Celebrated in the online space for his unrivalled online courses and content, James also facilitates Next Level, a strategic, group-coaching experience, and the high-level mastermind The Inner Circle.
When he isn't working, James can be found hiking, flipping homes for Airbnb, or off-roading through the rocky terrain of Sedona. His motto is simple: ‘Work hard, play harder!’
We had the following conversation in September 2020.
Can you give me your origin story?
Well, I have like 20 origin stories.
The one I know is you went into video then pivoted into online courses.
I call it the leapfrog effect. I think everything you're going through now is just preparing you for the next thing. So there's an origin story for every next thing. But the story of how I stumbled across this idea of selling teaching information, coaching on the internet, started when I was bartending at a restaurant, on the day shift during the week, which is kind of depressing, while on the weekends I was running a mobile bartending business where people hired me to come to their parties. I wasn't passionate at all about bartending. I don't even drink more than a glass of wine once a week. But I was passionate about business. So within a year I had this mobile bartending business with 15 staff members and we were servicing parties north of LA all the way down to San Diego, so a big chunk of Southern California. We were booked solid every week, while I was consuming book after book and program after program on how to understand running a business and marketing. And I noticed a pattern. Everyone I was learning from was selling their system on marketing and business — that was in November of 2007, so you can see how long ago it was — and I had the idea that I could do the same. It kind of started as a game for me. I thought, I bet I can make more money teaching people how to tend bar than actually doing it. That night I came up with the domain name Bartend For Profit, and my idea for an online bartending school was born.
I moved back in with my parents and buried myself in my room. I put all my marbles into this jar of creating an online bartending website and business. It was April 2008. Several months later I had a finished book (220 pages) and a CD-ROM with video training and all that stuff. And, bada bing, bada boom, I had my very first sale. That was, you know, one of the greatest moments of my life. A complete stranger from San Antonio, Texas, paid me $200 plus $19.95 shipping and handling to send this entire at-home and online package — I did both, so you got a print version and a digital version of my bartending thing. I knew even back then I wasn't going to stay with bartending, I wasn't going to be the bartending guru, but that one day this would turn into something bigger and better.
Do you think your initial success was partly because you started with what you knew at the time?
Yeah, I had to start with what I knew. I also had to have a vision of where I could go, and, you know, that's the thing that people don't get, and I'm just very lucky that I did get this. But if your heart isn't in it, you're not going to be successful. It's very easy for people to see what I do today and see the money I make, the lifestyle and, you know, the fame, the huge following, and they want all those things. But they don't understand that that's a by-product of the work. They fixate on the by-product and not the work. What happened was I fell in love with marketing, I fell in love with technology, copywriting and selling. I fell in love with teaching too. If people fall in love with money and freedom and significance and influence, they're chasing the wrong thing. I hear people all the time say, ‘I just don't like marketing’ or ‘I don't like writing’ or ‘I don't like the internet’. And it's, like, then what are you doing? My secret is I love what I do. I love all of it.
From bartending, how did you then get into the video program? Because the video program was really what took off for you, wasn't it?
Someone who saw what I was doing connected with me and asked, ‘Will you partner with me in my business?’ He was a dating and relationships coach. This was maybe the end of 2009. He just wanted to be the relationship coach. I said, great, let me do everything else. At the time he had a $37 ebook that was making like a sale a week. So he was making 150 bucks a month. I said, move over and let me do it. And I went to work. We completely reinvented his marketing strategy. Within the first month, we were already on track to build a six-figure business. There were no ads at the time, none of this stuff we have today.
So practically overnight he went from $2000-plus a year to a six-figure business, and growing. Every month was bigger and bigger. One of the big things I did was I took a YouTube channel of his from zero to two million views in about two months. That's how we built the business. Then one day he calls me up. I was getting a percentage. He said, ‘Well, looks like the business is working now’. And I said, ‘Yeah, sure is’. He said, ‘So I don't need you anymore’. And he let me go.
I was really green at the time. I thought we were partners. I thought this was ours, that I had a 30 per cent stake. But no, I was just an employee. Because he didn't have money then, he was just going to pay with the revenue. But we didn't have any contract in place, so he just fires me one day, and it's back to square one. I'd dropped everything else and for the last year had focused 100 per cent on that business. And there I was just, you know, dumped, and no more money coming in.
By the relationship coach!
Yes, by the relationship coach. I know, there's the subtle humour. He dumped me and I was upset, angry. I was even scared … for two steps. I walk or pace while I talk, so I took two steps, then on the third I told myself, I'm going to decide that this is the best thing that ever happened to me. This is a true story, exactly how it happened, I could take you to the spot in the middle of the street in my neighbourhood where I made that decision.
I got off that call and made my decision. Life is a choice, so everything that happens is about the decisions we make. What am I going to make out of this? Two weeks later, a friend came and crashed on my couch for a week. Lewis Howes was kind of my peer and became a really close friend. We'd been learning and struggling together. And he started telling me how frustrated he was by people who were letting him down, being dishonest and doing shady things. I'm going through exactly the same experience so I say, ‘I know what you mean’. And he tells me, ‘From now on, I only want to do business with my friends’. I'm sitting there and I say, ‘Yeah, me too’. He looks at me and he goes, ‘We should do something’. And I say, ‘Yeah, we should’. And he goes, ‘Let's create an online course’. And I say, ‘Yeah, that sounds great’. And he goes, ‘What do you want it to be about?’ And I say, ‘Well, I just helped this guy get millions of views on YouTube. How about YouTube?’
I had a film background too, so I knew how to make videos, but I was really into how to use YouTube. This was in January 2010. Right after this guy had dumped me. And he said, ‘Okay, let's make a product on YouTube’. So I created it, and we launched it in September 2011 and made a good $400 000 in sales in 30 days at a $97 price point. Overnight I became the YouTube guy. That product went on to do a couple of million dollars in sales. And it spawned an entire business.
How did you even do that? Facebook, which you used to promote your products, had just started then.
Yeah, the way we did it was with a very simple model that you don't see a lot of people use today. My superpower, especially at the time, was teaching. I was just really good at teaching and making things simple and fun and easy to do. Lewis didn't really like teaching, but he was a super connector, which at the time I wasn't at all. He had all these powerful, influential friends and himself had a big audience. So he put me in front of his audience and then he started attracting these people as affiliates.
So you came right out of the gate with your first course with affiliates and the whole shebang.
Yeah.