Why “Earn” Growth When You Can BUY Growth?
Grind. Sell. Elevate.
November 2, 2020
“The first and last hours of the day define your life.” Ty and I discuss how radically the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our very ideas of “work” and “education.” Vocationally-educated entrepreneurs out-earning college graduates … it was happening before the pandemic, but the pandemic kicked it into high gear. I reveal that despite being a high-school dropout, I eventually got my GED just to qualify for health insurance, and I have no interest in getting a degree.
I share how learning about the “80/20” principle changed everything for me, inspiring me to ruthlessly cut away all but the most impactful tasks from my business and from my daily routine. It led me to realize that 80% of my income came from 20% of my clients, while 80% of my frustrations came from a different 20% of my clients … leading me to the conclusion that some of my clients needed to be fired.
We also discuss:
- Morning and evening routines, including my Japanese Ofuro.
- How there’s more hockey being played in my adopted state of Florida than in my home state of Pennsylvania.
- How digital marketing allows you to “buy growth” - essentially a printing press for money that you can turn on and off at will.
- How building a website with a “Field of Dreams” mentality (if you build it, they will come) is delusional.
About the Show: Tyzer Evans is the host of Grind. Sell. Elevate.
Full Transcript
Tyzer Evans: Dylan Ogline, thanks for joining me on “Grind. Sell. Elevate.” How are you?
Dylan Ogline: I’m doing good, Ty, thanks for having me, buddy.
Tyzer Evans: Good, man. I’m excited to talk to you. It seemed like there’s some parallels with our life. You’ve had some ups and downs, so have I. I see we were just kind of chatting offline, you just had moved to Orlando, which I’d been there lots of times. Originally from Pennsylvania?
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. Yeah. Grew up in rural Pennsylvania, right near Pittsburgh, so.
Tyzer Evans: Cool. So what would make you move from Pittsburgh to Orlando?
Dylan Ogline: Taxes are lower here.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. That’s why I’m in Texas.
Dylan Ogline: There’s more to do. I’m a hockey player so there’s actually more hockey here. So it’s a lot better down here I could say. But all of my family is up there. My girlfriend’s family as well. So we’re actually looking, prior to COVID, to like build like a smaller house or something up there and to keep our house down here. But the world ended, so that kind of got shelved. I own some land up in Pennsylvania, so when things return to normal, and life is not ending tomorrow, possibly have a second place out there, but this will be the main base for sure.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, Orlando’s great. Like you said, there’s so much to do, it’s a great city, I really love it. Now you’ve gotten your start as an entrepreneur in the digital agency space. Love to find out more a little bit about your journey.
Dylan Ogline: Sure. Sure. Well, to keep it short, my first business I started that when I was 14 was selling cellphones. Selling cellphones, most of the cells I think came on eBay. This is back whenever the best kind of cellphones were in Europe. Europe was far ahead of us when it came to like smartphones and whatnot, but this is pre-iPhone. And I got like a wholesaler somehow approved me, even though I was so young, like they didn’t check my age or something. And I was able to get these high-end European cellphones at basically wholesale prices, ship them to the U.S., pay all the fees and whatnot, and then I could flip them on eBay and make a couple hundred bucks.
That’s where it all started, man. That was after reading the book “Rich Dad poor Dad,” which kind of like motivated me to get into business, and think of money differently. So that’s where it all started and that only probably lasted like six to eight months, and then my merchant account got shut down because they found out I wasn’t 18.
Tyzer Evans: Right. Yeah. Details.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. Yeah. That didn’t work out too well. So that followed 12 years of pain and misery bouncing around from idea to idea, never really making any progress. When I started my first business this was like the infancy of Google Adwords. So this was like changing the world of advertising and marketing. That fascinated me, and I think I picked up like a couple marketing books at the time.
So during those 12 years of just terribleness between like 14 and 26 or so, there was always kind of a background of doing like digital agency marketing type of work. And now I own an education company and a digital marketing agency called Ogline Digital, so. That’s the short end of the story.
Tyzer Evans: Awesome. Yeah, no, no, no, that’s great. I mean I think that there’s a lot to be said for people who can persevere through struggle and hardship, right? It makes the gratitude so much better on the other side of that when you start to have success. And it makes you a lot more relatable once you have a story but someone always winning.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. Yeah.
Tyzer Evans: So did you go to school for that type of work as far as marketing or anything? Or is this is something you were just sort of interested in?
Dylan Ogline: No. No, No, I’m a high school dropout. I eventually did get my GED, I think after I turned 18. This was to get health insurance. No joke. Like I had to get a GED. Health insurance was through SBA, Small Business Administration. I forget, it was a long time ago, and they required you to have at least a GED or a high school diploma. So I did that but never went to college. I’ve taken like I think two college classes just for fun because I just kind of wanted to go down that route. I have no desire to get a degree, I have no degree, I have no formal training in marketing
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, to be honest with you, I think the way that things are moving in the future is that I spent a shit load of money on college, and I to some degree wish I wouldn’t have gone. I got two kids that are six and four. We’ve got 529s for them, but I’ve also put a bunch of money into just random mutual funds. Because like they don’t want to go to school I’m not going to press it upon them. I think the way of the future is to be able to take courses.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah.
Tyzer Evans: Right, and specialize in just in that. Almost more vocational style because I think that makes a lot more sense than regurgitating shit you learned in high school and then paying a lot of money for it in college.
Dylan Ogline: 100%, man. There’s no doubt in my mind that education as we know it. I think COVID changed how we do education, how we view work. I mean, these things were already changing, and it just ratcheted up to 100. So, yeah, I absolutely agree that the education in the future, the way you put it, that’s the first time I’ve heard somebody say like more vocational style. That’s absolutely correct. I know a lot of other people who have no formal training, they took courses on how to start certain businesses or whatnot, go down a certain business model. They make six figures, seven figures, they’re making several hundred thousand dollars a year. Whereas there’s people who go to college for four years and they’re maybe making $60,000. I mean it’s definitely education as we know it is changing. There’s no doubt about it.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Now in your space, it’s something to be honest with you, I’ve had ecommerce businesses. A couple did well, a couple that did not do very well. And the big connect was when I was working with somebody that had a fairly good idea with marketing. Obviously it ran a lot smoother, I tried to do it on my own, it did not go very well. What do you see when you’re working with-- I'm sure obviously entrepreneurs and businesses-- as like the missing link? Are people just not paying attention to marketing enough especially in the online space?
Dylan Ogline: I think it’s something where say you’re talking specifically the ecommerce space. A lot of people they view it almost as secondary. Like, oh, yeah, I should be working on that, should be something on the side. And because they’re not focused on it, they’re not really committed to making their marketing work. They fall into the trap of chasing the shiniest object. Let’s try TikTok, or Snapchat, or all these different things, because they’re just looking for the quick hit. They’re trying to make content that goes viral instead of actually just committing to making their marketing work.
Ecommerce is actually a perfect example. You have an ecommerce business, you’re selling some kind of product. I mean, really, like your number one priority should be to get your marketing working. And I’ve talked about this before and like I like to kind of have a backdrop of like I’m not saying don’t provide a good product or service to your clients. Like that should be like me telling you to breathe. I shouldn’t need to tell you to do that.
But in terms of like what am I focusing on in my business, marketing should be that thing. And the reason is, is it allows you to buy growth. Once you figure it out, whether it’s Google Ads, or Facebook, or YouTube ads. If you’re able to get a campaign working where it’s profitable, you most likely can just go in and like ad another zero to the budget, and boom, next thing you know it’s scaled ten times.
And once you get the marketing going, then it’s like all these other problems in your business that you’re like, “Oh, I need to hire a new person, or spend development money on this new product.” Well, if you know that you can purchase sales whenever you need to, all those problems become a lot easier to solve. So I truly believe number one focus should be getting your marketing and go because it allows you to buy growth.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, that makes total sense. If you understand your conversion ratios, like you said, you add a little bit more capital into the marketing you understand how much more money you’re going to make, right? So then you’re like, “Oh, I can afford help,” or “I can put in the product development,” or whatever it is. Whatever you’re trying to do.
Dylan Ogline: Absolutely. It literally is. I view it as it is a printing process. An example I’ve used before is like it becomes a faucet. Like, oh, I need more cash flow in my business, I need more sales, just open up the faucet a little bit more. You can’t really see it. I’m turning on the faucet. Turn the faucet on, and boom, you got more leads, you got more customers coming to your site. It really can be that easy once you figure it out and you get it going.
Tyzer Evans: I thought you were going to say like the Federal Reserve.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah, I mean, something like that, yeah.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, yeah, that’s a whole other thing. Where do you see really the trajectory? I get really interested in this. We’ve seen social media, it’s kind of like I feel like Google Ads and then you had like social media, influencer space. Where do you see marketing going? Now I think that a lot of people I was just talking to my mother-in-law who owns a business in Newport Beach in California, about she was creating landing pages and testing landing pages. And is that now a space that people should be looking at more advantageous than building out like this $100,000 website? Or where do you see kind of the market trends?
Dylan Ogline: I mean, that could go in many different directions.
Tyzer Evans: Sure, wherever you want to take it, man.
Dylan Ogline: And as far as when it comes to building our your marketing, you mentioned like $100,000 website. I tell my clients, I tell my students keep things ridiculously simple. Because you want to be flexible, you don’t want to spend $100,000 on a website or all these landing pages, and you could be wrong. Like your presumption of the market could probably, or is, probably wrong. The best thing to do is just put stuff out into the marketplace and see what sticks. Let the market decide and it could be ten different versions of a landing page. Which actually I probably wouldn’t recommend that many landing pages, but it can be multiple versions of a landing page, it can be multiple versions of an ad. Don’t spend a lot of time, resources, money on specific ideas until you’ve actually tested it into the marketplace. Does that answer your question? I think that’s what you were going for.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, definitely. I’m just curious. As someone who’s got a start-up business, and I think the first inclination is “I’m going to make a website,” like the whole field of dreams concept. And I just don’t think that that is relevant. And most people, especially like the business owners that we work with in insurance, the average age is 58, older white male. That’s the demographic across the United States. And like they’re asking, “How do I make a Facebook page?” You know what I mean?
So I think there’s like some misnomers that I’m just going to make a website, and then people are going to come to me. Or I’m not even going to build one. Because I’ve heard people say like, “Why do people need to know about me in China?” Well, that’s the case, that’s not actually the goal. But maybe it is depending on if you have international business, right? But how do you start to structure clients to have them have success or where do you start to lead them first in order to start generating sales? Say I know I’ve got a good product, I know I’ve got a good service, what’s my next step?
Dylan Ogline: Well, most of the clients-- at least the clients that we typically are onboarding-- already have at least some online presence. Probably at least have a website. If you’re like a start-up, I mean, yeah just build like a quick website in Squarespace. I mean literally that’s it. You don’t need a huge complex website. Just build something in Squarespace and then literally just start. If I’m onboarding a client, it’s literally just start putting things out into the marketplace, starting running ads to a specific landing page, keep the landing page really simple. Again, everything is I use the term lean, mean, and scrappy. Like you just want as basic and as simple as possible to get things down into the marketplace and actually test things.
In the tech space, they talk about minimal viable product, minimal viable service. Like there’s a lot to be said about that and every single thing, you want your minimal viable marketing, the absolute bare minimum to put things down into the marketplace and just get feedback. And a lot of the times, you could still run that very simple landing page, that very simple website and all of a sudden you have $100,000 in sales coming in every month off of a very simple landing page, because those things actually don’t matter. What matters is getting things out into the marketplace and then bringing that, turning the faucet on, and getting that flow coming in.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: So, everything that I do when it comes to marketing a business is keep things as ridiculously simple as possible. Just ruthlessly cut things. I apply the 80/20 method. Do you know what the 80/20 method is? I apply that to everything. Everything.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Now you talked a little bit about what I read in your bio when we talked a bit offline that you kind of obviously you went through a period of that struggle. Right, in trying to get, I’m assuming this type of idea up and going so it could be profitable for you.
Dylan Ogline: Go ahead. What was the question?
Tyzer Evans: Oh, so the question was really going to be kind of what was the pivotal turning point, or what was the a-ha moment for you that really launched you from like, “Man, I’m just struggling, nothing’s going for me,” to boom, “Now, I’m rolling,” over the course of what-- three or four years you turned it into a seven-figure digital ad agency.
Dylan Ogline: Sure. This is actually a great question. So in my particular case I mentioned when I started my first business I kind of got into marketing then and 12 years of pain and suffering. It wasn’t 12 years of trying to get the agency going. I was always kind of doing like agency work kind of to pay bills, like if I needed a website, I was your guy. If you needed a banner, I was your guy. You needed a PowerPoint done, I could do it for you. You need a logo, I’m your guy.
And so what the turning point for me was the end of 2016 I get a call from a long-term mentor of mine, and long story short, exchange pleasantries, and it’s like, “Hey, how are things going?” I lie and I say, “Yeah, things are great,” and I’m like up to my eyeballs, beyond eyeballs in debt. I’m making $50,000 a year, struggling, I got all these projects, I don’t remember. I don’t even know what a vacation is, what is that? I’m freezing my ass off in Pennsylvania in my basement office. I couldn’t turn the heat on cause I couldn’t afford it. It was bad.
And eventually I admit, I tell that to him. I’m like, “Things actually suck, dude. They’re not good. They suck.” And what he said to me was, “You need to stop focusing.” I can never remember what the exact quote was. You need to stop trying to build an airline and instead drill for oil. So that’s where it started, okay, and I’m like, “Well, what do you mean? What the hell does that mean?” And he goes on to explain that like, “Okay, so you’re doing all these different business ideas.” And my main goal was just I just need to get to six figures. Like that was just, I don’t know why, just $100,000, I want to get to $100,000.
And he’s like, “You’re doing these businesses where like if you’re the best of the best,” like one of them was I had a Kindle publishing business. Which is a long story, but like the best of the best, and the program I was following for that, the guy was making like $5,000 a month. Maybe $6,000 or $7,000, but that was like good money was making $5,000 with that. And he’s like, “So you would have to be the best of the best to make even $5,000, which still doesn’t hit your goal.”
Tyzer Evans: Right.
Dylan Ogline: Where he was going with that airline versus drilling for oil was the airline industry is just ridiculously difficult for people to make money in. Like notoriously difficult. And the best of the best will get into that business and they still don’t make money. Like the best still lose money in that industry. Whereas with oil, it’s not necessarily that it’s easy, it’s just not as hard. You could be mediocre and still make a lot of money in that business. Of course I know things change now, but that was the lesson at the time.
So I’m talking to him, and he’s like, “See, you want to aim for a business where the best of the best are making $100,000 a month. So that if you end up just being like okay, you still make your $10,000 a month, your six-figure income that you want.” So literally that night I go downstairs into my freezer basement, it was so cold, so cold, and I just scrapped everything. Scrapped al these miscellaneous projects that were going nowhere, making no money, and I just focused on the digital agency.
And then I took it even further. I was like, “Okay, well, I need a website for my agency, and then I need this, I need business cards.” And I was like, “No, I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole again. I’m not going to fall for that old like everything needs to be perfect,” cause I’m naturally a perfectionist. I was just like, “I’m just going to reach out to these previous clients that I’ve had and offer them digital marketing services.” Just ruthlessly cut everything and focus on one single thing. And within three or four months I was on pace for six figures, did not hit seven figures in 2017. I came close, but in 2017 definitely hit six figures, and then in 2018 finally hit seven figures.
Tyzer Evans: Man, that’s fast.
Dylan Ogline: It was very quick.
Tyzer Evans: That’s very fast.
Dylan Ogline: And all it was, was just not wasting my time on all this unnecessary stuff, ruthlessly focus on just one thing, and that was it man.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. I love that. I just did, oh man, I did kind of like a business challenge with Rylee Meek and Steve Weatherford. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with them.
Dylan Ogline: I’m not, no.
Tyzer Evans: Steve Weatherford, he played in the NFL, and Rylee Meek is a little bit in your space. But they talk about once you’re in alignment you’ll find your assignment, right? So it’s constantly I think sometimes you have to hone in and get in alignment with yourself, and like everything kind of just organically happens a bit easier. Now, one of the things that’s always interest me, and I’ve struggled with this a bit, is finding mentors and people that can help you and push you, and kind of guide you. How instrumental has that been for you?
Dylan Ogline: I cannot put into words how important mentorship or just having like a reference point where somebody who can say, “Yup, just keep going.” Like as stupid as that is, like that is so critical. I think we talked before the show that I play hockey, so I was just blessed to have incredible coaches, just met random mentors who were incredible, gave me a ton of education. Yeah, I cannot put into words how important it is.
If you can’t find them, you’re just not meeting people in your circle, just read books. Like for me, I’ve never met Tim Ferriss, but “The 4-Hour Work Week” changed my life. And like I would consider him a mentor. I’ve never met Robert Kiyosaki. I think he’s the writer of “Rich Dad Poor Dad.” Huge mentor of mine. I’ve never met the guy. So if you can’t, if you’re not meeting people in your community or just in your life that can be mentors, just read books or follow people who are where you want to be, and I think that’s a huge way. And then also I pay for a ton of like masterminds, and education, and stuff like that, training programs, and whatnot. And again, it’s just kind of a reference point, like hey, I’m heading in the right direction.
Tyzer Evans: Okay. You hit on exactly the thing that I have had to do, right? I’d say my father-in-law, I’m lucky, he’s been a good mentor of mine, businesswise. But like I’m a huge proponent of Grant Cardone, I’ve got his little “Millionaire Booklet” right there. I did his boot camp last week. I’ve never met him, but I’m really interested in real estate, so I think that people miss the opportunity to realize that you have exposure to literally anybody nowadays in a space that you want to get into.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. One comment on that is I think you’ve mentioned Grant Cardone. I think he’s extremely motivating. I think you don’t look for like the perfect mentor. I don’t think that’s a good idea. You want to look for somebody that you just kind of vibe with. Somebody that you’re like, “This guy is cool. Or this girl, like she’s just so awesome, or he’s so awesome.” Just find somebody and then just follow like typically one person.
So I use the example of two, obviously, Tim Ferriss and Robert Kiyosaki. Robert Kiyosaki’s mostly business and money. Tim Ferriss is mostly lifestyle. I’m not following like four different people or mentors on how to start a business, or how to do this, or how to do that. Really just try to pick like one person, maybe two, and just follow that person’s advice. Cause the truth is if they got where they are, probably their advice is pretty good. Looking for like the perfect mentor is just not a good idea.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. I like that. I think that the common theme for you is kind of simplicity in your life, right, man? I mean but there’s a lot to be said for that, which is just one in, and having extreme focus.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. Yeah.
Tyzer Evans: Takes you different places. I was listening to Kiyosaki this morning when I was doing my cardio.
Dylan Ogline: Oh really?
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, one of his, and he was going off about the pandemic, but that’s a whole other topic. But I love listening to his material, he’s a really insightful guy. Another real estate guy, that’s something that really kind of fascinates me.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah, he’s big into real estate, so.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Now, you said you have students, so what is that about?
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. So I have an education company. It’s just ran under my personal name. I mean I have like an LLC and everything, but it’s just dylanogline.com. And that is for teaching people how to start and grow their own digital agency. That actually started couple years ago like just while I was building things. Like even whenever I was still struggling and doing terrible, I would just meet people at industry events, or chamber of commerce events, all kinds of things.
And they would just be like, “Oh man, I’d love to start my own business.” And I was like, “Oh cool, I can kind of give back and kind of be someone’s mentor.” So I did that, nobody got any results because they were never committed. I finally learned that lesson after a few years. But yeah, and then I was really passionate about that, and I kept going back to it, even though I wasn’t making any money from it.
And then once my agency hit seven figures, I kind of stopped, and kind of looked back, and I was like, “I’m just going to keep aiming higher, and I’m not getting more satisfied.” So I mean which is a very privileged and lucky place to be for sure. And I was like I’m really passionate about this like coaching and teaching thing. I mentioned that I’ve had incredible coaches in my life who had a huge influence on me. It was kind of like I kind of want to do that. So I still have the agency, but now most of my time my focus goes towards the education company.
Tyzer Evans: Oh, that’s cool. I think there’s a lot that what Tony Robbins says, “Living is giving,” right?
Dylan Ogline: Oh yeah.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: I love Tony.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, yeah, me too. He’s awesome. Now if you could define a little bit, because I want to go back, I still think a lot of people would be upset if I didn’t ask the question. Because we understand where you went to where you are, and you were kind of just talking about, “Hey, I just went back to my old clients, right, and I said maybe someone I built a banner for, or I helped them with a Facebook page, or I did a logo, and I went back.” And so you went back, and you kind of went all in on them, and said, “Hey, let me just take over the marketing.” So you walk us a little bit of your process of how you’re able to scale so quickly. It’s super impressive, man. Even making $100,000 a month for a lot of people is life-changing. But to be able to make, I know the exact numbers, make $83,000 a month gets you a million bucks. That’s hard. That’s very hard.
Dylan Ogline: I always look at weekly. Not to interrupt your question.
Tyzer Evans: No, no, no, yeah.
Dylan Ogline: I apologize, but I used to have a post-it note on my wall in my freezing basement. It was $1,923 and change. I forget what the pennies were. $1,923 if I got to that. Like I wasn’t trying to get to just one week where I randomly got a $2,000 check. It was I wanted to average $1,923 or more over the previous 23 weeks. Which is weird, it’s almost half a year, but I’m obsessed with the number 23.
Tyzer Evans: Okay. Yeah, that’s good.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah, I kept a spreadsheet, and it was just every week like every Monday or Friday, I would do my bookkeeping, and like I’d put in like how much revenue did I do this week. I had that spreadsheet calculate what was the rolling average over the last 24 weeks and it was $1,923 was what I wanted to get to because that got me to six figures. And obviously seven figures is just add another zero, so $19,230. So I apologize for interrupting.
Tyzer Evans: No, no, it’s good.
Dylan Ogline: I remember that post-it note.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. No, that’s awesome. I think visualizing where you want to get is super powerful. It’s one of my morning routines for me personally. So really my question was though how did you tactfully-- because this is where the sales piece comes about-- how did you start to tactfully start to scale? Was it your old clients are dried up, how do we move forward? Is it just online? Are you picking up the phone? A little bit of both? How are we starting to scale this?
Dylan Ogline: Well, if you mean by picking up the phone, cold-calling, like hell no. I despise cold-calling. Currently right now our agency we do seven figures off of less than ten clients. So it’s not a lot of clients. And that’s something I teach is like you want to-- which I’ll bring this around to your question-- you want to focus on just a particular niche or something like that. Because as you onboard clients, if you’re continuously like in the same niche, you’re going to get better and better. And the better you get with the clients, the more their spending’s going to go up.
And us, particularly, we charge 10% of ad spend. So if the client spends $50,000 a month in ads, we send them an invoice or $5,000. Summarizing what we do. So if they spend $50,000 and they see a positive ROI, they’re going to be like, “Well, let’s do it $70,000 next month,” and then the more and more. That’s how it grows. When it comes to sales, it’s not like I sold 100 people into the agency.
So bringing this back to your question, so what I did was I reached out to previous client. I at the time was doing some ad management, but it was maybe $500 a month in revenue. So I knew how to do it, like I had the baseline knowledge. And so I just went to clients, and I was like, “Hey, I’m also offering this service.” I think I got maybe one or two. Like that’s all it was. And that kind of allowed me to scale up.
And then because I was focusing on just one product, one service, and like a few different verticals, then I was able to start doing Google Ads, and spend couple hundred bucks on Google Ads. And you’re able to get a new client where you’re going to be making typically several thousand dollars a year off of them. So once I got a little bit of money into the business, I had no problem ramping up that Google Adwords budget, and that was it. That’s all it was. It was a lot easier than what you would think.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Well, it’s what would they call it, symbiotic relationship, right? As you’re growing them, like you’re growing yourself.
Dylan Ogline: Absolutely.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: 100%, man.
Tyzer Evans: Which is super, super cool. I never even thought about it in those terms, like obviously I’m not very good at marketing. But, no, I love that idea because that goes back to your 80/20 principle as well.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah.
Tyzer Evans: Right? And so it all plays hand in hand. I’m getting a real good picture, Dylan, of the playbook here.
Dylan Ogline: Had some green juice.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, looks like something my wife would drink.
Dylan Ogline: My girlfriend makes them for me.
Tyzer Evans: She’s a holistic nutritionist, so she’s…
Dylan Ogline: Oh, that’s awesome, man, that’s awesome.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Yeah. She always threatens me I can’t stay out of shape, but I want to stay married, so hopefully she doesn’t listen to this. So when you read “The 4-Hour Work Week,” I read that too, and that’s actually what prompted me to launch my first ecommerce business. I was super inspired by it. So what about that book, was it the lifestyle, was it the info, what about that really kind of inspired you?
Dylan Ogline: What I took away from it was two main things. Which, for those of you who haven’t read it, it’s not actually about working four hours a week.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: If you remember from the book, I think he talks about this in the book. He used I think it was Google Ads, he just like ran a couple tests. One of the things he talks about is just testing things in the marketplace. He ran a couple tests to like a blank landing page and just seen what had the highest click through rate, and the title “4-Hour Work Week” had the highest click through rate. So it’s not about working four hours a week.
It’s really about what I took away from it was two main things. One was the 80/20 method. We’re conditioned in the United States especially, like if you’re not working 40 hours a week you’re kind of lazy. What are you doing? Especially if you have your own business, like you should be working 100 hours a week, what’s wrong with you? Like that’s how it needs to be. I grew up in that culture, I’m from a town where I stuck out like a sore thumb because it was like I could actually travel eventually once I got the business going. And that kind of mentality is very frowned upon still in this country.
So that kind of 80/20, just focusing on the 20% of things that give you 80% of your results. That was just blew my world. And I actually I was like I read it, and then I actually like looked at things, and I was like, “Wow, like 80% of my income is coming from 20% of my clients, and 80% of my problems are coming from 20% of my clients.”
Tyzer Evans: That needs to be said again.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things I teach is actually fire bad clients. Like don’t waste your time on clients. Because sometimes you just have people who are unreasonable. So I took that away from that book just blew my world, and the other was just the idea of lifestyle design. At the time when I picked that book up, all I wanted was an office, and to commute to work, and live a miserable office lifestyle. Like that’s what I wanted because that was what I was taught was like that’s the goal is to have this office with full-time employees, and get a fancier office, and increase your budget.
And just the idea of like, you don’t actually have to do that. And it might be more efficient and you might have a better life if you’re working from home or working while you travel around the world. Yeah, that rocked my world. And I remember when I picked that book up, and I read it, and I was like, I talked to my girlfriend about it. I was like, “I will have this life.” It took me like three or four years, but eventually got there.
Tyzer Evans: Hey, and the longevity of things that’s very quick. And congrats to you on your success, man.
Dylan Ogline: Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: I’m very blessed. Very lucky.
Tyzer Evans: Which is incredible what you’ve created. But I’m sure there were some more than 40-hour work weeks put in.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I’ve always kind of worked out, and kept relatively healthy, but I remember going to the gym at 6:00 AM because I hadn’t gone to sleep yet. Like it wasn’t like I got up early, it was like no, like oh man, I got to go to bed some time here, but like I haven’t gotten to the gym yet. So I’ll go to the gym at 6:00 in the morning, or going for runs at 5:00. And everybody’s like, “Oh man, that Dylan guy, he got up real early to go for a run this morning.” I’m like, “What the hell you talking about, dude? I haven’t gone to sleep yet.”
Tyzer Evans: I’m keeping it rolling, man.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. It was lots of Monster Energy Drink. At least I was doing the low-carb version. Not getting the sugar. But it was really bad, and now I get seven to eight hours of sleep every night. It’s a world of difference. World of difference. What about you? You mentioned you’re wife. You’re keeping healthy.
Tyzer Evans: Oh yeah, I got a pretty good morning routine. I go to bed usually 9:30, I’m up at about a quarter to 5:00, and I kind of go through a meditation practice. I just started doing some Wim Hof breathing exercises.
Dylan Ogline: I’m aware of him. Yeah. That’s the guy’s name, right, Wim Hof?
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, Wim Hof, yeah. He’s a Polish guy. So I basically about the last month incorporate it, but then I do some affirmations, a visualization practice. Depending on how long it all kind of takes me. I don’t like to put a timer on my meditation. I like to kind of just go. Usually it’s ten to 30 minutes. I like to journal and read if I can in the morning, and then I try to get to the gym by about 6:10, and then done by about 7:05, and then I’m in the office by about 7:40.
Dylan Ogline: That’s awesome, man.
Tyzer Evans: So pretty regimented. And I do that six days a week. I coach my son’s basketball on Saturday.
Dylan Ogline: That’s cool.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. So that’s the only time. It’s like herding cats coaching five and six year olds.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah, that’s not coaching, that’s like daycare, man.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s how I timed it all. I’ll sleep in till 6:30 and then kind of get up and make breakfast for the family and stuff.
Dylan Ogline: Got you, man.
Tyzer Evans: But, yeah, I think it’s super important to live a healthy lifestyle. Because it goes hand in hand with your cognitive functionality. Even at my desk I’ve got fish oil, alpha brain, coffee’s always black. I just try to keep the body running.
Dylan Ogline: Oh, absolutely, man. There’s a world of difference. And just like everything you mentioned except for the journaling is pretty much that summarizes my morning. I also do like a little bit of yoga stretching just to kind of get the body warmed up. But I absolutely believe the first and last hour of your day defines your life. If you’re one of those people who like I used to be where you’re drinking Monster like an hour before bed just to get a little bit more work done and then crashing into bed.
I mean that summarizes your life right there, and you’re getting up, and immediately hitting work and going to your laptop. Like, well that probably summarizes your life, and there’s your sign, there’s your problem. There’s a lot to be said about that.
Tyzer Evans: Do you do anything special before you go to bed?
Dylan Ogline: So right now kind of my timing’s got mixed up with COVID, I got to admit. But I stopped working two hours before bed, trying to read for about a half hour, and probably three or four nights out of the week I do I think it’s called a Japanese onsen. I don’t know, I think I picked this up from Tim. I’ve also been to Asia a couple times and like experienced the culture there.
Tyzer Evans: Sure.
Dylan Ogline: But they do this thing where basically you get into really hot water like right before bed. Like basically you’re soaking in hot water. You’re not doing a bubble bath. Like I’m not putting on some romantic music and like sitting in the bubbles and drinking a glass of wine. So I’ll drink tea, and cold ice water, and get into like the hottest water I can possible stand with some Epsom salt, and just kind of soak for like ten to 15 minutes. And I guess this is like a popular thing in Japanese culture, and it elevates your body temperature, so that whenever you get out your body is diverting all of its resources to lower your temperature, and it just knocks you out.
Tyzer Evans: Wow.
Dylan Ogline: And, dude, I sleep like a baby.
Tyzer Evans: I got to try that because I go to bed early because I have a lot of issues sleeping, for me, personally. Well last night was a crazy exception. We had our smoke detectors went off at 2:30 AM.
Dylan Ogline: Oh, that’s lovely, yes.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: I had that problem too a couple times.
Tyzer Evans: Fire. Fire. Fire. And then they shut off, and I get back in bed, and then I got a fire truck outside about ten minutes later so.
Dylan Ogline: Are you serious?
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. They came.
Dylan Ogline: Oh, that’s great.
Tyzer Evans: I had five firefighters in my house at 3:00 in the morning. I was like okay.
Dylan Ogline: Oh man, that’s brutal. I’m sorry to hear that, man.
Tyzer Evans: No fire though so that’s good.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah, I guess that is a plus. That is a plus.
Tyzer Evans: That is a plus. Yeah. We just bought the house and we just finished remodeling the kitchen last week so my wife would have been a little pissed if the house would have gone up so.
Dylan Ogline: That would have been bad. Yeah.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Cool, any other success habits that you have that you would recommend to people?
Dylan Ogline: Success habits. I would repeat that the first and last hour of your day define your life. It’s not sexy. Most people are looking for a sales hack, or what’s the secret to get Facebook ads working? And, no, like we’ve talked about simplicity, I don’t believe that there’s any secret hacks or anything there. Like just you need to be focused, you need to take care of your body, you need to take care of yourself, take care of your mind. A lot of what you talked about like with that morning routine I do the same thing. I do affirmations. I have like a PDF document that I pull up. I go through that every morning. I meditate for ten to 15 minutes. I eat healthy, which is obviously pretty important.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: So I do that. There’s a little bit of intermittent fasting, and take care of your body, and stuff like that. Like I said, it’s not sexy, but that stuff matters. Especially, as I think, we get more and more into creative work. I talk about this in my program where a lot of people they come into the work culture with like this you have to work a hundred hours a week, and be unhealthy, and just all that matters is the grind. There is some to be said of that.
Obviously, the name of the podcast is grind. But, man, you’re not going to be creative if you’re eating shitty foods, and getting four hours of sleep a night, and not taking care of yourself. So if you’re in any kind of creative industry, which is like 95% of people these days, you got to take care of yourself. Your mind matters. I think that would be my success habit of the day.
Tyzer Evans: No, I love that. I mean, honestly, one of the reasons why I started this podcast because I think it is important to have a strong work ethic with anything that you do to do with discipline. But I’m not a proponent of like the Gary V mentality of like, fuck vacations for 15 years, and I’m going to work 18 hours a day, I’m going to work my face off. Like I respect that dude tremendously.
Dylan Ogline: Oh, absolutely.
Tyzer Evans: Right, but not everybody wants to have a $250 million company. I know a lot of people that wonder like, “How do I just get to $100,000?” You know what I mean? Like how do I just get to $100,000, and do it, and I can just be happy? And I can enjoy my children, and we can go on three vacations a year. And there’s nothing wrong with that, and I think that that’s sometimes it gets a little over glorified what is working way, way, way too much. And so I like the simplicity of just keep it mellow. Be happy whatever that is to you.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah, absolutely. And I think mentioning that six figures, man. There’s a world of difference between making $50,000 and $100,000. There’s not much difference between making $100,000 and $150,000. Like there’s a diminishing rates of return. Like there’s a huge increase in quality of life once you hit $100,000, and then it kind of like really flat lines. If you have the grind to go to $100 million business, like awesome, dude. But don’t work yourself into a heart attack, like we’re going to die.
Like spend time with your family, actually enjoy life. And I have found once I actually kind of took a couple vacations and like worked while I traveled and kind of lived that digital nomad lifestyle. I found that I actually got better. That’s kind of a dirty secret is like you actually can get better, especially if you’re doing a creative industry where like you have to think and you have to put your creativity into things. If you’re actually traveling the world and not miserable behind your desk, you might actually get better at what you’re doing.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: Who would have known?
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, I know. No, I like that. And that was a hard lesson for me was learning how to take time off. Because I had such a scarcity mindset for so long that if I’m not at work I’m going to miss something. I’m going to miss the next sale. And it was really my wife that got me to be like. And I think that COVID as a good lesson for a lot of people too that A: you can work anywhere and still get your job done. And so like right now we’re in fourth quarter, or in my industry we do 50% of our business in the next three months. And we’re going to Park City at the end of this month, and Big Bear next month, and everybody’s like, “You’re crazy.” I’m like, “Why am I crazy, man?” Like I can go set up at a coffee shop in the snow with my family and like be just as efficient. I’ve already proved that for six months, you know?
Dylan Ogline: Yeah. Yeah. I think we were heading that way to begin with and then COVID just it taught everybody like, “Oh wow, my employees can actually work from home.” People don’t have to star their own business. You could be an employee, and be virtual, and do your job. You can be in sales and still do your job remotely and actually enjoy your life and not be miserable.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s a super important lesson.
Dylan Ogline: Yeah, absolutely, and it just shook a lot of people. And I think, in the end, that’ll be something that once we come out of this that’ll be a huge thing, a huge positive that’ll come out of this.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, I agree.
Dylan Ogline: No doubt about it.
Tyzer Evans: Any predictions for tomorrow?
Dylan Ogline: Well, you’re from Texas, right? No, yeah, are you from Texas?
Tyzer Evans: No, I’m from California, but I’ve spent some time in Atlanta, and I spent some time in obviously Houston, I’ve been in Houston for about 18 months. I keep my cards pretty close because no one ever knows. I grew up in the Bay Area, went to college in San Diego, was in Atlanta, now I’m in Houston. So I’m a wildcard.
Dylan Ogline: Predictions. I think Biden’s going to. We’re not going to get a winner tomorrow. I don’t think that.
Tyzer Evans: I don’t think so either.
Dylan Ogline: From what I’ve heard, especially with the number of mail-in votes, and are you comfortable talking about politics on your show?
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Yeah. I read that you were so I was just.
Dylan Ogline: I mean, I’ll talk about it all day long.
Tyzer Evans: So I threw a curveball at you.
Dylan Ogline: I think with the number of mail-in ballots in some states. I’m pretty sure Pennsylvania is one of them where they prevented them from counting them until tonight at midnight they can’t even start and it takes like four times longer to count a mail-in ballot. So because of that, we’re not going to get final counts tomorrow. Which we never do, like that’s important to point out. It’s not like every single time in our history all the ballots are counted on election day. Like that’s just not how it works. Like they count them after that but the get to a certain point where they’re like, “Hey, 90% of tallied, and like this person’s way ahead.” So that’s how that works. Some people aren’t aware of that. So I think Biden’s going to win. I am a former Republican, let me point that out.
Tyzer Evans: Okay. All right.
Dylan Ogline: But I’m a liberal now. I pray for the republic. Again, I’m trying to walk in a thin line with you because I don’t know you’re from Texas, man. I’ll say this, I believe with Trump, it is beyond tax policy, or foreign policy, or healthcare. I mean we’re talking about the role of law, and we’re talking about like norms and like how we do things in this country. And I mean I don’t think anybody could argue that our country is in a better place now than what it was four years ago. So if it was like Mitt Romney, like I almost voted for Mitt Romney.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah.
Dylan Ogline: And if there was like a Mitt Romney like running this time, I might vote for him.
Tyzer Evans: Sure.
Dylan Ogline: But I think tomorrow it’s a decision between the republic staying together or us collapsing. That is my opinion.
Tyzer Evans: I’m a Libertarian, so I get to play both sides.
Dylan Ogline: You do.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah, I was a huge Ron Paul supporter back in the day. And really, I was a Rand Paul supporter going into the 2016. I did vote for Trump the first time just because I know too much about the Clintons’ past and I didn’t feel comfortable with that. I was a huge, huge fan of Tulsi going into this, and I thought the Democratic Party really kind of fucked up by not putting her as a nominee. Because she had so much going for her the party said that they wanted, and so that was really disappointing to me. So I think for most of the country it put us in, again, a precarious position which we’ve seen play out time and time and time again. Which is why I think the two party system is broken, the term limits got to be fixed, right?
Dylan Ogline: 100%. Not to jump in front of you there, but 100% agree with that. I personally was a big Bernie supporter. I liked Bernie. Mostly for healthcare. But no, I think two party system is absolutely terrible for our country. Not only is it broken, it’s terrible for our country. Term limits, like no shit we need that. But I think mostly the thing is, is like most people kind of already agree with that. Like Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians, Democrats, the hardcore Liberals, they agree that we should have term limits. And people should be able to vote and all those things. It’s just it’s gotten so broken, and so dirty, and that is what I think I’m more scared of than anything.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Yeah, the key word’s dirty. It’s not been fun to watch play out. And as a father, you’re kind of like, “Man, what’s the example on both sides that we’re setting for the children?” And that gets lost. Any time I look at my Facebook feed I want to throw up.
Dylan Ogline: Even though I made my money off of Facebook. Don’t use Facebook. I tell everybody I know like don’t use Facebook at all. Like maybe have a profile to check up on your family, but do not ever scroll down. Don’t. It will eat your mind.
Tyzer Evans: It’s garbage. It’s garbage.
Dylan Ogline: It’s total shit, man. Absolutely.
Tyzer Evans: Dylan, it’s been super good chatting with you, man. I’ve enjoyed this conversation. Besides “4-Hour Work Week,” is there any other books that you would recommend to people?
Dylan Ogline: The two undoubtedly would be “4-Hour Work Week” and “Rich Dad Poor Dad.”
Tyzer Evans: Perfect.
Dylan Ogline: They’re simple, easy, and digestible. And absolutely changed my life. If I had to pick two, those would be it.
Tyzer Evans: Good.
Dylan Ogline: I know you can’t see behind me, but I got a ton. This is actually, right there, that’s like my political section.
Tyzer Evans: Oh good.
Dylan Ogline: Two shelves of political books up there, some stoicism, yeah, I got a ton of books.
Tyzer Evans: That’s important, man.
Dylan Ogline: I read a lot.
Tyzer Evans: I do too. That’s one of the things I had posted a thing on Instagram like, I don’t know, it was a week and a half ago. And I had like read Mary Trump’s book, right, but then right next to it I had “Liberal Privilege” by Trump Jr., and I’ve got a “Mother Jones” magazine, but then I’ve got “The Economist” right there. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s important to have a full scope of everything because that’s how you make informed decisions, which unfortunately, doesn’t happen as much anymore. So I can appreciate you doing your due diligence.
Dylan Ogline: Sure.
Tyzer Evans: Where can people connect with you?
Dylan Ogline: If you’re looking for an agency to manage your ads, oglinedigital.com. Should probably put it in the show notes. And then if you’re looking to start your own digital agency, visit dylanogline.com, and join the waiting list there.
Tyzer Evans: Cool, man. I really appreciate it. Appreciate your time. It’s been a fun conversation.
Dylan Ogline: Absolutely, man.
Tyzer Evans: I appreciate you being open-minded to some wacky questions there at the end.
Dylan Ogline: No problem. I love talking politics and I’m an open book, man, absolutely.
Tyzer Evans: Yeah. Appreciate it. All right, well thanks, Dylan.
Dylan Ogline: Hey, thank you, Ty. Have a good one.