This "9x12 Postcard Side Hustle" Is About To Replace His Job ($10K/Month)

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I just had an insane interview with somebody who just sold out their first 9x12 inch postcard. And if you don't know what the 9x12 method is, it is the best, simplest business model to make thousands of dollars while working your full-time job. And it'll help you quit it one day soon. But here's a quick spiel about how it works. I call it the 9x12 method.

This is where you sell advertising slots on a large postcard to local businesses. [music] And the card is 9 by 12 in, hence the name the 9x12 method. It's actually a pretty cool community builder because it allows [music] local businesses to actually be able to afford mail marketing because they actually split the cost of marketing and at the same time you benefit by bringing the businesses together because you make around 4 grand profit just [music] for coordinating it. Once you've sold out all of the ad slots and pasted in their ads that they design for you or you design yourself, the card is mailed to 5,000 households in the [music] community. So, it's great for the businesses.

It's great for you for coordinating it and making profit. And the community benefits because they get discounts [music] for local businesses around them that they already love. Oh, and by the way, I take care of the printing and shipping so that you guys can focus on selling. But we'll talk about that in another video [music] or you can find out about that on my community. Okay, I've got my hair back.

We'll get to the interview in a second. And you should get some popcorn and actually take some notes on this because this was a tactical master class. We learned about this cinnamon roll technique that he used, a very secret tactic to get people to buy from him. He also leveraged his friends to get fulfillment done in like 30 minutes. Um, he leveraged the BNI group.

Just incredible stuff. You're going to want to stick around and watch and grab a notepad because this was a master class. Enjoy. Travis, thank you for coming on here and agreeing to spread your wisdom to the 9 by12 method community. Before we dive into the weeds, I want to just kind of quickly ask you a banger of a question.

How has this postcard right here in the 9 by12 method impacted your life? Yeah, thanks for having me, man. I would say as far as impact so far, main thing has just been busy busy. Still working full-time, so really just been free time, as much as I can get to try to get out and talk to business owners. So time consuming right now while I'm still working my day job.

But it's also given me a lot of lot of confidence, you know, that I can get out and do my own thing, that I don't need a somebody else's logo on my shirt in order to do business, you know, I can kind of fly my own flag and be my own man. >> Totally. Yeah. And it's pretty cool. So, is this your the first business you've ever ran?

Do you have any entrepreneurial experience at all? >> Entrepreneurial? None at all. I've been in sales for close to 10 years now and ran, you know, as a bartender, bar manager, nightclubs, stuff like that before I got into sales. So, always been interacting with people, uh, but never never done anything entrepreneurial before.

>> I love it. Yeah. That just goes to show how simplistic this business can be because I mean I haven't haven't talked about it yet, but you sold out your first card. So, you've already gotten through the hardest part of this business. You've collected money from local businesses.

They've agreed to pay you. You've never run a business in your life. So, that's pretty awesome. So, yeah, I saw that you joined obviously >> you're you're a member of our our school community. We have a big community, 2,800 other 9 by1 12ers.

Um, you joined us back in August. What's the timeline look like since then? Now that it's November, when did you really like start prospecting, stuff like that? >> Yeah, I I mean I I hit the ground running. Um, a buddy of mine showed me your community.

I think he was on one of Alex Forzy's calls and I I don't really know how he stumbled across you, but he kind of showed me his his school thing and was he's like, "I've joined. I think you should, too." And I hopped in and hit the ground running. My first stop was business owners I already knew. I had a couple couple family members that signed up right away and a couple of the businesses that I frequent where I was familiar with the owners, you know, on a customer personal basis.

So, my first four or five spots filled up quick. Once I got into cold calling and talking to strangers, it got bogged down a little bit, but it was started, you know, right there at the end of August and I had my my first card went out last week. So, it took me almost two full months to to get it out. But again, that's working a full-time job as well. So, you know, nights, weekends, downtime, you know, it wasn't two months of a 9 to5 or anything.

>> Yeah, totally. Fair enough. And it's good that you had the the little advantage having family members and people in your community you already knew. A lot of people kind of overlook that and they just jump straight to prospecting, but when you can leverage people who already trust you, that's where you can really gain some momentum early on. And obviously I mean congrats on selling out your first card.

It took two months that that's I mean for the fact that you're already working a full-time job. That's amazing. I mean, we'll talk about the financials in a second, but the fact that you were able to work a full-time job and on top of that run this business on the side and succeed at it is pretty awesome. So, >> yeah, >> I want to jump to your bio on school. So, I saw in your bio it says, "I'm here to make enough money to quit my job and start farming."

Can you break that down a little bit for us? >> Yeah. Yeah. I I did a little bit of farming. We had my sister and I were raising goats, chickens, rabbits.

That was before I got into sales and while bartending, farming was an easy thing to do during the day. I was just working at night so I had the the time to be able to do it. Really love that that lifestyle. I moved over to sales for, you know, more income potential, which has definitely succeeded on that front. you know, I was able to get out of debt, buy a house, paid off my student loans, you know, all all that stuff, but not able to raise animals or do the the gardening and all that stuff.

I really like food food independence is very important to me. So, haven't had to get away from that getting into sales, but I got my, you know, kind of financials lined up. Uh, now I'm really looking to gain more freedom and be able to raise my own food. >> Cool. Yeah, food independence is seems pretty important these days with how crazy the world is.

So, >> no doubt. >> We'll get you going on that pretty quickly. I'm sure there's a school community for that, too. But, so you said you're in a sales position. Is that what you do right now?

>> Yeah. Yeah. inh home inh home sales home services done I had worked for two different companies in that kind of sector but it's yeah in inh home you know presentations and just trying to get business across the finish line with you know inbound leads people that have found us online and you know different different avenues uh my company actually uses the vow pack so they're they're using a similar system to to get the business that I go out and go out and So, >> yeah. Okay. You got to get them on a 9 by12 then cuz they're wasting their money.

>> Yeah. No doubt. I It's funny kind of looking at those different mailers. Uh the there's like value magazine and different things like that that I never really noticed before, but once I was kind of alerted to the 9 by12, like, "Oh, these are all all potential customers." >> Absolutely.

Yeah. It's funny how you don't notice things until like you actually have it yourself. Like you drive a blue pickup truck, you never notice them, but then once you buy a blue pickup truck, you see them everywhere. So that's funny. So what exactly pushed you over the edge to actually like take the leap and jump in?

Obviously, you said your friends in the community? Was there a certain video that you saw or like what got you to really take the leap and start? Because a lot of people hesitate heavily on this. Yeah, you know, I've been I would say the the size of of companies that I've worked for, while they're, you know, very efficient, they do a lot of business. Um, when you're a part of a big organization, change happens slowly.

I feel like a lot of ideas just kind of die in corporate purgatory where there's maybe things that we could do better that, you know, 18 different people have to sign off on before any changes can get made. So I I would say that was probably the biggest thing that got me motivated to move quickly is just years of frustration of things moving slowly. So I I mean the I think it was the very night that I heard about the community. I made [clears throat] a couple Facebook posts in some neighborhood groups before even talking to my my personal network. I just hopped on Facebook and went for it.

The the biggest everyone that responded there were four or five different business owners that responded to those those Facebook group messages. Uh but they all wanted to know who else was doing it and I had no one. So that was kind of the first um hurdle that I had to overcome is just like I don't know you, I don't trust you. So reaching out to those family members and friends to just kind of have the social proof really helped kind of spur me along. Once people had heard of some businesses that were on the card, they were a lot more willing to hear me out.

>> Yeah, for sure. That's that's something that people worry about is the trust factor. Like why would a business give me and write me a check in my personal name just $500 just out of the blue when they have no idea who I am? And obviously you leverage your your sphere which is very helpful. I'm curious did you are part of the our local spotlight national website?

>> I have not gotten in on that yet. My website is still in the works. So, I I didn't uh [clears throat] I mean, I may have done it a little bit backwards than a lot of people do, but I I've seen a lot of things, you know, just people getting bogged down in the details, and [clears throat] I didn't I didn't let that stop me. I' I'd f sold four or five spots before I got my LLC, before I got my bank account set up. I had to hold on to hold on to checks for a few weeks [snorts] so I could, you know, deposit them into my business bank account.

But yeah, did the whole the whole first card all from an iPhone. Uh did all my designs on my phone. No graphic design experience or anything, but my my website is is in the works and I' I've definitely been looking through the the spotlight to once I've got that digital presence to get that branding. >> Yeah. And to clarify, I'm glad that you didn't join it because clearly work make the Facebook post in the group and start prospecting.

You don't need the fancy website and everything. And that's exactly how you did it. And that's why you saw such quick success compared to other people who feel like they need to get the website set up, the platform, their CRM and everything. So you did it the right way. I'm glad that you didn't join that platform and then now you can use that to leverage that brand to help you in the future.

So, a lot of people kind of do it, you said you did it in reverse, you did it the right way. A lot of people choose to do it in reverse, which is setting everything up and then going out and making sales. Really, you should go make some sales, validate that this is something you actually want to do, and then set things up. You did it right. >> Yeah.

Yeah. My my mantra with this has always been, you know, go as go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you'll you'll see further. >> That's a good one. That's a good one. So, you're using this you're using this as a bridge to obviously move over to farming eventually.

How confident are you now that you sold out your first card? How confident are you that this will get you there one day? It >> extremely the [clears throat] the especially with as you know kind of shoestring together. This this first card was my my CRM was a legal pad just writing down businesses and phone numbers and emails. So, a lot of the things that I'm working on getting automated from email scrapers to an actual CRM, I just feel like it only gets easier and easier.

I'm working on two cards for my next next batch. I'm going to stick stick to the same area where I did my first card, do another one there, and then I opened up a new area as well. it it's not going to take me more than, you know, three or four cards to replace my income and and have that, you know, kind of same same income without the lifestyle of a full-time job. So, very confident to answer your question. It's not a matter of it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when at this point.

>> That's awesome. I love it. And that's why I always talk about how this is like the perfect bridge business because there's not many businesses out there that you can work alongside a full-time job and actually make a decent income from. So most people are kind of stuck like they they can't really escape their full-time job because they can't find that business that they can do on the side because most people can't afford to quit their job right now, but they have to quit their job in order to start a business. So this is perfect because you don't have to do either.

It's the perfect bridge. Can are you comfortable talking about like the financials of your first card like what your profit was how how much money you sold a slot for? >> Yeah, very comfortable. It's it's been kind of, you know, like I said, shoestring together like everything else. When I first started the one of the first things that I did was went to it's not a chamber of commerce, but it's a a similar organization.

I after that initial Facebook post, you know, where I got kind of smoked on, you know, we don't know you, we don't know anybody else that's doing this, I went to that neighborhood association to try to gain some credibility. It was just like, hey, I want to help you guys uh promote. They had an event coming up in it was 6 weeks from when I started was the event that they were hosting. And I said, "Hey, if I, you know, if I promote your event for free, will you put the word out to your membership and just give me some, you know, give me some credibility?" That was a very serendipitous conversation.

Their head of marketing for that organization told me it was just the night before that they realized sending out direct mail promoting the event wasn't in their budget. So they reluctantly weren't going to send out direct mail because of the cost and a free spot for me was very much in their budget. So that gave me a lot of confidence right away that you know a this is expensive to do by yourself. They said they couldn't afford to do that. So, originally I was doing $500 for a 5,000 piece mailer that wasn't able to get my spots filled in time for their event.

So, which lesson learned, uh, don't give yourself a deadline. But after kind of changing tactics and not being able to to promote that event, I switched to a 10,000 piece mailer. just kind of felt like the 5,000 homes maybe that I had chosen weren't necessarily the the highest income part of town. So, I went to a 10,000 piece, added some higher income areas, and went to 650 for a 10,000 piece. I honored the pricing for the four four businesses that bought in or five businesses that got in before I switched to 10,000.

So, I kept all of them at the $500 price point and then just charged 650 from from there on out. I [snorts] had an auto repair shop that went with a double ad. I did double spots for 1,100 and she which I thought was pretty neat. Instead of doing a a double ad, she did one ad on both sides. [snorts] She just wanted wanted to be on both sides of the postcard, which I thought was really smart.

And so at the end of the day, I had one business that I bartered with. It's a cafe here in town. The again the owner is a friend and they do they're they're well known for their cinnamon rolls at this particular cafe. So we were talking and he said that cinnamon rolls are a great way to soften up gatekeepers. You you hand them a cinnamon roll and they're a lot more a lot more willing to get you in touch with their boss.

So, the deal I worked out with him was as many free cinnamon rolls as I need for prospecting. And I gave him a him a spot for free. And I felt like that was a good, you know, good way to keep the keep the postcards sticky. You know, I ended up with a lot more contractors than I I wasn't very successful with restaurants. um which I haven't really figured out the you know what the play is there to try to get more of them involved.

But so at the at the end of it all you know I had five advertisers at the $500 for a 10,000 piece. I gave one away for free. Had one for a double spot at 1,100. Uh when it was all said and done I I made right around 3,000 in in profit and very happy with it. You know, I was I made some deals.

The last spot I filled at half price to a brand new business owner, China rental service. And I've never heard of such a business, but that was kind of her thing. She's like, "Nobody's ever heard of this." I'm like, "Well, this is perfect." Like, it's not like anybody's going to look for you on Google, you know?

You got to get in their face, tell them what you're all about. So, wasn't super strict with the with the pricing. So, you know, one could argue I left some money on the table, but again, it's I'm I'm looking at this more of a marathon rather than a sprint. Really, just getting getting the card out and having a a real card to to show I think will be, you know, just a lot better. The the samples are great.

They definitely get the point across of what it is physically, but I think having businesses that are in town recognizable is also going to really help for for prospecting on this next batch. >> Yeah. I I have to pause you because I need people to write down three notes right now that you just talked about because there's clearly three things that you did this month that really set you forward. Number one, you leverage the BNI, their whatever the business group that you joined, you offer them free advertising and in return you got uh advertisers out of it. So that's number one.

Number two is when most people would have decreased their prices to try to sell out the card faster, you didn't decrease your price, you actually raised your price, but you also raised your value. So there's that just shows there's multiple levers that you can pull in order to speed things up. people would just jump to decreasing their price right away. You just increased value and you increased your price. So honestly, you would have made less profit if you decided to just keep keep going with the 5,000 cards and decreasing your price, but you still made out with three grand and and that on your first card.

That's incredible, right? It's a scrappy first card and you got the referral business out of it. You've got the authority out of it. Like you've got a lot out of that first card more than just the profit. And the third thing that people need to write down is cinnamon rolls because that's that's genius.

[laughter] You keep you're leveraging all of your advertisers to to to kind of help you out. So, write this down, guys. Find a bakery or cinnamon roll place. Get them to give you unlimited pastries so that you can give that to other advertisers to win their business and then give that bakery a free slot. Write that down.

All right. Th those are three awesome things that I just learned. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow.

So, you made $3,000 in profit. What did your dayto-day schedule look like? Did you have any sort of consistency? Obviously, in the beginning, it was pretty scrappy, but did you eventually pick up any sort of schedule? >> Yeah, with my, you know, I'm I'm in sales, so the the appointments come in, you know, we my schedule just f fills up as it fills up.

So, it's not like a set hours or set place that I need to be. um I'm going out to people's homes when they're available. So, it was really just a I didn't settle into any sort of any sort of rhythm. It was, you know, if I had some free time in the morning or free time in the afternoon or, you know, whatever the case was. It was just kind of working around my my sales schedule and just finding finding any any spare bit of time that I could rattle off a couple emails or stop into a couple businesses or just, you know, scrolling through Facebook and screenshotting different, you know, people advertising on there, kind of building a prospect list.

Very unorthodox, but that's my schedule as it is, so I just use what I had at my disposal. >> Cool. Yeah. Obviously, so you worked a full-time job and it it's all over the place. So, I guess asking you how many hours a day you worked on this is probably a stupid question to ask.

So, instead, I'll ask on a scale of 1 to eight. If one is I barely worked on this every day, maybe an hour tops per day, and eight being this was like a separate full-time job, where would this business have been on the scale for you? Yeah, I'm probably around a five or a six. There were definitely sacrifices that that I had to make in my social life and fitness routine. That was another that was an area that a lot of my spare time was going to that I, you know, had to sacrifice a bit.

So, put on a couple pounds in the time was putting the card together. And from going into all the restaurants, I found that business owners are a lot more keen to talk to you if you're a customer. So just, you know, buying something at a at a restaurant or whatever helped helped me get in front of those business owners. They were a lot more they just look at you differently when you're a customer rather than when you're a salesman. >> So that's where all the cinnamon rolls went.

[laughter] >> A lot of them. But yeah, I put a lot of time into it. I I wouldn't say that it was but that's like I said if if it was if I was working less or working regularly I may have been able to come up with a system where it wasn't so you know time inensive but I was just anxious to get the card out and you know trying to get as many I I really look at especially sales like this I used to I used to knock doors to to generate leads for a couple of these companies and I really look at prospecting as going out and collecting nos instead of trying to find the yeses. If you're, you know, let me go get 10 nos today. And I know if I've gotten those enough nos, the yeses will come through.

>> Absolutely. Yeah. Obviously you your experience in sales. So what exactly was your sales process? What did it look like?

Were you emailing, cold calls, all doortodoor? What were you doing? >> I I did a a little bit of everything. I I posted in Facebook groups. I found a lot of the the neighborhood groups in my area.

People ask for recommendations all the time, you know, hey, I need a new roof. Who do you guys recommend? So, I I did a lot of prospecting on the Facebook groups. Those contractors I usually cold called was kind of my method if I saw them on on Facebook. A lot of those a lot of those smaller contractors don't have like a an office you can stroll into.

Excuse me. So, a lot of those were cold calls with emails. I went through the the the business association. I just went through their membership and pulled emails off [snorts] of that and then walked into I a little bit of everything and probably got, you know, about an even percentage from each of those endeavors. I didn't notice anything in particular working better or worse.

And I don't know if that's my approach me or or what it is, but I think different business owners are going to respond to different types of, you know, outreach. Some of them are in their businesses more, some of them are on their emails more. It's, you know, it's haven't really noticed any trends on on any sort of method for outreach. >> Totally. And as time goes on, you probably will start to notice trends and you you'll start to figure out who to reach out to where, which you already did figure out with the contractors.

Like you're better off cold calling them. Whereas other businesses like restaurants, it's kind you can't really cold call them because you're just hitting the front desk who's going to think you're asking for a reservation. It's going to be hard to get to the boss. So there's different avenues to reach different sorts of businesses. So you'll be able to you'll be able to note down and learn over time what what are the best avenues depending on the business.

And good question that a lot of people are probably wondering right now. Did you find like a really good time to cold call contractors like those smaller contractors you were talking about? >> I would say usually those calls that was what I was doing in the evenings. If I was, you know, if it was during normal business hours and I had some free time, that's when I was doing those like cold dropins. if it was during business hours.

Restaurants, I caught a lot of owners right at opening. I tried to go in that kind of lull after the lunch rush and found that that was really the time that restaurant owners went to run errands. They were at the bank or the post office or, you know, whatever. But if you go in right when they're opening, I was able to actually get face to face with a lot of the restaurant owners, you know, 10 11:00 a.m.

right when they opened. I wouldn't call it a time that they wanted to talk to me, but they were there. >> That's most [clears throat] important, >> right? So, yeah, I most of the time it was just I would say I was probably early in the morning if I had free time, I was sending out emails. Uh if it was during business hours, I was dropping in.

If my free time was in the evening, that's when I was doing those those cold calls. >> Cool. And what did your scripts look like in terms of emailing and in person and cold calls? What were your scripts looking like? >> I I literally copied the one off of the school pitch.

>> Crazy. That [laughter] simple, huh? >> Yeah. >> And it's, you know, I I had to kind of work through, you know, who I was. you know, local business owner didn't feel right until I got my LLC.

Then then that that one started feeling good. You know, before that it was, you know, I'm a a contractor in the area. Originally, I was going to promote myself, you know, for my own sales job. Ended up deciding I'd rather sell that space and make my money that way. I would say before I had the confidence to, you know, kind of dive into this, I was planning on [clears throat] it generating some business for me.

About halfway through the process, I was like, "No, this is my thing now. I'm I'm just going to sell that space instead of use it myself." >> It was the exact same thing for me when I started. I I planned on putting myself on there and then I was like, "No, 500 $500,000 sounds good to me. I'll take I'll take that and I'll keep selling these cars and quit my job."

So the same way. >> Yep. >> So how'd you organize all these leads? You said you used a legal pad. Was there any sort of system on there or you just >> No, I I mean I went through first and picked the advertise, you know, the industries that I that I thought would be the the best that I I wouldn't say that I definitely didn't stick to that plan.

Um, you know, I've got a a China rental service. That was not an industry I had picked [laughter] out. Um, another one's a heavy metal detox supplement that I'd never heard of before, but I I found a a couple of them on the actually the the cafe that ended up being on the card. They have advertising on the tables in that restaurant. Uh, so I just take pictures of the tables and called everybody that was advertising that way.

I I think the that's been probably the biggest thing just realizing that if they're spending money to advertise somehow they're the type of business that spends money to advertise. So those are the people that I need to be reaching out to. So every little knickknack type of advertising I could find, I just grab that up and start calling people on it. But for [clears throat] you know the the list building I I would go by industry and my organization kind of fell apart through the you know I thought I was going to be so organized and do things a certain type of way and I just it just ended up being more like the wild west when it when it really came to fruition. um random places that I'd never heard of that I'd stop into or so it's you know what's the Mike Tyson saying like everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face.

I got I got punched in the face but and just kind of rolled with it and embraced the chaos so to speak. >> Yeah, I love it. Some people when they get punched in the face they they lose their plan. they they slow down and then they try to regroup and then they already lost their momentum. So, it's a good thing you just stayed scrappy because you can always now that this the second month I mean obviously you're trying to scale so the second month might not be easier for you but it would have been if you stuck to one card but you might find some time to be able to you know put together something a little bit more organized now but now that you got that first card out so that's good.

>> Yeah, the the guy that's building my website is is building a CRM into it for me. So, I'll have it all all in one one place. So, once I get the the software that I need for that, I I will I will be much more organized. Hold me to it, Mitch. >> Yeah, I'll be I'll be I'll be asking you for that website next month because that sounds pretty cool actually.

Are they going to be able to book through the website and then it'll automatically just feed into your CRM system? >> Yeah, I'm hoping. I'm not super technology I wouldn't say is my my strong suit, but he's he's a a website developer. He does like SEO type stuff. So, I'm very confident that he's he's going to be able to put together a system that once I have a system, I'll be able to to figure out how it works and what I need to do.

But I'm, you know, I'm in a major metropolitan area, so there there's no shortage of businesses. I follow up hasn't really been my [clears throat] strong suit. You know, a few businesses that I just ghosting has was my major problem with, you know, somebody that was kind of interested or, oh, this looks like a good idea. I just felt like I was wasting my time trying to track them down when I my time because that was my big constraint with this was was time, how much time I had to put into it. So with no shortage of fresh opportunities, I just I instead of trying to tra chase this guy down, I I'd be better served to just find somebody else.

And also made sure to include all of those businesses that ghosted me in the routes so that they got one to look at. I'm petty like that. >> Very smart. Yeah, very smart. You should have [laughter] You should have You should have designated one of the ad slots and put all of their little business logos on it with an X over it.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm hoping that, you know, I'm not holding it against them or anything. You know, there's still they're still potential potential customers moving forward. You know, I I don't take it personally or anything, but I do want to make sure that they cuz I think that was the biggest thing holding people back objection-wise. Uh stranger danger seemed to be the most kind of common theme.

You know, a few businesses said like, you know, that just doesn't work for this industry or I've tried that before. it doesn't work for me. But most of the time I I could feel it was a a a gap in trust where they're just like, I don't know you. I don't know this thing. And I I also put my I put a picture of myself on the on the card that's like, hey, I'm Travis.

I put this thing together just so, you know, maybe they recognize me when I walk in. or if if there is a trust gap, you know, I'm showing them the card that has my picture on it, like obviously this thing is real. >> Yeah, that's smart. That's that's one thing I've never thought of before. I've I've thought of like putting your contact information on there for people to reach out, but it's so much more personal when they see your face.

They see that there's just one face behen face behind it. [laughter] So, that's pretty great. Did you put your contact information, too? >> Yeah. Yeah, it's got my got my phone number on it.

Website's not up and running yet, so didn't have any of that to put on there, but I got a I I have a logo, you know, logo for my business that I had chat GPT make for me. [snorts] I had a there was a a graphic designer in one of those neighborhood groups that he had a post that was like, "Hey, I'm bored. You know, let me design your logo." And I was like, "Okay, make me a logo." and he got into this long sales pitch of, you know, I'll design you three different things and we can do revisions and blah blah blah.

And I'm like, this sounds like a lot of work. And just typed it into chat GPT and it was done in 10 seconds. Like, cool. >> Yep. Yeah, logos are pretty easy these days with ChatGpt and Google Nano Banana for sure.

>> Yeah. Honestly, [clears throat] it makes me feel bad. It makes me feel bad for graphic designers, dude, cuz they they spent a lot of time and money to learn a skill set that >> I taught myself in Canva in, you know, a matter of weeks. >> Yeah, totally. Did you are you comfortable showing your car so we can see what it looks like?

>> Sweet. >> So, this is the back where I put my logo and and picture and everything, but front side. >> Nice. Did you do all the ad design yourself? >> Most of it.

The There were a few few businesses that either already had somebody that did their designs and things for them, but I think out of the 16, I I did 10 of them that I designed myself. >> Okay. >> All on myself. >> Do you recommend that people do spend the time >> Oh, really? You did you did the design on your phone?

Yeah, just picked up Canva and started tinkering with it. Um, one one thing I did do was just picked a couple businesses and designed logo designed ads for them without even selling it just to kind of familiarize myself with with how Canva worked. And then once I kind of got my bearings with it, I felt felt comfortable designing them for for the businesses. Nobody was too picky about it. >> Yeah, that's smart.

And are you planning on continuing to design in the future? Are you gonna outsource it? What's your plan? >> Don't really have a plan on that. Haven't made it that far yet.

You know, I hope that, >> you know, as I grow that will become a constraint for me as far as time's concerned, but it's one of those I'm not looking for a solution until it becomes a problem. I I hope it will become a problem, but it hasn't yet. >> Totally. That would that would be good. The right answer would have been go to ads.

n912method.com, but that was a good good try. >> I I I haven't messed with it messed with it too much, but I need to I need to get in there. It didn't didn't work for me. When I tried to log into it, I was having some issues and by the time I'd heard about it, my card was already designed.

So, >> yeah, it's not perfect, but it's free. So, you should definitely definitely try it out, experiment with it. It can even be good for just like giving you ideas and then you you can design the final draft. So, is there anything that you plan to change in your process for this next card? Any big changes that you're making?

>> I would say the the biggest thing that I'm trying with this one is, and I hope it's going to make it easier to fill up. You know, I had this the discounted pricing for a double ad. So, I'm offering that same discounted rate to do both cards this time just to try to, you know, encourage folks to take up more real estate because that actually in my mind that actually changes the value equation quite a bit more. You know, it's you're going to 20,000 houses now instead of 10,000. So, I'm hoping that will for for right now my my biggest, like I said, my big constraint is time.

So, I'm trying to the changes I'm making are trying to speed the process along, you know, make it faster, less of a time investment. So, less concerned with profit. that seemed to be what helped me kind of close some of those those loops and get things settled down was, you know, taking a dip into the profit margin just to get the credibility and get these, you know, get it off the ground. So, and and making sure everybody knows that these are special prices for, you know, having the trust in me just getting started. The only other change, something that I tried that hasn't hasn't really been successful was QR codes to text messages.

A couple of the the smaller businesses that I have on there, their operations run completely through their phone. So, they don't they don't have like a a website to send or or a really bad website. So if I wanted the QR codes on there for tracking purposes, just so I could see, you know, how many people were getting scans, what were the popular car, you know, ads. So if their business isn't set up to where a QR code makes sense, I'm just going to get rid of those and and focus more on the exposure and less on it being trackable. >> Yeah, I hear you.

So what obviously the card went out, you said like a week ago. What's your plan for getting these businesses to stick to join your your next card or move over to the next town over? Do you have anything you're specifically saying to them? >> I you know, I haven't been. I've stopped into the the businesses that were local.

I stopped in, dropped off a couple cards for them. Several of them have like posted up somewhere in their business so people can see it. I haven't I haven't leaned on them too much as far as like, hey, it's time to do the next one because it it appears that it and I don't can't really confirm this uh that I know of, but I don't think all 10,000, you know, I did two batches to the post office. One was on a Saturday, the next batch was on a Monday, and I was getting scan, you know, fresh scans on it throughout the week. So, I'm I'm still not even 100% sure they've all been delivered yet.

So, giving the businesses that have already signed up, you know, a little bit of little bit of time to hopefully see some results, the the tree service in particular was like, dude, all I need is, you know, I've had a couple scans. We've talked to a couple people. Like, I I just need one job and I can justify doing it again. Like, just let just one of these jobs need to come through and I'm in. one of the one of the bars I did I I made some errors on their some of their specials and messed up their address too, which I thought was, you know, could have been catastrophic, but I' I've built up that relationship, you know, since getting them signed up.

She was one of the earlier people to get involved. So, she was very patient with me. I was stopping in to see her quite a bit, like, "Hey, I'm still working, you know, trying to find referrals and things like that." But it actually seemed to kind of roll into like, oh well, yeah, we'll definitely get that fixed on the next one, you know. So, it made the while I wouldn't encourage anyone to make mistakes intentionally, it did seem to kind of naturally like, yeah, we're obviously doing it again.

We have to fix this a little pre-lose or something close. >> So, still working on it. One of the one of the companies is talking about doing a solo mailer. So, I'm looking at he's kind of comparing if he wants to do, you know, maybe like a a full side of the card or if he wants to do his own mailer. I've I've really just been for the last week, two weeks reaching out to new businesses instead of really trying to hassle the ones that have been on there, but giving them time to see the success, you know, or I I can see some value in letting one card marinate, so to speak, while you look at a different area, but like I said, I'm trying to get this thing to income, you know, replacement income levels as as fast as possible.

So really just burning the candle at both ends trying to get I I think I'm pretty comfortable with three or four cards, you know, once I get to that kind of number, comfortable moving on from the day job and get, you know, looking at this full-time. So trying to establish new cards quickly and get on to farming sooner than later. >> Awesome. Yeah. And I figured you're using your time wisely because you're reaching out to new businesses and the businesses who joined your first card who are actually interested in joining again will probably come to you anyway.

So you don't have to harass them all. So that's that's smart. >> And so obviously we learned some pretty sweet tactics, very specific tactics today. the cinnamon roll tactic. You got the the business BNI or whatever group that you joined raising your prices instead of decreasing your prices.

Are there any other secret specific tactics that you're hiding from us? >> I I do have one that's just a funny funny story. I had a for the fulfillment side of things which I was I was nervous about doing myself until I, you know, figured out how to do Canva by myself. I'm like, "Dude, I've figured everything else out through this process. Like, I can figure out how to get this stuff to the post office, too."

So, my my postcards came in. It was on a Friday afternoon. I had a bunch of friends that that wanted to go bowling. And I I told them like, "Sorry, guys. I can't go.

I got to get these rebundled and and boxed up and to the post office tomorrow morning. Like, I can't I can't go. I got to do this." They weren't very happy about that. Um, so I worked out a deal.

I was like, "Well, if you if you help me bundle these up and get them packaged for the post office, like it, you know, it'll if all five of us ship in, it'll only take, you know, half an hour." So, I got my my friends to help me count out and bundle all the postcards so that so that I could go bowling with them. >> I love it. Free labor and you get to go bowling, >> right? Exactly.

It was a win-win. >> Yeah. Awesome. Well, this was amazing. Obviously, a lot of people who are watching this video probably haven't even heard of the 9 by12 method before until this video.

Like, they know nothing about it other than this video. So, if we could erase everything that you just said and you could give one piece of advice to a brand new person who just discovered the 9x12 method right now in this video, what would that one piece of advice be? I would say I mean kind of the same thing that you would tell to a business owner is like you know maybe it works for you maybe it doesn't but you'll never know unless you unless you try it. It it's it's not going to make or break you. You can do it in your free time.

You can do it in your spare time. And and maybe maybe you hate it. Maybe it's not for you. But the only way you'd ever ever know that is if you actually get get out there and give it a try. >> I love it.

Thanks thanks a lot for donating your time to us and this was amazing. Thank you. Thanks for having me, man. >> Well, I hope you enjoyed that master class and I hope you're motivated now because if you want the exact scripts, the exact course, [music] the exact templates, everything that Travis used to successfully sell out his first card, then you should join our community where there's 2,800 other 9x12ers all working on the same exact business, all posting and commenting. [music] We have live group calls, we have templates, scripts, etc.

You should join that community. The link is in the description of this video and message me when you get in there. We'll see you on the inside.