What It Takes to Build a $6 Million Business in 2 Years with Sandra Clayton

Welcome to the podcast. I’m Shane Barker, your host of Shane Barker’s Marketing Madness Podcast. My guest today is Sandra Clayton, who’s going to talk about building a six-million-dollar business in two years. She’s the founder of Conversion Minded, a company that helps entrepreneurs grow their online businesses. She’s a writer, designer, and marketer, passionate about driving growth for smaller businesses. She’ll share her experiences as an entrepreneur and discuss how she tackles various professional challenges. So, Sandra, tell us a little about yourself. Where did you grow up?

Sounds like beach life in New Jersey might be rough. Weekends, or something. How far is Lawrenceville, New Jersey, from you?

I bring it up because, in a past life, I used to open restaurants. I opened a restaurant in Lawrenceville, New Jersey—or, well, near Lawrenceville. Not mine, exactly, but I was doing corporate work, so we opened up. It was a Chevy’s Mexican restaurant. Hopefully it didn’t go bankrupt because of me. I was the data guy, so if the data’s wrong, maybe that’s why they closed. But either way, it’s interesting. I’ve been to New Jersey, and Lawrenceville was about a two-week stint for me. That’s the only Jersey area I know besides that. So anyway, it’s the only Jersey I know. Yeah, but I would—I mean…

Yeah, I think people’s perception comes from what they see in the media or shows—so they assume that’s how it must be, whether it’s true or not. California gets a bad rap in some ways, and some folks think… I remember once going to church camp in Colorado, and they said, “Oh, you’re from California? You must surf to school.” I was like, “Sure, bro, that’s all I do—surf.” I have milky white skin and red hair. I’m definitely not a surfer. I hate the sun, I don’t get along with it. But they were like, “Yeah, you must surf.” I’d tell them, “No, the only reason I don’t surf to school is because I can’t fit my surfboard in my locker,” and they were like, “Oh, that makes sense.” This was 25 years ago—kind of cute. People would ask, “Did you have Pam Anderson with you?” Like, “Of course.” Pam and I used to be…

Yeah! She loves me. She loves fair-skinned white guys who don’t surf for some reason—she just has an epiphany about them.

Yeah, time to have the conversation. I’ve been waiting, looking for the green light, and I think that’s the point: they are stereotypes. And the thing is, yeah, I used to joke with my wife about stereotypes and say, “Well, some of them are true. Like, that’s not right, no, but I wouldn’t say it’s…” I mean, I’ve met all kinds of Jersey people, all kinds of Californians, but there’s still something to it, right? So tell us about your Jersey upbringing. It’s beautiful, right? How big was your family? Did you have a big family—brothers, sisters?

Right, so I explain—because I have some younger adults who might be listening—what a bike is, since I’m trying to think of an iPad perspective. No, I’m kidding. These are the things we used for outdoor activities.

Yeah, exactly. It’s a whole new world. You’re on two wheels, you have to experience it. Good luck—put that iPad down, go grab a bike. Crazy, crazy world. So, you had a good-sized family, and was it a protective family? Were you younger, older?

To me, there’s no better way to appreciate playing tennis than on a court you literally built yourselves. I mean…

It adds character, which I think some kids miss out on. I see it with my son, who went to a private high school where kids get BMWs or Mercedes for their sixteenth birthday. Then my son’s like, “Hey, can I get a Lexus?” and I’m like, “No.” He has to work for it. But I like the idea of him working for a car rather than just being handed one. I was raised to believe you should earn what you have.

You know what it takes to build something like that—that’s crazy. It’s awesome. I was joking about this: yesterday, as I was telling you, my son’s going off to college for his junior year, and the whole family was like, “Hey, go to college, have fun.” So we had some family over, and we got on the topic of how I once had to dig ditches for a sprinkler system in the backyard—thick, hard soil—and I’m there blistering, young, burning in the sun with my milky skin, thinking, “We’re at the end, I’m blistered, Dad’s like, ‘So do you want to go to college?’” And I’m like, “Oh my God, I can’t wait to go to college. Tell me more.” Like, does not going to college mean I have to do this forever—blisters on my back? I think that’s what pushed me toward college.

My son is working now, doing a recycling job. Yesterday he got dehydrated, almost heat exhaustion. It’s not good, but it’s grinding, hard work—you appreciate life differently when you have to do that. If you’ve had a job in a restaurant, you remember counting your tips and thinking how nice air conditioning is when you’re back inside.

Exactly. I think we’re missing a lot of that. Kids these days, they don’t know what bikes are; it’s usually not like that. But that’s how I’m feeling right now. So, I guess this is where we’re headed. Tell us some interesting facts—like you already told us about building tennis courts and pools.

I think we’re going to talk about your successes—everything you’ve done so far. I’d guess a lot of it has to do with that upbringing of “Hey, you’ve got to go get it done—nobody’s gonna hand it to you.” I don’t know you well, beyond chatting briefly before the podcast, but it’s clear nobody is handing anything to you.

God, I feel like I need to interview your parents on this podcast. Seriously, I love that. We told our son the same thing: “Hey, you signed up for it. You’re going all the way through. Unless there’s a crazy accident, something happens, but you might not like it right now—you committed to it, and you committed to a team.”

It’s mindset—how you look at things. Initially, everyone hates anything brand new, because you don’t like change. You don’t want it to be some shift from chilling at home watching TV. But then you get into it and think, “Oh, I can find some fun in this,” right? Not bad. So, where did you go to college?

Yeah? So you were… and what did you study at Rutgers?

Right, you’re like, “I’ve been trained to do this.” That’s awesome. So do you write all your own content for your blog?

Guest contributions—I’m a fan. If you think the writers are good, it’s great content to put out there, as long as it’s good content…

Exactly. If I had a dollar for every time someone pitched me to write for my website, I’d retire. I wouldn’t have to do anything else. Then I’d head to my private island to drink “Coronavirus.”

Why do we have to go back and forth with 10 emails? And please don’t send me something from a Gmail account or Yahoo or AOL—at that point, I’m lost. I lose all interest.

Yeah, we’re having an identity crisis, right? We’re trying to figure out, “Yeah, yeah,” and I always tell them what I’ll do is say, “Hey, let’s do a video call,” because they want a video call, but it’s not “John,” right? So I’m like, “How can they—anyway, I like to have a little fun with them.” I like messing with telemarketers when they call. I’ve had some interesting experiences. Let me tell you one: there was a telemarketer saying, “Hey, this is Wells Fargo or something, we want to do this or that.” I don’t even have a Wells Fargo account. I said, “Well, hey, how’d you get this phone number?” and she goes, “What do you mean, how?” I go, “How’d you get my phone number? Like I’m a federal agent, you’re not allowed to do that.” She’s like, “You can’t—I don’t know how you guys got this number.” So I said, “This is what you need to do: you can’t hang up,” and she goes, “What do you mean?” I said, “Don’t hang up. I’m gonna have to send some agents over.” She’s like, “I don’t know, I’m just sitting here. I’m sorry.” I was like, “Listen, I’m totally sorry, I’m just messing around, I’m just a smart aleck.” Then she starts laughing. You know, we had a fun conversation. It’s not her fault—she’s just doing her job. But I figure, let’s have some fun with it. I remember one time, I told my boyfriend that someone used to beat me. I mean, we’ve had some interesting convos with folks. I mean, why not have fun, right?

Anyway, about your family. Your parents are entrepreneurs, so tell us a little bit about that. We’ve talked about how that mindset helped you succeed—nobody’s handing you anything. But what did your parents do? What’s their entrepreneurial space?

Yeah. I know the only issue with Boeing and some of those big companies is you don’t get paid fast. Not “last” exactly, but still. Once you get paid, it’s like, “Okay, we can wait a month or two. We’re good again.” When is it not crazy? The journey, though—I mean, you’re literally talking about going from odor-eaters for restrooms to now working with Boeing.

I don’t know if it’s “Jersey girls,” but I just talked to a Jersey girl on another podcast about failure and foundation, and whether you’re making a right or a left. I really like it—kind of crazy. It’s to the point where I’m like, “Did I just wake up? Did this already happen?” Feels like Groundhog Day, you know, like we just talked about. It might look different, but I love that. Before I got up, did I tell you guys we’re on point? Because I’m like, “Let’s mess with Shane.” This is the medication talking, but let’s roll with it.

I love the idea that everything happens for a reason, and it’s all perspective on how you look at it. Things that happened in life make you go, “Wow, that’s crazy. How did you get through it?” Then you realize you changed your perspective. I’m not saying it’s easy, and I’m not saying I changed it the next day. I wasn’t mad at how I was treated or something—I got fired or whatever.

You’re gonna go through it—you have to. That’s how I look at life. You have to get punched in the face sometimes. These things build you into who you are, right? And some folks think they’re important. Like with mice, for example, we’re sometimes trying to stop the natural tide of life happening, and I don’t want that for my son. He has to feel some pressure and stressors. It’s a different world.

I saw a picture talking about the journey—where you are now and where you’ll be as an entrepreneur. It’s never a straight line. More like a weird, up-and-down roller coaster until you reach a plateau—and you just gotta ride it. And at some point, if you’re not riding that roller coaster, I’d be cautious because it’s coming. You have to be ready. My kid’s being raised by entrepreneurs, so he understands that sometimes things are great, like maybe we can hire someone for our pool. Other times it’s “Guess what? We need to figure out what’s next.” That’s the ups and downs. I’m an entrepreneur, my wife is a nurse—just recently a nurse—but now we have that stability. I mean, I’ve had years that were phenomenal, and then a year I’m like, “Man, I’m gonna borrow money for tacos.” Not really, but it’s the ups and downs.

And I think it’s important for people to see that the reason a lot of courses do well is because people are selling the dream. People are always looking for shortcuts—like a three-second app instead of a seven-second bike ride, for example. In reality, there aren’t many shortcuts when it comes to building something like that tennis court you mentioned. Sure, there may be little tricks here and there, but you have to put in the work.

That leads me to your company, Conversion Minded. I’m guessing you talk about foundations, how you do things, how to get your mind ready for conversions, or how to pivot or push forward if needed. Tell us a little about how you started Conversion Minded and how it all came about.

Awesome. So that was your aha moment, right? You said, “Wait, I’ve got this common thread.” So your services are about helping people—someone who just has an idea and a logo, or do they already have a business? At what stage do you look to work with someone?

So Conversion Minded is more like consulting…

That makes sense. It’s like your Build My Brand toolkit—is that part of it?

Well, that’s interesting. I mentioned earlier that I’m working on a course about how to be an influencer. The course is meant to help people become influencers, but we’re not going in saying, “Hey, you can have a pink pool, eat caviar on a jet.” The real focus is personal branding—just the basics, like building a website. Don’t go out pitching Nike at age 29 with a Gmail address. It’s just the basics: let’s start a foundation. Create something strong, then build from there. That’s literally what the course is about. I don’t really touch on branding as much as I probably should; maybe I’ll send them your way. But for me, it’s, “Hey, get some stuff going, make sure you’re doing it right, so you have a good foundation and can grow from there.”

Right, it’s almost like a business plan, because you’re forced to think about things you didn’t consider. That’s awesome. So, if someone wants to implement a successful business marketing strategy, do you have a framework you work off of? When someone comes to you saying, “Hey, I want this vision, I’ve got ideas, how do I launch?” is there a framework you use? How would someone reach out to you—through your website? But what is your approach?

Obviously you’re good at building these frameworks and helping people, because you built your business to six million in two years?

You go, sister—good job. You should be proud of that. That’s a healthy number, right? So how did you put that together so fast? In two years, first of all, do you have a team? How big is it? And what did you do to produce six million in revenue? I assume you have different revenue streams, not just one. Probably courses, consulting, stuff like that. Break that down a bit—how big is your team, and how do your revenue streams work?

Temporary? That sounds pretty permanent to me. Man, dollars—that’s awesome.

So you’re basically the gateway to real tattoos—you’re like that game, like marijuana.

Good profit margins, right?

For sure, I can imagine it doesn’t cost too much to produce those, but getting everything together and approaching stores like Spencer’s or Target must be interesting. Congratulations on that success.

Now, regarding both the six-million-dollar business you built in two years and your current business, what are some of the biggest challenges your clients—or you, personally—have faced? Are there specific points where people tend to quit, or when it suddenly gets really hard? Because every business hits challenges at some point. Is there a particular area you see most people give up, or could you share some personal challenges you’ve dealt with in your own business?

And it comes down to what you already said about goals, right? It’s figuring out what you want to do, what your mission is, and then really sticking to it.

Yeah, because you don’t even know what you want. It’s no different than, say, a relationship—if you just got out of a ten-year relationship a week ago, maybe it’s not a great time to date. You’ve still got to figure yourself out, what’s going on. There’s some soul-searching that needs to happen. You can’t do everything, and it’s tough. I see that a lot with people pitching me on random ideas or profit. If you’re all over the place, you’ve got to hone it down. What are you actually doing?

You know what I tell people? If it were easy, everyone would do it. That’s what it comes down to. The only thing I can guarantee is that you’ll reach points where you’re like, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this? I’m confused again.” But if you circle back to your values, your vision—“I’m doing this maybe not just for me, but to lower people’s cholesterol, or I want to…”—there’s a bigger thing you feel could have real impact. Maybe it’s also about giving back, or whichever mission resonates with you. That’s important to keep in mind so you can tap right back into it. I go, “Okay, I read my vision again—got it, that’s why. Because it’s not about me. There’s a bigger goal at play here.” That’s awesome.

So, how many businesses are you running right now? I mean this respectfully. I suspect you have a sickness like mine—maybe three businesses? But I think you’re lying; you might have four or five. I think you’re just holding back for the podcast, so it doesn’t look like you’re juggling five businesses. Just be honest, I’ll find out. I’ll call you out later. Now we’re being real. I knew I wanted to ask that question—I’m not with you, I’m with you. We’ll just talk back and forth.

It’s like me: I have a wholesale real estate company in Sacramento, a 35-person team, so we can do a lot of stuff. My “sickness” is when people ask, “What do you do?” and I’m like, “That’s a great question,” because I don’t even know. Am I “Shane the real estate guy,” “Shane the entrepreneur,” “Shane the speaker,” or “Shane the UCLA instructor?” Half the time I forget I’m an instructor, and someone’s like, “How did you not remember that?” and I say, “Why would I?” because I do a bunch of other stuff. Then they say, “Are you on medication?” Probably. I probably should be. I just haven’t found the right mix yet. But that’s nothing we need to discuss today…

It is. I mean, I have to. My thing is, you said you used to have a terrible work-life balance. I was the same: 18-hour days, 30 pounds heavier, not in a good space—energy drinks, all that stuff. Now I work out and have a way better system. But it took time. Sometimes you’ve just gotta learn delegation and all that. If I hadn’t gone through that, I wouldn’t know what to delegate.

Well, the only guarantee with delegation most of the time is they’re not going to do things exactly the way you do—and that’s okay. The problem is people say, “If I delegate to this person, I’ll just have to redo some of it.” Maybe, but if they do 80% of it right, or you train them better, then they’ll know how you want things done. Especially with video, it’s easy: I can just tell my team, “Guys, I really like these changes—do this, do that,” record a two-minute video, and send it. Done.

Perfect—then you can plug it into anybody. That’s what I do. Back in the day, I’d write an email, pointing at this and that, read it the next morning, and think, “I don’t even know what I wrote—how would they?” It was like hieroglyphics. Maybe I was half-asleep. But video is so easy, so I’m curious: do you have specific software or tools you use? If we’re talking about video, is there a certain piece of video software you rely on?

I’ve used ScreenFlow sometimes, but Loom is great for me because it’s simpler. For my course, I’m doing something else, but Loom is so easy—and I probably have 900 Loom videos. I’m not kidding; I was one of the early users and evolved with it. It’s just so easy. I might be an abuser. I’m probably the reason they’ll go out of business, since I produce too many videos for the $60 a month they charge me, or whatever it is. But I love it. I’m a huge fan. It makes everything so much easier. Writing emails takes me half an hour, and I’ve got ADHD, so talking is way simpler. God knows, I can talk forever. So yeah, you’ve got videos, ScreenFlow, and Loom. Any other software you can’t live without?

Yeah, Google’s got a few engineers, and they’ve made some decent stuff. Last I checked, we’re definitely Google Doc abusers, too. I think their servers will be fine with what we’re doing, but we’re still tied into that whole idea—like, I can’t even find half of my docs. I say, “I gotta leave this.”

And you’re like, “You can’t just put Shane’s Doc or Shane’s Google Doc, because that doesn’t work. We’ve got to be more specific.” Yeah, that’s funny. So if we had the chance to, say, tell aspiring entrepreneurs one piece of advice—like we said, you’re going to get punched in the face a few times, don’t expect it to be easy, probably pivot—what else would you say every entrepreneur needs to know?

Agreed. I think routine is—have you ever read—what is it, “The Morning Routine” or something? I have the book somewhere. Anyways, it talks about a routine you do in the morning when you’re getting ready for your day. So my routine—I used to be, once again, up late all night and up somewhat early in the morning. I mean, really early, like six o’clock. I actually get up around five or five-thirty now, and I walk. People probably think I’m on meth or some kind of drug or something, but I just walk frivolously, like, just around the neighborhoods, go downtown Sacramento, go all over. I do it for about 12 miles a day. But it’s just early, and it’s also with my team on Slack, doing this and doing that. So I’m getting stuff done while I’m on there walking. Of course, I’m breathing a little heavy, and at first, it’s probably super awkward for everybody on the call. They’re like, “Why are you breathing so heavy on a Friday morning?” I’m like, that’s just what I do—I get super passionate. I’m like, “No, I’m walking, this is, you know, this year’s routine.” But I do think that routine is good because you get into that regimen of, “This is how I start my day. This is what my day is like.” And it’s important because if you don’t, it’s very easy to get off-target: instantly jump on Facebook, jump on this, do this, do that, and you’re not really in that mindset.

You know, that’s the key. The key is blocking out time, because once again, you can get sidetracked by everything and anything, right? And even blocking it out isn’t going to be perfect. But then, this is like when you call your deep work—your deep, focused process work—whatever you’ve got going on, where you have to, like, really focus and not have kids around or anything like that. But I think just structuring that time gives you a better idea of how your day is going to be structured, right? So you have some framework. It’s not always going to be perfect, it might deviate, but still, at least 80% or 90% of my day is going to be this—and I’ll feel productive if I get that done.

So are there any marketers or entrepreneurs you’re inspired by? Like people you follow on social media or engage with?

BackLinko!

Awesome. So what I meant is—are there any cool projects you’re working on? I mean, other than your 19 businesses. I think you held back on that a bit, which is okay. I could tell we’d probably text each other all night.
I can imagine—at this point, you’ve got 19 businesses. You were right. I just counted them exactly, and I had to use my toes on that. I can’t count that high, so I had to hire someone to bring their fingers over. I get it. I’ve been there. I’m there right now.
Any other cool projects? Anything business or personal, or fun stuff you’re just knee-deep in right now?

It’s nice, because when you’re talking one-on-one, you can be very specific to their needs. When you do a course—which isn’t bad—it’s much more general.

Do you have a platform you use for your courses, like Kajabi or…?

Teachable, awesome. Yep, cool. And then—what about stuff like your favorite things to do when you’re not working? I should probably define what “not working” is—that would be the time you’re not working. You know, that 16 minutes where you try to sleep in, or the half hour when you’re drinking your coffee. So those few seconds…

Yes, stagnant life. I used to work for Spartans, so I’ve been quiet. We went to the one in Tahoe—the big one they had there—and I had a buddy who was barely trained. He was a smoker. I didn’t even know he smoked, but we were working together. He almost died. I mean, literally almost. You’re going up the side of a damn mountain—no elevator, it’s literally straight up.

It took him seven and a half hours. I thought he was dead. I was like, “Can I file a missing person report?” But then I’m like, “No, we have to wait at least 24 hours.” And honestly, I didn’t think he’d make it. We get this a lot, and he wasn’t even that good of a friend. I wasn’t that worried. If it were my mom or something—but it’s a crazy deal. And when he came down, I was like, “What is going on?” And he’s like…

And the elevation was another factor. You’re going straight up. If you’re not even ready for it… I had a hard time breathing when I was trying to pace myself…

I wish I had a picture—he cramped up and fell down. Like, he went down. Then one of our friends, Dennis, was like, “Bug, you okay?” And he’s like—barely talking. All cramped up like a dinosaur before it died.
I had pictures of all this. I’d buy them back from me and make tons of money. But he survived—just barely. Shout out to the guys over there. I’m glad they made it.

So tell us—probably one more question I want to ask you. But tell us one random fact people don’t know about you. You’re a runner—is there anything that would make people go, “Wait, Sandra, we had no idea”? Like, do you secretly fence for the Olympic team or something? Or are you all pretty open out there?

They’re like, living the life.

So what was your genre? Like, what kind of music did you do—RnB, man, RnB, was that it?

I could tell—maybe there’s a podcast. Nobody could see you kind of get down. But I saw you started talking about R&B, and your head started bobbing. And I was like, “Oh, somebody’s ready.”

I know somebody listens to you when she runs. I do. Trust me, I hear that 808 kicking right now. I’m used to having a record label—not by any means in it now—so I’m somewhat familiar with the music industry. But I appreciate people who are on the creative side of things and create music, because I think that’s awesome.

Yeah, I never really had an ear for it—I thought music was good, but I never jumped in. I really wish I would’ve done something as a producer or engineer on the back end, because I enjoyed music. I’m a huge fan.

So, well, cool. This has been an awesome interview. Once again, you’re an absolute dive. I know we could probably talk for like two days more. We’re probably going to be BFFs or something, maybe even friends on Facebook. I mean, that close. Oh my goodness.

I know it’s a commitment. I didn’t want to, but I waited to tell you at the end of the podcast—because if I said this at the beginning, you’d be like, “This guy’s a stalker.” But now we’re super comfortable. If people want to get in touch with you, find out more about your courses or your coaching, where can they reach you?

Awesome, awesome. Sandra, this was an awesome interview. You’ve got a great energy about you. This has been fun for sure.

I can’t wait. We’ll see if I end up as a success story—or the guy everyone points to and says, “Hey, don’t do what Shane did. He did these 47 things wrong. Avoid that.”

And I’ll be in the car, sending you a picture like, “Hey, look, I need to borrow some money. Can you send me some?”

Well, awesome. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

All right. Bye.