1203 » How Side Hustles Can Fund a Missionary’s Dream – Wild Expectance

Joe: Hey, what’s going on, guys? Joe McCall here and got a great episode. This is different than my normal real estate investing podcast that I’m doing, but this is going to be really relevant to some of you guys and some of you maybe like ah, Joe’s talking about religion, blah blah blah. Every once in a while, once or twice a year, I talk about my faith, I talk about the Lord. I’m very active in my church and I love our church. I love the friends and the family that we have there in our church. I love the pastors and it’s just an amazing place. And so being a believer, being a Christian, faith is really, really important. So I wanted to do a little bit different podcast episode this time, and we’re going to talk about a little bit about faith. I’ve got a good friend who goes to our church who just wrote a book called Wild Expectance, and his name is Bryan Citrin, and we’re going to be talking about starting to live your life, how God designed it. And it’s a great he’s got a great story. He just I don’t even know if it’s released yet. We’ll talk to him when he gets on here, but his name is Bryan Citrin. He’s a good friend of mine. And this does relate to entrepreneurship because Bryan’s got an amazing story and he’s also a digital marketer who does advertising agency services to chiropractors, and he’s made a lot of money in the business world, which helps support his Christian ministry. And that’s what I want to talk about. If you guys are you I don’t know if any of you all remember, but back about ten years ago, I interviewed a couple different people who are missionaries in Africa and they were using real estate to support themselves while they lived in Africa doing missions work. And it’s always been something really near and dear to my heart because there’s a lot of you guys that are watching this or listening to these podcasts and thinking, Man, I want to serve somewhere. Maybe it’s your church, local church, maybe it’s you want to be a missionary in some third world country, or maybe you have feel called to do something else, but you feel like you’re stuck with your job and you can’t. You want that freedom to be able to work for yourself and go support yourself or your ministry, maybe your spouse’s ministry. How are you going to be able to do that? Well, Brian is one of those guys who has done that. I’ve got I’ve had the privilege of doing that myself as well, although I wasn’t supporting myself in the ministry. But I lived in Prague in the Czech Republic twice for two or three months at a time. One was two and a half months, one was three months, and I was able to support our family doing deals virtually while living in in Europe with our four kids, my wife and our four kids. And I also had the privilege then of being in an RV for three months doing real estate deals, traveling around the country, having a blast. And so this might resonate with you, this interview that we’re going to do. If you got something burning in your heart, you’re like, man, I want to support I want to raise enough money to support myself in the mission field. Maybe, you know, you want to go serve somewhere and you’re like, I don’t know how to do that. And it’s hard to raise money as a missionary. Well, what if you found a way like Bryan has to start a business? Maybe it’s a marketing agency, maybe it’s real estate or something that can support you and your ministry going forward. All right. So long kind of story to why I wanted to do this podcast with Bryan. Let’s bring him on. Bryan Citrin, how are you, my man?

Bryan: Hey, I’m doing great. Thanks so much for having me on the show, Joe.

Joe: Well, thanks for being here. I love this book. I just finished it a few days ago. Because you don’t live a boring life, man. You know, I don’t want, say, living on the edge, but like, you’ve got so much faith and expectancy and you just expect God to do awesome things. And you’ve got an amazing story of things that have really kind of that have happened to you because you’ve stepped out in faith and you’ve gone out and you’ve done these crazy things and you’re going to share some of these stories here, but I want to make sure we tie this all back in to like, you know, how do I say this? Like God is given a vision in a lot of people’s lives to live a great life. And you guys out there listening to this podcast, you feel called to some pretty amazing things and you don’t know how to make the money to support the vision that you might have for your life. And so I want to kind of frame this whole context of this interview of the Wild Expectancy book for the entrepreneur who’s out there thinking, Man, I want to be able to do what God’s called me to do and then not have to raise support and be able to support my own ministry with maybe it’s real estate, maybe it’s different entrepreneurship, maybe it’s marketing, maybe it’s online digital marketing and things like that. So you’ve done a real good job of that and you only spent the last chapter kind of talking about it. Maybe there’s a part two out there. Okay, but it’s really good. So call Bryan, talk about your story a little bit here. How did you came from a kind of a rough background, my good friends with one of your cousins and who we know very, very well, good friend of our family here. And talk a little bit about your. Of what were you doing and what got you kind of interested in the ministry. And then I want to ask you some questions about some of the things you were doing in California and Haiti and stuff like that.

Bryan: Sure, so I have a Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship. Not that you need a degree in that, but I really felt cool. I was the president of the Entrepreneurship Association. I had just got done writing a 65 page business plan with a friend of mine from college. And so as long as I can remember, I was really into entrepreneurship. I was really in the business. And I remember I’m in college and I’m about to graduate and I’m praying about what I should do. And I sense that it wasn’t the path that I was on, right? Not that business wrong. And I always had a desire for business, but I felt like I was speaking to me and really pivoting me, at least for a season to do something different. And I remember I called my brother and I was talking to my brother about this, and I really sensed that God wanted me to move out to Los Angeles and work with a campus ministry out there at UCLA, the University of California, Los Angeles, that was actually the most applied to university in the country. Well, I did not know that at the time. I didn’t really know much about UCLA. All I knew was that my brother had been really impacted by this campus pastor, and he moved to the Los Angeles, the whole pioneer of his ministry. And as I was praying, a conversation that I had over the summer, I’m kind of came back to me and it was I was talking to my brother’s mentor and he said that he could teach me so much about business if I just moved to Los Angeles and gave like a year of a ministry and I could learn a lot. And so this thought came back to me as I was praying at church, and I called my brother and told him I had a problem because I did not want to do this. I said, I think that God wants me to move to Los Angeles, one of the most expensive cities in the world, and basically work for free in a recent budget. Like, it’s crazy. I don’t want do this. And my brother’s like, If God’s calling you to do that. You got to go ahead and call the campus basketball team now. And I didn’t really know this person. And so I pick up the phone. I called him and he answered, And that was a big deal because he’s usually in meetings and he’s can be hard to get a hold of, but he’s really administrative in terms of I always call you back. And he answered and I said that I believe that God wanted me to move to L.A. and do an internship with him. And he says, Brian, you called me at the right time. And it wasn’t like an audible voice. It was like this air of that that I had that wouldn’t go away. Now I really sense that I was speaking to me because God can speak to us, to our thoughts. I can speak to us through ideas. And I remember everything was official. And I’m talking to him. And I told him that it was on the bottom of my list for things to do to move out to Los Angeles and work with him. And he says, Bryan, you weren’t even on my list. He said, I don’t remember offering you an internship. And there has been a ton of people that have asked to do an internship with me in the last year and a half, and I turned them all down. But I was driving on a four or five highway by myself, about to go on a week long fast, and the Spirit of God spoke to me and told me that I was going to get an unexpected phone call. And pretty much the answer better be yes. And Bryan, you called me less and less than like 5 minutes and minutes you called me. And so here I was praying for direction in Missouri. And here he was praying in Los Angeles. And I was together. And that’s how I started my journey. And I started raising support and I started raising it from untraditional ways. I was reaching out to friends and family. But really, I had started a business, basically, of selling stuff on the road, touring rock festivals and kind of making money that way.

Joe: Not much money either by the way.

Bryan: Not much money. You know, but I was trying and this was back before really it was a lot easier to make money online back then. And so but it was hard and I was struggling.

Joe: So what were some of the things that caused your entrepreneur journey? This is about this is a book about your the journey God brought you on, but it’s also a very entrepreneur book. You talk a lot about some of the businesses that you started and the things that you had a lot of policy failures, but like businesses, ventures that did not go well did not make you a ton of money. But God is using that in the journey, right as you. Yeah, more and more. What were some of the things that you were selling in some of these businesses that you were starting?

Bryan: You know, my first business, I was eight years old. I was selling rocks to people and the school. I grew up in a tourist town. And so there was these local tour shops that would sell polished rocks and they would shut down for the winter. And I remember one of them, I would go in there and buy all or a lot of inventory at half off. So by all these really fancy rocks and half off, and then I would go sell them on the school bus, sell them at school. I remember I even took my rocks and went to the product and service show in town and walk from booth to boost hustling my rock star vendors at this at the trade show. And so I had in me and then I started selling candy. And then eventually I started vending machine business. At 14, I had gumball machines. I even had one. And it’s. Grade school right next to my school. And I got basically in my high school because it was a trade school and all the high school students took classes there. So basically in the high school, I had a gun magazine and then I started a t shirt company at 16 and the t shirt company that I started. That positioned me to be on the tours, rock festivals with a competitor that I’d met at a festival. And then through that, I started selling like, reassurance, which taught me how to talk to strangers, talked, taught me how to prospect, rode really well. And then, you know, of course, no college experience would be complete if you didn’t donate plasma at least once. So I donated plasma.

Joe: I never did that. You know, I was very, very broke in college, but I never donated plasma, so I can’t say I can relate.

Bryan: If they paid rent and paid rent and then eventually, you know, I graduated, I, I went out basically work for free and raised support. But then I started touring rock festivals selling glow sticks at these music festivals across the country. And people get to make fun of me saying, Oh, you’re selling glow sticks, right? But I had laugh all the way to the bank because I made more that summer than like my friends, I had internships and prestigious investment firms. So it’s like, you know, I made more a month and a half than they made. So I had and I got to go on vacation basically all summer to rock festivals and rock climbing and visiting awesome sites.

Joe: So you’re a big avid rock climber and you would go with your friends climbing rocks when the concerts weren’t going on. Yeah, that’s cool. All right. So you graduate from college, you go to UCLA and you’d go into the ministry and you’re basically going to work for free. You were living hand-to-mouth, weren’t you for a couple of years. I mean, you were doing pretty awesome things with this campus ministry. But it was really hard to raise support. Wasn’t it? Bizarre?

Bryan: It’s very difficult. And you feel like you’re begging, you’re going around and into something. It just it’s really a humbling a very humbling experience. But it really gives you grit. It gives you grit. It makes you really humble yourself. Any pride that’s in you, you are you’re able to recycle in a way that down. You have to be humble. But really, because of that, I got to meet a lot of really cool people, a lot of really dynamic entrepreneurs and people who I would have met otherwise through this process, some of which I’m still friends with today, successful entrepreneurs. But it was really after, you know, battling through all this that I knew there had to be a better way. And I remember we would take trips down to Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, right? I mean, 28 times. And I remember I’m walking around the streets of Haiti and looking at the devastation. And I was just thinking to myself, there has to be a better way to make money, make an impact. There has to be a better way. And because, like I’m trying to raise money to go down here and I’m seeing like there might be a mother of eight living in a wonderment and maybe they didn’t always have a roof. And the mother has to choose between sending her kid to school or buying food. And maybe the mother can only send that kid to school this year. The next year they send a different kid to school, and then the next year it’s a different kid, the school. And then that’s how you have a 23 year old with a third grade education.

Joe: Yeah. This part of the book broke my heart because, you know, you’re down there helping and there were some simple needs that people had there. You know, they needed some help starting a business where they make coal to sell, right? Or they needed help just fixing their motorcycle. And you were down there. You were broke yourself, like and you didn’t have much money. And they didn’t need a lot of money. They just needed a little bit to fix things or to buy things. And you were you were down there. That is broke as they were. But almost like you didn’t have much. You were out and you barely had enough money to fly down there. You were living just like they were in some lot of situations. Right. And what broke my heart was like, man, here’s Bryan going down there sometimes not even knowing how he’s going to get back. Right. Hoping that the support that he’s been raising from people is going to help him pay his ticket to get there and to get back these little needs that I’m not talking thousands of dollars. I’m talking like five, $10, like people needed these things to support their families and whatever. Right. And Bryan, that you at the time didn’t even have the funds, but what you were giving to them was so much more valuable in in a sense. Right. You’re sharing the gospel with them and you were encouraged. And the stories you tell them, that book of some of these people that that were doing spite, in spite of you having the financial resources to give to them, were why God was still using you in an amazing way to change tons and tons of lives. Or does that make sense? And I’m reading this thinking, man, me who has, you know, I have money, I can help ministries and missionaries like that. What a huge need. What a huge opportunity there are for people like me. And maybe you were are called to full time ministry in the mission field. But we can support and help people like Bryan who are there. Like, what if I would have known you back then and how much money I could have? Given to your ministry back then, do some amazing, amazing things. Does that make sense what I’m saying?

Bryan: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s I knew that while the missionaries, they weren’t really good at telling stories. They weren’t really good at really sharing the impact. But they’re making such a huge impact. And I would see the impact and I knew I we knew people who died from charitable causes. I remember one time a kid was begging me for $5 to go to English school, and I’m like, I literally gave everything that I have away. I literally wiped out my bank account for that month, went down there, gave me, helped as many people as he could, and they come up to me on the last day and I’m like, sorry, I don’t have $5, which is it’s crazy, you know? And it but it gave me a real conviction that, you know, I have to share the vision, a greater measure, but also and gaining conviction to make money because I’m like, maybe if I could go out there and make a bunch of money, then I can help not only people in Haiti, but around the world, and not only give them a short term handout, but I’m really passionate about investing in economic development and equipping, empower these people in their own countries, in their own communities to be successful, like starting that coal business, for one, you know, starting the motorcycle business for a driver on motorcycles and like a taxi. You know, and empowering and equipping people in their own country. If they’re starving, you need to provide finances, you know, to like, give them food and stuff. Right? But you also have to provide a long term sustainable solution. And that’s where economic development comes in and that’s where investing in education comes in and sending kids to school. But the problem is like a mother, maybe at least in Haiti, school is not free, so you have to pay to go to school. But if you don’t have a job, you don’t have money to pay your kids to go to school, but you don’t have a job because you don’t have an education, because no one had money to go to school. So it’s like the cycle. And so we are able to intervene in there and help these kids and help these different communities and help different to be entrepreneurs then for themselves where you’re feeding them momentarily so they may survive, but then you’re investing in a future that’s sustainable that, you know, for example, the motorcycle or the nickel business, I was able to be able to give them the money to start the coal business. It was like foreign dollars. But then because of that, he was able to hire another person and he’s able to invest in some livestock. And so much more was able to come out of that because we’re able to help this person. But it was like $40. So I paid more than $4, four for a meal for like a group of friends in a nice restaurant. And it’s we waste more than foreign dollars just in random stuff, you know, a month depending upon, you know, what we’re doing. And so and so it was really connecting. And I had gotten involved in digital marketing because a friend of mine from college started a digital marketing agency. But and I was doing business development, but it really wasn’t working out. And so I remember walking in the village there thinking, how can I make a bigger impact? And I was talking to a friend of mine, a mentor, and he said, You should start your own agency. And I really sense that God was leading me that direction. And my parents a chiropractor’s, my uncle’s a chiropractor and I learned that my dad owned chiropractic advertising dot com. And so I had, I decided that I was going to make a brand around that and I’m like back to Missouri. And I asked my uncle if I could help run ads for his practice, and from there it was successful. And then he referred me to someone else and they referred me to someone else. And then I started running my own ads. And before I knew it, I had a nationwide client base of chiropractors that I’ve been able to work with and help. And I learned that it’s a lot easier to sell and to sell advertising to a doctor and is to raise a fraction of that amount of money where I’m somebody.

Joe: Yeah, I want to read this. This is the last chapter of your book and it says here, When I started my business, I discovered that it was easier to get a chiropractor to pay my company thousands of dollars a month than to get a business person to support my mission work for hundreds of dollars a month. It was easier to get a successful chiropractor to direct deposit $55,000 into my company account than it was to get a successful business person to deposit $5,500 into our Haiti missions account. That much needed $55,000 came right after I had just gotten back from one of my many trips to Vietnam. I took seven mission trips abroad that year and spent nearly 25% of the year as a missionary in Southeast Asia. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, I couldn’t have afforded all of this if I didn’t have a successful business. I may have been able to fundraise for one or two trips, but certainly not six transatlantic flights in addition to a flight to Haiti. When I became a missionary, I learned that hearing from God wasn’t as difficult as I thought. I okay, I could go on and on there. But like you, you knew you had some incredible stories of being on the mission field. God using you to do some amazing, amazing things. And you can’t even give a kid who has a $4 a $5, $5 to go to English school. Was that for like a month? A month? Okay. Like, how heartbreaking is that? And there’s so many people out there. I know missionaries in parts of Europe who are struggling every single month to make any money, and they’re always worried and fearful and scared that they’re going to have to go back home and give up their ministry so that they can, you know, get a job again, It’s so hard to raise money. But what if people could learn how to make money virtually, maybe even while they’re in Vietnam or Haiti, as long as you get good Internet access there. Right. But what if there is a way you could build a business that supports the ministry that you’re feeling called to do? This is what got me so excited and why I wanted you on this podcast. Now, before we go much further down there, I want to I want to I want you to tell the story of M.C. Hammer and the American Music Association VMA Awards or something. Is that what it’s called?

Bryan: Yeah, the American Music Awards.

Joe: All right. Well, you tell that stories is really, really cool.

Bryan: It’s a long story. It takes two chapters, but I’ll try to recap really well. So one of my first years out in Los Angeles, I got connected to a somebody who books all the hotels for the American Music Awards, and he would work with really big artists for like their tours. And so he hired me to basically put together a spreadsheet for Rihanna’s tour when Rihanna was getting big. And I really didn’t know Rihanna was, to be honest. But she’s like one of the most famous music artists out there in terms of number of sales, in terms of her albums. And so it’s a huge deal. And so through this process, this guy starts giving me VIP tickets to the American Music Awards. And one year he tells me that M.C. Hammer is closing out the show because he booked all hotels. So he had the book M.C. Hammer’s Hotel. And so he tells me where he’s staying at. And I have desire to be M.C. Hammer because I knew M.C. Hammer was also a person of faith. I knew he was a Christian, I was a Christian. And I knew that one of his friends who he mentored happened at two campus ministry years previously at UCLA. So I’m like, okay, M.C. Hammer is a Christian, and one of his is people who he’s a mentor to campus ministry at UCLA, and I’m at UCLA doing campus ministry now. Maybe he’ll like me and but I’m like, how am I going to get to meet this guy? And so I praised my friend just for the opportunity to somehow meet him. But we didn’t know how. And through this process, God had directed us, there was, like, 20 things that had to happen.

Joe: Yeah. You list these in the book. It is fascinating.

Bryan: And it’s so improbable. But, you know, now we get into the afterparty.

Joe: Which is VIP of the VIPs.

Bryan: Yeah. So I get into the VIP section of the VIP afterparty, and. And somehow the guy that gets me into the afterparty is the person who’s with the person who put on the event.

Joe: Well, this is the guy who. What did he go to? The same school as you are from?

Bryan: He was from Missouri. And he. He used to party and like in the Ozarks, and I used to be like a runner and a cook at this restaurant. And I told him I was from, like, the Ozarks. He says the name of this prominent bar there. How am I told? That was my first job? And he’s like, he’s like, This is my guy. You know, back in his formative years, he used to party, like in the Ozarks, and now he lives in Los Angeles and he’s like, this high up.

Joe: And this is the main guy who leads the VIPs of the VIPs?

Bryan: Yeah, and the after party, his boyfriend put on the afterparty. I didn’t know that. And he’s like, But this guy’s also like, a big deal. And so he and I’m there with a friend of mine sake, so he thinks I’m there with my boyfriend. But really, I’m just there at my friend, man. And so he gets me in there. He’s a really nice guy, Joy. Nice guy. We get into the afterparty and then we get into the VIP section, the afterparty, and then eventually I decide to go to the dance floor. Break dance. Because you know, why not?

Joe: Why not? Yeah.

Bryan: So, and then through that process, I saw M.C. Hammer actually happened to be at the party. And so I approached him and I ask him if he knows this other person that I was acquainted with that used to do ministry at UCLA. And he looks at me and his countenance changes. He says, Yeah, he’s family. And he’s like, Look, he’s call me now. He picks up his phone and literally in that moment he’s call him and he’s like, Hear you answer it. And he hands me the phone and I’m like, M.C. Hammers hands me his phone, and it was like super loud in a Ritz-Carlton ballroom. So I, like, run out the door to actually hear him. And now I’m probably thinking, you know, what’s he he’s probably thinking this guy just took out my phone. And so through that process, you know, I helped get his friend into the after party and coordinate on where the location was. And through that process, I, like, become part of the entourage for the night. And people are like stopping us, the photos and these guys handing me the phone to take the photos. And then my friend, he drove me to the American Music Awards. He had to leave. And this was the time before Uber, Lyft, And so I never ride home. I really didn’t have money for a cab, and I’ve never even hailed a cab at that point place in my life. But I’m like, You know what? I’m not leaving. I wanted to meet M.C. and we’re and now I’m hanging out with them. So I’m gonna stick around and I’ll figure it out. And then everyone leaves, and then how long I’m getting on. So that was the hammer. And he’s about to leave. And I’m like, Hey, you’re staying in this hotel.

Joe: And at the American Music Awards he closed the show with that Gangnam Style guy.

Bryan: Yes, I yes, I mean, a phenomenon which is his video went on to break YouTube’s algorithm. That’s how big the deal was. It was like the first video to break two point some billion, I think is what it was. And then it was crazy and he didn’t work with him.

Joe: Weren’t you sitting, like in the first five or ten rows on the right hand side or something?

Bryan: I was on the right. I was I wasn’t it wasn’t the first five or ten rows, but it was, you know, I was it was a middle close, it was close. You could see people. Yeah. I was in the VIP section during commercial breaks. I didn’t walk up to the stage and stuff but it, but, but that wasn’t what mattered about the night. That was really, really cool. And that was a really fun experience. And I know that I believe that if you trust God, he can lead you into these fond, exciting experiences. So sure, God got me into the American Music Awards. Sure. I was able to get into the afterparty. Sure. I was able to meet M.C. Hammer, ensure he was able to try. The harmonies were really cool, but I’m like, It’s bigger than that. So that’s about me having a really cool experience. You know? I get home and I’m really hungry and I really feel like I need to watch this taco truck get some food. And so I’m walking down this taco truck.

Joe: In a bad area of town.

Bryan: Yeah, it’s not a good area.

Joe: It was late at night.

Bryan: Yeah. My friends were telling me later, Hey, you, what are you doing? That’s really dangerous. And this guy walks by me and I have this thought I need to help this man. And he didn’t look homeless and, like he’s walking around basement, and he might be thinking. Thinking, Who’s this guy walking by? Walking around past midnight? Right? And so I have this thought that I need to give him the little bit of money I had in my wallet. And so I was given $100, I think, for my birthday recently that I was going to use for utilities. And so I was hesitant because I didn’t want to give the money, I wanted to keep the money. But, you know, I sensed that God wanted me to give him this little bit of money that I had in my wallet. So I stop in a hurry about ten feet past the guy. I turn around, Hey, how you doing financially? And they ask is fine. I’m thinking, okay, great. I dodged a bullet. But I’m like, No, I have to do this. And so I pull out the money and I give them this hundred dollar bill. And he looks at me and like, he starts breaking down. And you could tell he had a very real need through this process and know to pray with him. He was able to give his life to God and he, like became a Christian and like really powerful things happened in that moment that I talk about. And in the book, really powerful things they have. They had time to talk about that right now. But out of that moment of me praying with him and helping him, I’m walking to the taco truck, still pondering, thinking about this whole experience, thinking how crazy it might spend, thinking about like the 20 things that had to happen for M.C. Hammer driving home. And I had this this very strong thought that came to me and was God speaking to me. It was an animal. The voice of God can come as a sudden awareness, followed by a unique conviction. So in that moment, you know, I knew God was speaking to me and he said that was nothing in terms of all those things that had to happen for every in the driving home. But that that was something regarding. I mean, they knew this this man. Yeah, it has been my giving the hundred dollars praying with them and God’s eyes that was something. But then that was nothing. And how that relates to our life and our business is I believe that God wants to bless us and the God wants to lead us on incredible, extravagant, amazing experiences and amazing journeys. Yeah, it was a really fun experiences, but that’s not the big picture. You know, in God’s eyes, the most important thing is it is us being led by him and helping those around us in me able to hear his voice and be a blessing to those in need because that I don’t know that guy’s story. I don’t I’ve never seen him since then. Who knows what would happen to him where that night that didn’t happen. And God loves him just as much as he loved me. And maybe because of that obedience of me blessing this man, maybe that that guy went out to do great things in the world. Maybe he didn’t kill himself or maybe he didn’t like. There’s a lot of things that could have happened. Maybe that gave him just the amount of money he needed just to take care of these things and, you know, the ripple effects that that holy transform his life. The God saw that need, whether someone’s in the small village of Haiti or whether someone is like a millionaire, a billionaire, God sees you and God wants to help you, bless you and wants you to not only take care of your needs, but he wants you to meet the needs of others. That’s so good. And yeah, so.

Joe: This is why you call the book while my focus. There you go. Wild Expectance and start living your life how God designed it. This book is full of those kinds of stories where you think, Oh, cool, you know, M.C. Hammer, But there was a reason why you were there. And he wanted to show you like he cares about the little guy just as much as he cares about the big guy. And when we’re obedient and we follow that still small voice of like, Go do this. Give your money to this guy, do this or that. Like, great things, amazing things will happen. And really meeting M.C. Hammer, being a VIP at the AMA’s or whatever, that’s not the big thing. The big thing was what happened later. Wanting to stop a truck late at night and you met some guy and changed his life. And who knows what happened even after that. Cool. That’s I love these stories and this book is full of them. That’s so cool. It’s so cool now. Talk about the business that you had the You do digital marketing for chiropractors. Yeah. Talk about how you got into that and what it is that you do there and how does that support, you know, your ministry today and mission, the work that you’re doing still?

Bryan: Sure. So we have online sales funnels for chiropractors and even like working with very niche doctors, like even doctors that like service people with neuropathy, which like nerve pain. And what we do is we run we run online ads through social media like Facebook, Instagram, but even like Google or TikTok or YouTube or whatever that channel we want to uses and we target people with pain and then we send them to a final process where the lead comes in and they schedule online on the doctor’s calendar. And then there’s a series of text messages and emails that go out there will maximize the likelihood of them showing up. And we provide coaching and training to the doctors staff to make sure that their staff is equipped to help these people that are coming in. And we’ve helped thousands and thousands and thousands of people across the country. But even more than that, I’m more I’m really excited about this next season, about not just the book, but I have another brand called Lead Flows Dot com. And because a lot of people would come to me and say, Hey, Bryan, you do that for chiropractors, that’s really cool. You got this HIPAA compliant software that makes sure that the patient’s information is safe, but we need that same kind of technology for our church or we need this technology for the local one, you know, realtor or whoever. Right. Or the nonprofit or the coach. And so we have this technology, lead flows dot com, which allows us to really, really help a more broad audience and not just chiropractors. And because you don’t just need a sales funnel any lead flow and so and so and even in context to how the book flows and all that stuff. And so we’ve been doing that. But I’m excited about not just helping doctors but being way more broad, you know, as we release the book and as more people read the book and how can we help those people, you know, launch a business or step out or or do something powerful?

Joe: Yeah, Yeah, I love that. So you created a digital marketing agency that helps chiropractors and specialty doctors. Explain that a little bit, because that might be a foreign concept to somebody. I mean, these chiropractors are good at helping people with pain, you know, adjustments, alternative sources of health and wellness and all of that, which, by the way, our mutual friend and family member, Jeff, Jeff Citrin, what’s going on? He’s watching us. He’s just commenting here most excellent. He’s one of the chiropractors that Bryan does marketing for and one of my chiropractors that I go to. But anyway, there’s a need out there, isn’t there? And one of the things that I love about this, how you stumbled upon this, is you found a problem, you found a need, and you said, Man, I can I can solve that and you can start charging money. A lot of good money for that kind of marketing, right? So you saw a need where chiropractors are good at their practice, but they’re not good at getting new customers. You studied digital marketing. You knew what a funnel was, you knew how to do ads and talk about how did you stumble across this opportunity and how or why did you stumble across the opportunity? Because you were looking for it, right?

Bryan: Yeah, Well, there’s some has already gone ahead of you. Whatever you’re doing or your business or some that has gone out of you, like, for example, real estate. You’re the real estate guru. If I want to go invest in real estate, you’re the go to guy. So you find out what do you want to do, and you find someone who’s already making money on that and you pay them money to do it. And so that’s what I did. I found I knew that my parents were chiropractors. I knew that my uncle was a chiropractor. I knew that I had his assets. Chiropractic advertising dot com. I didn’t know how to leverage it. And so what I did was I went and I found people that already went before me that were already making money in this, and I paid them to show me how to do it right and that and circumvent all that trial and error and was able to really expedite the process. And then when I was having problems, I had a coach that could guide me through the process and he really, really helped me and good. So I have I paid more in digital marketing strategy, all my coaching than my four year college degree. Right. And so it is so important that you invest in education. And I know you yourself, Joe, is. Invest a lot of money in education to be as elite as possible. So whenever somebody would hire someone like a Joe McCall or take your program, they’re not just getting the expertise you bring, but they’re getting the compound effects of all the courses that you’ve taken. Right. And I knew that. And so I was able to hire people that have won these prestigious marketing awards so they could teach me how to win that award myself, which I did.

Joe: You did? You won the Double Comma Club Award, which is an award that Clickfunnels gives away to people who build a funnel or multiple funnels for one campaign, whatever, and sell at least $1,000,000 in products or services, which you did, which is phenomenal. Just incredible. There was that. How long did it take you to get that Double Comma Club award?

Bryan: You know, it took me it wasn’t like an overnight thing. It took me it took me a handful of years to do it. But also remember, I wasn’t doing this full time. I’m doing like, more of like in 80 and I’m like, doing campus ministry and I’m traveling all around the world. And I would joke about this. I don’t I don’t claim this for myself anymore. But I used to say that I was being an absentee entrepreneur for like, I’m like doing this thing part time where really I would do the missionary work. But in there it’s like I was abroad. I was abroad seven times in 2019, right before COVID happened, right? 25% of the time I was in Haiti or in Vietnam, I mean, and I got someone to give me 55 grand directly deposited my check out right Paradigm asterisk got back from literally speaking the money in churches by focusing on serving people. And so it’s.

Joe: Can you share a little bit of details about like how much money were you was your company grossing a year or a month doing the digital marketing services for chiropractors that you were?

Bryan: You know, the numbers are different now than what it used to be because, like, I’m in a pivoting stage.

Joe: But you know what I’m talking about back then.

Bryan: You know, I would say thirties, forties. I think that that month I think I brought in like 50 by 85,000 that month I think, you know like you know, mid thirties, mid-forties.

Joe: And obviously you had overhead, you had a team. Yeah. You had some of that went to ads, paid ads and stuff like that.

Bryan: Yeah. But I wasn’t even spent a lot and then ads and so I had a team and I was investing a lot of it back in our I was selling it into my church. I was really, you know, helping wild people with this.

Joe: So I’m going to put some context to this then. So like, if you’re a missionary in Haiti or Vietnam and you know, you’re not you’re not staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Port au Prince, Haiti, is that a city in Haiti? I think it is, isn’t it?

Bryan: Yeah, it’s the capital.

Joe: Yeah. Okay. Well, you’re not staying at a Holiday Inn Express there. How much does a missionary, a single guy, need to survive every month and be effective in their ministry? Can you give us some context here in Haiti? Yeah.

Bryan: You know, I’ve seen a variety of budgets, but let’s just say $5,000 a month, you know, $5,000 a month, $6,000 a year, which is lost to that number. It. Okay. You know, it’s very easy to generate $5,000 a month in digital marketing sales. It’s very, very easy to do that if you know what you’re doing.

Joe: And how hard is it to raise $5,000 a month in donations?

Bryan: Extremely hard. Extremely difficult. Right. If I’ve made more in a single week just closing deals than I made in years, you know, of trying to raise support in terms of monthly revenue, in terms of monthly. I remember one time I was like, if I can just get to $2,000 a month and I was living in Los Angeles, I remember I was like, If I can just get $2,000 a month and I have it made, you know, then I can do this mission work, you know? But yeah, I have, you know, I that clients that my average client is like that are more you know, personal client monthly.

Joe: So if you if you learned digital marketing and that in that range is going to break this down a little bit that could be building websites, building funnels and campaigns like when somebody goes to a website, they opt in to get something, you know, So then there’s a sequence of emails that go after that. They get added into a database like lead flows that you have, but it’s also maybe some Facebook marketing, Instagram, maybe some Google pay per click ads. And your feed is not including their ad spend. Correct. Correct. Like if they want to spend five grand a month on ads on Google, PPC or Facebook ads or whatever, that’s extra. Yeah, but you’re just charging management fee for managing and running this. Okay. Yeah. So how many clients, how many chiropractor clients would you need to make? $5,000 a month?

Bryan: You know, we, we charge a variety of prices, you know, and so I found the clients that they need for around a month before, you know, our clients are paid or if I want them to grant them up to 5 hours a month. And so it just depends. And I know that when I started off, I was starting off very, very low and I slowly started raising my prices over time. So raising my prices over time. But like, literally like. On average, you could have three clients that are paying, let’s just say, 5000 dollars a month. I’m going to be clients plus that span. That’s not a lot of work. Once you have a dialed in, not a lot of work, and it can literally handle finance your entire emissions budget that you’re doing every single month. And the key, though, is not to yell, get skills. You have to make sure it works right. The key is you’ve got to get skills and make sure it works. The other make sure they’re making money because it’s not a matter of cost of, oh, that’s how much it costs. But if someone’s paying you that amount of money and you’re making them a significant amount of money, it’s not them. I remember the person that paid me $55,000 in his first 45 days with me. He made over $45,000.

Joe: He made the money back.

Bryan: In his first 45 days. He made like over $45,000 and over half of it paid up front. And so when you’re delivering those kinds of results, you know, it’s not them planning a budget for it. It’s them budgeting from the increase revenue that you make, though, that paid.

Joe: I paid a guy one time $5,000 to get on the phone with him for half an hour. It turned into an hour. But that $5,000 and that little conversation that I had with him, I mean, I don’t want to brag too much, but I made a lot more money than that. Seven figures plus. All right. From that one call with that guy. So that’s a really good point. You need to be able to make sure you can deliver on those results. You know, it’s the same with real estate guys. If you want to go into the mission field, you need to just make five grand a month. You can support a family of three or four people very, very comfortably in a poor country for just five grand a month. But let’s say, you know, you have other ministry expenses that you want to do and provide food and medical supplies and things like that. So you need to make ten grand a month. You know how hard it is to raise $10,000 a month from Fickell. And one of the problems, I guess I was convicted by this, Brian, you talked about this like how crazy, how difficult it is when a missionary promises you. We’re like, no, no. As a missionary, you’re back home. You raise in support and somebody verbally promises to you that they will send you a certain amount of money every month. And then they don’t or they forget or they do it for a little bit and then they stop. The person who promises that they have no idea how to talk about this, I’m putting words in your mouth, but like that is not very nice at all.

Bryan: But it’s just very, very difficult in terms of like because you have a budget, you’re expecting the money and emailing me a lot of money. Maybe it’s $50 a month, which is like nothing. Right. But if if you’re relying on that $50 a month and they don’t send it in, you feel like you’re like a debt collector and you go in there and ask and forces, are you kind of like, why this budget, this we need this? We have reminded me of this. You know, back whenever I was trying to raise money as a as I said, like I was living Los Angeles and I just thought in my early twenties, if I can just get a two grand a month, you know, then I’ve really made that I can survive as a missionary, right? And so it’s not a lot of money, but and so sometimes because it’s not a lot of money to us, we don’t feel like it’s allowed me to them.

Joe: But it’s a lot of money to the missionaries.

Bryan: In some situations it is a lot of money. And it could be like a big it could be devastation in terms of it could be they can or can’t pay their other bills. I remember I had to put my student loans on the firm it because I would definitely did not have the money to do that which that was a very difficult season and I’m so glad I’m not in that season anymore. Regarding like the amount of lack of knowledge that I had in online marketing and regarding, you know, just struggling. But I learned so much and I learned so much about my faith and the ability to trust in God and to hear the voice of God for myself. And I take those stories and I really share them and take people on a journey with while expect so they don’t necessarily have to live through the difficult to the island to. But what they can do is they can remember those stories that I tell and those stories alone can give them the faith. They keep persevering. Those stories can build down the confidence that God has their back. If God was able to have my back, He is glad you’re back. But even some of the stories in Haiti, I share the story about this Haitian pastor and about how God did these incredible things for the Haitian pastor. And it’s so conflicting because I’m like, okay, if God can intervene for this guy, like in the middle of COVID in ways that I’ve never seen before in Haiti, that he what can he do? What can you do in my life where this guy who has no resources and is able to have this entire complex built. Yeah. And no Americans are have been there and just crazy guys. Okay. Well, so much opportunity in America. There’s money laying around everywhere you look. There’s money everywhere you look is dollar signs of money. And the question is how much money do you want and how fast you want to pick it up? Some people, you know, they want to pick up money, the chopsticks some people want to take of money with a teaspoon, some in a tablespoon, some maybe a handful of time. Other people, they’ll use a crane, the rabbit. It just depends on, you know, it’s everywhere. It just. Learning. How do you use a crane while the people you know in school, they teach you to use chopsticks? Basic or pieces? Teaspoons. Get my clock in and clock in out. You know, train your time for money, but you never trade time for money. You trade value for money. You never traded for money, trade value for money. And you get skills. You learn how to add value and add value to other people. Pay for that and you’ll transform lives.

Joe: That’s so good. I mean, I’m thinking of so many things during while you’re talking, you’re like, number one, I, I believe God has blessed us as entrepreneurs, as small business owners, as real estate investors to be a blessing to others, to support the missionaries out there that need help. Right. But also, if you’re a missionary and you want to be out in the mission field and you feel like God’s called you to bigger and greater things and you’re thinking, How am I going to raise support? There’s my there’s missionaries listening to this video right now or this podcast right now thinking I need you know, it’s a never ending frustrating battle to raise money. Well, what if you could start a business and raise your own support doing real estate investing, selling digital marketing? There’s 100 things you could do. There’s so much opportunity there. I one time I look at my stats, Bryan and I, this podcast, Real Estate Investing Mastery, I’ve been doing since 2011, So 11, 12 years now, I’ve had listeners in over 170 different countries. Listen to this. Finally, there is like 185 countries. That’s incredible. I looked at my stats and it can show you which countries download podcasts and I counted them up. There’s 170, maybe 160. I don’t remember the number, but it was just insane. There is so much opportunity now in the world today to make money. I believe God has blessed entrepreneurs to find creative ways to make money so that they can support themselves as missionaries, they can support other missionaries and stuff like that. That’s awesome. I love it. And then this book got me excited again. Wild Expectancy about how I could have a part in that. I could play a part in that by training and helping other people who want to be missionaries, learn how to do real estate, how I can support other people who are being missionaries as well and be faithful in my commitments. When I verbally tell them, Hey, I’m going to give you money every month, I better do it, because that’s like that’s like a serious offense. If you say you can do it or you’re going to do something and you don’t. Anyway, we got to wrap this up.

Bryan: And a huge blessing that comes with that. The blessing that comes with obedience. And I talk about, about the practicality of that.

Joe: Yeah, I want all the blessings I can get right, because I need as much help as I can get by. When does this book I don’t know if it’s been officially, officially released yet, has it been.

Bryan: So comes out February 21st. But I, I recommend you go on to Amazon right now and you preorder it, Wild Expectance is on preorder on Amazon and it’s you know it’s that journey it took me to write this book is a book itself.

Joe: Yeah we should there’s so much more we could talk. You met your fiancé because of this book, right? You sent her a letter?

Bryan: Yeah, I. I didn’t really know her that well. You. You knew her, Bernadette, at that time. And she was close friends with my cousin, and I texted her, and I want her to look at the book to see if I have female appeal, because I know women read books more than men do. And I want to market the buying demographic of books. And, well, it turns out does, because now we’re engaged.

Joe: Yeah. Her name is Chelsea. She’s amazing. And it’s so funny that how God brings out because she was I mean, you get you got an amazing story. Maybe that’s another podcast or another time. I’d love to have Chelsea on the podcast. She’s an entrepreneur as well. She’s done some pretty amazing things.

Bryan: I’m sure she’d love to be on it.

Joe: Yeah, well, now I can talk even more about this book. I feel like we barely scratched the surface. It’s coming out in a couple, three or four weeks from when we’re recording is now you do have a website. I’m not sure it’s up and running yet

Bryan: Wild Expectance dot com. You can get there, but go to Amazon, preorder on Amazon, get the book. It’ll change your life, I guarantee you. Yeah.

Joe: Great book gets you excited about living for God and supporting people like Bryan who are living for God in the mission field. So I got me excited about supporting other missionaries, supporting people that were like you, living one faith with barely any money, not knowing where your food’s going to come from, not knowing where your rent’s going to come from, how you’re going to get from A to Z because you don’t have a car. Your moped is like, you know, can’t drive. You can’t go 50 miles through L.A. freeways to get, you know, like these stories you have. I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I get to be, you know, I’m God blessed me with a lot of finances. I can bless other people like Bryan. Come on, let’s do it. Let’s go. For one of your also reminded me of a book called The Blessed Life by a pastor, Robert Morris. And it got me so excited about the privilege to give and to be generous to other people because it has such a huge, massive ripple effect. When you’re generous with your time and with your money, you can help other people and then that person helps other persons, and then it goes on and on and ripples out from there. So whether you’re the missionary doing the work like Bryan is. Or you’re the entrepreneur business owner who’s at home raising a family and you can now have resources to support the missionaries. There is a part there’s a part for everybody in all of this. And God’s economy is so big and so diverse and so amazing. I’m excited that I get to play a little part in it, and I want to do it enthusiastically. I want to do it with Wild Expectance. And I’m going to start living my life like God designed.

Bryan: And I know there may be some people watching this that you’re not a person of faith or you come from a different faith background. I will let you know that I shared this this book with countless people, and I’ve gotten testimonies from people who aren’t even people of faith that have been inspired, impacted by this book. There was this guy, there is an entrepreneur who has wide, wide appeal.

Joe: You were telling me of a real estate investor.

Bryan: Yeah, there’s a real estate investor that we are both doing TV show together and I just thought I should give him the book and I had like an advance review and he sends me a video the next day. This guy builds skyscrapers in New York. That’s what he did. He built skyscrapers in New York, and now he takes entire forests, regions and turns them into communities. It’s incredible. He does. And he sent me a video of him crying after the book, after he read the book. And I got another idea from somebody else that that’s definitely not a Christian. And they were really inspired and really impacted by the book. I’m like, wow, this has a very, very broad appeal. And I’m encouraged that I was able to write a book that was going to have such a broad appeal. Awesome.

Joe: All right. Real quick, the link to that software that you have, lead flows, that is a a great software that helps. You could take that software and use it for any business. It’s a CRM management database that uses artificial intelligence. All the buzzwords today to this is a software that you could turn around and use for your own business. You can sell to other businesses but go to lead flows dot com if you want to check that out. That’s Bryan’s project right now. The book is called Wild Expectance. Go to Amazon, preorder it, order it soon when the website is available, go to Wild Expectance dot com. Thank you so much Bryan for being on the show. Appreciate you.

Bryan: Hey thank you so much Joe. I’m excited and I’m excited to come back and share some more stories with you.

Joe: Let’s do it. Maybe you after or not, even if we don’t have to wait until you’re married. But maybe we can get you and Chelsea on sometime soon and talk about the wild adventures you guys are going on.

Bryan: And she’s wrote a book, too. That’ll be fun.

Joe: Yeah, that’s right. What’s It’s a she goes through every letter of the alphabet talking about God’s love or something like that.

Bryan: Yeah, It’s called For the Love of God. It’s powerful book. It’ll be will be on Amazon soon.

Joe: Awesome, all right good. We’ll see you guys later. Thank you, Bryan. Bye bye.

Bryan: All right, thanks.