Ep 221: What It Takes To Pull The Trigger & Buy An Online Business with Jaryd Krause [Podcast]

William Griffin:

Do you know what unconscious habits are pulling you further away from replacing your income, and do you know how to replace those? Hi, I am William Griffin, co-host of the BOB podcast, and today I am speaking with Jaryd Krause, who is the founder of www.buyingonlinebusinesses.com. He is the expert in buying online businesses, and he now also helps people with no online experience buy and grow their own online businesses. With a decade of experience, Jaryd’s strategies have generated millions of dollars in revenue for his clients. He has helped clients buy and grow online businesses across a range of niches, all with less time and less stress.

Specifically in this episode, we talk about when you should quit your job when buying an online business. From there, we discuss why people who measure time in order to succeed most often fail. And what metric you should actually measure to achieve success. Afterwards, we talk about how to figure out what we need to sacrifice in order to achieve financial independence and how to set yourself up with some anti rewards that actually drive you towards your goals. We talk about certain habits that lock people into failure unless they know how to overcome them, like setting expectations, stress, anxiety, and addictions people don’t even realize they have. We talk about how glory stories, peer pressure, and certain environments are breeding grounds for failure and how to escape them. And so much more—this is such an incredible episode, you are going to love it.

Before we get into the episode, I want to tell you that this podcast is not the only way we can help you for free. We have our due diligence framework, which has saved people millions and made people millions. Take the guesswork out of buying an online business and get the framework at www.buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources; the link will be in the description below.

Do you have a website that you might want to sell now or in the future? We have a hungry list of cashed up and trained buyers that want to buy your content website. If you have a website that makes up to $300 a month and you want to sell it, head to www.buyingonlinebusinesses.co/sellyourbusiness or email us at; [email protected] because we will likely have a buyer. Details are in the description.

William Griffin:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Buying Online Businesses podcast. Today, we are speaking with Jaryd. Jaryd, I am so excited for us to get into this. I think this episode is going to help a lot of people.

Jaryd Krause:

For sure. When I saw the title, when you floated this idea, I was like, "Wow, this is really good, this is really juicy. So yes, I am excited to see where we go with this one.

William Griffin:

That’s right. So first question, what kind of people are you seeing as being interested in buying an online business? I imagine that might have changed over time, so what kind of people, what kind of avatars are you seeing?

Jaryd Krause:

That’s a really good question. It has changed and it does evolve, and you have a few different groups of people depending on their goals. Predominantly, it’s like what we help people do is we help them replace their incomes, so the large majority of people that we help are people that are running a normal 9-5 job and they don’t like it, and they have also tried to start online businesses and failed, or they have tried all these side hustles that haven’t worked, and they have come across this Ah-ha idea that I had of, "Hey, why don’t you just buy one?" And that message really resonates with them, and then they follow the path, and they typically follow the content, and they really like it and follow it for a long time, and then they get started.

Then we also have the people that come from real estate and have other investments that they want to get online, and they are like, "I want to start this online thing," you know. It’s become big, and I want a piece of that pie, and I want to make an income online. That’s the second group of people that we have helped is people that have a decent amount of money. They might be buying something between $200-$700k or even a million. Sometimes these people want to purchase above that range as well, but that’s the second group of people that we help, people that have a high net worth and individuals that need to put money somewhere.

Or they are high in net worth in a way that they work in a career and they have got an illustrious career and they have done really, really well, and they need to park some money into an asset that’s going to produce an income without them getting another full time job for themselves.

William Griffin:

So I am curious about that first group you mentioned. So the first group in which people may potentially have failed in creating a business, are they particularly enthusiastic about the idea of not having to start another business like, how was their emotional reaction to the idea of buying versus starting an online business?

Jaryd Krause:

First and foremost, it’s a massive relief because they go, "Oh, wow, I can buy one," and then they go and look at the brokers and see how much these businesses cost, how much they are making, and what work is actually required versus what the brokers list. You need to be realistic about that. Then it’s a massive relief because it’s like, "Wow, okay, there are people who have already done this, and I don’t need to go through the startup phase. So it’s cutting out a massive time block and also possibly a massive expense where they may not get their ROI back in this.

So they are definitely energized towards it, but there are still things that hold them back, and the biggest thing is mindset, and I just keep harping on this again and again, and people can say that Jaryd just talks and talks about his mindset. It’s really the most important thing anyway, because if you don’t have a right mindset towards anything, then you are not getting anything done anyway; it’s not just buying a business really. And that’s where we really are; when we start out, I know that I have all this energy that I need to pour into it, because I want to get out of this job.

It’s really good, but we don’t know where to set the bar, and we don’t know what sort of expectations we should have in terms of how long it’s going to take us to buy a business, how long it’s going to take, or how long are we going to be on this journey for? What does the journey look like? And then we just go away and see other people that have achieved, somebody in the course,program, program bought a business within three weeks and it was making him $2 grand, a month and people look at those things and go, "What the hell, if he can do it in three weeks then I can do it in six weeks which is so stupid because they have this thought of measuring time as a KPI as a metric.

Somebody actually asked me this in an email, like, "How long does it take to finish the BOB course?" or "How long does it take to go from where I am right now to buying business in terms of time? And I am like, I don’t care how long it takes you, and you shouldn’t either, because you shouldn’t track the time, you should track the metric of input that you put in, which is like, how many businesses are you looking at? How many sellers are you talking to? How many due diligences are you doing? How many reviews are you submitting? They are the inputs versus tracking times.

One person who does it in three weeks is a high achiever, a professional athlete, a single male, young, and has no family. I am pretty sure he was living at home and had all the time in the world. He had all week to do as much work as he could, and he was so hungry as High Huber, it’s like he had the perfect storm to be able to achieve that result within a short time frame because he submitted like 7-10 due diligences in two weeks. And it takes people three to four months, with a family, 3-4 months to be able to achieve those results.

William Griffin:

Good grief. He really did have the perfect storm.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, he did have the perfect storm, and people compare time like it’s relative to where they are in their journey and their life, but it’s not because they don’t think about or understand this. That’s why people give up because if this person did this in this much time and I can't, then I suck. All you are seeing really is the glory stories on the case studies, online from YouTube videos and podcasts anyway.

William Griffin:

Yeah. This is the same; the glory stories are the same as scrolling Instagram, as it is deceptive.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, it’s the most condensed part of their lives squashed into 15 seconds, and that’s like the best thing that’s happened to them all year.

William Griffin:

Right, right. And you don’t see any of the work that went into the 15 seconds of the beach on Instagram or whatever.

Jaryd Krause:

It’s like I love Bali, I love surfing in Bali, and I am going there and I was there a month last year and I am going to go for a couple of months this year and if you see photos of Bali and if you type it into google, you see the most luxury and beaches but behind these shots, you see filth and undeveloped country and it’s like my life is perfect when your life is on the beach, you are in the hustle and bustle and that’s what I like about Bali as well and that’s the hustle and bustle and that’s not ferry on and lots of people who go to Bali, are like it’s a bit and it’s not really my thing because they think its all going to be roses.

William Griffin:

Right. You are not getting the full resort experience, is what you are saying.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. They just have the expectations, right, and that’s the expectation that distracts us that we are going to Bali, and everything is going to be super clean and work, and it’s going to be super easy, and that expectation is going to ruin your experience. Same is with your expectations when buying a business; they can ruin your experience.

William Griffin:

I was writing earlier, and I wrote about how people talk about misconceptions, and I thought about what are mis-expectations that trip us up. So it sounds like one of the expectations that trip us up is thinking that time is a KPI and you can sometimes do things very quickly, and that’s just a bad expectation.

Jaryd Krause:

I like that analogy, "miserable expectations." That’s great.

William Griffin:

Where does that kind of lead to? It’s not a bed of roses, and I was curious if you had any insight on counting the cost. What should people consider? What are the costs that they should consider to the journey to buying an online business? What are the things they would have to give up or kill while buying an online business?

Jaryd Krause:

That’s a really good question, man. So everything has a tradeoff. What we want something of, we will take away from something else in our life, e.g., if you have got children and you want to spend time with them but you also want to ensure a good, solid financial future for your children and your family, there is a tradeoff where you would have to sacrifice a little bit of time spent with them towards working on your financial future and your independence. So, that’s a time cost, and I talked about that with a friend literally two days ago, like so many people talk about side hustles, and the only real way to do a side hustle is to just do it, like you have to work a 60-70 hours week.

I worked 70 hours/week and then I worked 30 hours on the computer afterwards, and I did training with my friend. This was 10 years ago, and we have been doing trainings for the past decade together. He is like, I remember when you did 70 hours a week and then you would come home and we would do training together quickly and then you would eat and then you would get on the computer for 5-6 or even 7 hours a night. That’s what had to be done, just like I sacrificed so much, I sacrificed time. I sacrificed a lot of my energy. And I also sacrificed not spending much time with my family and friends as well.

And I was young and I was hungry, and there was some cost there, that’s important. So yeah, it's not just the monetary cost; we also need to spend time, like give away some of that time. It’s not like giving it away; I would say it's investing it into this thing. And it kind of comes back to do what others will not do now, to live a life that most can't.

William Griffin:

Oh, I like that.

Jaryd Krause:

I butchered that a bit, but people can get the ideology. It’s a couple of the costs. Are there any other costs that you had in mind when you thought of this question?

William Griffin:

Yeah. I was thinking that when people ask about how to do anything, it's generally pretty obvious what we need to do. It’s generally true that you need to do some kind of work over an extended period of time. It’s never complicated—at least nothing I have ever come across as terribly complicated. It’s just that this is the work, and you have to do it over a period of time, so when people ask the question, "How do you buy an online business? How do you get a good piano? How do you do standup comedy? Whatever it is, you kind of just have to do it. I think people don’t really want to do it; they just don’t want it because they don’t do it. They are not willing to sacrifice things. What do you think is a sacred thing that people just don’t want to sacrifice?

Jaryd Krause:

You share that and then I want to share something else that is going to help people want to make these sacrifices.

William Griffin:

Two big things that I see are overconsuming alcohol, mainly because if you are going out too much and you are hungover, you are not going to be motivated to do the work necessary to buy an online business or may be really do anything. And the other one I see is scrolling social media, I don’t want to say too much, but if you spend three hours a day scrolling something, that’s three hours not doing some work that you were supposed to be doing or getting good rest. I don’t know what to say.

Jaryd Krause:

Oh, spot on. You have just brought up a real aggravating situation for me, so we will try not to hop one or two levels. But I also have empathy for those who drink alcohol or consume any social media. The reason being that it’s addictive, right? very addictive, and I think social media is more addictive than alcohol because they have used technology to tap into our brains and our minds. It’s also a comforting thing. I have spoken to a friend before, someone I have played tennis with and who is a very successful person, retiring at 40, but who has some level of social anxiety but, to feel comfortable, will go on social media to just scroll and to just zone out from that.

So it’s a crutch just like alcohol is a crutch and help people get through life at a times and I have massive empathy for people because I was experimenting with TikTok the other day for BOB and I was putting some content on there and I went back a couple of weeks later to see how it had fared, and we got a few views and I was just checking out what this TikTok thing is and I didn’t have to work the rest of the day so I consciously had time to burn and I spent those 3 hours on Tiktok scrolling through it because the content is so damn good, funny and juicy and its rich and just really tapped into human psyche so I can see how addictive it is.

And that is why I don’t consume social media because I am very conscious of how addictive it is. It does burn a lot of time, but we have got to understand that yes, it is an addiction and have empathy around that, but also understand that this is not what I call a "red line" decision; it is a "green line" decision. Just like we have second and third order consequences, like drinking alcohol, and I have shared this in other interviews that I have been on, if I give in to the peer pressure of drinking alcohol like I did when I was younger, drink, drink, drink, it can either be a red line decision, a good decision, or a bad decision, which can compound either way.

So if I drink, then I am going to give up on not surfing very well the next morning or being hung over and giving up the whole day—that’s the second and third order consequences. And if I feel crap and I roll into Monday with the second day hangover, I don’t end up surfing, and I don’t give myself the time and the health that I need, so that’s the red line decision. So one red line decision takes you down multiple notches from the second and third order consequences versus saying, "I am not going to consciously stop social media or consciously not drink this alcohol. It’s hard because it’s not comfortable and you are stepping outside your comfort zone of the norm of social media and alcohol, so it's uncomfortable, but it’s really one of the most impactful decisions because the second and third order consequences of that are that you don’t drink the alcohol, you are sharp as a tack, and you have time to do other things.

And I am glad that you brought this up, William, because I am very far removed from the alcohol, the partying, and the social media because in my world it’s not a thing, right? I have noticed people have it, not so much alcohol anymore, because I don’t surround myself there, but especially social media—and I am pretty closed off from that, so I am so glad you brought it up because it’s massive. It’s huge.

I remember when I first started the biggest thing I had to stop people doing was and what I helped them save money on is alcohol, hundreds and hundreds of dollars a week on buying alcohol and cigarettes and smoking, now its vaping. But I could save people anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars a year to tens of thousands of dollars a year just by cutting out some entertainment expenses that were compounding their lives in a negative way, so make red line decisions with second and third order consequences of what they are spending their time and money on, and so you are right.

It’s a huge one for people to think about. Not that we all need to be these perfect angels, we can dabble in things every now and then; but it’s worth sacrificing, I believe, a lot of entertainment, if not most entertainment expenses, to get ahead and then recalibrate to bring entertainment back into your life, which is what I have slowly done over time. I used to be so strict, like a robot.

William Griffin:

Yes, and robots break.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes, I broke, got really sick, and worked too much, it was just ridiculous. So I am glad you brought that up.

William Griffin:

I love what you are saying about empathy, and I love what you are saying about red lines and green line decisions. Is there going to be any deviation from that idea? If someone is trying to put away or reduce alcohol, what’s something good or what are good things that you have seen people replace? Because you can’t just tell people, "Don’t have fun, "Don’t this or that, you have got to replace it with something good.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes, that’s really good. You have said something great about personal development here. There is a great book, and I am glad that you have mentioned “replace”, There is a great book called “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, and he talks about how you can’t just give up a habit, you should replace it with something else. So social media, what I did to get off it, was I got a surfing game on my phone and I would just play the surfing game. It wasn’t addictive, and it got boring overtime anyway, so I would just play that.

Also, I learned another language and I did “Duolingo” for Spanish, and I would do these other things on my phone, but then I realized I didn’t really care for this, so every time I went on my phone, instead of going to social media, I would go to something else, and now I am just like, I don’t really care anymore. It’s like when I pick up my phone, do I play a game or text message? And now I pick up my phone literally to text message now. So you can wean yourself off it completely and there is something that you can replace it with. Alcohol is like a simple one, just get a different drink or don’t always go to the same parties where everyone has to be legless within a couple of hours.

Australian drinking cultures is infinitely worse than American drinking culture I can tell you that because I have lived in America and I have partied in America and I have done that in Australia too obviously and Australians are just, we can be animals at times.

William Griffin:

Another level.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes, and you have seen that as well. You have lived in Australia too, right?

William Griffin:

Yeah yeah. I have lived in Sydney and the Gold Coast. It’s another level, man. Someone out there is considering buying an online business, but they want to quit their job. What do you have to say to someone who just wants to quit their job?

Jaryd Krause:

Keep your job. We talked about stress and anxiety, how hard it is to live with them, and this is just one possible scenario that is likely to happen. Someone quits their job and they regularly drink or are addicted to social media, most people have some slight addiction to social media, and then, because they have quit their job and have no income stream coming in, they get worried about their financial situation and they need to try to buy a business very fast so they can get income very, very fast.

The reality is that sometimes there may not be those deals out there that are right for you, and also, most importantly, it takes you time to still look at multiple businesses, speak to sellers, put offers in, and do due diligence to get to the point where you know and have confidence in the businesses you are making offers on or going to buy, and that can take time, and you have a lot more time, so you can do that in a shorter period of time than most people with a job. But because of stress and pressure, usually you try and force yourself into something faster, and then when the pressure and stress become too much, you go to your clutch and say, "Oh, I have this anxiety that I need to make this work, I am just going to zone out and give myself a bit of a break, you know, self-love with social media and alcohol.

Let’s be real, that’s red line decisions; I would say keep your job. If your goal is to replace your income, sometimes we need to go backwards a couple of steps to get forwards but going back too far makes it so much harder to really get to that goal. I believe when you quit your job, you are going back very, very far unless you have a decent amount of income or capital that you can rely on and you are very, very certain that you are not going to get wired and stressed and force yourself into a position that you need to buy something fast.

For example, if somebody has $200k in cash (capital, great! You can live off of that for a while but the longer you do it, the more your money is going to wing down and may be after a year or two, you have got $150K and you are like I just need to spend this on a business before I spend too much on expenses and then you rush into something. So there is so many situations that can be dangerous and also I just think it’s less stressful if you have got a job and you are earning an income and you are just slowly chunking up by going I am just going to buy this business and add that income in rather than take one out.

William Griffin:

Setting yourself up for success is to keep your job, honestly begin doing due diligence, and begin taking the steps necessary to buy an online business. Don’t throw away your support before you have a new boat to get into. Do you think with someone who is staying in their job and wanting to buy an online business and they are doing the right things and doing due diligence, how do you view having a schedule or what’s a reasonable expectation for how much due diligence they can be doing per week or how do you gauge that?

Jaryd Krause:

Your question is basically, "How do they simply set up a schedule for themselves until they get a result that they can handle?

So everybody’s life is very, very different, and it would be pretty stupid for me to say that every afternoon or every evening I spend two or three hours on the computer. Some people have exercise to do, some people have families, and some people have other people to care for, so they have other responsibilities outside of work and buying a business, so I totally understand where they are at. Of course there should be some sacrifices made, and I think step one before you even think about a schedule is to work out what you can sacrifice and what you are willing to give up.

Those costs that you mentioned before, be conscious of them because you are going to put your time and energy towards something else, and then put a time schedule into your calendar and make sure you do it. It’s kind of like when you have a weight goal, a gym goal, a body goal, or whatever your health goal is, if it’s not important enough to schedule in to go to a gym, you are not going to go to the gym, so schedule it in and then make sure it’s very, very hard for you to not do that practice or not go to the gym, e.g., give yourself something ridiculous like you have to give $2000 to charity if you don’t go to the gym, or every time you don’t go, you have to give away a lot of money or something. So it’s going to force you to do that, and you can use that as motivation when you need to look at businesses, do due diligence, do the work, complete the costing, and all that stuff. Every time you schedule something in and you don’t do it, you can make that incentive to do it.

William Griffin:

I love that. I don’t know if I have ever pieced that one together or heard that. It’s like an anti reward; it’s like the opposite of rewarding yourself because usually we go like, "Oh, I have got to disregard that thing and then I can watch the television or do whatever the pleasurable thing is," but you are saying otherwise.

Jaryd Krause:

I have a friend, and he is like, I have got to surf, I have got to surf every weekend, even if it's crowded," and I am like, "Why is he barely making his way?" He is like, I have got to go; otherwise, I have got to clean the house," and he is like, I hate vacuuming." He is too funny. He has to do it anyway, but still, that is where I came up with that.

William Griffin:

I love that. I think we have had a great pod to call it a night, and Jaryd, I want to thank you so much for coming.

Jaryd Krause:

Thank you so much for your questions; I loved them. I really appreciate these chats, and it’s cool to blend all the personal development and all the things I have learned in the last two decades into achieving goals like buying a business and teach it, so I absolutely love it. Thanks!

William Griffin:

Alright. You are welcome.