My Origin Story

The podcast, titled "My Origin Story," is hosted by Jared Erni, who shares his journey from working a dissatisfying corporate job to pursuing various entrepreneurial ventures. He initially dabbled in unconventional endeavors like diving for golf balls but eventually found himself managing a business in this niche. Despite his success, he felt trapped in his work and longed for more financial freedom and personal fulfillment.

Jared Erni (00:00.574)
What's up everyone? I wanna welcome you to the For Impact podcast and this is episode number one. I wanna use this episode to give you the background on why I'm producing this podcast to begin with. But first, let me give you a little bit of a backstory. When my wife and I got married and this was almost two decades ago, I got a regular corporate job for a small data company but I absolutely hated that job. And it led me to kind of...

looking for what other opportunities out there, I literally quit my job one day, walked out and came home and told my wife, I'm going to dive for golf balls. And she said, what? I saw on this Discovery Channel, I saw this guy who was killing it, making a living, diving for golf balls and reselling those. And I was like, I'm gonna do that. So I bought myself a wetsuit and some gear and I started reaching out and I figured out that there was actually someone doing that in this area.

and they had contracts with all of these golf communities. And rather than trying to compete in that way, I reached out to this guy and I said, look, I'd love to take you to lunch, sat down, told him, I love what you're doing, I wanna do this too, you can either hire me or I will do it on my own. And he hired me on the spot, I became a manager for over three years, built his business in these golf, diving for golf balls, I know it's the weirdest thing ever. But fast forward.

It really wasn't my own business and that was the thing. So fast forward, I got another corporate job and it sucked the life out of me. So I kept working on side businesses, hoping that one day I could leave my job again. And after six years, my wife and I were finally getting some traction with a program we built to help kids in schools get more physical activity in the classroom. And this was great because there was a lot of interest in it. It was helping their blood flow. It was like good impact for the kids. There was real value there.

and it would help with their cognitive performance and behavior in so many other ways because their blood flow was moving anyway, not to get into the science of it. But we actually had about 80 schools using this software. And at the end of the day though, this was not enough to sustain my family and it wasn't really what I was creating the impact for us personally that I wanted to. And it wasn't easy. It took a lot longer than I thought to build this, but I left my job at that point to pursue this. And while doing that, I had to figure stuff out.

Jared Erni (02:21.558)
had to figure out how to build ourself a website, get into all of the tech side of that. It was something I was already interested anyway, but I started doing this for other businesses and it led me to more of a digital marketing path than I realized because I was getting involved in these ways that would allow us to market digitally but also helping other businesses do it too. This actually led me to another venture that I started an indoor digital billboard network. I bought a...

a mini PC from eBay and a TV from Target and hung it in a barbecue restaurant and sold our first ad on that space for 60 bucks a month. And this actually was the first time I had a, what I would say is a real business that was interesting and had great potential. And I built this from, you know, one barbecue restaurant to over 200 gyms and restaurants in our community, the largest indoor digital billboard network across North Georgia. And...

It was a lot of fun. It took eight years of going through this process, building this company, but on the outside, it looked like an amazing success. We had a lot of great clients. We had a huge network. We had investors involved, a fleet of cars. We had an office building and 10 employees, but on the inside, I was trapped. Because though it looked successful, I was in prison in my own job. Like I started this.

to create financial freedom and time freedom and to live life more on my terms. And the end result was I worked harder than anyone else I knew. I worked, put more hours, like double the hours any of our employees did or anyone else in a normal job. I made less money than I had ever made doing this too. And there were times when I didn't even pay myself, months at a time. So what was really interesting is my pursuit.

to live life more on my terms, ended up being exactly the opposite and created a prison for me where I couldn't live life even at the level that I did when I had that dumb corporate job. Well, I was excited for the shift and the transition that we were gonna be making because I spent eight years in this place learning lessons I needed to learn to create more impact and more value for me and for the community through digital marketing. I learned the hard way what works and what doesn't.

Jared Erni (04:37.674)
And I don't wanna go into all of those details because I know in other episodes I'm going to be sharing that. But I mastered a set of skills that allows me and other businesses that if followed, these frameworks will cut through the noise and amplify your impact in your marketing, ultimately giving you more leads, clients, and sales to increase your income, increasing your capacity to have more time, freedom, and increasing the impact you create in the communities.

you serve. Now, just to wrap up this story though, everything came crashing down. Because when COVID shut everything down, we were two days away from selling this company to a billboard business who wanted to buy us out. And then all of a sudden gyms and restaurants were forced to shut and we couldn't sell advertising there. And this was crushing because I was like, well, what are we gonna do? I had mortgaged my home into this business. I had given every cent I had to build it.

I knew I was gonna walk away with a huge paycheck from this and all of a sudden, it vanished. In 60 days, I had to let all of my clients out of their contracts and our company, although we tried to revive that sale, it came crashing down and in 60 days, it was done. And I walked away from that devastated, but with new resolve because though I had an exit that I thought I was taking to get out of this prison, I kind of created for myself.

I also had the skill set that I knew I could build something even bigger and better out of. And this is what propelled me into the mission that I have today to empower local business owners to really amplify their impact without expensive ads, complicated SEO strategies, or hiring agencies to do their marketing for them so they can cut through the noise, attract the clients that they need to, to...

grow their financial freedom, time freedom, and actually impact the communities in deeper ways that they so desire with their God-given skills. I learned three huge lessons going through this process, which has ultimately led me to the mission that I have today. Here's secret number one. Number one is that little voice inside of you that says, I'll figure this out on my own, I can do it. Every entrepreneur feels like we are resourceful enough that if given enough time,

Jared Erni (07:02.986)
we're gonna figure this out. The problem with that is at what cost. It took me eight years to build this business to something I thought was actually a pretty decent revenue stream from the business, but when I found the person, a coach, a mentor, that I knew could accelerate that success much faster, rather than trying to be cheap and going, ah, I don't need to invest in that because I'll figure it out on my own. That's how I operated for the last eight years. I said, all right, I need to get resourceful and make the investment now.

to speed up the success, because I'm running out of time. And I found someone who could do it with me, who helped me accelerate that result, and I've never had a bigger return on any investment than the investment in myself. And it would have cost me far more to not make that investment than if I had just tried to do it on my own. So, first lesson is if you want to...

amplify or to speed up your success. Find a mentor or a coach or someone who's been there, done that before, who can help you do it faster now. Because your biggest cost in life is not taxes, though in the US that averages out to about 51% of your income, it's not taxes, it's more than that. Your biggest expense in life is not knowing how. If your goal is to make a million dollars in a year and you're doing 200,000, the...

The cost of not knowing how to make a million dollars that year is $800,000. That's far greater than the investment in getting the right person to help you. So, that's lesson number one. Lesson number two, marketing is absolutely, 100%, the most important part to master. Without it, your business will always struggle. I used to believe that I could, that sales was the way to go. Sell, I had this ego that, you know, marketing.

Marketing people are just sales people who don't have the guts to hold themselves accountable through commissions. Terrible. I used to think that, I don't know what it was about that, but I didn't understand how important marketing really is. Marketing is the vehicle that brings your message to the market. And though everyone operates in a business thinking, okay, I'm gonna invest in the right equipment and the team and the location and the office and all of this stuff, I'm gonna have the best.

Jared Erni (09:26.45)
service and people will come. That is not how it is today. Today, it's never been harder, excuse me, today the challenge is not starting a business, the challenge is cutting through the noise. And if you don't have a way to effectively and efficiently generate leads and attract clients to you, you will always struggle. That's why marketing becomes the first thing you need to master. Look, I just got off the phone with a plumber who wants to start his business. I said, look, I know you've developed this skill, you're in a trade school, you are a plumber.

but you are not in the business of selling plumbing, you're not in the business of plumbing services, you are in the business of selling plumbing services. And that shift needs you to understand like you've got to master your marketing. Secret number three, the power of fulfillment, or the power, excuse me, real fulfillment comes from the power of progress and contribution.

So you can have a lot of success in your business and still feel very empty. But it's contribution that fills that gap. And so my goal is not just how I can build something great and do something great and learn something great and become better and bigger and live life more on my terms, but what can I do to impact in positive ways the community around me too because of that. I feel my capacity to create bigger impact in different ways that will bless other people's lives because of that. And that is secret number three.

So the reason I'm launching this podcast is because I know there are other impact-driven entrepreneurs out there who start their business to build financial freedom and time freedom and to live life more on your terms, but these businesses have also become in a prison, just like I experienced. Owning your job that does exactly the opposite. And so it took me the better part of two decades to learn the lessons I've learned that allow me to share this with other people, share these insights. And...

and dissect those lessons into nuggets that they can take into their business and accelerate their success and impact. And if I could just help one entrepreneur with those insights on this podcast, saving them from having to learn the hard way and the long way like I did, then that is my job, that is my why. This is why I'm doing this. Because there is a ripple effect that follows. They will be empowered to amplify their impact personally and within the communities that they serve. And it's the entrepreneurs today.

Jared Erni (11:51.394)
that are the ones that take responsibility for problems that were not their own to begin with and make this world a better place. So this podcast is the destination for impact-driven entrepreneurs to dissect the lessons learned as we interview other successful businesses, showcasing their stories and also the things that they've learned in that path that will help us create bigger impact in bigger ways. And with those insights and ideas, accelerate our own impact. So stay tuned.

for great interviews and power-packed lessons that will help you cut through the noise and amplify your impact as well, because guys, your impact matters.