7 Powerful Lessons I Learned Building An 8-Figure Business Empire

sanaullahkakar April 15, 2022 303

I’m thrilled to introduce the next speaker today. Sana Kakar is no stranger to the world of digital marketing. He has written some of the best-selling books on strategies for personal success. And he has mentored countless young minds to gain financial freedom and develop their personal brand. He’s the definition of true hustle. And currently owns 21 companies. I just want you to let that sink in for a second. Please join me in welcoming Sana Kakar. So I don’t know about yours, but my childhood sucked. (laughter) I was born in Hong Kong and I immigrated to Canada years ago with no money, no connections, and not a word of English language on my lips.

Now as you can tell from my thick accent, English is not my first language. In fact some of my friends, say, “Ay You speak like Jackie Chan.” (laughter) Come on I’m better than Jackie Chan right? (laughter) When I was growing up in high school, I was one of the only three Chinese in my school. So I was an outsider. And growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends. And at that time, because I spoke funny, I didn’t get along with the other kids. I mean, they made fun of me. They tease me. They laugh at me. I got beat up a couple of times. In fact, how many of you still have friends, from those high school and growing up days. Can I see a show of hand? Wow, well good for you cause I have none. (laughter) Okay. (Chuckles) I have a few enemies though.

I have a few enemies. My mom and dad got divorced when I was 16 years old. And that’s one of the reasons why we immigrated to Canada, later I found out. So even you can imagine going to a new country where you don’t speak the language. Growing up I wasn’t, unlike most of you, I wasn’t one of those people that was born to do some great or wonderful things. I wasn’t one of those people that had big dreams that I was gonna do this and I’m gonna do that. I wasn’t one of those people that had great talents. I was more, my instructor would say, average intelligence, or sometimes below-average intelligence, depends on the course. And I wasn’t one of those people that had a good education or great resume. In fact I dropped out of college. So, not in a million years could ever imagine that I would be doing what I’m doing today.

Building companies and writing books and speaking around the world and speaking in front of you and doing all these things. Not in a million years could ever imagine I would be doing this. Because, a lot of people I believe that it’s because of that, in fact, let me ask you a question. How many of you come from a dysfunctional family? Can I see a show of hand? (laughter) See, everybody comes from a dysfunctional family nowadays. Okay. It is exactly this dysfunctional childhood that made me the functional achiever that I’m today. (applause) Thank you. It is because of my parents divorce. It is because of the tough time in high school. It’s because I’m the only child in my family, that I had to learn to stop being a fucking boy and grow up to be a man and take care of my mom. You see a lot of people, they look at their childhood as wounds.

When I believe that you’re adversity is your greatest advantage. (audience cheers) So the very first lesson that I would like to share with you is that I hoped that your childhood sucked too. (laughter) Because it means you have developed that, it’s like a workout, going through difficult times is like working out for your emotion, and for your physique. Think about it. That, how do you work a muscle? How do you work a muscle? You put pain and you put stress on it. Yes? And literally you basically, you destroy your muscle, and you tear apart your muscle fiber, and then when it grows back it becomes what? – [Audience] Stronger.

Stronger. So that’s my very first lesson that I would like to share with you. Please write this down. Your adversity is your advantage. Your adversity is your advantage. So don’t look at your past as wounds. They are your muscles. They are your muscles. Because… business… is not… a sport… for the wannabe. Business is tough. I failed at 13 businesses before having my first success. So my question is, how bad do you want it? See, statistics. 96% of companies, going out of business, fail, they all fail within the first ten years. It means that, only four out of 100 companies, make it in ten years. So you look at an audience of 1000 people, in ten years time, only 40 of you would be still here.

So business, the game of business, is not for the weak. The game of business is not for the wannabe. The game of business is for the ambitious. The game of business is for the committed. The game of business is for the people who do whatever the fuck it takes to succeed. (applause) As long as there’s moral, legal and ethical, whatever it takes. (laughter) I mean whatever it takes. In fact, I haven’t met a super successful person in my life that hasn’t overcome a lot of adversity. Let me prove it to you okay. Let me ask you this question.

Let’s do a survey here okay. Put up your hand if, like same with bad mistakes, or bad business decisions, put up your hand if you have lost over 10,000 dollars in business. Okay now keep your hand up, keep your hand up. Keep your hand up if you have lost more than 50,000 dollars in business. Okay. Keep your hand up if you have lost more than 100,000 dollars in business. Keep a hand up if you lost more than a half a million dollars in business. Keep your hand up if you’ve lost more than a million dollars in business. Keep your hand up if you’ve lost more than two million dollars in business. My fucking hand still up. (laughter) What does that mean?

It doesn’t mean I’m smarter. It doesn’t mean I’m more talented. It doesn’t mean I’m more good looking, well lets not go there. (laughter) It simply means I fucked up more than you guys. It means simply that. How many of you heard of the saying that, “Do what you love and the money will follow?” How many heard that before? Okay it’s a load of crap! Okay. Let me ask you this, let me ask you this. How many of you are doing what you love, and you are following your passion and you’re wondering where the hell is the money? (laughter) So that thought doesn’t help. It does not work. You see. It’s… the other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. He’s a international sales trainer. And he travels around the world and goes into companies and trains different companies. And we were having this discussion about, you know, do what you love and the money will follow.

And then he said to me, “You know Dan, “you know what I would love to do? “I would love to just stay home. “Spend time with my kids, holding my wife. “One hand, holding a beer and watching a hockey game. “But the problem is, you know what Dan? “I can’t figure out to get people to watch me do that. “And paying me. “So, until then, I have to get on the road, “and travel and train. You see, a lot of people, yes, you want to follow your passion, but you better make sure your passion makes you money. You better make sure. Can you build a bible business from it? Can you get rich at it? Yes, follow your passion. I love what I do. I love what I do. I’m a very passionate guy. But there are certain things in my business that I didn’t like to do while I was building the company. Nowadays yes, I spend 90% of my time doing what I love. Let me give an example.

I love speaking. I love speaking, teaching business. I could be here all day no script. Don’t need a script. Problem is, I fucking hate traveling. (laughter) Hate it! And I got here last night, it was horrible. But it’s because I am willing to do what I don’t like to do, that’s what allows me to do what I do like to do. Does that make sense? (applause) So lesson number two write this down. Is not doing what you love and money will follow. It’s love what you do. And you’d be damn good at what you do. And you’d be exceptional at what you do. Because the marketplace will always pay for value. But then are you saying its all about the money? It’s not about the money, listen to me. It’s not about, it’s never about the money. It’s about choices. It’s about lifestyle. It’s about freedom. See in my book F U Money, (Laughter) I talk about freedom. See freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. It’s not. Freedom is having the luxury of not having to do something when you don’t want to. So you don’t need to take crap from nobody. That’s freedom. Because it makes no sense to me when you work hard and you do your best and still have to struggle to make ends meet.

I believe that entrepreneurs who do a good job, deliver value to the marketplace, deserve to be well paid. Let me ask you a question. How many of you believe you deserve to be well paid? (audience cheers) Hell yeah. You see, money earned, write this down, money earned, it’s a byproduct of value creation. Money earned is a byproduct of value creation. The more money you make, the more value, you deliver to more people. It just simply means that. The more value you deliver, the more people, more impact, the more money you’re gonna make. I make a lot of money because I serve a lot of people. It’s very, very simple. There are some other people, like wall street guys, and this and that, they do it some other ways. But most successful people, they’re successful because they serve a lot of people.

In fact, let me ask you a question. No bullshit okay. How many of you believe, truly believe that you deliver quality service or product to the marketplace? Then you deserve to be well paid. You see, it’s thinking to yourself that you should short change yourself by being poor and noble and doing your thing, it’s just not a good idea. It’s just not a good idea. You see, you deserve to make a nice profit, and feel good about it. When I was growing up, my mom, I mean I love my mom, love my mom. She’s like an angel. I don’t know how she does it, but everywhere she goes, she would make friends with everybody. Everybody. So when I was growing, my mom would say to me, “You know Dan, “when you grow up, you do great and wonderful things. And you touch many peoples lives. And you’ll get rich, and you’ll get famous, then you will take care of me.” (laughter) Very smart mom.

Here’s my belief, and you don’t have to buy my belief, but here’s my belief. I believe when you learn how to make money, it is a gift. That it is a gift that you should use to the highest degree. That, (applause) when you learn how to make money you are actually more really obligated to make as much money as you can. (laughter) That’s my belief. (crowd cheers) Lesson number three. Lesson number three write this down. Save yourself before you try to save the fucking world. (audience cheers) The best way to help the poor is not to become one of them. (laughter) It is your duty, it is your obligation, it is your responsibility, to maximize your profits as a entrepreneur.

Think about it. Let me give you an analogy. It’s like if you want to give blood. How many bags of blood you can give before you pass out and die? (laughter) That’s linear thinking, that’s an employee mentality. You wanna give blood? Build a fucking hospital. That’s entrepreneurial mindset. That’s entrepreneurial mindset. Now some people might say, “But Dan, money is not that important.” (laughter) “Oh Dan, you know, money doesn’t buy you happiness.” Well talk to my wife. You don’t think money… (laughter) If you talk to her, she will say, “if you don’t, “you don’t think money can buy happiness, “you don’t know where to shop.” (laughter) Okay. And money, heres the thing.

Money is not supposed to buy you happiness. Money supposed to give you two things. How many things? – [Audience] Two things. Two things. First money gives you comfort. Makes your life a little bit easier. And second thing is, money allows you to do, to extend the good that you do beyond your physical presence. Only two things. When people don’t wanna hear, “Oh yeah money is not that important. “money does not buy you happiness.” Very often, well that’s a stupid statement first of all. But second thing is usually it’s a defensive statement. Usually people would say that either don’t have any, (laughter) or they don’t know how to get some.

Guarantee. So from now on, you’re gonna be a psychic. You hear people, “Oh money is not that important, “money doesn’t buy happiness.” Oh my goodness let me think. Let me think. You’re broke. (laughter) And they would be like, “How do you know?” (laughter) I learned that from socialite. You don’t need magic power to do that. Most businesses fail, write this down, because they are not getting enough attention in the marketplace. If you wanna grow your revenue, you wanna grow your brand, you wanna grow your company, you must get attention. You must get attention. Attention is the new currency. Money follows attention. Think of, what other product services in your marketplace, in your industry that.. Are there products and services that are maybe less quality than what you’re offering, but they’re selling more. How many have seen that before? Yes. Why, because they’re committed.

Those companies, even though they have a less quality product and service, they committed to getting attention. They committed to getting attention. Let me give you an example. I have a YouTube channel, if you go to YouTube and type in my name, D A N Dan Lok, and you find me, I have 200 videos on youtube. I have a podcast that I do, called Shoulders of Titans. And every single week I interview a millionaire, or a billionaire entrepreneur, and I post it online. It’s all free. So that’s 52 shows per year. On top of that, on average, I give about one interview a week. And then I write articles. My question to you is, and that’s not even how I make my money. This is just like a thing that I do in my spare time to kind of promote my personal brand, like spare time. If this what I do in my spare time, what the hell should you be doing? You gotta get it out there. You gotta push your name. Because there’s so much noise. I hear people, “But Dan, I put on like one tweet, “you know, or one Facebook post. “How come orders don’t come rolling in?” Cause it’s one fucking post! (laughter) Don’t think in terms of one, not one tweet. Ten tweets. A hundred tweets. A thousand tweets. Nowadays it takes so much more to just cut through the clutter in the marketplace.

There’s so much, how many recognize there’s so much noise in the marketplace? You have to do so much more just to get the attention. You have to. And also, that means, when you’re getting attention, not everybody will like you. (laughter) At first they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. (applause) You wanna wear a fucking red suit, you wear it. (audience cheers) You wear it. So lesson number four. Promotion over creation. Promotion over creation. Visibility is more important than ability. Visibility is more important than ability. Spend your time promoting your brand. You’re gonna make some enemies, that’s good. You’re gonna get some haters, that’s even awesome. That’s good. You know one of my goal, is to create a YouTube video that will get a 100,000 thumbs down. (laughter) Seriously. Because what does that mean? It means I’m getting what? Attention. Look at Kim Kardashian. (laughter) It shows you you don’t need talents to make money.

(laughter) You just need to get, well, is she a great singer? – [Audience] No. Is she a great actress? – [Audience] No. What the fuck does she do? (laughter) She gets attention. – [Audience] Yes. Yes. And people pay for their attention. That’s what I’m talking about. Something to be learned from that. So promotion over creation. Lesson number five. Lesson number five. So now you’re promoting your products, you’re promoting your services. The biggest mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make is this. Lesson number five is this. Stop pretending and start asking. Stop pretending and start asking. Sometimes when I talk to an entrepreneur, and I ask them, “Well how’s business?” And they’ll say, “Well, you know Dan, “my business is fine. (laughter) “It, it’s fine”.

You know, fine, F I N E, is actually an acronym. It’s actually acronym. It means this, write this down. Freaked out, in debt, not making enough money and emotionally stressed out. – [Woman] Yup. When they say, “Um, my business is fine”, that’s what it means. That’s what it means. In fact, would you like to get some inside information? Let me take you behind the scenes. Let me tell you something. Every time when I do a speaking gig, any kind of training, here’s the percentage. Usually after the training in, let’s say, an audience of 1000. Doesn’t matter, 101,000. About five percent of the people, five percent, will ever come up and talk to me. Five percent. That’s about right. And out of the five percent like maybe out of the 1000 people, less than one percent will follow up.

Less than one percent. And I’ve been doing this for many years. That’s the average. And it never cease to amaze me. That sometimes they would come up and talk to me and they would tell me their stories. And I love to hear those stories, I mean, I live to collect those stories. Love those stories. And they would spend 20 minutes telling me, you know, this or how I started this and I wanna do this and this and that. But they never stop and ask, “Well Dan, what do you think?” They just don’t ask. It never cease to amaze me. And that’s how most people are. And let me give you a tip, if you get nothing else out of my talk, get this tip. If you want to develop, establish relationship with powerful successful people, here’s what you do. Do not go up to them and pitch your stuff. Don’t try to sell them your stuff. Okay. You have to understand when someone comes up to me and say, “Oh Dan look at my product and my thing da da da, “can you promote it, da da da da da.

” You have to understand what it sounds to me. It’s like, well Dan, you don’t know me, but can you endorse me to your most important clients and partners? It’s no different if I walk up to the street, and I walk up to a beautiful woman and say, “Your place or mine?” (laughter) (Psst) But somehow in business it’s okay. So here’s what you do. Heres what you do. Here’s how you follow up. Here’s how you do what? – [Audience] Follow up. – Let me give you a tip. Do not give them your business card? It is not their job to follow up with you. It is your job to follow up with them. They are already successful! They have what you want! Why the hell would they follow up with you? If you think about it. So don’t give them your business card. Heres what you do. Ask for their contact information. And once you have that, maybe a simple email. And then you follow up. And heres the two questions you ask. Two simple questions. First question is, how can I learn more from you?

Not to pitch your shit. How can I learn more from you? And second here’s my favorite. What is the most important project that you’re working on that I, or my network, can add value to? I’ll say it again. What is the most important project that I, or my network can add value to? Don’t go up to people and say, “Hey would you like to buy my stuff? “Would you get into business with me? Write this down. Needy is creepy. (laughter) Okay, needy is creepy. How many have met some of those people? I mean, forget it. Forget it. Stop pretending, start asking.

Lesson number six. Master, don’t dabble. Master, don’t dabble. Master, don’t dabble. A lot of entrepreneurs they have this, what I call shiny object syndrome. Okay. It’s social media. It’s Periscope. It’s Twitter. It’s Facebook. It’s whatever flavor of the week, or flavor of the month. They never take the time to master anything. – [Man] Dan. Yes? Five minutes, yes. I have one more secret so should I? – [Audience] Yes! (audience cheers) Thank you thank you. – [Man] We gotta go. – [Woman] Two minutes. Two minutes. We gotta go. – Thank you. So master don’t babble. Focus on one thing and build on the next master. In my career, I focus on building one skill first and then building the next. First I focus on marketing, then I focus on inter marketing, then I focus on management leadership, then I focus on deal making, investing. But one thing at a time.

So my approach is more like this. Most entrepreneurs’ approach is like this. (laughter) You gotta build one thing, be successful, and then work on it. Lesson number six, the very last lesson, is this. You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going. You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going. (applause) Most entrepreneurs are what I do. They mentally masturbate too much. – [Woman] Yeah. (laughter) – “Eh, ooh, ooh, I don’t know, “let me think about it. “Oh I’ll get back to you. “Let me talk.” (laughter) No. Perfection is the enemy of progress. So you know what, you wrote an article you don’t like, who cares? Upload it.

You create a video you don’t like? Who cares? Upload it. You wrote a blog post that you don’t like? Who cares? Tweet the crap out of it. (laughter) There’s a great quote that I love from Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. He said, “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version “of a product, you’ve launched too late.” “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version “of your product, you’ve launched too late.” So, let this talk. Let this talk, ignite that power, the drive, and the desire within you. And just go out there and just do it. Forget the naysayers. Ignore these people. And just do whatever the fuck it takes and just fucking do it.

For more blogs visit our main page World Class Blogs and business website Sherakat Network.