Join Steph Taylor as she answers all your business marketing questions. Recent episodes include five must-knows to sell your online course, program, or membership, and four steps to grow your email list for your next launch.

1:16Listen to Imperfect Action wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Luke, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Fire Nation, glad to be here. I would say that a lot of people think that you have to get motivated all the time and get pumped up.

2:02And it's really about discipline, not motivation. So I like to study, you know, George Washington all the way to Kobe Bryant and a lot of people in between. And it's really what they do in the dark and keeping their head down, staying disciplined, doing the work, not necessarily being motivated. Mike Tyson says, discipline is doing what you hate to do, but doing it like you love it. So that's how I try to approach my days and structure them in a way to form habits to create the right disciplines. You know, Mike Tyson also says that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. So that guy's got a couple of good quotes up his sleeve.

2:47And I will say, Fire Nation, we've got quite a topic. We're talking about how to go from$0 to$25 million. And I want to start, Luke, by talking about the skill versus drive debate. What are your thoughts on this? It's interesting because you want some level of skill. But I'll tie it back to my journey and my experience. I always had a level of drive, and I never thought that was enough. I'll call drive for me persistence. I was a very persistent person. A lot of times it would take doing that over and over again to get into situations where I wanted to be. And I would notice a lot of people around me had, they were very skilled, super talented from designers to athletes.

3:43And I thought that that had to be me to really make it somewhere in life. So fast forward to college days, I went away to design school and studied motion graphics in Savannah, Savannah College of Art and Design, one of the best design schools, arguably probably in the world. And I got to a level where I could box, you know, I was pretty good. I wasn't incredible. And then that persistence landed me in a job in one of the best motion design firms in the country, in New York City, where a lot of people who were way more skilled than me, they couldn't get a job. I think there was maybe five people in my graduating class, specifically in motion graphics, who got a really good job.

4:31But I quickly realized I hated it. So after about a year, I moved back home and I read this book. It's obsolete now, but the book was How to Make Money with Social Media. And regardless of what's in the book and the principles and what it teaches, from a tactical standpoint, I really leaned in to that persistence and drive of connecting with people, being persistent, being able to send more emails, call, text that person who I needed to connect with to get a foot in the door more than my competition. And that's what really paid off. So do you need skill? I think it really largely depends. Obviously, you want some level of skill in whatever you do.

5:19But if you have tons of skill and no drive, I know a lot of people way more skilled than I, way smarter, who are really just kind of sitting on the sidelines waiting for opportunity to come knock. Fire Nation, it's a really interesting topic to think about and debates to weigh in on. I'm really glad that Luke is giving his opinion, his advice, because this is what I've seen time and time again. It's the person who has the passion, the excitement, the drive for that thing. Guess what? Skill will come by doing the thing over and over again, putting in the work. But if you have the skill to start with, but no drive to back it up, you're going to get beat every time by that first person that I just talked about who does get up every day saying, you know what?

6:08It's another day. Let's go. Let's drive forward. Let's take action. Now, you believe that understanding who we are at our core is the key to our success. Tell us more about this, Luke. I think just to go back to drive versus skill, somebody asked me the other day, what is it you can do that you think you're better than most people or what can you do that nobody else can? I can't remember how they asked me exactly. I said connecting with people one-on-one. One-on-one is where I shine. And so knowing who I am, what I'm good at, I think a lot of people don't even know what they're good at or could be good at.

6:52But being principle-centered, beyond that, I'm a very spiritual person. So knowing what I stand for, having my, if you will, list of principles, value system that I live my life upon, it's cheesy. But a lot of people say, build a house on a firm foundation. You should build your life the same way. So know what you believe, know what you stand for, know what you're going to live by and know your strengths and know your weaknesses. What am I not good at? What am I not going to spend my time doing? Because I'm not going to excel there. And there's somebody else on my team, somebody I can collaborate with who can show up and show out.

7:37That's their genius. Fire Nation, what are you good at? Are you willing to really sit down and think about that? And then guess what? What are you excited about? Because if you're good at something, that's one thing. But if you think about, hey, what am I excited about? I have news for you. You can become good, great, amazing next level at that thing if you are willing to put in the work to sit down and to grind it out. And I'm not talking for 10 ,000 hours. I'm not talking about that type of commitment. Like maybe over time you'll get there. But you can become really good at something that you're excited about if you put in the focused, intentional effort.

8:21If you sit down and just say, I'm gonna do this thing over and over again because I'm excited about it, I'm curious about it, I'm passionate about it, and I'm going to get good and then better and then best at it. Now, you believe in specializing early, Luke, and niching down. What does this look like in the real world? This is how I've built all of my businesses, is niching down. And when I first started, I was not niched down. The first real business I started is a marketing agency, Hip Creative. And we originally thought we would just serve local businesses. I mean, we worked for home service, I mean, boat charters, boot camps, outdoor boot camps, you know, fitness type of things and everything in between.

9:15We started to really get a foothold in healthcare and working with independents who owned their own practice. And long story short, we ended up working with one of the fastest growing orthodontists in the country, probably in the world. And that naturally brought us a ton of exposure, really just got us out of obscurity. And when I started to realize that I could speak in a room or do a podcast with somebody or a webinar or go to an event with this client and they spoke on stage and mentioned us, and I would land two, three, five, 10 clients, it really just changed everything. And then beyond that, if you niche down like what you're talking about, spending time on something, getting really passionate, I was really passionate about business.

10:12And again, going back to connecting to people one-on-one, what is keeping these business owners up at night? What is their roadblock? What's their goal? And figuring out how I could go deeper in business and solving their pain points beyond just marketing, that's where we really niche down. So now we have our entire curriculum for orthodontist. We have software for orthodontist and the marketing that we've always done. Now we have a team of consultants and then you can really become a category king. If you go out and try and serve everybody and be all things to all people, you might be able to do okay.

10:55But I believe as specifically as a small business, you've got to niche down before you can go horizontal. Fire Nation, niche down until it hurts. If you can become the number one solution for a real problem in this world, you've got something because people will beat a path to the doorstep of the number one solution to their problem, and they will ignore the second best solution to infinity. So what is that solution you can become best in show? And we have so much to talk about around this topic and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. I remember searching for the perfect CRM when I first launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, and it's tough to know which platform is going to be right for you and your business.

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14:34but you think our focus needs to be on long-term relationships. Expound upon this. 100%. You've got to hone your craft. And I know so many people, especially in the agency world, but it undoubtedly transcends the agency world where it's really just a sales organization. And you can stack them deep, but you can't really keep your clients. And so you constantly have to keep selling and maybe even reinventing. And we're talking about niching down. Maybe you have to start changing your niche every year. And we really didn't sell. I mean, we didn't study anything in relation to sales, didn't structure our sales, didn't really look at the numbers too much for really four years.

15:25And that might have been way too long. But for us, we focused on building the absolute best framework that we possibly could. And like you said, people found us. People raved about us and their experience with us. And then once we had that solid foundation, we started to really build our sales team, our sales strategy. And it was just pouring gas on the fire and it was nonstop. I mean, we've doubled our business every single year since 2018. So, that's what I really believe. I tell agency owners or young business owners, stop selling and really perfect what you've got, especially if you look at churn and your churn's high.

16:15I don't know who said this line, but I think it was actually the CEO of Ritz-Carlton. and he said, if you can't keep customers, you don't have a business. And so I am more focused on keeping customers, ascending customers and clients than just selling. If you can sell but you can't keep them, who cares? Fire Nation, it is so much easier. And I mean so much easier to keep clients you already have. People who have already said, you know what? I know, I like, I trust this person, this company, this product, this service. They've already paid for it. They've already given their hard-earned money in return for the value that you're providing.

16:59Keeping those individuals is so much easier than going out and convincing an incredibly new person who may or may not know much about you or your company. Think about that process. Now, people, Luke, they still dream of the laptop lifestyle. You think this approach can actually harm, not help our business. Can you share more? Yeah. Yeah, you've got to do the hard work before you do the smart work. You know, I see so many books and it's smart how they come out with these books because it's really speaking to what people want, which is freedom and more money. And, you know, I read a book recently, I think it's something like How to Buy Back Your Time.

17:41And there's a lot of good things in the book. But my fear is young entrepreneurs who haven't put in the work, who maybe haven't put in the 5 ,000 or 10 ,000 hours. Tai Lopez talks about the 10 years of hell when starting a business. And that's kind of more of my story. But if you think you can just open a business, you can sell, you know, you're pretty good. Maybe you can run Facebook ads or something like that. And you can work for two hours a day. you're not really going to build anything substantial. You might be able to support your lifestyle for a little bit. But I see books reference people like Oprah Winfrey and now she only works two hours a day.

18:25And again, my fear is that young people are buying into this versus imagine the journey that Oprah had to go through to get to that point. Imagine how many hours she had to work, the blood, sweat and tears, the stress. And I think a lot of young people are focused on stress or burnout or these things. And maybe it goes back to something you said, passion. Maybe they're doing something they're not passionate about. Because if you're passionate, you're going to be willing to go through hell to ultimately reach your purpose and help people. That's what this is about. I believe if you're in business, you should be wanting to help people get what they want.

19:10Jim Rohn says, if you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want. And so again, four hour work week, work two hours, there's a lot of strategies of optimizing your emails and filters. And I only talk to people at this time of day and all of that is good at a certain point, but you cannot start your business that way. It's a complete pipe dream. you've got to be willing to do what no one else is going to do and this is why most businesses fail i think over a decade uh i saw the stat that like 80 of small businesses fail and so if you don't want to be in that statistic you've got to be willing to show up show out you might have to be stressed out uh there's going to be days that are hell there's going to be days where you might be burnt out.

20:03But again, you got to zoom out. Why am I doing this? What's the value that I'm adding? What's my mission? And also celebrate the wins. You know, if you have people that you've helped, whether it be team members or clients, partnerships, focus on those things. Remember those things, celebrate that stuff, and replicate it. Fire Nation, you need to remember the truth and the higher the barrier, the lower the competition. So many people are like, but John, it's so hard. This is so tough. And I'm like, that's awesome. That's amazing. Because it's tough is why people are going to quit or not attempt something.

20:45If I had done a weekly podcast, everybody was doing a weekly podcast. I would have faded into obscurity. But here I am 11 years later, 4 ,300 episodes later, because I did something really tough. 365 interviews a year, the only daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. The barrier was so high that the competition wasn't just low, it didn't exist. So if it's hard, Fire Nation, that's a sign that you're on the right path. Think about that. It should be hard. It should be a grind. And you have found that real success comes from learning from the best Luke, not just the quote-unquote internet famous.

21:25What do you mean by this? I have personal experience. I've spent a ton of money buying a lot of stuff. I like to buy stuff. And I have bought a lot of programs from influencers, people on the internet that you see every day. And some of them are good, but some of them, you have to realize with the internet that people are not always what they claim to be. And so I've learned, am I going to be more focused on here and now and who's big on YouTube this week? Or am I going to look back at history and say, who has been a powerful person or accomplished incredible things over the past thousand years, over the past 10 ,000 years?

22:13And should I be spending more of my time studying from them or just studying from whoever's big on the internet. And so I have found more value going back to people like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, you know, JW Marriott, the DuPonts, all the way up to people that we know today, they just don't spend all their time online, like Warren Buffett. Could you imagine if Warren Buffett was just posting TikTok videos all day? I mean, that would be ridiculous. You know, so most people who are where you want to be and have done what's needed to do to get there are not on the Internet. They don't have time for it.

22:58And these are even people in your local communities. I'm trying to create my mentorship list this year where I'm actually having mentors helping me. And the guy that I know who is the most accomplished, most successful, none of you would know. He lives in Chattanooga and is an extremely successful person that I can learn from. He's in a circle of billionaires. And so I would tap your local market. I would certainly study history because none of us know it. You know, it's quickly forgotten. And I would place more weight and more value on that than internet marketer or internet influencers, including myself.

23:40You know, what do I know? Yeah, I may have scaled businesses to$25 million from zero. That's great. But Warren Buffett has scaled to hundreds of billions of dollars and given away his entire net worth, I think, two times. So I would rather study from people like that. Luke, we've dropped a lot of value bombs today. What is the one thing that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our conversation? then what is the call to action you have for our listeners today? I think the biggest thing, and you mentioned this, is hard work. And if it's tough, that's good. Lean into it. And I see so many people saying, oh, that's so hard or I'm stressed out.

24:24I was talking to an agency owner yesterday and he's burnt out. I said, how long have you been doing this? More importantly, how long have you been somewhat successful? A year and a half. I said, a year and a half and you're already burnout. Think of, again, why you're doing it and maybe even all the things that you do want to material possessions. Do you want to own a house? Do you want a car? Do you want to maybe fly private? Those are things I incorporate into my morning formula and it's going to take hard work. But more importantly than anything you could get is who are you becoming? And so how are diamonds formed?

25:04They're formed under extreme pressure. And so just because something is hard does not mean you should throw in the towel. If you're passionate about it, if you know your purpose, lean into it. And I really believe to find your purpose, this is my personal opinion, you also have to find that relationship with God, the higher power, the universe, whatever you want to call it. Tap into that, really understand your purpose. And with all the energy that you have, go after it. Do you need rest? Do you need to take care of yourself? Do you need sleep at night? Absolutely. But anyone I know who has done something incredible or added a lot of value to the world, to people, they've had an extremely tough life.

25:53And so those tough moments are going to teach you things. They're going to give you the wisdom, the experience to help more people. And I'll end it with this. I heard somebody say, your pain is your gift. And so when you go through pain and you come out on the other end, you have a story and a scenario, hopefully it's successful at the end of the day, who you can now go tell somebody about who is going to go through that. Maybe it's 10 years later and you meet somebody, they're going through something, you say, you know, I went through something like this too. Here's how I was able to apply it to my life and to actually get better.

26:34And what call to action do you have for our listeners today? You want to know more about me and my journey. Maybe some of you are starting out. Maybe some of you are stuck. and you want to build the business of your dreams and again, help more people, you can email me, luke at hipcreativeinc.com. It's luke at h-i-p-creative-i-n-c.com. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, which is also a Jim Rohn quote. And you've been hanging out with L-I and J-L-D today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. type Luke in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up.

27:18And Luke, one more time, that email address? Luke at hipcreativeinc.com. Luke, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. All right. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Luke for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, what can 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, is a revolutionary 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle you've been dreaming about.

27:59This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit That's UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Imperfect Action, hosted by Steph Taylor, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Imperfect Action is a bite-sized online marketing podcast for business owners who want to get straight to the point. Join Steph Taylor as she answers all your business marketing questions. Recent episodes include five must-knows to sell your online course, program, or membership, and four steps to grow your email list for your next launch.

28:36Listen to Imperfect Action wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.