#1050 How a former lawyer built a multi-million dollar company that teaches social skills – with Jordan Harbinger

How does a former lawyer build a multi-million dollar company that teaches social skills.
Jordan Harbinger is the co-founder of The Art of Charm, a company that teaches confidence and emotional intelligence.
Jordan Harbinger is the co-founder of The Art of Charm, a company that teaches confidence and emotional intelligence, and the host of The Jordan Harbinger Show, which interviews top performers, from legendary musicians to intelligence operatives.

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Andrew: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I am the founder of Mixergy.com. I got my very serious face on because business I take this very, very seriously. I really want to do these interviews so that you and I can learn from entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. More importantly, take back the best ideas we can and help grow our own businesses.

And when you do that, my hope for you, my hope for the mission here at Mixergy is that you will return and do an interview here on Mixergy and teach others what you learned along the way. The circle of Mixergy. I’ve said it for years, and now many of the thousand interviewees that I’ve had here on Mixergy have done just that. Successful companies they’ve built, and then they come back here and do an interview about it. And today we’re going to find out how a lawyer built a multi-million dollar company that teaches social skills.

Jordan Harbinger is the co-founder of The Art of Charm, a company that teaches confidence and emotional intelligence. This interview is sponsored by LeadPages. Later on I’ll tell you a special URL where you can go if you want a great page that will help get more of your traffic to convert into email subscribers. Pay attention for that later. First, I’ve got to welcome Jordan. Jordan, good to have you here.

Jordan: Thanks for having me. It’s funny you should mention LeadPages. We have LeadPages.

Andrew: I know. I feel like all of us use LeadPages.

Jordan: Yeah. Well, I spotted it, and I was like “Is this real? This looks amazing.” And so I started using it, and our traffic, you know, our squeeze or whatever you want to call it, email marketing is not my department, obviously, at ASU, went through the freaking roof, man.

Andrew: Because Clay Collins, the guy who created the company, is obsessed with conversion rates.

Jordan: Yeah.

Andrew: I see what they do to tweak things. I see how they allow you to plug in someone’s email address before they even put it into the site. I see how they put a button to increase conversion rates, and they play with the colors and all that. Anyway, I should tell people if you want my page, the one that works especially well for me, the one that does more than 20% conversion rate, here’s the URL to go to. AndrewsWelcomeGate.com, AndrewsWalcomeGate.com. Jordan, you were here for Scotch, right?

Jordan: Yes, I was, and now I’m here for Scotch.

Andrew: Oh, you are having a Scotch while we are having this conversation! Super!

Jordan: It’s 5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, or something, somewhere. Anyway…

Andrew: Wait, you’re not in Pacific Coast time anymore?

Jordan: I am, but it’s only 4:00 here so that would be shameful.

Andrew: Gotcha, so you are looking for the excuse.

Jordan: Yeah.

Andrew: But you came here to Mixergy HQ. We were here with a couple guys, and we were having conversation that was really open. I won’t even talk about the stuff we got into because we get really raw here. On the way out, we had a little extra cheese and crackers. I said, “Does anyone want it?” Do you remember what you said?

Jordan: I said, “Yeah, give it to me.” I shoved it in my pocket like a homeless person.

Andrew: I had Saran Wrap. I wrapped it up for you. You took it in your pocket. Then, it took me to the elevator, the handful of us, and I said, “Hey, Jordan. Now that we’re all a little bit tipsy here, you can be open. How much money do you have?”

Jordan: Yeah, are things all right at home?

Andrew: Yes, that’s what I was getting at. I’m going to ask you now, on camera, what kind of revenue are you guys pulling in?

Jordan: I mean, it’s funny because it’s the one thing my business partners don’t want me to be too specific on, but I’m going to pull a Ramit Sethi and not tell you the exact number. But I will say, multi- multi- seven figures. Someday, I’m sure I’ll come back again and be like, “And here’s the enormous number!” But, honestly, it’s more money than I ever thought I would make in my whole life which is pretty cool. And multiple seven figures, at that.

Andrew: I don’t know if you remember the follow up question that I had for you in the elevator after a few Scotches which was, “Do you have over a million in the bank?”

Jordan: Right, and my answer was “no” because who keeps that amount of cash around? You’ve got to put it into assets and things like that.

Andrew: So what kind of assets do you put it into?

Jordan: Property. I’ve got mutual funds galore that are super boring. I invest in a few companies that are not public yet, like really early-stage stuff. I’m hoping that doesn’t go down the tubes. Investing like that, you are basically putting it [??].

Andrew: How about this? Cash and cash equivalents. I’d consider a mutual fund to be cash equivalent.

Jordan: Yeah.

Andrew: So, why’d you take the cheese?

Jordan: Why did I take the cheese?

Andrew: Why did you take the cheese?

Jordan: It was really good cheese.

Andrew: Wasn’t it?

Jordan: And, you know, I’m not going to go to Whole Foods and buy friggin’ cheese. My girlfriend would say, “You don’t need all that.” Meanwhile, I have this huge chunk of cheese that is all mine now. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t get to eat it all because it was a lot of cheese. My girlfriend didn’t want most of it, and I ate a ton of it.

Andrew: That is the best cheese, and I can say that whole-heartedly because I AB tested the cheese. I signed up for Amazon Fresh, brought in every different kind of cheese that I could from there, and even none of those will compete with that one cheese from Trader Joe’s. All right, let’s talk about how you got here. You know what? I think I might have made a mistake at the top of the interview. I said you were a law firm, that you were a lawyer. Were you a lawyer?

Jordan: Yeah, I was a lawyer.

Andrew: You were? Okay, good.

Jordan: I still am, technically, a lawyer in New York State.

Andrew: And so, you started out going to law school with the idea that you would be a lawyer, or that you would be a big shot on Wall Street?

Jordan: Oh, worst idea ever. I went to law school because I didn’t know what else to do after undergrad.

Andrew: It was just the next thing to do to keep yourself busy while you figured it out.

Jordan: It was, literally, undergrad ended. I walked into Best Buy. I told them I could fix computers. They said, cool. You got to work here for three years before you do that. I remember going, there’s no way I’m working here for three years in general. Let alone before I get the job that’s interesting. There like, well, you can sell CDs.

I thought, why would I sell something that’s not even going to exist in four years? At that point I went home, got super depressed for an afternoon. Then went oh, this is stupid. I’m not going to get a stupid job like this. I have a degree from the University of Michigan, which the depression was, basically, wow, this means nothing to anyone. No one cares.

Then, of course, I had a relative who was, like, you should be a lawyer, which is dumb advice because it’s based on nothing. I applied to law schools and I ended up getting into Michigan, which I then found out that there were rankings and things like that for law school, which is an unhealthy obsession. I went to Michigan. My girlfriend lived in Michigan at the time. I went to Michigan Law.

I don’t regret it because it was awesome. I was with super smart people that were a hell of a lot smarter than me and had great work ethic and honed that like crazy for three years, but it was freakin’ expensive. Then I left and I got a job with Wall Street through networking connections. Now, I don’t use it at all.

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