Podcasts about 11it

How Are You Using Your Life? For Self Or For Jesus. Romans 14:10 - 12 10You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister a ? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11It is written: “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’ ” b 12So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

 Colleen Schnettler  00:00This week's episode of the Software Social Podcast is brought to you by Hopscotch Product Tours. Hopscotch Product Tours allows you to improve user onboarding with helpful product tours that guide your users to success. Also reduce frustration by helping users learn how to use your product without the need for demo calls, visit Hopscotch.club today and start delighting your users with Hopscotch Product Tours. Michele Hansen  00:28Hey, Colleen. Colleen Schnettler  00:29Hey, Michele.  Michele Hansen  00:31How you doing?  Colleen Schnettler  00:32I'm doing pretty well. I had a pretty uplifting week over here in the Simple File Upload world.  Michele Hansen  00:38You know what? That's good to hear. Because I feel like last week you were, we talked about how you were kind of feeling like you were in the void.  Colleen Schnettler  00:44I totally was. And, you know, I still feel that but I'm trying to, two things happen that changed my perspective. One, I got another check from Heroku. So that always helps. That doesn't hurt. And I'm kind of just trying to focus on my mindset as I approach this business. I have to say the check from Heroku because unlike Stripe, where you just get paid randomly when people, you know, when people pay, you only get paid once a month. So I've been telling you I have $800 MRR for like three weeks, and I haven't seen that money. So I just saw that money yesterday. So that was pretty exciting. Michele Hansen  01:21Nice Colleen Schnettler  01:22Yeah, I think I remember telling you my very first check. I got like I had enough leftover to buy a bagel.  Michele Hansen  01:28Yes. The bagel, the $20 bagel. Colleen Schnettler  01:30The $20 bagel. Well, this time it was it was quite a bit more so I could could have bought quite a few bagels. So that was pretty exciting.  Michele Hansen  01:37And I saw you tweeted out earlier this week that the Stripe payouts, I was just like payout, payout, payout. Colleen Schnettler  01:45I think what must happen is like people must have signed up, there were, like, four or five people who signed up like one day apart. And so the all of their invoices hit like right after each other. So I like signed on to my email every day, and it was like payout payout payout. It was awesome. It's very exciting. It was a lot of excitedness in terms of actually seeing the fruits of my labor on this product this week. So that was fun.  Michele Hansen  02:10Yay. Internet money.  Colleen Schnettler  02:12Yay, internet money.  Michele Hansen  02:13So where is your MRR at now? So I just checked and I'm at $975. I know. What? Oh my god, you're almost at the $1,000 MRR mark, and it's been, like, three months. Yeah, I guess it's, yeah, three, oh my god. Like,  Colleen Schnettler  02:35Yeah.  Michele Hansen  02:36That's, that's not common. Like, just for everybody else kind of like, listening like that is, that is very uncommon. Like, you're you're not like ending up on $1,000 after three months like Coleen like that's, that's normal. Like, I think it took us like six months, and even then that was kind of fast for a little project. Dude, 975. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler  02:57That's real money. It's real. That's why my last check. Because if you look at my checks from Heroku, and once again, I only get those once a month. It's not like Stripe. It was like the first one was like 150. The second one was like 250. This last one was like $570. I was like, that's like, real money. Like I could do something with that money. That's cool. Yeah, so, so from a monetary perspective, it's going great. I think I, I was struggling a lot. And I still am kind of struggling because I don't have a good feedback loop. I have been kind of unsure what to do next, and how to push the product forward. And it's funny because I like I think mid last week, I was just in a funk. And I was like, You know what, I'm just gonna build it the way I want to build it. I'm gonna develop all these features. I don't care what anyone tells me. Like, I'm just gonna do what I want to do. And you know, of course, everyone I talked to is like, that's a terrible idea. And the best way someone phrased it to me, they were like, what if you do go and you spend a couple months and you build all these features you feel like you need, you're still not going to know who your customer is. Like, I was complaining because I don't know who my customer is. And she was like, even if you spend this time to build that out, you'll be three months down the road, and you still won't know who your customer is. So have you made any progress? And I was like, oh, that's a good way to put it. So, I did a few interviews this week, which was really great. I'm really gonna take a pause on any kind of development work, and just talk to people. I mean, talk talk, talk.  Michele Hansen  03:01Colleen. Colleen Schnettler  03:02I know, I know. Michele Hansen  03:04You're done putzing around in the code garden and like, you're out there in the town square.  Colleen Schnettler  03:29I'm convinced. Like, between the, I mean, I probably five different people had to tell me this. But like you guys have convinced me that I just need to talk to more people. I just need, I don't know. Like, if you ask me who my ideal customer was, like, is, or who this provides value to, I can't identify that person, and casting a net of all developers is way too broad and too vague. So, that's really what I am focused on. In the next couple months, I think another thing is I need to calm down a little bit and slow down and be a little bit more patient.  Michele Hansen  05:21You said that you could go off and build something for three months, and it sounds like this person you were talking to, kind of helped you realize basically, like, you wouldn't know who you were building for and why you were building it and how they needed any of that to work.  Colleen Schnettler  05:39Yeah. And I think that's exactly the thing. So, so this week has been great. I spoke to three consultants, I have another one today, and I'm trying to get to five consultants, which I'm sure I can find one more person. Here's the thing, Michele, they all want different things.  Michele Hansen  05:56Oh. Colleen Schnettler  05:57So, unless I have the team and the budget of a CloudFlare, I can't build one product that fits the needs for all of these three different people.  Michele Hansen  06:09You know what this sounds like?  Colleen Schnettler  06:10No. Michele Hansen  06:11It sounds like the very beginning of a research loop to me.  Colleen Schnettler  06:15What's a research loop?  Michele Hansen  06:16Okay, so it's basically this idea that, like, you do a group of like, five interviews, and then you sort of analyze that and say, okay, of all of these different problems I've had, or rather, I've heard, which ones both sound, people are already paying for them to be solved, and they're unhappy with the way that they're being solved or in, they can also be paying in terms of significant amounts of time, like that counts. And then which of these problems do you think are relatively both feasible for you to solve, like, it would be possible for you to build something, and could also be like, commercially viable for you to sell, like, people would be willing to pay enough that would justify the time that goes into it. So basically kind of analyzing what you've heard so far, based on you know, how, how well those needs are already met, or, or not met?  Colleen Schnettler  07:07Yeah. Michele Hansen  07:08What they're already willing to pay for. And then, and then doing another round, focusing on those sort of top priority problems to figure out where you should go next. Like, it's completely normal that you would talk to five people and hear five different things. That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong, if anything, that's really exciting.  Colleen Schnettler  07:30Oh, that made me excited. I felt like crap. Now, I don't know what to do.  Michele Hansen  07:35Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And you do it kind of like a pyramid, basically. You start out with a really wide scope in the beginning because you're casting a really wide net, like, you're just talking to all software consultants, which is a pretty broad, big net. And then you just sort of narrow it down based on where your capabilities are, and where people are willing to pay for stuff, and they're not happy with what they're currently doing.  Colleen Schnettler  08:02Yeah. Okay. So that was, that was really good. You're right. It's good to hear the details of what people struggle with, what their pain points are, how frequently they have those pain points. But yeah, I was only three interviews. So nothing magical came to light, like, oh, if I just did this one thing, I would have the product everyone wants, like, there was nothing like that. Everyone was building or wanted to build kind of a specialized solution for their needs. So, I guess the answer is just continue to talk to more people in that situation.  Michele Hansen  08:38Yeah, and, you know, also making it flexible, too. Like, if you genuinely hear that everybody wants something different, then, you know, making it so that they can customize it to their own needs is another route you could go on. But, I mean, it does not surprise me at all that you would not be hearing commonalities after just three people.  Colleen Schnettler  08:58Yeah. Yeah. Michele Hansen  09:00That's totally normal.  Colleen Schnettler  09:02Yeah. So, I think, I mean, before I start, like, what, I really want to go build an integration for this thing, or build an integration for that thing, but I think before I do any of that, like I said, I'm, you know, this is, there's no finish line here, right? Like this is this is my life, like, this is what I want to do. Even if I sold my company, I'd want to build another company. So I'm just trying to be a little bit patient and take my time and really figure out who the customer is and, you know, learn, learn about what they need and figure out how I can customize this product to their needs.  Michele Hansen  09:44It sounds like that, for you, like, that is almost the opposite of your instinct. Like your instinct is to go and build for three months.  Colleen Schnettler  09:57I mean, that's what I want to do. Like, let's be clear. Like I love people, but this process of like, finding people and like the, the whole, the whole logistics of it, you know, it's a lot. It takes a lot out of your day, I found that I'm a little nervous before I talk to them. it's a lot of emotional energy to like contain my own excitement, while I'm talking to them. And listen, like, that takes quite a bit of concentration as a beginner. Michele Hansen  10:24It takes concentration for me. It takes emotional energy for me. I mean, this is why I have this rule for myself that I don't do more than two in a day because the amount of energy that's required to sort of just, you know, I picture myself like this sponge that is just there to absorb whatever the other person says. Like, that requires a lot of energy, and, you know, a couple weeks ago, when I was first starting to interview all of my readers about my book, and my very meta interviews about customer interviews, I did six in one day, out of enthusiasm for this and, and at the end of that I was like, I heard so many amazing things. But I was also like, okay, now I remember why I've had two per day rule.  Colleen Schnettler  11:10Yeah. Yeah, so I think that's kind of, uh, definitely goes against my instincts to slow down and try and identify my customer. But I think the point that I want to build all these things, but until I know who I'm going to be serving, I don't even know what is important to build, and I can't know what is important to build, until I talk to people who need this product, who I, to identify them and talk to them. So that's going to, that's going to mean that I need to be a little more aggressive in finding people. I can't just like, I mean, I put a thing on Twitter, and I found five people, but I was only looking for five people. Like, I want more than I want a lot of people. So I think I'm going to try some of those strategies, you know, go on Reddit, and the strategies you write about in your book, actually. If you'd like to, I mean, you talk about this in your book, I reference your book, even though it's not done, like I haven't, I'm looking at it all the time, just so you know. Michele Hansen  12:06You know, one thing I want to note is that doing development work and customer research work, like, they're not an either, or. It doesn't have to be this switch, where you're only doing one at a time. Like I think, you know, the best cases are when this kind of research is just integrated into what you're already doing. And, you know, it does take time and focus, and like, context switching is difficult so you couldn't, you know, just like, you know, write code for like half an hour and then interview someone then right? Like, you can't sort of just switch back and forth super easily, but integrating it into your process. And maybe it's not that you, you know, don't go out and build these features for three months in a cave, or also that you don't go out and just talk to people for three months. It's that you do you know, both, you know, it's like, in the same way that, that people often ask me whether they should talk to people or whether they should look at analytics, and I'm like, porque no los dos? Like, do it at the same time.  Colleen Schnettler  13:07Yeah.  Michele Hansen  13:08Like, you could, you know, like, for example, I remember you talking about something you came out of the interview with Drew where you wanted to pull the code pen forward on the marketing side?  Colleen Schnettler  13:17Yes.  Michele Hansen  13:18Has that happened?  Colleen Schnettler  13:20No.  Michele Hansen  13:21Oh, I don't mean to, like call you out or anything. It's like, you know, there's like,  Colleen Schnettler  13:25Developer calling me out on my own podcast, Michele. Michele Hansen  13:28I'm sorry. Like, there's development work you can do, Colleen Schnettler  13:32Yeah. Michele Hansen  13:33That you'll find in these things as you go.  Colleen Schnettler  13:35Yeah. And I think that's, that's really the key. And that, that's will keep me in like a happy psychological state, too, because I'll get to, I'll get to do a little code, I'll get to talk to a little people. I get to do a little code, I'll get to talk to a little people. So I think, I think that you're absolutely right. Like that is a good path forward. I think, I guess what I'm trying to sort out, so when I built this thing I built it like to do one very specific thing, right? Like, it was designed to help you get public files from your users onto your site, and I was actually making, I was using it for brochures. We were doing real estate brochures, and people have started using it and all kinds of different ways, and that's been really instructive. So, even that piece of information is interesting, and a good thing to learn. So, yeah, so I think it's just keeping an open mind and making those kinds of changes that are kind of obvious, like, the code pen more accessible as I go forward. That's kind of, kind of my plan. Oh, and I wanted to say, so what I've been doing, I think I read this in your book, too, is I've been recording, obviously, with their permission and then dropping it in Otter.ai to get a transcript, and it's so awesome because now I can just read. It takes me five minutes to read instead of watching the 30 minute video, and I have the information, like, right there at my fingertips. I love that.  Michele Hansen  15:07It's awesome. Yeah, and Otter makes it so easy to do a transcript. It's actually what we use for this podcast. I should totally like, reach out to them and see if they'll sponsor us or something.  Colleen Schnettler  15:19I have a paid subscription.  Michele Hansen  15:21Yeah. Colleen Schnettler  15:21Because I was like, this is so worth it. Like, it's so cool.  Michele Hansen  15:24Yeah, then you could just, like, Colleen Schnettler  15:25That's been, Michele Hansen  15:25Print it out and highlight.  Colleen Schnettler  15:27Yeah, well, that's been such a great way to collate the data, because I was like, okay, if I want to get serious about this and talk to, you know, 15, 20 people, what, am I going to go back and watch all those interviews? I really don't want to. So, that's been a really cool way to get the data. I'm, like, pumped about that. And so, yeah.  Michele Hansen  15:46Yeah, if we were doing this, like in a sort of serious, like corporate, you know, company setting, what you would do is actually like, take all of those transcripts, and then clip out like, specific key phrases and key words, and sentences where someone is really clearly describing their different use case and then, I mean, I feel like there's this sort of this meme about how much like, UX people love post it notes, and like rearranging post it notes on boards. And, like, those, you know, all of those quotes basically end up as post it notes where you're making a timeline of the user's journey through trying to do something, and you're evaluating it on functional social and emotional levels. And like, everyone in the team is like placing post it notes in all of these different areas from all the different interviews. Like you might have one color that you use for a particular customer or a particular interview, for example. It's super time intensive. It's also really fun, and yes, it brings amazing results, but even if you're not doing that, like, even the fact of getting the transcript made, going, reading through it, pulling out the key phrases, and then just, kind of, knowing where to find that information yourself, or like, jotting that down on a card, or whatever that is, wherever you're keeping information so you know what to go back and reference later can be really helpful.  Colleen Schnettler  17:03Yeah, yeah, I'm pumped to go in this customer interview journey, I think I'm going to approach it the way you kind of describe where, of course, I'm not going to not touch the code, like there's going to be, there's going to be both, I'm gonna do them in parallel. But I really want to kind of identify who, who it is I can provide the most value to, and I want to be specific about it. So,  Michele Hansen  17:22Yeah. Colleen Schnettler  17:23That's kind of my goal going forward. And that's going to take a while. I think that's the other thing I have to remember is like, that's not going to happen in a week. That's going to take me a little while. So, Michele Hansen  17:33I mean, in some ways, it's never over. And I don't know if that really, I don't know if that helps you. Like, I don't know if that's something I should tell you now, but like, you know, I'm a firm believer that research should be just part of your ongoing workflow and sort of building this bank of customer understanding that is a living, breathing organism. And it's not that we do a research project for a month and then build stuff for three months, then do a research project. Like, it's just always happening.  Colleen Schnettler  18:00Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of all the wonderful info I got from your book while I was doing these customer interviews, how is the book going?  Michele Hansen  18:09It's good, it's good. I feel like we're, we're getting into the more serious editing phase. I'm kind of, Colleen Schnettler  18:17Didn't you have a picture this morning of like, the book on your desk with a bunch of pens on Twitter?  Michele Hansen  18:21Oh, yeah, I did, I printed it out, and I started reading it, like, as as a book and editing it, and I have four different colors of pens for my editing. And I used to do editing and print layout professionally, and I've sort of volunteer edited other people's books before.  Colleen Schnettler  18:40So random. Michele Hansen  18:41So yeah, no, it was like, stuff I did when I was in college. So, um, so, so yeah, I'm really pumped, because actually, this is a phase of it that I feel like I understand the best. And I know, like I have seen where, you know, there was one book that I helped edit that went on to win a major like, international prize and like, I didn't have anything to do with that, but like it, I saw what that book was in its early stages, and so I know that like, the fact that I'm tearing this to shreds right now is like a normal part of the process, like, and even really amazing books, like they everything starts out in a rough shape. I'm really appreciating how different writing a book is from writing a newsletter, like, how much of a gulf there is between that.  Colleen Schnettler  19:27Yeah. Michele Hansen  19:28Um, but, but I'm having fun. I feel like I have torn like the introduction absolutely to shreds. I mean, I had like four introductory chapters, and like, I think that was too many. Like, I was really burying the lead. So it's good. You know, I've brought in friends who are outside of our little bubble in tech to help me edit who were people that I know who will be harsh and honest with me, and they trust that I'm not going to be offended, and so I'm so grateful to have their help. And I've interviewed about 25 ish people now as part of it. So it's, it's going along. It's good.  Colleen Schnettler  20:11That's awesome. I'm excited. And I also heard, and by heard, I mean, you told me, that you took your live chat widget off of your website.  Michele Hansen  20:22I'm so excited.  Colleen Schnettler  20:23Talk to me about that.  Michele Hansen  20:24Okay, so this, so, this is something that has been building for a while, and for a long time, not not just since we moved here, but for a long time, the pings of live chat have been really stressful for us.  Colleen Schnettler  20:43I imagine.  Michele Hansen  20:44Yeah. And even, like, when we were in the US, like, we were on eastern time, and we would stop working around 4:30 or 5 on any given day, and we would still be getting requests, you know, through eight o'clock at the minimum, because of the West Coast, if not later, because of Hawaii and Alaska. And so we were sort of used to getting pinged from customer support at all hours of the day. It was not necessarily that there's a volume problem, because, so we have this idea that every support ticket only happens once.  Colleen Schnettler  21:18I think you've mentioned that.  Michele Hansen  21:19So this is kind of this principle that we operate on that whenever somebody, whether it's a bug or somebody is confused about something, like, if there's any way that we can make something clearer, or fix something, or basically prevent that ticket from ever happening again, we do that. So nothing gets closed until it's fixed. And, and so we operate on that principle, and that has really reduced our support volume over the years. But also, but still throughout that, and I think especially being on a European timezone serving North American customers like, that gets really difficult because you know, our daughter gets out of school at three o'clock, and then our customers wake up at three o'clock, and then it's just, like, it's just chaos, and having live chat specifically, like, people don't know when they can expect to get a live response versus when they have to wait. And I have experimented with so many different versions of copy on the little live chat widget, and none of them really seem to communicate that it's, like, it may not actually be live.  Colleen Schnettler  22:30Okay.  Michele Hansen  22:31And then on the flip side, some other people assume it's a robot and like, don't even use it.  Colleen Schnettler  22:35Yeah, that's me. But keep going. Michele Hansen  22:37I've seen that come up in usability testing, like, when I've had people screen share, and go through our site. So um, you know, a couple months ago, I was telling this to some founder friends, and what, what came out of it was basically, you know, live chat was really important for our growth, especially in the early days, like, I'm thinking like, like, 2016, 17, 18, especially when we're going full time. And, but the things that you do to grow are not necessarily the things you have to do to maintain and be a stable business, right? You know, we're growing. Like, we grew 56% last year, even though we didn't really try to, but growth is not what we optimize for. We optimize for stability. And so those things that we did in the early days to grow, like, could use different tactics now, and where the live chat kind of stresses us out and doesn't work for our family, but also like, it creates this expectation mismanagement with our customers. And people are still getting a reply directly from the founders, and just this morning, somebody emailed us, and then we got back to them an hour later. And then the response we got back was, "Wow, I'm so amazed that you were able to give me a helpful answer so quickly." And like, that was an hour versus immediate, and they still had that, like, positive reaction. So, we just did this the other day, we'll see how it goes. But, but I'm kind of nervous, excited, relieved all the same.  Colleen Schnettler  24:14So you still have the widget, it just says,  Michele Hansen  24:18No, we got rid of the widget. We removed the widget.  So there's no widget at all? Yeah, I mean, it's still, like, popping up in random places. So we were like, going through the codebase and trying to find all the different places we have that launcher. But, no, but we're still using intercom and the platform, like, so all the email is still coming into intercom, but we don't have the live chat bubble in the corner, and we don't have any prompts that say, you know, contact us if you have a billing question. Like, if you click on Contact Us, it doesn't pull up intercom chat widget. It instead creates an email.  Colleen Schnettler  24:50Okay, so if I am on your site, and I want to contact you, I now have to scroll to the bottom to the footer, or wherever, click contact us, and that'll pop up in my email so I can email you? Michele Hansen  25:00It's in the header. And,  Colleen Schnettler  25:01Okay, but,  Michele Hansen  25:02And then it's,  Colleen Schnettler  25:02Okay.  Michele Hansen  25:03It lists all the different emails. Yeah.  Colleen Schnettler  25:06Now tell me about some concerns you have about making this.  Michele Hansen  25:09I think I, like, a concern I have is that, you know, people will be upset, right, that they may have expected an immediate response before. But, you know, at the same time, like, most of our long term customers, like, they email us anyway. And actually, most of them have our personal emails, and like, they don't expect an immediate response. You know, our, when I was talking to those friends a couple of months ago, they were like, "You guys are providing way too high of a quality of customer service. Like, I know that you guys pride yourselves on it. Like, even doing the customer support as the founders yourselves is so far beyond what most companies do, nevermind doing it live 24/7." Like, they're like, that's that, that doesn't make sense. And like, you guys can be, you know, be gentle with yourselves, basically. Um, you know, people have been like, "Why don't you just hire someone?" And the problem with it is that because we have solved all of the easy support problems, like, the ones we do get are fairly complicated. And if someone else were to take this over, they would need to be a support engineer, who, you know, is capable of debugging people's problems, but also like, able to negotiate contracts and do billing issues and like, like, they would need to somehow be a clone of the two of us. And it doesn't really seem reasonable. So, so yeah, I think, and again, it's, it's not the volume, that it's the problem, it was really that cadence. It's when someone is, you know, chatting and saying, "Hi, are you there?"  Colleen Schnettler  26:47Right. Michele Hansen  26:48Is the API working? My API key, my API key is, you know, it's doing this like, and it's like, and it's like, every, like one like, ping every minute versus someone sending us an email that's like, hey, like, so we're trying to use it earlier, and then this is what happens, and here's the error message. Like, people tend to be much more verbose and email. So,  Colleen Schnettler  27:05Yes. Michele Hansen  27:06I'm nervous. But we'll see, we'll see how it goes. I think that this is, you know, an adjustment that we need to make. Colleen Schnettler  27:13I don't think anyone will care. I think you will get absolutely no, I think this is all upside for you. I mean, it's gonna be so good for your quality of life. I don't, I literally don't think anyone's gonna care. I mean, I think you're gonna find that it doesn't have any impact on your business.  Michele Hansen  27:29We'll see. We'll see. But, you know, we're kind of operating under that idea that the things that we needed to do to grow, are not necessarily the same things that you do to, when you have a stable, secure business.  Colleen Schnettler  27:43Yeah.  Michele Hansen  27:44Yeah. Which is kind of weird, like, also in the software world, cuz I feel like, you know, we talk about this all the time, that if you're trying to build a, you know, sort of, quote, unquote, like, Calm company, right, like, you're not going down the unicorn route. Like, like most of the advice and growth tactics, and everything out, like, business advice is geared towards those companies that want to be huge, and less so towards us little one, two person companies. Like, the things that make sense for us, or, you know, we have a totally different set of incentives and resources and constraints and goals. Like, all those things are so different, that the fact that we're all in software is, is almost sort of beside the point.  Colleen Schnettler  28:29It is complete, it is wild, isn't it? Like how different the tactics are.  Michele Hansen  28:34Like we have more in common with a small retail business, but we also don't fit in with them because we're not a physical business. Like, it's like, I don't know, small SaaS. We're like, we're just a weird breed, man. Yeah.  Colleen Schnettler  28:50Well, I hope it I hope it alleviate some of that pressure and stress. I imagine, especially with the timezone issues since you guys have moved, that's got to be just challenging.  Michele Hansen  29:02Yeah, my friends who also, you know, run SaaS's out of Europe with North American customers, like, I have talked to them a little bit about this and they're like, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's tough. It's really tough. Colleen Schnettler  29:18Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Well, I'm, I'm glad. I think, I feel like, this is gonna work for you. Michele Hansen  29:25We'll see. Maybe in six months we'll be like, oh my god, we don't have any new customers and everybody cancelled because we don't have the chat thing, but I hope not.  Colleen Schnettler  29:33I mean, honestly, and I know you said they, they come in two groups, but I just assumed there will not be a person on the other side of the chat widget. So, if I hit your chat widget, I just assume I'm going to send you an email. You know what I mean? I think you'll be fine.   Michele Hansen  29:47Yeah, I think people have totally different expectations. And what we have tried to communicate is that we're not making it harder to contact us, like we're not, you know, offshoring our support. Like, you can still go to the header and click, like, contact. You can still email us, like, it's still the two founders doing the support. It's just one of the tools we use for that is going away.  Colleen Schnettler  30:13Yeah, cool. I can't wait to hear an update on how that goes. All right. Well, I guess that'll wrap us up for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please tweet about it. That always makes us happy, and we love hearing what you think.

Psalm 48:1–3,8Luke 11:26,28–30,33–35,41Deuteronomy 30:19b, 31:8,10c–11It is not surprising, therefore, that cities have always had an important role in the purposes of God. In particular, one city has been at the heart of God’s strategy for the world.

46 In this episode, I want to keep teaching on the story found in Judges chapter 6-8Get access to the entire 12-part Christian Podcast Bible Study LessonGideon has been beaten down, and he is not the most confident person in the Bible. Since many of us are struggling with fear, you may be able to relate to the story. Judges 7:7 Then the Lord said to Gideon. "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place.I Corinthians 1:29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.Action is the best thing you can use to destroy fear.I have taught many times (not on the podcast yet :-) God won't (or can't steer) a parked car. You need to be moving, and even if it's in the wrong direction, God will turn you around.God knows Gideon, and He knows he is still not sure if he can defeat the Midianites, so God tells him what to do in Judges 7:9-11It happened on the same night that the Lord said to him, "Arise, go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, and you shall hear what they say; and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp." Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp.Then Gideon goes with Puruh and hears these words.Judges 7:13,14And when Gideon had come,  there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, "I had a dream to my surprise a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell in overturned, and the tent collapsed." Then his companion answered and said, "This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp."God uses 300 men, clay pitchers with a candle in it, a trumpet, and a shout to defeat 1,000's and 1,000's of men (numerous as locusts and their camel without number Judges 7:12)

ELITE : SIX Think Tank meetings are discussed over Zoom with our members every Friday at 9:30am.Facilitated by DANNY : DE HEK meetings are recorded for our Podcast, we’ve been doing this since COVID-19 if you’re interested in joining in with us check out our Website.Danny de Hek 0:00We are actually live. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm your host on the facilitator. today. I'm going to lead Rob Woolley , do the introduction for the meeting today.Rob Woolley 0:09Hello, yeah, my name is Rob Woolley , and we're here talking about whether you will fit for business, the business. It's a thin business and being fit. We've got our David Clarkson here from dynamic communications. We've got Danny de Hek from Danny de Hek . We've got Helen Helen Oakes from Mode de vie. We've got Paul Starling from canopy Canterbury computers. We got Laughlin McNeal from a Acorva Technical Recruitment. Yeah, don't look it up doesn't mean anything. You just made it up. But it's really impressive. And we've got Stefano, and Jaline and Jaline, not actually on video at the moment O no someone escaped from the north. I'll pass you now on to your host. Danny, thank youDanny de Hek 1:11Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. That's the crazy people that come along along to our Think Tank meeting. We have had a bit of discussion before the meeting started. And we've discovered there's some new features on zoom. So today's meeting will be a lot shorter because we spent time putting moustaches beanies and lipstick on each other. And then we thought we better come together and put together some sort of respectable weekly podcast. So last week, we hit our meeting. I can hear a ringing noseRob Woolley 1:11It is the Telephoned DannyDanny de Hek 1:41Oh, right.Helen Oakes 1:41It's got tinnitus.Danny de Hek 1:42Yeah, sounds like tinnitus, and we decided that we would talk about being Fit for Business. So if you haven't been to a think tank meeting before, we normally pick a topic chosen from the week previous. And then we discuss it in four parts. And the four parts are people explaining their experiences, problems, come up with some solutions. And then hopefully, at the end of the meeting, we come up with some takeaways, and then we spend about three minutes coming up with a topic. So today's meeting will be a little bit condensed might be a good use of words. But I would like to know, your guys for business. When it comes to that, what do you think we're referring to?See Full TXT Script at https://www.dehek.com/general/podcast/think-tank-topic-fit-4-business/P.S. If you like this podcast please click “like” or provide comment, as that will motivate me to publish more. Would you like the opportunity to be featured on the WHAT : DE HEK Podcast? You are welcome to INVITE YOURSELF to be a guest.

为你读英语美文 · 第396期主播：永清What is the Corona/ Covid-19 Virus Really Teaching us?新冠真正教给我们的是什么？作者，译者：佚名I'm a strong believer that there is a spiritual purpose behind everything that happens in this world whether that is what we perceive as being good or being bad.As I meditate upon this, I want to share with you what I feel the Corona/ Covid-19 virus is really doing to us:我坚信发生的每一件事后面都有一个精神层面的目的，无论我们认为是好还是坏。当我沉思时, 我想与大家分享我的心得，新冠病毒究竟对我们做了些什么。1It is reminding us that we are all equal, regardless of our culture, religion, occupation, financial situation or how famous we are. This disease treats us all equally, perhaps we should too. If you don't believe me, just ask Tom Hanks.病毒提醒我们，人都是平等的，无论我们的文化、宗教、职业、经济状况，或是一个人有多么出名。在病毒眼中我们都是平等的，也许我们也应该平等对待他人。如果你不相信我的话，那就去问汤姆·汉克斯。2It is reminding us that we are all connected and something that affects one person has an effect on another. It is reminding us that the false borders that we have put up have little value as this virus does not need a passport. It is reminding us, by oppressing us for a short time, of those in this world whose whole life is spent in oppression.病毒提醒我们，我们的命运都是联在一起的，影响一个人的事情同时也会影响另一个人。病毒也提醒我们，我们建立的虚假国境线毫无价值，因为病毒并不需要护照。病毒还提醒我们，虽然我们暂时受到压迫，世界上还有人一生都受到压迫。3It is reminding us of how precious our health is and how we have moved to neglect it through eating nutrient poor manufactured food and drinking water that is contaminated with chemicals upon chemicals. If we don't look after our health, we will, of course, get sick病毒提醒我们，健康多么珍贵。而我们却忽视健康，吃垃圾食品，喝被各种化学品污染的水，如果我们不照顾自己，我们当然就会生病。4It is reminding us of the shortness of life and of what is most important for us to do, which is to help each other, especially those who are old or sick. Our purpose is not to buy toilet roll.病毒提醒我们，生命苦短，什么是我们应该做的最重要的事情，特别是那些已经生病的老年人。人生在世的目的不是买一卷卷的厕纸。5It is reminding us of how materialistic our society has become and how, when in times of difficulty, we remember that it's the essentials that we need (food, water, medicine) as opposed to the luxuries that we sometimes unnecessarily give value to.病毒提醒我们，我们的社会已经变得物质至上，当我们遇到困难时，我们才想起我们的基本需求是食物、饮水和药品，而不是并没有什么价值的奢侈品。6It is reminding us of how important our family and home life is and how much we have neglected this. It is forcing us back into our houses so we can rebuild them into our home and to strengthen our family unit.病毒提醒我们，家庭是如何重要，但我们却忽视了这一点。病毒强迫我们回到我们的房子里，所以我们可以把房子建成家庭，并建立牢固的家庭纽带。7It is reminding us that our true work is not our job, that is what we do, not what we were created to do. Our true work is to look after each other, to protect each other and to be of benefit to one another.病毒提醒我们，我们真正的工作并不是我们打的那份工，我们固然需要打工，然而上帝创造我们的目的并不是让我们打工。我们真正的工作是互相照顾、互相保护、互助互利。8It is reminding us to keep our egos in check. It is reminding us that no matter how great we think we are or how great others think we are, a virus can bring our world to a standstill.病毒提醒我们，我们不能妄自尊大。病毒还提醒我们，无论你觉得自己多伟大，也无论别人觉得你多么伟大，一个小小的病毒就能让整个世界停摆。9It is reminding us that the power of freewill is in our hands. We can choose to cooperate and help each other, to share, to give, to help and to support each other or we can choose to be selfish, to hoard [hɔːrd], to look after only our self. Indeed, it is difficulties that bring out our true colours.病毒提醒我们，自由掌握在我们自己手中。我们可以选择合作互助、分享、付出、互相支持，或者我们也可以选择自私、囤积和自顾自。只有在困难的时候才能看出一个人的真面目。10It is reminding us that we can be patient, or we can panic. We can either understand that this type of situation has happened many times before in history and will pass, or we can panic and see it as the end of the world and, consequently, cause ourselves more harm than good.病毒提醒我们，我们既可以耐心，也可以恐慌。我们既可以理解这种情况在历史上已经发生过多次，但最后都过去了，我们也可以恐慌，以为世界末日到了，结果伤害了我们自己。11It is reminding us that this can either be an end or a new beginning. This can be a time of reflection and understanding, where we learn from our mistakes, or it can be the start of a cycle which will continue until we finally learn the lesson we are meant to.病毒提醒我们，疫情既是结束也是开始。我们现在可以反省和理解，从错误里吸取教训。疫情也可以是一个轮回的开始，而且还会继续下去，直至我们吸取教训为止。12It is reminding us that this Earth is sick. It is reminding us that we need to look at the rate of deforestation just as urgently as we look at the speed at which toilet rolls are disappearing off of shelves. We are sick because our home is sick.病毒提醒我们，我们的地球病了。病毒还提醒我们，我们必须看到森林消失的速度，也必须看到一卷卷厕纸从货架上消失的速度。我们都病了，因为我们的家庭病了。13It is reminding us that after every difficulty, there is always ease. Life is cyclical ['sɪklɪkəl], and this is just a phase in this great cycle. We do not need to panic; this too shall pass.病毒提醒我们，困难总会过去，然后就容易了。生活是周期性的，现在只是周期里的一个阶段。我们不必恐慌，疫情一定会过去。Whereas [ˌweərˈæz] many see the Corona/ Covid-19 virus as a great disaster, I prefer to see it as a great corrector. It is sent to remind us of the important lessons that we seem to have forgotten and it is up to us if we will learn them or not.▎主播介绍永清：为你读英语美文创始人后期，编辑：永清▎节目首发，背景音乐，图文资料，更多推送敬请关注微信公众号：为你读英语美文，ID：readenglishforyou

Today's Bible Translation Design: Steve Webb | Photo: Craig Bowcut on Unsplash Bible translation used in today's episode: Ch. 40-41 NIV, Ch. 42-43 ERV Support Please remember that this is a listener supported show. Your support of any amount is needed and very much appreciated. Find out how by clicking here. Thoughts God Is Worthy In Psalm 87 we read how God loves Zion, used in this case to mean Jerusalem. There is an obvious tone of joy with this Psalm.  But Psalm 88 is full of anguish. The writer is pouring out his heart to God. In the opening, he confesses that God is his savior, and immediately begins telling God about the anguish he is in, and seems to wrap up by saying that it is God who has put him in this place. And yet, remember how the author opened, with a confession that God is his savior. So as bad as things are, there is hope. And then Psalm 89 begins with praises to God with all of His love, majesty, faithfulness, might, righteousness and justice. And the covenant that God made with David is remembered, but David's descendants have forsaken God's law, and therefore God has withdrawn his protection and blessings from Israel. And then the Psalm ends much as it begins, with promises of eternal praise to God. The fact is that despite outward circumstances, God is worthy of praise. He is worthy when life is good, and He is worthy when life is hard. He is our savior in both places. He does not change, but our surroundings do. He is eternal, our lives here on earth are just a spark, a fleeting moment in time.  Our Purpose But despite our live's short span, we have a responsibility to make it matter. There is a reason God put you here. You are not an accident. Your life has purpose. What is that purpose? For each of us, the primary purpose is to bring glory to God. Isaiah 43:6b-7: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; 7Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. So what does that actually mean? How can you and I glorify God? By praising Him. By worshipping Him. By proclaiming His greatness. By doing His will. Each of us must do these things in our own unique way, because He has different specific things He wants us to accomplish. How do I know that?  Because of the following verses: 4There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. 5There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. 6God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.7A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 8To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice12:8a Or gives a word of wisdom.; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.12:8b Or gives a word of knowledge. 9The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages,12:10 Or in various tongues; also in 12:28, 30. while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.1 Corinthians 12:4-11 NLT So God gifts each of us differently, because He has a different specific will for each of us. That's one of the greatest things in the believer's life: discovering his or her gifts. But that is an entirely different discussion. For now, it is enough to remember that despite outward circumstances, God is always worthy of praise, and He has a purpose for you.

Podcast: Axios Today (LS 60 · TOP 0.5% what is this?)Episode: The opposition to Biden's cabinetPub date: 2020-12-11It's been a busy week for President-Elect Biden, who is in the middle of naming his cabinet picks. Marcia Fudge for Housing and Urban Development, Xavier Becerra for Health and Human Services, and retired general Lloyd Austin for Defense Secretary. But some of those announcements are getting a lot of backlash. Plus, enforcing who gets a COVID vaccine first. And, Jonathan Swan's scoop on President Trump's expansive pardon plans. Guests: Axios' Hans Nichols, Caitlin Owens and Jonathan Swan.Credits: "Axios Today" is produced in partnership with Pushkin Industries. The team includes Niala Boodhoo, Carol Wu, Cara Shillenn, Nuria Marquez Martinez, Dan Bobkoff, Sara Kehaulani Goo, Alex Sugiura and Naomi Shavin. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at podcasts@axios.com.Go deeper: Biden faces battle to land Austin at Pentagon Jumping the line for a vaccine will be pretty easy Scoop: Trump plots mass pardons, even to people not asking The Geminids are coming Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Axios & Pushkin Industries, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Esther 2:5-11It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … a grocery bagger! Over the past several months, we’ve seen all kinds of heroes around us. From grocery workers, to healthcare professionals, to postal delivery workers—our community is full of courageous people who never realized they’d be putting their life at risk to keep us moving forward. Turns out, God’s people have quite a history of finding heroes in unlikely places. Join us as we lift up these heroic men and women of both past and present.

Psalm 16:11It's very easy to look at your circumstances and get caught up in it. When you're in a world of turmoil, When you look deep into life. You will see that life is not only imperfect, but it's hard to find joy when there are intence trials put on you.

In this episode we discuss...our five points on the rural pastor and social media!CAVEAT: social media can be a blessing to disseminate a biblical, God glorifying message. We obviously use different platforms for the podcast, but we caution why, how, and when they are used.Social Media can be a CESSPOOL.1 Thessalonians 3:11-13It seems as if we have enough trouble working on personal holiness and living blameless lives in the real world! Why launch yourself blindly into a world with far more opportunities for sin and far fewer natural and logical consequences. Social Media can be a PEEP SHOW.1 Thessalonians 4:3-8Not only for highly charged sexual immorality.It seems like everybody has an agenda and is highly trained at getting clicks. Why do you want to dive into someplace where so many people are rewarded specifically for getting you to react?Social Media can be more of a CAGE MATCH.1 Thessalonians 4:9-10It provides horrible context for brotherly love.Social media can be worse than the sin the CROUCHES AT YOUR DOOR.1 Thessalonians 4:11It’s in your pocket! It can be a great temptation against living quietly and minding our own affairs.Social media can be a MAGNIFYING GLASS.1 Thessalonians 4:12You better watch every step if you are going to walk properly before outsiders, because they are watching you! Stuff Rural Pastors Can Use Review:Need some new music? Listen to these Christian Hip-Hop artistsShai Linne's Lyrical Theology pt. I & IITimothy Brindle's The UnfoldingChrys Jones' Whose Lives Matter?Beautiful Eulogy's WorthyOur Quote of the Day:“Our preaching is not the reason the Word works, the Word is the reason our preaching works!” H.B. CharlesCONTACT (give us feedback, topic ideas, or just say hey)Call and leave a message at (570) 724-3741Email: ruralpastorstalk@gmail.comWebsite: http://ruralpastorstalk.buzzsprout.com/SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://facebook.com/ruralpastorstalkTwitter: @ruralpastorsLISTENItunesSpotifyStitcherGoogle Play

Recently I stumbled across an interesting discovery. I walked up to the edge of an embankment out in a pasture and there, at the bottom of the embankment, was an old car.Think about that.Once upon a time, this old car was a tremendous feat of human accomplishment. It was as sleek, powerful, comfortable, and cool as anything that people had ever made. It had been meticulously designed, engineered, produced, and marketed. Someone had handed over a lot of hard-earned money and proudly driven that car home and parked it in their driveway. Imagine their smile as they showed it off to their friends.And yet, the last time a human being paid any attention to that car, they were literally pushing it over a cliff just to get it out of their sight.That's not uncommon. The country around us is littered with old houses and barns and cars and equipment that were once prized and valuable possessions, but are now junk. Isn’t it fascinating that today's treasures are destined to be tomorrow's trash? It's an old problem that people have struggled with for a long time. You work your whole life away to discover that nothing has really changed and your life hasn’t really seemed to matter.The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is basically one long complaint about this particular oddity of life. In the first chapter, we read;What has been will be again,what has been done will be done again;there is nothing new under the sun.Is there anything of which one can say,“Look! This is something new”?It was here already, long ago;it was here before our time.No one remembers the former generations,and even those yet to comewill not be rememberedby those who follow them.-Ecclesiastes 1:9-11It is sobering to think that right now we are spending today's effort on tomorrow's junk.But as I think about that car at the bottom of the embankment and all that it represents, personally, I am not hopeless. I’m OK with the fact that life is bigger than me. I’m OK with the fact that my own great-great grand-kids probably won’t even know my name. I really am.What I am as I consider that old forgotten worthless car, is mindful. It makes me think. Specifically, it makes me think about what matters in life, and it challenges me to invest my life in those things.And for me, I know what matters. God matters, and people matter. Those are the two things in life that are really worth investing in. And helping people get connected to God? For me, that's the best thing of all.

Matthew 21:1-11It’s a bit of a weird time to be talking about a parade. To be waving palms marking Palm Sunday—the day of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. After all, in our wider world there seems to be little worth celebrating. No doubt many of our hearts feel heavy under the weight of estimates that this crisis will likely last longer than any of us expected. It’s not exactly the time for parades. Or celebrations of any kind.Times like these are trying for everyone. And people of faith are no exception. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine shared on Facebook a challenge to God. That if there was a God, then that God should prove he exists by eradicating the coronavirus immediately. And so seeing as how coronavirus continues to take lives and keep us holed up in our houses, my friend’s point was that there is clearly no god. Because if there is a God who is both all-powerful and infinitely loving, this God wouldn’t allow such terrible and tragic things to happen to so many innocent people.These questions come up less when times are good. But throw in a worldwide pandemic and doubt begins bubble to the surface. You don’t have to be an atheist to wonder where God is in all of this. If God’s in it at all.Believe it or not, though, we’re not the first people to face questions like this. In fact, our scripture reading for today leads us right into the heart of the matter. Because while Palm Sunday was this occasion for great celebration, it was also the gateway to doubt for the first followers of Jesus. You see, people of Jesus’ time lived in their own dire circumstances. By Jesus’ time, the world’s greatest superpower to date, the Roman empire, had invaded and occupied Palestine, and ruthlessly exploited its people. The word “poverty” doesn’t really do justice to the situation that Jesus’ people lived under. Nor does the word “oppression” do justice to the brutality by which the Romans operated. Understandably, like us, they wondered where God was. And how a good God of justice and mercy could allow such things to happen.The Palm Sunday parade, though, gave Jesus’ people hope that God was finally intervening in history. Because according to the Old Testament, a Messiah, an agent of God would be sent to set things right. Not only to put an end to Roman rule and punish God’s enemies, but to usher in an everlasting age of peace. Here in our scripture passage, Jesus is coming into town riding on a donkey, the crowds are shouting “hosanna to the Son of David” and waving Palm branches because they think this is that moment. This is the guy. God’s gonna clean up this mess once and for all.Of course, none of that ended up happening. If you read ahead in the story you’ll know that, in fact, Jesus, the one who was hailed as the Messiah, the Son of God on Palm Sunday, ended up arrested. Betrayed by one of his closest friends, and abandoned by the others. Tortured, humiliated, and nailed to a cross on Good Friday.For both Jesus’ followers and his enemies, this was the ultimate evidence against him. His followers doubted him and scattered. And while Jesus hung dying, others mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” Sounds like my friend’s internet post. Because it’s saying that if God is real and God is good, then God could only prove herself by setting the world right, right now. So much for the parade.For most of us, Jesus’ failure, God’s failure to make everything right on a dime is the ultimate evidence against him. In the long history of the church, though, it’s precisely Jesus’ failure, his crucifixion, that shows us what true change is actually like. Because Jesus shows us who God is. How God works. He is the “word made flesh,” in the words of the gospel of John. He is the “image of the invisible God,” says the letter to the Colossians. Jesus shows us a whole different definition of God and God’s power. The fact that Jesus doesn’t repair the world with the flick of a switch. That he doesn’t smite his enemies, but forgives them. That he offers himself up in sacrifice for the sake of even those who kill him is evidence of a different kind of God altogether. One who is at work in a totally different way than we would ever expect.And if this all sounds too abstract to you, consider a recent news story. A story about Don Giuseppe Berardelli, a 72 year Catholic old priest in Casnigo, a town in northern Italy about 50 miles northeast of Milan, the heart of that country’s coronavirus outbreak.[i] Berardelli was one of the many who died, succumbing to the virus thanks to his age and pre-existing health problems.While his situation wasn’t particularly noteworthy, one small act has brought him world-wide notoriety. Before he died, Gerardelli gave up his ventilator so someone else could use it and live. What’s even more astounding, though, is that the ventilator he gave up was his own. It was bought for him by his parish as an act of love and appreciation for a beloved friends and community leader. Rather than saving himself, he gave up his own life to save another person.Now, where others might look at this virus, may look at most of human history—in fact—and see it as overwhelming evidence for the absence of the divine, it’s not so for us. For we who have been given the eyes of faith. For us, we see an instance like this, how ever small, however insignificant-seeming, as evidence of God at work.Not a god who acts through the snapping of divine fingers in a single moment of strength. Not a god who sets things right in overwhelming power, nor in dazzling displays of control. But one who comes to us under the radar, in what the world considers to be weakness. Redeeming the world through the power self-giving, self-emptying sacrificial love. Where others see absence, here we see evidence of the God we meet in Jesus Christ. The God who comes to us, side saddle on a donkey. Who comes to in the shape of a cross, laying down his own life to bring life to a broken, battered world. So friends, while today may not be a parade-kinda day, we need a Palm Sunday parade now more than ever. The parade leads us through the cross, yes, through a world of suffering pain. But thanks to the God we’ve got, we know that Easter is always on the other side, resurrection always lies on the horizon. May we, may you join the parade with Jesus at the head, and folks like Don Giuseppe Berardelli waving palms, showing us the way of salvation and eternal life.Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name if the Lord. Even here. Even now. Today’s the day for this kind of parade. Amen.[i] https://globalnews.ca/news/6723885/italian-priest-gives-up-ventilator/

Living In-BetweenDave Riddle - 1/19/20Key Passage: Romans 13:11-14You Know What Time It IsIt’s time to get up.Romans 13:11Our salvation is getting closeRomans 13:11It’s almost daybreak.Romans 13:12Therefore…Dress for battleRomans 13:12Live properly.Romans 13:13Sink into Jesus.Romans 13:14

Jennie Nash, CEO and founder of Author Accelerator, talks about her program for training book coaches to help writers write books worth reading. Kevin and Jennie discuss coaching, as well as Jennie’s new book, Read Books All Day and Get Paid For It: The Business of Book Coaching.TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLELINKS:Website:: jennienash.com, authoraccelerator.comAmazon Author Page:: https://www.amazon.com/Jennie-Nash/e/B001HD414ATwitter Handle:: @jennienashFacebook Page:: @jennienashHow can people join your mailing list?:https://author-accelerator.ck.page/5d4425a182Giveaways, promotions, or special offers:A free week of programming on book coaching starting January 20 https://www.authoraccelerator.com/summitTHIS EPISODE OFTHE WORDSLINGER PODCASTIS SPONSORED BY:DRAFT2DIGITAL: Convert, publish, and distribute your book worldwide, with support the whole way. https://draft2digital.com/wordslingerACORNS: Start an Acorns account today and get FREE MONEY! kevintumlinson.com/acornsTRANSCRIPT:Jennie Nash - Wordslinger PodcastSUMMARY KEYWORDSbook, people, author, helping, writers, coaches, money, offering, writing, pay, calls, accelerator, coaching, business, marketing, viable, expertise, service, ideal reader, agentSPEAKERSJennie Nash, Kevin TumlinsonKevin Tumlinson 00:02Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in. Now I, here's what's interesting about what I do. I travel, I go to all kinds of conferences all over the world. And I meet some some pretty incredible people, and in particular, I meet a lot of folks who work in some aspect of this industry. And that is what happened with today's guest. I'm talking to Jenny Nash. There's a lot of ways that Jenny and I are connected. But one of the first ways we met was at San Francisco writers conference about two, three years ago. I think. I'm not even sure at this point.Jennie Nash 00:37Yeah, that's right.Kevin Tumlinson 00:38Now, okay, just the official stuff, Jenny, I'll throw it in there. Jenny Nash is the founder and CEO of author accelerator, a company on a mission to train book coaches to help writers write books worth reading. And we're going to be talking to her about that and about her new book, read books all day and get paid for it, the business of book coaching. I'm looking forward to Ironically, we discussed this just before the show, but I've got like back to back, our author consultations all day today. So this is an ironic topic for me to tell people how to make money doing it, that's where I need to start upping my game. like I always do a lot of these for free. So I need to start making some cash on this stuff.Jennie Nash 01:21Oh, let's talk about that. Should we jump right into it?Kevin Tumlinson 01:23Let's jump right in. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for being a part of the word slinger podcast. So yes, let's jump right in. And how does somebody make money reading books all day?Jennie Nash 01:32So I want to talk about the money because I've been a book coach now for about 10 years. And I make multiple six figures as a book coach, and we at author accelerator. We recently did a poll of about 180 people who do this type of work, and I turned out to be one of the top paid people and that's great for me, but what was horrifying was The number of people who are not making very much money at it and the more that you dug into it, the number of people who give their work away for free and here I am talking to such a person.Kevin Tumlinson 02:11I don't give it all away for free, let's just make that clear. But I am obsessed with helping authors succeed and so that sometimes Trumps me charging them for it. I think so.Jennie Nash 02:22Okay, so here's the thing. I'm obsessed with that too. And, and it is such a noble and good thing to be obsessed with because, as you well know, the publishing industry is super fast changing all the time things it's pretty chaotic things come, you know, companies come they go trends come and go. There's, you know, self publishing wasn't even a thing. Basically, when I when I started coaching like it, it everything changes so fast. And that combined with this pervasive myth that writers don't make money writers don't have money to spend to help them. or invest in their careers, this whole starving artist thing this whole, you know, oh, we all just do this for love thing. And it makes me crazy because so many of the myths that I just spun off are not true writers, a lot of writers do make money a lot of publishers and publishing companies and people that are helping writers do make money. It's a big industry of infinite and people were making money it would not, it would not be so right. So I am, I am kind of on a mission to to change this and to help people who help authors with their writing to help coaches, raise the bar, be more professional, ask for what you're worth realize the value of what you're giving. So I want to talk about this all day long.Kevin Tumlinson 03:49Well, you're in luck. We can talk about it for at least 30 minutes. Yeah, no, I, I understand I you know, that's the thing and then the sector of authors I tend to deal with Our incoming. So how do you build a profile? I don't want you to give away the story here. But, you know, how would someone like me who deals with a lot of incoming authors who don't typically have any money? They're not making any money from the books yet. They may have a book yet, right? I'm like where's the starting point of that my my trouble with so I did author coaching for quite a while and charge people money for but I never really managed to make it a viable business because I maybe I was overcharging maybe I was under serving I don't know. So I never, it never took off as a business for me. Now I do it as part of kind of other things.Jennie Nash 04:41Right. Right. So I mean, the way that I like to think about it is is this, the, there's this idea with writers that this sort of lottery idea, like I'm gonna roll the dice, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get picked and I'm going to get picked either by a publisher, an agent and a publisher, I'm going to get picked by readership out in the universe. And the thing behind that is, is that and then I'll leave my day job, right? And then all I'll get a movie deal with Reese Witherspoon and and then you know, like whatever the thing is that that the get picked mentality. And that mentality is so pervasive that writers think that that, you know, I'm just rolling the dice and and it's like they're holding their breath. They're not thinking of their own book and their own career as a viable business. And part of what I do is to help people change that mindset, like what other industry and what other industry which you bring a product into the world and that product could be anything. It could be a podcast, it could be a service industry, it could be, you know, you're growing firms to sell to people for their Fern gardens. I don't know where that came from, but you No, like whatever business nobody starts a business, thinking, I'm just going to get picked and, and like look out of the despair of my day to day job by by selling this thing to people people don't think like that. But with books, they think like that. So part of the mindset is shift is helping them think, okay, like the one of the first questions that I asked him out there is what is your goal with this book? And if their goal with this book is I want to write something to leave a legacy for my kids. And, you know, I don't care if it sells, I don't care if it gets read beyond that. That person's not going to probably make any money off of their work. Right. But if they most people are not going to say that, by the way, if they say, Well, my goal is, you know, if you really can have an honest conversation with them, they're going to state a goal that has something to do with selling books. And so what I talked to them about is then what do you need to invest in? In order to make that come true in order to have a viable business model? What skills do you need? What support do you need? You know, the business that you're in? One of the businesses you're in isn't helping people actually produce their book, you can actually produce a book and not invest money in that in that production. production costs. So the same should be true with writing the book, how are you going to learn how to write a book? How are you going to get the support, you need to do it? How are you going to decide which publishing path to go on? All of those things are investments in that outcome that they're trying to see? Right? And get people to start thinking about their outcome, then you can start talking about the value that you might add to their process. And then that means you have to be really clear about what value you're adding and what you're actually doing for them. Yeah,Kevin Tumlinson 07:56yeah, yeah. I agree. I agree. One of the one of the things that always nails me is I have all my little excuses lined up and then somebody comes along and pulls that peg and I can't use any of them.Jennie Nash 08:15That's me.Kevin Tumlinson 08:16That's exactly what that's supposed to be right. So what is that what author accelerator is about? Like, tell me about author accelerator?Jennie Nash 08:26Yes. So I have been training book coaches, I've trained more than 50 book coaches. certifying them and part of that process is teaching them how to manage a Writers Project with a project being the book, how to help that writer, raise the bar of that writer, raise their their own writing standards and skills, make a good publishing choice. The author accelerator is all about the development process. So once you get to the point where you're going to produce the book, you Have to go to somebody like draft to digital or some other person that's going to or entity that's going to help you produce the book. We don't do that. But we help people all the way up to that moment. And so I'm training book coaches, to guide writers and to help writers think about how they're going to make money from their book, if they're going to make money for their book, you know, a huge part of what we do is burst people's bubbles. That if how hard it is to make money at a book, you've got to know that in advance and why you're doing it again, back to the goal of that writer and the goal of that book and, and really making a plan for it. And so I'm helping the coaches help the writers think through that process and think through what they're doing. And we're we do that work in the context of helping them with the writing of the book. I I am Market focus by market focus, it's like, okay, who else is writing a book like you for a book, and it's going to be a book of essays. And it's going to be a book of essays about all the bad boyfriends I've ever had. And there have been 23 of them. So there's gonna be 23 chapters about all the bad boyfriends I've ever had. And I'm going to write these essays about that. The first thing I'm going to say is, are you aware that for an unpublished writer with with no platform to bring out a book of essays is The hardest possible thing in the world to sell. That's the first thing that I would say, right? And they would then then they always come back to me and say something like, but Tina Fey did it, or David Sedaris did it. And it's like, well, Yes, that's correct. But let's look at the hurdles that you might have getting to the marketplace with this book. I'm not trying to get them to write something different. I'm not trying to shoot down their dream, I'm trying to be realistic about it. And, and if they say to me, okay, what how can I ship this so that it might be viable for the marketplace, then we might talk about their structure, we might go look at audiences who are buying books like that we might try to find a way to bring that content to life in such a way that it is viable. So that's what I mean by being market focused. And if I'm going to do that, I I've been in the publishing industry for more than 30 years, I've helped a lot of people come to market. I've seen a lot of books, I'm going to charge for my expertise and my time, I'm not going to help that person out of the goodness of my heart, which sounds super cold and calculating now that I'm going to help that person if they're serious about reaching the marketplace, they're going to have to pay me to get my expertise.Kevin Tumlinson 12:21Yeah. And I and again, to draw on your earlier examples. I mean, this is not an unreasonable ask, when it comes to any other business is just for some reason, when it comes to businesses tied to people's dreams. Then all of a sudden, we are cold, heartless, capitalists.Jennie Nash 12:42Right. And that's the thing that makes me crazy. And I mean, the other thing it makes me crazy is there are a lot of people out there who are preying on authors, dreams and desires. It's easy to do because you tell an author, I can I can help you publish this book. I am We could do it in 90 days, you could be a best seller on Amazon. And they are all like, here's my money. Right? Well, you know, guess what, I just published a book, my own self. And I put it on Amazon and I literally did nothing, literally nothing other than hit the button. And it came up as the number one new release best seller in whatever category literally not one book sale. And I am I got that little Amazon bestseller flag and the people who are are selling that, like, we have a strategy for your book becoming a best seller on release day and we'll help you with this strategy. And we'll put you through these paces and people pay money for that because they don't know any better. And that makes me crazy, too. So Yeah, same here. There's people that prey on authors desires and dreams and, and I don't think it's right and fair. And so a lot of what I'm trying to do is tell them the truth. This is going to be long. It's going to be hard. And guess what? You're going to have to pay money. Let's talk about what you're going to have to pay to bring this book into the world. And do you want to do that? Right? Yeah.Kevin Tumlinson 14:11It's interesting, because I talked to people about this, this concept all the time in these coaching sessions, by the way, the very same ideas, because there is a hesitation among authors to do things like market themselves. Right? And, you know, it's the exact same idea. You know, I've, I wish I could remember the exact quote, I had a guest on the show, several years, a few years ago now, who said that if you are building something that can help people, then it is your responsibility to to market it and in this case, to charge for the service? Like that's part of the responsibility because that's how you continue to keep being able to offer that. Right.Jennie Nash 14:57Exactly. And, you know, you mentioned other things Jeez, like if I I mean, here's a perfect example. I'm in my car brand new, by the way, three days old. My car was hit the other day somebody backed into the rumor. I was at a standstill back to the road sucks. So hard. So what do I do? I call my insurance. I get a tow truck. The tow truck guy drives into place. Do I have to pay the tow truck guy? Yes. Because he's, he's saving my bacon from it was raining the cars in the middle of the intersection. So of course, I'm going to pay the tow truck guy. And you know, then we take it to the body shop. You know, it's going to be $4,000 to fix the thing. Like all of those. Those things are things that I need. They're solving a pain point of mine and you don't question for three seconds that you're going to pay that fee because it's you have this point of pain. I can't drive my car. My car's been So we pay when we have points of pain and writers have points of pain, they don't know things, you know things you've been in this you're inside this industry, you know exactly how it works, you hone your skills and your expertise, they come to you the reason you're having these calls is because they need your expertise and they have a pain they want to solve. And so that's how I start trying to talk to my coaches is what particular pain Are you trying to help this writer solve? Is it is it deciding on a publishing path? Is it making decisions about your investment towards that is it that the writing is not strong enough and needs to get better? Is it that you're getting rejected all the time out in the marketplace? And you don't know why is it that your covers bad, you know, there's a lot of pain points along the path and if somebody is helping a writer solve those, the that Pain. They're adding value and should be paid for it just like the total.Kevin Tumlinson 17:04No, no, you're you're right, I think is a kind of a supply and demand kind of thing. You know, you can, it's easier to charge someone when they're kind of over a barrel on that tow truck driver, you need this vehicle towed. Now we both know you're going to pay me a little differentJennie Nash 17:22thing. That's what's interesting is one of the things that I guide people to do is to choose what pain point they're going to specialize in as a coach, where are they going to help people and, and how are they going to frame that help? Because the writers are going to actually feel the same way as I did with my broken car. You know, if the writers got a book that they're dying to get into the world, they're going to feel that same pain and, you know, we talked at the beginning about how confusing this industry is, if you're outside of it, you know, how do you know what to do? How do you how do you know what to pay? How You know, there's a lot of confusion. So you didn't ask, but if you were to ask me how to convert these calls into paying into paying customers, I would think of these consultation calls as, okay, you're helping them for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever you're offering them and help them with some of their questions. I would think of them as consultation calls to a service. So it's like, this is the way that I could help you. This is how the decision that is in front of you, I'm seeing that you have these choices, and I can help you walk you through those choices and make a good choice. And then I can help you, whatever the next step of the process is. And if you're interested in that, I have a service that we could talk about, you're signing up for. It would be you can still help people out of the goodness of your heart. I do that all day long as well. But, you know, like, the other day, I was talking to a woman Who writes a column for Forbes? magazine, and she wants to write a book. It's her second book. And she she was trying to make a decision about agent or not agent on this on the second book and, and I got on the phone with her and, and had an hour long conversation, I was sending her links I was sending her, you know, information, I was talking about money, I was talking about what it takes to find an agent, how much it would cost her to work on a nonfiction book proposal with somebody like me how much time it would take, I was feeding her information, I was helping her. And it was all in insert in it that my intention was well, this is probably going to shock you but the the service that I would have worked with her on is a $24,000 service. And that would be for a serious professional to get a nonfiction proposal that hopefully will get them a book deal. Yeah. She turned out she she did not take it, she did not go for it. She decided that she didn't want to go for the agent route she that was not for her. She was horrified at the pros and cons when I laid them out of agent versus not agent. she opted out of the service that I was offering. So I spent it an hour using my best brain work to help her to help her decide not to use me. In my mind, that was a good use of time. I helped somebody I helped her come to a good decision. I did good in the world. You know, I did not get the $24,000 client. But guess what next time I might or next time I might and so you know, I think you can combine the helpfulness with the money part.Kevin Tumlinson 20:50I think in scenarios like that, you could take that conversation, boil it down to the points that were made. And then you can Create something that could simultaneously educate incoming authors who might have the same question and help you nurture mailing list for example so hundred percent right you could totally turn that into a top of funnel offerJennie Nash 21:15100% and and I have so much free content I have so much amazing resources on on my website people are welcome to come you probably do too. You know, it's it's that push and pull between offering something but not offering everything. Yeah. And I think you're right we we tend in these realms that are about creative pursuits, we tend to diminish the, the value of the expertise and I want to change that.Kevin Tumlinson 21:47Yeah, same here. Actually, personally.Jennie Nash 21:53Here's what I do with those calls. Just flip your mindset. Just think this is a consultation call personally. That I could offer. I'm going to help them on this call. I'm going to I'm going to be generous and helpful. And I'm going to, instead of giving all the answers away, think more in terms of framing the questions they have to ask. There's questions that you need to answer. Here's the decisions you have to make. Here's a way that I could help you if you wanted to sign up for that service.Kevin Tumlinson 22:24Yeah. So does does your program I mean, speaking of markets, does your program kind of arm authors that are the coaches rather with how they would market the service how they reach these authors and you?Jennie Nash 22:39Yes, yes, I do. And I studied on my own personally, a lot of marketing people and and tried to adapt the the best practices for book coaching in in my new book, which is called read books all day and get paid for it. Go way into the marketing. And I've had a couple of other top coaches reviewing the book. That's all happening right now because because it's just come out and I had somebody say to me, Jenny's advice on marketing was so spot on. And it made me laugh out loud. So I'm not going to tell you what that is, you'll have to read the book toKevin Tumlinson 23:21see how this works.Jennie Nash 23:24I totally help people do it. And here's, here's the key thing. It's not what you probably think it is. It's not take out an ad on this website or go to this conference and print out a bunch of swag or, you know, it's not that really what it amounts to is knowing what you're offering and who you're offering it for. Right. I'm going to totally botch how he says it but Seth Godin and his new book, this is marketing says something along the lines of marketing is about doing something That matters for people who care. That's, that's what I help people do is what are you doing that matters? And who's going to care about that. So if you're somebody who's helping people, at the very beginning of their book idea, going from idea to getting it on the page and helping them frame that the structure of their book, you could specialize in that point in the process and do really well because you'd become known for that part of the process. You could become someone who specializes. I have a coach who wants to specialize in helping lawyers who want to write fiction. There's a lot of lawyers who want to write fiction. Yes, yes. What a cool nice, right. Yeah. To be able to speak to a lawyer to be able to help them translate the way lawyers think and speak and write which is a very particular way to to fiction writing. I have somebody else who wants to help women in speculative fiction, because it's mostly a male dominated genre. So they want to focus on helping women get into speculative fiction. So if you focus on who you're helping, so doing Oh, I think we might have froze. Yeah,Kevin Tumlinson 25:33we froze. But we're gonna, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna muddle through.Jennie Nash 25:40So they say that again.Kevin Tumlinson 25:42Yeah, you were to you're just introducing us to the idea of the woman who was helping other women who are speculative fiction, and go, Okay,Jennie Nash 25:51okay. I have another coach who's specializing in helping women break into this big speculative fiction genre because it's very male dominated, and her expertise is going to be that. So if she becomes known for that, everybody's going to send those writers to her because that's her. She's helping those people with that particular pain point. So that's what marketing in terms of book coaching is all about is becoming known for doing something really well, that helps people at a place where they really need help.Kevin Tumlinson 26:24I think you just hit on something that has always nagged at me, by the way, because there is whenever I have offered author coaching, now, right now, I'm doing it through DVD, you know, we do our consultations, little free consultations, and it's, it's meant to help the people who showed up at our webinars and stuff, so I can't charge folks for that. And I'm not trying to, but when I've tried to add this in the past, there is always that problem of, you know, focus, right. And there's that aphorism that if everyone's your customer, no one's your customer. Yeah, I think what you're saying here is that there's an opportunity if you are willing to focus on a specific aspect of this. So for me, I might I might coach, people in writing thrillers, because that's what I write, or I might coach them in, right in using, you know, I might pick something out there, right? Yeah, just the process of writing. I could do all that. But it's too broad too general. And that's probably one of the reasons why it never quite worked. I wasn't advertising or I wasn't marketing, specifically enough.Jennie Nash 27:30Right. So you, you can't make a business on even what you just said. I'm going to help people writing thrillers. Well, what people what kind of thrillers At what point in the process? Have they written a book before? Are they writing their second book? Are they writing a series or do they have a plan to write a book a year like you've got to really narrow down on what writer where they are in the process what they need? Are you helping somebody right faster? Are you helping them right? Like plot out faster. Are you helping them plot better? Are you helping them raise up their writing skills? Are you helping them? Like what exactly are you doing? So there's so many layers to figure out and, and just helping. So if you're on a consulting call with someone, and I'm sure you've been on a million of these calls, people are asking questions about all over the map, right? marketing, about social media about my website about my book cover about the production about the time about the cost about the writing itself about this and that, like that's just scattershot. Yeah, advice, but if you're honing down to really say, I can have your thriller writer, writing your first book, you've never done it before, and you need to make X, Y and Z choices. I can help you do that efficiently, effectively. And, you know, to help you toward your goal. Now I thought a viable business. Yeah, well,Kevin Tumlinson 28:56that that is the ideal reader. concept. That's the ideal reader ideal customer concept. And I'm shocked that I never put it together.Jennie Nash 29:10One thing because it's what book coaches help writers do, like if I'm working with somebody right now who's writing middle grade fiction, and she's actually a very successful nonfiction writer. And one of the things that I've become known for is helping successful nonfiction writers who want to switch over to not true. I helped her write the book that got the six figure deal for her first novel, excellent. And so I kind of have a specialty in that regard, and I'm helping a woman writing a middle grade story and she She had her story was a hot mess. Okay, so she came to me with a manuscript that just was all over the place. And it had all these characters and all these ideas and all these themes and all this stuff. And you know, it's not going to work. And so part of what I did with her was exactly what we're talking about. Who do you want to reach? Who's your ideal reader? Can't it's not enough to say an 11 year old girl, it's like, an 11 year old girl who reads what and who does what and who's thinking about what and who cares about what and we've really got to hone down on who that 11 year old reader is and what she cares about and what she needs in that book. Otherwise, that book is not going to work. So I, I do this with the writer, and we need to do this with the people helping the writers to is, you know, what are what is your gig? What are you doing to help people? Yeah.Kevin Tumlinson 30:53And as That's it, what's funny is here's what you always come back to their sort of universal pieces of advice. that fit no matter what industry you're in. If you're an author, it's no matter what genre you're in. That's this seems to be one of those pieces is to identify the specific reader slash customer you're trying to reach. We are we're at time. So which is unfortunate, because I'm enjoying this quite a bit. And I'm getting a lot out of it personally. Those are always the toughest interviews to end. But I appreciate why don't you back on Now, before I before we drop out of here, I did want to say you have coming up January 20 2020. You have a summit coming up. You want to talk about that for just a second.Jennie Nash 31:43I would love to I'm doing a free week of programming about becoming a book coach and I've got 15 killer experts who we have conversations and take you through everything from how to market how to make money, what book coaching really is how it works. And that you can find all the information at author accelerator.com slash summit. So that's author accelerator, comm slash summit. And it's free. It's a week, it's January 20 2020. And I would love to have people come. And if you can't make it, we'll be sending out those recordings so you can grab them after the fact. Very good.Kevin Tumlinson 32:25Very cool. All right. I am I think I've signed I think I managed to sign up. So I'm going to check that out and everyone listening to the sound of my voice, you should also check that out. Thank you so much, Jay, for being on. I really appreciate all the wisdom you've dropped on us.Jennie Nash 32:44Thanks for having me. All right, everybody. Right now.Kevin Tumlinson 32:47You are probably hearing the groovy bridge music and you may dance and place it will and stick around for whatever I'm going to say whatever pithy fun thing I'm sure I came up with Right after this interview and I'll see you all on the other side

Podcast: Process Safety with Trish & TraciEpisode: Cyber Security: It's not if you'll be hacked -- it's when.Pub date: 2019-11-11It's not a question of if you will get hacked -- it's a question of when. Traci Purdum, senior digital editor of Chemical Processing, and Trish Kerin, director of IChemE Safety Centre, discuss cyber vulnerabilities and how to stay ahead of the bad actors wanting to stymie your operations. The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from chemicalprocessingsafety, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Philippians 1:7-11It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.SERMON NOTES