Podcasts about brent how

Patrick's opening monolog gives a fascinating background look at how he learned apologetics long before doing apologetics and how, when he was listening to protestant radio for years, without even realizing it, was being prepared for his work with sharing the faith. This captivating reminiscence was filled with intriguing details about his life long journey to being a radio host. BJ – I caught a protestant program that was talking about Catholicism and they were getting it all wrong. Should Patrick Madrid reach out to them to set them straight? Brent - How does experientialism, emotionalism, and intellectualism work together when practicing our faith? Ken (44:45) - How do I explain and defend the Rosary to protestants?

As an Army Officer with over 8 years of service, Brent Bowers was spending a great deal of time away from his family, and he knew he needed to make some changes in order to be more present with his wife and children. His interest in real estate began in 2007 when he purchased his first home, so Brent began exploring real estate investing as a way to support his family while being able to enjoy more time with them as well. In a short amount of time, Brent was able to expand his business, hire a team, and (most importantly) spend quality time with his family while still working hard and helping others. While Brent invests in many different types of real estate, his favorite investment strategy deals with buying and selling vacant land, and he enjoys sharing his expertise in this area with his coaching clients. Brent chooses to live his life based on Bob Burg's quote, “Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first.” He is passionate about helping other people find success in real estate investing, particularly in land investments.   Let's dive into his story!   [00:01 - 12:01] Opening Segment Brent had an innate entrepreneurial spirit Brent's military career Freedom is possible as proven by Brent How the military shaped Brent as a person A humbling journey A good launch to business house hacking using his VA loan   [12:02 - 16:18] The ways Brent did for his goal Plant the seed! BRRRR method done by Brent Using student loans to do Real Estate Using a credit card to buy a land   [16:19 - 32:31] How Land worked out for Brent Realizing he was never home Saving a marriage Brent wanted to leave military for good The story of Brent's fascinating deals Going for it when he got the chance Brent's clients How it compares to Brent's single family and multifamily rentals Brent's tips for first time Land buyers Learn from Brent's learnings and mistakes   [32:32 - 34:49] Closing Segment  Brent teaches through YouTube! Connect with Brent    Don't forget to check out their company's website: https://www.thelandsharks.com/ Follow and Subscribe to his socials: LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook    WANT TO LEARN MORE?   Connect with me through LinkedIn   Or send me an email sujata@luxe-cap.com   Visit my website www.luxe-cap.com or my YouTube channel   Thanks for tuning in!     If you liked my show, LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW, like, and subscribe! Tweetable Quotes   "When I went into the military in October 2009 to basic training, I was already 24 years old. I already have a business, already have a house and am married, and I used to get really good money. I went into the military very humbled because I started as E1, that's the slowest you can go in the military.” - Brent Bowers "All trees were once seeds too.” - Brent Bowers "I realized I was never home [because of the military]. I don't want a wife to ever leave me again because I'm there and there.” - Brent Bowers "Making money, you party. Losing money, you ponder.” - Tony Robbins

I don't know a bourbon enthusiast that doesn't love Four Roses. But this one goes into the depths of expert level opinions behind mash bills, hype behind certain runs, single barrels, mutated yeast, and more. Brett Atlas and Travis Hill join the show to talk about their experiences with Four Roses, their 10 recipes, and how they blend and create their own Limited Edition Small Batches. Show Partners: If you love Eagle Rare Bourbon, go support the causes they stand for at Eagle Rare Life to vote for the 2019 nominees that most inspire you. Voting ends December 5 Barrell Bourbon Batch 016 was project that took over a year. 9 to 15 year old barrels were selected with similar profiles from different distilleries. It’s deeply concentrated, but not too oaky and finishes with a toasted orange note. The Duo glass is the most versatile whiskey and cocktail glass around. Use code ‘pursuit’ to get 15% off your order and free shipping at agedandore.com Show Notes: Farewall to Dave Pickerell. Enjoy our podcast with him http://bourbonpursuit.com/2018/03/29/man-behind-100-distilleries-dave-pickerell/ The Lounge with Will Chambers - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lounge-with-will-chambers/id1440284845 This week's Above The Char with Fred Minnick reflects on the past of Dave Pickerell. Was it cask strength that got you hooked into Four Roses or was it a standard offering? Give a break down of how to decipher the recipe for something like OBSQ vs OESF Do you think the tasting notes on the back of the hang tag is inaccurate? How often have you tried all recipes side by side? Do you have a favorite 4R recipe and why? Have you ever had a bad barrel? Does the hype factor just play into a particular recipe? How come everyone thinks OESK is the best? What do you see as the typical recipe selections at a private barrel pick? Have you ever walked out and never picked a barrel? What do you think is a misconception of larger stores and their selections? Do you think picks done by Brent Elliott are better or worse than ones done by a store? Some words for Brent How do you go about trying all 10 recipes? Talk about trying to create your own Limited Edition Small Batches Why do you think Four Roses doesn't put out barrel proof Small Batch? The ages of barrel picks have been exponentially decreasing. Can they still keep this pace? Would you lose your mind over a Four Roses pick? Do you think the tags on the bottle showing the rack and details of the barrel are for the distillery to trace back anything for quality purposes or is it for the bourbon geeks? Are higher aged Four Roses that are 17 or 23 years old any good? Can you talk about the mutated yeast that contributed to the 125th anniversary bottle in 2013? Has the ME warehouse fad passed?

In Episode 001 of Origin Stories: A Podcast About Politics and People, longtime talk radio producer Brent Jabbour speaks with Former U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan - D-ND about how he went from growing up in a town of 300 people in North Dakota to become a member of Senate Leadership. Brent and the Senator discuss how tragedy shaped his career, their mutual admiration for Liberal talk show host Ed Schultz, the biggest highlights of what he did while in the Senate and the regret over his vote for the Iraq war. Dorgan also gives his insight to the state of politics today and the highly contested Senate election in his home state.TranscriptBrent Jabbour:This is Episode number One of Origin Stories: A Podcast About Politics and People. My name is Brent Jabbour. If you listened to Episode zero, the pilot of this particular podcast, you know that this is a podcast about discourse. About realizing that people are people and we can have that conversation.I want to thank everyone for so much support on the first episode that I put up. And it all really worked out well because we were able to get up on all the aggregator sites like we had planned. Apple ITunes, the Google Play Store, Stitcher, Spreaker, you can get the podcast there now. So, I'm really happy that you can share this, the first episode of Origin Stories: A Podcast About Politics and People. I'm going to make the intro really really short, so we can get right to the substance. Today, we speak with Byron Dorgan. He is a former Senator from the state of North Dakota, a former U.S. Senator, he was a member of Democratic leadership during the 90s and into the 2000s during the Obama administration. And, he's always been a really really nice guy to me, he's a genuine person from the middle of the country, so he can see things on both sides. And what we've done in this particular podcast is we relitigated the 2016 election just a little bit. We talked about what we can do moving forward. We talked about the highly contested Senate race coming up in November in North Dakota between Heidi Heitkamp and Kevin Cramer. And, we also talked about my good friend Ed Schultz.The Reason I had put Byron Dorgan at the top of the list of people to speak with is that not only because I knew he had been there and done it. But, also because I knew he was always a good friend of my buddy Ed. And, he was always a great friend of the show, but they also had a personal relationship. So, we talked about him. I would say, we spent a good ten minutes talking about him and how tragedy in his personal life had directed him into the world of politics. And I just kind of related that back to the fact that this is why I am doing this because I was inspired following the passing of my good friend Ed. And so that is why we are here. There was something I wanted to get to but I didn't actually record it on the episode because I was a little nervous. And I will explain that nervousness right now. Well before I ever thought about doing politics or working in political talk radio I was a disk jockey on Y94 in Fargo, North Dakota. And, every year they would do the Care for Kids Radiothon which is a fundraiser for a children's hospital. We would record all of these pieces and you would get these heartfelt pieces from families that were affected or helped at the children's hospital in Fargo, North Dakota. And you would get these actualities as well from famous people, newsmakers, people from the area. And, one time I was doing my shift and I got a call from the boss and said: "Hey Senator Byron Dorgan's going to call in and send a little message to those who want to support the Care for Kids Radiothon." And I remember being so nervous to speak with a sitting United States Senator and have him call and speak with me. I remember being very professional. Yes Sir, No Sir. Please say that, Please do that. Thank you so much. And of course, he was a gentleman, as he always was. And I wanted to bring that up with him, but I mentioned it to him, but was still trying figure out the kinks in recording as we started recording that particular episode. Because that was the first one that we recorded. I just had a lot of memory with Byron Dorgan. He was very important in my head when I started this project. I'm not going to spend too much time wasting away here. So let's get to the Business. This is Episode one of Origin Stories: A Podcast About Politics and People with Byron Dorgan. I want to get in a quick thank you to my friend John Kneip and his Band NASAWives for providing the intro music here. And my friend Noel "Scotch" Anderson for providing all of the very cool imagery that you see on the website, on Facebook, and Twitter. I've received a lot of positive feedback on that. Without further ado. Episode one. Byron Dorgan. Here we go!Brent Jabbour: Number one, I guess the first question I would have is how does somebody who is a senator from North Dakota become a member of Democratic Leadership? And you know, it is not the most progressive state in the country, and you were one of the top Senators going at it while you were in the Senate. Senator Byron Dorgan - D-ND:Well, part of that background was that I was a good friend of Thom Daschle. Thom was from South Dakota. We've been best friends for a long long time, both when we were in the U.S. House together; the U.S. Senate together. And, when Thom was elected Democratic Leader, he asked me to be part of his leadership team, and asked me to be the assistant Democratic Floor Leader, and then subsequently the chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee as well. Brent:Was that a big deal for you, being from the middle of the country? To be able to espouse, along with Senator Daschle as well... You guys had a good leadership body, that was not the California/New York leadership that you see now. Senator Dorgan: No, that's True. Now what we see in the Congress. Just to give you a statistic, in the U.S. House, thirty percent of the Democratic Caucus come from just two states, New York and California. We've become far too much of a coastal Party. And, Good for New York and California. There is an old campaign guru who used to always say "You pick cherries where cherries is." What he meant by that, you know you go where the votes are and get em out. It is also the case that you have to plant more cherry trees, right. Good for California and New York, but we need to have a more robust effort in the heartland of the country. Brent:I think we've all talked about it, that is probably why Trump won. Because he was able to connect with those people. Now, North Dakota is probably not going to vote for a Democrat in many scenarios. Obviously, they have the Senators or Senator with Sen. Heitkamp, and you and Sen. Conrad were there. At one Time there were three Democrats representing the state of North Dakota.Sen. Dorgan:For eighteen straight years, in Fact.Brent:But What is it going to take for Democrats to start to understand those people? Sen. Dorgan:Well, I don't think it is a case of Democrats not understanding people. I ran eleven statewide elections in North Dakota as a Democrat and was very successful. So, it is about retail politics. People want to know: Do they get to see you and know you? Do they trust you? Do they like you? And if they know, see, trust and like you, they don't care what party you are from. They want to send somebody to Congress that they trust and they like.So, I think what has happened in North Dakota and much of the heartland is there has not been a national Democratic message to say, here's what our party's about. Our Party is about helping family farmers have a bridge over difficult times. Our party's about working men and women, who are working hard at their jobs and want job security and want opportunities for promotion and so on. Our party is about the people that know about seconds. Second shift, second job, second hand. That is who our party is about. I think our party doctrine has always been, at least for me, is when everybody does well, everybody does well. It's like a wagon train, a wagon train in the old west used to only go as fast as the slowest wagon. So, you don't leave people behind. Brent:I Think what you are saying, I completely agree with. However, the Democrats have left those people behind. Every voting block that you just discussed farmers, workers. Those people voted for Donald Trump because he spoke to them. That is where I'm saying we're not messaging properly to Democrats. If that makes sense to you.Sen. Dorgan:Look, I don't think Democratic presidential candidates who really should be carrying the message, they should have the message of what do we stand for as a Democratic Party. I don't think they even campaign in much of the country. They just give up before the campaign starts and say well that's a red state and we're not going to a red state. People in large swaths of the heartland of America never hear much about the message from the megaphone that comes from a national Democratic candidate. Boy, I am a strong believer in saying if you want to run for President, you don't give up any state. You run everywhere, and you push hard to get that message out. Because I still think people respond to that message no matter where they live. Brent:So I told you when we started this, it is going to be a little bit about you. So I want to talk about young Byron Dorgan. What was it like growing up in North Dakota?Sen. Dorgan: Well, I grew up in a town of 300 people. That was my first 18 years. It was a farm community. We raised some horses and cattle. My Dad ran a gas station in town. But we also raised horses and cattle. I graduated in a high school senior class of nine students. You're never far away from the top or the bottom of those classes. But, I knew everyone in town. Everyone knew me. It's just a town of 300 people. It's where I think I learned character. It's where I developed my values system. It comes from my parents and the community I grew up in about what is right and what is wrong. How do you make judgments about that? I have always been enormously proud of growing up in a tiny little town in southwestern North Dakota. Brent:Do you think that helped you communicate better? Like you said everybody in this town of 300 people knew each other. So it sets you up in a way for being in Congress because there are four hundred and some odd Representatives, while one hundred Senators. But, it gives you that opportunity to communicate with everybody because you are used to that type of tight-knit community. Sen. Dorgan:Absolutely, In a town of three hundred people, you have a microcosm of America. You have a few people who would drink too much and get drunk. We had some old retired guys who would play pinochle at the bar all day. We had some people who were debating should we put pavement on our main street as opposed to having a gravel main street. And, while some people were pushing to do that, other people were pushing saying we didn't want to spend the money. It's a microcosm of our country and the decisions our country makes. But it's also an ability to understand how you get along with people because you have to get along. If you are in a town of three hundred people and you don't get along with a handful of them, that's pretty sad. So you learn to get along. I just learned a lot from that town. Brent:I think that makes sense too, in the way that you can't ostracize anybody in a town that small because there are only 300 people, and where are they going to find anything else. Sen. Dorgan:And to me, when I look at that town, the progressives in that town were the ones saying alright let's build, let's progress, let's change. And the others were saying, nope, and were against all of it. But, nonetheless, they come to some conclusion. I know this a silly story, but it's a lesson that I sit here and remember vividly. So, my job was to clean the barn on Saturday's so, we had a pickup truck and shoveling manure into the pickup truck. We were fairly close to town, so they had a dump grounds in town. And, I was to take that manure to the dump grounds. My dad drove the gas truck, as well, for the service station. and, he saw that I had dumped the manure outside the fence of the dump grounds. And, he came back that night and said, "I saw you did not dump that inside the dump grounds, you dumped it outside the fence." I said I did that because I thought I was going to get stuck, it had just rained, so I was afraid I would get stuck. He said, "Well, there is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things, and you dumped it in the wrong place. You go out and you put it back on the pickup truck, and haul it in the dump grounds and dump it there." So, the next day, I'm out there shoveling that manure for the second time, and I'm swearing and upset, but you know what it's a lesson that I remember sitting here today. Do things the right way. No shortcuts. Brent:And the it's better to do it once right than to do it twice. Sen. Dorgan:I remember that lesson. And I told my dad some decades later. You know what, I didn't like the lesson, but I learned it really well, and have never forgotten it. Brent:Where did you to college again? I know you went to the University of Denver later for graduate school...Sen. Dorgan:I went to the University of North Dakota. It was 365 miles from regent to the University. I worked on cars. My dad had a gas station, so I had a hoist. I would put my car on the hoist and work on it. And I was a big fan of working on cars. And, I did everything to it. I had an old Ford, I put a Mercury grill on it, I cut out with a welder cut out the old grill, and put a mercury grill on it. I put Plymouth continental kit on it.And then, ultimately I drove off the first time to go to college, and I was picked up for speeding on my first trip. And the highway patrolman took me back to his car and he is giving me the ticket. And he looked at my car, and he looked it over, and he said "son, what was that car before you started butchering it?" And I haven't forgotten that either. Brent:You know this is another interesting thing we talk about with people who grew up on farms. When was the first time you drove a vehicle? Probably on the farm when you were a young teenager, right? Sen. Dorgan:Oh, eleven or twelve. Because we had a pickup truck. And, you know, when we are out on the pasture, hauling hay and stuff. I was supposed to be in that pickup truck, doing stuff. But, you just learn really early, I could barely see over the steering wheel. Now, I wasn't off a highway at age twelve. But, my dad always expected me to move the pick up truck just a bit. So, you'd get in, get the shift going and the clutch. Brent:You could drive the tractor down the highway...Sen. Dorgan:We had an old tractor, which we called a co-op tractor, which farmers would know. Somehow, it went much faster than any other tractor. I just remember being in that seat of that co-op tractor, driving down the road and going to beat the band. Brent:So, when you were in college at the University of North Dakota. What did you do in your free time? When you weren't studying, probably working a little bit. What were you doing in your free time? Sen. Dorgan:Well, I worked... I did a lot of jobs when I was in College. I was a bank teller. I sold shoes at J.C. Penny's. I had a lot of part-time jobs. So, that's what I did. I was very interested in athletics. I loved basketball, football, all those things. I didn't play varsity in college. I have always enjoyed athletics as well. Brent: What do you do now in your free time? You technically retired, but I'm sitting here in your office, it doesn't quite look like you've retired. Sen. Dorgan:No, no, I haven't retired. I've been teaching for some years at Georgetown University. I am on 4 boards of directors and boards of advisors on companies. Three of them in California, one in Chicago. I'm writing my fifth book right now, I just submitted the first manuscript to the publisher. I am a Senior Fellow at the bipartisan policy center. I'm doing a lot of things.Brent:It sounds like a lot of work. What are you doing to relax?Sen. Dorgan:Well, I like to work. But, I like to play tennis. I have played tennis all my life. I like to play golf. I like to travel, I just came back from France. I was on a cycling trip. I rode probably about 180 miles in southern France with a bunch of people on a bicycle. So I do a lot of things, and I enjoy it all.Brent:There are a lot of successful businessmen, I don't know why, when you said, "I'm teaching at Georgetown." In my brain, I'm thinking a kid from a town of 300 people in North Dakota is teaching at one of the most prestigious universities in the country, maybe in the world. I mean, I know they come from all over. But, I lived in North Dakota for about 10 years, and I noticed you would look people up, and realize, this guy was born in Bismarck, ND.It's just a strange place because a lot of people look at it as a backwoods state. It's the middle of the country, nobody cares. There are a lot of plains, a lot of farms, it's cold, is that what gives people...Sen. Dorgan:I Don't know. It's really interesting. My career was very unusual politically. I didn't plan on being a politician. I have a masters degree in business, an MBA degree. I thought I would be a businessman all my life. and things happen. So at age 26, I was appointed to fill a vacancy by Governor Guy in a constitutional office, because someone who had just been elected died. And, he chose me. I was as surprised as anybody in North Dakota at age 26.Brent:What were you doing then? That was the North Dakota tax commissioner? That was the position you were in? Sen. Dorgan:That was born of tragedy. The origin of other people's lives can be profoundly affected by tragedy. So, I was in the Aerospace industry, had gone to work in the aerospace industry directly out of graduate school in Colorado. And I came back to a funeral, my grandfather's funeral. And somebody told me you should talk to this guy who just was elected to office in North Dakota. His name was Ed Sjaastad. He had come from a town called Tagus, North Dakota, 80 people. And graduated from Harvard Law School. And, he had just won election to State Tax Commissioner. And, I said no... I'm not... and they said, no he wants to hire a young MBA, go talk to him. I said, but I'm in Denver, I'm in the aerospace industry. But, I did go up and talk to him, and I was so inspired by him. I just thought, man, what an inspiring guy, 36-37 years old. So I decided to go back to North Dakota and work for him. And I did, I worked there a year and a half. And, he was a mentor and a friend, and a boss. And, I walked into his office one morning at 8 o'clock in the morning and found him dead. He had taken his own life. I can't even begin to describe the drama and the trauma. I was 26 years old, and I had lost a friend and mentor. What a great, great tragedy because he was such an extraordinary human. And, so six weeks later. The governor called me down to his office and said I want to appoint you to his unexpired term. I mean, I was the most surprised guy in the world. And so, from that, I ran for office and ran for office again. Ran for the House, and again, and again, and again, six times. Then ran for the Senate again and again and again. And you know, I had a career for many many many decades in North Dakota serving in public office. I was enormously grateful for the opportunity. It was a great privilege. And yet, I came to the end, and then the question is, the next choice is seven years. Run for election this year, win and serve six more. And those seven-year choices become much more difficult because I wanted to do more things. I wanted to, having been in Congress for 30 years, and the Senate for 18 years. I wanted to write more books, which I'm doing, I have written 3 since I left. And, I wanted to teach, I'm teaching at Georgetown University. I wanted to serve on some boards, and so on... So that is kind of a synopsis of how all of this happened. It's like every other piece of the decision tree of life. It's always binary, It's always yes or no. And when you say yes or no, it profoundly changes the branch on that decision tree. And, I have just been very fortunate and have loved everything I've done. Brent:And, you know, your story of tragedy, of your friend. That is kind of where I am right now. That's why we are recording this and speaking with you. Ed Schultz was my friend. He was my mentor. He was a great boss. He took me all over. And, when he unexpectedly passed. A lot, of people, asked me, especially over that time, who is going to carry that mantle. And, I don't think by any means I'm going to carry that mantle. I don't have any intention to be the next Ed Schultz. But I thought I would be doing a disservice if I didn't talk to a lot of people, you were close friends with him, talk to a lot of those people. I thought also, It's something possibly I wanted to do anyway. Which is get the background on people, talk about the issues that affect people, and how things are going. And, I never wanted to step on his toes. Not that I ever think that he would have ever been unhappy with me. He would always be very happy that I want to grow. But I said at the time you know what, that's Ed's thing right now, and we let him do that. And, when this unexpected turn happened, I said, you know what, maybe it's my time to do a little bit of something. And try to do something that would make him proud. So, I thoroughly understand what you were saying there. Sen. Dorgan: Look, all of us suffer loss. It's part of our lives, it just is. And no matter what you're doing or where you are, the question is, not whether you will suffer loss, it's how you will get through it. I remember, my mother was killed in a manslaughter incident in 1986 driving on the streets of Bismarck North Dakota. Coming home from a hospital visit. My daughter died during heart surgery when I was in the Senate. It is unbelievably hard to get through a loss, and some people never do, and some people can.My Mother, and my daughter, and my friend Ed Sjaastad, the fact is they are with me. Their part of my memory bank. I call on them a lot. The key for all of us to understand, life is about success, and it's about failure, it's about building and creating, and losing sometimes. It's always picking yourself up and brushing your hat off and moving straight on ahead and moving forward. Ed Schultz, just to end this part of the discussion, Ed Schultz was such a big personality. And, generous, he would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He was a remarkable person. But, because he was such a big personality and a force of personality, all of us who were friends of Ed's, were stunned by the loss of Ed in our lives. He was quite a remarkable guy. Brent:I know, one of the biggest things that people who were close to him say, is we are going to miss that phone call of him saying. "What's going on?" And he didn't always mean that as a what's going on with you. But, he did care, but he also wanted to know what you thought about what was going on. And, that, I always thought, he always cared what everyone else thought. He may not agree with you. But he wanted to absorb that information and have that conversation. Sen. Dorgan:The hallmark of Ed was confidence. He was unbelievably confident, and you could see it, and smell it, and feel it. I've seen Ed come into rooms...Just a quick story. Senator (Debbie) Stabenow and I were going to invite radio talkers from around the country who were, progressive or Democratic talkers to come into our nation's capital and have a discussion together. It never happened before. So Debbie and I brought them in. There were about twenty or thirty of them in this room in the Hart Building. And, I swear to you, Ed took over the room instantly. He gave a little presentation and wow. And there was an agent there and of course, that agent signed Ed to a radio a contract. And that set Ed on a remarkable career, on national radio and national television. It's a remarkable thing.I think it all stems from unbelievable confidence. It's about being a football quarterback, it's about all the things that made Ed Schultz. He was quite remarkable. Brent:I think, even when I sent you an email asking if you would do this. I discussed the confidence he instilled in me. There was no question. I don't think I ever heard him say he didn't know if this is right or not. Not only did he always think he was right, but he also made relatively good decisions. You may disagree with his takes on certain things, but he always did it from the right place. From a place where he could explain to you, this is why I think this way. It wasn't just a blanket statement because I don't feel like arguing it. It was a statement and this is why I feel that way. I always appreciated that so much. Alright, on to books. You have written a couple of books. There was one called Take this Job and Ship it correct? But you also wrote Gridlock and Blowout, which are thrillers, if you will. I think that is the correct description. Why fiction, why did you think that was a thing to get into?Sen. Dorgan:The interesting thing is, I had done two books about economic issues. And, the publisher, a New York publisher, and I had an agent in New York. And, my agent called me and said, how would you like to do a couple of novels? And I said. You know, I've not written fiction before. And he said, How about co-authoring a couple of them? I said I'd be interested in talking about it. So we talked about it, and I decided, you know what, it's something I've not done, it's something I'd like to do. So, I did it. And it was very interesting. I may do it again, we'll see. The book I'm writing now, it's my fifth book, is a book that is a true story. But, who knows, I may go back to fiction. You know, if you wrote fiction, and wrote what was going on today in our country and in Washington D.C. people would say that's way beyond fiction.Brent:And I was going to say. I had wondered about those books. You coming from a policy perspective, and those are about oil and ecological issues. And I thought, maybe, you got involved because this is a way to get those messages out about these important issues that will give people an entertaining read without me beating them over the head with it. Without me feeling like I'm lecturing you about...Sen. Dorgan:Yeah, that is some of it. Absolutely. In fact, I'll tell you the ideas for both books.The idea for the first book, the first novel, came from something I read in the Wall Street Journal. And it was a news story, a small one, about five years before, and it said there is a persistent rumor that either the Chinese or the Russians had put a virus in the American electric grid system that would allow them to turn off the electric grid if we were in a war. The news story just kept talking about persistent rumors, but nobody every verified it. And I just thought, that would be fascinating to write about. How would a foreign power turn off the electric grid system and cause chaos in our country?The other one was a piece I read about, and I had met a guy who did this, Craig Venter, who is a remarkable genius. He did part of the Human Genome project with Dr. Francis Collins and so on. But, he contracted with Exxon and they were working to put microbes in a coal seam under the earth, microbes are bacteria, have them develop a language for bacteria that would say to them, eat your way through the coal seam and leave methane in its wake. So you would actually turn coal into methane underground. And I thought that's fascinating. So that became the idea for the second novel. Brent:I think you are a much better novelist than you think. Because I think that's pretty much how alot of these guys come up with their ideas. I've seen Stephen King wrote 10 o'clock people, or something of that nature is one of his novels. He basically, wrote it because he would drive down the street, and he would see outside of this office everyday smoking cigarettes. And it was all of them at the same time smoking cigarettes, and he came up with this idea of who are these people? So that is the way good fiction works, kind of a what if. I think you are doing a heck of a job there. Sen. Dorgan:On the book about a virus shutting down the electric grid. I have a Russian agent that has the virus that he's stolen, an Iranian secret agent purchase it from him. And then the Iranian secret agents, they hire a drug-addled hacker living in a commune in Amsterdam to begin shutting down the electric grid in America. It's kind of a fanciful story, but it was a fun one to write. Brent:Do you read a lot of, I guess that is the Tom Clancy style novel, is that something you are interested in?Sen. Dorgan:I don't read as much fiction. I read a lot of non-fiction, but I don't read as much fiction. Brent:When you read non-fiction are you reading more biographies?Sen. Dorgan:Yeah, I just finished a book called "Bad Blood in Silicon Valley," about the Theranos Fraud. I mean those are the things I read a lot about. Brent:When you were in your time in public service, or in your professional life, we will use professional outside of personal. What are you most proud of that you have done? Sen. Dorgan:There is a lot. Just a lot of things. In terms of policy, in fact, I'm still working on it today. I helped, I was one of the authors of the Renewable Fuel Standard. We keep putting these steel straws into the planet earth and sucking oil out, which is good, and natural gas and such, and I'm for that. I supported oil and gas development in our state. But, we need to do more than that. Because we can produce fuels from renewable fuels. Which diversify our fuel source. And it also means less carbon into the airshed. So I wrote the Renewable Fuel Standard, the RFS. And we've built a huge ethanol industry and a huge biodiesel industry as a result of it. I helped prompt the start of a wind energy revolution in the country. So, I've done a lot of things I'm really proud of. And some of it is things just dealing with individuals. I got a letter last week from a woman in Devils Lake, ND. And she said, Senator Dorgan, she said, about fifteen years ago, you got involved for my father who had a form of cancer and needed a certain type of treatment, and he was turned down for reimbursement for that treatment. And you got involved with the V.A. and others and got him the treatment he needed. She said, he just died last week, but we got 15 years of life with my dad thanks to you. And, I thought, what a remarkable woman to send me a note 15 years later to say thanks for what you did for my dad. Those are the things that I really care much about. The things you can do for people that make a difference in their lives. Brent:As far as policy goes, is there one thing you wish you could take back?Sen. Dorgan:Oh sure. The vote authorizing George W. Bush to take military action in the Gulf war. Now, the vote required him to do a number of other things, which he did not do. But, when Colin Powell and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and others were giving us top-secret briefings, day after day after day, they made the case they knew there biological weapons and nuclear weapons and so on that threaten our country. And it turns out they were wrong. And it also turns out, now, that I know, I know for a fact that some of what was told to us in top-secret briefings misrepresented the facts, and some of it deliberately misrepresented the facts. And was told to us by people at the highest levels of government in a way that wasn't just not accurate, but was false. And demonstrably false. And they knew at the time it was demonstrably false. And that really bothers me. Because no one ever really did the investigation that should have been done following that. Brent:Yeah, I was going to bring that up. I feel like many in the far left community had always been saying arrest Bush and Cheney, they're war criminals. And, I know that is not a stretch, some could make that case. But the fact is, is that what you just told me there, that in top-secret briefings, people knowingly misrepresented the facts. I mean there is no recourse, none of those people were punished for that. I mean, with the exception of Colin Powell having to eventually admit, that he lied. Or he says that he was...Sen. Dorgan:He says he was duped. But he was the gold standard as far as I'm concerned. I mean I think Colin Powell is widely respected. And, he went on live television at the United Nations and said, look here is what the Iraqis have. And mobile chemical weapons laboratories, he went right through the whole thing. Turns out, it was all a crock because they were using testimony by a known fabricator from Iraq, who used to drive a taxi cab in Bagdad. He was in the custody of the Germans and the Germans told the Americans "we think he is a fabricator." And yet, they used a substantial amount of that, not just that but more as well, for Colin Powel's presentation. And, it was a devastating thing to do for this country because we got involved in a very long war that cost a lot of lives. It's a war in my judgment that we shouldn't have fought. Brent: Kent Conrad voted against the war in Iraq, correct?Sen. Dorgan:He Did.Brent:Did you guys have conversations about that? I mean, as far as while that vote was coming up... He's a colleague of yours for many many years.Sen. Dorgan:Yea, We seldom ever split our vote on those kinds of things. We split our vote on a Supreme Court nominee at one point, I think on Alito. We split our vote on that as well. The Authorization for the President to use force. And, I just came out in a different place. Had I known, what I know now, I never ever would have voted for it. But, you know, it's too late to correct all those things. I regret casting that vote, I believed in the presentations that were made to members of Congress by people who had very solid reputations, who turned out to not have such solid reputations. Brent:Do you think it's hard for people, lawmakers especially, to admit they were wrong?Sen. Dorgan:Sure... Yeah... And the reason for that is, I think there is a punishment by the voters from time to time, to take a look at somebody, and let's say the person running against this person that changed their mind, says well this is a flip-flopper. They're a weather vein. They change their mind based on how the wind is blowing. And I think people buy that argument so they don't want members of Congress to change their mind. On the other hand, it's really important if members of Congress see new information or have a change of heart, they ought to change their mind. Because I think, the voters want to look at somebody and say, that's somebody I think is authentic. They care about things, researches things, and come out with the right approach. Brent:I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine about (Senator) Heidi Heitkamp and (Congressman) Kevin Cramer running in the state of North Dakota. Kevin has always been polite to me, Heidi, not so much, but that's neither here nor there. But I had to draw the distinction of the play Hamilton, where I said, I'm not a North Dakota voter anymore, so I can't make this decision. But given the choice between Heidi and Kevin going to the Senate, I would almost give Kevin Cramer that vote. And I will tell you why. I disagree with him wholeheartedly on almost everything, but I feel like he stands for something. He stands for things, and I feel like Heidi is in a position where she is just trying to make voters happy in North Dakota, and so she is kind of everywhere. And she's not helping the Democratic voters at all, and she is not helping her constituents either.I'm not asking you to bag on Heidi, by any means... Sen. Dorgan:Let me tell ya. Look, Heidi is in a state, that is more conservative than it was. And, she's trying to navigate through some difficult circumstances. You can't keep everybody happy. And, if you try, you fail. And she is trying to demonstrate and has done so effectively, to North Dakotans that she is independent. She's not going to just swallow the party line every time they say something. That is contrary to what Kevin Cramer does. Look, Kevin Cramer is fine as far as I'm concerned, but I would never vote for someone who says well whatever Trump wants that fine with me. Especially at a time when Pres. Trump is slapping on lots of tariffs ad-hoc, ad hominem and injuring the price of hogs and soybean and corn. And Kramer says, well that's okay. Whatever Trump wants Trump gets. I would never be in a situation to subscribe to that. I respect your views and I think both people are people of good character, but they believe very different things.So, when I grew up in North Dakota, you would sooner cut off your hand at the wrist then talk about religion. I mean, I went to the little Lutheran Church in Region North Dakota and religion was private. You didn't go talk about your religion, but you went to church and prayed and you went every Sunday because you should, and wanted to. These days, we have people wearing religion on their sleeves. Kevin is one of them and boy, I don't know. I worry about a lot of people that wear religion on their sleeves and use it politically and tell other people what to do with respect to their religious beliefs and so on. Brent: Well, I have this big theory on politics. That, it's basically sport now. The reason people want to use religion, it because its the easiest argument to have with somebody, that "God would be unhappy if you did this." How am I going to argue with that? How do I make an argument against that? Obviously, there are social issues at face, but its almost become just an Evangelical Christians, they're Republicans who don't want to go against God. God is a Republican, clearly, in their mind and I think that's just become part of this larger game that people are playing. There is very little reality in the political spectrum I feel like anymore, especially in the Federal system. Sen. Dorgan: Yeah, but you know, look, I get these things. So a president has his attorney pay $130,000 to a porn star to shut her up, right? Or a Pres. says, I'm gonna separate thousands of kids at the border from their parents and we won't even keep track of where they all came from and so it's going to be hard putting them all back. That's not Christian. These aren't Christian values you're talking about right? So, that's what bothers me. We're kind of in uncharted territory when anybody uses religion as some sort of a test in terms of their own personal view of religion. So, I don't know. The key, I think, politically, for Heidi, and I'm a fan of Heidi's. I think she's authentic. I like her a lot, and I think she is a good Senator and will make a good Senator the next term as well. But, the key is, you can't please everybody, but you chart a course that you think is best for our state and our country and you take the President on when you should. You support him when you think it's reasonable. I understand what Heidi's doing. Support it. Think she's the right choice. So we'll see. The fact is, it's going to be a contested election and probably pretty close. In the end, I think Heidi will win. Brent:Democrats keep talking about this blue wave in 2018, now that we're kind of on the election here. Is that a reality, because I don't see it. Number one, I'll tell you why we have no blue wave. Gerrymandering in the house is out of control Democrats are going to need a big, big push to be able to win in the house and we don't have enough seats in the Senate available to us. I think eight Republicans are up? Eight or ten. I can't think off hand. Sen. Dorgan:I think it's eight. Brent:So, you're looking at the this and there are Democrats out there, I mean, I get the e-mails every day from all kinds of candidates who are basically telling Democrats that they're ready to take this back. Do we have to be realistic here or do the good vibes help to push this forward? Sen. Dorgan:My thought is that there's going to be, I don't know whether it's a blue wave, but there's going to be a wave of people who show up at the polls. Who are pretty incented to try to send Donald Trump a message. The old Claude Pepper, the oldest man in the U.S. House when I showed up there. He used to say, "The Constitution gives the American people this miracle. Every second year, they get to grab the steering wheel. Every second year, the American people grab that steering wheel and decide which way do they steer America. I think given what's happening in the White House more recently, the last couple years, I think they want to do that. Now, I think they wanted to do it with Trump as well. I mean, i think Trump's message was pretty clear. He said things that were disqualifying to me. I mean, he'd stand up on the trail and say, "I support torture." Well, somebody supports torture and my judgment should not be elected? He said, "I think we should consider allowing Japan and the Saudies and South Korea to have nuclear weapons." In my judgment, that just disqualifies him because he doesn't think through these things. Having said all that, the American people elected him and he did get three-million fewer votes than Hillary, but they elected him and they did it because I think they looked at him and went, "you know what? If he goes to the White House, he's going to break some glass and kick some you-know-what and I kind of want to see someone kick them all around." So, I think that's why people voted for him. Brent:I have this theory too. Which is that possibly the country will never be the same after this. I don't mean that in a good way, but I also don't necessarily mean it in a bad way. The way I see it, Trump is doing well enough, and he's appeased his base enough; the people who voted for him. Whether steel and aluminum tariffs, whether they actually do good, it will end up costing us more money in the future. It will end up doing all these issues. That doesn't matter to steelworkers. That doesn't matter to autoworkers. Doesn't matter to them, because all they see is that the President did something for "us." Whether it works or not, they did something for "us:" And they probably won't see a problem in their pocketbook and so I think he's appeased that portion of the base. What I'm concerned about, a little bit, is that they're going to see that. Things don't go too bad for Republicans in 2018. he could get re-elected in 2020, despite indefinite detention of children and despite all the other things he has done. Despite the fact that we're looking at how many different scandals he's been involved in and yet, in 1994, was it? We thought that was the biggest thing that could ever happen to a President of the United States and here we're ignoring the fact that, like you said, he paid off a porn star. Actually, looks like paid off two porn stars. Sen. Dorgan: Probably three. I don't know. Look, you might be right. My own view is that I think he probably won't be re-elected. I want him to keep us out of wars between now and then. I want him to stop doing stuff that would open up ANWR to oil development in Alaska. Stop changing the rules so that you can dump as much methane into the air as you like; and that people won't be able to drink clean water and breathe clean... I'd like him to be somewhat thoughtful about the policies we need. I understand that we have too many regulations; let's get rid of some that aren't worthy, but let's keep some that are really important for human health and other things. So, we'll see. I think it is not enough for Democrats just to be against Trump. Democrats need to have a vision and a set of values about who they're fighting for and what they want America to be in the future; with respect to people who need jobs and people who need health care and so-on. So, we need to do much more than we're now doing as Democrats. Brent:I think you're absolutely right on that, and I think one of the things that; not... I think that social issues are super important. I think they are a thing that affects so many people. However, I also feel like, the majority of Americans are already on board with all of that, and I feel like that's where the Democrats also failed in 2016. They spent a lot of time kind of pushing these social issues, like transgender bathrooms, and all those things. While they were important, no doubt, these people should not be discriminated against; that is not an issue that ninety-nine percent of Americans care about. I think that's certainly a problem. Number one; they didn't talk to working-class Americans. Hillary Clinton, again, I'm not going to "bag" on anybody, but I will say this, is the most qualified candidate to probably ever run for the office. Also, at the same time, not a likable person to the American people. I don't want to say it. I know there's a lot of connotation there. I voted for her. I think, she would have made a great President, but this is a personality contest now and we need to understand that. Sen. Dorgan:I don't disagree with that at all. I think she was not the best candidate in a lot of ways. However she was speaking it wasn't to the people; the guts of people. You know, that message somewhere between the brain and the belly that gives people a sense of, "this is something I care about. This is someone that's going to do something about it." So, I agree with that. I think she... I admire her. I think she's unbelievably talented. Would have made a good President if the Republicans would have allowed her to be a good President, but the fact is, she didn't' do a ... very good... you know, it's almost malpractice not campaign in Wisconsin as a Democrat. Brent: And in Michigan. You're missing out on... there's no situation...Sen. Dorgan: But, having said all that, she still won the election by three-and-a-half million votes, but lost the electoral college. So, she's not President. Brent: We can have that argument. I know a lot of people want to always make that, she won by three-million more votes. That's fine...Sen. Dorgan:... but if she lost the Presidency...Brent: The electoral college; number one, when Bush won in... 2000...Sen. Dorgan:... 2000.Brent: Yeah. We knew that that was an issue. Nobody did anything. Nobody tried to... I don't remember any Senators pushing for a Constitutional amendment to fix the electoral college. We knew that was an issue and we allowed it, because we said, " it probably won't be a problem later. We'll be fine." Sen. Dorgan: It wouldn't have needed to be an issue if Al Gore had selected Bob Graham as his running mate in Florida. He would have won Florida easily. Bob was wildly popular in Florida and there wouldn't have been a recount in Florida. So that's Al Gore's fault. Brent: We can also have the conversation about Tim Kain being chosen as... Tim, great guy. Doesn't move the dial at all. Sen. Dorgan: I like him a lot, and he played the role the campaign gave him, so that wasn't... but I understand your point. Brent: I'm just... in my adult life, it's mostly been Obama-Biden. Two of the most charismatic people to ever be in an administration; and I look at it and I say, Democrats did not realize that they were the ones that won that re-election because of their personality. I mean, their policy was great, but they won it because of their personalities, because of their charisma, because they would speak directly to your heart; and you felt it. I've been in the room while they both of them spoke and I was inspired. We don't do that and that's the problem. You say you don't think Donald Trump would be re-elected in 2020. Well, we're getting close to 2018's election. Who is the leader of the Democratic party right now? Who is the person who you're going to want on that ticket? I mean, it might be Joe Biden, but I think it might be a little late for Joe. Sen. Dorgan: Well, there will be a lot of people running. Gil Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles, or Delaney the Congress. I bet there will be twelve or fourteen people announced for President. We'll see. I agree with you, I think that there's some political cholesterol blocking the emergence of new leaders, because many of the people, Bernie, and so many others, are in their late seventies in the Democratic leadership; but I think we will see new leaders emerge in the Democratic party. Look, what we need in both political parties... I would like to see strong new leaders in the Republican party come out and eclipse the Trump doctrine of Republicanism, and I'd like to see strong leaders in the Democratic party develop a real agenda for the country. Then, let's see where we go. Given America the choice of what kind of a country they want. Where do they want to head? What do they want to strengthen in this country's future? Brent: You know what I miss? You know what person I miss? This is going to sound weird too. John Boehner. That guy, I felt like he would have stood up to Trump when Trump needed to be stood up to. Sen. Dorgan: Sure we would have, but they threw him out. I mean, John, I mean he quit, but he quit because he couldn't govern his caucus and his caucus wouldn't... Look, I like John a lot. John and his wife and in the old days, my wife and I, we met John and his wife and knew them and liked them. In the old days, people met each other and you had relationships and so on. John Boehner was a good speaker, honestly, but he finally just said, I quit, because I can't get done what I need to get done through this caucus. Brent: I think that's probably what Paul Ryan is facing right now. I don't think Paul Ryan is a man of as much integrity. Sen. Dorgan: He doesn't have the strength that John Boehner had. Not at all. Brent: No. I also think that Paul Ryan has political aspirations and that's why he's doing this, in my head, because either he's eventually going to run for Governor of Wisconsin and then President, or he's just going to try to go straight for President once Trump's done. So, he's going to spend some time with his family. Help raise his kids for a couple of years and then he's going to try and go for higher office. That's my personal opinion, but I think you're right that he doesn't have the strength to control that caucus and he doesn't have that... Sen. Dorgan: Well, the fact was that he had a very strong reputation early on. That reputation has been injured a fair amount, I think, and we'll see what his future is; but I think what's happened is that while he's pushed back a little bit, but the phrase of choice these days is to say, "well, I wouldn't have said it that way," right? That's not enough. I think he's injured his reputation a bit, but he's a young man and we'll see what happens to his future. Brent:How often do you speak with President Clinton? Sen. Dorgan: Um, maybe two/three months ago. He and I talked. Brent: What's is like being friends with a President? Any President really? Sen. Dorgan:Well, we used to golf together. There's a picture of him and I golfing on the wall. He's a really interesting, smart... has a really facile mind. He's an interesting guy. You would, I think most anybody would like to spend some time with him talking. It's kind of like if you like economics, and I like economics, and I've had an opportunity to spend time visiting with Warren Buffett. In fact, on the way in this morning to work, I was thinking about this, because Warren had sent me an e-mail a while back and he said, 'If you get to Omaha anytime soon, call me and we'll have a hamburger.' I was thinking on the way in, I should just go to Omaha and have a hamburger because I haven't seen him for a long while, although we've been exchanging some emails. If you want to know about the economy, you want to talk to Warren Buffett, right? If you want to know about politics; pretty good to talk to Bill Clinton. He's an encyclopedia. Brent: This is a hard turn. Are we beyond the time of the bipartisanship? Are we ever going to be in a position where real bipartisanship exists anymore? Sen. Dorgan: It depends on... if voters can find a way to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. I think bipartisanship will come back, but we have a circumstance these days where talk radio and cable television admonish those who come to the center to reach a compromise, because the question is, 'do you stand for your values or principles or do you compromise'? If you compromise, it's a dirty word. Compromise is what brings people together from different parties with different views. At the moment, there is not much compromise on anything. It may happen. It may change and I think the voters will have a lot to say about whether it changes. Brent:I've had this theory post Tea Party, I know that things weren't great even during the Clinton Administration. Speaker Gingrich was very standoffish, and there were some issues there. However, they were able, you guys were able to come to a lot of agreement and do things, and it was able to work. But, I've had this theory that following theTea Party movement in 2010. I feel like the Republicans, especially at the time, they embraced this movement because they knew they could get the votes. Which they do a lot. They embrace movements so they the voters. But what they didn't realize is that emboldened those people and then got a lot of Tea Partiers elected. And we got that far-right elected, the Louis Gohmert's of the world. That started to happen because they emboldened those voters. They didn't really fell like they were going to give them the voice that they said they were going to, and then they became members of Congress and started doing that. Sen. Dorgan: Yeah, I think that's right. It's also the case, from my perspective, that Democrats are by and large a party that believes in governance. Believes in the possibilities and the potential of good government. The Republicans are more often than not are a party that has been attacking government, saying government is the problem. You remember Ronald Reagan's speech. Government's not the solution, it's the problem. The fact is, Government is really us. we create it, and we determine who runs it and so on. So, after a couple, two or three decades, of really denigrating government over and over and over again, it's not surprising that people have less confidence in and less affection for their institutions, including government. It's not just government, but government is one of those institutions that has been under attack for a long while. And I think our government is really important. In self-government. You know, a country, the most successful democracy in the history of humankind exists in this country. It's not the only democracy. But it's the longest surviving representative government in world history. It's really important that we nurture that, and take care of it. Because there's no ultimate guarantee that the destiny of our country is to always be what we are. A country, that has substantial liberty and freedom and opportunity, it requires us, as Americans, to take care of and nurture this process called democracy. Brent:Not to be too dire here, but the worry I have is that we're not going to, and we are going to let it fail... Sen. Dorgan: Maybe. Maybe, but sometimes you just avoid an accident at the last minute when you're on the road. You know what I mean? So, clearly, we careen, and we have before, we careen off into different directions and it looks pretty problematic. And then we find a way to create a correction, or a charismatic leader, maybe Republican or Democrat. Maybe a Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or a Teddy Roosevelt, you know, whomever, and brings us back to where we need to be. Brent: I thoroughly agree that there needs to be someone, who will bring us back. And, on the government point, I've had people who said "How can you support the government, when you see so much waste?" I say, "I don't think that it works great right now, but the idea of government is great. The Idea of these things. A collective society, doing things for other people. That works for me."I love it, I love the idea of it. Is there a lot of waste? Sure there is. But nothing is perfect. Sen. Dorgan: Isn't it interesting that when citizens face the greatest difficulties. I'll give you an example. When Houston's under siege in a hurricane that is coming dead center to Houston. And it's gonna cause tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. And, when that passes through. Guess what is the most important element in the recovery? It is the combination of a government saying to them "you're not alone, we're here to help." And then the resilience of the human spirit of people who live there. That combination together is the way you begin to get well from these kinds of devastating circumstances. So, government is really, there are times when government is absolutely essential. And there are times when government goes too far and does things that make you kind of angry. And has rules and regulations that you think are not very smart. But, by and large, I think this country's government has served the country quite well.There is no place like this. We have the strongest economy in the world. I think we're more open and free society with liberty and freedom. This is a really remarkable place. Despite all of our imperfections. And what all of us say day to day about how we wish things were different. The fact is, every second year we get to grab the steering wheel, the American people get to decide. "Where do we head?"And we'll do that, and we do that every couple of years and somehow we find our way out of disappointment. And we find our way towards success. Brent: I'm just going to leave that there. I think that's perfect. Sen. Dorgan: Alright, good well thank you very much. Brent: Did I do OK?Sen. Dorgan: You did great. You have a good affinity for this. Number one you got a great voice, and second I think, having studied with Ed for many years, you know the issues really well. Sen. Dorgan: Thank you. I appreciate that. Like the nervousness of that first call with Byron Dorgan, I was very nervous. Thank you so much.

Behind the scenes of how we were able to profitably grow our company without taking on any capital. On this special episode with Brent Coppieters from Russell’s team, they talk about some behind the scenes things that need to be figured out while you are growing and scaling your company. Here are some of the cool things you will hear in this episode: How Brent has figured out how to structure teams with leads to make everything as efficient and smooth as possible. Why they hire Clickfunnels users to work on support teams in Clickfunnels. And why Russell wants everyone near him to max out their tax brackets. So listen here to find out some important behind the scenes things you have to think about when you’re in the process of growing your business. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I’m here today with Brent Coppieters on the Marketing Secrets podcast. So everyone, I got a really special podcast for you today, I’m so excited for. Right now, where are we at? Brent: Kauai Russell: Kauai, Hawaii. This has been our backyard for the last week, and we’re heading home tomorrow, which is kind of sad. But I wanted to get Brent in here to help you guys out. Because obviously in the Marketing Secrets podcast I talk a lot about the marketing stuff, and Brent has been with me now for over a decade. How long is it actually? Brent: Eleven years at the end of July. Russell: Eleven years, dang that’s crazy. So that’s when you started? Was anyone else here when you first got started officially? Brent: Anyone who’s here now? Russell: Brittany? Was she here? Brent: Brittany came in after. I don’t think anybody else who was here before I started is still here. Russell: So Brent’s been the longest, long term person, except Doral maybe. Doral in Romania. We got a Romanian. Our backlight is kind of lit, it’s hard to see us. Brent’s been around for forever and done tons of different roles. Right now he runs the entire operations of Clickfunnels so I wanted to have him kind of talk about the stuff because it’s a big part of growing and scaling a company that we don’t talk about a lot. But first do you want to talk about your back story, as far as getting into this whole thing. It’s kind of a funny story. Brent: How much back story do you want? Russell: We should move over here to the couch so you can see a little better. So I met Brent at church initially. Do you want a pillow? Brent: Yeah. Russell: That’s how planned these things are. What was one of the first impressions, about this whole business, when you got introduced to it? Because I know a lot of people got through that, especially spouses or friends or potential employees or partners that don’t know this world at all, it’s kind of weird at first. Brent: Yeah, I had no idea. I was at, met Russell through a church function and didn’t really know what he did. When I kind of thought he made money on the internet, I initially thought eBay, he sold stuff on eBay or you know, I had no idea.  I really couldn’t understand. So he had some of the business partners and friends that he kind of worked with at the time and I kind of pulled those guys apart and was kind of asking those guys, “What does he really do?” and one of our mutual friends, he knew that I didn’t understand so I talked to my wife who said, “I don’t know what this Russell Brunson guy’s doing, but it is freaking crazy.” Our friend was sharing the numbers that Russell was doing. He was going to University, I was going to school as well. He was making more money than my parents combined income was, more money than they had ever made. So I was like, I gotta find out what this guy’s doing. So, like any friend, we invited him and wife over for dinner on a Sunday afternoon. So I just started asking him really carefully, “What are you doing? What exactly is this?” And he just kind of started sharing what he was up to, what he was doing. Obviously he doesn’t brag about what he’s doing, the success he was having and he was having tremendous success. After they left, we had a good dinner and visited and then they left. I couldn’t sleep for three days. My head was spinning. Russell: I ruined him. Brent: You did, I was screwed at that point. After that happened I couldn’t fathom the success. But what was more important there was the value he was providing the world. Russell: Was that before or after all our kids, we had twins and they had their first son the week before. I can’t remember if it was before or after. Brent: We had met you before, we’d been friends for a little while. I think that we had our kids and you guys moved right after that. Russell: All I remember is we had our twins we were in the NSU for two weeks basically. So we rented a hotel room in the hospital and just hung out there and goofed off, and I remember he was coming. “Don’t you have to go to work, or what are you doing?” He thought I was going to go… Brent: Yeah, I told my wife, “We gotta take dinners over there or something, we gotta help them because they’re in the hospital with these twins because they can’t leave and he can’t work because he’s in the hospital.” Russell: Little did they know the internet was working. Brent: I had no clue. Russell: So that was fun, so then a little while later, Brent started working for us. Initially it was affiliate management for how many years? You did that for a long time. Brent: Yeah, like 8,9 years, roughly. The hats were always being moved but… Russell: It’s a small company, you do a lot of everything. Brent: Yeah, so probably 8 years to really focus on business development, affiliate management and partners and stuff like that. Russell: And, just so everyone knows, I recently on the podcast had the presentation I gave from Funnel Hacking Live, the One Funnel Away, about the stories, and I talked about Brent in that and it made me cry in the middle of my presentation, it was kind of embarrassing. But you were here for the good and bad. When we went from 5 employees up to 100 and back down to 5 and all the stress up and down. I’m curious, honestly why you didn’t leave when everything collapsed and crashed. Brent: That’s a good question. Russell: I don’t know the answer either. Brent: You’re going to get me vulnerable. Working with an entrepreneur, especially Russell, you know where their heart is and there came a point where he was trying to help too many people. He was employing a lot of friends and family and people that he wanted to provide opportunities for and that was great to a certain point. But there was a point there where the business changed a little bit, evolved and we were needing to make some changes with it. And those changes wouldn’t allow him to support everyone he was supporting. That was very difficult for him. My wife and I, we cared and loved Russell and Collette and their family. We came to a point where I didn’t want to be a burden, I knew he was stressed and worried about taking care of people. I had a conversation with my wife, where I said I would rather keep our friendship, than have him feel stressed about supporting, having an opportunity for me to keep working there. So one day I kind of came into your office, and had a real chat. I probably said some things that, I wanted him to understand how important what he was doing was, and also I wanted him to understand that I was okay to leave. I didn’t want him to feel like he needed to provide for me. I would be fine to figure things out. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. Because it was at the point where you were helping so many people, really one hiccup you could have lost everything. All your savings was going back into the company and at some point you just can’t keep doing that. Russell: Yeah, I got really scared, but somehow we pulled it around. Brent: Pulled it around and obviously you had to make some tough phone calls and decisions that changed the company at that point. Russell: Basically we had to, we had 100 and some odd employees, we had all these wrestlers working for me, we had let go the whole wrestling team. We had to downsize. We shrunk from a 20,000 square foot building to 2000. It was rocky and scary but it gave us the ability to refocus and figure things out. Remember we went on a couple trips where we were trying to figure out who were the people still having success in our market. We jumped in a plane traveling to different people’s offices. We spent time with Ryan Dyson and Perry Belcher, trying to figure out what they were doing. With Alex Chafren, what they were doing. People who were our friends, just kind of used this time to figure out what’s actually working today and how do we shift our business model and change everything. It’s funny how much pain there was during that time. We flew to London. How important it was for the transition for what became Clickfunnels and everything else. Anyway, so many fun stories we could talk about forever. But we don’t have time for all those things. What I want to talk about a little today is, probably a year into the business when we first started growing, it’s funny I got a message today from Alex Chafren, he’s like, “You sound so calm.” Probably because we’re here in Hawaii but he was like, “I don’t know any other person running a hundred million dollar company that’s as relaxed and able to respond to people.” Anyway, when we first started, we didn’t know what we were doing. It was just kind of like, we know how to sell stuff. Started selling Clickfunnels, it started growing and all the sudden all sorts of new headaches came up with that. From a software standpoint with Todd and we brought in Ryan and they had to deal with infrastructure, ups and downs. I think based on ranking we’re the 700th most visited website in the world. But that’s not counting anyone’s custom domains. If you take away custom domains, we’re probably in the top 500 websites in the world. There’s not many humans on earth that have ever dealt with that kind of scaling and infrastructure. Todd had never done it, Ryan had never done it. They’re figuring this stuff along the way and we’re hiring consultants. On the marketing side we’re trying to grow and then all these things and as everything was growing one thing we didn’t have in place was any of the internal company business stuff. We were good sales people, good coders but we had to do that. It was funny because, you’d never had experience with that either though. Brent: Not really, no. Russell: We had this time where internally there were, everything was shaking and we said basically “Brent, we’re going to take you from affiliate management and you’re going to run this role.” And didn’t know what to expect, if it was going to work or not going to work. He was able to step into this thing and turned it really simplified. I’ve had zero stress about that part of the business since you took it over. From that time we went from 20 employees to I don’t even know where we’re at now. Brent: 135 or something. Employees and contractors, we got a few different folks. Russell: Lots of people. So I’d love to talk, first you step in that role and it was probably disorganized and stuff. What were your thoughts? What did you have to go and figure out? What’d you have to learn to be able to turn it into what it is now? Brent: I think the big thing is Russell’s vision for the company. We’d worked together long enough that I knew where he wanted to go. Even inherently just kind of knew. The big thing about Russell is his ability to surround himself with good people. That was the first part, evaluating who we have currently. Are they on the right seat on the bus, is a big part of that too. So we tested different things, and some things worked and some things didn’t work very well. We brought people and we started the phone stuff a little bit with the clickstart program and some of those guys were better than others and we’ve evolved that program. But the big thing about it is obviously support. We had, when you guys initially started hiring support team members, those guys were rock stars, and a lot of those guys are still with us today. They have evolved in their positions in the company because of their commitment and their love of Clickfunnels. I love when I get to interview and talk to people and when those individuals say, “I love Clickfunnels.”  That is the coolest compliment that we can get. When get people that raise their hand, they want to work with us because they love Clickfunnels, they love the mission, they love the ability to help people. I think the biggest challenge was how do we grow with it? Because the marketing side, was growing so fast, it’s important that we’re providing and helping our users and helping them have the best experience possible. Also, Clickfunnels isn’t just some easy push button software. It is easy to use once you understand it, but there’s a lot of different parts of it and understanding marketing is a big part of it. So we needed to bring on people who could understand Clickfunnels, who understood marketing and also understood Russell’s style, the way you were taking everything. Russell: It’s crazy because I think when you took over the role of that, it wasn’t just support but that was a big piece of it, obviously. There’s probably what, a dozen support people at the time? Brent: Yeah, there was probably about 6 to 10. Well, probably 10. Russell: 10 at the time. You found a way to take that….it’s funny because one of the criticism sometimes of Clickfunnels is “Support’s not live all the time. Awebber’s live.” Awebber’s been growing for 20 years. They probably get 4 new signups a day. Clickfunnels right now, it’s been a while since I looked at the stats, but it’s anywhere from 500 to a thousand sign ups a day, every single day. Coming to Clickfunnels and trying to learn this huge platform that runs your entire company. How do we stay in front of that. Our goal eventually is to get to the point where it’s real time support or as close to that as possible. But there’s no one else in our space that’s ever had to deal with that. That have grown companies that fast. Most big companies like Strive don’t have any support at all because they’re like, we can’t therefore we don’t. We still need to have that support and education and stuff like that in place. I think what you did initially, I know that Ryan was a part of this. Ryan Montgomery helped set this up initially too. But just for those that don’t have support teams or maybe have three or four people and are starting to scale something, you kind of broke people into teams. Do you want to talk about some of that initial stuff that you guys did there to make the scaling side of support easier? Brent: Yeah, so we moved over to Intercom, that allowed us to do like live support. It wasn’t right live, but people could submit conversations and we’d respond to them and that’s what we used to start. We’ve grown, our response time, that’s how we kind of gauge our success, our response time. There’s a lot of software companies that offer live support, from 8-5. Ours is essentially turned on 24 hours, we’ve got team members all around the world. When we initially started we actually had an international team and we had more domestic teams, but as we realized, and continued to scale and grow, we had more and more people international. We’ve got international folks on every team. We’ve got domestic folks on every team. So they can kind of work that schedule out as needed. But as we came in we saw the amount of conversations we had, these guys are answering 8-9 thousand conversations a week, our support team. It is crazy. Our billing support is unreal. We’ve got a team of billing support team members and most of them are in our office. We’ve got a few individuals who aren’t. But the big part of it is having leadership being in those positions. So every support team we have has a team lead who is the person we reach out to and help with training and they now can pass the messages and training on to the other team members. Russell: So how many teams do we have right now? Brent: So technical support teams, we have 8 technical support teams.  We have one billing support team. We’ve got one team that focuses on some other different partners we have and worked with in the past. We’ve got a team that helps with our Quickstart program, that’s a program people can signup with and it allows them to get some help on the initial setup and we’ve got a team lead that helps run that team. Russell: The thing that’s cool about this, for any of you guys who are scaling, in fact this is what happened at first when we were scaling. There was one person in charge and had 10 people underneath them and we were trying to grow and everything was growing and that person couldn’t handle any more growth. Because it’s hard to have more than 8 to 10 people you report to. You get bigger than that, it gets stressful and it’s really, really hard. So what Brent did, he came in and said, “Okay, the people we have that are rock stars, make each of those a team lead. And let’s put employees underneath each of those and the team lead can train the employees and make sure they’re doing good. And he’s only got to deal with the 8 or 10 team leads, deal with them and then they are dealing with the individual people. It gives us a communication channel to get through and now he’s not having 90 direct reports back to him. He just has the 8. Another cool thing we did recently, because the other big thing we have and some of you guys will have something similar with your businesses is, there was a competitor that has software that has pages that generate leads. Their software does one thing, there’s one button you can click and that’s it. It’s very, very simple. Clickfunnels is like, we’re building a landing page, your funnel, your shopping cart, your affiliate platform, your auto-responders, there’s 8 thousand things. For us, we can’t just hire someone in Boise, Idaho and be like, “Hey, now you’re a support person for Clickfunnels.” There’s such a learning curve they have to understand to be able to do that. So a couple of things, number one is that most of our hires come from people that are members of our software, which is a big thing for you guys to think through. In inner circle this comes up all the time. Where do I find rock stars? I guarantee the rock star you’re dreaming for is already a customer of your product right now. Look at your internal customer base for your rock stars, because they’re going to know your product, be passionate, they’re going to care more than someone you pull off the street. That’s number one. Number two is we needed, how do we train these people? I think initially each team lead just trained their people, and they were getting bogged down in the training and not being able to support and manage and stuff like that. So we talked about a new team that’s the training team, right? Brent: Well a big part of this that helped, Mark came up and helping work, he does a lot more direct work with the team leads. Russell: You guys know Mark Bangerter, he’s killing it, he’s awesome. Brent: You know he still kind of balances customer education and he helps with support management. So Mark came in and we had the idea, we brought new people on and initially they would slow down the rest of the team. So we pulled another team lead out, we pulled out Andrew Newman, and now his focus is just training. So as we bring new team members on, he’s focusing on those guys. As we look at, he doesn’t have anybody currently to teach, he’s reaching out to people who have been on the team and maybe lack knowledge about Backpack or Actionetics, and then he’s pulling those guys out and he’s doing training with those guys so that we can get everybody up to the same level. Russell: That’s cool. We did something like that back when we had our big call center before the big crash of what year was that? Crash or 08, crash of 09. Because we had 60 sales guys and the problem is the same thing. We’d hire sales guys off the street and someone’s gotta train them, so we had a training team. So every sales guy would come in and go through a two week training with Robbie Summers was the one that managed that and then the ones that were good we’d then put them on the floor under another team. And the ones that sucked, we’d just get rid of them. And that’s kind of the same thought here. Let’s bring people in and have someone who’s dedicated to training them and when they’re ready, then put them on a team so they can start running with it. Everybody’s opposed to pulling people back. It’s just crazy all these, these are all the things we’re learning as we’re growing and scaling. Someday we’re going to write a book about this whole journey and this whole experience, because I think a lot of times companies are built like, there’s a dude with an idea, they hire venture capitalists and bring in a management team, all this stuff and build a company. Whereas with us it was like raw passion and that’s what’s grown this whole thing and kept it afloat. It’s been a fun ride so far. Brent: It’s been an unbelievable ride. Russell: So I appreciate all your work and help and everything you do. Hopefully this gives some of you guys ideas as your growing your support teams or development team or management or whatever those things are. If you look at also, I had someone, it was Andrew Warner from Mixer the other day, he interviewed me, he’s like, “How are you able to write books and run a software company and do coaching and all these different things?” And the same thing is kind of what Brent mentioned earlier, I’ve gotten really good at surrounding myself with amazing people. Where I feel like it’s almost like there’s parts of the company that people are running. You’re running all the operational stuff, I don’t have to worry about that, the hiring and firing, the finding other people. Brent does that. So I just talk to Brent and then all the people stuff is taken care of. Todd and Ryan run the development team, Todd’s running it. I talk to Todd all the time, but it’s just happening and I don’t have to stress about that. I’m kind of running the marketing team. Dave’s running, there’s john, there’s probably 5 or 6 people that I deal with directly inside the company and I’m able to do the parts that I love the most, that I’m the best at. And I think a lot of us entrepreneurs and most of the people in those positions all get profit share and equity in the company and I think one of the big mistakes I made when I first got started was I was so protective, this is my, I wanted so much control over everything that I stifled everything. Whereas when I was able to give up control and bring in rock stars and people that have skill sets that I don’t and now, because they have a stake in the game, I don’t have to worry about everything, every decision, every single thing. I trust Brent. He makes a thousand decisions a day that I never even questioned or think about because I trust him. Same thing with Todd, they know they do that because they’re willing and able to do that. So I think a lot of you guys, if you’re struggling with growth, you don’t have the ideas, you’re not going to bring on venture capitalists and destroy your soul and you want to grow something. The opposite of that is bring on really smart people and give them a stake in the game. It’s kind of like Chet Holmes used to tell me, he said that in his company, everyone was based on a percentage of sales, there was no salary based people. He said what’s cool about that is that big months everyone gets big checks, small months everyone gets small checks but everyone’s in it together. I think that building teams that way is better than bringing in a bunch of money and hiring the right people, or hiring the best people. It’s hiring the right people and giving them incentive to where they can grow and do whatever they want. In fact, I’m going to share one thing. This is cool. Am I allowed to share this, I probably can. This was, we had these accountants, most marketers don’t like accountants, but we had these accountants and every year I’d have to go the accounting meeting and then they would always talk about all the stuff to do to try to lower your, anyway, it was super annoying. It was the worst meeting of my year, I would lose all motivation and momentum for an entire week because I was so stressed out. I remember driving home from one of those so pissed off at the accountants for trying to ruin my happiness in life. And I remember in this podcast, I have to go find it, but I was like, “My goal is I want, not only am I going to max out my tax bracket but I’m going to have everyone I know around me, all my partners, all the people that are pushing this, I want to max out their tax bracket as well.” We were talking about this earlier on this trip here in Hawaii, there’s probably half a dozen people or so on our team now, that have maxed out their tax bracket because of this whole concept that we’re talking about. That is the coolest feeling in the entire world. Brent: It’s pretty awesome. Russell: It’s pretty amazing. So there you go, Uncle Sam, there you go. Anyway, that’s all I got. You have anything else you want to add? Brent: No, I just think, you said unbelievable, it truly is every day. How cool is it to be able to come and work with friends and good people that, it’s just a positive place. Our company culture is a big deal and you drive that and it’s been really fun to see people come into our office or just come into our business, our space and feel that, and even those who just work remote, we’ve got a lot of team members that work remote, most of them are. And it can be kind of a lonely road out there, but we do things to try to help them feel the love. Russell will send swag to people and just unexpected things that make people feel the love and help them know we appreciate them and that’s a big deal. Russell: So here’s a question, for those who may want to join Clickfunnels team, how do they? Brent: We have a link on Clickfunnels, at the bottom of Clickfunnels under Careers, but we’re always looking. If someone out there is passionate, you want to be able to find a place with us, hit me up. You can hit me up on Facebook, email, brent@clickfunnels.com, send me an email. I can direct you where to go, we have application up. Russell: That’s awesome. Thanks man. So that’s a little behind the scenes of how the HR, the growth, the internal stuff, what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. Again, we’re just learning all this stuff along the way. Someday we’re going to write a book about it when it’s all done. Because the lessons we’ve learned along the way have been cool. So hopefully this gave you guys a couple of ideas and things as you’re growing and scaling your teams, and that’s all I got. Thanks everybody. Thanks Brent. Brent: Absolutely. Thanks guys. Russell: Bye.

Behind the scenes of how we were able to profitably grow our company without taking on any capital. On this special episode with Brent Coppieters from Russell’s team, they talk about some behind the scenes things that need to be figured out while you are growing and scaling your company. Here are some of the cool things you will hear in this episode: How Brent has figured out how to structure teams with leads to make everything as efficient and smooth as possible. Why they hire Clickfunnels users to work on support teams in Clickfunnels. And why Russell wants everyone near him to max out their tax brackets. So listen here to find out some important behind the scenes things you have to think about when you’re in the process of growing your business. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I’m here today with Brent Coppieters on the Marketing Secrets podcast. So everyone, I got a really special podcast for you today, I’m so excited for. Right now, where are we at? Brent: Kauai Russell: Kauai, Hawaii. This has been our backyard for the last week, and we’re heading home tomorrow, which is kind of sad. But I wanted to get Brent in here to help you guys out. Because obviously in the Marketing Secrets podcast I talk a lot about the marketing stuff, and Brent has been with me now for over a decade. How long is it actually? Brent: Eleven years at the end of July. Russell: Eleven years, dang that’s crazy. So that’s when you started? Was anyone else here when you first got started officially? Brent: Anyone who’s here now? Russell: Brittany? Was she here? Brent: Brittany came in after. I don’t think anybody else who was here before I started is still here. Russell: So Brent’s been the longest, long term person, except Doral maybe. Doral in Romania. We got a Romanian. Our backlight is kind of lit, it’s hard to see us. Brent’s been around for forever and done tons of different roles. Right now he runs the entire operations of Clickfunnels so I wanted to have him kind of talk about the stuff because it’s a big part of growing and scaling a company that we don’t talk about a lot. But first do you want to talk about your back story, as far as getting into this whole thing. It’s kind of a funny story. Brent: How much back story do you want? Russell: We should move over here to the couch so you can see a little better. So I met Brent at church initially. Do you want a pillow? Brent: Yeah. Russell: That’s how planned these things are. What was one of the first impressions, about this whole business, when you got introduced to it? Because I know a lot of people got through that, especially spouses or friends or potential employees or partners that don’t know this world at all, it’s kind of weird at first. Brent: Yeah, I had no idea. I was at, met Russell through a church function and didn’t really know what he did. When I kind of thought he made money on the internet, I initially thought eBay, he sold stuff on eBay or you know, I had no idea.  I really couldn’t understand. So he had some of the business partners and friends that he kind of worked with at the time and I kind of pulled those guys apart and was kind of asking those guys, “What does he really do?” and one of our mutual friends, he knew that I didn’t understand so I talked to my wife who said, “I don’t know what this Russell Brunson guy’s doing, but it is freaking crazy.” Our friend was sharing the numbers that Russell was doing. He was going to University, I was going to school as well. He was making more money than my parents combined income was, more money than they had ever made. So I was like, I gotta find out what this guy’s doing. So, like any friend, we invited him and wife over for dinner on a Sunday afternoon. So I just started asking him really carefully, “What are you doing? What exactly is this?” And he just kind of started sharing what he was up to, what he was doing. Obviously he doesn’t brag about what he’s doing, the success he was having and he was having tremendous success. After they left, we had a good dinner and visited and then they left. I couldn’t sleep for three days. My head was spinning. Russell: I ruined him. Brent: You did, I was screwed at that point. After that happened I couldn’t fathom the success. But what was more important there was the value he was providing the world. Russell: Was that before or after all our kids, we had twins and they had their first son the week before. I can’t remember if it was before or after. Brent: We had met you before, we’d been friends for a little while. I think that we had our kids and you guys moved right after that. Russell: All I remember is we had our twins we were in the NSU for two weeks basically. So we rented a hotel room in the hospital and just hung out there and goofed off, and I remember he was coming. “Don’t you have to go to work, or what are you doing?” He thought I was going to go… Brent: Yeah, I told my wife, “We gotta take dinners over there or something, we gotta help them because they’re in the hospital with these twins because they can’t leave and he can’t work because he’s in the hospital.” Russell: Little did they know the internet was working. Brent: I had no clue. Russell: So that was fun, so then a little while later, Brent started working for us. Initially it was affiliate management for how many years? You did that for a long time. Brent: Yeah, like 8,9 years, roughly. The hats were always being moved but… Russell: It’s a small company, you do a lot of everything. Brent: Yeah, so probably 8 years to really focus on business development, affiliate management and partners and stuff like that. Russell: And, just so everyone knows, I recently on the podcast had the presentation I gave from Funnel Hacking Live, the One Funnel Away, about the stories, and I talked about Brent in that and it made me cry in the middle of my presentation, it was kind of embarrassing. But you were here for the good and bad. When we went from 5 employees up to 100 and back down to 5 and all the stress up and down. I’m curious, honestly why you didn’t leave when everything collapsed and crashed. Brent: That’s a good question. Russell: I don’t know the answer either. Brent: You’re going to get me vulnerable. Working with an entrepreneur, especially Russell, you know where their heart is and there came a point where he was trying to help too many people. He was employing a lot of friends and family and people that he wanted to provide opportunities for and that was great to a certain point. But there was a point there where the business changed a little bit, evolved and we were needing to make some changes with it. And those changes wouldn’t allow him to support everyone he was supporting. That was very difficult for him. My wife and I, we cared and loved Russell and Collette and their family. We came to a point where I didn’t want to be a burden, I knew he was stressed and worried about taking care of people. I had a conversation with my wife, where I said I would rather keep our friendship, than have him feel stressed about supporting, having an opportunity for me to keep working there. So one day I kind of came into your office, and had a real chat. I probably said some things that, I wanted him to understand how important what he was doing was, and also I wanted him to understand that I was okay to leave. I didn’t want him to feel like he needed to provide for me. I would be fine to figure things out. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. Because it was at the point where you were helping so many people, really one hiccup you could have lost everything. All your savings was going back into the company and at some point you just can’t keep doing that. Russell: Yeah, I got really scared, but somehow we pulled it around. Brent: Pulled it around and obviously you had to make some tough phone calls and decisions that changed the company at that point. Russell: Basically we had to, we had 100 and some odd employees, we had all these wrestlers working for me, we had let go the whole wrestling team. We had to downsize. We shrunk from a 20,000 square foot building to 2000. It was rocky and scary but it gave us the ability to refocus and figure things out. Remember we went on a couple trips where we were trying to figure out who were the people still having success in our market. We jumped in a plane traveling to different people’s offices. We spent time with Ryan Dyson and Perry Belcher, trying to figure out what they were doing. With Alex Chafren, what they were doing. People who were our friends, just kind of used this time to figure out what’s actually working today and how do we shift our business model and change everything. It’s funny how much pain there was during that time. We flew to London. How important it was for the transition for what became Clickfunnels and everything else. Anyway, so many fun stories we could talk about forever. But we don’t have time for all those things. What I want to talk about a little today is, probably a year into the business when we first started growing, it’s funny I got a message today from Alex Chafren, he’s like, “You sound so calm.” Probably because we’re here in Hawaii but he was like, “I don’t know any other person running a hundred million dollar company that’s as relaxed and able to respond to people.” Anyway, when we first started, we didn’t know what we were doing. It was just kind of like, we know how to sell stuff. Started selling Clickfunnels, it started growing and all the sudden all sorts of new headaches came up with that. From a software standpoint with Todd and we brought in Ryan and they had to deal with infrastructure, ups and downs. I think based on ranking we’re the 700th most visited website in the world. But that’s not counting anyone’s custom domains. If you take away custom domains, we’re probably in the top 500 websites in the world. There’s not many humans on earth that have ever dealt with that kind of scaling and infrastructure. Todd had never done it, Ryan had never done it. They’re figuring this stuff along the way and we’re hiring consultants. On the marketing side we’re trying to grow and then all these things and as everything was growing one thing we didn’t have in place was any of the internal company business stuff. We were good sales people, good coders but we had to do that. It was funny because, you’d never had experience with that either though. Brent: Not really, no. Russell: We had this time where internally there were, everything was shaking and we said basically “Brent, we’re going to take you from affiliate management and you’re going to run this role.” And didn’t know what to expect, if it was going to work or not going to work. He was able to step into this thing and turned it really simplified. I’ve had zero stress about that part of the business since you took it over. From that time we went from 20 employees to I don’t even know where we’re at now. Brent: 135 or something. Employees and contractors, we got a few different folks. Russell: Lots of people. So I’d love to talk, first you step in that role and it was probably disorganized and stuff. What were your thoughts? What did you have to go and figure out? What’d you have to learn to be able to turn it into what it is now? Brent: I think the big thing is Russell’s vision for the company. We’d worked together long enough that I knew where he wanted to go. Even inherently just kind of knew. The big thing about Russell is his ability to surround himself with good people. That was the first part, evaluating who we have currently. Are they on the right seat on the bus, is a big part of that too. So we tested different things, and some things worked and some things didn’t work very well. We brought people and we started the phone stuff a little bit with the clickstart program and some of those guys were better than others and we’ve evolved that program. But the big thing about it is obviously support. We had, when you guys initially started hiring support team members, those guys were rock stars, and a lot of those guys are still with us today. They have evolved in their positions in the company because of their commitment and their love of Clickfunnels. I love when I get to interview and talk to people and when those individuals say, “I love Clickfunnels.”  That is the coolest compliment that we can get. When get people that raise their hand, they want to work with us because they love Clickfunnels, they love the mission, they love the ability to help people. I think the biggest challenge was how do we grow with it? Because the marketing side, was growing so fast, it’s important that we’re providing and helping our users and helping them have the best experience possible. Also, Clickfunnels isn’t just some easy push button software. It is easy to use once you understand it, but there’s a lot of different parts of it and understanding marketing is a big part of it. So we needed to bring on people who could understand Clickfunnels, who understood marketing and also understood Russell’s style, the way you were taking everything. Russell: It’s crazy because I think when you took over the role of that, it wasn’t just support but that was a big piece of it, obviously. There’s probably what, a dozen support people at the time? Brent: Yeah, there was probably about 6 to 10. Well, probably 10. Russell: 10 at the time. You found a way to take that….it’s funny because one of the criticism sometimes of Clickfunnels is “Support’s not live all the time. Awebber’s live.” Awebber’s been growing for 20 years. They probably get 4 new signups a day. Clickfunnels right now, it’s been a while since I looked at the stats, but it’s anywhere from 500 to a thousand sign ups a day, every single day. Coming to Clickfunnels and trying to learn this huge platform that runs your entire company. How do we stay in front of that. Our goal eventually is to get to the point where it’s real time support or as close to that as possible. But there’s no one else in our space that’s ever had to deal with that. That have grown companies that fast. Most big companies like Strive don’t have any support at all because they’re like, we can’t therefore we don’t. We still need to have that support and education and stuff like that in place. I think what you did initially, I know that Ryan was a part of this. Ryan Montgomery helped set this up initially too. But just for those that don’t have support teams or maybe have three or four people and are starting to scale something, you kind of broke people into teams. Do you want to talk about some of that initial stuff that you guys did there to make the scaling side of support easier? Brent: Yeah, so we moved over to Intercom, that allowed us to do like live support. It wasn’t right live, but people could submit conversations and we’d respond to them and that’s what we used to start. We’ve grown, our response time, that’s how we kind of gauge our success, our response time. There’s a lot of software companies that offer live support, from 8-5. Ours is essentially turned on 24 hours, we’ve got team members all around the world. When we initially started we actually had an international team and we had more domestic teams, but as we realized, and continued to scale and grow, we had more and more people international. We’ve got international folks on every team. We’ve got domestic folks on every team. So they can kind of work that schedule out as needed. But as we came in we saw the amount of conversations we had, these guys are answering 8-9 thousand conversations a week, our support team. It is crazy. Our billing support is unreal. We’ve got a team of billing support team members and most of them are in our office. We’ve got a few individuals who aren’t. But the big part of it is having leadership being in those positions. So every support team we have has a team lead who is the person we reach out to and help with training and they now can pass the messages and training on to the other team members. Russell: So how many teams do we have right now? Brent: So technical support teams, we have 8 technical support teams.  We have one billing support team. We’ve got one team that focuses on some other different partners we have and worked with in the past. We’ve got a team that helps with our Quickstart program, that’s a program people can signup with and it allows them to get some help on the initial setup and we’ve got a team lead that helps run that team. Russell: The thing that’s cool about this, for any of you guys who are scaling, in fact this is what happened at first when we were scaling. There was one person in charge and had 10 people underneath them and we were trying to grow and everything was growing and that person couldn’t handle any more growth. Because it’s hard to have more than 8 to 10 people you report to. You get bigger than that, it gets stressful and it’s really, really hard. So what Brent did, he came in and said, “Okay, the people we have that are rock stars, make each of those a team lead. And let’s put employees underneath each of those and the team lead can train the employees and make sure they’re doing good. And he’s only got to deal with the 8 or 10 team leads, deal with them and then they are dealing with the individual people. It gives us a communication channel to get through and now he’s not having 90 direct reports back to him. He just has the 8. Another cool thing we did recently, because the other big thing we have and some of you guys will have something similar with your businesses is, there was a competitor that has software that has pages that generate leads. Their software does one thing, there’s one button you can click and that’s it. It’s very, very simple. Clickfunnels is like, we’re building a landing page, your funnel, your shopping cart, your affiliate platform, your auto-responders, there’s 8 thousand things. For us, we can’t just hire someone in Boise, Idaho and be like, “Hey, now you’re a support person for Clickfunnels.” There’s such a learning curve they have to understand to be able to do that. So a couple of things, number one is that most of our hires come from people that are members of our software, which is a big thing for you guys to think through. In inner circle this comes up all the time. Where do I find rock stars? I guarantee the rock star you’re dreaming for is already a customer of your product right now. Look at your internal customer base for your rock stars, because they’re going to know your product, be passionate, they’re going to care more than someone you pull off the street. That’s number one. Number two is we needed, how do we train these people? I think initially each team lead just trained their people, and they were getting bogged down in the training and not being able to support and manage and stuff like that. So we talked about a new team that’s the training team, right? Brent: Well a big part of this that helped, Mark came up and helping work, he does a lot more direct work with the team leads. Russell: You guys know Mark Bangerter, he’s killing it, he’s awesome. Brent: You know he still kind of balances customer education and he helps with support management. So Mark came in and we had the idea, we brought new people on and initially they would slow down the rest of the team. So we pulled another team lead out, we pulled out Andrew Newman, and now his focus is just training. So as we bring new team members on, he’s focusing on those guys. As we look at, he doesn’t have anybody currently to teach, he’s reaching out to people who have been on the team and maybe lack knowledge about Backpack or Actionetics, and then he’s pulling those guys out and he’s doing training with those guys so that we can get everybody up to the same level. Russell: That’s cool. We did something like that back when we had our big call center before the big crash of what year was that? Crash or 08, crash of 09. Because we had 60 sales guys and the problem is the same thing. We’d hire sales guys off the street and someone’s gotta train them, so we had a training team. So every sales guy would come in and go through a two week training with Robbie Summers was the one that managed that and then the ones that were good we’d then put them on the floor under another team. And the ones that sucked, we’d just get rid of them. And that’s kind of the same thought here. Let’s bring people in and have someone who’s dedicated to training them and when they’re ready, then put them on a team so they can start running with it. Everybody’s opposed to pulling people back. It’s just crazy all these, these are all the things we’re learning as we’re growing and scaling. Someday we’re going to write a book about this whole journey and this whole experience, because I think a lot of times companies are built like, there’s a dude with an idea, they hire venture capitalists and bring in a management team, all this stuff and build a company. Whereas with us it was like raw passion and that’s what’s grown this whole thing and kept it afloat. It’s been a fun ride so far. Brent: It’s been an unbelievable ride. Russell: So I appreciate all your work and help and everything you do. Hopefully this gives some of you guys ideas as your growing your support teams or development team or management or whatever those things are. If you look at also, I had someone, it was Andrew Warner from Mixer the other day, he interviewed me, he’s like, “How are you able to write books and run a software company and do coaching and all these different things?” And the same thing is kind of what Brent mentioned earlier, I’ve gotten really good at surrounding myself with amazing people. Where I feel like it’s almost like there’s parts of the company that people are running. You’re running all the operational stuff, I don’t have to worry about that, the hiring and firing, the finding other people. Brent does that. So I just talk to Brent and then all the people stuff is taken care of. Todd and Ryan run the development team, Todd’s running it. I talk to Todd all the time, but it’s just happening and I don’t have to stress about that. I’m kind of running the marketing team. Dave’s running, there’s john, there’s probably 5 or 6 people that I deal with directly inside the company and I’m able to do the parts that I love the most, that I’m the best at. And I think a lot of us entrepreneurs and most of the people in those positions all get profit share and equity in the company and I think one of the big mistakes I made when I first got started was I was so protective, this is my, I wanted so much control over everything that I stifled everything. Whereas when I was able to give up control and bring in rock stars and people that have skill sets that I don’t and now, because they have a stake in the game, I don’t have to worry about everything, every decision, every single thing. I trust Brent. He makes a thousand decisions a day that I never even questioned or think about because I trust him. Same thing with Todd, they know they do that because they’re willing and able to do that. So I think a lot of you guys, if you’re struggling with growth, you don’t have the ideas, you’re not going to bring on venture capitalists and destroy your soul and you want to grow something. The opposite of that is bring on really smart people and give them a stake in the game. It’s kind of like Chet Holmes used to tell me, he said that in his company, everyone was based on a percentage of sales, there was no salary based people. He said what’s cool about that is that big months everyone gets big checks, small months everyone gets small checks but everyone’s in it together. I think that building teams that way is better than bringing in a bunch of money and hiring the right people, or hiring the best people. It’s hiring the right people and giving them incentive to where they can grow and do whatever they want. In fact, I’m going to share one thing. This is cool. Am I allowed to share this, I probably can. This was, we had these accountants, most marketers don’t like accountants, but we had these accountants and every year I’d have to go the accounting meeting and then they would always talk about all the stuff to do to try to lower your, anyway, it was super annoying. It was the worst meeting of my year, I would lose all motivation and momentum for an entire week because I was so stressed out. I remember driving home from one of those so pissed off at the accountants for trying to ruin my happiness in life. And I remember in this podcast, I have to go find it, but I was like, “My goal is I want, not only am I going to max out my tax bracket but I’m going to have everyone I know around me, all my partners, all the people that are pushing this, I want to max out their tax bracket as well.” We were talking about this earlier on this trip here in Hawaii, there’s probably half a dozen people or so on our team now, that have maxed out their tax bracket because of this whole concept that we’re talking about. That is the coolest feeling in the entire world. Brent: It’s pretty awesome. Russell: It’s pretty amazing. So there you go, Uncle Sam, there you go. Anyway, that’s all I got. You have anything else you want to add? Brent: No, I just think, you said unbelievable, it truly is every day. How cool is it to be able to come and work with friends and good people that, it’s just a positive place. Our company culture is a big deal and you drive that and it’s been really fun to see people come into our office or just come into our business, our space and feel that, and even those who just work remote, we’ve got a lot of team members that work remote, most of them are. And it can be kind of a lonely road out there, but we do things to try to help them feel the love. Russell will send swag to people and just unexpected things that make people feel the love and help them know we appreciate them and that’s a big deal. Russell: So here’s a question, for those who may want to join Clickfunnels team, how do they? Brent: We have a link on Clickfunnels, at the bottom of Clickfunnels under Careers, but we’re always looking. If someone out there is passionate, you want to be able to find a place with us, hit me up. You can hit me up on Facebook, email, brent@clickfunnels.com, send me an email. I can direct you where to go, we have application up. Russell: That’s awesome. Thanks man. So that’s a little behind the scenes of how the HR, the growth, the internal stuff, what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. Again, we’re just learning all this stuff along the way. Someday we’re going to write a book about it when it’s all done. Because the lessons we’ve learned along the way have been cool. So hopefully this gave you guys a couple of ideas and things as you’re growing and scaling your teams, and that’s all I got. Thanks everybody. Thanks Brent. Brent: Absolutely. Thanks guys. Russell: Bye.

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