Speaker 1: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing strategies and tactics from entrepreneurs with the guile and experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You're listening to Marketing School with your instructors Neil Patel and Eric Siu.

Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I'm Eric Siu.

Neil Patel: And I'm Neil Patel.

Eric Siu: And today, we're going to talk about the next six minutes for the next sixty years of your entrepreneurial journey. And Neil, where do you want to start with this?

Neil Patel: Sure. Most of you guys, when you think about starting a business and getting into the startup round, you say, all right. What problem can I solve? Or, how can I make money? And those are two good things to think about but, what you need to start shifting your mind to is, will this problem that I'm solving be relevant 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now? The reason you want to think about a really huge horizon, it takes so much energy to create a business, you don't want to be that person that has to create a new business every two or three years. For example, Eric. How long have you been doing Single Grain for?

Eric Siu: Five years?

Neil Patel: Was that before you bought it out or after? Cause I include both.

Eric Siu: Four years after the buyout.

Neil Patel: Four years after the buyout. Do you think your business can be relevant in the next 10 years?

Eric Siu: Yes.

Neil Patel: In the next 20 years, do you think it'll be the same business?

Eric Siu: It has to evolve, but yes. The core of it, yes.

Neil Patel: Yes. What's the hardest part about what you're doing?

Eric Siu: It involves a lot of people.

Neil Patel: Okay, it's people, but what's the hardest aspect of entrepreneurship for you?

Eric Siu: It takes time and it's hard to focus.

Neil Patel: And also, because it takes time, in that time aspect, you're more specifically talking about it takes time to get traction and revenue.

Eric Siu: Uh-mm-hmm (affirmative). Yup.

Neil Patel: So, if you're already four years in, realistically, are you where you want to be?

Eric Siu: No.

Neil Patel: Okay. Do you think you'll be there by the end of this year?

Eric Siu: No.

Neil Patel: That means Eric will be five years into it. Five years into it and he's still saying that he has a long way to go. Right? And, yeah, in 10 years the business is going to adapt, but he still thinks he can be in it. The point is, Eric is making seven plus figures, he has a business that's growing. Last year you did, what, a 130% plus growth?

Eric Siu: Yeah.

Neil Patel: And he's still at it and he's not where he wants to be. The point I'm trying to make is, entrepreneurship is not easy. And, if you come up with an idea, you're solving a problem that's short-lived, then every few years you're going to have to start a business. And what most people don't realize is, it's easier to grow a business than it is to start one. The last thing you want to do is to keep having to create more and more businesses every few years.
So whatever you're going after, think really long run. And a great example of this is Elon Musk. If you ever look at Elon Musk, he doesn't talk about how he wants us to be able to live on Mars or go to Mars. For him, it's a necessity. We have no choice. Right? But that vision that he has is very long run. It's not really going to change five years from now, or ten years from now. That's still going to be a dream. He's going to continue forward and it's a really big pie-in-the-sky thinking. And I'm not saying you have to be as big as him when it comes to your ideas or your concepts but, if you're not thinking big enough and you keep trying to go with these small businesses that can solve a problem in a short run, well, every few years you're going to have to start a business, and that's the hardest aspect of being an entrepreneur.

Eric Siu: Yeah. And I think the interesting thing about being Elon Musk is, he has a company that's called The Boring Company now. And you look at the things that he's doing. Again, I'm not ... same thing as Neil, I'm not saying you need to do something that is you're shooting for the moon, shooting for the stars, where you're frigging flying rockets back onto earth. But a lot of the stuff ... you talk about energy, you talk about solar, you talk about space, it's really difficult problems to solve. But, at the same time, oftentimes the really difficult things to solve are also often really boring too.
I was talking with the guy that came up with 1-800-GOTJUNK. Nobody really wants to talk about junk, it's boring. But the boring stuff is often the stuff that can stand the test of time.
And, I think another thing that I want to bring your attention to is, if you look at the things that Neil has accomplished in his life so far, Neil, all the stuff that you've built is around what niche?

Neil Patel: Marketing.

Eric Siu: And why do you choose to stay around that?

Neil Patel: One, I'm good at marketing, naturally. I'm not saying I'm the best, but it's one of my natural abilities. Two, I believe it's going to be there in the future. So whether automation gets into our personal life, like our fridge is telling us, hey, you're out of milk. And I mention this many times on this podcast, like, hey, you're out of Silk Almond milk. You should try Blue Diamond Almond milk. It's similar and it's half the cost. To me, that's marketing as well.
And yes, marketing is still going to be there five, ten, twenty years from now. Even 30, 40, 50. I think it's going to evolve, of course, but the reason I always stay in marketing is, it's what I know, it's what I'm good at, and might as well focus all of my energy in one area versus trying to do 20 different things that I'm not good at.

Eric Siu: Yeah, and look at what Neil has done. He's got an audience around marketing. He's got the mind share there. If you have that already, why not take advantage of that and maximize it to the best of your ability. To give you guys an example too, the stuff that I tried to work on that I didn't have an audience or an expertise in the past, such as senior living, didn't work out that well, right? But, the stuff that I do around marketing, because I've been focusing on marketing the last couple of years, that tends to have better traction. So focus on what you're good at and then try to see what you can expand.
I think there's a quote, I forget who it's from but, staying within your niche. Let's say, if you are an actor in Hollywood, that means that you can probably go into directing someday. Not saying you can go there, but not necessarily saying that you're going to be good at it, but that doesn't mean you should go from actor to starting a software business, cause that's not what you're good at, right?
So staying focused is one thing but, doing the boring stuff, and boring stuff also includes building out systems, processes, recruiting, and all that. Because, at the end of the day, when you think about different companies, you're running with a different playbook once you get to one million, once you get to ten million, once you get to ... you know, you're trying to go even higher than that, its different playbooks. But, a lot of the stuff is same, same, right?
Recruiting is never going to go away. Sales, marketing, never going to go away either. So think about that. Do the boring stuff, focus, and eventually you'll get what you want. But don't think short term because, short term is ... you look at affiliate marketers, a lot of people are just trying to make a buck really quickly, that's not going to last you for a long time. Sure, you might become rich but, if that's your ultimate goal, fine. But, I think for a lot of people, they're looking for fulfillment as well. Neil?

Neil Patel: That's pretty much it. We have six minutes for the next sixty years of your entrepreneur journey.

Eric Siu: All right. Go to singlegrain.com/giveaway to get our tools, and we'll see you later.

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