Immy Tariq: Half a Billion in Less Than a Year

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Immy Tariq Jones today, he is a serial entrepreneur who has been featured in Forbes 35 times last year, as well as been on CNN, CNBC, inc, and many other large media outlets. As well as being a multiple number one bestselling author, Emmy, what’s up, not much, buddy. How you doing? Doing good. You know, we’ve connected on a couple of different ways.  

We chat on Facebook. Um, we’ve, uh, been on mutual podcasts together. So I appreciate the chance to sit down and chat with you for more than a couple of minutes. Yeah, definitely. I looking forward to it. Yeah. So, you know, you do a lot of different things. Um, and I think we could explain what you do in a couple of different ways, but you could probably do it better.  

So I’ll let you explain yourself, uh, what you do to the audience. So one of the things I do is I’m on multiple agencies for  SEO equity, web design agency, following agency PR agency management. The other thing I do with the spend a lot of time on is making money for multimillion dollar companies right now.  

And how long have you been doing that? Why is it a matter of, for other people? Since probably about March, April was here. So pretty recently, did you kind of fall into that and just have unique opportunity and you liked it and so you kept doing it, or how did you get started? Well, I wasn’t asked to do it at first.  

I was looking for money for myself to buy the company that I want to buy in Miami. And basically a few of my friends were saying, when networking over dinner, they look as ask them, what do you need help with? And be like, we are $50 million a week, $10 million or whatever we need. And what happened was that right?  

Let me see what we can do to help you guys get that fund. Cause I wouldn’t do this for myself anyway and present an opinion in the backend wasn’t delivered the money and that was it. The rest was history and I got referred again and again. So what type of, how do you negotiate that? What type do you take a percentage of the deal?  

I take, um, there’s many ways we could start with depending on what the deal is, one’s unique and  case. Sometimes I take a flat percentage of the money. That’s going to be waste one to 2%. Other times it may be, um, equity in the company, helping them make the money. It just depends upon what I want or what they’re stuck with is that, sir.  

So you and I were on, um, Josh 40 sync, different three podcasts. And as I listened to your episode, Josh had mentioned that you’ve raised over half a billion dollars. Is that right? Yeah. And I don’t even know. So, so is that much money in that short of a timeframe? Has you’ve done that this year? Yes, because I have a lot of water connected.  

Here’s the thing is I spend a lot of my time off. I spend more time when I’m running my business, a bit of my business. Like most people I probably spent in networking because I network in certain pockets where there’s opportunities to create. It sounded like I went to California a couple weeks, weeks ago, um, for the hurricane hit, um, I miss Orlando, thankfully, but I was there.  

What’s a guy about pattern even, and the potential for a pattern to Pepsi work. And I spoke to lawyers about ADA compliance, benches guys from Uber, quick opportunities, more time networking opportunities. And I do it in else. And I got to tell the listeners that the way that Emmy does it is very genuine too, because when him and I were introduced, um, and, and in all the following up messages, Emmy always ends it with, you know, is there anything I can do for you?  

Can I, can I connect you with anybody? And so he really, he really takes a sincere approach, um, w which is really cool to see, because usually when you get to a certain level of business and networks, you have good contacts, but everybody’s busy. You know, and everybody just has to move on to the next thing, but Immy always takes a moment just to say, Hey, is there anything I can help you with?  

And I thought that really stood out and was unique for, you know, the, the level of business and the types of people that you’re working with. So, yeah. So tell me, what’s going on in this headshot of yours. I got over here on this other screen, it looks like you’re sitting in times square. Is that what’s going on?  

Yeah, that was in time square without CNN video, um, all with the income square. So that was just taking that and going back to talking about SEO. Cool. Um, you obviously know that I have a background in SEO. Tell me how you got into that space. So when I got to London, I was in real estate investments. Um, I basically came up from London to the U S just before I moved and talked to him, the money that you can kind of see cloth from 1.6 down to 1.4.  

I bet I’ve got taxes or something percent on capital gains and everything else. That was a nice little thing event. All my funding is UK because they’re going to stay in the U S because then let’s see what I’ve done there. I had the backing to do funding and investment opportunities for a city was about to go.  

And I had to put in a boat, all my money, got cut out and wiped out all the investments. So I went to Bob Potter and he put me in OMD for SEO to start with. He put you into one on SEO? Well, MD, well, my woman gang or OMG machines. Oh, okay. And so, um, you just started, you just kind of started experimenting.  

Yeah. So I’ve experimented learning from people like Mike Long, Colin grammar, Greg Morrison, Stephen Floyd. And I started expanding out to be able to like the look of Quantico of a guy’s semantic mastery. And is, is your SEO agency? Is that your first business success? No. My first kids is successful with my teaching company back in LA at a company when I was 12 years old, which was to do with computers and I’m recovering data escalated that my very first company was as well, but my com I paused the effecting a Mongo stick.  

I went to medical reset, but after my parents died, my first successful Mathewson company, when it was. How do you, how many hours a day are you working? How do you balance all these things? I, to, it depends on what it needs to do. Sometimes I’ll go up to 19 hours a day at a time it’s talking maybe five minutes in a day and that’s it.  

I don’t mind working with it and needed to get stuff done. Out of all these projects that you’ve done in the past, or have coming up in the future. Um, you know, if you remove the money from the discussion, which, which type of projects are you most passionate about and enjoy the most? Well, I didn’t join the mastermind now, maybe cause it’s new and it’s a challenge.  

And I like a challenge. It’s probably to be wasting the money for other people, negotiating with other investors or wealth managers or whatever. I’m guessing with billionaires. Dominant contracts, even. I really like the flow of dealmaking. Why don’t, why don’t you explain to the listeners, because I think this is a concept that a lot of people won’t be familiar with.  

Obviously they understand what raising money means, but they don’t have any exposure to it. So can you kind of explain where you start that process and maybe some of the steps that you go through to raise money? So I’m going to say, I’m a very simple guy. I have a fund of mine. He has 150 checkpoint list.  

Before you look in an investment, both ways, monetary investments, my self, I have a pen like a 10, because I didn’t want to sit there for 150 so well, I’ve done it all. I care about it. What is your opportunity and the growth plan. That’s all I care about and what’s the time that’s going to sustain itself.  

And if it was. Eventually for them that I would take a look at the opportunity. So the very first thing is I want him to talk to you once that’s done. What I do is I take a look at, um, basically what them marketing efforts and wherever we’re missing out on marketing. A lot of companies don’t do SEO is, you know, and, or not very well in SEO it Volvo powerful almost company.  

So if I see an opportunity like an SEO  or YouTube ads or Pinterest or whatever, I’ll start analyzing this opportunity. You can walk in and say, look at my revenues, how much marketing budget we’re going to need and how effective can we make it? And why don’t you explain the recession proof model? Give us an example of a business.  

So for example, to me, assessing food business is something that the medical people would even pay for the medical, um, for the help. Okay. Sick, a lot of pain you’re going to pay to get that fixed. Yeah. You got to figure it out. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, so we got a lot of success stories. Um, I also like to talk about the other, their side of the entrepreneur journey.  

Um, are there any stories that you’d be willing to share? Uh, maybe some of the harder lessons you’ve learned or struggles that you’ve gone through, that you can look back now that you’ve conquered. Yeah. So as most people don’t realize about most successful entrepreneurs, often it’s supposed to be for you as well.  

We’ve heard from what time did and what people going to try. And when you’re trying to do things and that’s the, Oh, I tried to do things on camp plan campaign that I was still white hat. And then it cost me my entire life in business before. The drop that food. Did it go down? Well, I fixed it falsely very quickly, but I think, um, a lot of things I do, I test all the time.  

I tried different tests and sometimes I over-commit the Mormon like Africa handle. But I always say that life is about challenges and if you can go. So I had found the mistake when I first started the age and the tutoring, I have made a Bowser guarantee. You not know doing entirely modern format, not to teach it, but I knew I was doing, I used to get myself home, not know anything, a subject and get myself eight grades in about food’s time.  

So I’m in a boat with the guarantee to people. I’ll get you to, from you going to exit to 90 days. About six to eight weeks and the students will not move up more than an AC grade. And I’m like, I’m only going to be in total. I have to pretend a lot of money, thousands and thousands of dollars. I don’t have that type of money at the time.  

So I ended up figuring out ways to start solving it and make it better for students with visuals that will help the most. So you guaranteed your students that, that, you know, you, you had gone through a process where you were able to increase your ability to learn. And so you guaranteed your students that you could teach them the same thing and it failed.  

And I’m guessing it didn’t fail because of you, but it’s just because you can’t control people’s work ethic. Is that, is that why it didn’t work? One of the reasons, and I found a way to get around that. Yeah, I do that in some way, but work is necessary. So I thought, okay, how to become more efficient. So I needed a lot of the buttons of dollars.  

I thought I was too. I slipped this night. So, but the thing is. Even with the state. When I started figuring things out, I knew we’d got tactical for something. And then you made a mistake and would have been considered tax evasion. That’s why I’m not done learning. I need to hire the right people in place, do all the stuff.  

So I hired a professional Calvin who’s dealt with it and it’s all you go off with. Well, kind of do they want to know what I was doing and the day. I think an entrepreneur, so many people are finding, making mistakes that you end up in jail. You can end up losing everything, but if you are fighting, make those mistakes, you will never learn the difference between someone like the and myself who would want better agency, the novel without a woman.  

D do you think that, um, do you, do you feel like you, you push the boundaries a little bit? Like, do you take, would you say you’re more of a calculated risk taker or you’re just. You’re willing to just jump in and take the risk and deal with deal with that. I said, I’m a mix of both. I would calculate, I mean, with that tape.  

Right. But I also didn’t know when it’s time to take the risk and regardless of his competence, that makes sense. I use my intuition a lot as well. At the end of the day, there’s sometimes things that make sense on paper, but you can figure it out and then will work. But it’s more of a two it’s the stuff that something can be build with experience.  

Um, so it’s interesting. You mentioned accountant because. Uh, you know, a lot of people, especially, um, you know, earlier entrepreneurs, yeah. Maybe they’re making good money, but not enough to go live a big fancy lifestyle. And so they’re hesitant to, to bring on an accountant because that’s more money and they just want to do it themselves.  

And for me, I found that hiring an accountant, it was like one of the best things ever, because if you hire the right accountant, they will save you more money than you pay them to do the work. Would you agree? Yes. And I will say this, even this fancy lifestyle I live off of, I spend too much money for most people would say, I should, like I paid for three, four, five in Baltimore from cost or cost to me.  

I don’t really care because it comes up my taxes the way I set it up. If I’m looking at packs, right, you can add for that country lifestyle help grow your business with that fancy stuff to attract wealthy people, but also take off the taxes. The vets play a different captain one before on the middle class.  

And then I play that game. You can win and get that lifestyle that you want without having to sacrifice. If taxes are a funny thing, it really is. It really is a game. Um, and you can’t blame anybody for wanting to find the loopholes and to protect their hard earned money. Um, but it is really fascinating to see, like you said, that that wealthy people play at a different level and, um, I don’t know. 

I don’t know where I’m going with it. Yeah. It’s, it’s a game. It’s a game of chess. Life and business is a game of chess. That’s all it is. Is it? How do you make licensees moves in order to win and go forward? So, so speaking of fancy stuff, what’s, uh, what’s your thing that you like to do? Where do you like to spend money on necessarily for me, probably fuck off flights.  

I will like I’m flying in economy and I want to fly in accordingly. That’s all I’m forced to do. If it’s a volunteer, not flies, I’m not going to call them. We know that fly in that frontier or something. It goes directly in the endeavor. If I got an option to do the flats and . You know, we, um, we always use Southwest, which obviously doesn’t have first class and, but we fly them because we get the free flights.  

So like you talked about business expenses, we put everything on a Southwest credit card and so we get free miles. But then in addition to free miles, if you get a certain amount of points, you get companion status and then. So my wife, in addition to me flying free with the miles, my wife is my companion.  

And so she gets to five free too. So because of that, um, I’m actually never found first class. And later this year I’ve taken, I have a flight book for my first first class. So I’ll have to let you know how it goes. I might not come back. Yeah, the, obviously the U S isn’t that great. A international, but I still prefer it.  

I like paying food drinks. I like having more like less people sit next to me. Yeah, it’s nice to experience free blankets. I got a funny video, you know, Kevin O’Leary shark tank. Yeah. So I got a video that he sent me of he’s congratulating me on, on finishing my book and he’s on an Emirates flight from Dubai and it’s just like you talk and he’s just walking around freely.  

And then as he’s saying, what’s up Damon, um, this flight attendant walks by and he’s uh, Oh, champagne. I’ll take some of that and takes it off the tray. And it’s just like, there’s like three people in this giant room. There’s so much space in this flight. Yes exactly for me, my, a lot of people think it’s a waste of money for me.  

I like my luxury, but I also see it as a good investment because I fly to meetings and really most of the time, and I wouldn’t be the first call me. I’m not going to be before. I’m going to be slowed down when meetings are going to go as well. I ended up, um, things that to me, yeah, it’s kind of a waste to spend a lot more money in for class.  

But when I see it.  

Yeah. Yeah. It’s one of those things where you have to, you have to value your time and manage your energy as well. And, and that probably contributes to that. Everything is energy in life. Everything is all about energy. And I met, I talked to people about, but I say kind of management to make it easy, but really what I do is I manage my energy based on activities.  

Yeah. Yeah. How old are you, Immy? 28 28. So it’s, it’s interesting with managing energy because, um, you know, in my, my mid twenties to mid thirties, so I’m 38. I’m in my mid twenties to mid thirties. I could I’d have, I’d have all the energy in the world. I’d get up at five o’clock and I didn’t want to get up at five o’clock, but I would just to be more productive.  

Uh, man, my body’s changing though. I can last year. It’s so much harder to get up early and it’s so much harder to manage my energy in different ways. It’s, it’s a weird thing to be going through because I’ve just known that other Damon for so long and now, like I accept it, but, but yeah, I got to figure out the new process and I haven’t figured out my new routine yet.  

And it’s a weird thing to go through. Well, it could be also your biochemistry and a, um, imbalances. I find a lot of people have a lot of imbalances thanks to this diets. And so that was the only thing, cause I was mad at my energy level based on my diet, our custom supplements and my blood work. Hmm. Yeah, I need, have you ever went and got a full blood work panel?  

Yeah, I got accustomed. I’ve worked for every single thing and it literally methods it based on ratios, not even what I’m deficient in or, or medicals or the way that the bacteria is a wall. It’s like, you need this. Want you to take us to this one? I mean, we talk to my supplements for me. How often do you do that  

Um, I’ll get the bubble look every six months. I need to do that. I’ve actually thought about that. I’m familiar with that. And I agree that, um, I think part of it’s just getting older, but I do agree that there’s probably a lot of it that, that I could correct by bouncing out that blood work. That’s interesting.  

Well, so tell me about, um, T tell me about some good experiences that you’ve learned from either mentors or just seeing other successful people. But then I’d also like you to talk about maybe something that you, a bad experience that where you learned something from somebody because they did something wrong and you said, okay, I don’t want to do what they just did.  

Well, one of my earliest lessons I’ve learned in business is have communication and transparency. Exactly. What’s going on to set the right expectations because the expectations can cost deals or open up doors to lawsuits. And one guy went bankrupt because he had the patience and didn’t have a freaking paper.  

And it wasn’t clear. So to me, the expectation is absolutely essential. Yeah. Like a person like petitions, in my opinion, even a conversation personally, it’s all like that placements. Yeah. Yeah. And especially in the SEO space, um, I, I always talk about expectations and SEO just because SEO is, you know, is such a slow process and it’s important to.  

To communicate to your customers, you know, why it’s slow and what to expect during that process. And as long as you tell them and can explain, you know, what they’re about to go through and why they’re about to go through that process, then most people will, are willing to stick through that longer process or whatever your product or services, as long as you set those expectations.  

Um, you know, you have better client retention. Exactly. That’s why I find that what. It’s fast. And this is what I always try to do is set the expectations correctly in order to win. If that works, we can walk away with everything you ever wanted. So outside of the business world, um, you know, what’s, who’s Immy, who are you?  

What do you do? What do you do besides business? Honestly, it’s about having my wife, um, probably in backing down. We’re gonna go back to Disney again. It’s too hot right now. I’m going to be away for a while. Since I’ve been traveling, I put the splint, I’m a wildlife and weed. Well, I N exercise. Uh, I ended up working though.  

I love doing this is my hoping in my life. A lot of people were like wanting to say, Oh, what else you got to do? I actually really enjoy doing business. That is my passion and my hobby. Yeah. I can relate to that. Yeah. What, when did you say you’re going to Disney? Probably gonna go back again in January after the Christmas crazy shit.  

We’re leaving in October 14 months. My wife and I pretty much, most of the time. I mean to somebody when I get to December again, I’ve done it once. I’m done. Are you going to Disney in California or Florida? Well, let’s connect because that’s when I’ll be there. I’m taking the kids down to Disney and in January.  

Ah, perfect. Yeah. Cause I love it in denim in December. I want want, we have Daniel posit a pause it for now until January, because I’m one more time. But to do some book, it’s the two hour queue to get into my, the Kindle. I believe it. Yeah. So I’ve only, I’ve been to Disney world, uh, in Florida, once in Disneyland and four in California once.  

And I hated, I hated it both times. So it’s just the lines. I mean, how would you pay to just go wait? And even the fast pass thing, you have to time it so well that it it’s, it’s just like this giant, like, uh, mental, uh, process you have to go through to even enjoy going to Disney. At least that’s my take.  

Yeah. Honestly, I feel the same way a lot. They’re not met the months. Yeah. And I thought I was going to be emptied, like to meet Jan whenever I was back at school or in the midway, I loved it. Cause empty is easy. If you go in like when kids are off and then, or the holiday season, you got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

I’m going to give him a try. So, so how do you want to be remembered Immy? That’s a good question. I haven’t thought about that right now. I’m focusing on the future. Um, what, uh what’s uh, okay, so, so if you haven’t thought about that, you know, what’s your, um, what’s your big, what’s your big passion then right now?  

Right now I’m working on, um, I like to just study mindset and employed myself, as I say, my biggest goal in life is this. If I were to die, where does the same go? How ed, when you get to meet the person you could have become, I want to support that person. So how do I go now? When I bet we have a number, but I, you know what my ultimate goal in life is a path person I could have been.  

I like that. That’s a good one. How is the person that he could have become? Um, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting way to think about things. Um, eh, kinda kind of the, the age thing where I was saying I’m 38 now, and it seems like my body’s changing. Um, I was telling my wife, I said, you know, there’s certain things that I want to do before I hit mid forties, because I think after mid forties, you know, you’re, you start to run into physical limitations.  

And my fear is exactly what you said. I don’t want to look back in my late forties or fifties and say, I, I never. Hit that, that peak physical performance that I always thought I could have or should have tried. And then now that opportunity is gone. Um, so it’s interesting. And now my fine, I have a guy who is 65, who has me in the gym, the guy who was the fittest guy on the inside of me.  

And I’m like goddamn and it motivates me to work hard on my fitness level. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, I’m fine. Is, is a number that people will let themselves. So I’ve got four. How we’re going to be, we’re going to go downhill there’s guys who are getting stronger every single year and London for a while.  

And who got stronger every single year. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, it’s definitely possible. I just, uh, you know, the stereotypical young, young macho dude, I w w I want to be that dude for at least one year. Well, Andy, it’s been a pleasure. I appreciate you jumping on, um, one last thing. Well, what could you, um, If you had just kind of like a quick one tip advice for early entrepreneurs, uh, is there anything that you could give them?  

I give them two tips because these are the two things I do at the essence of everything I do. First engage get clarity because the only problem we have in life is clarity. Even if you figure out self sabotage, self sabotage, come from a self worth, it’s you, and you will not clear on why you’re worth that.  

So get clear. So that’s everything from strategy down to your software and why you’re wherever you are, whatever you want to pursue with the, my side. The second thing I’d like to go with that sometimes a day, every day, you might have your goal by hand, not on the computer, you could in your newer connections to your point, and it will get you to focus on where you want to go, but you’ve got to do back.  

And one of the things of life. So, so you write your goals out for, um, to, to trigger actual changes in your body, not just metaphorical, you know, happy thoughts like you do it for a literal response in your body. Because goals that you put in that pathway, repeating it again. And again, repetition, we acquired that repetition.  

If you look at the principal also suggest them. You talk later, literally what’s the suggestion is it will tell is automatic with me. There were peace again and again, and again, I suggested this is just an idea. So I want us to just the idea again and again, repeat it several times a day. And some I haven’t told him come to reality.  

And how do you manage that? Do you set a timer on your phone that goes off every two hours or something? Exactly. Every two hours. I said white. Nailed it. Alright, Immy, uh, why don’t you throw out your contact information? I’ll give you an opportunity to, you know, say any, any last words. Yeah. Um, you can visit me on my website.  

webmetrixgroup.com on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn in your town. Webmetrixgroup.com and linkedin.com/in/theleadconverter. Immy Tariq it’s been a pleasure. Thanks for jumping on.  

Thank you so much.