63: Why Turning Down Business Can Help Your Business Scale

Behind Their Success: Ep 63

Paden: Chris Walker

[00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome to Behind Their Success podcast. I'm Peyton Squires, the

host. And today we have on Chris Walker. Chris is the founder of Legit, a B2B growth engine.

Legit helps businesses with the right tools and professionals to help grow online. He is a

seasoned entrepreneur with multiple eight figure businesses in the digital marketing space.

Paden: Chris, good morning. Welcome on Behind Their Success.

So tell us a little bit about your business there.

Chris: All right. So I guess I'll give you a little bit of the background. Around 2013, I was working

in IT support doing like level one, reset your password, turn it on and off again, that kind of thing.

And I was pretty miserable with that. I needed, I was also in some credit card debt, so I started

looking around for ways to make some money and I stumbled into internet marketing, affiliate

marketing, and I started doing search engine optimization from that, and then from there, I

started doing freelancing on a marketplace site.

and I started doing really well with that. I remember I was at the gym one day and I got a

PayPal [00:01:00] notification and I'm like, well, what the heck is that? And I looked into it and it

was a sale that I had made it.

I just listed a service called Flim and from there, it took off. I started doing some sales and then I

got enforced by an influencer and I got a lot more sales and I was doing well. So I eventually

was able to quit my job. But right after I quit my job, that site started going all to, uh,

all the heck and like got hacked and crashed and stuff. So I started selling. Through my own

website, through my other business, my SEO business. Uh, and I'd met some of the freelancers

on that site that I was working on, and they're like, well, can we sell something through your site

too? And I was like, well, maybe I'm onto something here.

So, I partnered with a developer who was actually a customer of mine, uh, to create Legit, which

is, at that point, was just a marketplace of where freelancers sold services and customers could

buy them. Uh, and since then, we've added in all kinds of cool, uh, like software and things to

help people. Um, and they need for their business and connect them with people that can do the

things that they need.

So we kind of like in the middle that way. So, and that brings us, we just had our seventh

anniversary. So that brings us up to [00:02:00] now.

Paden: Very cool. So, well, you know, along that journey, it sounded like, you know, you had to

pivot a few times. tell us a little bit about that? You know, you started as, you know, a

marketplace there.

what changes have you made along the way?

Chris: Yeah. So I had my SEO business going well, and I intended legit to just be. another

product for that business. but within the first month, it was my number one revenue source, like

literally one month after it launched. and from there, I really didn't have a plan for it.

And I regret that now. Uh, I wish I had a vision for it in the beginning. Uh, but along the way we

had to figure out who we were. At one point I said, I wanted to be like the Amazon of digital

services, but I really had no idea what that meant. I really evaluated who I wanted to work with

and other sites that people compare us to appeal to everyone.

But what I really wanted to do is help businesses and entrepreneurs grow and help freelancers

make a full time living because it had done so well for me. I wanted to be able to give that back.

So we have focused our development [00:03:00] and our progress and everything around

helping businesses rather than helping everybody.

Yeah, and

Paden: that's, you know, you find that true, you know, a lot of a lot of businesses, right? You

kind of start out. You know, you may be doing a lot of different things and you're right. You

realize you got to figure out what is, what is legit? Like, what are we, what are we doing? What

is our niche? What are we focused on?

Because you can't be everything to everybody, right? And trying to compete. In every space is,

usually not a good idea, right?

Chris: Yeah, like we often get, there's a couple of sites we often get, compared to or asked, how

are you different than, I don't want to give them any press, but these other sites, I, and in the

beginning, I really didn't have a great answer.

to that. And that's when we really had to focus on who we wanted to be. Like you say in the

beginning, you just start and it's really just to make enough money to pay, make payroll that

month. And then after a while you get past that point and you have to start deciding who you are

and what makes you unique.

And I hit that point maybe 2021. And since then we've really focused on [00:04:00] just helping

businesses. Cause that's. I didn't have to be too woo woo about it, but I think businesses are

who can help change the world. And that's what we want to do.

Paden: Yeah. And that's great. And you know, that's a, you know, that's a journey I've been on

certainly in my business as well.

I'm a tax practice. you know, I started in 2014 and it was just like, I don't know, I'm just trying to

make money. And you know, and of course that gets you so far and you keep growing and

whatnot, but like, it's amazing when you really start finding your messaging. And who you're

trying to serve specifically.

And you get really, really clear on that. That all of a sudden, all those people just start showing

up in your life. Because you've got that clear messaging. And you're very clear on the problems

you solve. And it becomes a whole lot easier to find the right people. that have those problems.

And you can solve them easily and at the highest value.

Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. And I don't think any great business has ever Of course you have to make as

much money as possible, but like apple isn't just a cell phone company that wants to make a lot

of money. They, you know, Steve jobs, wanting to put a dent in the [00:05:00] universe kind of

thing. So having a vision on what you want to do helps more than just making money.

Like you can make seven figures just trying to make money, but you can't make. You live

change, like world

Paden: changing. Yeah, no, and that's been my experience, you know, we're going to, you

know, tons of entrepreneurs over the years You know, you can hustle and really, really just

hustle and not necessarily build a business and maybe hit that seven figure revenue, but your

life's going to suck just generally speaking, because you're going to be running around and you

don't have clear, you know, clarity on really anything that you're doing.

Right. the only reason, the only way to break past that plateau is to get very clear on who you

are and what the business is and what you, what you do and more importantly, what you don't

do and serve. That is so important.

Chris: Yeah. I was going to say that that's going to mean saying no to opportunities that will

make you money sometimes.

And that's, that's hard for some people to do, but, uh, If you have a vision, you can do that. You

like, if you have a question that does this serve this, if you can ask that about every [00:06:00]

decision, and then if it's a no, then you say, no, it'll make that a lot easier. So it's still hard to turn

down money. Yeah, it's,

Paden: it is so easy.

Like I said, same transition. I, you know, I started as a, you know, a tax preparer, basically

serving anybody that would pay me to do that. and now I'm very clear about who we work with

or who I work with and how we work. And if it's not a fit and it doesn't fit the process, then, you

know, ultimately we don't work together.

but yeah, yeah, referring and it's not, it's not pe It's just like, you know, and allows me to help

peo at a very high level. Tha in the process, well, it It's just not fit.

Chris: You'd be doing a disservice to them to take them on because you can't help them the

way that you really can't want to help somebody.

Paden: So, you know, kind of, kind of looking back through your journey here, Chris, what would

you say, you know, was your, best skill that has allowed you to develop this business and grow

to what it is today?

Chris: I want to say community building [00:07:00] is something I've really done very well with. I

didn't include this in my back story, but I worked as a professional political operative and I would

be basically I would work what was called field those offices you see in like your your area like I

would work at those and try to get people in the community and involved in our candidate and I

did fairly well with that and I brought without realizing that's what I was doing.

I brought that to legit and we built a kind of I had a community from my previous business that

was I already had distribution ready when we launched because I had built that community that

was anxious for a replacement for the other site that I talked about. So that helped. And then to

make legit grow, we built a community where people are invested in the brand and in me and in

what we do.

And it's not that makes your business so much more powerful and so much more flexible. For

example, during the pandemic, one of the ways that we kept engaged with, I would do live

streams every single day. And with absolutely no topic, just talking to the same people every

day. And I hate to say it, but like [00:08:00] we took off during the pandemic, the pandemic was

fantastic for our business.

And because we had created that strong community as we survived when other, it also helped

when other people tried to compete with us and they had comparable products, they didn't get

anywhere because they didn't have. They hadn't built that connection with people. So I think

community building is probably my most valuable skill and the thing that has served me the

most throughout all my

Paden: career.

Yeah, that's, that's great. You know, building community around the business can you speak to, I

guess, to, to more of the benefits of like building a community around your, you know, around

your business?

Chris: Sure. For one thing, it's there's an expression in entrepreneurship, create a moat around

your business.

So that's one of the things that that's done for us. Now, that sounds a little tactical and I don't like

that because to me, the community is people, but I'll get to that in a second. But like I said, there

were a couple of times people would start, Similar businesses who saw what I did and said, Oh,

well, that seems easy.

I'll do that too. And it didn't work for them because they hadn't built that brand affinity [00:09:00]

because they didn't have that community. So people will stick with you, even if there's an option

that's comparable or in some ways better or whatever. Coca Cola is a great example of that.

Like I traveled to India recently and we'd be driving down the street and there'd be like business.

I couldn't understand what it said business. I didn't understand what it said. Coca Cola exactly

the same as it is in America. So like building that and it also gives you. When you offer a new

product or new service, it gives you a way to launch that with people already ready to buy rather

than having to go out and run paid advertising, which you should also do, but rather than having

to bring them in through paid advertising or other means, it has a built in audience and there's,

intangible component to it too, to have people that genuinely like care about you and your

business and want you to succeed, it's not something you can put a like a number on.

I don't know. It's something I'm very proud of too, because like, I will just talk to people like about

nothing related to business.

It doesn't always have to be transactional. That's where sometimes people try to create a

community and they get it wrong because it's always [00:10:00] transactional. There's just, uh,

sometimes you just have to. Get to know people. So that answered your question. The value is

that it's a built in customer base, but it also protects you from like other people trying.

Yeah. And

Paden: I think, you know, the community building and it's, you know, to me, I see it all as just

really brand building. how a strong brand allows you to have a very successful business, right?

Like it's, um, it's like, you know, you have a plain white t shirt and it sells for 4, but you put a Nike

swoosh on it and it can sell for 40.

And what's the difference there, right? It's literally just a logo on, but that logo means something

to people, right? Nike has spent the last, they are 50 years or whatever, making associations

with their Nike swoosh. They're like, Hey, Nike swoosh, Michael Jordan. Hey, you know,

success, championship, whatever, right?

And making associations and people want to be a part of that. And they are willing to pay

[00:11:00] premium.

Chris: Yeah, continuing that, like the Coca Cola example. Last year, I went to Las Vegas. And

they have a store there that's three stories tall. It's a Coca Cola brand store. It doesn't sell much

Coke. It just sells Coke merchandise.

And like, that's amazing that they have such a strong brand that there's three floors of And it

was swamped, busy the whole time, three floors of people buying stuff. That's not their main

product. It's just their label on, on other products that their brand is that strong. So I remember

thinking I envy them.

Paden: such an interesting thing, especially in today's world, you know, with online marketing

and different things, people are so tactical and, and really try to figure out, okay, how do we get

these like one hits through ads and get, you know, hook people in to buy a product or whatnot.

a lot of those tactics, they're fine. There's not necessarily, you know, something wrong with

those things, but a lot of those people would be way better off spending time building an actual

business around instead of around of just a marketing tactics to try to get quick sales, because

the issue with that is what, you know, you do that, you get those, you know, tactics [00:12:00]

and you get some sales, but you're always hunting and you're always competing.

You know, for that next client and against competitors because you've never taken the time to

actually build a brand that means anything to anybody.

Chris: Yeah. People like that never get reoccurring business. And I emphasize the O because

that's different than recurring. And some people don't get that, but like people buy again with the

Coca Cola example, people, once they start drinking that, they drink it for the rest of their life.

You know, and if they don't have to market to those people anymore, obviously they still do, but

they, uh, they don't have to market to somebody once they get them. And once

Paden: you build a brand, you know, that large and that long, like, you know, say Coca Cola or

say some of the major beer brands or whatever is that they are so playing the long game.

You know what I mean? Like you see their commercials and it's not even about Coca Cola or

anything like that. It's just about making large associations, right? Beer is always like connected

to sports. So, you know, anytime you think sports, you think beer and you consume beer, right?

it's such playing that long game that, you know, you can tell how [00:13:00] developed a

business is by their marketing of how like sales focused it is versus like, even like brain focused.

the brand allows the marketing tactics to just be amazing. Right. It's, it's, it's, you gotta put the

cargo for, you know, a horse in front of the cart, right? Like it's, it's, you need the brand and then

you go use the tactics and you combine those and then you're, you know, then you're amazing.

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looking back again, Chris, what would you credit as the best decision you've made?

Chris: it's hard to say, uh, cause it, Business is a series of small decisions, but probably the,

person I partnered with. In the beginning, I almost partnered with some other people, and I don't

think it would have worked out

And I think if I'd partnered with anyone else, I first of all, I wouldn't have had the capital to do it

myself to do the technical side of it myself.

But I also would the times when it's gotten rough and he stepped in and vice versa, it wouldn't

have worked out. So I think the best decision is if you're going to partner with someone is

choose someone who has. Thanks. A skill that you don't have, but has the same values as you

[00:15:00] so and that's easier said than done, but I think if I had to do one one key decision, I

think that would have been it.

Paden: yeah. Partnerships, you know, um, be very careful who you can go to partnership with.

Um, it can be, uh, quite a mess and, you know, I've. I've had a lot of different partnerships in my

career. Some, most of them have gone amazing. Few haven't. and a lot of that was due to, um,

some of the stuff we were just discussing.

Chris: Yeah. I try to equate my partner and I to, uh, Steve jobs and Steve Wozniak.

And he's kind of like the Steve Wozniak. And I'm kind of like the Steve jobs. Cause I'm going to

like the face of the brand. And he's like the one that makes the, makes it work. Like actually that

makes the thing do what it's supposed to do.

Paden: Yeah. And that's where you, you know, if you've ever Know anything about traction of

the book traction.

You got, you got the visionary and the integrator and combining those two, you know, any good

business is going to have, you know, a big visionary. Like you say, Steve jobs or you, right.

They're, Painting the vision and doing the big picture stuff. And then you also have the

integrator, uh, which is the main [00:16:00] driver of, okay, the rubber hits the road, stuff actually

moves, gets into the tactics and the operations of making sure the business, business works.

Cause the visionaries generally not, I mean, you know, some people have certain personality

types that can kind of handle both, but generally you're, you're way more one.

Chris: Yeah, definitely. It's a right brain, left brain kind of.

Paden: That's cool. So, you know, talking about one of the best decisions you ever made there,

Chris, look back, uh, tell me one of the, uh, big old mistakes you made.

Chris: not deciding what we wanted to be soon enough. We were three or four years in before

we really had. And I idea of what we wanted to do other than make more money than last

month. And part of that was because we made more money every single month. So like.

There's no need to figure out who we were. And then after a while, it kind of, and not just that it

plateaued, but like, I don't know, it just felt like we weren't really doing anything special anymore.

So not deciding that sooner, was the biggest mistake.

Paden: you're gonna get punched in the face in different ways through [00:17:00] business and,

and some of it just flat out never, you know, just is not your fault at all.

Right. but ultimately as a business owner, it's your responsibility to have to deal with it. So

whether it's your fault or not, it doesn't even matter. Um, ultimately it's your responsibility, which,

you know, good business owners that just jump in and have to deal with it

Chris: Yeah. It's funny. You mentioned getting punched in the face a lot. I, uh, in my spare time,

I like train in boxing and kickboxing and sometimes people ask me why I do that. And I'm like,

And partly because it's just good exercise, but also because in boxing you learn that Getting hit

in the face isn't as bad as you think it is, and it prepares you for the times the literally getting hit

in the face prepares you for the times that life or business is going to hit you in the face and

make you realize that it's not going to hurt forever.

So,

Paden: yeah, no, that's great. And I, you know, we talked about a lot of here, you know. you

know, creating healthy, wealthy and wise entrepreneurs. Yeah, I mean, physical part of this is, is

everything, you know, it's something that I discovered, I don't know, five plus years ago, you

know, and, and amazing Jim [00:18:00] habits and, and, and develop that.

And yes, there's great physical benefits for that. And that, you know, helps you in your

entrepreneur journey because you are healthier and more energized and whatnot. But I think

the benefits are even more mental because, you know, going to the gym every day and

struggling and lifting weights or doing, you know, training or boxing it's such a great microcosm

of life, right?

Of like the struggle. And if you just keep pushing through, like the results will come just because

that's what they do. And it's such a great. Like you said, it's such a great training ground, like

entrepreneurs in general of, you know, entrepreneurship, I'd say is the greatest, you know, like

self development tool of all time.

Chris: Absolutely. Like the most high caliber people I know are all entrepreneurs. And I don't say

that lightly because I have some really great employees too who are accomplished a lot in their

lives. So, it's not like one of my goals for this year, if I can figure out how I want to start a

nonprofit.

To teach [00:19:00] like a disadvantaged and incarcerated young people, entrepreneurship is,

it's like, it's what will get them freedom more than anything. Other thing.

Paden: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I said, we say this the most, most

episodes that entrepreneurship is like, you know, the feedback loop you get from it, right?

You always, you put stuff out in the world and the market tells you if it's good or not. And you

know, you get back results and you got to tinker with it and you put it back out there again. And

it's this constant. a feedback loop that if you participate in it, you're going to learn how to get

better and it's going to develop you and change you and mold you, you know, throughout your

journey.

Chris: Yeah. And you also learned that your opinion doesn't matter. You can make something

that you think is the greatest product or service or copy or whatever in the world. And if it doesn't

work, it doesn't matter what you think.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's the old punch in the face, uh, punch the old ego. And

that's where entrepreneurship is great.

It's good at killing your ego. because, you know, the longer you're in it, you're, we all eat humble

pie at some [00:20:00] points. Um, If you ever feel

Chris: like you're getting too confident, just go run some Facebook ads and look at the

comments on them.

Paden: Yeah. The people on the internet will give you some nice feedback, whether it's, you

know, even constructive or not is a different story, but they'll, they'll tell you what they think.

Yeah. so that's great, man. So Chris, you know, looking, looking early in your career. you could

think back and give yourself, you know, one piece of advice, what would that be?

Chris: Start hiring sooner.

that's definitely what I would say.

Paden: Yeah, I'm the exact same story. Um, exact same story. Guy started his own business out

of his own living room. Did everything myself for, I don't know, seven plus years stupidly. the

second I hired my first person, uh, the business grew a ton and we're great.

the next time I hired a second person. The business grew even more and it was great. it literally

was me just, you know, my ego and my, uh, probably more fear than anything, right. [00:21:00]

Of, you know, oh, can I even pay this person's salary or whatnot. But it was my own insecurities

holding back the business, right?

And holding back the growth. And that's where, you know, it really comes back to every

business. You know, the, the, the checkpoint and the, the bottleneck of it is, is the owner of the

business, right? And, and their vision and their ability to step out in faith on things like hiring

people and, and growing the business and things like that.

Um.

Chris: It's, it's all on the entrepreneur. The bottleneck is at the top of the bottle. That's how I try

to look at that. So I got that from Alex Ramosi. That's yeah.

Paden: Oh yeah. We talk about Ramosi a lot here. You know, I, I love his stuff. He's a man just

from like a business tactics. He's one of the greatest guys on the internet right now.

Oh, absolutely. He can explain tactically how to operate and run businesses at such a high.

Chris: Yeah. And as far as hiring, I just want to make the point that it's really a math problem.

Like if somebody can do something 50 percent as well as you do, that's still 50 percent that you

don't have [00:22:00] to do that frees you up to do much higher level tasks.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And in the audience, what's a great book to read on this. This is a book I've

read multiple times and actually when I'm really diving deep into this year, who not how. Dr.

Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. They have several amazing books. They're, they're amazing

entrepreneur authors, but it really goes into deep of like, you know, the entrepreneurs need to

stop asking like how I'm going to do something.

the better question is who is going to do, that opens up your mind to think of opportunities and

people to be able to plug into situations. And it's not always you thinking of how am I going to do

that? Um, and it's, it's an amazing, eye opening book about bringing in the right people into your

business and how, um, if done right can be, um, magical, really.

Chris: I'm going to have to check that out. I do a lot of reading. Yeah,

Paden: yeah. Who Not How. They have another great one called The Gap and the Gain, which

is amazing. and another one called, 10X is easier than 2X and really talking [00:23:00] about

how, most entrepreneurs are constantly kind of trying to 2X their business, right?

But when you're trying to 2X your business, you're really, the only way, the way to do that is

really to just kind of do more of what you're doing, right? Or maybe be a little more efficient The

way to 10 X your business is a totally different thought process, right? It's okay to 10 X your

business.

You got to fundamentally change something about your business and asking those questions

can be a whole lot more life changing than and two X is so much more of a grind, but that That's

another eye opener. So man, you know, this has been a great conversation.

You know, really, really appreciate you coming on and sharing a lot about what is the best way

people can kind of connect with you, get to know more about, you know, legit and, uh, kind of

the other businesses you got going on.

Chris: So for legit, it's free to sign up. Just, just go register. If you have a business, we'll help

you grow.

If you want to make some money and you have a skill, we can help you with that too. It's L I G E

I I T dot com. And as far as me, you can find me on YouTube. I have an active YouTube channel.

I do daily live streams again. Started doing that because it [00:24:00] worked. And I don't know

why I ever stopped. And you can find me on Facebook as well.

Uh, but make sure you search Chris M. Walker because there was a one hit wonder in the 90s

named Chris Walker and he dominates that search. Yeah. Yeah.

Paden: Well, Chris, that's awesome. Yeah, guys, you know, really check out, you know, check

out his website.

Like I said, it's legit with, with two I's in there, right? L E I I T dot com. Um, some really cool,

interesting stuff on there. Um, and Chris, man, I appreciate you. This has been a great

conversation.

Chris: Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for having me.

Paden: Yeah, absolutely. Anything else you want to leave for the listeners?

Chris: Uh, just figure out what you want in life and then go do it. That's awesome, Chris.

Paden: Well, listeners, guys, we will catch you next time.

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and

share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're trying to

accomplish our goal of help creating more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can

follow us on social media by searching for me, Payton Squires, or going to [00:25:00]

paytonsquires.

com. On the website and social media, we're always sharing tips of personal growth, and there

we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.