How Nat Berman Scaled for 20 Years With One Simple Rule

Nat [00:00:00] If there's something that either somebody else or something can do as well as you can in your business, you probably shouldn't be doing it. If you're not necessarily necessary for that function but it still needs to be done, that's where I would use leverage every single time.

Hector Hello, and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale a Business podcast. My name is Hector Santiesteban, and I am your host for today. Our special guest is Mr. Nat Berman, and he is someone who has been educating the interwaves for decades now, and we are honored and blessed to have him on our show today.

Hector So Nat, thanks for hanging out and spending some time.

Nat Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Hector When I tell people that I've been sort of in the internet space for over a decade, I don't realize how old I'm getting and how old I am. My son is listening to the recording and he's like, "Dude, you're like super old."

Hector But being in the internet space for over a decade is sort of a long time. You pushed that past a little bit longer. And so [00:01:00] I'm curious — the question I always ask is I'd love to know a couple key stops along the way and a couple of the things that you were doing, and then I'm curious from your standpoint… well, let's just start there. Talk to us a little bit about what you did to get going and then sort of what you're doing and what you're building now.

Nat Sure. Yeah, also judging by your beard, I think I have a few years on you — unless I'm just a complete white-beard person.

Nat But it's funny — my very first… I always say my first foray into the online world is 2007, but technically speaking, it's really like '01. So I graduated college in 2001, and when I lived at home for a little bit (I think it was nine months or so), I actually started a website on Yahoo! GeoCities, which really dates me. That was what people would today consider to be a blog. So that was literally my first start, but then I went six years into the corporate world and that kind of stuff.

Nat And so [00:02:00] it eluded me for a while until 2007. A buddy of mine sent me an email about Google Blogspot (which still exists to this day). That's their blogging platform. And so I got on there, started writing, really found that I liked it a lot, and I wound up starting this website called Uncoached, which is back then very similar to Barstool Sports. Literally that site and Barstool Sports came out at pretty much the same time — they took it a little further than I did.

Nat But it was a really cool experience because from one website came two, came three, came four, and eventually it was just like this portfolio of niche websites that I still own to this day — about 25 different sites or so. So that was really a long time. I mean, obviously it's till present day, but as far as my full time on it, it was really till about 2022, '23 or so.

Nat And back in 2019, I got on [00:03:00] LinkedIn, started posting on there, and grew an audience pretty quickly on that website, and that led to me doing things like one-to-one coaching, communities, courses, that kind of stuff.

Nat And so up until today, very recently, I started something called the Be Better Movement, which is really just all about habit creation and consistency. We set up this ridiculously affordable community — it's a dollar a month — where every day you just get a daily rep. And that rep might be something financially related, it could be something personal development related, it could be business related, where every day everybody shows up, they see their rep, they have to do that rep that day, report back.

Nat And it's always something that's pretty easy, and that's the intention there — to get people into that mode of being able to do something every day consistently. So yeah, that's kinda my path. It has been a fairly long time — 20-plus years.

Hector Yeah. What I'm always curious about when talking with someone who's been in an industry or in a space for so long — especially as things are changing and that change is sort of accelerating, just over the last several weeks or months really — is what's sort of the same as back then? And then what, if anything, is different, specifically for business owners who are looking to create and looking to create value and impact and reach people? What comes to mind when I ask that?

Nat Yeah, that's a good question. The first thing I think of is because it's almost applicable now when it comes to social media, which is obviously where the internet is now, a little bit more so than it has been.

Nat So when I first grew all my websites, I grew them all organically. And the way you would grow a website back then is probably different than you would now. If you wanted to grow a website organically, it was all [00:05:00] SEO, right? It was all getting backlinks, and that was the game back then.

Nat So for me, it was sending emails to other website owners and wanting them to be aware of my content and all that kind of stuff. But ultimately, when people would ask, "How did you grow your sites?" because I was like, "I don't know anything about SEO," I would always tell them, "Honestly, I don't really… I'm not a very technical person. I don't know that much about WordPress. I know where things go," and maybe I'm being a bit modest, but it's true.

Nat And the interesting thing was I would always say: just create good content every single day. That's what I would tell them. I'd be like, "Put out as much as you can, as quality as you can every single day, and over time the numbers will work out in your favor."

Nat Now, it's obviously way harder today to do well with search engine optimization on websites. Now it's all like AEO and getting web traffic from other sources like your social media accounts or mentions offline or whatever the systems are today.

Nat But what has always carried through, to me, has just been the fundamental element of: if you're focusing on two to three really important things every single day, for a long time, you'll probably do all right.

Nat And I think it applies to social media today, which is like, "Hey, just put out two or three really good videos every day. Do that for a year, you're gonna outlast most people."

Nat What has changed, in my opinion — I think the fundamentals haven't changed — what has changed is the mediums in which we disseminate this information. That to me is what has changed: it's the technology, it's the production, it's being able to do this at scale and do it faster.

Nat But ultimately, in my opinion, the fundamentals never changed, which is: keep your eyes on the two or three most important things you need to do every day. Do them long enough without interruption, and you'll wind up all right.

Hector What you're sort of hinting at, which is interesting, is not only the willingness to be consistent, but also the willingness to do something different — be willing to adjust and adapt and find whatever that thing is that you need to be consistent at.

Hector I was talking with someone who is the operations person for a big contracting company, and I was talking to them about AI, and they were saying that their owner was like, "Oh, they'll never use that." Like, it's not even a possibility.

Hector And I thought it was just a really interesting idea because there's so much value in whether it's AI or social media or pick whatever it is. If you are cut off or turned off from the possibilities, then I don't know — I just think in a world that's changing and evolving as quickly as today, it seems like that's a mindset that's eventually going to run you off course or run you into some trouble at some point.

Nat Yeah. I think one of the most dangerous phrases in the world is, [00:08:00] "This is how we've always done things."

Nat And I couldn't help think of, of all sites or mediums or media companies, the one site that helped me take off was Sports Illustrated. I used to send my stuff over to them. There was this guy who still works there — his name's Jimmy Traina. He would link to my stuff. He had this segment called Extra Mustard. I don't know what it's called now, but it was basically where he would just link out to stuff he was interested in.

Nat So I would send him my stuff every single day, and eventually he started linking to me, and that really helped my site take off. But I remember when Sports Illustrated got acquired, and I knew a lot of people that worked there, and there was so much talk about the old guard, right? Some of the higher-ups would always say, "This is how we've always done things. This is how we've always done things."

Nat And it's like, "No, man — this is why Barstool Sports is lapping you," right? Because they're adjusting with the times. They went after social media. They went after really strong relationships with their audience.

Nat And as we've progressed every single year, that's what's working: more real stuff, more inside information in terms of how companies operate day to day. It's like, why did TikTok take off? It's because you got an inside look at people's kitchens and what they do every single day, and it turns out that's what human beings were interested in. Some of the mundane stuff that we just do every day.

Nat But yeah, that one sentence always… I always tell people, "Be careful of anyone that says, 'This is how we've always done things,' because eventually that ain't gonna work anymore."

Hector Another thing that's sort of interesting that you have evolved — and I'm wondering if it's conscious or intention or if it's the market — but you sort of went from this thing that was, the relationship was at a distance. The community there was sort of impersonal information, whereas now today it's sort of a total 180, where the community is actually at the forefront of the business model.

Hector Was that a conscious evolution, or how did that come about where you really started to invest into the relationship and the connection that you had — not just with web traffic or website visitors, but actually the individuals and the people that were behind it?

Nat I think it was just a different business model and how I kind of evolved, even though I think now that's also critical even for websites and web traffic.

Nat There's no more valuable traffic than direct traffic, which is people just going on their browsers and bookmarking you. But I think that was just something that was always missing for me — that I always kind of wanted to get into a little bit more — but the business model was a little bit different.

Nat It was just pumping out content as much as I could, as much good quality content as I could. So that was my priority. Like I said, I had my two or three things I needed to do every day. One of those was content. The other was promoting that content.

Nat But I think ultimately I always knew deep down that the best business model has always been, will always be the relationships that you have — whether that's with a vendor or a customer or an audience member, doesn't matter.

Nat And I've leaned into that, and you find that kind of stuff really does compound. It's a pain in the ass, and that's why people don't like to do it. It's like I have a pretty decent-sized Instagram following, and every single day I literally do this manually: I will cherry pick people who seem to be a good fit, and I'll just say, "Thanks for following me."

Nat Just a little thing like that, to me, goes a very long way. And you do that enough over the course of time, it's going to compound.

Nat And I never really… I ran things in a bit more of a systematic way. And there's nothing wrong with systems, by the way. But just from a relationship standpoint and really trying to build relationships with other humans — which now is gonna be really critical, especially with AI — I was not doing it in favor of business.

Nat And today it's the complete opposite. I've had a good 20 years doing this, and I've done okay, and now I have a bit more time on my side to just really go after it in a way that I think is the most effective — and close to other people — that I can be.

Hector Now this is our… we could stop it here and it'd already be a wonderful conversation. I'm glad that we have one more segment after this. So when we get back from break, I'm curious about the tactics. You seem like someone who's just very… it's very probably simple in your head. It just seems like you just do it.

Hector But then there are these things that you are doing on a day in, day out basis from a personal standpoint that I think is amplifying, if you will, through your business. So we're gonna get into some of your personal habits and then some of the things that you suggest for founders for themselves on a day-to-day basis right when we get back from this quick break.

Hector Hey, y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media, and we are a podcast and content production company. We like to think of ourselves as the chief content officer of your company, because chances are if you're listening to this, you probably have a product, a passion, a mission, a message, some sort of service you're trying to get out to the world — but you might not have the time, the team, or the tech skills to be able to do it.

Hector If that's the case, we can help. Go to amplifymedia.com. That's A-M-P-L-A-F-Y media.com. You can find out all about us. You can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's get back to Nat.

Hector [00:14:00] So Nat, I think you mentioned it on the show or maybe it was before we were talking, but a part of what you do in the community is you give sort of a… in my head it was like a daily prescription, right? You're like the business doctor — "Here's what you need to take. Here's your medicine."

Hector Maybe because my son went to the urgent care yesterday, and so we're in that sort of mode. But it's sort of simple, right? He's got an ear infection. He's got ear pain. Take this medicine, the ear pain's gone.

Hector And you sort of created some of those things for your community. Why did you structure it like that? And are there any favorite prescriptions or things that you like to recommend often for people who might be this far into the conversation?

Nat Sure. I think the most important thing, at least for me personally — and this might not be the same for everybody else — but if it's not simple, I'm not interested in doing it.

Nat What I mean by that is: it doesn't have to be that if the task itself is complex and I can't do it, but it needs to be done, I need to find a way to make it simple. That could be outsourcing to someone else. That could be using AI. Whatever it is.

Nat So my point is: I like to keep things as simple as I possibly can. But as far as what I think is the foundation of any successful business or personal life or anything regarding one's improvement, I think it really comes down to discipline and habits.

Nat And so the focus of this community was to help people develop those discipline and habits to set that foundation for being able to do what you need to do on a daily basis. And again, I always start from simple. Like one of our tasks for people one day was drink 16 ounces of water before like 9:00 a.m.

Nat Really simple, but you'd be surprised that when you're sitting on your computer doing all your daily tasks, you're probably not gonna drink two glasses of water. Just something really easy like that — and you don't realize the benefits of what that glass and two glasses of water is actually going to do.

Nat And I always go back to that. It was a very famous speech a long time ago by someone who was in the Marines — I forgot — they were pretty high up in the chain in the Marines. And they talked about how they used to always make their bed every day, right? And that was like the smallest little thing, but it wasn't the smallest little thing.

Nat And it's probably why most Marines still make their bed every day and they make it well, is because they were taught that a very long time ago. And that kind of thing, in my opinion, really sets the stage for the rest of your day and allows all those other things to be a little bit easier, a little bit more manageable.

Nat So again, I think having the right foundation from a habitual standpoint, from a discipline standpoint, that eventually is going to help you out in every other aspect.

Nat I don't believe in motivation. I believe that motivation is a result of action. And when you're taking action — which is developing those habits, developing the discipline — everything else kind of follows. And some people need direction on that, which is why we do this daily prescription. We call it a daily rep. Every single day you're gonna get a rep.

Nat How do we decide on what reps to do? Well, we have specific pillars for those. Usually they're financially related, personal development related, business related. We usually stick to those three. And you'll get something different every single day.

Nat And the whole point is that over time, you add up all those habits, you're gonna be a different person than you were when you started. So yeah, that's kind of the story behind that and the reasoning. I hope that helps.

Hector Yeah, I had this realization. It didn't feel good to have a realization that my organization was a reflection of me. And it was actually because I didn't really like what I saw.

Hector It's very easy to blame or to point fingers or to go, "Why is so-and-so doing things like this when our organization…" And now that things like AI and all these sort of… like, our systems are a reflection of us.

Hector And so the best way that I've found to sort of make a change in our team is to, like Michael Jackson said, look at the man in the mirror and make an adjustment there because it seems like that's the most sustainable way.

Hector You can go and sort of coerce someone into making a short-term change. But in the long term, I think we have to be able to make those adjustments, and the team and the systems will sort of follow suit.

Nat Yeah. And also when you talk about changing within, I also happen to believe that in any organization that has more than one person, it all starts from the top.

Nat I've always believed that. I always will. Any large organization, the main changes, the main structure, the main culture — that's gotta start at the top: founders, CEOs, et cetera. And it should, in effect, trickle on through to the rest of the people if done right — and I stress: if done right.

Nat But yeah, I think you nailed it when it was like: "I gotta look at myself. If I'm gonna change my company, I gotta change my actions first, how I lead first, and the rest should hopefully fall into place."

Hector The last thing that I like to get every guest's insights and opinion on is what my good friend Jason Lee calls the signal and the noise.

Hector And that is: amidst this — whether it's the political landscape, whether it's the economic landscape, the social landscape — pick your lens — things are changing and moving so quickly, and there's so much information out there that people could be paying attention to, so many trends that someone could be paying attention to.

Hector Is there anything out there that you think is worth paying attention to, investing time or money, or is there a signal in that noise for you that you think is worth people looking at?

Nat [00:20:00] Do you mean, like, if I were to say, "AI, pay attention to AI," or what…?

Hector Could. It could be that. That's obviously an easy one because I think that's something out there. But it's sort of an open-ended question because we are bombarded with things. And I think we have a unique opportunity to get people's insights into what they deem is significant or worthy of some long-term implications.

Nat I happen to believe that — and I'm putting all my cards on that table — which is: I think there's a tremendous market and will be a tremendous market for anything related to human-to-human connection.

Nat Because there's just gonna be so much fear-mongering around AI. And I'm not saying that "Terminator" can't happen — it might. We can't control that.

Nat But what I think is going to be very evident and very missed as things get automated more, as things get less personal, we're gonna be craving for that human connection. And that could mean things like therapy, things like friendships, things like even your own audience, engaging your audience.

Nat People wanna feel seen, they wanna feel heard, and that's only gonna get harder and harder the more content that's out there, the more content that gets automatically created and consumed.

Nat So if you have these truly — and I hate using this word because it's almost like a buzzword now — these truly authentic relationships out there, you'll always be able to be successful in business, life, whatever you wanna call it.

Nat And that's something that I've embraced the older I've gotten: nothing can replace, in my opinion, that truly human-to-human connection.

Nat So I think that's something to keep an eye on. And if you're gonna study something and you wanna get good at something, get good at learning how to create a true connection with another human.

Hector Couldn't agree more. Nat, two more questions for you. The first is: if people want to find out about you, about this community that you're building, get more info about all that — I believe you're putting out a ton of content as well still — where's the best place for people to go?

Nat I guess where most people find my stuff is on Instagram. My handle there is realnatberman.

Nat And then, as far as the actual movement itself, it's called Be Better and that website is thebettermovement.com. And that's just like a short little video explaining everything in terms of what it is. And if people wanna join, great. If not, no big deal.

Nat And yeah, that's probably the best way to find me.

Hector Amazing. And we'll link that up as well. And last question for you, Nat: in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

Nat Leverage. No doubt — leverage.

Nat I think that you must learn everything yourself as a business owner, especially starting out. It would be very foolish, in my opinion, to not understand the ins and outs of your business and then all of a sudden decide, "Oh, I need 15 people," and I'll let this person do this and let this person do this and let this person do this.

Nat Nothing wrong with letting people — in fact you should let people do all the things that they're supposed to do in their respective areas within your business. However, I think it's critical for every owner to understand their business inside and out before eventually delegating.

Nat But when you wanna scale and actually grow a tremendous amount, you gotta be able to use leverage — whether that's a system, whether that's a person, it doesn't matter.

Nat So right now that's the reason AI is so effective: you're basically removing people from the leverage, and you're replacing it with machines, and it's cheaper and it's usually just as effective.

Nat But my rule of thumb is: if there's something that either somebody else or something can do as well as you can in your business, you probably shouldn't be doing it.

Nat If you're not necessarily necessary for that function but it still needs to be done, that's where I would use leverage every single time.

Nat What I can't replace… well, who knows how far AI is gonna go. But right now, if I'm growing my social media accounts, I'm kind of the person that has to be front and center. Can't really replace me right now.

Nat But you can certainly replace editing capabilities, or distribution of content, all that kind of stuff surrounding the business. That's how you scale.