Welcome To The Forge – Membership Call #2

,The Forge: Exclusive Members’ Training Session May 7, 2025

Live Webinar with Syd Michael

(Raw transcription; not proofed for grammar or spelling.)

Click here for Google Doc of the transcript.

 0:02

All right, all right, all right, let’s get started. 

0:05

See some people flying in, so we’re gonna give them a minute, but not too long.

0:09

I am a little bit under the weather, so I’m gonna go ahead and repair all of you.

0:14

If I’m mute out for a second, it’s because I’m hacking and I don’t wanna be doing it in the mic, fair enough.

0:20

Roger that, everybody?

0:25

About once every two years, I get kind of a bronchial or whatever, whatever mess going on.

0:33

‘Sup guy good to see you Reggie, always. We’re gonna talk about something pretty cool today. You know, I’m limited on what I can say because Brian ultimately has the foot on the throttle. All I can promise you is those of you that are into this are going to get significant benefits over anybody else. Trust me. I want to tell you that and I’m going to kind of leak a little bit today, not all of it and I’m sorry to tease y’all. I don’t mean to be an alpha alfred hitchcock film on everybody but I’m gonna explain a little bit of the mindset or the business model that I feel that I didn’t really realize until I was probably late 30s early 40s. I didn’t understand it and now that I understand it I feel like a fool that, you know, 20 years without it and we’re talking about that. Let’s let everybody fly in here. Steve Brands, what’s up, buddy?

1:42

Thomas, good to see you, Bubba. Mr. Lee, Vince. All right.

1:52

Again, if I mute out, it’s because I’m hacking. Just bear with me, okay? I got a horrific cough. All right. All right.

2:05

Well, let’s get started.

2:09

Talk business models real quick, OK?

2:13

Let’s talk business models.

2:15

And what I want to talk about first is what made ERTC great?

2:21

What made ERTC great?

2:22

Now, I need some interaction.

2:26

Everybody needs to be involved in this.

2:28

So if you can, help me out.

2:30

What is it that made ERTC great?

2:34

And when I say great, because we paid out over $20 million commissions, right? I mean, that’s a lot of money.

2:42

What was it that made it so great? High commissions? Yep. What else? Free money to businesses? Yep.

3:00

Offer was excellent? Agree. Customer appeal? Yep. Time in market need? I agree.

3:16

In reality, right? National coverage, agree. These are all great things.

3:22

In reality, collecting the docs and the back-end work was horrendous.

3:28

We didn’t really know it was gonna be that hard starting out.

3:31

I mean, it took such manpower and such support. It was hard. It was really hard.

3:38

So, the fact that the fulfillment side was covered for all of us as agents was a huge plus to all of us, right?

3:50

paid up to 25% commissions.

3:52

Some people got paid different levels or whatever, but a lot of you earned your way to 25% commissions, right?

4:00

The average deal was $4 ,000 commission.

4:04

The average employee was 18.

4:06

Now the average number of deals that people do every month or every year really varies so much it’s hard to talk about.

4:16

Cause I mean, we had people that literally submitted hundreds a month and we had people that submitted one a month right, so let’s just take the bare minimum real quick. Let’s talk about one a month right then. You know where you fall. I know there’s people on this call. It’s done way more than once a month. There’s some people on this call who didn’t even do one a month but let’s just use one a month to talk about business models for a second. Okay.

4:48

So if you did one a month for a year, right?

4:52

On an app, just on average, right?

4:54

So I knew somebody on made 10, 20, 30 ,000 a deal, but just on average, let’s just use bare minimum so we can understand the business model we’re talking about.

5:02

If you average one a month after a year, $4 ,000 per deal, 12 months, 48 ,000.

5:08

We all agree on that math.

5:21

Now let’s compare the same thing to $5 monthly recurring, right?

5:28

See, what I tell you that I didn’t understand until I was late 30s, early 40s, you know, I sold cars.

5:34

A lot of you know that.

5:36

Man, I look back and think if I could have just made $5 a car I sold, recurring, I would have made tens of thousands and wouldn’t have to work as hard, right?

5:47

That’s what I didn’t like about the car business.

5:49

It was love them, leave them.

5:50

You might get their brother in, you might get their sister, but you’re definitely not and get them back in, maybe sell their wife a car but most of the time not right because you were brand specific, you know? Unless you could sell her used car or talk to them to let you order whatever they wanted and go out and buy it then you take a chance you don’t like the interior color. You know what I mean. It was hard, it was really love them and leave them one time one time sale. Well, let’s compare it to something as miniscule as a five dollar month recurring so 18 employees what we averaged in ERTC times one deal that would be $90, right? Not hardly the same commission as ERTC, which was $4,000, right?

6:38

It almost seems minuscule. But let’s do the math real quick. And I apologize.

6:43

I’m not a super spreadsheet badass. It would have been a lot easier. I did this all manually, right? This is manually.

6:52

So $18, or 18 employees, first month $90, and I go through and add this up, right?

7:01

And if I’m figuring out it’s around $7,800, not a lot of money, but $7,800.

7:06

Now the difference is, the difference is, you’re not making big money at first, but you’re building your book of business.

7:18

The other difference is, I went ahead and did the second year too, right?

7:23

You can see how you’re slowly growing even at five dollars closing one deal a month, right? Third year, fourth year, right? So, I noticed I put one of them in red. They may know why I put that in red. That’s because if you only average one deal a month. That was how many months it would take you to get what the average ERTC was, right?

7:58

However, I want to point out I want to point something out.

8:08

What’s one of the benefits that you see on even $5 a month that you did not receive with the ERTC?

8:15

Unfortunately. Yep.

8:27

Let’s go back and look at it.

8:29

Exactly, Reggie. Let’s go back and look at that real quick.

8:34

This whole year and half of this year, you would have got paid before even receiving your commission on ERTC, on average.

8:45

I know in the beginning we got them going as quick as six, eight, nine months, but over the whole picture, over the whole four years, they really averaged about 18 months for people to get paid.

8:57

Some of you, unfortunately, and I’m sure you know who you are, have waited longer than that, right?

9:04

Because, you know, the IRS was in the game and we were throttled on their efforts.

9:10

And that was really, if we were going to pick apart the business model of ERTC that was the downfall of it, right? The waiting. So, let me ask you this, uh, it’s about 7,800 and then I think. Let’s see 17, 16, 35, 45, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,300, 9300 plus 7,800 somebody helped me with the math about 16 gram. How many of you would have liked to have made $16,000 just in the time that you waited to get paid, right? That has been a huge value. Is that a plus? Would you like to have made $16,000 just even waiting on your commission with the ERTC?

10:09

Absolutely, right?

10:17

So going through this, let’s go ahead and look at it.

10:20

Let’s talk about a couple other things.

10:22

Immediate pay, you have a timeframe of just over, let’s see, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 months just doing one deal a month.

10:41

Just doing one deal a month, could already be at the same 48,000 on the low end of ERTC.

10:51

Now the beautiful thing is as you build that book of business now there would be a minimum amount of attrition normally around four percent of most of the stuff that we’re running we have about a four percent attrition.

11:02

I didn’t figure in that math because I’m just not that smart but there would be a small four percent attrition figure here, right? But do you notice how every month your book of business is increasing right now? These numbers change significantly if you’re Bjorn or Paul or Tommy or any of those guys that were signing up. Steve Brandz on the call now a lot of you that signed up multiple deals every month but we’re doing this just for quick easy simple business model structured math. Okay. And we’re talking about $5.

11:54

I think to myself, if I would have got $5 a car that I sold when I started the car business, October 27 1994, and I was 19 years old, you know what I mean? Think about that. Now. Obviously, we talked about getting paid out of the gate.

12:22

What is your timeframe? Obviously, a lot of us are a lot older now.

12:25

I know my timeframes are a lot smaller than it was or a lot shorter than it would have been or was in the beginning. But what’s your time frame? You know, I look at my mom and stuff. I look like you know they get Social Security right? She gets Social Security and you know I know a lot of older people elderly people. How much are you getting in Social Security ight now? If you’re already getting it, those on the call who all are getting it I’m going to tell you the Social Security is about $1,300. $1,350 maybe. I see a lot of people with a lot less.

13:13

We’re looking at my family, everybody that’s already getting, all right, nice, $2,000 a month, okay. That helps.

13:25

What else? Anybody else on Social Security yet? $1,400, okay. We got a winner.

13:39

Now at least getting a good one all right. Three grand. All good Social Security amounts, right? However, we all know it’s hard to live on any of those figures and we also know year two 18 months in 19 20 months in Reggie, right? You could double your Social Security.

14:14

Donald, third year, you could double your Social Security.

14:19

Right? This is an exit plan.

14:29

And obviously, I don’t know about y ‘all, I don’t think I’ll ever quit working completely, right?

14:35

But to be able to build that book of business in the next three to five years could definitely, definitely, definitely have a huge effect on lifestyle and comfortability for each and every single one of us.

14:51

Would you agree?

14:53

Let me know if you agree or understand what I’m talking about.

15:01

Absolutely.

15:03

Especially, you know what scares me to death?

15:05

You know, my mom, she has a paid off house and everything, but if she didn’t, if she actually had to rent right now, or buy a house even worse, that’s horrible.

15:25

Horrible. All right.

15:28

Let’s keep going. So what do you think your timeline is?

15:35

Right.

15:35

I try and look at everything, you know, obviously I think I have longer than a five year time frame, but I kind of look at everything in a five year time frame.

15:44

You tend to have, you know, month goals, week goals, year goals, but as you get older, you start looking, you start getting a little bit more of a reality check, and you start looking at things with a bigger timeframe even though we don’t have tens of years left but we start looking at things a little bit more realistic nobody’s gonna say this in 90 days or you know we’re gonna go grind you know what I mean it makes me sick when I hear people talk about you go to grind well you know what I’m too freaking old to grind that I ain’t here to grind what do you think about that what I want to do is I like and what I liked about ERTC was the offer sold itself.

16:29

See, and you’ve heard me say this before, but this has never been more true and never more apparent than it is now.

16:36

To me, when you have the right offer, you never have to sell anything, right?

16:45

Because the offer alone fits right into the pocket of the client or the customer, or your audience that you’re putting in front of, and if it fits right into their pocket with questions asked, you never even have to ask a closing question.

16:59

They call you and sign up. Wouldn’t you agree that that’s truly the perfect offer?

17:10

And I know a lot of you probably still even have more commissions coming, right?

17:16

But how much would you to like to? Or how much would you to rather than getting paid little bits right out of the gate?

17:26

A lot of you just in ERTC would already be at the $4,000 a month recurring closing just one deal a month Average of 18 employees. There’s gonna be bigger deals. There’s gonna be smaller deals, but we’re using bare minimum averages here, right?

17:56

Can you imagine right and and I think of this all the time if we would have just understood the $5 model when we were 21 years old. Thinking what the math would have been then and I didn’t add it up if I could have done spreadsheets I probably would have tried but me doing it manually.

18:12

I wasn’t gonna add up, you know 40 years of spreadsheets for us.

18:16

But can you imagine?

18:18

I mean, it would be significant at just $5 curry.

18:24

Probably be in the millions, right?

18:28

Definitely plenty, right?

18:31

And I think back and think, man, if I could have only just made $5 a car.

18:36

I wish I would have told the first cardio shop I worked at.

18:38

No, no, no, don’t worry about it.

18:39

Don’t pay me commission.

18:39

I want $5 a car per month for the rest of my life.

18:43

You know what I mean?

18:44

It’s been great, even if it was only for five or six years, 10 years, who knows?

18:51

Either way, the $5 a month recurring is the secret to wealth.

18:56

It’s the secret to not grinding.

19:02

Now I ask all of you, can you imagine if you’d have thought of this or came to this realization and maybe some of you did that are insurance agents, right?

19:11

If you were to realize this when you were only 21 years old.

19:15

Now let’s go a step further, how many of you know somebody who’s 20, 25, 30 years old that you could inform of the $5 recurring monthly revenue model and you could actually do what we kind of, I don’t know, it kind of drives me and it motivates me to help those that little lost just like we were in our 20s.

19:49

How many of you have a son, nephew, cousin, niece, neighbor that could use this information? And let’s go one step further.

20:04

What would it do to this model if you got a couple dollars off of every one of their five dollars?

20:15

In addition, in addition to your monthly, imagine how much that would multiply that number altogether.

20:33

Right? Might not take four years.

20:36

Might do it in two years. Some of you can do it in one year.

20:41

So the only way to make the five dollar model better is if you had level two, that would actually pay you part of the five dollars off of them and it would increase even more.

20:54

That would be truly 100% the best business model. Does everybody agree?

21:13

Right? It is a little bit of network marketing. Little bit. Little bit.

21:24

I mean ERTC was not, you know, we put, we pushed really hard not to make it network marketing.

21:33

That’s why we only paid one down line. And listen, if you don’t want to sign up anybody, you wouldn’t have to.

21:41

I’m just saying the only way to make the $5 recurring model better is if you could actually have some people underneath you that would pay you also, right?

21:53

I mean, that’s really the only way to bonus it. Other than that, it would be 100% up to you to close one deal a month.

21:59

How many of you feel like you could possibly close something one deal a month?

22:10

How many of you think you could focus 28 days and get one yes in 28 days?

22:17

I’m asking this kind of being facetious because I know there’s tons of you on this call that could close probably one a day if you wanted to.

22:31

I’m really only using the bare minimum and even the math works out on the bare minimum to show you how powerful true recurring is.

22:43

I have no doubt Mr. Klipsch, you run at a different speed too than most.

22:53

I would say everybody but the most proud of you, right?

23:04

So saying that, I just wanted to explain the $5 recurring model.

23:09

I know it’s, I can’t tell you what, but I just want you to know that this model is at the forefront and at the front of our minds.

23:19

It’s what we’re thinking about.

23:20

It’s what we’re processing here.

23:23

And in addition to that, giving you something to offer that doesn’t take a close or a sale. It’s something everyone needs when you get it in front of the right audience.

23:35

It’s a no-brainer, absolute easy no-brainer. Then, you just got to adjust your gas pedal on how hard you want to push it and some of you might want to put some people under you and some of you might not. I personally know I’ve got a lot of cousins that could use this advice, right? Use this direction, yeah, that’s called attrition. You’re right, it’s called attrition. Our average attrition is about four percent and I think this is probably what we’re looking at is going to be a little bit stronger than what we charge on monthly recurrence so absolutely 100 percent nationwide. I mean just to give you real numbers on the uh 197 with uh RPS, four percent attrition. I’m talking about something way sexier than that even international no but national all right any questions or anything it’s pretty much what I had to talk about today sorry to tease everybody a little bit because I know y’all are chomping at the bit just like I am. Possibly weeks, yes, we got more than one opportunity coming we’re taking I mean let me just be transparent you know, brian and I did a bunch of Internet marketing for years. Listen, it was fun and we had success, however the offers and the revenue capability was not as strong even even with my automotive stuff. I mean I had guys go out and close 10-15 thousand dollar a month. But I had like a 30% success rate, right?

26:24

That’s a very low success rate.

26:26

We’re trying to, what we’re working on is something that’ll have an extraordinarily higher success rate, something equal to or close to ERTC.

26:35

We’re looking for something that, you know, fits the broader audience.

26:40

And we’re looking for the perfect offer.

26:42

When somebody hears it, they say, OK, yeah, I need that, right?

26:47

And we’re looking for the offer that each and every one of you will have five or 10 people right out of the gate that you know for a fact could use it.

26:57

And then most of all, we’re looking for things that are simple.

27:01

If it’s complicated, it’s hard to build value over price if something’s complicated.

27:07

If it’s super simple, stupid, it works.

27:11

It works.

27:17

Will it be tied to small batch systems?

27:19

I’m sure a lot of people will have super high success using the whole email with this. It’ll be hundred percent supported. Maybe even better supported then. Then, ERTC, you know, that’s one thing that uh, the reason why I’m willing to put my name out there, so to speak, with a lot of Brian stuff because he does spend the money on all the support, you know, what support costs for those six seven girls and all those people in the back end?

28:01

It really pairs into the profits I can tell you that, and 90% of your internet marketers out there have zero if not any support. They’re answering their own support tickets, right? Driving Lambos, answering their own support tickets, well, instead of a Lambo, he bought support girls not that he couldn’t have a Lambo not that I wouldn’t look like Koopa Troopa in a bow like grape the ape going down the road but we would rather spend the money on proper support that’s a fact can it be done outside of Small Batch, of course, Small Batch is just a it’s just one one angle to use some people are you know doing cold email outside of Small Batch and taking it to a whole another level you know? Small Batch is just a strategy, all right. Any other questions before I start hacking all over y’all?

29:18

All right. Awesome. All right. Get excited because it’s coming.

29:24

I can’t promise wins and I’d be lying if I guessed, but I know we’re going through certain training already.

29:31

They’re requiring me to get on the trainings, which means they’re getting serious.

29:35

right? And you’re going to love this first one.

29:39

Again, we have more than one offer coming out, but the first one is the one we’ve been working on for quite a while and really got it dialed in, and it’s even going to get better.

29:51

In fact, we’re going to add a little bit to it to make it even better, but we don’t want to wait the 60 days to trial out what we’re adding because we want to it to you as quick as possible right but it’s gonna be even better than what it is initially okay I hope everybody’s ready I hope everybody’s excited and I’ll see each and every one of you next Wednesday right I appreciate you too man thank you so much I got here just in time sorry what’s going on Vanessa you got anything super cool I know we got that call Friday You and I. Yes, we do. And it’s very exciting. The training they’re calling is the trainer. I am sorry I was late. I got pulled onto an Ops call for the ERTC stuff.

30:47

But I hated to miss this.

30:49

Yeah, the excitement for.

30:52

Every step we get closer to launching. I just, I’m getting antsy in my seat. I’m so excited.

30:59

Yeah. So, uh, I mean, just to tell you, Vanessa, what I, what I went over to, right.

31:05

I went over, um, I went over, hang on. I’m going to show you.

31:09

I went over the difference between ERTC. Make sure my numbers are right, right? 25% commissions, $4 ,000 per deal.

31:16

The average deal was 18 employees. As far as how many deals they did a month, it varied so far.

31:22

I mean, some people did one, some people did 50 or a hundred, right?

31:26

You know, just doing bare numbers, about 48 ,000 a year.

31:29

And then I showed them. Just, I just compared it to what was called a $5 a month recurring model, right?

31:35

It showed them how- It sounds low, but like- Right, it’s only $90 a deal.

31:41

But the biggest difference is, if you can see right here at month number, you know, 40, you’re equal to it.

31:52

And they’re making money right out of the gate for the first, you know, 18 months that they might be waiting on at the ERTC commission.

31:59

Yeah, that’s the biggest difference that really locked me in as like, this is the future if you get paid within 30 days.

32:09

It’s recurring.

32:11

It grows.

32:13

And it’s such a letter agency to have their finger in the pie.

32:18

It’s, and it’s so easy.

32:20

It’s such a no-brainer cell.

32:22

the the sales calls that I’ve had the the privilege of fly on the wall listening to and we’ve got them recorded so that we’ll be able to share them the before the calls halfway done the business owner is like please give it to me I want this how much and then once you’ve got a business owner who’s got 10 15 employees, grateful, using these services, he’s getting the instant and ongoing feedback, positive reward, you know, dopamine hits from his happy employees, he’s not leaving.

33:02

So that one conversation, that one conversion that’s paying within 30 days is paying every 30 days.

33:12

So I mean, the rinse and repeat model, the net benefit, like, yeah, with ERTC, you had one big deal that paid you a bunch of money and, you know, it’s like winning the lottery, but a real sustainable, livable, replicable process that builds a, you know, everybody wants residual recurring income, right?

33:36

So that maybe you have an off week, you don’t have to go out there and bust your hump and have the sales calls because you already did the work and you’re getting paid for the work you already did over and over and over.

33:46

Like I said, I’m vibrating in my seat.

33:49

I’m so excited.

33:51

In my example, I only used 18 employees.

33:53

Imagine if it’s 100 employees or even larger, but let’s just say 100 employees.

33:59

It changes these numbers significantly.

34:04

Let me tell you some ideal clients that this will fit with, landscapers, contractors, independent car dealerships, maybe even a car dealership.

34:15

It really fits with a lot of corporate companies, but especially small businesses are, you know, independent contractor type businesses.

34:24

It’s absolutely no brainer, sign it up.

34:27

Like they have to have it.

34:31

Me and my husband have a deal that I don’t try to sell him stuff, but we were at dinner for my birthday over the weekend.

34:39

And I was, you know, we’re just talking shop and I was talking to him about what we’re working on and I’m building the interface and the portal and the software and the API and all the technical stuff behind the scenes that’ll make this a breeze for customers and agents.

34:54

And he’s like, okay, so tell me more about it.

34:56

And I started listing the benefits and what’s the point and what’s the pricing.

35:01

And he’s like, are you trying to sell me this?

35:02

And I was like, no, no, I know the rules.

35:05

And he’s like, okay, but like, could you sell me this?

35:07

I’m like, well, sir, yes, I could.

35:12

He’s 100% the ideal client for this.

35:14

Yeah, he’s a contractor, and he’s a carpenter.

35:17

I’m feeling dirty that we’re not able to tell him, so I don’t want to talk about it.

35:21

I feel bad, because it’s not fair.

35:22

I know, I know.

35:24

But the other thing is, businesses, contractors, yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re shooting for the end of May.

35:31

But one thing to think about is businesses, contractors, who are they friends with?

35:35

Like my husband’s peers are other small businesses and relatively medium sized businesses.

35:42

So the referral game in this is as strong as death.

35:53

I’m sorry, I talked over you said, but yeah.

35:55

No, no, no, no, no, I love it.

35:56

No, no, but into May is what I wanted to hear.

35:57

I just keep, I like to ask the question every time I talk to y’all just to make sure we’re staying on timeframes, obviously that’s what everybody else wanted to know also.

36:07

Yeah, for sure.

36:09

Honestly, my favorite term that I heard in the past week was we’re moving at the speed of technology.

36:13

We’ve got the tech guys doing it.

36:17

Like we’ve done everything we can, but anybody that was with the ERTC program, you know I designed and implemented the portal, which was where you track your deals and where customers manage their accounts, right?

36:33

So we took that same philosophy, but I’m taking everything I learned for three years in that program to make this portal better.

36:43

So hard learned lessons implemented for a better experience.

36:47

So I’ve built the skeleton, I’ve done the design, I’ve done all of that.

36:52

And so now they’re bringing my creation to life.

36:55

So I hope as soon as that’s done, we’re done, we’re live.

37:00

So.

37:02

All right.

37:02

Well, I’m excited.

37:03

I know we’re all ready.

37:05

I know we’re chomping at the bit.

37:06

I reassured, and I want you to back me up on this, I reassured everybody on this call that the value and the extra training, but even the value in the monies that’s gonna be saved just for them jumping into the forge, it’s gonna be two or three, four, five, six fold of the expense, 100%.

37:30

So get excited.

37:30

Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

37:33

I mean, exponential value.

37:35

Yeah, I mean, it’s basically like behind the velvet rope VIP pass inner circle. Yeah.

37:44

Yep. All right. Absolutely.

37:45

Well, with respect to everybody’s time, I know everybody’s got things going on. I’ll see everybody next Wednesday. Thank you so much. Thanks, Guy, Donald, Steve, Donald.

37:57

Thank you, all of you. Vanessa, you got anything else?

38:00

No, just thank you for your time, Syd, as always. Yep. Awesome. See everybody. Thanks everybody.

38:06

Bye.