How Being “In The Room Where It Happens” Has Helped Me Make More Money

[00:00:00] Yeah, so that’s what was that inspired there? And plus in the room where it happens, I’ve had a philosophy well before Hamilton came out, that is the way to run your life and the way to run your business as much as possible. And so when Hamilton came out and that song in the room where it happens, which is again, one of my, it might be my second or third favorite song on the soundtrack. That speaks to me. That theme speaks to me. And so as I was working on the topic, as I was thinking last night and this morning, what topic do I wanna do? It’s oh, this topic’s always in the back of my mind. ’cause it matters. It matters every single day. Being in the room where it happens and it’s not just, kind of musical stuff. Excuse me, while I don’t look at the camera and I rearrange my notes here a little bit. It just matters in, in, in life in general and in business and so many things, so many leaps and bounds in my business have happened just by being in the right place at the right time. That one is called like luck meets opportunity, right? But you have to put yourself, [00:01:00] wait no right place. What is luck, right place, right time, being at the right place and the right time. Okay. To be, to get into the right place, you have to give yourself more exposure. You have to put yourself in those places, okay? And the you what you’re gonna learn through the theme of this show. We’ve got 30 minutes here and I’m already down to 9 0 8. I’ll probably go a little bit past nine 30. What you’re gonna learn and what I wanna emphasize to you, and I’m gonna show you some examples that have mattered to me. That have basically changed the course of my business and my life is just being in the right place at the right time. But this is not something that you have to, this is not something you can just rely on to happen, okay? You can’t trip and fall into luck. You may on occasion, you may trip and fall and stub your toe, and then while you’re down there crying over your toe in the, what was the family guy way that, Ooh, ooh. As you’re doing that, you may find a lottery ticket that’s worth a million dollars. Okay? That can happen. However it doesn’t happen on, [00:02:00] it doesn’t happen on a regular basin basis. And it doesn’t happen very frequently. Is it just me? Am I talking really fast? It feels like I’m talking really fast. Where’s my freaking mouse cursor there? I just had my first sip of coffee. Okay, Patrick, take a deep breath. Slow down. Slow down. My goal today though is to show you that I want you. To walk away from this, trying to figure out how you can put yourself in more rooms where things happen. Okay? It could be networking, it could be conferences, it could be particular Zoom calls. It just, it could be anything, but if you want more luck, you’re gonna have to roll the dice more, okay? You can’t win at the craps table at the casino if you’re not rolling the dice. I’m a craps player. Trust me. I know. But you also can lose a lot by rolling the dice. But yeah, that’s life. You’re rolling the dice every single day. Every single day you’re rolling the dice and you’re hoping good things happen to you. But the more frequently you roll the dice, [00:03:00] the better the odds are. Okay. That’s why at a craps table, it’s funny at a craps table, people love the game when it’s going really fast. ’cause you know why? There’s more opportunities, but there’s also more risk. That’s what happens. More opportunity, more risk. But anyways, I was very happy with the topic choice today. And like I said, I’d be huge Hamilton Super fan. I wanna start off actually with a quote part of the lyrics of that song. For those of you that have never seen it, and for those of you who have seen it, you’re gonna love these lyrics. There is a quote in this song in Hamilton that. Or excuse me, there’s a lyric by Lin Manuel towards the end of the song and it says, when you got skin in the game, you stay in the game, but you don’t get a win unless you play in the game. There’s no chance of you winning if you’re not networking, if you’re not putting yourself in the rooms, that’s what that line means. You don’t get a win in unless you play in the game or you get love for it, or you get hate for it, but you get nothing if you wait for it. I love that line. You get [00:04:00] nothing if you wait for it. So what that means is you gotta play. If you stand on the sidelines, nothing’s going. If you stand on the sidelines, there is a 0% chance of you winning. Okay? If you get involved, the chances of you winning are good and the chances of you sometimes losing are good. But if you stand on the sideline, you know the way a craps table works, you got all the players are on the craps table and the people that are one layer back that are learning and wondering, and they’re like, oh, that’s a risky game. I don’t wanna play that. Those people will never win. And I’m just using that as an analogy. There’s so many great analogies, especially in the past probably 30 days. I’ve got some really good examples I wanna talk to you about. And that’s again, why why I picked this topic today and this is really focused on those of you who want to do big aspirational things with your businesses. If you’re a brand new entrepreneur, if you’ve been in business, two to five years, these are the kind of things you need to hear to put yourself more. More in the rooms where you’re happening. ’cause no one’s coming to hand stuff out to you. I’ve talked before. No one’s [00:05:00] coming to save you. No one’s coming to hand you luck. No one’s going to knock on your door today and hand you a business opportunity. No one’s gonna knock on your door today and hand you good health. Or hand you a big giant $1,001 million contract. Okay, a couple of things. Why do you wanna be in the room where it happens? It makes people aware that you even exist. Okay. And this is one that I’ve won on a lot just by being, definitely by being in the room, but not even by being outstanding. Okay. A lot of what we do in our world of business and marketing is just awareness. Just making, making sure people even know that we exist. That’s very much TOF. I’ve talked about this before, business funnels, right? You’ve got the top up here. The top of a funnel is wide. I’m looking at the camera here, the top of the funnel. We can go full, almost full screen here. The top of a funnel is very wide. This is awareness. You want this to be as big as possible because the bigger this [00:06:00] is, the bigger this will be down here. Okay. The more you fill your top of funnel with awareness, with ads, with, in, in the world of digital marketing, ads, funnels blogging content, you don’t think I do these videos just because I like seeing my face on camera. I probably do, but don’t tell anybody. But this to me is awareness for my business. Writing a blog post is awareness for my business. These are strategic things that I’m doing, and. If I’m lucky, they’re fun and I love talking to you. That’s a big reason why you wanna be in the room. Where it happens is just awareness. And I’ve gotten, I’ve made money just by showing up in a room where there was nobody else in the room that did what I did or that knew what I knew. And there were people in that room that’s Hey, we’re looking for a, we’re looking for an SEO guy, we’re looking for an ad guy. We’re looking for a new marketing agency. If I’m the only marketing agency in the room full of business owners, the it’s mine for the taking. It’s gonna rain leads for me. Okay? That’s one of the [00:07:00] big reasons why you wanna be in the room where it happens. But also, and this is one of the examples I’m gonna talk about as we move on through here, it also gives you a voice. Okay. And you see this a lot in politics and possibly one of my regrets in life is not being more involved in politics, especially as we see the way things are right now. I wish that when I was younger I was, I’d gotten into politics, but it’s just one of those topics that I remember ever since a teenager. Being just really annoyed by politicians and the game they play. Yeah, look what Charles said right here. Let’s put this up on the screen. It’s always fun when you’ve got mouse and it’s going it’s going by in the room. This is a good friend of mine, Charles Haggins, who runs pinnacle ai. I had been blessed by opportunities just from unapologetically showing up at any opportunity I can. Okay. In the world of business, there are business owners out there right now looking for what you are selling. There are, I’m here in Oklahoma City someplace down Northwest [00:08:00] Expressway at at some of the skyscrapers or downtown. There’s a business owner someplace just saying, man, I wish we had a CRM man, I wish we had more leads. Ugh, I wish we knew someone that knew how to run ads. They’re sitting up there, they’re just begging. They’re just waiting for someone to show up to help them. Okay? They’re waiting for you in your city, in your state. There’s just people waiting, and if you show up in the room, they’re like, oh, it’s a blessing. Charles showed up. We were looking for a guy who had a really good CRM. Thank goodness Charles Higgins showed up. It’s an easy win and it’s almost an easier win for Charles ’cause he’s not showing up with a bunch of other people he doesn’t know going into a particular opportunity or a particular room. But there are the chances of somebody [00:09:00] being in the same room as Charles selling what Charles is selling is pretty low. So if he puts himself in an environment where there’s a lot of business owners. That I have a pain point. ’cause that’s what we do. Charles and I do similar things. We solve people’s pain. Okay? We solve people’s pain of being disorganized and not having a good lead flow and a good CRM. So we’re in very similar fields and I used Charles a lot for my business ideas and for my model manages brilliant. But man, just being in the room, and I know I’m really harping on this, but I just think in my life, I’m not a spring chicken. Okay. I just think in my life of how many times I’ve just been in a room and someone saying, Hey we have a very casual conversation, the elevator conversation, a 30, 62nd pitch, and someone’s Hey. I was looking for someone like you. This just happened not too long ago. Okay. I’m gonna start to get into the examples and these examples I want you to take forward and I want you to take some notes and I want you to [00:10:00] figure out how you can put yourself in more rooms. Okay. I was at I. I was at an event recently and several great opportunities came outta this event. I’ve talked to you before about the I live in Oklahoma City and I drove down to Dallas to attend a Billy Cox event where a new friend of mine, Billy Cox, was speaking and a long time friend of mine, Thomas Keenan, from Step It Up Academy was speaking. Thomas is also in the CRM space. And obviously it was, it was a business coaching event. I met all kinds of cool people. But in one of the breakout sessions I went to, there was a gentleman sitting behind me and I think his name is Matt Kern. He’s in my CRM. I’ll have to look him up. I think his name was Matt Kern. In, in the room there were obviously a lot of business owners. And I think there were about two other, two or three other people I knew that were in my space. ’cause a lot of the event, if you’re gonna go to a business conference, a lot of times people there are in marketing and they’re looking for leads. And I was sitting behind Matt Kern or something and the conversation came up. I [00:11:00] was, I’m very vocal in every class. I just can’t help it. And at some point in time I got to spit out what I was doing. I do this, and this. I focus a little bit more on the real estate world ’cause that’s, I have background there. And as the class wrapped up the Matt who sat in front of me, Matt Kern, just turned around and gave me a business card. He’s dude. I’m in, he’s in, I’m in Oklahoma. He’s in North Dallas. If geography, he’s up in the Denton area, which is between Oklahoma City and Dallas. Matt Kern turned around and just gave me his card. He’s I have an audience that needs what you do, Patrick. Let’s talk on Monday. This happened on Saturday, so this happened on, not this past Saturday, probably about two or three Saturdays ago. I didn’t ask Matt. I didn’t even know Matt before he turned around and gave me his business card. He just I had stated to the room when I did, I don’t think we did introductions, just somehow it came out. Patrick Alman does this just because Patrick Alman doesn’t know how to shut up sometimes, but, hey, oh, I eat. I eat well. I’m not afraid of opening up my mouth, [00:12:00] but yeah. Matt turned around and gave me a business card. Matt and I had a zoom call last week, and we’re gonna figure out how to work together. We’re gonna figure out how I can get into his audience and share my marketing solutions and my CRM with his audience. A large group of realtors in. Dent in Oklahoma who were completely disorganized in their marketing. He teaches them things and he talks about CRMs. He talks about organization he already knows they have pain points. So here we are. Wonder Twin powers activates. Yes, I’m a child of the seventies and eighties. Here’s Patrick. Smart guy has a solution. Here’s Matt Kern. Smart guy who teaches and has classes for people that want to buy what Patrick is selling. Turn me into a bucket of water. Turn me into whatever. A monkey. No, the monkey was the other character. I can’t remember. Did they turn into the monkey or was a monkey, one of the other characters? I can’t know. [00:13:00] Either way. One twin powers, Matt and I are going to hook up and do amazing things together. Okay. There’s some other examples here I really wanted to run through. Like I said, I really wish I had done more with politics. I do have one political win. There was a bill that I had my name that I didn’t have my name on it, but had my input to it. And it was based on a different news story that I did. ’cause I’ve done several news stories with a local media about something that wasn’t. Really kosher or didn’t work well for local businesses, and I actually got to go up to the capitol. Literally, you talk about being in the room. I got to go up to the capitol and talk to my reps one-on-one and sit down and work on the verbiage for the bill, and the bill passed. Okay. That’s my one political win, if you will. Okay. I’ve always I always going up to my capital. It’s not too far away and you just learn so much about the game. Okay. I love the game. So that’s the one political one I have, but here’s some other examples of me being in the room where it happened that, that have really [00:14:00] changed the game for me. Okay. Early on in my business, not early on, I was in maybe. Four or five years. I can’t remember how long I’d been an entrepreneur. But I was traveling out of the Oklahoma City airport, the Will Rogers International Airport here. ’cause, Oklahoma City is known for its international travel. And I was I love telling this story. And this was securities was much easier then. This was definitely pre pre September 11th and pre TSA. And I remember being talk about politics. This is funny. I remember being in a salon. I can still envision it, seeing the remember back in the day, we, all you had to do is go through like a simple metal detector. Yeah, so we were in the long line for the metal detector and there was a lady in front of me named Nancy. And and I remember several people in front of us. I remember it was 3, 4, 5, maybe 10. We both recognized a local politician. And it was kind, funny. The we were, we kind Nancy and I were ranting on about the, about the [00:15:00] line and I pointed out, I remember the conversation, I pointed out that, oh, you know what, even the politicians have to wait in the line here either way. So Nancy and I started getting chummy and I found out Nancy worked for a government organization. I believe it was the va. And and then I told her what I did. I. It was it was it was at the time it was custom software development and a SP, I believe. Talk about nerdy. I was, that’s when I got into software development. Actually, I got into software development a lot earlier. This was a p before I even knew what asp.net was. Whew. Patrick, put your nerd cloak away. Nancy and I, we just kinda introduced each other. Didn’t exchange really any information. Name. We chatted, we got through security, badda, badadada, whatever. So we got through security and I remember after security at some point in time, we actually ran into her again. And she said, Patrick, I just remembered we are gonna have some tech software development needs coming up. Do you have a card so I can so I can call on you and if Patrick was ready, I had [00:16:00] card and I didn’t even follow up with her. If I’m not mistaken, I remember getting a call when I got back from that business trip. I was probably on the road for a week or two and it was Nancy and she’s come to downtown Oklahoma City and have a meeting with us. So we can talk about this with my staff. So man, I went down there with my friend Morgan sat in a room with these VA people and they were like, we have this software development project. Can you do it? I don’t remember the specifics of it. And the answer was, yeah, let me work on a quote for that. Keep in mind. This is government work. Okay? For those of you who’ve done government work before, you know that you usually have to be on a GSA contract to get government work. I had no GSA contract. I wasn’t even thinking of marketing the government. But fast forward it took about a day, I think. I think I called back Nancy later in the day after the meeting with the price and she’s sure, let’s get started. And I’m not gonna go into revenue numbers, but yeah, I basically fell into a government contract. It wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t vocal in the security line. It wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t in the room [00:17:00] being the airport where it happened. So that, that is one of my better examples. That contract went on to make me just under a million dollars. Okay. Just by Patrick being vocal Patrick, networking. Patrick, putting himself in an opportunity. Let’s do some other examples here so I can get you outta here by nine 30. Oh. So that conference I was at, that Billy Cox conference I was at. Not only did I did I end up networking with this gentleman named Matt Kern I told you about earlier. I actually sat down with a business coach who was attempting to sell me something beautiful, brilliant woman who was attempting to sell me something and sit down with her and she goes. Patrick Almond. I know you, I watch your YouTube stuff. I love what you put out there. And it was actually specifically having to do with high level from my high level people from my high level fam that is watching here. She’s Patrick, I’ve learned stuff from you from high level. Fast forward. Since then we’ve talked about a couple of leads. So I am her go-to high level person now, and she is somebody who [00:18:00] works and closes coaching clients. Who are they? They’re entrepreneurs. She loves my YouTube stuff. She made me watching, she loves my work and she’s already referring me business. Okay. So I drove down to Dallas. Those are the two business opportunities I remember about. I generated several more leads and that wasn’t my goal. It just happens wherever I go. But those are the two strongest ones. I remember being in the breakout room with Matt, who just turned around and handed me a card. And this other lady Myrna, who is basically feeding me leads now because why? Number one, I was in the room where it happened, but number two, I was on YouTube. I could probably do a whole show about the business that being on YouTube has brought me. YouTube is a room, another room where it happened. Let’s keep moving on. Oh two here. And Charles, you’re gonna this one. I started attending the product calls a little bit more for the tool which I’m certified in, which is the high level CRM. And I’ve noticed this is [00:19:00] a probably a smaller example, but I’ve noticed that my voice and the voices of the people that attend these meetings are the ones that are guiding the direction of the product. Okay, Charles, for example when a developer pops up and says, Hey, we’re thinking about doing this, and this I’ll pop in or Charles will pop in or somebody else will pop in and say that’s not really what we want to use the product for. That’s not a really good use case. Here’s a good use case. And you can see the developers as Charles is talking, or as other people are talking, the developers are taking notes and they’re going to use that to guide the direction of the product. So in two, three months, when a feature comes out and it works a certain way, how to get that way, it got that way from the Charles’ of the room and the Patrick’s of the room, and the other people who were in the Zoom room where it happened. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be a physical room, sometimes it can be a Zoom room. Okay? [00:20:00] We are guiding the product direction. Charles attends every single call religiously. I try to duck into two or three a week. But when in a month or two when I go in and there’s a new menu option or a dropdown works a certain way or a box or a radio button works a certain way, it will come from the people being in the room. And what’s amazing is this product has hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of users. Now, if I’m not mistaken, Charles, correct me, I think less than a hundred people show up. To determine the product direction, if I’m not mistaken, I thought it was six, somewhere between 60 and 90 that show up, and that’s usually four or five developers, like a product manager and four or five developers. So less than a hundred people are guiding the direction, the software development direction of the ship. Anybody can show up. Why doesn’t that fricking call have 5,000 people on it? Because 5,000 people will pop in the Facebook and bitch and moan about product features, but they won’t [00:21:00] show up in the room to change the product features. There’s a little bit of frustration in my voice ’cause it’s in my head. Okay. You don’t get to bitch and complain about something if you don’t play in the game or if you don’t join the zoom room. Sorry for the French. Wait, I took two years of French. That’s definitely not French, but you don’t get to whine and complain about something if you don’t jump in and participate. Okay, last example. Last example. And we can both get on with our day. ’cause I’ve got content to generate and I’ve got just, I’ve got a, I’ve got a life and I’ve got some big exciting things going on yesterday. Oh, first of all, if you if you’re weren’t aware, and this may or may not be a humble brag, yeah, Charleston right here. Usually only about 40 to 60 people are in the Zoom room, but only about 10 or so. Contribute 10 or lets contribute. The Facebook group, last time I checked, had over a hundred thousand people in it. I think on their website they say they have 300,000 users, but I know that number is growing fast very fast. [00:22:00] 10 people, 10 people, plus the developer roadmap. Or guiding the direction of this product. I wanna be one of those 10 people. Okay, really quick I do a lot of local news stories. I did one last night. If you ever wanna see Patrick on the news just Google his name as a matter of fact, the story, humble Bragg, if you go to kr.com look for the story on the homepage on the OU quarterback. There’s a story about something in the new OU quarterback, university of Oklahoma quarterback did here ’cause we’re in Oklahoma. I contributed to that news story, so you can see my face and the brief news clip there. So I’m regularly in newsrooms here and being in a newsroom. If you know of the way newsrooms work it’s more of an open pit. It’s not like a private office. Once I walk into the newsroom floor, probably 30 or 40 people can see me and they, I know some of them I chat with. Some of ’em are anchors, some of are field reporters, some of them are producers. I just love going to news stations. But I went over there, did my bit where I get micd up and I give my commentary on technology and what this OU quarterback did. And and then I asked to [00:23:00] go visit a friend of mine, a producer in the room. And I won’t use her name just ’cause I love her. I don’t, I’m not quite sure if it’s copacetic to use her name but we had a conversation about a future opportunity. A fusible, a future possible opportunity for Patrick Almond to maybe possibly get more involved with being on air, doing something. Now, I have no idea if it’s gonna come to fruition, but one of the things I’ve thought about over the years, because the news stations call and they’re like, you have to come over now and do the story right now. So basically I have to, in my office, I have to, I’m dressed pretty much every day to be on the news, even though I’m only on the news, maybe once every three or four months. I’m always dressed for it because they’re like now and because if I can’t do it, they’re gonna call somebody else. So I have to be in that fricking room and be in that room fast when the news stations call. I’ve thought about giving up that opportunity before. Because it breaks up my day, it kills my productivity. When a reporter calls and says, Hey Patrick, we’ve [00:24:00] got this story on this OU quarterback and something you did on Venmo. Can you come over like in 10 minutes and give us a clip for this? That is really a productivity killer, especially when I have meetings on my calendar. I have a lot of meetings on my calendar, and so yesterday I canceled a meeting for this and I went over and did the story. Imagine if I had taken that attitude of I’m gonna go ahead and stop going when the news stations call. ’cause there’s other tech experts in the city. I love doing the work, but it gives me other opportunities. It’s exposure. You know what? My face is now on the news website and it sounds like hopefully there’s another future opportunity coming up for a different kind of engagement, one that’s gonna benefit the news station and me. So I’ve got a double whammy here. Number one, I got to go visit a news station, which is always fun to do a triple whammy. My name, my face, and name are on the homepage of the news website again. More exposure for me, and I’ll grab that video footage. But the [00:25:00] producer I talked to says there might be a future opportunity why I was in the freaking room, and I probably have several examples of this. These are the ones I just wrote put up as I was preparing for the show here. But I could go on and on, about example. So let’s wrap this up. Try to put yourself in more rooms, and not necessarily physical rooms, but zoom rooms that matter. Zoom rooms that matter for issues that are important to you. Obviously you want more exposure online. Consider running ads for your business. Yes, you can call us to help, but exposure matters. Exposure. If you wanna do big things down here at the bottom of your funnel, exposure happens up here or top of funnel. You want. I’ve always tried to get as much exposure as possible because I want more down here. Okay. Your funnel can’t start tiny up here and then go straight down right here. If your funnel starts tiny up here, it’s just gonna get tinier and tinier down here. You want this fricking funnel to be huge like [00:26:00] Patrick Buff, Jim Arms huge. Okay? So you can have the opportunities down here. Okay, that’s my rant for today. I feel I may have to do another show on this ’cause there’s some other things churning in my head as I talk about this. So for those of you that have watched, thank you very much for walking. If you watching, if you have not subscribed on YouTube please do me a favor. I will. Get on my hands and knees and beg if I have to. You subscribe over on YouTube and turn notifications on. Okay, let’s end the show here real quick with the Patrick Wrap and then after that I will cut the feed and we will be off. Then we will be off to have a really good day. Let’s see. Where’s the wrap? There’s the wrap. Have a good day. For Patrick, stop doing nothing. Kick it into action. Hit that. Subscribe for your boy Patrick. Hop into a live and see the value packed in charging more upfront while building out the backend. Cut from a different cloth style in a different fashion. Niches. You trick and find yours. And then cashing GHL [00:27:00] Badass Grow and get another sass win. Don’t know how. Just hit Patrick up and ask him. Oh. Oh my goodness. That’s one of the best things ever. Have a great day and thank you for watching. I love you.