The Ignorance Tax: How to Build a Lean, Automated Solo Business with Paul Durelli

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

Hi Paul, welcome back to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Paul Durelli (: 00:06

Thanks, Brett. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be back. I think it's been a year since our first meeting here.

Brett Trainor (: 00:12

Yeah, I had to go, I'm terrible with how far back in time thing is. So I went and looked at Becky. was August 1st of 2024. So it's been a year plus and if, it almost feels like six years, right? The way everything's moving. Um, yeah. And just to, catch everybody up. the last time you were here, you were focused on the early, you were one of the early people I talked to that was looking at AI and how to help small businesses and solopreneurs.

Paul Durelli (: 00:19

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 00:26

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 00:38

move through it, you also saw and found the power of the VA world virtual assistants, right? You know, everybody should be doing folks what they do best. But at the time you were looking at Hollywood and some of these other things and we connected, not too long ago. And you're like, Hey, I'm in healthcare. I'm like, interesting. Right. That the change in pace. And as we were talking a little bit, I'll find it dawned on me. You're kind of what helping medical professionals escape their version of corporate.

Right. That's caught in the red tape, the bureaucracy, everything else to move into, to functional medicine. So it's not just corporate in the business world, but medical is seeing quite a few things. So I'm like, you know what? Perfect time to bring you back onto the podcast and kind of talk about what you've been up to, where you see the opportunities. And again, folks, as you're listening, think of the opportunity. Just don't, like I said, when I started the podcast.

It was probably well before even some of the escapee world, but it was about consulting and fractional, which are all very realistic pathways. But I like to bring people like Paul on who's thinking outside of the box and seeing where there's opportunity. If you're a problem solver, this episode I think should open your eyes. So with all that, Paul, welcome back.

Paul Durelli (: 01:58

Thank you, Brett. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be back. You know, I'm a big fan of your show and your TikTok and all of what you're doing and you're reporting about the different things. A lot of the fallout and then a lot of the people that are bubbling up finding their solution, like you said, to different problems. They're, you know, bubbling up in the fallout of all of this as well, right? So it's always problem, solution, orientation, right?

Brett Trainor (: 02:24

100%.

Paul Durelli (: 02:26

And so I was mentioning that, or you noticed that I now moved a little bit with a little bit of a strong focus in the healthcare solution because I saw, I did some research. I'm always health minded myself, someone, a good friend of mine recommended Casey Means, Dr. Casey Means book, which is Good Energy, which is a New York Times bestseller. She's very prominent medical figure in

ad left her license behind in: 2024

Brett Trainor (: 03:22

And maybe before it goes too far, maybe just give us your definition of what functional medicine, I think would just help level set. Cause you said left licensed is, so maybe just a little bit of a breakdown there.

Paul Durelli (: 03:29

Sure.

Yeah, sure. Functional medicine is focusing on the root cause of disease and trying to remedy ailments and diseases through better diet, nutrition, lifestyle, more physical activity, engagement, things of that nature, but really more food and nutritionally based getting down to the...

core food and dietary and nutritional cornerstone of your health so that you can have better longevity and better outcomes. And one of the beauties of that industry, it's not regulated by the American Medical Association or any of the governing bodies of any medical association that might be the issuer of your medical licensure. So this does two things.

One is it gets you out of a regulated environment. Two, it opens up more than just the state that you're practicing in. So you can go online, you have a much larger TAM, which is the total addressable market, which can allow you to easily five to 10 extra income as a medical professional, right? And at the same time, escape what may likely be a toxic work environment.

either because it's, you know, weighed down like by insurance, like you mentioned earlier, but hospitals in general have their own measure of corporate America dysfunction by the powers that be that maintain some holier than thou construct and clamping down on people and trying to, you know, always have some measure of authority and power of what they

Paul Durelli (: 05:24

what you can and cannot do and their code of conduct and so on and so forth, right? I mean, on balance, think medical professionals are generally noble and have good aspirations to be noble in their endeavors, but that doesn't mean they're not gonna fall into a red tape situation.

Brett Trainor (: 05:29

end.

Brett Trainor (: 05:40

Yeah. And again, it's being in, you know, getting older, we have a few more medical things that we got to deal with and deal with the medical world. And, know, the one thing I talk about a lot with the corporate, especially on TikTok is that profits over people playbook, right? I mean, people argue it's been that way in corporate forever, but I'm like, man, we've taken it to the next level in the last two or three years. And I'm seeing, I'm not as

in closer research like you do on the medical, but I'm seeing the same thing, right? I mean, these roll ups of PE firms, they're not doing it for the goodness. They're figuring out how to maximize profitability within what they're doing as well. So it's the different flavor, but the same pressures, right? The same that people want to just earn a good income, do good, do the right things. It's getting harder and harder.

Paul Durelli (: 06:26

For sure, and so what I'm telling these medical professionals is they want to gravitate into that. And for that matter, it even applies to corporate America, non-medical professionals. I think it's worth it to delegate and hire the admin and the outsourcing of having a very organized digital ecosystem so that you can do your marketing and have a good CRM and lead flow and lead follow-up using AI and automation because...

AI and automation now really allow someone to be hyper leveraged as a sole opener, right? But particularly for the medical professionals, they've already had a deep well of academia underneath them. And I say, you know, stay in your zone of genius and outsource the heavy lifting of a very well organized digital ecosystem to someone like me and my team that can get that done for you correctly and really

minimize the learning curve and the adaptation curve, you know, because it is a lot even for someone like me I can more and more I understand how it is very disenchanting to try to roll your sleeves up and On top of everything else you've had to learn in your journey now

You know take on funnels and marketing and AI and automation and all these things. It's too much Honestly, it's it's too much for any one person in unless you're in it on the daily You can get easily overwhelmed and or misguided right, but so

Brett Trainor (: 07:57

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. again, we've had some conversations in the past, but again, kind of through my journey, it's been the same thing, right? When I left corporate, went through, you know, I did solo consulting, then did fractional leadership, picked up and started figuring out different ways to monetize the corporate experience. The plus side of that is I could manage that, right? Because I was working in 25 or 30 hours, I didn't need massive deal flow. It was

easy for me to systematize and manage almost all of that on my own. Where I'm going with this is when I flipped it in about maybe six months ago, when the corporate escapee as a whole, the ecosystem started to blow up and see where there is opportunity. Now all of a sudden I'm working, you know, 50 or 60 hours in those same systems I had as a solo to, you know, build that lifestyle don't work anymore. Right. Because it's, need more people. I still believe 100 % believe I can automate.

most of this with AI and some outsource with some specialists. Just reinforcing where I think you're going with that is, right, depending on what you wanted to pull outside of corporate, you know, but as soon as you start moving up the complexity and want to build a slightly bigger business practice, whatever it is, yeah, it's, you know, the beauty is you can do it solo and you've got people to help. don't have to hire employees to do it, but you got to find this specialist, right? That like to do.

what you're not good at.

Paul Durelli (: 09:25

Yeah, for sure. you know, you're gonna, if you try and go it alone yourself, you're gonna learn a lot, you know, but there's also what's called the ignorance tax, right? That you pay for in the learning curve instead of hiring a professional that actually knows all of these systems. like, I'm forced to look at litany of different systems and I get approached on LinkedIn a lot by different software.

Brett Trainor (: 09:39

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 09:55

and hardware solutions all the time. People that want me to market their solutions for them because of me and my background, right? And so I'm forced and I'll take a look at it. I'll always peel back the layers of any onion just to see if it's valid or not or if it's applicable or not to the different things that I see and do and use. It's worth taking a look, but I can probably do that a lot faster than most people just because I've seen so much, you know?

Brett Trainor (: 10:22

Right.

Paul Durelli (: 10:23

what's happening now in particular, there's so many software solutions you can easily get drowned in like the litany of choices that are available, right? And like particularly right now, I primarily use high level. And one of the reasons I use high level a lot and I advocate for it is because they have a very organized digital ecosystem with CRM, with AI automation. And then they also have a very well-built

Brett Trainor (: 10:38

Okay.

Paul Durelli (: 10:52

phone app that mirrors everything that happens on your computer, which that to me is invaluable because that means you and your team can handle everything on a mobile device, you know, if need be, which means you can literally be on vacation or different time zones, you know, if you need to and still you can unplug but still have access to be able to peer in to what's going on in your ecosystem.

without having to go pull your laptop out every time, especially when you're on vacation or when you're traveling or, know, because me, as much as I love, you know, online and work and technology and all of that, there are times when I unplug. Like I haven't done any of my TikToks, but you know, I take my uncle down to the beach. I really like going down to the beach a lot, because it's a source of, you know, rejuvenation and ventilation for me. So there's times where I really just want to get away from technology.

Brett Trainor (: 11:28

minute.

Paul Durelli (: 11:51

but I can still have access to my Go High Level app and my whole team and it just makes it a lot easier. And the other big thing that's happened is, many years ago, back when I was doing this for enterprise solutions, you had to use Marketo or Silverpop or Salesforce or HubSpot or PipeDriver, one of these other top tier solutions, which are very expensive and generally a very hard startup cost for

for someone that's just starting out. And now you get all of the benefits of what used to be available only at an enterprise solution using Go HighLabs.

Brett Trainor (: 12:31

Interesting. Yeah. I'm pulling it up right now as we're talking, because that's one I haven't tested. you interesting in the community just yesterday, there was a discussion around tools. It was really centered more around learning management systems. And I just give them, I'll give you my, my two cents of where I'm at. So I started with Kajabi, right? Cause I liked the idea of all in one because I was starting a community. I was going to do these other things.

But now I'm in the process of winding rap, ramping off of Kajabi because the community tool wasn't great. it didn't work for me. The website tool is hard to manage. so even though it was an all in one, was spending way too much time unless I brought a Kajabi expert in, but then there's just a whole process. So my, like I said, I'm now using Stan store to help with the course and some of the downloads, and just kind of diversified. So.

It's one of those back into our corporate days, right? As you take best of breed and stitch them together, are you looking for the all in one that usually gives up? So are you seeing that again, let's talk about the escapees, right? Whether corporate or medical, is this one of the tools you're seeing as the backbone for escapees then?

Paul Durelli (: 13:50

Absolutely, because look if you look at your client acquisition journey, right? You go on tick-tock you advertise you put your link tree on there your stance or whatever you want to do The way I do it I'm in the process of modifying mine, too But I my thing is have them go to a link tree on that link tree They can opt into whatever you want them to opt in as your offerings But when they're opting into that you really want SMS and email accessibility

Brett Trainor (: 13:56

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 14:18

Right? And you want AI to be able to keep them engaged because on Go High level, for example, they'll opt into whatever form or download you have or offerings that you're having. Now they're in your ecosystem. Now you can have full automation with AI and or virtual assistants, you know, so you can blend it. But you can have them say, hey, Brett, you know, thanks for joining my newsletter. Here's some additional info you might be interested in this and that.

And having that immediacy in response and follow up with your clients, A, shows you're on par with current day standard of organized client acquisition systems. But B, you're getting them to reengage with you in the moment when they're ready to engage. You're meeting them at the doorstep.

Brett Trainor (: 15:16

Right.

Paul Durelli (: 15:17

Does that make sense? At the threshold and that's invaluable because a lot of times people when they're coming to your website and they want more info, they want that more info now. If they don't get it, they're gonna go off, wander off to somebody else's website and you've lost them. So let's say on, in fact, if you go to digitalguna.ai, whatever your ticket, your medium ticket or low ticket item is, there's a calculator there. Let's say you lost

Brett Trainor (: 15:18

Yeah, it does.

Brett Trainor (: 15:30

He's going somewhere else.

Paul Durelli (: 15:48

25 or 30 % of opportunities that come to your website just because you don't have AI following up with them, you know, because you could be away and the AI is following up and then later you're getting those notifications and then you can say, this guy, Brett, was in my website and he downloaded my newsletter and he signed up. Now, the AI was handling it earlier, but now it's an hour or two later when you're done with your podcast and you can say, hey, Brett.

I was in the middle of a podcast. I noticed you signed up for my newsletter. I'd love to learn more about what you do, blah, blah. And then you're keeping the thread of all these conversations organized, you know, in the CRM that they provide. And then you can reach them via SMS and email because email is getting harder and harder to get into the inbox. Spam filtering has gotten harder. So having SMS is another huge, I think,

Brett Trainor (: 16:37

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 16:43

leverage component because you're able to access them directly on SMS.

Brett Trainor (: 16:49

Yeah, makes sense. And the other one I was starting to test and haven't got too far is less annoying CRM. I don't know if you've tested or played with that one at all.

Paul Durelli (: 17:00

No, I haven't even seen it. Less annoying CRM?

Brett Trainor (: 17:03

Yeah, it's a great name for it. But like I said, again, one of my things definitely, since I've got into this space is triangulating when I hear different people talk about different tools. And this is probably the third or fourth time I've heard from escapee folks about high level. So I've added it to my list to check in and I guess, you know, back to.

Paul Durelli (: 17:06

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 17:25

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 17:30

We should even take that step back. again, I love the work that you're doing. And I think there's, gets into the optimization piece, but you start to think about this upfront. think part of it, again, if you just want to work 20 hours a week, you probably don't need to automate. There's things you could probably do, but when you want to get a little bit bigger, got to manage multiple clients. You got a lead flow that's coming in. You're putting the time and effort into your content. You want to have this process. And so.

Like I said, it's been a while since I've had a systems person back on. your timings, your timing's good. And so if I may let me say I'm still still in corporate or you're still in your case when you're working with medical, what are some of the things that you or I, as I'm working with potential escapees can coach them on of how to start to set this up? Cause right now I focus almost entirely on, know, what is the problem you want to solve, right? Who are you going to solve this for?

Paul Durelli (: 18:05

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 18:28

and how do we connect with those folks. But there is a business side of this, a process side that it doesn't hurt to start building the foundations early because then once it gets picked up, you're not starting from scratch. Back to the corporate days, you don't want to clean your data when you're a $100 million company because it's way too late. So what are your thoughts on that?

Paul Durelli (: 18:50

No, that's exactly a valid point. So that's why I think it's so important to get organized from the get-go. Then you have a strong foundation. Because if you're organized well enough from the get-go, something like Go High Level can let you scale at infinite. You know what mean? You can...

Because then it's very easy to bring on team members and integrate them in the go high level as admins or whatever VAs or whatever you need to and the AI is continually getting more and more robust and in fact now the AI has gotten just as last week so sophisticated they're having many of people have them and you can integrate it as a third party in the go high level but now go high level is their own AI for outbound calling as well

which is huge, you know, that's huge follow-up for small businesses and things of that nature. They have missed call texts back, things of that nature. And also anyone that does it with me, I actually integrate the Americans Disability Act widget onto their site. And that affords you a $5,000 federal tax credit every year to your business moving forward. But most people don't know how to do that correctly to get that $5,000 federal tax credit every year.

and every year moving forward. You have to do a research and development declaration and along with knowing the proper... I actually put that together. There's a five minute free training on digitalfujuna.com and then if you buy the widget from me, it's a 13 minute training and I give you all the documentation including the IRS forms so you can do it yourself with your accountant or CPA.

Brett Trainor (: 20:31

There you go folks, you just listened and saved yourself 5,000 a year because of you tuned into this podcast. that's awesome. Yeah, and I'll make sure to, we'll link to that for sure. if I don't have it,

Paul Durelli (: 20:38

Absolutely. Yeah, I...

Paul Durelli (: 20:47

I'll email it to you, yeah exactly. But if you go to Digital Kahuna, you go to my link tree and then in the link tree you'll see the ADA $5,000 federal tax credit. So it's a no-brainer because I charge just under $600 to do it but you get a 10x ROI on that every year to your business. So it's really a no-brainer. And some of the other companies, just so know, another big company, several others have...

reached me regarding this ADA widget wanting me to promote theirs and I finally got my own. And they're not showing you how to get the $5,000 federal tax credit. A lot of them are charging north of $1,500.

Brett Trainor (: 21:28

Yeah. So it's such, and it just, if we don't mind going with me on tangent here down in rabbit hole, cause one of the things I've been like super focused on is I need to come up with a better term, but you know, the least common denominator of value, right? So small businesses need help X, Y, and Z. What's the one thing that's always provide value that us as escapees can provide these small businesses, they're going to get the value, but we still get paid. I think you just.

gave me one, right? Which is this ADA. Every small business puts it on there. That small business can save $5,000 in a tax credit. Why not just build a simple business around, you know, provide, I'm not telling people to go steal your idea because there's more to it, obviously. But, but those are the ideas that I'm looking for. Cause even when you're talking about, um, what you're doing with, with high level, again, that's something you could build a small agency around that says, Hey, I just know high level. can go work with small businesses to do, I'm going to do three things.

These are the three things that I'm going to do. I know there's value. I know every business needs it. And based on my experience, I can go help these businesses. I know I took us off track a little bit, but did that make sense when you uncovered it? you looking for these? I don't want to call them small, because that's a pretty big opportunity at 5K to save. But if they don't know how to do it, you're going to provide a ton of value by showing them how to go get those credits.

Paul Durelli (: 22:37

No, it's okay.

Paul Durelli (: 22:50

Absolutely. And so the other thing I've done actually, reached out or I am in the process, I should say, of reaching out to other tax professionals and telling them that I'll do a revenue share with them 50-50. And the same for anyone in your audience that sends anyone my way. I provide a full transparent dashboard for anyone that signs up as an affiliate of mine and your own private link. And anyone that goes through that link, you get a 50 % revenue share.

on the sale of the widget, you know. But tax professionals in particular or enrolled agents or any of those people, accountants, for them it's a no-brainer because it's one more tool in their arsenal of tools to save their clients money and they send them to my website. I install it on their, I install the widget on their website and...

and they get to show them how to get the $5,000 federal tax credit. And then a lot of times what happens and part of the reason I set it up that way too is because then people will ask me about technology and setup and modifying their website. Maybe they want AI build outs for their business or their admin or whatever they want. And then now I may land that person as a client for AI and automation setups or bringing their website up to speed with more current.

formulas and the CRM or if they want to transition into go high level I can do that for them as

Brett Trainor (: 24:16

Yeah, that's awesome. And by the way, offline, I've got somebody I need to connect you with that's in that, that accounting space that could be a good, referral partner for, for both of you. So I'll connect to you offline. And again, it kind of reminds me of the story I got, you know, as you do, probably I get probably 50 pitches a day in LinkedIn about different things. And, know, this one group offered me a free website and like really, I'm like, well,

Paul Durelli (: 24:26

Excellent, thank you. I appreciate that.

Brett Trainor (: 24:42

Great pitch, but how do you make money? She's like, well, what we found is it doesn't take us. We're good at making websites and we're to make you a simple website. And the fact is you probably have other marketing and digital needs that we can help you with. And even if you don't, you probably know one or two people that you would then connect us with that, you know, a genius, right? I got a call with her in two days just to better understand. But again, it's so simple, but better than.

I don't know. just thought it was interesting that that's a good way to connect with people if you have confidence in yourself. Giving away a full website is a big investment, but maybe not as big as it used to be. But if you're looking at the lifetime value of a client, then it kind of makes sense.

Paul Durelli (: 25:18

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 25:29

Yeah, I mean, and I know and I've seen that too and my my reservation and this is the other thing too and I'll say to people like a lot of people with the whole AI thing are throwing out a lot of shiny object AI, you know widgets and whatever solutions but I tell people, know, yeah AI can build you a website but then

What do you do for the CRM and the lead follow up and the AI and automation, the SMS and the email integration? Go High Level has all of that put together better than anyone out there. Other than if you're gonna go to Marketo or Salesforce or an enterprise level solution, but now you're talking three to 10K.

Brett Trainor (: 26:08

One of the bigger ones.

Paul Durelli (: 26:12

and north of that a month, you know, for that type of setup. And that might be the right solution for certain enterprise level scenarios, but for the solo putter, you can't beat Go High Levels value. You know, and also, like I said, I don't even know that any of the other ones, when I used to use them, they didn't have the phone app that has the beautiful integration of the SMS, the CRM, and the email.

Brett Trainor (: 26:27

Right, interesting.

Paul Durelli (: 26:41

into the phone application, which really allows you just an invaluable measure of freedom, mobility in your business. Because now you can literally handle your business 24-7, not that you want to be on 24-7 all the time anyway, but you know.

Brett Trainor (: 27:03

Right.

Paul Durelli (: 27:05

you're not out of touch, you know, because as your business scales, you have more VA, more admins that are higher paying and that you can have them handle, you know, more decision making in your absence and all of that. But in that interim, when you're scaling up into that, you want to stay in the loop of what's happening of your business, you know, as much as possible, you know, at least that's been my experience.

Brett Trainor (: 27:07

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 27:26

Yeah, for sure.

Brett Trainor (: 27:31

No, I think that's right. you know, just the other thing, again, we share the same belief on the AI and everybody wants, right? It's going to solve all the problems. mean, the other thing I'll go back to is unless your data is clean and you have good process, AI is not going to help you, right? It's part of the foundation. And if you build this, where I think the superpower is going to come from is these small mid-size companies. Even Solos can build, right? $2 million Solos businesses now with

AI with VA's and some other partners, but the big businesses can't, right? Because they're siloed and the data goes sideways. But at the end of the day, you still need to get your data clean and your processes clean. And if you can do that, you take a lot of friction out of the business. so again, we're back to the idea side of folks exiting corporate saying, where can I help? mean, just help a small business do kind of what you've cracked.

Paul Durelli (: 28:02

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 28:29

crack the code, guess, and you found a really interesting niche to do it in. But again, I think if somebody just wants to go help 10 small businesses do this type of work, it's foundational type of stuff. think we overcomplicate businesses sometimes, right? We want to go too deep, too far, too fast, and really just need to get the basics right.

Paul Durelli (: 28:45

Yeah, well...

Paul Durelli (: 28:51

Yeah, and I mean, it goes back to what I said. If you're not in my world or you haven't been in my journey, I can't blame you for not being exposed to all of what I've been exposed to, you know, but there again, that is the benefit of dealing with someone like me. I can tell you. Look.

Yeah, you can have a great website, but if you don't have an organized CRM, SMS, and email follow-up digital ecosystem that has AI integrated into it, so you can really leverage yourself and clean data, you're saying, organized data, that you can follow up with leads every two, three months on an as-needed basis, and you can use it in a blend of AI and personal. So the AI handles it on an automation basis.

whatever automation we set up that mirrors your story and your branding and all of that stuff, but then you still have full final control at the end of the day to message them via phone or computer at any given point, intervene there, interject and say, hey, this is the real Brett. I'm jumping in here. My AI bots have been handling the conversation, but this is the real me. If you have time, we can get on a call right now. Boom.

catch them cold, sometimes you get a call, you land the client in two minutes, whereas that level of flexibility and leverage wasn't available before, you know, and it is now, and I think that's the way you gotta really leverage yourself, you know?

Brett Trainor (: 30:22

Yeah, no, for sure. And let's spend the last few minutes because I know you're working with a new type of clientele, right? So they're not leaving corporate. So they may even have less business experience than some of our corporate escapees. What have you seen as some of the challenges and or recommended best practices for the medical folks leaving? Because I think it applies to anybody. So what have you been seeing? Where are people struggling? How can you help them?

I'm going to buy the way I'll give you full credit, but I'm going to use that ignorance tax all the time going forward, right? Because some things you absolutely have to learn on your own, but there's others that are completely avoidable. So the ignorance tax is one. So anyway, back to my question.

Paul Durelli (: 31:01

Well, yeah, and let me tell you another thing about the ignorant stacks and the way to overcome it better and a shameless plug here, but I still think the better solution is hire someone that actually knows what they're doing in the space and you can learn it over time. You will adapt faster by getting shoulder to shoulder with someone that actually knows what they're doing. You know what I mean?

Brett Trainor (: 31:07

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 31:26

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 31:27

You know, and then you'll have a functional system in place and then adapt gradually, but things are still operating correctly. Your assembly line, if you will, is still functioning as it should. Does that make sense? You know, have someone build out the correct AI digital assembly line for you that you need, and then you'll slowly be able to understand it and it'll make more sense for you as you journey along, you know, but.

Brett Trainor (: 31:40

Yeah, it makes sense.

Brett Trainor (: 31:54

So when you get involved with the medical folks, what about in the early stages, right, before there's even anything to automate, right? They're like, hey, I wanna move into this functional medicine. It's a change. What are some of the things they need to think about to get started, right? In the sense of who's your ideal client? Where do you wanna focus on the preventative? So are you, you get involved that early? Are you more that, hey, I'm in this mess now?

I just need to get it organized and start to scale. So I guess maybe I'm trying to ask you, what would you recommend to folks to bridge that gap? Right? So when they're ready to automate, they've got stuff in place, but so what are some of the challenges you're seeing with folks getting started and not make those mistakes?

Paul Durelli (: 32:36

One.

I've seen already, I ran in a couple of doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners that are trying to do it all themselves, because they see these promotions for, yeah, you can build out your funnel for $97 or whatever their hook is or whatever. And then it's really just the hook to another next year, next year, next year, whereas I'm providing more of a customized solution.

Brett Trainor (: 32:53

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 33:07

It's not cheap, but I get you the $5,000 federal tax credit, you know, to anyone that works with me. I almost make it, you know, it's almost, you know, pays for itself. But more importantly, you're asking what I think the challenges are. And it goes back to what I said earlier. You don't want to take on all this technology solo and understand, or you're trying to duct tape a solution together with all of these different

Brett Trainor (: 33:19

Right.

Paul Durelli (: 33:35

like you said, you know, the, was it? Simple CRM or these other. Yeah. Less annoying CRM, you know, I mean, CRMs or CRMs, you know, but, but, I think.

Brett Trainor (: 33:40

Less annoying.

Brett Trainor (: 33:47

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 33:54

They struggle with that and they don't know marketing, they don't know AI, like all of the stuff, all of what's coming on right now, you're have to absorb that. And me and my team just make that learning curve and the launch that much faster. And then that way over time, you can learn that, you can understand it, and you'll learn terminology and things that are applicable that you need to be doing. But ultimately, the other thing too, as I say to people,

You know, someone like Dr. Casey Means has already proved the model. So has Dr. Heyman and several others out there that are already made five, $10 million businesses out of functional medicine. So we don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel, right? There's a lot that can be extrapolated as far as modeling the business model after what we know is already working in those genres. So then they just pick their one or two or three specialties.

and we focus on that, we market to that segment of functional medicine and that demographic. You know what I mean? Especially keep it simple in the beginning, focus on one or two or three, preferably one, but if you want two, two or three specialties, once you get profitable, then you can start to look around and say, wanna go broader, right?

Brett Trainor (: 34:56

sense. It's awesome. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 35:14

Yeah, I always say start with one but be opportunistic with the others. So if something comes knocking, don't say no, but focus on the one till get, yeah, it makes perfect sense.

Paul Durelli (: 35:24

Yeah, and then you also have to see what that other specialty, how well it falls into the fold of your wheelhouse, right? How easily you can add it on as a second or third offering.

Brett Trainor (: 35:32

Right.

Brett Trainor (: 35:39

And if you even want to do it, right. I I use my journey as this small sample size, but right. Started with consulting realized, eh, it wasn't a hundred percent what I want to do. Then got into stuff for actual leadership. I'm like, eh, not quite right. Like the Goldilocks and three bears, right. Too hot, too cold or just right. And it's the same thing. So until you test and make some mistakes. And I think to your point, that's where you should make the mistakes is with the client and learning.

Paul Durelli (: 35:54

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 36:05

the service aspect don't have to make all the mistakes on the backend and the tools and the process because that's not, know, the interesting thing I'm finding in the deeper I get is nobody talks about core competencies anymore, but at end of the day, that's really what this is about, right? Those, those medicine, these medical people, that's their core competency is how do I take everything I've learned and help prevent, right? Some of the things that I treat people for, but yet they don't need to be the digital marketing expert. don't have to be the technology.

It's all the same thing. And even if you look at small businesses, these small business owners are trying to do the same thing, right? They, they want to be everything and stick to what got you to the start and go find, right? That book. And I know we've talked about in the past, right? Who, not how, go find those who's that love to do it. You're a specialty who that can take a lot of the how of, you know, part of building that, that business. so I don't think we can understate that piece of it.

Again, if you're still incorporating your kick in the tires, fine, play with it. But again, I've again through this entire five year journey, I've learned those are not my superpowers, nor will they ever be right. It's anyway. So.

Paul Durelli (: 37:16

Yeah, but you know your point that you made to people on your podcast a lot that you know, because I watch you and I share a lot of your tic-tacs on my channel as well FYI, you know, because I think you're making a lot of valid points about what's going on in corporate America and you said it you stated it many times and I think it's completely accurate. It's not a matter of if it's a matter of when.

You know, so if you don't make the, if you don't get proactive and make the decision for yourself, there will be a time where the decision is made for you. And then you're gonna find yourself a little bit with your shorts down. And then I mean, and so I'm saying to people, be proactive, get out in front of it, hire some people while you have the money, you know, to do a little bit of marketing and build out your organized.

Brett Trainor (: 37:49

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 38:02

you know, digital ecosystem, so you have your foundations in place. And then from there, the sky's the limit. It's just a matter of, you know, getting more comfortable with being online. AI is making it easier now too, because now you can make AI clones of yourself that can do half the marketing for you, you know what I mean? Things of that nature. You can make whole, you know, scripts. Now I've made a few of them already. I'm in the process of making a few more. And FYI,

Brett Trainor (: 38:22

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 38:30

I signed up for a class to take that from someone that was just better than me at that. know I mean? It's, you know, I'm gonna tell you another real important part that I learned back after I left and building the pharmacy and I got, did the continued educational coursework for audio digest. I had this epiphany about how they, you know, in the medical community, they are mandated by their governing body to do continued educational coursework. I'm not mandated in my field.

Brett Trainor (: 38:41

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 39:00

by any governing body to do continued educational coursework. However, I am intrinsically mandated by virtue of the fact that if I don't, I'm dealing without moded tools and systems and information. So yes, I go on YouTube and I'll learn a few things for free sometimes, but if I feel somebody has a valuable course that's gonna save me the ignorance tax, I'll pay. You know I mean?

Brett Trainor (: 39:13

for sure. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 39:24

Same, no, 100 % right. Be curious, right? Re-grab that 100%.

Paul Durelli (: 39:29

Yeah, and I read books another real real good book that I stumbled on real good Recently by the gal JT o'Donnell. She she's professing a lot of what you do her book called pro voice. Have you read that? Man put that on your list. I'm like passing through it my second or third time now but pro voice by JT o'Donnell really good book very on point very accurate about

Brett Trainor (: 39:42

I have not. I'm writing it down.

Brett Trainor (: 39:48

What's name of it again?

Paul Durelli (: 39:57

the landscape, she talks about corporate wasteland, executives not being able to get work and certainly not anywhere near their previous pay scale, I should say, right? And she's talking about how essentially pro voice is somewhat of like the corporate educated version of being an influencer using your

Brett Trainor (: 40:07

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 40:24

experience and knowledge to be get out there like what you're doing you're a perfect example of pro voice talking about you know your journey your experience what you've learned what you've come across what's working what's not working and getting out there and getting exposure and by virtue of that you're getting more opportunities come your way

Brett Trainor (: 40:43

Yeah, so good. Definitely. We'll check that out. the more the merrier on this, this, this journey, this fight. So, all right, Paul, I appreciate the time. I do want to be respected. I mean, this time just flies every time we chat. So what we need to do is keep this a little more frequent than maybe come back on a quarterly basis and share what you're seeing, right? New tools, other technologies that,

Paul Durelli (: 40:48

Yeah, yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 41:06

We'll tap into you since you're knee deep in the research and figuring out what's working. If you're good with that, I'd love to have you come back and talk about it.

Paul Durelli (: 41:14

Absolutely, it'd be my pleasure. Thank you.

Brett Trainor (: 41:17

So awesome. All right, we'll get everything into the show notes. Best place for people to track you down. What's your preferred method of contact?

Paul Durelli (: 41:24

If they go to digital Kahuna calm my calendar bookings there my my link tree is there for the different offers offerings that I have including the tax credit people You know and anyone that wants to collaborate with me on and get revenue share on that I offer that as well anyone has a large audience that they want to promote that out to 50 % of Every every sale that I make so I make it a no-brainer

Brett Trainor (: 41:49

That's awesome.

Paul Durelli (: 41:50

with full transparency on everything. And that's it, yeah, digitalgahuna.com. My booking link's there, my link tree is there, and people can learn more about and reach out to me there. And thank you so much for having me on the podcast, Brett.

Brett Trainor (: 42:06

Always my pleasure. learn something every time. so like I said, it's cool. Welcome back. we'll, like I said, we'll, we'll get you a little more frequency because again, I think these topics are important. If we can get this right early, then people are going to have a much easier time growing their businesses. So cool. All right, Paul, always a pleasure. Good to see you. We'll catch up with you soon.

Paul Durelli (: 42:21

I agree.

was a pleasure, Brad. Good seeing you too.