This week, Tom Antion, talks about his journey making money online. Starting out his internet career in 1994, he has a depth of knowledge regarding how to make things profitable. You can find more of his mentorship on his own podcast called Screw The Commute.
Welcome to Business Talk sister Gawk! I’m Bekkah and I’m Ruthie and today’s episode is The Internet As A Career Path. We have someone with us who let us try out being a guest on his podcast for the day, Screw the Commute. A natural comedian he looks out for what we think is the little guy, but he still knows what he’s worth. We have dubbed him the “Hamboyant Diamond in Disguise”! Welcome!
Bekkah: Please welcome Tom Antion.
Tom: What does that even mean? Hamboyant?
Ruthie: It’s a word that I invented.
Tom: You mad it up? Who made it up, Ruthie?
Ruthie: I made it up yeah. It’s a cross between “being a ham” and being “flamboyant” so “Hamboyant”
Tom: Oh man Cher will love that. She loves all her flamboyant fans well.
Bekkah: For you guys, just listening we told him that we were going to give him a nickname and we’re going to prank him by introducing him as that. Thanks so much for being here with us today! We’re super excited to have you!
Tom: I am thrilled too we had a blast on my podcast getting to know your family dynamic. *laughs* So, yeah. let’s lay it on them! The Internet As a Career Path.
Bekkah: Tell us what do you do!
What Does It Mean to Make Money on The Internet? What Do You Do?
Tom: What do I do? Well, let’s see now going on 27 years I’ve been selling on the commercial internet since it started in 1994. I started selling on there and then I got so good at it people started begging me to teach them how to do it. So I both sell my own stuff and I teach other people how to do it too.
Ruthie: Nice that’s awesome okay so –
Tom: It beats working for a living!
Ruthie: You’re implying that that’s not a lot of work and it sounds like it really is.
Tom: Well, the old saying is that an entrepreneur will work 80 hours a week for himself to get out of work in 40 hours for somebody else. That’s totally true because I’m a fanatic. I could have quit a long time ago, but I just love it so much. I love seeing people successful. I love meeting two crazy sisters. How would have I ever met you two that live – I don’t know somewhere out in a different planet? I don’t know where you guys are.
Ruthie: Okay so you kind of touched on this a little bit but tell us about your why. You kind of mentioned that you like working with people but what was your why behind getting started with this?
Tom: Well, it was a severe desire to avoid working for a living. I mean that’s really how it came about. You know, I’ve always had my own job. That’s my podcast, Screw the Commute. I never actually had a job. Well, I actually applied for a job once. One time because I saw it said “401k” and I thought, “Man, that’s a good salary! $401,000 to start!” Apparently, that wasn’t it but so anyway, I’ve been a professional speaker.
I’ve had many different businesses. Had an entertainment company but in the professional speaking business, I was selling my information products in the form of a cassette tape which probably neither one of you ever seen before. It was hard enough to sell stuff across the street let alone around the world so when the commercial internet started coming around in 1994, I thought, “Are you kidding me? You mean I can sell my stuff around the world from my desktop? I’m going to figure this out!”
That’s how I just jumped all over because I had always worked out of my home. Now the speaking, I had to go and speak at different events all around the place but, for the most part, I’ve always worked on my home. In fact, I had a nightclub for six years and I lived above the nightclub so, technically, I had a nightclub in my basement.
That’s why I jumped on the internet because it was a way to expand my reach exponentially as long as you learned how to do it.
How Have You Seen The Internet Change Over Time For Business?
Bekkah: I have a question about that, because it’s not very often that I get to talk to somebody who’s been on the internet for –
Tom: Ever.
Bekkah: For so long! How have you seen the internet change over time and what did that look like for you as you went through different phases of that?
Tom: Well, yeah so in the beginning, you’ll find this hard to believe, we would have to download a video for two to three hours. It would only play at the size of a postage stamp. I mean that’s literally how it was. The speeds were really low it was dial up. It was just really, really slow. Fast forward to today and I use the word “fast” because things are lightning fast now.
Then the other thing that’s changed is there are just enormous amounts of tools available to you that are really inexpensive but extremely powerful. That’s been the big change over the years. It’s still been selling stuff online and communicating online but the speeds are just outrageous now and the tools available to you now are outrageous.
Bekkah: So you probably made a lot of coffee while you’re waiting for stuff to download in the past, huh?
Tom: No, you didn’t make coffee you went to the movies, because you could see the whole thing real big right there right away in the movies theater, but you come back it’s halfway done! It’s halfway downloaded!
Why Did You Choose The Internet as a Career Path to Make Money?
Ruthie: Paint your entire house! Why did you pick the internet? What was your reason behind specifically that?
Tom: Well, the internet picked me basically, because I just had this severe thought in my head that I’d never want to work for anybody else. This was a pathway that allowed me to do as much as I want, make as much money as I wanted, to do it any time day or night. Now in the beginning, you know there wasn’t you know super-fast laptops and there wasn’t Starbucks where you could go in and get wi-fi. There wasn’t any wi-fi! It didn’t exist! Once that started evolving then it was really like, “Oh, this is a perfect lifestyle for me!”
Now for millions of people around the world where you can do it from anywhere and you can reach out. Money’s going into your checking account while you’re not even watching. I mean it’s a cliche “make money while you sleep.” Well, it’s absolutely true if you set up the proper infrastructure and you reach people and you give them good value. Money comes into your checking account while you’re sleeping and while you’re awake too! That’s even double whammy says the hamboyant – What was I a hamboyant what?
Ruthie: Hambuoyant diamond in the rough, I think is what Bekkah said.
Tom: Is it H – E – M or H – A – M?
Ruthie: H – A – M.
Tom: Oh! I’m thinking hem – buoyant. What does that mean?
Ruthie: Diamond in disguise, sorry.
Tom: Diamond in disguise. So that’s I mean it was just a clear path and perfect for me in the way I like to live my life.
Ruthie: Nice.
What Have You Learned Working For Yourself as an Entrepreneur?
Bekkah: What lessons have you learned while you’ve been working for yourself? How did you first start out doing that to make a living then you learned this is actually a good way to go about things?
Tom: Well, you’re talking the internet but keep in mind I’ve been in my own formal business for 44 now 45 years. Even since I was 10 years old I was selling stuff. I was always entrepreneurial. My dad was entrepreneurial in fact Hollywood has done a documentary about me and my dad who came over from Syria on a cattle boat and became an entrepreneur and turned me into an entrepreneur.
I’ve helped thousands of entrepreneurs, so that’s going to be premiering this spring sometime called The American Entrepreneur. It was just a perfect vehicle I mean you couldn’t have had a better vehicle. It’s a perfect vehicle now for people. I’ve been preaching this for 22 years since I’ve been teaching this stuff, but “work at home” used to be like a dirty word like, “Oh that’s a scam! That’s a scam!” And now look! Everybody’s working from home, right?
Ruthie: I don’t think you can take credit for a pandemic and maybe you shouldn’t, even if you could.
Tom: No, no! Not because of the pandemic! I’m just saying, “Look! You can legitimately work from home and this is a perfect vehicle for it.” With my school, you can actually learn from home and legitimately work from home so it’s perfect for disabled people and all kinds of people. Then all these families that had to quit working because the kids weren’t in school with nobody to watch them. it would have never messed their family up at all had they been able to sell online as a career.
What is The Best Place to Invest Your Time When Starting an Internet Business?
Ruthie: In selling online and all of your internet business ventures how do you know what is a good place to invest your time and what would be a waste of your time?
Tom: Well, I always go for things that are high return and low cost. There was a dot-com bubble they called it back 10 – 12 years ago or even more where they were throwing millions of dollars at stuff and then getting no returns. So I do the opposite of that. I do things that are extremely low cost with massive returns. Then if it doesn’t work you can try something else.
If that doesn’t work you can try something else and you didn’t just shatter your whole financial future. The thing is keep your costs low and the returns high. Now I don’t sell any cassettes or even hardly CDs or DVDs anymore. I do have some DVDs, but most of it is digital. That means it’s 97% profit. If you can learn how to do this and I’ve got probably a dozen places you can do this with not even a website. The idea is to keep your costs low and your returns and profit margins high and you can afford to mess up a bunch and still be profitable and make a living at it.
Where Do People Commonly Struggle With Being an Internet Entrepreneur?
Bekkah: Where do you think people commonly struggle with that when they’re trying to figure that out?
Tom: Well, they have to believe that they can do it first of all because there’s been just so many scams out there so I don’t blame them for being skeptical, but they struggle because there are so many people that never really made any money trying to tell you how to get rich. They’re really great at copywriting. I’m really a big fan of copywriting. I have a course on it but the thing is they could take a piece of dog doo and tell you how great it is and you got to have this greatest dog doo. But I got to tell you could pour sugar on dog doo all day long and it’s not going to turn out to be candy. Okay? It’s still bad!
They get sucked in to spend the money on things that are really terrible and worthless. It’s good to have somebody in your court that has been there and done that and can steer you away from all the scams. That happened to me! I mean the first two years I didn’t make a nickel. I did not make a nickel until I got good training from a guy named Corey Rudl. Unfortunately, he died in a tragic car accident but he was my first teacher. He was making five million dollars a year from his apartment. So he was the real deal. Brilliant guy and he was my first teacher.
After two years of struggling on my own, as soon as I got training from him I started making money. It wasn’t like it is now but it was 50 bucks a week and then $100, then $500, and $1,000 and $10,000. We have $30,000 weeks now. It’s really good to get good training from somebody credible, but you really gotta do your due diligence because there are so many people that make themselves look credible when they’re really rip-offs.
In fact, I have another Hollywood show in development called “Scam Brigade“. You can see the trailer at scambergate.com where I go after bad people because I stand up for the underdog because it’s too easy to get robbed and ruin the whole industry for all of it.
Ruthie: Which fits with your catchphrase that we made for you that you “fight for the little guys” you stand up for the little guys.
Tom: Yup, I’m a hamboyant, diamond –
Ruthie: In disguise.
Tom: Necklace or something.
Ruthie: I would wholeheartedly agree with you that there are so many different scams and things out there. People have all these get rich quick schemes so how do you know if something is going to be valuable to other people? If you’re looking at one of those programs where they’re like, “Oh, do this and then you’ll get all these clients!” How do you really vet what people want?
Tom: Well you have to do what we call “keyword research”. That can be totally free where you see where is there a demand for whatever your idea is. Did you ever hear of CSI?
How to Know If Your Idea is Valuable Enough to Become a Business
Bekkah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: What does it mean to you?
Bekkah: Something about solving crime?
Ruthie: Crime scene investigation?
Tom: Yeah, that’s what you think it is, right? No, to me it’s a “Crappy Stupid Idea”.
Everybody’s ideas including my own are crappy and stupid until you can prove they aren’t with real numbers. What that means is somebody thinks up an idea, they build all these websites, and get all the social media and everything to match, and then crickets are chirping because nobody wanted that idea. That’s backward. What you do is keyword research and that’ll tell you how many people are searching for your idea. How many people are searching on related ideas or something close to your idea before you make an investment? Then you go do product research.
See a lot of people think, “Oh, there are so many products out there I can’t do that idea because there are too many products.” No! That’s backward too! The more products there are in the market that proves there’s a demand there. If there are no products in a market that’s either you hit the lottery. You’re going to get rich and sell gazillions but more likely nobody could make any money in that field. So nobody has any products. If there are products in there that means there’s a market and that proves there’s a demand.
I call this my “Pizza Shop Theory.” If you make a good pizza, I mean there’s a massive demand for pizza in the world, right? If you do a good job making pizza and run your business well you’ll get your fair share of the business. Don’t go into something obscure because it costs a fortune to crack the market and then there may not be a market. It’s too risky that way.
What Type of Person Becomes Successful Using the Internet to Make an Income?
Bekkah: Who do you think is the typical person that you see success using the internet as an income? What kind of people do well at that?
Tom: The successful people are the ones that stick to it because nothing about this is hard. It’s just there are enormous moving parts. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle where you have all these pieces out in front of you but you don’t have the box. So you have no idea what it’s supposed to look like. That’s where a good coach or mentor will help you put those things together. But the ones that are successful are the ones that are persistent and consistent. Because just about anything can make money online if you stick to it enough and you keep your costs low and it’s got a good profit margin.
It’s nothing to do with people that are brilliant marketers and that the techniques are kind of all the same. It’s just that you have to keep going until you find the thing that works for your product and service. A lot of people are too easy to quit nowadays and say, “Oh, it didn’t work!” No, you didn’t work! You didn’t stick to it and find a way to make it work. So persistency and consistency are the traits of successful people.
Is It Important to Being Diversified When You Have an Internet Business?
Ruthie: How important is it to be diversified in the different areas of the internet that you’re utilizing and trying to be successful?
Tom: Well, they’re literally is a gazillion ways to make money but it’s important to be diversified but not in the beginning, okay? That’s the typical, “Oh, squirrel, Oh shiny object!” kind of thing and nobody is ever successful that way. I’ve had over 1,700 students in my big program and tens of thousands of people in my audiences all around the world. The ones that try to get 10 things going never make any money. They always fizzle.
The people that pick something, research it properly, make sure that it’s viable, and stick to it – they make money. Then once they learn how to do it correctly that’s when you can take the same set of skills to the next topic that you want to talk about or product. Like I have two german shepherds over there so I have a protection dog company on the side. I’ve got a tennis DVD that I sell. I had golf sites and things, but not all at once and not all at the beginning so it’s important to be diversified, but not in the beginning.
Is It Helpful to Be a Business-Minded Person in Life?
Bekkah: Would you say that being a business-minded person has helped you in life?
Tom: Yeah, well let me change the question slightly: being a small business person has helped me in life. A big business person, oh, what do they learn? Well, they learn nepotism. They learn backstabbing. They learn it takes two weeks of committee meeting to go to the bathroom. They learn to gossip. So being a small business person – I’ve hired hundreds of people over the years but I mean still, I’m the bottom line. That gives you this unstoppability that you know that you can make it no matter what.
You can scratch and crawl and you can be successful. Where a big business person then it’s like, “Oh, well pass the buck. Blame them over there because they didn’t get the stuff to us on time.” All these kinds of excuses when a small business person, they look around and, “Oh, I can’t pass this to anybody! It’s me!” So that really makes you tough inside and you can learn to overcome obstacles. In fact, you can’t see it right now but there’s a thing behind me where my dad when I could just crawl would put my pillows in front of me and put my toys on the other side of them to teach me how to overcome obstacles before I could even walk.
To this day, I’m unstoppable. I mean I won’t cheat anybody or step on them to get where I’m going but if you tell me I can’t do something I’m gonna blow by you doing it. In fact, when somebody tells you for your audience out there that you can’t do something that doesn’t mean anything! It means they can’t do it! Okay? It doesn’t mean you can’t do it! Being in a small business and being successful at it, not that I’ve always been successful! I got wiped out one time in the nightclub business. Well, not only did I almost get killed because I was in over a hundred violent encounters with bikers trying to kill me and gunfights and knife fights and all that stuff but –
Ruthie: Yikes!
Tom: Yeah, but as long as something doesn’t kill you can turn it into something good. I have another website called “Brutal Self-Defense.” It’s like every nasty thing you can do to another human being, but only in self-defense purposes. But anyway, I had this the second biggest nightclub in the state and the drinking age went from 18 to 21 in a college town. Wiped me out! I lost 400,000 bucks in one shot and I was working seven days a week for six years straight to build the place up. It was all wiped out.
That can devastate people, yeah, it was devastating at the time but with my dad in the back of my head, “You’re unstoppable. This is just the setback. You can come out of this.” So I refused to go bankrupt. I went to every creditor and I said, “Look, you know me. I’m not going to stick you with all these bills. You give me time and I’ll pay them all off.” So I did not go bankrupt. I paid everybody every nickel off over time. That’s showing integrity and that’s a big, big part of success in business too. Because it sets you apart from all the rip-offs.
Ruthie: How is being – it sounded like are you debt-free now?
Tom: I’m consumer debt-free but when you’re in business you want to keep a certain amount of debt. I don’t have to but I keep a certain amount going because you always want to have good credit. If you have zero stuff going on, if some big opportunity comes up you don’t have credit. So I’m consumer debt-free but still, my business things we on purpose – in fact, I was lucky to know a guy, I can’t tell you his name but he’s a billionaire.
He’s the one that taught me that. He could buy his whole city if he wanted to. He said, “No, you got to keep -” Two things he told me he said, “Tom, you need to set aside time to think. That’s part of your job is to just think.” Then he said the other thing is “you keep lines of credit always revolving.” Don’t pay fortunes and interest for anything but just keep things going so that you always have current high scores and all that stuff. When you need something quick boom! The money’s already there.
Has Having Good Business Credit Been Important to Your Success?
Ruthie: How do you think that that has set you up for success and being able to jump on those new opportunities and averting risk in that because you’re financially stable to do so.
Tom: Hasn’t done a thing for me. *laughs*
Well, the reason it hasn’t done a thing for me is that every business I’ve started is extremely low cost. I mean it’s just a computer basically; maybe a printer. I never had to take advantage of those things to use them, but I never know what the future holds so it hasn’t really done a lot for me yet but you know I got a super high credit rating, got lines of credit that I could pull in enormous amounts of money if I wanted to, but I don’t really want to. Because it’s almost against the way I teach. Keep their costs low and the returns high.
It doesn’t cost much to start an internet business. Like I said, you could have people tomorrow getting money coming in just going on eBay. In fact, when people are desperate and come to me quick, “I got to make money quick!” I put them on eBay because they could clean out their basement and have money coming in through Paypal like in a day or so. So there are just so many opportunities out there, but I don’t want people financing big, big stuff and trying to go for big startups and things like that. It’s just too risky. I mean people do it all the time, it’s just I wouldn’t teach them that.
How Do You Set Goals as an Entrepreneur?
Bekkah: So how do you set goals for yourself as an entrepreneur?
Tom: I’ve never reached a goal in my entire life. Never. *All laugh*
Ruthie: Okay!
Tom: Yeah this is a mind game I play on myself. I’m trying to keep track of who’s asking questions I think that was Ruthie right?
Ruthie: No, that was Bekkah!
Tom: Oh, okay, because there’s a box here that goes back and forth like who’s talking. A lot of my success has been mind games on myself. So my mind game is as soon as I get close to a goal it disappears and one goes past it. That keeps me just moving forward all the time. Because what happens if you reach your goal? Then what? You look around say, “Oh, I guess I retire now!” What? So, no, I use that mind game on myself. I’ve never reached a goal. It’s always something past it. Then another mind game, while I’m thinking of mind games, is that I announce what I’m gonna do to the world and then I’m too embarrassed not to do it. If times get tough I keep going, all right?
Ruthie: So peer pressure accountability?
Tom: Yeah, I make my own peer pressure! Because I don’t see the people that just are looking and visualizing successful business. Well, they’re dreamers! It only happens when you take the action. So the action is stimulated internally by me, but when times get tough, not quitting is because I don’t want people to say, “He’s a dreamer!” People look at me as a guy of action, not a dreamer. That’s just another mind game I play on myself.
I announce it to the world, and it’s and some really big things I’ve done like this retreat center I’m sitting in. I told people I was going to buy this multi-million dollar facility with no money down. Everybody’s, mortgage brokers are laughing at me, “Yeah, you’re doing well, but you ain’t doing that well!” I got a no money down deal! Now did I take it? No, because the interest rate was a little bit too high so I put 5% down. Like I said before when people tell you can’t do something that means they can’t do it.
Bekkah: I have a two-part question for you. The first part is when you first started out, what advice would you want to go back and give yourself? Then the second part of it is what tools and resources would you recommend to somebody who wants to start out?
Tom: Okay so what would I? What was that first one? What would I tell myself if I was starting over?
Bekkah: Yup.
Tom: Oh boy! Well, if I was starting over I’d probably, honestly would not have started my school. I love my school. It’s a unique, great facility that has had great results. It’s just that I kind of knew it was going to be against my personality to deal with the education system. Like, for instance, when a school started, we had all these things and my final approval after three years is supposed to go to the board meeting for the final approval of my school. I get a call I checked everything, everything’s ready to go.
I get a call and they say, “Hey!” This is a week before the board meeting they say. “Mr. Antion, we forgot to put you on the agenda for the board meeting.” I said, “Well, it’s next week. Okay, no problem! Go ahead and do it.” “Ah, we can’t really do it now. It’s all set and stone.” “What!? The next board meeting is not for six months!” It cost me $30,000 in rent! They said, “Sorry!” You know they’re doing their nails probably.
That’s been tough for me to do that, because I could have made as much or more money and not had the school behind me. That’s something I would have changed. Just be careful. The bottom line there would be to make sure you’re doing something that you belong, and you like, and you’re going to appreciate. Not something that’s going to be totally opposite of what you like. Because you won’t stick with it. That’s the bad part.
What Resources Can Help Anyone Looking to Start an Internet Business?
Bekkah: I wanted to touch on the tools and resources because I think you have a couple of things that you already have going on that I thought you might want to mention too so people know where to find you!
Tom: Well, I do want to give them a free resource!
Ruthie: Woohoo!
Tom: Yeah! You heard me mention it on my podcast. It’s an automation book. It’s all the things I do to automate myself. I mean I got to 150,000 subscribers and 40,000 customers with one part-time temp person because I was able to do all this stuff with these automation tools. The only time I started hiring people was when the accountant called me up and said, “Hey, Tom, you have too much retained earnings!” I’m like, “What? What do you mean?” He says, “Yeah they’re gonna -” I said, “I’m gonna pay more tax because I haven’t been buying yachts and airplanes and stuff?” “Yeah, I’m sorry!”
I said, “I’d rather hire people than buy bombs for the government.” So that’s when I started, but anyway in this e-book are all these tips and tricks to handle things lightning fast. Just one of the things that you see in the book has saved me 7.5 million keystrokes. We actually estimated it a couple of years ago. It’s probably more than that now. I think the most expensive one there is 20 bucks. The tools that I show and many of them are free including cell phone automation tips and all kinds of stuff. That’s at screwthecommute.com/automatefree screwthecommute.com/automatefree and then drop me a note and tell me you heard it on the sister ga.. what is that? *all laugh*
Ruthie: Business Talk Sister Gawk.
Tom: Yeah! I know what it is, it’s just that we’re not looking at each other, so I’m just gawking at the blank screen right now.
If you enjoyed this episode, give us a review on Apple podcasts!
