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In this episode of the Building Texas Business Podcast, I speak with Amyn Bandali, CEO of Ivy Kids Systems. Amyn shares the story behind Ivy Kids, a premier childcare and education provider founded by his parents. He reflects on how their move to Pearland, Texas, and the challenges they faced finding quality childcare led to the establishment of their first school. Since then, the family business has grown to 20 locations, with 16 more under development. We discuss the decision to franchise the business, the importance of building a culture of empowerment within teams, and Amyn's philosophy on leadership. He explains how empowering employees with autonomy, transparency, and responsibility has been key to Ivy Kids' success. Amyn also talks about navigating challenges, including the impact of the pandemic, which required the business to pivot toward virtual programs and innovative approaches to childcare. The conversation highlights the critical role of early childhood education in shaping lifelong success, the importance of continuous innovation, and how technology like coding and robotics is being integrated into Ivy Kids' curriculum. Amyn also shares insights into managing a franchise system and the value of fostering strategic relationships and learning from setbacks. This episode is filled with practical lessons for entrepreneurs and leaders who aspire to create sustainable growth and a strong company culture. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Amyn Bandali is the CEO of Ivy Kids Systems, a premier childcare brand founded by his parents in Pearland, Texas, offering education from infants to pre-K and afterschool programs. The company was inspired by the founders' personal experience of struggling to find high-quality childcare when they first moved to the United States from Canada. Amyn joined the business in 2015 and initiated the franchising strategy, growing from 5 corporate locations to 20 total locations with 16 more under development. The company emphasizes a culture of empowerment, focusing on giving employees autonomy, transparency, and timely feedback while understanding the "why" behind strategic initiatives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ivy Kids pivoted to online learning and alternative programs, generating a million dollars in revenue for franchisees despite significant enrollment drops. The company is innovating its curriculum by incorporating coding, robotics, digital parent assessments, and classroom camera access to enhance early childhood education. Amyn's leadership style prioritizes empowering team members, setting clear visions, and allowing individuals to develop their own key performance indicators (KPIs). The company values continuous learning, participating in franchise associations, mastermind groups, and local business networks to share best practices. Amyn learned a critical leadership lesson during the pandemic about truly empowering his team by trusting them during challenging times. The company's educational philosophy is grounded in research showing the critical importance of early childhood learning in a child's development. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Ivy Kids Systems GUESTS Amyn BandaliAbout Amyn TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: Amyn, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business. Thanks for agreeing to come on the show. Amyn: Yeah, thank you for having me, Chris. Happy to be here. Chris: So you're the CEO of Ivy Kids Systems. Tell the listeners what Ivy Kids is. What do you do? What are you known for? Amyn: Yeah. So Ivy Kids, we are a premier childcare brand, not just a daycare where parents just come in to pick up and drop off. You know, we provide education and that's from the infant level, so as young as two months old, all the way to our pre-K program, which is five and six year olds. And then we also have an afterschool program as well, where parents pick up and drop off from elementary school. The kids come in for homework help. And we're next year celebrating our 20th anniversary. Chris: Congratulations. That is amazing. Amyn: Yes. So what was the inspiration to get into this primary childcare, education, afterschool learning? Where did that emanate from? Amyn: Yeah. So, you know, a little bit about our history. So Ivy Kids was actually founded by my parents, Allen and Layla. You know, we had moved from Canada to the States or to Houston in 1995, and we lived in Pearland. So, as you're probably aware with Pearland, it experienced massive growth during that time. You know, 518 had one stoplight. Now it's a six-lane highway, it feels like. But you know, my parents, you know, with my brother and I being young children, they found out very hard time finding high quality care for us. You know, we would be in the daycare system, mom and pop childcare, quote unquote, you know, prestigious childcare program, and it was, you know, observation, where there was no learning going on, or my brother and I would, you know, be picked up and we'd have a bump or a bruise, and nobody would be able to point out why. Amyn: My parents being engineers and also having a history of entrepreneurship from their parents and their grandparents, you know, they thought about this industry and they thought, hey, we can do a better job of running high quality schools. So I like to say they reversed engineered the childcare. You know, they put a lot of thought, time and thinking, and over that course of 10 years from when we moved to Pearland, to 2005, we opened our first school, and that was in the Pearland area, and it did really well. So from that, we grew from that one corporate location to then five corporate locations. And then when I joined the business in 2015, and I can talk about the reasons why, but that was when we decided to franchise our brand. And, you know, today we are at 20 locations. We actually just opened our 20th location about a month ago and we have 16 under development right now throughout Texas and the Southeast United States. Chris: And, just curious, I mean, the 20 that exists in the 16 under development, how many of those are franchise versus corporate owned? Amyn: Yeah. So we still own all of the corporate locations today. We are at five corporate locations and we are at 15 franchise locations. You know, I think one of the things that shows maybe a strong brand and, you know, happy franchisees is folks opening their second or third locations. And even though we opened our first school in 2017, you know, that's been one of the great things to see. As a franchisor, you know, seeing folks open their second or third location, looking for sites for that. And that's kind of where we are right now in the evolution of the business, which is really exciting to see. Chris: That sounds exciting. So you're going back to the beginning in listening to the story you were telling about your parents. Yeah. It sounds like a very common entrepreneurial inspirational moment where they see a gap and figure out a way to fill that gap or need, right? And in this case, you know, quality childcare. Amyn: Yeah, absolutely. You know, they saw a lot of great things about this business, which really stand today. And it's, you know, if you do right by that family, you do right by that child, you know, you're having that parent for 10 years from when they're infant to that afterschool program. You know, they saw that childcare is a need, not a want. You know, if you have a dual income family, you have to put your child somewhere where, you know, they'll feel safe where they're learning. And from that they saw a need in building their first Ivy Kids to, well, there's so much research out there about the importance of education at an early age that then, you know, catapults a child into future learning, future success, as opposed to not getting that in the early ages. Chris: And the kind of the downward trajectory of the backing cause. Amyn: Yeah. I mean, there's some amazing studies. There was one that was done about eight years ago by Harvard University that basically said 95 percent of who you are is from the first five years that you were born. You know, everything from what your passions are to your ability to learn. So much of that comes from those first five years. And then if you think about, hey, what is the best return on investment then for my education? It's not necessarily those prestigious universities that does have a high rate of return, but the best ROI actually that a family can spend, that a government could spend is that first five years and getting that part right. Chris: Right. You know, if you're doing that, then you are truly building that foundation. And I think that's one of the drivers for why, you know, why families make a decision. You know, they're looking for, they're seeing the benefits, they're understanding more and more of, you know, the link between high quality learning and how their child is going to do. And they're making a smarter decision now with where they're choosing to enroll their child. Chris: So let's go a little bit, so we understand your parents' inspiration. You alluded to this, but I don't understand what drew you into the business. What were you doing before and what was it that caused you to leave that to step in and kind of take over? Amyn: Yeah. So by the time we had opened our first school, I was in, you know, college or close to college and seeing the business up front, you know, seeing the ability to build your own path, create your own destiny, working in the business from everything, from us assembling the furniture when we were opening our first school, actually laying the grass and the sod down in order for us to get our CEO inspection passed, you know, I was just so enthralled by it. I was so excited about it. The ability of owning something and really charting your destiny. And that really didn't leave me. You know, in college, I also took a job. It was with Student Agencies, which is a business run by undergrads and I did sales there. And that also really excited me too. Amyn: And then, you know, I kind of went the route that a lot of students at Cornell did for undergraduate business, which was pursue finance, look at the business consulting route or the investment banking route. And, you know, I learned a lot going down that path, but I missed being in that small business, you know, really building something that was my own working with a dynamic team and a small team. And, you know, I think building some of that foundation, this amazing opportunity came that was presented by my dad to say, hey, let's franchise the business. You know, we've got something great going. This would be an amazing opportunity for other like-minded people to open their own locations and thrive. Amyn: And I just thought, man, this marries what I did earlier. I've got a bit of foundation for working at larger organizations. You know, maybe there's something there and it turned out to be a good decision. Chris: Very good. That's a great, I love the story and how you were able to, I think it's important. You got an education and you got real world experience outside of that, right? To then bring that into and maybe help professionalize a little bit the company, especially as it was launching into being a franchisor. Amyn: Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, working with the team, let's talk a little bit about, you know, some of the ups and downs that you've experienced and maybe you saw your parents early on experience and building the team around you so that the company can achieve that success. Because if I know anything about hiring, it's an imperfect thing, right? Is that part science, part art? But you do your best to get it right. So tell me, let's talk a little bit about those experiences, you know, what you've learned from that. Amyn: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, going into small business entrepreneurship, there's very much a feeling of working in the business, you know, being so kind of head down and focusing on, hey, how do we survive today? And, you know, I think when you're joining or launching a new business, which really was the franchising part of our business was a brand new business, you are really thinking in that lens and that mindset. And I always feel like hiring, building an infrastructure, it just allows you to think more long term and that just prolongs the lifespan of your business too. So I think making those right strategic hires as soon as we have that capital, thinking ahead about, hey, where do we want to be in the next 5, 10 years and investing in those people and really giving them the freedom and empowerment, you know, to expand their careers, expand their responsibilities as you're seeing them master their role. Amyn: I think that really helped, you know. So one book that I read early on about a year or two after I joined the business was Traction by Gina Wickman. Sure. You know, the entrepreneurial operating system. I mean, that's something that we do today. And I think that was foundational in how I look at people, helping the assistant. Hey, do we have the right people in the right seats? And then are we creating a culture of empowerment? You know, I think about what attracted me to Ivy Kids and starting this franchising part of the business. And it was this idea of taking ownership, having accountability, you know, maybe having a little bit too much rope. Chris: Right. Right. Amyn: And I just think, hey, at a size that we are, those are probably the people that I'm going to be attracting to. And how can I create that where if I were in their shoes, I'd want to be a part of this business. And I think some of that where, hey, there's alignment on goals, but hey, you have the empowerment and you have the ability to achieve it and how you achieve it and how you get to that final product is up to you. You know, I always feel like that allows you to really grow people, especially when you're smaller, maybe you have that limited capital base, you know, and now you can start thinking strategically about your business and then your business can really grow. Chris: So I love that term culture of empowerment. Let's talk about culture. You know, everyone agrees culture is king, right? And every book you read and each strategy, you know, all those clichés. What have you done to kind of foster and build this culture of empowerment within Ivy Kids? Amyn: You know, I think of myself as a generalist. And I think of myself as, hey, I am not the best person in any department. And I think as you grow as a leader, that is just what naturally happens. You know, you have to build a team of people that are smarter, more experienced. I would say better than you in each of these divisions in each of these areas. Amyn: So I think just thinking, hey, if I'm growing or if the business is growing, I have to increase the skill sets of everything around me and I have to play more of that generalist mindset. And with that, it's let me bring these people on and have and let them be the experts in the subject matter experts of what they're doing now. Amyn: Alignment and vision and where we are and ensuring that, hey, prove to me that you can do this job is still very important. Sure. You know, We still need to have check-ins and make sure that, hey, are we all marching in that direction and where we want to go as a company. But at the end of the day, I do think that people are more passionate if they feel a sense of ownership, if they can look back and see, "Oh, I or my team accomplished this." I'm getting praise for those kinds of things. You know, one of the things that we do, we have quarterly town halls and we do shout outs, and it's a thing that I love. We just had ours on Friday. And, you know, the team gives each other shout outs, but I think when people are empowered and we are able to showcase, you did a great job and this is why, and this is what your team is doing, is getting the company moving forward, is amazing. And that might be harder to create that visibility as a company grows. But it is something that I like to keep on the forefront of my mind because empowering people, it's just like this flywheel of positivity, right? Chris: Right. Amyn: It just, it's like the snowball or flywheel effect. It just grows upon itself. You know, the shout outs that you mentioned, I don't think it can be overstated, the value in just simple recognition. Private recognition is great, but the public recognition amongst someone's peers, I mean, it doesn't replace cash rewards, but some people value it as much or more, right? And I think that you would take the time to do that in a thoughtful way, and I can see where that would inspire your people to do more, right? Or, well, gosh, your coworker got it. I'm going to do something so that the next quarter I get it. And it just, to your point, that flywheel effect, it just creates this atmosphere and culture of wanting to achieve and be successful. ADVERT Hello friends. This is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas Business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations, and business leaders? Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the BoyerMiller.com and thanks for listening to the show. Amyn: The other thing I heard you say is there's a key piece of autonomy to create the culture of empowerment within Ivy Kids and giving your people the autonomy to go do what they do, what they've been hired to do without being micromanaged. Chris: Yeah, that's exactly right. Amyn: I mean, I always think back to when I first started out, you know, in my career, you know, as an investment banking analyst, you know, you're spending 80, a hundred hours a week, you're working on these pitch decks. You're grinding until 2 a.m. You're working on this project and now all of a sudden you have this package, you deliver it to your managing director and then they go to a meeting and you never hear back. You come up from the dungeon, right? Chris: Exactly. Amyn: And I always was like, hey, you know what, I wonder what that client thought or if that what I did had an effect. And you know, that's that part where I'm like, well, am I doing that as a leader? And am I these blockages? You know, because people want to learn and people want to be in those meetings. I think everybody wants to be in that meeting and see where their work is leading to. And I just always think, hey, if I were working for me when I was starting off, would I have liked myself as a boss? Chris: Right. Amyn: And that also means, hey, clear vision of where that person is heading. What am I doing right? And what am I not doing well? You know, I think feedback transparency, you know, I really try and instill that criticism is not a negative word, you know, problems are not bad. You know, problems are just identifications of what we can all do better. Chris: Right. Amyn: I like hearing problems to not, you know, and that could be a, you know, what we're doing and just what's going on within the organization. You know, what the way I would phrase what I just heard you say is about, it's about mindset, right? You can view someone's performance from a positive mindset or a negative mindset and say, look, okay, this didn't go well, but that's a learning moment. Let's find the learning as opposed to chastise and criticize and beat someone down. Chris: Yeah, right. And I think, you know, same situations handled, you know, one versus the other can encourage and empower someone to want to do better or discourage them to, you know, put their tail between their legs and maybe leave, even leave your organization when it's not someone you necessarily want to leave. Amyn: Yeah, and this is a thing that comes over time. It comes with empowerment. It comes with, you know, celebrating that publicly. It comes with a culture of positivity. You know, it is also something that I feel like is so important when you are owning a small business, when you're opening a business is separating yourself and your identity and ego in some ways from your business. Chris: Right. Amyn: You know, it's something that I, you know, try and share with our franchisees when they're opening a school and they're having a quality assurance visit or their first, maybe, you know, not ideal interaction with the parent. I mean, there's a real personal feeling there. It's easier said than done, right? Chris: It is. Amyn: But I, to your point, very important to do. So let's kind of dive into some of those subjects because you start the franchise part of the business, I think you said 2017. So it seems to me you're getting it off the ground. It's going well. And then a global pandemic hit. So let's talk about managing through kind of uncertainty, economic downturn, especially when your business is predicated on kids coming into a public, basically facility and gathering together when that wasn't going on. Amyn: Yeah. I mean, I remember March of 2020, I think our average school enrollment was about 200 children. And I think it went to 40 in two weeks, so very stressful period as you can imagine. You know, and one thing that I learned from the pandemic or from our team and in business is you can really pivot on a dime. You know, and I think that's something that I've taken from me too is we went to online learning, you know, for two, three hours every day we were able to orient the company in that direction. You know, it ended up generating a million dollars of revenue for our franchisees, which was a benefit. You know, we were able to do things like private kindergarten. We were able to do a virtual program for elementary school children. They were able to come in our schools and do the virtual learning from the elementary teacher at our schools, and everybody was separated apart. Chris: Wow. Amyn: So we were able to come up with revenue-generating ideas. We weren't able to make up entirely for the lost revenue due to COVID. But we were able to do some really amazing things and stay in really close communication with our franchisees. Yeah. Because as you know, each city, each state had their own requirements. Chris: Right. Amyn: I think I learned a lot from that, that, hey, if you've got a long-term goal, a long-term plan and things change within your business, that doesn't mean you don't change your goal. You know, you can orient things, you can turn things on a dime. And, you know, although things have returned to normal and in many respects, right? Or pre-COVID, I think the learnings from that have helped our innovation and just saying, hey, let's push a little bit more. Let's try a little bit more. Chris: I love it because I think the lesson there is despite what comes at you, whether it was in your control or not, there's always opportunity. Amyn: So again, it goes back to mindset. I thank you. Okay, get the team, you or your team together and go, okay, where are the opportunities out of this that we probably wouldn't have seen before? And I think, like you said, you see so many people, especially in your industry. Now that kids are back in your facilities, it doesn't take away the opportunities for online learning you can do. Chris: Right. Amyn: And it's just added revenue. Chris: Yeah, that's right. You know, I think, you know, a franchisee, they open and they think, oh man, you know, these problems are just centered around me and oh my gosh, I'm opening a business. And it's luckily now you're around 20 years of experience of us operating, but also imagine those franchisees that had that same feeling and they opened during 2020, 2021, right? Amyn: Where we had to do everything virtual. So, you know, I think, you know, a business owner, you have to be an optimist. You have to look for, hey, what are ways that either I could turn this around or generate some revenue. Growth mindset is just so important. Chris: Yeah, so true. So you mentioned innovation. What are some of the things that you have done or that you may be doing now to kind of foster innovative ideas, innovative thoughts within your team that you can then implement with your franchisees, etc.? Amyn: You know, I think so much of that comes from our goals and seeing, hey, what can we continue to do to further differentiate ourselves as being the leading provider of early childhood education? Right. I mean, you look at our curriculum, you know, we have a lot of, you know, mom and pops that are great, you know, and in varying levels of quality and large franchise organizations too. Right. And what you find is there has not been a great deal of innovation in the curriculum space and in education, you know, so really it's us thinking at things differently, like, hey, just because everybody else is doing the same thing. Chris: Right. Amyn: That grounded in the research of today? Right. Does that relate to the teachers of today? What children need to learn in order to be successful in the elementary school, middle schools in the communities that they're in today. I think just always trying to understand the why, you know, I think why is one of the most important questions that you can ask. And that's really what I do in the meetings is understand, hey, why are we doing this? How are we doing this? You know, I think that generates a lot of thought within our team. Then once we have those strategic tools in place, we have those systems in place. Okay, then what is our cadence to see how we're executing on it and seeing how we're going within that? Amyn: So I always think goal setting at the year, understanding what those rocks are each quarter, but then, hey, just because it's a status quo does not mean that's good enough. You know, so even in our curriculum, implementing coding and robotics, parent assessments that are digital. So you can see every, you know, every month, every two months, exactly what your child's doing in the classroom. Camera access. So as a parent, you can see exactly what's going on in your child's classroom. You know, those are not just tried and true things. Those are things that came from great communication with our parents, a team that is, you know, flexible, forthinking about what they would want to see as a parent and then great execution. Chris: Wow. That's great. So you mentioned robotics. I've got to ask, what are you doing or kind of what's on the horizon as it relates to your curriculum and your delivery of this, your childcare and child education, early childhood education as it relates to AI? Amyn: Yeah, I think that's a great question. You know, I think tools like AI are amazing. You know, there's so much that you can do in regards to communication, idea generation. You know, I think for us is just, hey, when it comes to technology, you know, how do we ensure that children today are well-equipped for their technological future? So when we talk about coding and robotics, it's not just sitting in a computer and coding, you know, for it. It's even from that two or three-year-old level of doing logic puzzles, if-then statements. If I take a certain input and I am bringing code puzzles to it, what do those outputs look like? So it's a great way of them to manipulate in a coding language, but not also spending time in the computer and being in front of a screen too, which also which shows you know, a negative impact due to research for that young and FNH, right? We're making steps towards that direction. We are not diving full ahead, you know, to me, it's one thing to be first in an area, but I'd rather do it best, right? And I'd rather do it where, you know, we're not just testing things on children, but we are providing something that is impactful. That's based on research that we know we can implement really well. And I think you're going to continue to see growth in that area, too. You know, other things is just back to a naturalistic component, having things like gardens in our schools, you know, teaching children, hey, the food does not just come from H-E-B. It comes from the ground, and this is why. So, you know, I think innovation is a big part of it. Chris: That's great stuff. I mean, I can imagine parents get excited about hearing about that fundamental learning that their kids are going to get to experience with you. Amyn: Yeah, absolutely. Building strategic relationships, you know, partnerships and things that you have, you know, obviously relationships with franchisees, but other key, you know, advisors or relationships you have. Let's talk in the context of the value you've seen in that, how you think that's helped grow the business and how you lean on those, you know, from time to time to get you through to the next stage, if you will. Chris: Yeah. I mean, I think you always want to be around people that are adding to your skill set and have exceptional talents in those skill sets. You know, I think about continual learning. Luckily, in franchising, it's an amazing model and way for people to share best practices. You know, the IFA International Franchise Association has amazing resources, especially for emerging franchisors. They have great conferences and that's a great way to share ideas. Amyn: You know, I'm part of a mastermind group of franchisors, 50 to 100 units. And just learning and seeing what best practices that they do. You know, they advocate a lot for transparency within a franchise system. Franchisees sharing what their P&Ls look like. What's going well, what's not going well in the business. And franchisees learning from each other and sharing best practices. You know, that's something that is important. We're implementing more in our business with benchmarking and KPIs and performance groups. Even being part of a local community, you know, I'm part of a Vistage group here in Houston. Chris: That sounds like an amazing asset. Amyn: Yeah, I think that is an amazing asset, going and meeting people in person, seeing their businesses, touring their locations. You know, I think sometimes being an entrepreneur, being a CEO can be a very isolating experience. Chris: For sure. Amyn: You know, all the fingers are pointing at you and all the hard questions come to you too. So being able to learn from others. I mean, learning from mistakes is great. Then you're not making them and they're less costly. So I'm always about trying to learn from other people. Chris: You alluded to one of my favorite questions there. So I always, I like to ask a guest, cause I do, we do learn from mistakes and it is nice if you can learn from someone else's, but has there been a setback or something you would describe, you know, a mistake or, you know, again, learning moment, like I mentioned earlier you've encountered? And let's talk about what that was, but what did you do to overcome it? What was the learning and how did it make you better? Amyn: You know, I think the learning that I encountered is not stepping into the business. And I think my idea of being a generalist came from mistakes, you know, being young and eager, wanting to jump in, hey, I can write this operations manual because I've spent time in the business or, you know, hey, use this marketing plan or this idea because it worked for me. You know, I think the big one was COVID early on. Oh my gosh, I was seeing the business totally transform. I felt the need to be in this. I need to be a wartime, you know, CEO or senior member. I need to be here. I need to be calling the franchisees. And really, our team had great ideas and approaches and they were thinking about the business and their fears around the business in a similar way that I was. Chris: Right. Amyn: Yeah. And the moment I snapped out of it was, hey, this training is great. I mean, but think about X, Y, and Z that the franchisee is going through. And I had my operations person tell me that. And I think it was a, oh my gosh, I've sucked myself into this business. Yes, there was a big change, but I talk about empowering my people. That also means not just when moments are good, but when moments are bad as well. So I think that goes both ways and people and relationships strengthen sometimes when you're giving someone the rope when the business is not going that well. Chris: Right. But I mean, that's powerful. I can certainly see how that was an aha moment for you. And again, for your people, right? That you trusted them enough in those times had to go a long way. Amyn: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's kind of like war stories during COVID or the up and down, but, you know, having a kind of a business history and having institutional knowledge, I mean, those are amazing tenants. You know, a franchisee joins, they have now someone on the operations team that's been with you for 20 years. But you're also incorporating, you know, newer people who are excited about the culture that we're trying to build. That's really important. Chris: Yeah. Well, I think you've talked around this, but just to kind of crystallize it, I do want to ask, how would you describe your leadership style and how do you think that's changed or evolved over time? Amyn: That's a really good question. I mean, I would say I like to empower people, you know, I like to set goals and a vision. You know, we have a vision of where we want to be as a company, and I want to understand what people think and how they see us getting there. And I want us, and I'd like to see that individual develop KPIs. What they think are the right metrics. And I want to understand the rationale behind that. And then we'll get together and figure out alignment there. But I like to see how people think. I like to see thinking. I want a demonstration of why they are getting to that problem or what their reasoning is around that problem. Chris: That makes sense. Amyn: Then we check in and I let them do it. I always think about how I, you know, if I was the low man on the totem pole, how empowered would I feel? You know, what are my responsibilities? And I think that attracts, you know, passionate people. Chris: Yeah. Amyn: And that's what I want to see. I want to see passion because I'm giving that responsibility. You know, as you were talking, it made me think. You know, we talked about learning from bad experiences or, you know, maybe learning, seeing something and going, okay, I experienced this, but I don't want to repeat that. And I can't help but think you learned so much as an early analyst and how you were treated. Chris: Yes. Amyn: You go, if I'm ever in a position of leadership, I'm not going to do these things. And it probably serves as a good reminder and a guidepost for you. Chris: Yeah. Amyn: To say, no, you know, remember what I didn't like, and let's do the opposite. Chris: Right. Amyn: Yeah, you learn a lot from great managers and you learn a lot from not so great managers. Yeah. And, you know, I think I had a lot of those on my bucket list and I think a lot of just reflection too. I mean, you know, I really try and take feedback and I really try and understand. Hey, you know, I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes and I think it's just, hey, let me try not to make that same mistake a second time. Chris: Right? Amyn: But you know, the sad truth is you're going to make some more, as will I, and the goal is trying to make the same one twice, right? Chris: That's right. I mean, this has been great. What an exciting business you have going. I want to, before we wrap up, I just always like to ask a few, you know, maybe less serious questions. What was your first job outside of Ivy schools? Amyn: My first job was a company called Student Agencies, in college. I sold ad space on the maps that you'd see around the Ithaca campus and these brochures. And I also helped with marketing promotions. A promotion I actually dressed up in a mascot outfit was a big light bulb because it was for an entrepreneurship idea competition. Chris: That's great. Amyn: So, I was a light bulb for a few weeks around campus. Talk about humility, right? Chris: That's right. And if you sold ad space for a brochure, I have to believe you got used to hearing the word no. Amyn: Oh man, yeah. No is common. No is very common. Chris: Okay, so, grew up in Pearland, you know, Texan as you can get, so do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Amyn: Oh, Tex-Mex for sure. Chris: Something you missed when you were up in Ithaca, I guess. Amyn: Oh, man, yeah. You didn't see much Tex-Mex over there. Chris: Well, I mean, this has been a great conversation. Congratulations on the success of the family business and where you've taken it, you know, since joining and the franchise side of things. Really appreciate you sharing that story with us and wish you the best success in the future. Amyn: All right. Thank you so much, Chris. I enjoyed it. Special Guest: Amyn Bandali.

In today's episode of Building Texas Business, we sit down with Jerry Mooty, the CEO and Principal of @properties, Christie's International Real Estate in Dallas and Austin. Jerry takes us through his remarkable journey from managing partner at a law firm to heading a major real estate brokerage. He shares how resilience and adaptability allowed him to steer his business through the 2008 financial crisis and leverage opportunities arising from the pandemic. Jerry also provides insights into growing his firm through innovative hiring strategies and technological platforms that streamline agents' work. We explore lessons learned around overcoming adversity, strategic partnerships, and balancing operations with culture. His story offers a candid look inside one industry titan's challenges and triumphs in managing debt, acquisitions, and new ventures in sports and entertainment. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Jerry Mooty shares his transition from being a managing partner at a law firm to creating and growing a real estate brokerage, including the challenges faced during the 2008 financial crisis and opportunities leveraged during the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss Jerry's innovative business model that hires agent-attorneys and how it differentiates his brokerage in a competitive real estate market. The episode covers the technological advances at @properties, such as the Platform, which incorporates AI and a suite of tools to increase agent productivity. Jerry reflects on managing $60 million in personally guaranteed debt and the strategy behind transitioning to a debt-free business structure. Strategic partnerships and the process of acquisitions, especially in the technology sector, are explored along with Jerry's experience in due diligence and venture capital dynamics. Jerry discusses the significance of cultivating a company culture focused on employee well-being and the shift in his leadership style from operations to creating an enjoyable work environment. We touch on the importance of friendships in Jerry's professional journey and how they've influenced his career decisions and leadership approach. Challenges facing traditional real estate agencies like Remax are considered, with a focus on adapting to technological advancements and market changes. Jerry provides insights into his personal preferences, revealing his fondness for barbecue over tex-mex, adding a personal element to the conversation. The conversation highlights Jerry's efforts in expanding his business, including the recent launch of a sports and entertainment division and developer services to cater to specific client needs in the real estate market. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About @properties,Christie's International Real Estate GUESTS Jerry MootyAbout Jerry TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode you will meet Jerry Mooty, ceo and principal of App Properties, christy's International Real Estate in Dallas and Austin. Jerry, by anyone's definition, is a serial entrepreneur, having started a law firm, credit card processing company, real estate development company and now a real estate brokerage firm. And Jerry tells aspiring entrepreneurs expect the unexpected. Jerry, I want to thank you for taking the time to come on and welcome you to building Texas business. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me. Good to see you too. It's been a while. Let's just start. You know you've done a number of things and we'll get into some of that, but currently, what's the business that you've started and you're currently today? Jerry: So Jerry Mooty from Dallas have a business now in the residential real estate brokerage industry. So I compete with Compass and some big national brands that most of the listeners will know about. Chris: And that company's called App Properties right. Jerry: Yes, sir, it's called App Properties Christy's International Real Estate. So we kind of have a working on that. Chris: And I know you're kind of got the Dallas area covered, but I think you've also recently expanded into Austin. Jerry: Yeah, so we started in Dallas proper with our headquarters, and then we opened a second office in Frisco, texas, and then we just recently, in the fall of 2023, opened up Austin, texas. Chris: So you know, as a recovering attorney, what was it that inspired you to get into the residential brokerage real estate business? Jerry: So, interesting enough, you kind of know my history, but I founded a law firm when I was 28 and I grew that into about 60 lawyers in four cities. As the managing partner, I started doing a lot of deals for the partners as opposed to practicing law, and I went down several paths. I had a litigation support company that I founded and grew that for the partners and then, you know, ironically got into a real estate development a little startup where I had a home building division building spec homes and I had a commercial division where I was doing some commercial projects. Raw land development had a resort under contract in Bernie, but, like a lot of people in real estate, 2009, 2010 came and that was the end of my glory days in real estate. All right. Chris: So then, what led you to? You know, get involved with app properties and then take this down, go down this rabbit trail. Jerry: Sure. So in 2012, I sold my interest in the law firm back to the partnerships. I didn't want to go back to practicing full time and then did quite a few different entrepreneurial things from about 2013 to about 2019. Any you know, I had a credit card processing company, backed by the Jones family, called Blue Star Payments that merged in with a tech company and we rebranded Blue Star Sports. We were backed by some pretty large VC firms Bain Capital and GenStar partners and Providence Equity and then obviously, the Jones family. So we acquired about 27 companies in about three years and then we sold that company in 2017. Then I was kind of looking for the next thing and I became the chief business and legal officer for a Silicon Valley tech company for a couple of years. They were in a big money raise and it wasn't going so well and I was deferring comp. So I started looking at what I was going to do next. One of the people in my network is a ex litigation real estate litigator. She had gone on and got married, had kids, got a real estate license and had a brokerage here in Dallas and her model was she was going and convincing unhappy lawyers to get the real estate license. So she had about 10 agents slash attorneys as her brokerage and she approached me to come in and run her brokerage for kind of like I did the law firm. So that piqued my interest enough so we went down that path. Sadly we didn't get to execute our documentation because they ended up having a divorce situation. And then two weeks later COVID hits and so I'm waiting to take my real estate license and not sure what I'm going to do after that. Come out of the first 90 days of COVID, the market's red hot, so I hang my license, I start doing deals for my network friends and start marketing myself as an agent. All the meanwhile I'm looking for something to buy or to own or start, and so that led me through developer relationship here in Dallas to the ownership group of at properties out of Chicago. They made that introduction, flew up and met with them and really fell in love with not only the brand and the culture but also the technology that they had built. Chris: Amazing story. There's a lot to dive into there. I may definitely want to go back some, but let's stay with that properties for now. And yeah, so you that's a. It's born out of COVID, I guess. Tell us, though you know, because I know just from you, know keeping up with you and then reading on the website you've experienced some like amazing growth in the last, I guess, three and a half years. Let's talk a little bit about that. And in talking about what you've done that you think has helped accelerate it, let's talk also about the maybe the pains with growing so fast. Jerry: Sure. So as I was looking to own something and this opportunity came up, I negotiated to purchase, you know, the North Texas territory. But I wasn't really prepared to launch because it was just me and I hadn't done a whole lot of recruiting. But I had some real estate deals in the pipeline that I needed to leave the current brokerage I was at before I papered those up. So I ended up launching at properties by myself just one agent, and got temporary space and, you know, true entrepreneurial spirit started recruiting, putting in my support team, landed a pretty big compass team right out of the gate and that kind of helped accelerate the visibility. And so the first, you know, six months we grew to 10 agents by Christmas. So it wasn't, we weren't a big brokerage, but we were putting things in place. By the next year we were about just under 40 agents. So we had a really good, successful year and, you know, quadrupling our size and then last year 2023, we doubled again to about 80 agents in Dallas. So we've been kind of there's been some faster growth brokerages, but we're very we're considered more luxurious. Our agents are more high producing agents and they take a little longer to transfer from one brokerage to another based on their pipeline and their restrictions. So now that we're three and a half years into this and Austin's really kind of been a little bit of a catalyst in the last six months because initially that territory wasn't available there was a Christie's affiliate there my corporate partner asked me if I wanted Austin about a year and a half ago. I said yes and so I started putting the play pieces in place and we launched that in September. We've added quite a few agents in the first 120 days over 70 something agents there. So all in we got about a hundred agents in Dallas, about 70 in Austin. So that's the good side of the business. The headaches, as you know as an entrepreneur, are several and many. Too many to list, but we'll cover a few. My most recent success story is I just hired a controller after three and a half years. So I've been doing the books, reporting to corporate, paying the royalties, paying the checks, paying the agents. So those are the things. As an entrepreneur, you really you put your blood, sweat and tears into these businesses and then you have to get to a certain level, to where you could start to relieve yourself of some of these pains. Chris: Yeah, that's so true, jerry. A lot of the people that I've had on before say exactly that that it's one when you're starting out, you're not big enough to outsource it or to hire for it, so you got to do it. But then it's getting to that point when you even when you are big enough and can afford it the level of trust and hiring the right person to hand off those key aspects of the business, so it frees you up to do the things as an entrepreneur or the visionary you want to be doing. So let's talk about that. What was it that you think helps get to a level of trust and comfort that it's time to hand off and it's the right person to hand off to? Jerry: Yeah, I think, based on my background of being an entrepreneur, you make a lot of friends and you kind of know. You learn the hard way. You hire the wrong person a few times and then, as you get older and more seasoned, you kind of know what to look for. In this instance, with that properties, I hired somebody I'd known for 35 years to come in and be my director of agents. I've known her since the SMU days, so the trust was already built in and then you're just very selective as you add the pieces to the puzzle to get those right people in place. So in half years we've let one or two people go, but we've been pretty successful in hitting the mark. Chris: That's great. So 70 agents or so you said. Have you started to implement any kind of processes that help with the integration process as you bring in these new people, so they understand kind of what the expectations are, what the benefits are for making the move? I mean, so where are you and what's the process you've gone through to kind of make that more institutionalized? Jerry: So the background for at properties and the corporate support we have is pretty important in how we've gotten here. They're a 25 year brokerage. They're the eighth largest in the country before acquiring the Christie's affiliate network, so they kind of had the processes in place. So it's buying. Whenever you buy a franchise and you wanna go down this path, you kind of get a little bit of assistance from and some help along the way on someone else putting the right pieces in place. I think what we've done a great job is integrate and implement those things that they've brought to the table, which I think revolves around a lot of our culture. You know, I think culture is so important in any business you have and so it's just we have fun things called at love, local events that came from corporate. So we'll pick a merchant somewhere in our geographical area, we'll partner with them, we'll send out a marketing campaign. Let's say it's a coffee shop and then whoever shows up at that coffee shop, our agents are there and we're running a tap for a coffee or a Danish in the morning. So that's kind of the community outreach piece. We use the word love strategically in all our marketing. So we say bringing the love to Dallas, bringing the love to Frisco and those types of things. So you know, recruiting is probably once you get the, once you get your overhead stabilized and your office space and those types of things. This is a business about relationships and recruiting. So I would say our two most important people outside of myself are our head of recruiting out of Frisco, head of recruiting out of the Dallas office, and so those have been very good hires. Chris: You know most, I think most businesses. It's hard to say they're not people, businesses or relationship, but certainly you know in the business you're in, where you're so customer facing right, you need good people that can go out and attract good customers, provide good service. But I have to imagine the last 18 months or so in residential real estate hasn't been the easiest. So can you talk a little bit about what you've done to help continue, promote one, promote the culture, to keep people positive and energized while managing through what has to have been a challenging time? Jerry: Yeah, absolutely so. Obviously we're all aware of how hot the market got, you know, a couple of years ago, you know, during COVID and post COVID. What that did in our industry is everybody wanted a real estate license because they saw all these transactions happen. So we had an influx of agents that came in that are young, inexperienced, but were here to make some money. And then, when the market turns, you kind of have the reverse effect. Those people were all eat what you kill, or 10, 9, 9 commissioned agents. They got to figure out how to pay the bills, and so we've had a pretty big exodus. Probably 15 to 20% of our agents across the nation have left the industry, and so that's been good for the sense of the people staying in it because you got less competition. But the ones that stayed in it most of them, have been through some of these ebbs and flows of the market, and so they kind of know how to prepare. And most of that revolves around when your transaction desk is slower, what are you ramping up to do? Are you ramping up your marketing, your postcard, social media content, are you revamping your website? And so those are all things that we, which the agents that work for us and part of our big, strong sales pitch based on the technology that we have. Chris: Got you Speaking of that on the marketing side, you know, are you seeing? I guess, one area or the other as far as marketing strategy work better, get more visibility or more return on investment. You see so much on social media, so it seems natural that that would be one, but I don't know if that's the leading one based on your experience or not. Jerry: Yeah, I think in pretty much every industry has been affected by the internet and no industry more so than real estate. I would say probably 10 years ago you saw a lot of print ads. You saw a lot of ads and you know business journals and those types of things trying to move property. But now it's really a digital world. We're using social media, we're using tools called AdWords, which is a retargeting tool to where it's essentially like if you went and looked at a pair of shoes at Nordstroms and then you left Nordstroms, those shoes are following you around. So we have the ability to target, geo track and geo target potential prospects and clients through our technology. Obviously, websites are important. Your collaboration tools that you're preparing a search for a prospect, like they're looking in this area for a certain price point. We have the ability to set those searches up and work with a prospect or a client on finding the home, ironically in the last price. I don't know when this started, but in the last year or so, almost 85% of buyers find the home they want before they hire an agent, or at least they zero it down based on how much information is on the internet. And so, really, as an agent, what you're trying to do is bring your expertise not only to get that transaction under contract, but then most of the work happens one second transactions under contract all the way through closing. Chris: Right, that is an amazing statistic 85%, but you're right. I mean, when everyone goes to the internet first, I think, to research or validate or do something. So it makes sense to me, but it's a big number. Sounds like you know here you use your work, technology and innovation and stuff quite a bit already since we started the interview. Some of this may have come from your franchise or some may have come from some things You're doing, but what are some of the things you believe are innovative in the way that you're operating the brokerage and helping your agents be successful? Jerry: Sure. So I think when you start understanding what different brokerages bring to the table in regards to support for their agent portfolio. Obviously marketing is a big one because they're pushing all the stuff out that we're talking about, but also the day-to-day operation of an agent is pretty important. Most brokerages large brokerages like Coldwell, banker, some of your biggest national brands are very antiquated when it comes to technology support. I would say there's two brokerages at the forefront. I'd say Compass is in second place and I think App Properties is in first place. And I say that because we've been building a technology stack called Platform, or our franchise or has, since 2003 and basically an agent logs in and does everything they need to do as an agent in one technology. When I interview agents and I show them the technology, they're blown away because they're in four or five, six different technologies throughout the day trying to get their social media posted or created, their transactions done over here, their docuSigns another technology they have to use, and we have everything in one place, and so that's been a real big selling point for us when we're recruiting these agents. Chris: Yeah, I mean anything to make your employees or, in your case, I guess, your contractor's life easier. Have you started to look into, or is this already incorporating any kind of versions of AI? Jerry: AI is already integrated. Nowadays, agents are always doing, as an easy example, they're doing descriptions of the properties. So now you can lean on AI to help you describe a $5 million house with five bedrooms, six baths by describing it into AI, and then it'll help you create that luxury description. So there's things like that. Obviously, our CRM has a lot of AI tied to it and so, yeah, that's the way of the future and it's getting more and more integrated and implemented into all our tools. Very nice, very nice yeah. Chris: All right. So I want to make you kind of reflect back. So yeah, this about, by your own description, not the first time you kind of started a new venture or stepped outside your comfort zone. So when you think about what you did I guess leaving, you know, maybe leaving the law firm or even some of the ventures you started while you were there, but going to credit card processing et cetera where are some of the lessons you learn through those ventures that you think prepared you for taking the step you did without properties and the steps you're taking now to grow so rapidly? Jerry: Yeah, I think if you're a serial entrepreneur like myself, I think the one thing you learn each time that you have an idea or you go down the path of starting something is you think you're going to get to the finish line a lot easier. It's your idea and you think you're going to do that. And I think probably in every instance including the law firm, including the credit card processing is one lesson is it just takes a lot to probably 10 times, 100 times more man hours and work and you got hurdles. That you're not expecting. But I think that's part of the reward too is why I'm built the way I am. You enjoy that when an obstacle comes and you get your way around it or over it. But I think you know frankly, it's probably what every entrepreneur says it's never as easy as you think it is. There's no get rich. You know we talked about most of what we do as lawyers and what I'm doing is a people game. You know you're hiring people and people disappoint, you know, and you're having to find different people sometimes, and so the lesson is just pride and expect the unexpected and you'll be okay and be able to sleep at night. Chris: I like that. Well, think about, is there a kind of a challenge or a failure setback that you can point to over the last, you know, 15 years, 20 years, whatever that you feel is maybe in some ways either a defining moment for you or one of the bigger learning moments that you got? You kind of got hit with a little headwind but you overcame it and because of that it's kind of helped propel you either in your own personal journey as a leader or, you know, in things you learned as an entrepreneur. Jerry: Yeah, I'd say you know, probably the biggest lesson learned of all time was me starting a real estate development company with a home builder and a commercial partner and, you know, diving into that with not a whole lot of experience, and so the challenge was obviously, in real estate, you're hoping to build something and sell it, and so the big challenges is if you build it and you borrow a bunch of money and you don't sell it. And so in 0809, 2010 is probably should have been my premier happiest days of my life. I'm on a law firm, I'm making some good you know coin on the law firm side, but I'm literally getting dragged through the mud financially on the real estate piece, and it's probably one of the reasons it's taken me 10 years to get back into it on the brokerage side, because I literally came out of that was some financial PSD. You know just could not sleep, you know got I mean health issues, depression, pretty much everything you can experience as an entrepreneur and so you figure out a lot about yourself when you're going through something like that, and you know you either stay in bed and talk about it or you pull up your socks and get out and try it again. Chris: That internal fortitude, you know I think any entrepreneurs got to have that or it's just not going to happen. I appreciate you sharing that. Were there some things that you did? You know that you know other than just I mean pure gutted out. You know, to help you kind of get through that. You know, leaning on family friends, I don't know. I mean I have to believe we've got some listeners and other people out there that you're going through the same thing. Jerry: Sure, I think where I lucked out was, you know, just to be frank, I was on about $60 million and personally guaranteed debt that was worth probably about 30 by the time I was trying to get out of it. So there wasn't going to be any family help. It was. It was hey with you, you know, in a loving way, of course. But when you dig a hole like that, you just got to figure out the best way out. And for me, where I benefited was I had a law degree and I was a lawyer and creditors could not touch the ownership interest in my law firm because it was tied to my license. So, through bankruptcy lawyers and all that stuff, I got educated on that and gave me the strategy to get through that situation and come out on the other end, which was one of the reasons I sold the interest of the law firm back to the partners, because that allowed me to have a little bit of a stream of income there in 2012, 13 and 14, while I got the credit card processing company going and getting these other things going. So there was, if there was, a silver lining, it was that fact, but it was still still pretty embarrassing financially and pretty embarrassing as a professional to really go through that over a three or four year period. Chris: You got to be hard but, like I said, I mean now that you've come through it, you know you can certainly appreciate the opportunities you have today and know that. You know I certainly probably learned some lessons of what to not do, going forward right. Jerry: Absolutely, I would say. The one lesson you learn in that scenario is you become a lot more frugal with your financial decisions and you know, especially in the banking industry, like one thing I'm proud of with that properties is we've never bought a bar to dollar. We got zero debt, and so those that's a probably a direct result of what I went through, you know, 15 years ago was I don't want to do another business where I got a bunch of debt and I'm trying to get that off and make money to live off of. Chris: That's great. So you mentioned earlier I think it was a credit card processing BlueStar, where you had some dealings with Bain Capital, and obviously you're dealing with a franchise or in this current business. So let's talk a little bit about maybe what you've learned through that. I kind of relate or maybe call those you know investors, partners, strategic partners. What have you learned as kind of some of the best ways to deal with them so you keep that relationship strong and healthy? And maybe it's something you know that happened that you're like I did this or they did. You know something that happened that soured the relationship, one they got to help our clients here at the firm you know, you know find themselves in those situations all the time, and so I'm curious you know what you know, what lessons you've learned through that process? Jerry: Yeah, so I would say getting involved in. And so when we had the credit card processing company, it was pretty a pretty simple model. We were going out and you know recruiting or or you know we're trying to sell merchants, you know restaurants Anybody who ran a credit card was it was a prospective client approached by a group who had an idea of buying up these technology companies in the youth sports space. So like, if you sign your kid up for soccer, you're there's usually a form and at the end of that form, whether it be the YMCA or anywhere else, you're paying a fee for your child to play that on that soccer team. So the model we had was take the credit card processing that we had built our own API and those types of things and bake it into a technology and go buy these companies. And interestingly, it was about how do you flip the model from a EBITDA and a multiple perspective. So these tech companies that weren't that large of companies because they were kind of geographically located, running different types of youth sports camps or whatnot, they weren't sophisticated enough and they were usually outsourcing their credit card processing to stripe or squares or something like that. So we would acquire these companies and bake in our own processing and from an ownership perspective, then that would change the multiple for maybe two times to 12 times because you have that reoccurring revenue stream coming into your business model. I literally probably learned more over that. First, 12 to 20 per month as we were acquiring these companies, doing due diligence on them, and I was the chief legal officer of the company, so I was in charge of all the due diligence. So we acquired 20 something companies and I bet I did due diligence on about 300 over two years. But it was really cool because I got to see what investors and power players in the venture capital market, how they looked at things and it's there's not a lot of emotion, it's numbers on paper and it's how do we make, how do we do this to this group of businesses, and then how do we sell it and make money. All about the return on investment, right. Chris: Exactly so. It's a. Jerry: It's very cutthroat which some businesses are, some aren't, but it was a great learning experience. I'd like to say I probably learned more in that two to three years Dealing with those big VC firms and listening to those meetings and kind of running point on due diligence than I probably learned in any other aspect of my life. Now, that's so, but that's so. Chris: Let's turn it back a little bit to app properties specifically. I know you've recently launched a new sports and entertainment division Tell us about that. What's going on behind that and what are you trying to accomplish so in the real estate brokerage? Jerry: world. There's different ways to market yourself right, and a lot of that boils down to your experience of your agent portfolio, and so some real estate brokerages are residential, some may just be commercial, but on our side we have, we've accumulated some agents that allowed us to create these divisions because of their experience levels. So land and ranch is one division, and then sports and entertainment is another division, and basically there's some criteria that we've put in place before an agent can say they're part of that team or that division dealing with professional athletes or celebrities on a number of occasions, some of the qualifications, but essentially, when somebody's moving like a professional athlete or a celebrity, there's a lot of sensitivity to that, or there's a lot of urgency, there's a lot more moving pieces, and so that specific division has agents who are, you know, experts in helping that transaction or that client Get from point A to B and solve a lot of problems along the way how to move their cars, how to move their kids into new schools, you know everything that comes along with kind of that type of transaction, as opposed to someone just buying a house and selling a house. So are we going to see? Chris: Super Bowl ads anytime soon, if I can at homecom I could afford it. Jerry: No, that's the goal is. We're really good because of how the clients affiliate network has come into play for us. I don't know if we mentioned this before the call or on the call, but you know our corporate partner ended up buying the Christie's affiliate network, which is a network of independently owned brokerages around the world. I think we have 900 offices in 54 countries, about 35,000 agents, and the reason Christie's the auction house, christie's the family who's owned that brand and that company for two hundred years. They sold the app properties because of the technology and we've been for two years bringing a worldwide global powerhouse network together into the technology to share referrals and data and information, and so that's been one of the one of the real keys to some credibility for us. Very cool. Chris: I think you just launched something else, maybe in the last week. Developer services Tell us about that. Jerry: So so again, we all know there's developers out here but we're not sure there's developers out here building multifamily building, you know, developing neighborhoods, multi-use, and so for a brokerage our size to have the ability to provide those services was kind of hard. So we ended up meeting a group of people out of Austin who came from Storybill and for those listeners who've heard about Storybill, that's a multi-billion dollar developer who went, ran out of money last summer. But we ended up negotiating their entire creative team to come over to Christie, our Christie's, and create this development services division. So starting with the chief marketing officer all the way down to their website development team, their on-site sales, so we've got a team of about 12 of superstars and they really fell in love with the Christie's brand to kind of move from Storybill into our umbrella, to kind of push those services out. So that'll be a huge win for us. Chris: So, as you sit there running all this, what is it that kind of triggers for you that this is an opportunity that makes sense, because not everybody can see that, and so there are things you're looking for. How do you go about making that decision and taking on the risk? Jerry: Yeah, so risk is a little less scary in our business because most everybody who works for our brokerage is a 1099 contractor. So we really have a pretty lean machine when it comes to we're running this right now with about seven full-time employees, three offices, so you got overhead from an office space perspective, but really you're kind of it's kind of a lean business model, which is one of the things that attracted me to it. And then obviously you have to have the people to be able to promote these different levels of services. So I think the thing that's been lucky for us is one our relationship and our network in Dallas to help get it started. And then obviously the people we've been able to add at such a young infancy of a company have given us the credibility and the numbers are reflecting that. Chris: Gotcha. So before I don't want to wrap this up without talking a little bit just about you and your leadership style, let's talk. You know, how would you describe your leadership style? How do you think that's evolved over time based on the scars and other lessons learned? Jerry: You know you work at a law firm, so you know running a law firm is you got a lot of smart people, a lot of egos, a lot of staff, a lot of overhead, and so I learned a lot about you know the operational side of a business in that seat. And then I think my ownership style has probably changed completely since I left the law firm. I'm a lot more interested in the well-being of my employees, a lot more sensitive to the culture. I think. When you talk about people coming to work and going home, in my mindset now I want that to be a great experience. I kind of use the word experience a lot in the last couple of years for some reason, and I think it's just. My evolution is like everything in our lives is an experience and you can make it a good one or you can make it a bad one, and so I think my leadership style is I want every experience to be a good one. At the best I can make it. Obviously you're going to have your headaches and your issues pop up, but we have the music on in our offices every day. We have happy hours on Thursdays. We built bars in both of our offices in Dallas and Frisco, and then we're putting one in our location in Austin so that we can have happy hours with our agents and our clients and our prospects. We hold a lot of events and I think our interaction with the community and the philanthropic stuff that we're doing is really cool. So I think where I've gotten is you know I'm 54 now and you know I started that law firm at 28 and I had a whole different picture in my mind at 28, right Till 35, of what life was going to be for me, and now I'm kind of trying to enjoy it a lot more. Chris: I love that man. Happy for you. You know clearly you're on the right track and couldn't agree more about how important culture is to any company. And I think I've said similar to you. I think life is about experiences. I think they're only really down to learning experiences good experiences and learning experiences as though, rather than bad, just learn from them and don't repeat them. Jerry: Yeah exactly right. Chris: So let's turn a little bit on the personal side of things and not as serious. What was your first job? Jerry: First job, I was a clerk in a law firm. Chris: Okay. Jerry: I was working in law school. Okay, my first job in high school. Like most of us, I grew up in Missouri in a small town. I had a yard. You know service with my best friend and we had our lawn mowers in the back of his truck and we mowed yards. So that was probably my first experience as a having a job. There you go, and first is an entrepreneur was leaving a 250 person firm to start a law firm with two other guys and being 28 years old and that was pretty exciting. We had metal chairs and you know fold up conference room table and laid out of the movie. Chris: Love it. Well, I can relate to the a little bit to that, but definitely relate to the mowing yards. That's what buddy of mine and I did in high school. So you know good money then I guess. Okay, personal preference, tex-mex or barbecue? Well, that's a tough one Probably barbecue. All right. And if you could, take a 30 day sabbatical. Where would you go? What would you do? Jerry: You know, this is my two sons who are a senior and sophomore at University of Texas right now. They called a year ago about this time and said, dad, we're going to go to Japan. And I was like, okay, and they got on a plane, just the two of them went to Japan for three weeks and after hearing that I kind of want to do that. Chris: How cool is that. The two of us went and did it on their own. Jerry: They did it on their own, traveled around on trains and backpack and love it. They're experienced when they told the stories and went through the pictures. I mean it's just a really cool culture. I'd like to go experience that. Chris: Okay, jerry, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to come on. It's hard to believe that you know I don't. I might add the numbers we met at SMU and, as undergraduates, went to law school together, so we had a lot of years together. So it's great to see where you are today and what you're doing. So proud of you. Jerry: Man. I appreciate that. And the same back at you. I followed you your whole career and super, super proud of you. What kind of legal person you are and lawyer and leader and everything you're about. So appreciate having me on and proud of you too, my man. Chris: All right, we'll do it again. We'll find a reason to do it again sometime soon. Awesome Sounds good. Special Guest: Jerry Mooty.

In today's episode of Building Texas Business, we sit down with Jerry Mooty, the CEO and Principal of @properties, Christie's International Real Estate in Dallas and Austin. Jerry takes us through his remarkable journey from managing partner at a law firm to heading a major real estate brokerage. He shares how resilience and adaptability allowed him to steer his business through the 2008 financial crisis and leverage opportunities arising from the pandemic. Jerry also provides insights into growing his firm through innovative hiring strategies and technological platforms that streamline agents' work. We explore lessons learned around overcoming adversity, strategic partnerships, and balancing operations with culture. His story offers a candid look inside one industry titan's challenges and triumphs in managing debt, acquisitions, and new ventures in sports and entertainment. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Jerry Mooty shares his transition from being a managing partner at a law firm to creating and growing a real estate brokerage, including the challenges faced during the 2008 financial crisis and opportunities leveraged during the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss Jerry's innovative business model that hires agent-attorneys and how it differentiates his brokerage in a competitive real estate market. The episode covers the technological advances at @properties, such as the Platform, which incorporates AI and a suite of tools to increase agent productivity. Jerry reflects on managing $60 million in personally guaranteed debt and the strategy behind transitioning to a debt-free business structure. Strategic partnerships and the process of acquisitions, especially in the technology sector, are explored along with Jerry's experience in due diligence and venture capital dynamics. Jerry discusses the significance of cultivating a company culture focused on employee well-being and the shift in his leadership style from operations to creating an enjoyable work environment. We touch on the importance of friendships in Jerry's professional journey and how they've influenced his career decisions and leadership approach. Challenges facing traditional real estate agencies like Remax are considered, with a focus on adapting to technological advancements and market changes. Jerry provides insights into his personal preferences, revealing his fondness for barbecue over tex-mex, adding a personal element to the conversation. The conversation highlights Jerry's efforts in expanding his business, including the recent launch of a sports and entertainment division and developer services to cater to specific client needs in the real estate market. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About @properties,Christie's International Real Estate GUESTS Jerry MootyAbout Jerry TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode you will meet Jerry Mooty, ceo and principal of App Properties, christy's International Real Estate in Dallas and Austin. Jerry, by anyone's definition, is a serial entrepreneur, having started a law firm, credit card processing company, real estate development company and now a real estate brokerage firm. And Jerry tells aspiring entrepreneurs expect the unexpected. Jerry, I want to thank you for taking the time to come on and welcome you to building Texas business. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me. Good to see you too. It's been a while. Let's just start. You know you've done a number of things and we'll get into some of that, but currently, what's the business that you've started and you're currently today? Jerry: So Jerry Mooty from Dallas have a business now in the residential real estate brokerage industry. So I compete with Compass and some big national brands that most of the listeners will know about. Chris: And that company's called App Properties right. Jerry: Yes, sir, it's called App Properties Christy's International Real Estate. So we kind of have a working on that. Chris: And I know you're kind of got the Dallas area covered, but I think you've also recently expanded into Austin. Jerry: Yeah, so we started in Dallas proper with our headquarters, and then we opened a second office in Frisco, texas, and then we just recently, in the fall of 2023, opened up Austin, texas. Chris: So you know, as a recovering attorney, what was it that inspired you to get into the residential brokerage real estate business? Jerry: So, interesting enough, you kind of know my history, but I founded a law firm when I was 28 and I grew that into about 60 lawyers in four cities. As the managing partner, I started doing a lot of deals for the partners as opposed to practicing law, and I went down several paths. I had a litigation support company that I founded and grew that for the partners and then, you know, ironically got into a real estate development a little startup where I had a home building division building spec homes and I had a commercial division where I was doing some commercial projects. Raw land development had a resort under contract in Bernie, but, like a lot of people in real estate, 2009, 2010 came and that was the end of my glory days in real estate. All right. Chris: So then, what led you to? You know, get involved with app properties and then take this down, go down this rabbit trail. Jerry: Sure. So in 2012, I sold my interest in the law firm back to the partnerships. I didn't want to go back to practicing full time and then did quite a few different entrepreneurial things from about 2013 to about 2019. Any you know, I had a credit card processing company, backed by the Jones family, called Blue Star Payments that merged in with a tech company and we rebranded Blue Star Sports. We were backed by some pretty large VC firms Bain Capital and GenStar partners and Providence Equity and then obviously, the Jones family. So we acquired about 27 companies in about three years and then we sold that company in 2017. Then I was kind of looking for the next thing and I became the chief business and legal officer for a Silicon Valley tech company for a couple of years. They were in a big money raise and it wasn't going so well and I was deferring comp. So I started looking at what I was going to do next. One of the people in my network is a ex litigation real estate litigator. She had gone on and got married, had kids, got a real estate license and had a brokerage here in Dallas and her model was she was going and convincing unhappy lawyers to get the real estate license. So she had about 10 agents slash attorneys as her brokerage and she approached me to come in and run her brokerage for kind of like I did the law firm. So that piqued my interest enough so we went down that path. Sadly we didn't get to execute our documentation because they ended up having a divorce situation. And then two weeks later COVID hits and so I'm waiting to take my real estate license and not sure what I'm going to do after that. Come out of the first 90 days of COVID, the market's red hot, so I hang my license, I start doing deals for my network friends and start marketing myself as an agent. All the meanwhile I'm looking for something to buy or to own or start, and so that led me through developer relationship here in Dallas to the ownership group of at properties out of Chicago. They made that introduction, flew up and met with them and really fell in love with not only the brand and the culture but also the technology that they had built. Chris: Amazing story. There's a lot to dive into there. I may definitely want to go back some, but let's stay with that properties for now. And yeah, so you that's a. It's born out of COVID, I guess. Tell us, though you know, because I know just from you, know keeping up with you and then reading on the website you've experienced some like amazing growth in the last, I guess, three and a half years. Let's talk a little bit about that. And in talking about what you've done that you think has helped accelerate it, let's talk also about the maybe the pains with growing so fast. Jerry: Sure. So as I was looking to own something and this opportunity came up, I negotiated to purchase, you know, the North Texas territory. But I wasn't really prepared to launch because it was just me and I hadn't done a whole lot of recruiting. But I had some real estate deals in the pipeline that I needed to leave the current brokerage I was at before I papered those up. So I ended up launching at properties by myself just one agent, and got temporary space and, you know, true entrepreneurial spirit started recruiting, putting in my support team, landed a pretty big compass team right out of the gate and that kind of helped accelerate the visibility. And so the first, you know, six months we grew to 10 agents by Christmas. So it wasn't, we weren't a big brokerage, but we were putting things in place. By the next year we were about just under 40 agents. So we had a really good, successful year and, you know, quadrupling our size and then last year 2023, we doubled again to about 80 agents in Dallas. So we've been kind of there's been some faster growth brokerages, but we're very we're considered more luxurious. Our agents are more high producing agents and they take a little longer to transfer from one brokerage to another based on their pipeline and their restrictions. So now that we're three and a half years into this and Austin's really kind of been a little bit of a catalyst in the last six months because initially that territory wasn't available there was a Christie's affiliate there my corporate partner asked me if I wanted Austin about a year and a half ago. I said yes and so I started putting the play pieces in place and we launched that in September. We've added quite a few agents in the first 120 days over 70 something agents there. So all in we got about a hundred agents in Dallas, about 70 in Austin. So that's the good side of the business. The headaches, as you know as an entrepreneur, are several and many. Too many to list, but we'll cover a few. My most recent success story is I just hired a controller after three and a half years. So I've been doing the books, reporting to corporate, paying the royalties, paying the checks, paying the agents. So those are the things. As an entrepreneur, you really you put your blood, sweat and tears into these businesses and then you have to get to a certain level, to where you could start to relieve yourself of some of these pains. Chris: Yeah, that's so true, jerry. A lot of the people that I've had on before say exactly that that it's one when you're starting out, you're not big enough to outsource it or to hire for it, so you got to do it. But then it's getting to that point when you even when you are big enough and can afford it the level of trust and hiring the right person to hand off those key aspects of the business, so it frees you up to do the things as an entrepreneur or the visionary you want to be doing. So let's talk about that. What was it that you think helps get to a level of trust and comfort that it's time to hand off and it's the right person to hand off to? Jerry: Yeah, I think, based on my background of being an entrepreneur, you make a lot of friends and you kind of know. You learn the hard way. You hire the wrong person a few times and then, as you get older and more seasoned, you kind of know what to look for. In this instance, with that properties, I hired somebody I'd known for 35 years to come in and be my director of agents. I've known her since the SMU days, so the trust was already built in and then you're just very selective as you add the pieces to the puzzle to get those right people in place. So in half years we've let one or two people go, but we've been pretty successful in hitting the mark. Chris: That's great. So 70 agents or so you said. Have you started to implement any kind of processes that help with the integration process as you bring in these new people, so they understand kind of what the expectations are, what the benefits are for making the move? I mean, so where are you and what's the process you've gone through to kind of make that more institutionalized? Jerry: So the background for at properties and the corporate support we have is pretty important in how we've gotten here. They're a 25 year brokerage. They're the eighth largest in the country before acquiring the Christie's affiliate network, so they kind of had the processes in place. So it's buying. Whenever you buy a franchise and you wanna go down this path, you kind of get a little bit of assistance from and some help along the way on someone else putting the right pieces in place. I think what we've done a great job is integrate and implement those things that they've brought to the table, which I think revolves around a lot of our culture. You know, I think culture is so important in any business you have and so it's just we have fun things called at love, local events that came from corporate. So we'll pick a merchant somewhere in our geographical area, we'll partner with them, we'll send out a marketing campaign. Let's say it's a coffee shop and then whoever shows up at that coffee shop, our agents are there and we're running a tap for a coffee or a Danish in the morning. So that's kind of the community outreach piece. We use the word love strategically in all our marketing. So we say bringing the love to Dallas, bringing the love to Frisco and those types of things. So you know, recruiting is probably once you get the, once you get your overhead stabilized and your office space and those types of things. This is a business about relationships and recruiting. So I would say our two most important people outside of myself are our head of recruiting out of Frisco, head of recruiting out of the Dallas office, and so those have been very good hires. Chris: You know most, I think most businesses. It's hard to say they're not people, businesses or relationship, but certainly you know in the business you're in, where you're so customer facing right, you need good people that can go out and attract good customers, provide good service. But I have to imagine the last 18 months or so in residential real estate hasn't been the easiest. So can you talk a little bit about what you've done to help continue, promote one, promote the culture, to keep people positive and energized while managing through what has to have been a challenging time? Jerry: Yeah, absolutely so. Obviously we're all aware of how hot the market got, you know, a couple of years ago, you know, during COVID and post COVID. What that did in our industry is everybody wanted a real estate license because they saw all these transactions happen. So we had an influx of agents that came in that are young, inexperienced, but were here to make some money. And then, when the market turns, you kind of have the reverse effect. Those people were all eat what you kill, or 10, 9, 9 commissioned agents. They got to figure out how to pay the bills, and so we've had a pretty big exodus. Probably 15 to 20% of our agents across the nation have left the industry, and so that's been good for the sense of the people staying in it because you got less competition. But the ones that stayed in it most of them, have been through some of these ebbs and flows of the market, and so they kind of know how to prepare. And most of that revolves around when your transaction desk is slower, what are you ramping up to do? Are you ramping up your marketing, your postcard, social media content, are you revamping your website? And so those are all things that we, which the agents that work for us and part of our big, strong sales pitch based on the technology that we have. Chris: Got you Speaking of that on the marketing side, you know, are you seeing? I guess, one area or the other as far as marketing strategy work better, get more visibility or more return on investment. You see so much on social media, so it seems natural that that would be one, but I don't know if that's the leading one based on your experience or not. Jerry: Yeah, I think in pretty much every industry has been affected by the internet and no industry more so than real estate. I would say probably 10 years ago you saw a lot of print ads. You saw a lot of ads and you know business journals and those types of things trying to move property. But now it's really a digital world. We're using social media, we're using tools called AdWords, which is a retargeting tool to where it's essentially like if you went and looked at a pair of shoes at Nordstroms and then you left Nordstroms, those shoes are following you around. So we have the ability to target, geo track and geo target potential prospects and clients through our technology. Obviously, websites are important. Your collaboration tools that you're preparing a search for a prospect, like they're looking in this area for a certain price point. We have the ability to set those searches up and work with a prospect or a client on finding the home, ironically in the last price. I don't know when this started, but in the last year or so, almost 85% of buyers find the home they want before they hire an agent, or at least they zero it down based on how much information is on the internet. And so, really, as an agent, what you're trying to do is bring your expertise not only to get that transaction under contract, but then most of the work happens one second transactions under contract all the way through closing. Chris: Right, that is an amazing statistic 85%, but you're right. I mean, when everyone goes to the internet first, I think, to research or validate or do something. So it makes sense to me, but it's a big number. Sounds like you know here you use your work, technology and innovation and stuff quite a bit already since we started the interview. Some of this may have come from your franchise or some may have come from some things You're doing, but what are some of the things you believe are innovative in the way that you're operating the brokerage and helping your agents be successful? Jerry: Sure. So I think when you start understanding what different brokerages bring to the table in regards to support for their agent portfolio. Obviously marketing is a big one because they're pushing all the stuff out that we're talking about, but also the day-to-day operation of an agent is pretty important. Most brokerages large brokerages like Coldwell, banker, some of your biggest national brands are very antiquated when it comes to technology support. I would say there's two brokerages at the forefront. I'd say Compass is in second place and I think App Properties is in first place. And I say that because we've been building a technology stack called Platform, or our franchise or has, since 2003 and basically an agent logs in and does everything they need to do as an agent in one technology. When I interview agents and I show them the technology, they're blown away because they're in four or five, six different technologies throughout the day trying to get their social media posted or created, their transactions done over here, their docuSigns another technology they have to use, and we have everything in one place, and so that's been a real big selling point for us when we're recruiting these agents. Chris: Yeah, I mean anything to make your employees or, in your case, I guess, your contractor's life easier. Have you started to look into, or is this already incorporating any kind of versions of AI? Jerry: AI is already integrated. Nowadays, agents are always doing, as an easy example, they're doing descriptions of the properties. So now you can lean on AI to help you describe a $5 million house with five bedrooms, six baths by describing it into AI, and then it'll help you create that luxury description. So there's things like that. Obviously, our CRM has a lot of AI tied to it and so, yeah, that's the way of the future and it's getting more and more integrated and implemented into all our tools. Very nice, very nice yeah. Chris: All right. So I want to make you kind of reflect back. So yeah, this about, by your own description, not the first time you kind of started a new venture or stepped outside your comfort zone. So when you think about what you did I guess leaving, you know, maybe leaving the law firm or even some of the ventures you started while you were there, but going to credit card processing et cetera where are some of the lessons you learn through those ventures that you think prepared you for taking the step you did without properties and the steps you're taking now to grow so rapidly? Jerry: Yeah, I think if you're a serial entrepreneur like myself, I think the one thing you learn each time that you have an idea or you go down the path of starting something is you think you're going to get to the finish line a lot easier. It's your idea and you think you're going to do that. And I think probably in every instance including the law firm, including the credit card processing is one lesson is it just takes a lot to probably 10 times, 100 times more man hours and work and you got hurdles. That you're not expecting. But I think that's part of the reward too is why I'm built the way I am. You enjoy that when an obstacle comes and you get your way around it or over it. But I think you know frankly, it's probably what every entrepreneur says it's never as easy as you think it is. There's no get rich. You know we talked about most of what we do as lawyers and what I'm doing is a people game. You know you're hiring people and people disappoint, you know, and you're having to find different people sometimes, and so the lesson is just pride and expect the unexpected and you'll be okay and be able to sleep at night. Chris: I like that. Well, think about, is there a kind of a challenge or a failure setback that you can point to over the last, you know, 15 years, 20 years, whatever that you feel is maybe in some ways either a defining moment for you or one of the bigger learning moments that you got? You kind of got hit with a little headwind but you overcame it and because of that it's kind of helped propel you either in your own personal journey as a leader or, you know, in things you learned as an entrepreneur. Jerry: Yeah, I'd say you know, probably the biggest lesson learned of all time was me starting a real estate development company with a home builder and a commercial partner and, you know, diving into that with not a whole lot of experience, and so the challenge was obviously, in real estate, you're hoping to build something and sell it, and so the big challenges is if you build it and you borrow a bunch of money and you don't sell it. And so in 0809, 2010 is probably should have been my premier happiest days of my life. I'm on a law firm, I'm making some good you know coin on the law firm side, but I'm literally getting dragged through the mud financially on the real estate piece, and it's probably one of the reasons it's taken me 10 years to get back into it on the brokerage side, because I literally came out of that was some financial PSD. You know just could not sleep, you know got I mean health issues, depression, pretty much everything you can experience as an entrepreneur and so you figure out a lot about yourself when you're going through something like that, and you know you either stay in bed and talk about it or you pull up your socks and get out and try it again. Chris: That internal fortitude, you know I think any entrepreneurs got to have that or it's just not going to happen. I appreciate you sharing that. Were there some things that you did? You know that you know other than just I mean pure gutted out. You know, to help you kind of get through that. You know, leaning on family friends, I don't know. I mean I have to believe we've got some listeners and other people out there that you're going through the same thing. Jerry: Sure, I think where I lucked out was, you know, just to be frank, I was on about $60 million and personally guaranteed debt that was worth probably about 30 by the time I was trying to get out of it. So there wasn't going to be any family help. It was. It was hey with you, you know, in a loving way, of course. But when you dig a hole like that, you just got to figure out the best way out. And for me, where I benefited was I had a law degree and I was a lawyer and creditors could not touch the ownership interest in my law firm because it was tied to my license. So, through bankruptcy lawyers and all that stuff, I got educated on that and gave me the strategy to get through that situation and come out on the other end, which was one of the reasons I sold the interest of the law firm back to the partners, because that allowed me to have a little bit of a stream of income there in 2012, 13 and 14, while I got the credit card processing company going and getting these other things going. So there was, if there was, a silver lining, it was that fact, but it was still still pretty embarrassing financially and pretty embarrassing as a professional to really go through that over a three or four year period. Chris: You got to be hard but, like I said, I mean now that you've come through it, you know you can certainly appreciate the opportunities you have today and know that. You know I certainly probably learned some lessons of what to not do, going forward right. Jerry: Absolutely, I would say. The one lesson you learn in that scenario is you become a lot more frugal with your financial decisions and you know, especially in the banking industry, like one thing I'm proud of with that properties is we've never bought a bar to dollar. We got zero debt, and so those that's a probably a direct result of what I went through, you know, 15 years ago was I don't want to do another business where I got a bunch of debt and I'm trying to get that off and make money to live off of. Chris: That's great. So you mentioned earlier I think it was a credit card processing BlueStar, where you had some dealings with Bain Capital, and obviously you're dealing with a franchise or in this current business. So let's talk a little bit about maybe what you've learned through that. I kind of relate or maybe call those you know investors, partners, strategic partners. What have you learned as kind of some of the best ways to deal with them so you keep that relationship strong and healthy? And maybe it's something you know that happened that you're like I did this or they did. You know something that happened that soured the relationship, one they got to help our clients here at the firm you know, you know find themselves in those situations all the time, and so I'm curious you know what you know, what lessons you've learned through that process? Jerry: Yeah, so I would say getting involved in. And so when we had the credit card processing company, it was pretty a pretty simple model. We were going out and you know recruiting or or you know we're trying to sell merchants, you know restaurants Anybody who ran a credit card was it was a prospective client approached by a group who had an idea of buying up these technology companies in the youth sports space. So like, if you sign your kid up for soccer, you're there's usually a form and at the end of that form, whether it be the YMCA or anywhere else, you're paying a fee for your child to play that on that soccer team. So the model we had was take the credit card processing that we had built our own API and those types of things and bake it into a technology and go buy these companies. And interestingly, it was about how do you flip the model from a EBITDA and a multiple perspective. So these tech companies that weren't that large of companies because they were kind of geographically located, running different types of youth sports camps or whatnot, they weren't sophisticated enough and they were usually outsourcing their credit card processing to stripe or squares or something like that. So we would acquire these companies and bake in our own processing and from an ownership perspective, then that would change the multiple for maybe two times to 12 times because you have that reoccurring revenue stream coming into your business model. I literally probably learned more over that. First, 12 to 20 per month as we were acquiring these companies, doing due diligence on them, and I was the chief legal officer of the company, so I was in charge of all the due diligence. So we acquired 20 something companies and I bet I did due diligence on about 300 over two years. But it was really cool because I got to see what investors and power players in the venture capital market, how they looked at things and it's there's not a lot of emotion, it's numbers on paper and it's how do we make, how do we do this to this group of businesses, and then how do we sell it and make money. All about the return on investment, right. Chris: Exactly so. It's a. Jerry: It's very cutthroat which some businesses are, some aren't, but it was a great learning experience. I'd like to say I probably learned more in that two to three years Dealing with those big VC firms and listening to those meetings and kind of running point on due diligence than I probably learned in any other aspect of my life. Now, that's so, but that's so. Chris: Let's turn it back a little bit to app properties specifically. I know you've recently launched a new sports and entertainment division Tell us about that. What's going on behind that and what are you trying to accomplish so in the real estate brokerage? Jerry: world. There's different ways to market yourself right, and a lot of that boils down to your experience of your agent portfolio, and so some real estate brokerages are residential, some may just be commercial, but on our side we have, we've accumulated some agents that allowed us to create these divisions because of their experience levels. So land and ranch is one division, and then sports and entertainment is another division, and basically there's some criteria that we've put in place before an agent can say they're part of that team or that division dealing with professional athletes or celebrities on a number of occasions, some of the qualifications, but essentially, when somebody's moving like a professional athlete or a celebrity, there's a lot of sensitivity to that, or there's a lot of urgency, there's a lot more moving pieces, and so that specific division has agents who are, you know, experts in helping that transaction or that client Get from point A to B and solve a lot of problems along the way how to move their cars, how to move their kids into new schools, you know everything that comes along with kind of that type of transaction, as opposed to someone just buying a house and selling a house. So are we going to see? Chris: Super Bowl ads anytime soon, if I can at homecom I could afford it. Jerry: No, that's the goal is. We're really good because of how the clients affiliate network has come into play for us. I don't know if we mentioned this before the call or on the call, but you know our corporate partner ended up buying the Christie's affiliate network, which is a network of independently owned brokerages around the world. I think we have 900 offices in 54 countries, about 35,000 agents, and the reason Christie's the auction house, christie's the family who's owned that brand and that company for two hundred years. They sold the app properties because of the technology and we've been for two years bringing a worldwide global powerhouse network together into the technology to share referrals and data and information, and so that's been one of the one of the real keys to some credibility for us. Very cool. Chris: I think you just launched something else, maybe in the last week. Developer services Tell us about that. Jerry: So so again, we all know there's developers out here but we're not sure there's developers out here building multifamily building, you know, developing neighborhoods, multi-use, and so for a brokerage our size to have the ability to provide those services was kind of hard. So we ended up meeting a group of people out of Austin who came from Storybill and for those listeners who've heard about Storybill, that's a multi-billion dollar developer who went, ran out of money last summer. But we ended up negotiating their entire creative team to come over to Christie, our Christie's, and create this development services division. So starting with the chief marketing officer all the way down to their website development team, their on-site sales, so we've got a team of about 12 of superstars and they really fell in love with the Christie's brand to kind of move from Storybill into our umbrella, to kind of push those services out. So that'll be a huge win for us. Chris: So, as you sit there running all this, what is it that kind of triggers for you that this is an opportunity that makes sense, because not everybody can see that, and so there are things you're looking for. How do you go about making that decision and taking on the risk? Jerry: Yeah, so risk is a little less scary in our business because most everybody who works for our brokerage is a 1099 contractor. So we really have a pretty lean machine when it comes to we're running this right now with about seven full-time employees, three offices, so you got overhead from an office space perspective, but really you're kind of it's kind of a lean business model, which is one of the things that attracted me to it. And then obviously you have to have the people to be able to promote these different levels of services. So I think the thing that's been lucky for us is one our relationship and our network in Dallas to help get it started. And then obviously the people we've been able to add at such a young infancy of a company have given us the credibility and the numbers are reflecting that. Chris: Gotcha. So before I don't want to wrap this up without talking a little bit just about you and your leadership style, let's talk. You know, how would you describe your leadership style? How do you think that's evolved over time based on the scars and other lessons learned? Jerry: You know you work at a law firm, so you know running a law firm is you got a lot of smart people, a lot of egos, a lot of staff, a lot of overhead, and so I learned a lot about you know the operational side of a business in that seat. And then I think my ownership style has probably changed completely since I left the law firm. I'm a lot more interested in the well-being of my employees, a lot more sensitive to the culture. I think. When you talk about people coming to work and going home, in my mindset now I want that to be a great experience. I kind of use the word experience a lot in the last couple of years for some reason, and I think it's just. My evolution is like everything in our lives is an experience and you can make it a good one or you can make it a bad one, and so I think my leadership style is I want every experience to be a good one. At the best I can make it. Obviously you're going to have your headaches and your issues pop up, but we have the music on in our offices every day. We have happy hours on Thursdays. We built bars in both of our offices in Dallas and Frisco, and then we're putting one in our location in Austin so that we can have happy hours with our agents and our clients and our prospects. We hold a lot of events and I think our interaction with the community and the philanthropic stuff that we're doing is really cool. So I think where I've gotten is you know I'm 54 now and you know I started that law firm at 28 and I had a whole different picture in my mind at 28, right Till 35, of what life was going to be for me, and now I'm kind of trying to enjoy it a lot more. Chris: I love that man. Happy for you. You know clearly you're on the right track and couldn't agree more about how important culture is to any company. And I think I've said similar to you. I think life is about experiences. I think they're only really down to learning experiences good experiences and learning experiences as though, rather than bad, just learn from them and don't repeat them. Jerry: Yeah exactly right. Chris: So let's turn a little bit on the personal side of things and not as serious. What was your first job? Jerry: First job, I was a clerk in a law firm. Chris: Okay. Jerry: I was working in law school. Okay, my first job in high school. Like most of us, I grew up in Missouri in a small town. I had a yard. You know service with my best friend and we had our lawn mowers in the back of his truck and we mowed yards. So that was probably my first experience as a having a job. There you go, and first is an entrepreneur was leaving a 250 person firm to start a law firm with two other guys and being 28 years old and that was pretty exciting. We had metal chairs and you know fold up conference room table and laid out of the movie. Chris: Love it. Well, I can relate to the a little bit to that, but definitely relate to the mowing yards. That's what buddy of mine and I did in high school. So you know good money then I guess. Okay, personal preference, tex-mex or barbecue? Well, that's a tough one Probably barbecue. All right. And if you could, take a 30 day sabbatical. Where would you go? What would you do? Jerry: You know, this is my two sons who are a senior and sophomore at University of Texas right now. They called a year ago about this time and said, dad, we're going to go to Japan. And I was like, okay, and they got on a plane, just the two of them went to Japan for three weeks and after hearing that I kind of want to do that. Chris: How cool is that. The two of us went and did it on their own. Jerry: They did it on their own, traveled around on trains and backpack and love it. They're experienced when they told the stories and went through the pictures. I mean it's just a really cool culture. I'd like to go experience that. Chris: Okay, jerry, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to come on. It's hard to believe that you know I don't. I might add the numbers we met at SMU and, as undergraduates, went to law school together, so we had a lot of years together. So it's great to see where you are today and what you're doing. So proud of you. Jerry: Man. I appreciate that. And the same back at you. I followed you your whole career and super, super proud of you. What kind of legal person you are and lawyer and leader and everything you're about. So appreciate having me on and proud of you too, my man. Chris: All right, we'll do it again. We'll find a reason to do it again sometime soon. Awesome Sounds good. Special Guest: Jerry Mooty.

If you missed the first episode with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipants and founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito of Goodz, you can go here first (https://www.giantrobots.fm/s3e2incubatorgoodz) to catch up! Startup founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito are participating in thoughtbot's eight-week incubator program. Mike, with a background in the music industry, and Chris, experienced in physical computing and exhibit development, are collaborating on a startup that creates physical objects linked to digital content, primarily in music. Their goal is to enhance the connection between tangible and digital experiences, starting with a product that resembles a mixtape, using NFC technology for easy access to digital playlists. This project is unique within the thoughtbot incubator as it's the first pure consumer product and involves both physical and digital elements. The team is engaged in user interviews and market validation, with the aim of launching a physical product with a digital backend. They are exploring various marketing strategies for the product and are in the process of building its technical backend. Transcript: LINDSEY: All right. I'm going to kick us off here. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We're doing our first update with two founders that are now going through the Startup incubator at thoughtbot. thoughtbot, if you're not familiar, product design and development consultancy. We'll help you on your product and make your team a success. One of the very fun ways we do that is through the startup thoughtbot incubator, which is an eight-week program. So, with us today, I myself am Lindsey Christensen, marketing for thoughtbot. We also have Jordyn Bonds, who is our Director of Product Strategy and runs the thoughtbot incubator. And then, as I mentioned, we've got two new founders who are going to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they're working on. Mike Rosenthal, let's kick off with you. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe your background and what brings you to present day? MIKE: Sure. First of, thanks for having us. It's been a lot of fun doing this over the last [inaudible 01:03]; it's only two weeks, two and a half weeks, something like that. It feels like a lot more. I come from a music industry background, so worked in sort of marketing and strategy for artists for a long time; worked with a band called OK Go back, sort of starting in 2009 or so. I did a lot of early kind of viral music video stuff. And we were sort of early to the idea of sort of leveraging fan engagement and revenue, honestly, kind of beyond sort of just selling their music and touring, so sort of exploring other ways that artists can make money and connect with their fans and was with those guys for five years. And then, I went on and worked at an artist management company in Brooklyn called Mick Management and ran the marketing department there, so doing similar type of work but for a roster of 2025 major label bands. And so, really got to see fan engagement on all different levels, from really large bands down to baby bands who were just getting started. And then, yeah, started my first startup in 2018, so doing sort of fan engagement work, and NFTs, and blockchain-type stuff working with bands, but then also sports and entertainment properties. Yeah, that kind of brings me here. So, always been sort of on the music side of things, which ties into a lot of what Chris and I are working on now, but more generally, sort of fan engagement and how to, you know, drive revenue and engagement for artists and deliver value for fans. LINDSEY: Very interesting. All right, Chris, going to head over to you. Chris Cerrito, can you tell us a bit about your background? And it sounds like yours and Mike's paths; this isn't the first time you've crossed. CHRIS: No. Mike and I have been working together since 2007, I believe. Yeah, that's a great place to start. I've always been kind of a maker and a tinkerer, always been interested in art materials, how things are put together. And that kind of culminated at grad school, where Mike and I met at NYU, where we both studied physical computing and human-computer interaction, making weird things that kind of changed the way that people interact and play with technology in their day-to-day lives. I think the first project he and I worked on together was a solar robotic band that we played with light in front of a bunch of people. It was very wonderful and confusing at the same time. After grad school, I was lucky enough to become a resident artist and then an exhibit developer at a museum in San Francisco called the Exploratorium, which is a museum of science, art, and human perception. I spent ten years there working on exhibits teaching people things ranging from, let's see, I built a dueling water fountain to teach visitors and users about the prisoner's dilemma. I built a photo booth that used computer vision to teach people about the microbiome that lives on their face, like, just all kinds of weird things like that that fuse the digital and the physical worlds. I loved my time there. And then kind of COVID hit and I realized that everything I had been working on for ten years was locked up in a museum that I no longer had access to. And it really gave me a desire to kind of bring my ideas into the physical world. I wanted to make things that people interact with and use in their lives on a day-to-day basis. And I would say that's really what brought me here to this point. LINDSEY: Very cool. Very interesting backgrounds, in my opinion. What is the new idea? What is the thing that you're bringing into the incubator? Mike, I'll start with you. Tell us a bit about what you're working on. MIKE: Chris and I are working on physical objects that connect to digital content is sort of the broadest way that I could describe it. I think, you know, as Chris kind of mentioned, you know, we've both been working on sort of physical things that have interactivity for a lot of our careers. I think we both come from an era of a lot more physical objects in your life, whether that's, you know, VHS cassettes at your parent's house growing up, or records and tape cassettes, and just sort of physical things that remind you of the things that you love. And I think that, you know, cell phones are great, and the sort of the smartphone era is amazing and having, you know, every single song, and movie, and television show and podcasts, et cetera, in a black box in my pocket is great. But I think we've sort of gotten to a point where it's more of an organizational problem now than anything else. And we sort of forget the actual things that we love in this world. And so, we're working on basically making physical objects to tie to digital content, and we're starting with music. And that's what we've been working on at thoughtbot is sort of how we can create physical things that basically you can tap, and that will take you to streaming content. One of the first things we're working on literally looks like sort of a little mixtape on a piece of wood, and you can just load that up with any sort of playlist that you might have on Spotify, or Apple Music, or YouTube, or whatever, and tap it, and it will take you there. And so, it's just sort of that idea of like, oh, we used to be able to sort of flip through a friend's music collection and judge them ruthlessly, or become even better friends with them based on kind of what you saw there. And we think that the time is ripe for, I don't know, a blend of that nostalgia with actual sort of, like, real-world utility that people could be into this right now. Chris, what am I missing there? CHRIS: I'd say just to expand on that a little bit, it's, you know, we spend so much time in the digital world, but we still exist in the physical. And a lot of the things, like, you might spend a really long time editing a photo for your parents or making a playlist for a friend, and there's, like, a value there that might not translate because it's digital. It's ephemeral. And I think tying these digital assets to a physical thing makes them special. It gives them, like, a permanent place in your life, something to respect, to hold on to, and maybe even pass down at some point. LINDSEY: Yeah, and I think before we logged on, we actually had Jordyn and Mike grabbing cassette tapes from the room there and to show us -- MIKE: [inaudible 06:49] LINDSEY: What [laughs] was some of their collection and to prove some of the power of these physical –- MIKE: Nothing, like, just old mixtapes. LINDSEY: Mementos. MIKE: Yeah. We were just talking about this on our sync with the thoughtbot crew. They're, like, there's sort of two levels of nostalgia. There's nostalgia for people like us who, yeah, [crosstalk 07:09] mixtapes, right? For people who actually grew up with this stuff and still have it lying around or don't but, like, look at something like that that gives you, like, instant flashbacks, right? You're like, oh my God, I remember scrolling on that little j-card or, like, getting a mixtape for my first, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend, and having it just mean everything. So, there's people for whom that was a thing. And there's, you know, generations of people for whom that is, like, their only connection to that is, you know, Stranger Things or, like, you know, the mixtape exists in pop culture as a reference. So, there's still, like, a very strong attachment there, but it's not a personal one, right? It's a cultural one. But I think everybody has that connection. So, that's kind of why we're starting with the mixtape, just because I think everyone can kind of relate to that in some way. LINDSEY: Yeah, no, yeah. When I hear mixtape, it goes immediately to crushes. You make a mixtape for your crush. CHRIS: Exactly. LINDSEY: It's a huge, powerful market, powerful. MIKE: Oh my God, so powerful. I mean, yeah, I don't know anybody -- LINDSEY: What's more motivating? MIKE: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. CHRIS: Or even just I have a really good friend who I don't get to see as often as I'd like. And he and I are constantly sending each other, you know, Spotify links and text messages. And it's great. I love that interaction. But at the same time, you know, I might forget to add that to a playlist, and then it's kind of lost. If I had taken the time to make something and send it to him physically or vice versa, it just becomes so much more special and so much more real. MIKE: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I first made these...I mean, we can go to this origin if we want. But, like, I literally just went on moo.com, right? The business card company. And they let you upload, you know, 50 different images, and they'll send you all of those as business cards. And so, I literally went on and just made business cards of all the album covers of, like, albums that I loved growing up, right? And their cheapest is this little piece of cardboard. But I had 50 of these, and I'd put them all out on my coffee table, just as something I wanted to have around. And people kept coming, you know, friends would come over, and you would just have these conversations that I haven't had in 10 or 15 years, right? Because no one's going to come to my house and pick up my phone and look at my Spotify collection. But if these things are all just sitting out, they're like, "Oh shit, you're into that? Like, I haven't thought about that album in 15 years." Or like, "Oh, I didn't know you were into that. I'm, like, a crazy super fan of that artist as well." And all of a sudden, we're having these conversations that we just weren't having. Yeah, there's something there where it's all been nostalgia coupled with the kind of prompting of conversation and connection that we've kind of lost, I think. CHRIS: And I think just to clarify a little bit on what Mike's saying, is, you know, this mixtape will be our first product launch, and then we're hoping to move into collectibles for artists and labels. So, shortly after we launch this tape, we're hoping to launch some kind of pilot with a label where you will be able to buy a version of this for your favorite music artist at a merch table in a concert, possibly online. Our dream is to have these sitting there on the table with T-shirts, and records, and other things that artists sell so you can express for the artists that you love. This is a way of expressing your fandom. LINDSEY: Jordyn, heading over to you, this feels like maybe the first consumer product that has gone through the incubator, would you say? Or how do you think about it? JORDYN: Yeah, if you're a consumer -- LINDSEY: Or is it different than other types of products? JORDYN: Yeah, the first incubator project we did with Senga was, I think, what you would call prosumer. So, it was sort of a consumer thing but directed at folks who had kind of freelancing in sort of a business context. It's got a lot of dynamics of the consumer. But this one, for sure, is the first pure consumer play. Though now that I'm thinking about it, you know, AvidFirst had some consumer elements to it, but it was, you know, it was, like, more complex tech [laughs] [inaudible 10:46] totally different thing -- LINDSEY: But definitely the first of the physical, physical [inaudible 10:52] JORDYN: Oh, sure, the first of the physical thing. Right. Absolutely. LINDSEY: Does that change any of, like, the approach of the programming, or it's kind of -- JORDYN: I mean, no, not fundamentally, though it does add this layer of operations that you don't have with a pure software play. So, we have to be, there is a thing that needs to get shipped to people in the world, and that takes timelines, and it takes -- LINDSEY: Supply chain. JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. And Chris is doing most of that stuff. I don't want to, you know, this is not, like, the main focus of our team necessarily, but it intersects, right? So, this isn't the first one of these types of products I've worked on personally in my career. But there's something, like, really, for me, very fulfilling about, like, there's software. There's a big component of software. There's also this physical object that needs to exist in the world. And partly, what's so compelling about Goodz is that it gives you the promise of a physical, like, the sort of good aspects of a physical product, a thing you can hold in your hand and look at and really connect with in that physical way. But it has this dynamic digital, like, essential quality as well. So, it's very compelling as a product because it sort of marries the things that we like about both the physical world and the digital world, which is partly why the team was really excited about working on it [laughs]. LINDSEY: Well, that was going to be my next question is, you know, what stood out to you about the Goodz application for the incubator and the interview process that made you and the team feel like this was going to be a great project to work on? JORDYN: Yeah. So, I think just the team really resonated with the sort of idea in general, and it seemed fun. There was, like, it's a very positive thing, right? It isn't so much about solving problems and pain points. And, sometimes the, you know, when you're very focused on solving problems, it can feel a little doomy because you actually have to, like, immerse yourself in the problems of the people that you're making software for. And sometimes, you start to feel like the world is just full of problems. What Goodz is doing is sort of it is solving a problem in a sense, but not in that kind of way. It's really, like, a fun upside kind of thing, which I think a lot of the folks on the team were very excited about. But, like, the software component, actually, is very interesting to us from a technological standpoint as well. There's a lot of opportunity here to do interesting things on the backend with an object that's essentially functioning as a bookmark out in the world. What all can you do with that? There's something super compelling and technically interesting about it. And I think, also, the team was just sort of excited by Chris and Mike, you know, the energy and the kind of background they were bringing to the table was also super interesting. And then, above all else, what I say every time you ask me this question, which is stage fit, y'all, good stage fit. They're right at the beginning. They haven't built the product yet [laughs]. Gotta say it. It's a good stage fit. They know who they're building for broadly but not super specifically. Got a good vision but, like, haven't made that first step with the software. Perfect stage fit for us [laughs]. LINDSEY: Great. So, Chris, we were talking a bit before about how you two have been collaborators in the past, worked on business ideas before. Why bring this idea into the thoughtbot incubator? What are you hoping to, you know, achieve? CHRIS: One of the main reasons why we wanted to bring this into the incubator was just for support, momentum, and then, also, I would say validation for our idea. I mean, we came to the incubator with a very, yeah, I would say it was a fairly developed idea that needed to be proved, and we, quite frankly, needed help with that. You know, Mike and I have our own expertises, but we don't know how to do everything. We're more than willing to jump in where we need to go. But having people with expertise to work with has proven to be incredibly helpful and just having kind of fresh faces to bat ideas around with after he and I have been staring at each other for months now on Zoom calls and meetings. And just, you know, being able to talk about these ideas with fresh faces and new people and get new perspectives has been so very, very helpful. I think something that's also great from the momentum standpoint is that because there's a time limit to this experience, we've got the time that we have with you guys, and we've been able to set goals that I think are very achievable for things we want to occur in the next couple of months, and it feels like we're going to get there. And I think by the end of this, I mean, our hope, and I think we're on track, is to have a functioning physical product that we're going to offer to consumers with a digital backend to support it, which is, in my mind, amazing. That'll totally validate this idea and prove if we have something or not. LINDSEY: I was going to ask if you're open to sharing what those goals specifically are. Is that it? Is it that by the end, you have -- MIKE: Is that it? Lindsey, that's a lot. [laughter] CHRIS: It's a lot. I mean, yeah. I mean, we're going to have a physical object in the world that you can buy via an e-commerce site -- JORDYN: Sounds like we need Lindsey on the team if Lindsey feels like this is so achievable. [laughter] CHRIS: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey...yeah. We're in the beginning [crosstalk 15:47] LINDSEY: I meant, is that the goal? CHRIS: That is the goal. LINDSEY: Is that all? CHRIS: I was going to –- LINDSEY: Is that all you got? CHRIS: Mike, do you agree? MIKE: Yeah. Is that the goal? Yes, that is the goal. I mean, you know, when we sat down with the thoughtbot team kind of week one, you know, they're sort of like, "All right, let's define kind of the experiment." So, we refer to them as experiments, which I think is helpful because, like, what are the experiments that we want to be doing during our time here? And, you know, we talked about it a lot. And yeah, I think it's, you know, having a physical product out in the world, having a website in which to sell it. But also, it's really, like Chris was saying, it's like, it's market validation, and just making sure we actually have something that people want. It's like, you know, running a startup takes so long and, like [laughs], you know, you'll do it for so many years. It's like bands when people say, like, "Oh, that's an overnight sensation." It's like, you know, that band has been slogging it out in tiny, little venues for four years before you ever heard of them. It's like, that's what so much of the startup world feels like to me, too. It's like, "Oh, you're just getting started as a startup?" It's like, "Well, we've been working on this forever." And I know how long this can take. And so, I think we want to learn as early as possible, like, is this something people actually want? Because if they don't, like, we'll just go do something else. I don't want to spend years making something that people don't want. So, I think the biggest goal, for me, is just validation, and then that is sort of how we get there is like, okay, how do we validate this? Cool. Let's identify some, you know, assumptions of personas that we think are people who do actually want this and then try to go sell it to them. And all the implications from that are, okay, well, you need a website where somebody can buy it. You need a physical product that somebody can actually buy. So, all those things sort of come out of that, but, for me, it's like, proving that assumption, is this thing real? Do people actually want this? And everything else is like, okay, how do we prove that? LINDSEY: Jordyn, what does that look like in these first few weeks here? User interviews, I assume, how are the user interviews going? JORDYN: Always. Always. So, you know, we kick it off by just, like, doing the exercise where we list everybody who might want this. And the team, you know, it's a fun product. Everybody brought their own assumptions and ideas to the table on that. You know, we had a lot of different scenarios we were imagining. It's super fun getting that stuff out of people's heads, just, like, what are we all thinking? And then, you know, we get to negotiate, like, okay...I always encourage everyone to think, like, if everyone else on the team was on the moon, you had to make a decision about a market segment to pick; which one would you pick? And then we kind of argue about it in a productive way. It really helps us get at, like, what are the dynamics that we think matter upfront? And then we pick one, or, in this case, we have a few. We have a handful. And we're running interview projects where we just recruit people to talk about people that meet this persona, talk about a specific problem. We're in the middle of that right now. And it's fun, fantastic. These conversations are super interesting. We're validating a lot of the things that Mike and Chris, you know, walked into this with, but we're learning a bunch of new things as well. And, like, really, part of the aim there is to validate that there's a hole in the market that we might fill but also to hear the language people are using to describe this stuff. So, when people talk about buying music, merch, you know, making playlists, et cetera, like, what language do they use to talk about that? So that we make sure we're speaking the language that our customer uses to describe this stuff. And we're, you know, we're right in the pocket of doing that, learning stuff all the time. And it helps us kind of hone the messaging. It helps us know where to go talk to people about it, how to talk about it, but it's, you know, it all kind of fits together. And it's just this, really...the early stages. It's just a bunch of us in a room, a virtual room, in this case, sort of, like, tossing ideas around. But out of it crystallizes this sense of alignment about who this is for, how to talk to them about it, and with a goal. And, you know, Mike and Chris walked in with the exact right mindset about this, which is, yes, it's experiments. We need to validate it. Let's make sure there's a there-there. If there's a there-there, let's figure out where it is [laughs], like, all those things. And we're running these experiments, and it was really [inaudible 19:36]. We got down to business quite quickly here. It was really great. LINDSEY: Like you said, it's not necessarily a problem or, you know, the typical framing of a problem. How do you start those user interview questions around this? Do you feel a gap between the physical and the digital sound? [laughter] JORDYN: No, no. LINDSEY: It's maybe not it [laughs]. JORDYN: Yeah, no. Well, I can tell you what our startup questions are. One of them is, tell me about the last time you bought music merch. Go for it, Lindsey. Tell us. LINDSEY: The last time I bought music merch I went to a Tegan and Sara concert a few weeks ago, and I bought a T-shirt. JORDYN: Tell me about buying that T-shirt. Why'd you buy it? LINDSEY: Because I wanted to remember the show and my time with my friends, and I wanted to support the artists. I know that buying merch is the best way to support your favorite touring artists. JORDYN: So, it's just, you know, we could spend the rest of this time talking [laughter] [crosstalk 20:34], and it would be awesome. So, it's really a lot of things like that. LINDSEY: Gotcha. JORDYN: You don't ask, "What problem are you trying to solve by buying this t-shirt?" Right? Like, that's not, you know, but we ask you to tell us a bunch of stories about when you did this recently. You know, and if you make playlists for friends, you know, that's a different persona. But we would have asked, you know, like, "Tell me about the last playlist you made. You know, who did you share it with? You know, what happened after that? What happened after that? What happened after that?" It's a lot of questions like that. And there's just nothing better. People love to tell you what's going on with them. And it's great [laughs]. LINDSEY: Yeah. As you all have been doing these interviews, Mike and Chris, have you been surprised by anything? Any interesting insights that you're seeing already? CHRIS: I mean, I haven't done really much in the way of user interviews in the past. This is a really new experience for me. And then we're, obviously, not on the calls because that would be weird and probably intimidating for people. But we're getting lots of highlights from folks who are doing them, you know, in our daily sync. And I'm surprised at how many, like, really intense, like, playlist nerds we have found even just in, like, the few people we've talked to, like, in the best possible way. Like, people who are like, "I make playlists all the time." Like, you're talking about, like, a vinyl fan or, like, a...Jordyn, what's the story? It's, like, the guy who there was so much out-of-print vinyl that he started a vinyl label just to get the albums in vinyl. [crosstalk 21:56] JORDYN: Yeah. There were a bunch of releases that he feels really passionately about that were never released on vinyl that he knew would never be released on vinyl. And so, he started a vinyl record label. And we just found this guy [laughter]. CHRIS: Is that indicative that that's, like, an entire persona we're going to, like, target? Absolutely not. But it's just, like, it's amazing that even just in the few user interviews we've done, that we've found so many very passionate people. And it's sent me down, like, a TikTok rabbit hole of, like, TikTok, like, music nerd influencer-type folks who are posting playlists. And they, like, hundreds of thousands of likes on these videos that are literally just, like, screen with text on it that you're supposed to, like, pause the video [laughs] and, like, look at, like, the songs that they're recommending. And it's like, who does that? And it was like, these people do that. And it's like, so there are...it's been very encouraging to me, actually. I was worried that we were going to find not as much passion as we had suspected, and I think the opposite has proven to be true. So, it's exciting. CHRIS: Yeah, I completely agree with Mike. It's been so encouraging. I think, for me, what we're doing is an idea that I'm very excited about and have been very excited about for a long time. But hearing the responses that we're getting makes me confident in the idea, too. That's great. I mean, I think that is everything that a founder needs, you know, is excitement and confidence. MIKE: Well, and just the whole user interview experience has, like, made a lot of my other conversations sort of I've tried to frame parts of them as user interviews because I'm talking to a lot of, like, label folks now, and artists, merch people. And, you know, I ended up just sort of, like, asking them, I mean, yes, trying to explain the product and work on kind of partnership stuff, but a lot of it is really just geeking out with them. And just, like, hearing their thoughts about, like, what they love about merch because these are people that clearly think about this stuff all the time. So, it's definitely kind of, like, tuned my other conversations into trying to get unbiased feedback. LINDSEY: Yeah. Everything is a little user interview now. MIKE: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Get that angle in there. All right, so some early validation and excitement. That's really cool to hear. Any challenges or, you know, other kinds of learnings early on? Anything that's been invalidated? MIKE: I don't know that we're there yet. [inaudible 24:02] Chris, I don't know. I'm happy to find that some things are invalidated, but I don't really feel...you know, some of the personas that we decided or maybe just one of the personas we decided to pursue, I think we're having a hard time having those user interviews kind of really bear fruit, but that's helpful, too, actually. I mean, it's like, okay, well, maybe that's not a group that we target. JORDYN: Yeah. It's about, like [inaudible 24:24]. I encourage folks not to think about this like a 'no, not that,' and instead think of it as like a 'not yet.' And that's, I think, the dynamic here with a couple of the personas we were interested in. It's just been turned into kind of, like, a not yet for reasons that we very quickly figured out, but we'll get there. It's just a matter of figuring out we had some other personas take precedence because they're more sort of red, hot in a way, right? It's just easier to get in contact with these people, or it's, like, clear what they're going for or what they need from the market. So, you know, we have this whole list, and it was not clear at first who was going to kind of stand out. But we've kind of found some focus there, which means, invariably, that there's things that are falling out of the frame for now, and you're kind of de-prioritizing them. But it really is, like, a we'll get to that [laughs]. We'll eventually get to that. LINDSEY: Yeah. And part of the process, who's going to rise to the top right now? JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Do you have anything you can show and tell with us today or not yet? MIKE: So, Chris has been hard at work on all the physical side of this stuff and going back and forth with our manufacturing partner and all that good stuff. But we have a final version of the mixtape product. LINDSEY: For when this gets pulled into the podcast, Mike's showing us a physical card. CHRIS: It's a small card, and we call them Goodz. And it's printed on three-millimeter plywood using a UV printing process, super durable. And this is something you can put in your pocket. You're not going to wreck it. I think you could actually (Don't quote me on this.), but I think you can even, like, put it through a washing machine, and it would be fine. Embedded in this card is a chip that can be read by your phone, and that's pretty much what we're working with. MIKE: Yeah, so the idea is you just sort of tap this, and it'll take you to a streaming version of a playlist. And then Chris has also been making these adorable crates. And [crosstalk 26:10] LINDSEY: The little crates I love. MIKE: And we actually have some wooden ones, too, in the testing that's [crosstalk 26:15] LINDSEY: And then the mixtapes get stored in the little crates [crosstalk 26:19] MIKE: Yeah. So, you could have -- LINDSEY: Throw it on your desk. CHRIS: Each crate can hold about, I think, 15 of these things. What's really cool about this product on the physical side is we are using a tried-and-true technology, which is NFC chips. These are things that make Apple Pay work, make Google Pay work. They are in your E-ZPass when you drive through a toll booth. This is stuff that's been around for years. So, we're just kind of leveraging this technology that's been around for so long in a new way. MIKE: Yeah, I think it's similar to kind of the evolution of QR codes, right? It's like they were sort of around forever, and then it was, like, COVID and restaurant menus kind of kicked those into mainstream. Like, NFC has been around for a long time. It's very tried and true. It's affordable. But I want to say Apple only turned it on by default, like, the NFC reader in the iPhone in the last, like, 18 to 24 months, right? Like, it started...like, it's been around for a while, but they're sort of slowly kind of...and now you just sort of see it everywhere. People are using it on the subways in New York to scan for tickets or for accessing stuff. I was also just showing Chris has been prototyping with the ability to sort of keep these on a key ring. So, we have, like, a little chain hole on them. It is [inaudible 27:22] to sort of have this on your backpack or, you know, on a key ring, or something like that. And friends could kind of, like, come up to you and just, like, scan one that looks interesting. CHRIS: And yeah, something that's awesome about this is you don't need an app. You don't need to download anything. As long as your NFC reader is on when you scan this, it will bring you to the music that it's linked to, which I think is awesome. So, I mean, my dream is to have these, like, hanging off of people's backpacks so I can, like, scan them in the subway or, you know, it's such, like, an easy thing to do. And it requires so little technical time on the user's end to be able to do it. LINDSEY: Oh, we got a question here. "So, Moo used to offer NFC cards. What made you decide to do the thicker plywood model?" CHRIS: Durability is really what it comes down to. We wanted something that felt like an object that you can have and treasure. Like, these have weight, you know, these feel like something, not just a piece of paper. This is something that you can have and [inaudible 28:22] your desk, and it's not going to fade in the sunlight. It's not going to disintegrate over time. This is something that's going to last. MIKE: Yeah, the cards would definitely, like, as I would sort of carry them around and show them to people and stuff, the cards would start, you know, breaking. It's like having a business card in your pocket, right? Eventually, it's going to kind of wear out. And plus, we had, like, the stickers were visible on the back of them. And we were, like, having the sticker just completely disappear inside the wood it just feels a little bit more like magic. LINDSEY: Well, thanks for demoing there. I put you on the spot a little bit. But they are...I had seen them in the Slack, and they're very cool [laughs]. So, I had to ask if we could show them off a bit. MIKE: Of course. CHRIS: I think another thing to think about, too, is we've been talking a lot about the user experience. But if and when we get to the point of making these for artists, artists will be able to collect so much data off of the way that people buy and collect and use these things over time, which is something that we're really, really excited about. And also, you know, we're working on a way to make the link in the object updatable over time. So, artists will be able to change what a card points do to inform their users about the latest and greatest thing. LINDSEY: Very cool. Jordyn, what's next on the programming agenda for Chris and Mike? JORDYN: It's really sort of we're in this, like, iterative cycle. So, we're talking to folks. We're working on the website. The conversations we're having with people are informing how we're framing this first experiment with the mixtape, how we're marketing it, who we're marketing it to. I think next up is probably a Google Ad experiment to really see if we can piggyback on some stuff or at least figure out a new consumer product. It's so tough, right? It's also not a thing people are searching for. So, we have to come up with some experiments for how we get people to that website [laughs]. So, you know, Google Ads funnels is just something you kind of have to do because it's very interesting to figure out what people are responding to, what people are searching for. But we're going to have a bunch of other experiments as well and non-experiments. Outbound experiments: can we go to people? Can we get listed in a gift-buying guide for the holidays? Or, like, we don't know. There's a bunch of experiments we need to do around that, which is really just this iteration. We won't stop talking to users but, you know, everything we're hearing from them will inform where we go and how we talk to the folks in those places where we end up. And really, it's just about starting...once this is up and, you know, there's, like, an orderable thing, there's, like, a whole data cycle where we start to learn from the stuff we're testing; we actually have some real data for it, and we can start to tweak, iterate and change our strategy. But the bigger thing, also, is this bigger platform. So, the next thing really, the big next thing, is to sort of start to scope and create an architecture idea. What's it going to take to build the actual backend thing? And it's the thing that thoughtbot really [laughs] excels at, which is software. So, you know, that's the big next kind of project. Once the mixtape experiment is sort of out and in flight and we're getting data, we really need to turn our attention to the technical backend. LINDSEY: Exciting. Another comment/question from Jeff, who maybe needs a user interview. "Love the crate more than the actual albums. Maybe offer collections of artists." MIKE: Yeah, that's the plan. CHRIS: Yeah, definitely. It's a good idea. Yeah, it's, I mean, and labels get to, especially, like, small indie labels get really excited about doing, like, crates worth of collections of different artists or, like, you know, digging through their back catalog, their subscription services. There's a lot of different angles for sure about that idea. LINDSEY: [inaudible 31:55] Chris and Mike, going into this next section of the programming, for anyone watching right now, or watching the recording, or listening to the recording, any action items from them? You know, are you looking for any user interviews or have any survey or any destinations you'd like to send people yet? CHRIS: Not quite yet, but soon, I would say. Well -- MIKE: I mean, [inaudible 32:19] plug the website, I mean, you know, I think we've got, like, an email to sign up from there, right? The URL is getthegoodz.com and I [crosstalk 32:27] LINDSEY: Goodz with a Z. MIKE: Goodz with a Z. CHRIS: With Z. MIKE: So yeah, if you want to go there, you can sign up. I think there's an email signup on there to learn more. LINDSEY: Perfect. All right. getthegoodz.com email sign up. To stay up to date on Goodz and the incubator, you can follow along on the thoughtbot blog. You know, as always, send us any questions you might have, and we're happy to get to those. But otherwise, thanks for listening. And thank you all — Jordyn, Chris, and Mike. Thanks so much for joining today and sharing and being open about your stories so far. MIKE: Thank you. CHRIS: Yeah, thank you, Lindsey. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

This episode introduces the second participants of the season's thoughtbot's Incubator Program, Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito. Mike has a background in music industry marketing, and Chris is a maker and tinkerer with experience in exhibit development. They're developing a product combining physical objects with digital content, starting with music. Their concept involves creating physical items like wooden mixtapes with NFC chips linking to digital playlists. This blend of physical and digital aims to revive the tangible aspects of fan engagement in a digital era. Their project, named Goodz, is the first pure consumer product in the Incubator program, adding complexities like supply chain and manufacturing considerations. The team is conducting user interviews to validate market interest and refine their messaging. They aim to have a functioning physical product and a supporting digital backend by the end of the program. Challenges include defining the target market and understanding how to attract customers to a new product type. The thoughtbot team is excited about the project due to its fun nature and technical aspects, offering a fresh perspective compared to problem-focused startups. The conversation also explores the broader implications of bridging the digital and physical worlds in fan engagement, with the potential to collect valuable data for artists and create lasting, meaningful connections for fans. Follow Josh Herzig-Marx on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/) or X (https://twitter.com/herzigma). Visit his website at joshua.herzig-marx.com (https://joshua.herzig-marx.com/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: LINDSEY: All right. I'm going to kick us off here. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We're doing our first update with two founders that are now going through the Startup incubator at thoughtbot. thoughtbot, if you're not familiar, product design and development consultancy. We'll help you on your product and make your team a success. One of the very fun ways we do that is through the startup thoughtbot incubator, which is an eight-week program. So, with us today, I myself am Lindsey Christensen, marketing for thoughtbot. We also have Jordyn Bonds, who is our Director of Product Strategy and runs the thoughtbot incubator. And then, as I mentioned, we've got two new founders who are going to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they're working on. Mike Rosenthal, let's kick off with you. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe your background and what brings you to present day? MIKE: Sure. First of, thanks for having us. It's been a lot of fun doing this over the last [inaudible 01:03]; it's only two weeks, two and a half weeks, something like that. It feels like a lot more. I come from a music industry background, so worked in sort of marketing and strategy for artists for a long time; worked with a band called OK Go back, sort of starting in 2009 or so. I did a lot of early kind of viral music video stuff. And we were sort of early to the idea of sort of leveraging fan engagement and revenue, honestly, kind of beyond sort of just selling their music and touring, so sort of exploring other ways that artists can make money and connect with their fans and was with those guys for five years. And then, I went on and worked at an artist management company in Brooklyn called Mick Management and ran the marketing department there, so doing similar type of work but for a roster of 2025 major label bands. And so, really got to see fan engagement on all different levels, from really large bands down to baby bands who were just getting started. And then, yeah, started my first startup in 2018, so doing sort of fan engagement work, and NFTs, and blockchain-type stuff working with bands, but then also sports and entertainment properties. Yeah, that kind of brings me here. So, always been sort of on the music side of things, which ties into a lot of what Chris and I are working on now, but more generally, sort of fan engagement and how to, you know, drive revenue and engagement for artists and deliver value for fans. LINDSEY: Very interesting. All right, Chris, going to head over to you. Chris Cerrito, can you tell us a bit about your background? And it sounds like yours and Mike's paths; this isn't the first time you've crossed. CHRIS: No. Mike and I have been working together since 2007, I believe. Yeah, that's a great place to start. I've always been kind of a maker and a tinkerer, always been interested in art materials, how things are put together. And that kind of culminated at grad school, where Mike and I met at NYU, where we both studied physical computing and human-computer interaction, making weird things that kind of changed the way that people interact and play with technology in their day-to-day lives. I think the first project he and I worked on together was a solar robotic band that we played with light in front of a bunch of people. It was very wonderful and confusing at the same time. After grad school, I was lucky enough to become a resident artist and then an exhibit developer at a museum in San Francisco called the Exploratorium, which is a museum of science, art, and human perception. I spent ten years there working on exhibits, teaching people things ranging from, let's see; I built a dueling water fountain to teach visitors and users about the prisoner's dilemma. I built a photo booth that used computer vision to teach people about the microbiome that lives on their face, like, just all kinds of weird things like that that fuse the digital and the physical worlds. I loved my time there. And then kind of COVID hit, and I realized that everything I had been working on for ten years was locked up in a museum that I no longer had access to. And it really gave me a desire to kind of bring my ideas into the physical world. I wanted to make things that people interact with and use in their lives on a day-to-day basis. And I would say that's really what brought me here to this point. LINDSEY: Very cool. Very interesting backgrounds, in my opinion. What is the new idea? What is the thing that you're bringing into the incubator? Mike, I'll start with you. Tell us a bit about what you're working on. MIKE: Chris and I are working on physical objects that connect to digital content is sort of the broadest way that I could describe it. I think, you know, as Chris kind of mentioned, you know, we've both been working on sort of physical things that have interactivity for a lot of our careers. I think we both come from an era of a lot more physical objects in your life, whether that's, you know, VHS cassettes at your parent's house growing up, or records and tape cassettes, and just sort of physical things that remind you of the things that you love. And I think that, you know, cell phones are great, and the sort of the smartphone era is amazing and having, you know, every single song, and movie, and television show and podcasts, et cetera, in a black box in my pocket is great. But I think we've sort of gotten to a point where it's more of an organizational problem now than anything else. And we sort of forget the actual things that we love in this world. And so, we're working on basically making physical objects to tie to digital content, and we're starting with music. And that's what we've been working on at thoughtbot is sort of how we can create physical things that basically you can tap, and that will take you to streaming content. One of the first things we're working on literally looks like sort of a little mixtape on a piece of wood, and you can just load that up with any sort of playlist that you might have on Spotify, or Apple Music, or YouTube, or whatever, and tap it, and it will take you there. And so, it's just sort of that idea of like, oh, we used to be able to sort of flip through a friend's music collection and judge them ruthlessly, or become even better friends with them based on kind of what you saw there. And we think that the time is ripe for, I don't know, a blend of that nostalgia with actual sort of, like, real-world utility that people could be into this right now. Chris, what am I missing there? CHRIS: I'd say just to expand on that a little bit, it's, you know, we spend so much time in the digital world, but we still exist in the physical. And a lot of the things, like, you might spend a really long time editing a photo for your parents or making a playlist for a friend, and there's, like, a value there that might not translate because it's digital. It's ephemeral. And I think tying these digital assets to a physical thing makes them special. It gives them, like, a permanent place in your life, something to respect, to hold on to, and maybe even pass down at some point. LINDSEY: Yeah, and I think before we logged on, we actually had Jordyn and Mike grabbing cassette tapes from the room there and to show us -- MIKE: [inaudible 06:49] LINDSEY: What [laughs] was some of their collection and to prove some of the power of these physical –- MIKE: Nothing, like, just old mixtapes. LINDSEY: Mementos. MIKE: Yeah. We were just talking about this on our sync with the thoughtbot crew. They're, like, there's sort of two levels of nostalgia. There's nostalgia for people like us who, yeah, [crosstalk 07:09] mixtapes, right? For people who actually grew up with this stuff and still have it lying around or don't but, like, look at something like that that gives you, like, instant flashbacks, right? You're like, oh my God, I remember scrolling on that little j-card or, like, getting a mixtape for my first, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend, and having it just mean everything. So, there's people for whom that was a thing. And there's, you know, generations of people for whom that is, like, their only connection to that is, you know, Stranger Things or, like, you know, the mixtape exists in pop culture as a reference. So, there's still, like, a very strong attachment there, but it's not a personal one, right? It's a cultural one. But I think everybody has that connection. So, that's kind of why we're starting with the mixtape, just because I think everyone can kind of relate to that in some way. LINDSEY: Yeah, no, yeah. When I hear mixtape, it goes immediately to crushes. You make a mixtape for your crush. CHRIS: Exactly. LINDSEY: It's a huge, powerful market, powerful. MIKE: Oh my God, so powerful. I mean, yeah, I don't know anybody -- LINDSEY: What's more motivating? MIKE: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. CHRIS: Or even just I have a really good friend who I don't get to see as often as I'd like. And he and I are constantly sending each other, you know, Spotify links and text messages. And it's great. I love that interaction. But at the same time, you know, I might forget to add that to a playlist, and then it's kind of lost. If I had taken the time to make something and send it to him physically or vice versa, it just becomes so much more special and so much more real. MIKE: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I first made these...I mean, we can go to this origin if we want. But, like, I literally just went on moo.com, right? The business card company. And they let you upload, you know, 50 different images, and they'll send you all of those as business cards. And so, I literally went on and just made business cards of all the album covers of, like, albums that I loved growing up, right? And their cheapest is this little piece of cardboard. But I had 50 of these, and I'd put them all out on my coffee table, just as something I wanted to have around. And people kept coming, you know, friends would come over, and you would just have these conversations that I haven't had in 10 or 15 years, right? Because no one's going to come to my house and pick up my phone and look at my Spotify collection. But if these things are all just sitting out, they're like, "Oh shit, you're into that? Like, I haven't thought about that album in 15 years." Or like, "Oh, I didn't know you were into that. I'm, like, a crazy super fan of that artist as well." And all of a sudden, we're having these conversations that we just weren't having. Yeah, there's something there where it's all been nostalgia coupled with the kind of prompting of conversation and connection that we've kind of lost, I think. CHRIS: And I think just to clarify a little bit on what Mike's saying, is, you know, this mixtape will be our first product launch, and then we're hoping to move into collectibles for artists and labels. So, shortly after we launch this tape, we're hoping to launch some kind of pilot with a label where you will be able to buy a version of this for your favorite music artist at a merch table in a concert, possibly online. Our dream is to have these sitting there on the table with T-shirts, and records, and other things that artists sell so you can express for the artists that you love. This is a way of expressing your fandom. LINDSEY: Jordyn, heading over to you, this feels like maybe the first consumer product that has gone through the incubator, would you say? Or how do you think about it? JORDYN: Yeah, if you're a consumer -- LINDSEY: Or is it different than other types of products? JORDYN: Yeah, the first incubator project we did with Senga was, I think, what you would call prosumer. So, it was sort of a consumer thing but directed at folks who had kind of freelancing in sort of a business context. It's got a lot of dynamics of the consumer. But this one, for sure, is the first pure consumer play. Though now that I'm thinking about it, you know, AvidFirst had some consumer elements to it, but it was, you know, it was, like, more complex tech [laughs] [inaudible 10:46] totally different thing -- LINDSEY: But definitely the first of the physical, physical [inaudible 10:52] JORDYN: Oh, sure, the first of the physical thing. Right. Absolutely. LINDSEY: Does that change any of, like, the approach of the programming, or it's kind of -- JORDYN: I mean, no, not fundamentally, though it does add this layer of operations that you don't have with a pure software play. So, we have to be, there is a thing that needs to get shipped to people in the world, and that takes timelines, and it takes -- LINDSEY: Supply chain. JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. And Chris is doing most of that stuff. I don't want to, you know, this is not, like, the main focus of our team necessarily, but it intersects, right? So, this isn't the first one of these types of products I've worked on personally in my career. But there's something, like, really, for me, very fulfilling about, like, there's software. There's a big component of software. There's also this physical object that needs to exist in the world. And partly, what's so compelling about Goodz is that it gives you the promise of a physical, like, the sort of good aspects of a physical product, a thing you can hold in your hand and look at and really connect with in that physical way. But it has this dynamic digital, like, essential quality as well. So, it's very compelling as a product because it sort of marries the things that we like about both the physical world and the digital world, which is partly why the team was really excited about working on it [laughs]. LINDSEY: Well, that was going to be my next question is, you know, what stood out to you about the Goodz application for the incubator and the interview process that made you and the team feel like this was going to be a great project to work on? JORDYN: Yeah. So, I think just the team really resonated with the sort of idea in general, and it seemed fun. There was, like, it's a very positive thing, right? It isn't so much about solving problems and pain points. And, sometimes the, you know, when you're very focused on solving problems, it can feel a little doomy because you actually have to, like, immerse yourself in the problems of the people that you're making software for. And sometimes, you start to feel like the world is just full of problems. What Goodz is doing is sort of it is solving a problem in a sense, but not in that kind of way. It's really, like, a fun upside kind of thing, which I think a lot of the folks on the team were very excited about. But, like, the software component, actually, is very interesting to us from a technological standpoint as well. There's a lot of opportunity here to do interesting things on the backend with an object that's essentially functioning as a bookmark out in the world. What all can you do with that? There's something super compelling and technically interesting about it. And I think, also, the team was just sort of excited by Chris and Mike, you know, the energy and the kind of background they were bringing to the table was also super interesting. And then, above all else, what I say every time you ask me this question, which is stage fit, y'all, good stage fit. They're right at the beginning. They haven't built the product yet [laughs]. Gotta say it. It's a good stage fit. They know who they're building for broadly but not super specifically. Got a good vision but, like, haven't made that first step with the software. Perfect stage fit for us [laughs]. LINDSEY: Great. So, Chris, we were talking a bit before about how you two have been collaborators in the past, worked on business ideas before. Why bring this idea into the thoughtbot incubator? What are you hoping to, you know, achieve? CHRIS: One of the main reasons why we wanted to bring this into the incubator was just for support, momentum, and then, also, I would say, validation for our idea. I mean, we came to the incubator with a very, yeah, I would say it was a fairly developed idea that needed to be proved, and we, quite frankly, needed help with that. You know, Mike and I have our own expertises, but we don't know how to do everything. We're more than willing to jump in where we need to go. But having people with expertise to work with has proven to be incredibly helpful, and just having kind of fresh faces to bat ideas around with after he and I have been staring at each other for months now on Zoom calls and meetings. And just, you know, being able to talk about these ideas with fresh faces and new people and get new perspectives has been so very, very helpful. I think something that's also great from the momentum standpoint is that because there's a time limit to this experience, we've got the time that we have with you guys, and we've been able to set goals that I think are very achievable for things we want to occur in the next couple of months, and it feels like we're going to get there. And I think by the end of this, I mean, our hope, and I think we're on track, is to have a functioning physical product that we're going to offer to consumers with a digital backend to support it, which is, in my mind, amazing. That'll totally validate this idea and prove if we have something or not. LINDSEY: I was going to ask if you're open to sharing what those goals specifically are. Is that it? Is it that by the end, you have -- MIKE: Is that it? Lindsey, that's a lot. [laughter] CHRIS: It's a lot. I mean, yeah. I mean, we're going to have a physical object in the world that you can buy via an e-commerce site -- JORDYN: Sounds like we need Lindsey on the team if Lindsey feels like this is so achievable. [laughter] CHRIS: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey...yeah. We're in the beginning [crosstalk 15:47] LINDSEY: I meant, is that the goal? CHRIS: That is the goal. LINDSEY: Is that all? CHRIS: I was going to –- LINDSEY: Is that all you got? CHRIS: Mike, do you agree? MIKE: Yeah. Is that the goal? Yes, that is the goal. I mean, you know, when we sat down with the thoughtbot team kind of week one, you know, they're sort of like, "All right, let's define kind of the experiment." So, we refer to them as experiments, which I think is helpful because, like, what are the experiments that we want to be doing during our time here? And, you know, we talked about it a lot. And yeah, I think it's, you know, having a physical product out in the world, having a website in which to sell it. But also, it's really like Chris was saying, it's like, it's market validation, and just making sure we actually have something that people want. It's like, you know, running a startup takes so long and, like [laughs], you know, you'll do it for so many years. It's like bands when people say, like, "Oh, that's an overnight sensation." It's like, you know, that band has been slogging it out in tiny, little venues for four years before you ever heard of them. It's like, that's what so much of the startup world feels like to me, too. It's like, "Oh, you're just getting started as a startup?" It's like, "Well, we've been working on this forever." And I know how long this can take. And so, I think we want to learn as early as possible, like, is this something people actually want? Because if they don't, like, we'll just go do something else. I don't want to spend years making something that people don't want. So, I think the biggest goal, for me, is just validation, and then that is sort of how we get there is like, okay, how do we validate this? Cool. Let's identify some, you know, assumptions of personas that we think are people who do actually want this and then try to go sell it to them. And all the implications from that are, okay, well, you need a website where somebody can buy it. You need a physical product that somebody can actually buy. So, all those things sort of come out of that, but, for me, it's like, proving that assumption, is this thing real? Do people actually want this? And everything else is like, okay, how do we prove that? LINDSEY: Jordyn, what does that look like in these first few weeks here? User interviews, I assume, how are the user interviews going? JORDYN: Always. Always. So, you know, we kick it off by just, like, doing the exercise where we list everybody who might want this. And the team, you know, it's a fun product. Everybody brought their own assumptions and ideas to the table on that. You know, we had a lot of different scenarios we were imagining. It's super fun getting that stuff out of people's heads, just, like, what are we all thinking? And then, you know, we get to negotiate, like, okay...I always encourage everyone to think, like, if everyone else on the team was on the moon, you had to make a decision about a market segment to pick; which one would you pick? And then we kind of argue about it in a productive way. It really helps us get at, like, what are the dynamics that we think matter upfront? And then we pick one, or, in this case, we have a few. We have a handful. And we're running interview projects where we just recruit people to talk about people that meet this persona, talk about a specific problem. We're in the middle of that right now. And it's fun, fantastic. These conversations are super interesting. We're validating a lot of the things that Mike and Chris, you know, walked into this with, but we're learning a bunch of new things as well. And, like, really, part of the aim there is to validate that there's a hole in the market that we might fill but also to hear the language people are using to describe this stuff. So, when people talk about buying music, merch, you know, making playlists, et cetera, like, what language do they use to talk about that? So that we make sure we're speaking the language that our customer uses to describe this stuff. And we're, you know, we're right in the pocket of doing that, learning stuff all the time. And it helps us kind of hone the messaging. It helps us know where to go talk to people about it, how to talk about it, but it's, you know, it all kind of fits together. And it's just this, really...the early stages. It's just a bunch of us in a room, a virtual room, in this case, sort of, like, tossing ideas around. But out of it crystallizes this sense of alignment about who this is for, how to talk to them about it, and with a goal. And, you know, Mike and Chris walked in with the exact right mindset about this, which is, yes, it's experiments. We need to validate it. Let's make sure there's a there-there. If there's a there-there, let's figure out where it is [laughs], like, all those things. And we're running these experiments, and it was really [inaudible 19:36]. We got down to business quite quickly here. It was really great. LINDSEY: Like you said, it's not necessarily a problem or, you know, the typical framing of a problem. How do you start those user interview questions around this? Do you feel a gap between the physical and the digital sound? [laughter] JORDYN: No, no. LINDSEY: It's maybe not it [laughs]. JORDYN: Yeah, no. Well, I can tell you what our startup questions are. One of them is, tell me about the last time you bought music merch. Go for it, Lindsey. Tell us. LINDSEY: The last time I bought music merch, I went to a Tegan and Sara concert a few weeks ago, and I bought a T-shirt. JORDYN: Tell me about buying that T-shirt. Why'd you buy it? LINDSEY: Because I wanted to remember the show and my time with my friends, and I wanted to support the artists. I know that buying merch is the best way to support your favorite touring artists. JORDYN: So, it's just, you know, we could spend the rest of this time talking [laughter] [crosstalk 20:34], and it would be awesome. So, it's really a lot of things like that. LINDSEY: Gotcha. JORDYN: You don't ask, "What problem are you trying to solve by buying this t-shirt?" Right? Like, that's not, you know, but we ask you to tell us a bunch of stories about when you did this recently. You know, and if you make playlists for friends, you know, that's a different persona. But we would have asked, you know, like, "Tell me about the last playlist you made. You know, who did you share it with? You know, what happened after that? What happened after that? What happened after that?" It's a lot of questions like that. And there's just nothing better. People love to tell you what's going on with them. And it's great [laughs]. LINDSEY: Yeah. As you all have been doing these interviews, Mike and Chris, have you been surprised by anything? Any interesting insights that you're seeing already? CHRIS: I mean, I haven't done really much in the way of user interviews in the past. This is a really new experience for me. And then we're, obviously, not on the calls because that would be weird and probably intimidating for people. But we're getting lots of highlights from folks who are doing them, you know, in our daily sync. And I'm surprised at how many, like, really intense, like, playlist nerds we have found even just in, like, the few people we've talked to, like, in the best possible way. Like, people who are like, "I make playlists all the time." Like, you're talking about, like, a vinyl fan or, like, a...Jordyn, what's the story? It's, like, the guy who there was so much out-of-print vinyl that he started a vinyl label just to get the albums in vinyl. [crosstalk 21:56] JORDYN: Yeah. There were a bunch of releases that he feels really passionately about that were never released on vinyl that he knew would never be released on vinyl. And so, he started a vinyl record label. And we just found this guy [laughter]. CHRIS: Is that indicative that that's, like, an entire persona we're going to, like, target? Absolutely not. But it's just, like, it's amazing that even just in the few user interviews we've done, that we've found so many very passionate people. And it's sent me down, like, a TikTok rabbit hole of, like, TikTok, like, music nerd influencer-type folks who are posting playlists. And they, like, hundreds of thousands of likes on these videos that are literally just, like, screen with text on it that you're supposed to, like, pause the video [laughs] and, like, look at, like, the songs that they're recommending. And it's like, who does that? And it was like, these people do that. And it's like, so there are...it's been very encouraging to me, actually. I was worried that we were going to find not as much passion as we had suspected, and I think the opposite has proven to be true. So, it's exciting. CHRIS: Yeah, I completely agree with Mike. It's been so encouraging. I think, for me, what we're doing is an idea that I'm very excited about and have been very excited about for a long time. But hearing the responses that we're getting makes me confident in the idea, too. That's great. I mean, I think that is everything that a founder needs, you know, is excitement and confidence. MIKE: Well, and just the whole user interview experience has, like, made a lot of my other conversations sort of I've tried to frame parts of them as user interviews because I'm talking to a lot of, like, label folks now, and artists, merch people. And, you know, I ended up just sort of, like, asking them, I mean, yes, trying to explain the product and work on kind of partnership stuff, but a lot of it is really just geeking out with them. And just, like, hearing their thoughts about, like, what they love about merch because these are people that clearly think about this stuff all the time. So, it's definitely kind of, like, tuned my other conversations into trying to get unbiased feedback. LINDSEY: Yeah. Everything is a little user interview now. MIKE: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Get that angle in there. All right, so some early validation and excitement. That's really cool to hear. Any challenges or, you know, other kinds of learnings early on? Anything that's been invalidated? MIKE: I don't know that we're there yet. [inaudible 24:02] Chris, I don't know. I'm happy to find that some things are invalidated, but I don't really feel...you know, some of the personas that we decided or maybe just one of the personas we decided to pursue, I think we're having a hard time having those user interviews kind of really bear fruit, but that's helpful, too, actually. I mean, it's like, okay, well, maybe that's not a group that we target. JORDYN: Yeah. It's about, like, [inaudible 24:24]. I encourage folks not to think about this like a 'no, not that,' and instead think of it as like a 'not yet.' And that's, I think, the dynamic here with a couple of the personas we were interested in. It's just been turned into kind of, like, a not yet for reasons that we very quickly figured out, but we'll get there. It's just a matter of figuring out we had some other personas take precedence because they're more sort of red, hot in a way, right? It's just easier to get in contact with these people, or it's, like, clear what they're going for or what they need from the market. So, you know, we have this whole list, and it was not clear at first who was going to kind of stand out. But we've kind of found some focus there, which means, invariably, that there's things that are falling out of the frame for now, and you're kind of de-prioritizing them. But it really is, like, a we'll get to that [laughs]. We'll eventually get to that. LINDSEY: Yeah. And part of the process, who's going to rise to the top right now? JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Do you have anything you can show and tell with us today or not yet? MIKE: So, Chris has been hard at work on all the physical side of this stuff and going back and forth with our manufacturing partner and all that good stuff. But we have a final version of the mixtape product. LINDSEY: For when this gets pulled into the podcast, Mike's showing us a physical card. CHRIS: It's a small card, and we call them Goodz. And it's printed on three-millimeter plywood using a UV printing process, super durable. And this is something you can put in your pocket. You're not going to wreck it. I think you could actually (Don't quote me on this.), but I think you can even, like, put it through a washing machine, and it would be fine. Embedded in this card is a chip that can be read by your phone, and that's pretty much what we're working with. MIKE: Yeah, so the idea is you just sort of tap this, and it'll take you to a streaming version of a playlist. And then Chris has also been making these adorable crates. And [crosstalk 26:10] LINDSEY: The little crates I love. MIKE: And we actually have some wooden ones, too, in the testing that's [crosstalk 26:15] LINDSEY: And then the mixtapes get stored in the little crates [crosstalk 26:19] MIKE: Yeah. So, you could have -- LINDSEY: Throw it on your desk. CHRIS: Each crate can hold about, I think, 15 of these things. What's really cool about this product on the physical side is we are using a tried-and-true technology, which is NFC chips. These are things that make Apple Pay work, make Google Pay work. They are in your E-ZPass when you drive through a toll booth. This is stuff that's been around for years. So, we're just kind of leveraging this technology that's been around for so long in a new way. MIKE: Yeah, I think it's similar to kind of the evolution of QR codes, right? It's like they were sort of around forever, and then it was, like, COVID and restaurant menus kind of kicked those into mainstream. Like, NFC has been around for a long time. It's very tried and true. It's affordable. But I want to say Apple only turned it on by default, like, the NFC reader in the iPhone in the last, like, 18 to 24 months, right? Like, it started...like, it's been around for a while, but they're sort of slowly kind of...and now you just sort of see it everywhere. People are using it on the subways in New York to scan for tickets or for accessing stuff. I was also just showing Chris has been prototyping with the ability to sort of keep these on a key ring. So, we have, like, a little chain hole on them. It is [inaudible 27:22] to sort of have this on your backpack or, you know, on a key ring, or something like that. And friends could kind of, like, come up to you and just, like, scan one that looks interesting. CHRIS: And yeah, something that's awesome about this is you don't need an app. You don't need to download anything. As long as your NFC reader is on when you scan this, it will bring you to the music that it's linked to, which I think is awesome. So, I mean, my dream is to have these, like, hanging off of people's backpacks so I can, like, scan them in the subway or, you know, it's such, like, an easy thing to do. And it requires so little technical time on the user's end to be able to do it. LINDSEY: Oh, we got a question here. "So, Moo used to offer NFC cards. What made you decide to do the thicker plywood model?" CHRIS: Durability is really what it comes down to. We wanted something that felt like an object that you can have and treasure. Like, these have weight, you know, these feel like something, not just a piece of paper. This is something that you can have and [inaudible 28:22] your desk, and it's not going to fade in the sunlight. It's not going to disintegrate over time. This is something that's going to last. MIKE: Yeah, the cards would definitely, like, as I would sort of carry them around and show them to people and stuff, the cards would start, you know, breaking. It's like having a business card in your pocket, right? Eventually, it's going to kind of wear out. And plus, we had, like, the stickers were visible on the back of them. And we were, like, having the sticker just completely disappear inside the wood; it just feels a little bit more like magic. LINDSEY: Well, thanks for demoing there. I put you on the spot a little bit. But they are...I had seen them in the Slack, and they're very cool [laughs]. So, I had to ask if we could show them off a bit. MIKE: Of course. CHRIS: I think another thing to think about, too, is we've been talking a lot about the user experience. But if and when we get to the point of making these for artists, artists will be able to collect so much data off of the way that people buy and collect and use these things over time, which is something that we're really, really excited about. And also, you know, we're working on a way to make the link in the object updatable over time. So, artists will be able to change what a card points do to inform their users about the latest and greatest thing. LINDSEY: Very cool. Jordyn, what's next on the programming agenda for Chris and Mike? JORDYN: It's really sort of we're in this, like, iterative cycle. So, we're talking to folks. We're working on the website. The conversations we're having with people are informing how we're framing this first experiment with the mixtape, how we're marketing it, who we're marketing it to. I think next up is probably a Google Ad experiment to really see if we can piggyback on some stuff or at least figure out a new consumer product. It's so tough, right? It's also not a thing people are searching for. So, we have to come up with some experiments for how we get people to that website [laughs]. So, you know, Google Ads funnels is just something you kind of have to do because it's very interesting to figure out what people are responding to, what people are searching for. But we're going to have a bunch of other experiments as well and non-experiments. Outbound experiments: can we go to people? Can we get listed in a gift-buying guide for the holidays? Or, like, we don't know. There's a bunch of experiments we need to do around that, which is really just this iteration. We won't stop talking to users, but, you know, everything we're hearing from them will inform where we go and how we talk to the folks in those places where we end up. And really, it's just about starting...once this is up and, you know, there's, like, an orderable thing, there's, like, a whole data cycle where we start to learn from the stuff we're testing; we actually have some real data for it, and we can start to tweak, iterate and change our strategy. But the bigger thing, also, is this bigger platform. So, the next thing really, the big next thing, is to sort of start to scope and create an architecture idea. What's it going to take to build the actual backend thing? And it's the thing that thoughtbot really [laughs] excels at, which is software. So, you know, that's the big next kind of project. Once the mixtape experiment is sort of out and in flight and we're getting data, we really need to turn our attention to the technical backend. LINDSEY: Exciting. Another comment/question from Jeff, who maybe needs a user interview. "Love the crate more than the actual albums. Maybe offer collections of artists." MIKE: Yeah, that's the plan. CHRIS: Yeah, definitely. It's a good idea. Yeah, it's, I mean, and labels get to, especially, like, small indie labels get really excited about doing, like, crates worth of collections of different artists or, like, you know, digging through their back catalog, their subscription services. There's a lot of different angles for sure about that idea. LINDSEY: [inaudible 31:55] Chris and Mike, going into this next section of the programming, for anyone watching right now, or watching the recording, or listening to the recording, any action items from them? You know, are you looking for any user interviews or have any survey or any destinations you'd like to send people yet? CHRIS: Not quite yet, but soon, I would say. Well -- MIKE: I mean, [inaudible 32:19] plug the website, I mean, you know, I think we've got, like, an email to sign up from there, right? The URL is getthegoodz.com and I [crosstalk 32:27] LINDSEY: Goodz with a Z. MIKE: Goodz with a Z. CHRIS: With Z. MIKE: So yeah, if you want to go there, you can sign up. I think there's an email signup on there to learn more. LINDSEY: Perfect. All right. getthegoodz.com email sign up. To stay up to date on Goodz and the incubator, you can follow along on the thoughtbot blog. You know, as always, send us any questions you might have, and we're happy to get to those. But otherwise, thanks for listening. And thank you all — Jordyn, Chris, and Mike. Thanks so much for joining today and sharing and being open about your stories so far. MIKE: Thank you. CHRIS: Yeah, thank you, Lindsey. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal.

Chris Hill, owner of HumblePod and host of the We Built This Brand podcast, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss the future of podcasting and the role emerging technologies will play in the podcasting space. Chris describes why AI is struggling to make a big impact in the world of podcasting, and also emphasizes the importance of authenticity and finding a niche when producing a show. Corey and Chris discuss where video podcasting works and where it doesn't, and why it's more important to focus on the content of your podcast than the technical specs of your gear. Chris also shares insight on how to gauge the health of your podcast audience with his Podcast Listener Lifecycle evaluation tool.About ChrisChris Hill is a Knoxville, TN native and owner of the podcast production company, HumblePod. He helps his customers create, develop, and produce podcasts and is working with clients in Knoxville as well as startups and entrepreneurs across the United States, Silicon Valley, and the world.In addition to producing podcasts for nationally-recognized thought leaders, Chris is the co-host and producer of the award-winning Our Humble Beer Podcast and the host of the newly-launched We Built This Brand podcast. He also lectures at the University of Tennessee, where he leads non-credit courses on podcasts and marketing.  He received his undergraduate degree in business at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he majored in Marketing & Entrepreneurship, and he later received his MBA from King University.Chris currently serves his community as the President of the American Marketing Association in Knoxville. In his spare time, he enjoys hanging out with the local craft beer community, international travel, exploring the great outdoors, and his many creative pursuits.Links Referenced: HumblePod: https://www.humblepod.com/ HumblePod Quick Edit: https://humblepod.com/services/quick-edit Podcast Listener Lifecycle: https://www.humblepod.com/podcast/grow-your-podcast-with-the-listener-lifecycle/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/christopholies Transcript:Announcer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Are you navigating the complex web of API management, microservices, and Kubernetes in your organization? Solo.io is here to be your guide to connectivity in the cloud-native universe!Solo.io, the powerhouse behind Istio, is revolutionizing cloud-native application networking. They brought you Gloo Gateway, the lightweight and ultra-fast gateway built for modern API management, and Gloo Mesh Core, a necessary step to secure, support, and operate your Istio environment.Why struggle with the nuts and bolts of infrastructure when you can focus on what truly matters - your application. Solo.io's got your back with networking for applications, not infrastructure. Embrace zero trust security, GitOps automation, and seamless multi-cloud networking, all with Solo.io.And here's the real game-changer: a common interface for every connection, in every direction, all with one API. It's the future of connectivity, and it's called Gloo by Solo.io.DevOps and Platform Engineers, your journey to a seamless cloud-native experience starts here. Visit solo.io/screaminginthecloud today and level up your networking game.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. My returning guest probably knows more about this podcast than I do. Chris Hill is not only the CEO of HumblePod, but he's also the producer of a lot of my various media endeavors, ranging from the psychotic music videos that I wind up putting out to mock executives on their birthdays to more normal videos that I wind up recording when I'm forced into the studio and can't escape because they bar the back exits, to this show. Chris, thank you for joining me, it's nice to see you step into the light.Chris: It's a pleasure to be here, Corey.Corey: So, you have been, effectively, producing this entire podcast after I migrated off of a previous vendor, what four years ago? Five?Chris: About four or five years ago now, yeah. It's been a while.Corey: Time is a flat circle. It's hard to keep track of all of that. But it's weird that you and I don't get to talk nearly as much as we used to, just because, frankly, the process is working and therefore, you disappear into the background.Chris: Yeah.Corey: One of the dangerous parts of that is that the only time I ever wind up talking to you is when something has gone wrong somewhere and frankly, that does not happen anymore. Which means we don't talk.Chris: Yeah. And I'm okay with that. I'm just kidding. I love talking to you, Corey.Corey: Oh, I tolerate you. And every once in a while, you irritate me massively, which is why I'm punishing you this year by—Chris: [laugh].Corey: Making you tag along for re:Invent.Chris: I'm really excited about that one. It's going to be fun to be there with you and Jeremy and Mike and everybody. Looking forward to it.Corey: You know how I can tell that you've never been to re:Invent before?Chris: “I'm looking forward to it.”Corey: Exactly. You still have life in your eyes and a spark in your step. And yeah… that'll change. That'll change. So, a lot of this show is indirectly your fault because this is a weird thing for a podcaster to admit, but I genuinely don't listen to podcasts. I did when I was younger, back when I had what the kids today call ‘commute' or ‘RTO' as they start slipping into the office, but I started working from home almost a decade ago, and there aren't too many podcasts that fit into the walk from the kitchen to my home office. Like great, give me everything you want me to know in about three-and-a-half seconds. Go… and we're done. It doesn't work. So, I'm a producer, but I don't consume my own content, which I think generally is something you only otherwise see in, you know, drug dealers.Chris: Yeah. Well, and I mean, I think a lot of professional media, like, you get to a point where you're so busy and you're creating so much content that it's hard to sit down and review your own stuff. I mean, even at HumblePod, I'm in a place where we're producing our own show now called We Built This Brand, and I end up in a place where some weeks I'm like, “I can't review this. I approve it. You send it out, I trust you.” So, Corey, I'm starting to echo you in a lot of ways and it's just—it makes me laugh from time to time.Corey: Somewhat recently, I wound up yet again, having to do a check on, “Hey, you use HumblePod for your podcasting work. Do you like them?” And it's fun. It's almost like when someone reaches out about someone you used to work with. Like, “We're debating hiring this person. Should we?” And I love being able to give the default response for the people I've worked with for this long, which is, “Shut up and hire them. Why are you talking to me and not hiring them faster? Get on with it.”Because I'm a difficult customer. I know that. The expectations I have are at times unreasonably high. And the fact that I don't talk to you nearly as much as I used to shows that this all has been working. Because there was a time we talked multiple times a day back—Chris: Mm-hm.Corey: When I had no idea what I was doing. Now, 500-some-odd episodes in, I still have no idea what I'm doing, but by God, I've gotten it down to a science.Chris: Absolutely you have. And you know, technically we're over 1000 episodes together, I think, at this point because if you combine what you're doing with Screaming in the Cloud, with Last Week in AWS slash AWS Morning Brief, yeah, we've done a lot with you. But yes, you've come a long way.Corey: Yes, I have become the very whitest of guys. It works out well. It's like, one podcast isn't enough. We're going to have two of them. But it's easy to talk about the past. Let's talk instead about the future a little bit. What does the future of podcasting look like? I mean, one easy direction to go in with this, as you just mentioned, there's over 1000 episodes of me flapping my gums in the breeze. That feels like it's more than enough data to train an AI model to basically be me without all the hard work, but somehow I kind of don't see it happening anytime soon.Chris: Yeah, I think listeners still value authenticity a lot and I think that's one of the hard things you're seeing in podcasting as a whole is that these organizations come in and they're like, “We're going to be the new podcast killer,” or, “We're going to be the next thing for podcasting,” and if it's too overproduced, too polished, like, I think people can detect that and see that inauthenticity, which is why, like, AI coming in and taking over people's voices is so crazy. One of the things that's happening right now at Spotify is that they are beta testing translation software so that Screaming in the Cloud could automatically be in Spanish or Last Week in AWS could automatically be in French or what have you. It's just so surreal to me that they're doing this, but they're doing exactly what you said. It's language learning models that understand what the host is saying and then they're translating it into another language.The problem is, what if that automation gets that word wrong? You know how bad one wrong word could be, translating from Spanish or French or any other language from English. So, there's a lot of challenges to be met there. And then, of course, you know, once they've got your voice, what do they do with it? There's a lot of risk there.Corey: The puns don't translate very well, most of the time, either.Chris: Oh, yes.Corey: Especially when I mis-intentionally mispronounce words like Ku-BER-netees.Chris: Exactly. I mean, it's going to be auto-translated into text at some point before it's then put out as, you know, an audio source, and so if you say something wrong, it's going to be an issue. And Ku-BER-netees or Chat-Gippity or any of those great terms that you have, they're going to also be translated wrong as well, and that creates its own can of worms so to speak.Corey: Well, let me ask you something because you have always been one to embrace emerging technologies. It's one of the things I appreciate about you; you generally don't recommend solutions from the Dark Ages when it comes to what equipment should I have and how should I maintain it and the rest. But there are a lot of services out there that will now do automatic transcription and the service that you use at the moment remains a woman named Cecilia, who's remarkably good at what she does. But why have you not replaced her with a robot?Chris: [laugh]. Very simply put, I mean, it kind of goes back to what I was just saying about language translation. AI does not understand context for human words as well as humans do, and so words are wrong a lot of times in auto transcription. I mean, I can remember a time when, you know, we first started working with you all were, if there was one thing wrong in a transcript, an executive at AWS would potentially make fun of you on Twitter for it. And so, we knew we had to be on our A-game when it came to that, so finding someone who had that niche expertise of being able to translate not just words and understand words, but also understand tech terminology, you know, I think that that's, that's its own animal and its own challenge. So yeah, I mean, you could easily get away with something—Corey: Especially with my attentional mispronunciation where she's, “I don't quite know what you're saying here, and neither does the entire rest of the industry.” Like, “Postgres-squ—do you mean Postgres? Who the hell calls it Postgres-squeal?” I do. I call it that. Two warring pronunciations, I will unify them by coming up with a third that is far worse. It's kind of my shtick. The problem is, at some point, it becomes too inside-jokey when I have 15 words that I'm doing that too, and suddenly no one knows what the hell I'm talking about and the joke gets old quickly.Chris: Yep.Corey: So, I've tried to scale that back. But there are still a few that I… I can't help but play with.Chris: Yeah. And it's always fun bringing someone new in to work on—work with you all because they're always like, “What is he saying? Does he mean this?” And [laugh] it's always an adventure.Corey: It keeps life fun though.Chris: Absolutely.Corey: So, one thing that you did for a while, back when I was starting out, it almost felt like you were in cahoots with Big Microphone because once I would wind up getting a setup all working and ready for the recording, like, “Great. Everything working terrifically? Cool, throw it away. It's time for generation three of this.” I think I'm on, like, gen six, or gen seven now, but it's been relatively static for the past few years. Are the checks not as big as they used to be? I mean, if we hit a point of equilibrium? What's going on?Chris: Yeah, unfortunately, Big Microphone isn't paying what they used to. The economy and interest rates and all that, it's just making it hard. But once you get to a certain level of gear, it's going to be more important that you have good content than better and better gear. Could we keep going? Sure. If you wanted to buy a studio and you wanted to get Neumann microphones or something like that, we could keep going. But again, Big Microphone is not paying what they used to.Corey: When people reach out because they're debating starting a podcast and they ask me for advice, other than hire HumblePod, the next question they usually get around to is gear. And I don't think that they are expecting my answer, which is, it does not matter. Because if the content is good, the listeners will forgive an awful lot. You could record it into your iPhone in a quiet room and they will put up with that. Whereas if the content isn't good, it doesn't matter what the production value is because people are constantly being offered better things to do with their time. You've got to grab them, you have to be compelling to your target audience or the rest of it does not matter.Chris: Yeah. And I think that's the big challenge with audio is a lot of people get excited, especially I find this true of people in the tech industry of like, “Okay, I want to learn all the tech stuff, I love all the cool tech stuff, and so I'm going to go out and buy all this equipment first.” And then they spend $5,000 on equipment and they never record a single episode because they put all their time and energy into researching and buying gear and never thought about the content of the show. The truth is, you could start with your iPhone and that's it. And while I don't necessarily advise that, you'd be surprised at the quality of audio on an iPhone.I've had a client have to re-record something while they were traveling remotely and I said, “You just need to get your iPhone out.” They took their AirPods, plugged them in and, I said, “No. Take them out, use the microphone on the iPhone.” And you can start with something as simple as that. Now, once you want to start making it better, sure, that's a great way to grow and that does influence people staying with your podcast over time, but I think in the long run, content trumps all.Corey: One of the problems I keep seeing is that people also want to record a podcast because they have a great idea for a few episodes. My rule of thumb—because I've gotten this wrong before—is, okay, if you want to do a whole new podcast, come up with the first 12 episodes. Because two, three, four, of course, you've got your ideas. And then by the—you'll find in many cases, you're going to have a problem by the end of it. Years ago, I did a mini-series inside of AMB called “Networking in the Cloud” where it was sponsored by, at the time, ThousandEyes, before Cisco bought them and froze them in amber for all eternity.But it was fun for the first six episodes and then I realized I'd said all I needed to say about networking, and I was on the hook for six more. And Ivan Pepeinjak, who's his own influencer type in the BGP IP space was like, “This is why you should stay in your lane. He's terrible. He got it all wrong.” Like, “Great. Come on and tell me exactly how I got it wrong,” because I was trying to approach it from a very surface topical area, but BGP is one of those areas where I get very wrapped around my own axle just because I've never used it in anger. Being able to pivot the show format is what saved me on that. But if I had started doing this as its own individual podcast and launched, it would have died on the vine, just because it would not have had enough staying power and I didn't have the interest to continue working on it. Could someone else come up with a networking-in-the-cloud podcast that had hundreds of episodes? Absolutely, but those people are what we call competent and good at things in a way that I very much am not.Chris: Yep. And I completely agree. I mean, 12 is my default number, so—I'm not going to take credit for your saying 12, but I know we've talked about that before. And—Corey: It was a 12-episode miniseries is why. And I remember by ten, I had completely scraped the bottom of the barrel. Then Ivan saved me on one of them, and then I did, I think, a mini-series-in-review, which is cheating but worked.Chris: Yeah. I remember that, the trials and travails of giving that out. It was fun, though. But with that, yeah, like, 12 is a good number because, like, to your point, if you have 12 and you want to do a monthly show, you've got a year's worth of content, if you do bi-weekly, that's six months, and if it's a weekly show, it's at least a quarter's worth of content. So, it does help you think through and at least come up with any potential roadblocks you might have by at least listing out, here's what episodes one, two, three, four, five and so on would be. And so, I do think that's a great approach.Corey: And don't be an idiot like I was and launch a newsletter and then podcast that focus on last week's news because you can't work ahead on that. If you can, why are you not a multi-billionaire for playing the markets? If you can predict the future, there's a more lucrative career for you than podcasting, I promise. But that means that I have to be on the treadmill on some level. I've gotten it down to a point where I can stretch it to ten days. I can take ten days off if I preload, do it as early as I possibly can beforehand and then as late as I possibly can when I return. Anything more than that, I'm either skipping a week or delaying the show or have to get a guest author or artist in.Chris: Yeah. And you definitely need that time off, and so that's the one big challenge, I think with podcasting, too, is like you create this treadmill for yourself that you constantly have to fill content after content after content. I think that's one of the big challenges in podcasting and one of the reasons we see so many podcasts fade out. I don't know if you're familiar, but there is a term called podfade, which is just that: people burning out, fading out in their excitement for a podcast. And most podcasters fade out by episode seven or eight, somewhere in that range, so to see someone go for say, like, you have 500 episodes plus, we're talking about a ton of good content. You've found your rhythm, you've found your groove. That can do it. But yeah, it's always, always a challenge staying motivated.Corey: One thing that consistently surprises me is that the things I care about as the creator and the things the audience cares about are not the same. And you have to be respectful of your audience's time. I've done the numbers on the shows that I put out and it's something on the order of over a year of human time for every episode that I put out. If I'm going to take a year from humanity's collective lifetimes in order to say my inane thoughts, then I have to be respectful of the audience's time. Which means, “Oh, I'm going to have a robot do it so I don't have to put the work in.” It doesn't work that way. That's not how you sustain.Chris: Right. In and again, it takes out that humanity that makes podcasting so special and makes that connection with even the listener so special. And I'm sure you've experienced this too. When you go to re:Invent, like, we're going to have here in just a few short months, people know you, and they probably say things and bring up things that you haven't even thought about. And you're like, “Where did you even learn that I did that?” And then you realize, “Oh, I said that on a podcast episode.”Corey: Yeah. What's weird is I don't get much feedback online for it, but people will talk to me in depth about the show. They'll come up to me near constantly and talk about it. They don't reach out the same way, which I guess makes sense. There are a couple of podcasts that I've really admired and listened to on and off in the car for years, but I've never reached out to the creators because I feel like I would sound ridiculous. It's not true. I know intellectually it's not true, but it feels weird to do it.Chris: One of the ways I got into podcasting was a podcast that just invited me to—you know, invited their listeners to sign up and engage with them. And I think that's something in the medium that does make it interesting is once you do engage, you find out that these creators respond. And where else do you get that, you know? If you're watching a big TV show and you tweet at somebody online that you admire in the show, the chance of them even liking what you said about them online is very slim to none. But with podcasting, there's just a different level of accessibility I find with most productions and most shows that makes it really something special.Corey: One thing that still surprises me—and I don't think I've ever been this explicit about it on the show, but why the hell not I have nothing to hide—Thursday evening, 5 p.m. Pacific time. That's when the automation fires and rotates everything for the newsletter and the AWS Morning Brief. Anything that comes in after that, unless I manually do an override, will not be in the next week's issue; it'll be the week after.That applies to Security as well, which means 5 p.m. on Thursday, it seals it, I write and record it and it goes ou—that particular one goes out Thursday morning the following week. And no one has ever said anything about this seems awfully late. Occasionally, there's been news the day before and someone said, “Oh, why didn't you include this?”And it's because, believe it or not, I don't just type this in and hit the send button. There's a bit more to it than that these days. But people don't need the sense of immediacy. This idea of striving to be first is not sustainable and it leads to terrible outcomes. My entire philosophy has not been to have the first take but rather the best take.Chris: Mm-hm.Corey: Sometimes I even get it right.Chris: And I mean in podcasting, too. Like, it's about, you serve a certain niche, right? Like, the people who are interested in AWS services and in this world of cloud computing listen to what you say, listen to the people you interview, and really enjoy those conversations. But that's not everybody in the world. That's not a very broad audience. And so, I think that those niches really serve a purpose.And the way I've always thought about it is, like, if you go to the grocery store, you know how you always have that rack of magazines with the most random interests? That's essentially what podcasting is. It's like each podcast is a different magazine that serves someone's random—and hyper-specific sometimes—niche interest in things. I mean, the number of things you can find podcasts on is just ridiculous. And I think the same is true for this. But the people who do follow, they're very serious, they're very dedicated, they do listen, and yeah, I think it's just a fascinating, fascinating thing.Corey: The way that I see it has been that I've been learning more from the audience and the things that people say that most people would believe, but… I make a lot of mistakes doing this, but talking to people does tend to shine a light on a lot of this. But enough about the past. Most of my episodes are about things that have previously happened. What does the future of podcasting look like? Where's it going from here?Chris: Oh, man. Well, I think the big question on everybody's mind is, do I need a video podcast? And I think that for most people, that's where the big question lies right now. I get a lot of questions about it, I get people reaching out, and I think the short answer to that is… not really. Or to answer a question I know you love, Corey, it depends.And the reason for that is, there's a lot with the tech of podcasting that just isn't going to distribute to everywhere, all at once anymore. The beauty of podcasting is that it's all based on an RSS feed. If you build an RSS feed and you put it in Apple Podcasts and Spotify, that RSS feed will distribute everywhere and it will distribute your audio everywhere. And what we see happening right now, and really one of the bigger challenges in podcasting, is that the RSS feed only provides audio. Technically, that's not accurate, but it does for most services.So, YouTube has recently come out and said that they are going to start integrating RSS feeds, so you'll be able to do those audiogram-esque things that a lot of people have done through apps like Headliner and stuff for a long time, or even their podcast host may automatically translate a version of their audio podcast into a video and just do, like, a waveform. They're going to have that in YouTube. TikTok is taking a similar approach. And they're both importing just the audio. And the reason I said earlier, that's technically not accurate is because RSS feeds can also support MP4s, but neither service is going to accept that or ingest it directly into their service from what you provide outbound.So, it's a very interesting time because it feels like we're getting there with video, but we're still not there, and we're still probably several years off from it. So, there's a lot of interest in video and I think the future is going to be video, but I think it's going to be a combination, too, with audio because who wants to sit and watch something for an hour-and-a-half when you're used to listening to it your commute or while you do the dishes or any number of other things that don't involve having your eyeballs directly on the content.Corey: We've tried it with this show. I found that it made the recording process a bit more onerous because everyone is suddenly freaking out about how they look and I can't indulge my constant nose-picking habit. Kidding. So, it was more work, I had to gussy myself up a bit more than dressing like a slob like I do some mornings because I do have young children and a deadline to get them to school by. But I never saw the audience to materialize there and be worth it.Because watching a video of two people talking with each other, it feels too much like a Zoom call that you can't participate in, so what's the point?Chris: Right.Corey: So, there's that. There's the fact that I also have very intentionally built most of what I do around newsletters and podcasts because at least so far, those are not dependent upon algorithmic discovery in the same way. I don't have to bias for things that YouTube likes this month. Instead, I can focus on the content that people originally signed up to hear me put out and I don't have to worry about it in the same way. Email predates me, it'll be here long after I'm gone, and that seems to make sense.I also look at how I have consumed podcasts, and times when I do, it's almost always while I'm doing something else. And if I have to watch a screen, that becomes significantly more distracting, and harder for me to find the time to do it with.Chris: I think what you're seeing is that, like, there's some avenues to where video podcasting is really good and really interesting, and I think the real place where that works best right now is in-person interviews. So, Corey, if you went out and interviewed Andy Jassy in person in Seattle, that to me would be something that would warrant bringing the cameras out for and putting online because people would want to see you in the office interacting with him. That would be interesting. To your point, during the Zoom calls and things like that, you end up in a place where people just aren't as interested in sitting and watching the Zoom call. And I think that's something that is a clear distinction to make.Entertainment, comedy, doing things in person, I think that's where the real interest in video is and that's why I don't think video will be for everybody all the time. The thing that is starting to come up as well is discoverability, and that has always been a challenge, but as we get into—and we probably don't want to go down this rabbit hole, but you know, what's happened to Twitter and X, like, discoverability is becoming more of a challenge because they're limiting access to that platform. They're limiting discoverability if you're not willing to pay for a blue checkmark. They're doing all these things to make it harder for small independent podcasts to grow.And the places that are opening up for it to grow are places like YouTube, places like TikTok, that have the ability to not only just put your full podcasts online now, but you can actually do, like, YouTube shorts or highlighted clips, and directly link those back to the long-form content that you're producing. So, there is some value in it, there is a technology and a future there for it, but it's just a very complicated time to be in podcasting and figuring out where to go to grow. That's probably the biggest challenge that we face and I think ultimately, that just comes down to developing an audience outside of these social media channels.Corey: One thing that you were talking about a while back in a conversation that I don't think I've ever followed up with you on—and there's no time like in front of a bunch of public people to do that—Chris: [laugh].Corey: You were talking to me about something that you were calling the Podcast Listener Lifecycle.Chris: Yes.Corey: What's your point on that?Chris: So, the Listener Lifecycle is something I developed, just to be frank, working with you guys, learning from you all, and also my background in marketing, and in building audiences and things, from my own podcasts and other things that I did prior to building HumblePod, led me to a place of going, how can we best explain to a client where their podcast is? How does it exist? Where does it exist? All that good stuff. And basically, the Listener Lifecycle is just that.It's a design—and we'll have links to it because I actually did a whole podcast season on the Listener Lifecycle from beginning to end, so that's probably the easiest way to talk about it. But essentially, it's the idea of, you're curious about a show, and how do you go from being curious about a show to exploring a podcast, to then becoming a follower of the podcast, literally clicking the Follow button. What does it take to get through each one of those stages? How can you identify where your audience is? And basically, it's a tool you can use to say, “Well, this is where my listener is in the stages.” And then once they get to be a follower, how do I build them into something more?Well, get them to be a subscriber, subscribe to a newsletter, subscribe to a Patreon or Substack or whatever that subscription service is that you prefer to use, and get them off of just being on social media and following you there and following you in a podcast audio form. Because things can happen: your podcast host could break and you'd lose your audience, right? We've seen Twitter, which we may have thought years ago that it would never go away, and now we don't know how long it's going to be there. It could be gone by the time we're done with this conversation for all we know. I've got all my notifications turned off, so we're basically in a liminal space at this point.But with that said, there's a lot of risk in audiences changing and things like that, so audience portability is really important. So, the more you can collect email addresses, collect contact information, and communicate with that group of people, the better your audience is going to be. And so, that's what it's about is helping people get to that stage where they can do that so that they don't lose audiences and so that they can even build and grow audiences beyond that to the point where they get to the last phase, which is the ‘true fan' phase. And that's where you get people who love your show, retweet everything you do, repost everything you do, and share it with all their friends every time you're creating new content. And that's ultimately what you want: those die-hard people that come up to you and know everything about you at re:Invent, those are the people that you want to create more of because they're going to help you grow your show and your audience, ultimately. So, that's what it's about. I know that's a lot. But again, like, we'll have a link in the show notes to where you can learn more about it.Corey: Indeed, we will. Normally I'm the one that says, “And we'll include a link to that in the show notes.” But you're the one that has to actually make all that happen. Here's another glimpse behind the curtain. I have a Calendly link that I pass out to people to book time on the show. They fill out the form, which is relatively straightforward and low effort by design, and the next time I think about it is ten minutes beforehand when it pops up with, “Hey, you have a recording to go to.” Great. I book an hour for a half-hour recording. I wind up going through this entire conversation. When we're done, we close out the episode, we chat a bit, I close the tab, and I don't think about it again, it's passed off to you folks entirely. It is the very whitest of white glove treatments. Because I, once again, am the very whitest of white guys.Chris: We aim to please [laugh].Corey: Exactly. Because I remember before this, I used to have things delayed by months because I would forget to copy the freaking file into Dropbox, of all things. And that was just wild to me.Chris: And we stay on you about that because we want to make sure that your show gets out and—Corey: And now it automatically transfers and I—when the automation works—I don't have to think about it again. What is fun to me is despite all the time that I spend in enterprise cloud services, we still use things that are prosumer, like Dropbox and other things that are human-centric because for some reason, most of your team are not also highly competent cloud developers. And I still think it is such a miss that something like S3, which would be perfect for this, requires that level of engineering. And I have more self-respect than that. I'd have to build some stuff in order to make that work effectively on my end, let alone folks who have actual jobs that don't involve messing around with cloud services all day.But it blows my mind that there's still such this gulf between things that sound like you would have one of your aging parents deal with versus something that is extraordinarily capable and state-of-the-art. I know they're launching a bunch of things like Amazon's IVS, which is a streaming offering, a lot of their elemental offerings for media packaging, but I look at it, it's like wow, not only is this expensive, it doesn't solve any problems that we actually have and would add significant extra steps to every part of it. Thanks, but no thanks. And sure, maybe we're not the target market, but I can't shake the feeling that there are an awful lot of people like us that fit that profile.Chris: Yeah. And I mean, you bring up a good point about not using S3, things like that. It has occurred to me as well that, hey, maybe we should find somebody to help us develop a technology like this to make it easier on us on the back end to do all the recording and the production in one place, one database, and be able to move on. So, at some point I would love to get there. That's probably a conversation for after the podcast, Corey, but definitely is something that we've been thinking about at HumblePod is, how do we reach that next step of making it even easier on our clients?Corey: Well, it is certainly appreciated. But again, remember, your task is to continue to perform the service excellently, not be the poster child for cloud services with dumb names.Chris: [laugh]. Yes, yes. And I'm sure we could come up with a bunch.Corey: One last question before we wind up calling in an episode. I know that I've been emphasizing the white glove treatment that I get—and let's be clear, you are not inexpensive, but you're also well worth it; you deliver value extraordinarily for our needs—do you offer things that are not quite as, we'll call it, high-touch and comprehensive?Chris: Yes, we do actually. We just recently launched a new service called Quick Edit and it's just that. It's still humans touching the service, so it's not a bunch of automated, hey, we're just running this through an AI program and it's going to spit it out on the other end. We actually have a human that touches your audio, cleans it up, and sends it back. And yeah, we're there to make sure that we can clean things up quickly and easily and affordably for those folks that are just in a pinch.Maybe you edit most weeks and you're just tired of doing the editing, maybe you're close to podfading and you just want an extra boost to see if you can keep the show going. That's what we have the Quick Edit service for. And that starts at $150 an episode and we'll edit up to 45 minutes of audio for you within that. And yeah, there's some other options available as well if you start to add more stuff, but just come check us out. You can go to humblepod.com/services/quick-edit and find that there.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the show notes. Or at least you will. I certainly won't.Chris: [laugh].Corey: Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more, other than hunting you down at re:Invent, which they absolutely should do, where's the best place for them to find you?Chris: I mean@HumblePod anywhere is the quickest, easiest way to find me anywhere—or at least find the business—and you can find me at @christopholies. And we'll have a link to that in the show notes for sure because it's not worth spelling out on the podcast.Corey: I would have pronounced it chris-to-files, but that's all right. That's how it works.Chris: [laugh].Corey: Thank you so much, Chris for everything that you do, as well as suffering my nonsensical slings and arrows for the last half hour. We'll talk soon.Chris: You're welcome, Corey.Corey: Chris Hill, CEO at HumblePod. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you hated this episode, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, insulting comment that I'm sure Chris or one of his colleagues will spend time hunting down from all corners of the internet to put into a delightful report, which I will then never read.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Chris Farris, Cloud Security Nerd at PrimeHarbor Technologies, LLC, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss his new project, breaches.cloud, and why he feels having a centralized location for cloud security breach information is so important. Corey and Chris also discuss what it means to dive into entrepreneurship, including both the benefits of not having to work within a corporate structure and the challenges that come with running your own business. Chris also reveals what led him to start breaches.cloud, and what he's learned about some of the biggest cloud security breaches so far. About ChrisChris Farris is a highly experienced IT professional with a career spanning over 25 years. During this time, he has focused on various areas, including Linux, networking, and security. For the past eight years, he has been deeply involved in public-cloud and public-cloud security in media and entertainment, leveraging his expertise to build and evolve multiple cloud security programs.Chris is passionate about enabling the broader security team's objectives of secure design, incident response, and vulnerability management. He has developed cloud security standards and baselines to provide risk-based guidance to development and operations teams. As a practitioner, he has architected and implemented numerous serverless and traditional cloud applications, focusing on deployment, security, operations, and financial modeling.He is one of the organizers of the fwd:cloudsec conference and presented at various AWS conferences and BSides events. Chris shares his insights on security and technology on social media platforms like Twitter, Mastodon and his website https://www.chrisfarris.com.Links Referenced: fwd:cloudsec: https://fwdcloudsec.org/ breaches.cloud: https://breaches.cloud Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcfarris Company Site: https://www.primeharbor.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn. My returning guest today is Chris Farris, now at PrimeHarbor, which is his own consultancy. Chris, welcome back. Last time we spoke, you were a Turbot, and now you've decided to go independent because you don't like sleep anymore.Chris: Yeah, I don't like sleep.Corey: [laugh]. It's one of those things where when I went independent, at least in my case, everyone thought that it was, oh, I have this grand vision of what the world could be and how I could look at these things, and that's going to just be great and awesome and everyone's going to just be a better world for it. In my case, it was, no, just there was quite literally nothing else for me to do that didn't feel like an exact reframing of what I'd already been doing for years. I'm a terrible employee and setting out on my own was important. It was the only way I found that I could wind up getting to a place of not worrying about getting fired all the time because that was my particular skill set. And I look back at it now, almost seven years in, and it's one of those things where if I had known then what I know now, I never would have started.Chris: Well, that was encouraging. Thank you [laugh].Corey: Oh, of course. And in sincerity, it's not one of those things where there's any one thing that stops you, but it's the, a lot of people get into the independent consulting dance because they want to do a thing and they're very good at that thing and they love that thing. The problem is, when you're independent, and at least starting out, I was spending over 70% of my time on things that were not billable, which included things like go and find new clients, go and talk to existing clients, the freaking accounting. One of the first hires I made was a fractional CFO, which changed my life. Up until that, my business partner and I were more or less dead reckoning of looking at the bank account and how much money is in there to determine if we could afford things. That's a very unsophisticated way of navigating. It's like driving by braille.Chris: Yeah, I think I went into it mostly as a way to define my professional identity outside of my W-2 employer. I had built cloud security programs for two major media companies and felt like that was my identity: I was the cloud security person for these companies. And so, I was like, ehh, why don't I just define myself as myself, rather than define myself as being part of a company that, in the media space, they are getting overwhelmed by change, and job security, job satisfaction, wasn't really something that I could count on.Corey: One of the weird things that I found—it's counterintuitive—is that when you're independent, you have gotten to a point where you have hit a point of sustainability, where you're not doing the oh, I'm just going to go work for 40 billable hours a week for a client. It's just like being an employee without a bunch of protections and extra steps. That doesn't work super well. But now, at the point where I'm at where the largest client we have is a single-digit percentage of revenue, I can't get fired anymore, without having a whole bunch of people suddenly turn on me because I've done something monstrous, in which case, I probably deserve not to have business anymore, or there's something systemic in the macro environment, which given that I do the media side and I do the cost-cutting side, I work on the way up, I work on the way down, I'm questioning what that looks like in a scenario that doesn't involve me hunting for food. But it's counterintuitive to people who have been employees their whole life, like I was, where, oh, it's risky and dangerous to go out on your own.Chris: It's risky and dangerous to be, you know, tied to a single, yeah, W-2 paycheck. So.Corey: Yeah. The question I'd like to ask is, how many people need to be really pissed off before you have one of those conversations with HR that doesn't involve giving you a cup of coffee? That's the tell: when you don't get coffee, it's a bad conversation.Chris: Actually, that you haven't seen [unintelligible 00:04:25] coffee these days. You don't want the cup of coffee, you know. That's—Corey: Even when they don't give you the crappy percolator navy coffee, like, midnight hobo diner style, it's still going to be a bad meeting because [unintelligible 00:04:37] pretend the coffee's palatable.Chris: Perhaps, yes. I like not having to deal with my own HR department. And I do agree that yeah, getting out of the W-2 space allows me to work on side projects that interests me or, you know, volunteer to do things like continuing the fwd:cloudsec, developing breaches.cloud, et cetera.Corey: I'll never forget, one of my last jobs I had a boss who walked past and saw me looking at Reddit and asked me if that was really the best use of my time. At first—it was in, I think, the sysadmin forum at the time, so yes, it was very much the best use of my time for the problem I was focusing on, but also, even if it wasn't, I spent an inordinate amount of time on social media, just telling stories and building audiences, on some level. That's the weird thing is that what counts as work versus what doesn't count as work gets very squishy when you're doing your own marketing.Chris: True. And even when I was a W-2 employee, I spent a lot of time on Twitter because Twitter was an intel source for us. It was like, “Hey, who's talking about the latest cloud security misconfigurations? Who's talking about the latest data breach? What is Mandiant tweeting about?” It was, you know—I consider it part of my job to be on Twitter and watching things.Corey: Oh, people ask me that. “So, you're on Twitter an awful lot. Don't you have a newsletter to write?” Like, yeah, where do you think that content comes from, buddy?Chris: Exactly. Twitter and Mastodon. And Reddit now.Corey: There's a whole argument to be had about where to find various things. For me at least, because I'm only security adjacent, I was always trying to report the news that other people had, not make the news myself.Chris: You don't want to be the one making the news in security.Corey: Speaking of, I'd like to talk a bit about what you just alluded to breaches.cloud. I don't think I've seen that come across my desk yet, which tells me that it has not been making a big splash just yet.Chris: I haven't been really announcing it; it got published the other night and so basically, yeah, is this is sort of a inaugural marketing push for breaches.cloud. So, what we're looking to do is document all the public cloud security breaches, what happened, why, and more importantly, what the companies did or didn't do that led to the security incident or the security breach.Corey: How are you slicing the difference between broad versus deep? And what I mean by that is, there are some companies where there are indictments and massive deep dives into everything that happens with timelines and blows-by-blows, and other times you wind up with the email that shows up one day of, “Security is very important to us. Now, listen to how we completely dropped the ball on it.” And it just makes the biggest description that they can get away with of what happened. Occasionally, you find out oh, it was an open S3 buckets, or they'll allude to something that sounds like it. Does that count for inclusion? Does it not? How do you make those editorial decisions?Chris: So, we haven't yet built a page around just all of the recipients of the Bucket Negligence Award. We're looking at the specific ones where there's been something that's happened that's usually involving IAM credentials—oftentimes involving IAM credentials found in GitHub—and what led to that. So, in a lot of cases, if there's a detailed company postmortem that they send their customers that said, “Hey, we goofed up, but complete transparency—” and then they hit all the bullet points of how they goofed up. Or in the case of certain others, like Uber, “Hey, we have court transcripts that we can go to,” or, “We have federal indictments,” or, “We have court transcripts, and federal indictments and FTC civil actions.” And so, we go through those trying to suss out what the company did or did not do that led to the breach. And really, the goal here is to be able to articulate as security practitioners, hey, don't attach S3 full access to this role on EC2. That's what got Capital One in trouble.Corey: I have a lot of sympathy for the Capital One breach and I wish they would talk about it more than they do, for obvious reasons, just because it was not, someone showed up and made a very obvious dumb decision, like, “Oh, that was what that giant red screaming thing in the S3 console means.” It was a series of small misconfigurations that led to another one, to another one, to another one, and eventually gets to a point where a sophisticated attacker was able to chain them all together. And yes, it's bad, yes, they're a bank and the rest, but I look at that and it's—that's the sort of exploit that you look at and it's okay, I see it. I absolutely see it. Someone was very clever, and a bunch of small things that didn't rise to the obvious. But they got dragged and castigated as if they basically had a four-character password that they'd left on the back of the laptop on a Post-It note in an airport lounge when their CEO was traveling. Which is not the case.Chris: Or all of the highlighting the fact that Paige Thompson was a former Amazon employee, making it seem like it was her insider abilities that lead to the incident, rather than she just knew that, hey, there's a metadata service and it gives me creds if I ask it.Corey: Right. That drove me nuts. There was no maleficence as an employee. And to be very direct, from what I understand of internal AWS controls, had there been, it would have been audited, flagged, caught, interdicted. I have talked to enough Amazonians that either a lot of them are lying to me very consistently despite not knowing each other, or they're being honest when they say that you can't get access to customer data using secret inside hacks.Chris: Yeah. I have reasonably good faith in AWS and their ability to not touch customer data in most scenarios. And I've had cases that I'm not allowed to talk about where Amazon has gone and accessed customer data, and the amount of rigmarole and questions and drilling that I got as a customer to have them do that was pretty intense and somewhat, actually, annoying.Corey: Oh, absolutely. And, on some level, it gets frustrating when it's a, look, this is a test account. I have nothing of sensitive value in here. I want the thing that isn't working to start working. Can I just give you a whole, like, admin-powered user account and we can move on past all of this? And their answer is always absolutely not.Chris: Yes. Or, “Hey, can you put this in our bucket?” “No, we can't even write to a public bucket or a bucket that, you know, they can share too.” So.Corey: An Amazonian had to mail me a hard drive because they could not send anything out of S3 to me.Chris: There you go.Corey: So, then I wound up uploading it back to S3 with, you know, a Snowball Edge because there's no overkill like massive overkill.Chris: No, the [snowmobile 00:11:29] would have been the massive overkill. But depending on where you live, you know, you might not have been able to get a permit to park the snowmobile there.Corey: They apparently require a loading dock. Same as with the outposts. I can't fake having one of those on my front porch yet.Chris: Ah. Well, there you go. I mean, you know it's the right height though, and you don't mind them ruining your lawn.Corey: So, help me understand. It makes sense to me at least, on some level, why having a central repository of all the various cloud security breaches in one place that's easy to reference is valuable. But what caused you to decide, you know, rather than saying it'd be nice to have, I'm going to go build that thing?Chris: Yeah, so it was actually right before the last time we spoke, Nicholas Sharp was indicted. And there was like, hey, this person was indicted for, you know, this cloud security case. And I'm like, that name rings a bell, but I don't remember who this person was. And so, I kind of realized that there's so many of these things happening now that I forget who is who. And so, when a new piece of news comes along, I'm like, where did this come from and how does this fit into what my knowledge of cloud security is and cloud security cases?So, I kind of realized that these are all running together in my mind. The Department of Justice only referenced ‘Company One,' so it wasn't clear to me if this even was a new cloud incident or one I already knew about. And so basically, I decided, okay, let's build this. Breaches.cloud was available; I think I kind of got the idea from hackingthe.cloud.And I had been working with some college students through the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, and I was like, “Hey, anybody want a spring research project that I will pay you for?” And so yeah, PrimeHarbor funded two college students to do quite a bit of the background research for me, I mentored them through, “Hey, so here's what this means,” and, “Hey, have we noticed that all of these seem to relate to credentials found in GitHub? You know, maybe there's a pattern here.” So, if you're not yet scanning for secrets in GitHub, I recommend you start scanning for secrets in your GitHub, private and public repos.Corey: Also, it makes sense to look at the history. Because, oh, I committed a secret. I'm going to go ahead and revert that commit and push that. That solves the problem, right?Chris: No, no, it doesn't. Yes, apparently, you can force push and delete an entire commit, but you really want to use a tool that's going to go back through the commit history and dig through it because as we saw in the Uber incident, when—the second Uber incident, the one that led to the CSOs conviction—yeah, the two attackers, [unintelligible 00:14:09] stuffed a Uber employee's personal GitHub account that they were also using for Uber work, and yeah, then they dug through all the source code and dug through the commit histories until they found a set of keys, and that's what they used for the second Uber breach.Corey: Awful when that hits. It's one of those things where it's just… [sigh], one thing leads to another leads to another. And on some level, I'm kind of amazed by the forensics that happen around all of these things. With the counterpoint, it is so… freakishly difficult, I think, for lack of a better term, just to be able to say what happened with any degree of certainty, so I can't help but wonder in those dark nights when the creeping dread starts sinking in, how many things like this happen that we just never hear about because they don't know?Chris: Because they don't turn on CloudTrail. Probably a number of them. Once the data gets out and shows up on the dark web, then people start knocking on doors. You know, Troy Hunt's got a large collection of data breach stuff, and you know, when there's a data breach, people will send him, “Hey, I found these passwords on the dark web,” and he loads them into Have I Been Pwned, and you know, [laugh] then the CSO finds out. So yeah, there's probably a lot of this that happens in the quiet of night, but once it hits the dark web, I think that data starts becoming available and the victimized company finds out.Corey: I am profoundly cynical, in case that was unclear. So, I'm wondering, on some level, what is the likelihood or commonality, I suppose, of people who are fundamentally just viewing security breach response from a perspective of step one, make sure my resume is always up to date. Because we talk about these business continuity plans and these DR approaches, but very often it feels like step one, secure your own mask before assisting others, as they always say on the flight. Where does personal preservation come in? And how does that compare with company preservation?Chris: I think down at the [IaC 00:16:17] level, I don't know of anybody who has not gotten a job because they had Equifax on their resume back in, what, 2017, 2018, right? Yes, the CSO, the CEO, the CIO probably all lost their jobs. And you know, now they're scraping by book deals and speaking engagements.Corey: And these things are always, to be clear, nuanced. It's rare that this is always one person's fault. If you're a one-person company, okay, yeah, it's kind of your fault, let's be clear here, but there are controls and cost controls and audit trails—presumably—for all of these things, so it feels like that's a relatively easy thing to talk around, that it was a process failure, not that one person sucked. “Well, didn't you design and implement the process?” “Yes. But it turned out there were some holes in it and my team reported that those weren't there and it turned out that they were and, well, live and learn.” It feels like that's something that could be talked around.Chris: It's an investment failure. And again, you know, if we go back to Harry Truman, “The buck stops here,” you know, it's the CEO who decides that, hey, we're going to buy a corporate jet rather than buy a [SIIM 00:17:22]. And those are the choices that happen at the top level that define, do you have a capable security team, and more importantly, do you have a capable security culture such that your security team isn't the only ones who are actually thinking about security?Corey: That's, I guess, a fair question. I saw a take on Twitter—which is always a weird thing—or maybe was Blue-ski or somewhere else recently, that if you don't have a C-level executive responsible for security with security in their title, your company does not take security seriously. And I can see that past a certain point of scale, but as a one-person company, do you have a designated CSO?Chris: As a one-person company and as a security company, I sort of do have a designated CSO. I also have, you know, the person who's like, oh, I'm going to not put MFA on the root of this one thing because, while it's an experiment and it's a sandbox and whatever else, but I also know that that's not where I'm going to be putting any customer data, so I can measure and evaluate the risk from both a security perspective and a business existential investment perspective. When you get to the larger the organization, the more detached the CEO gets from the risk and what the company is building and what the company is doing, is where you get into trouble. And lots of companies have C-level somebody who's responsible for security. It's called the CSO, but oftentimes, they report four levels down, or even more, from the chief executive who is actually the one making the investment decisions.Corey: On some level, the oh yeah, that's my responsibility, too, but it feels like it's a trap that falls into. Like, well, the CTO is responsible for security at a publicly traded company. Like, well… that tends to not work anymore, past certain points of scale. Like when I started out independently, yes, I was the CSO. I was also the accountant. I was also the head of marketing. I was also the janitor. There's a bunch of different roles; we all wear different hats at different times.I'm also not a big fan of shaming that oh, yeah. This is a universal truth that applies to every company in existence. That's also where I think Twitter started to go wrong where you would get called out whenever making an observation or witticism or whatnot because there was some vertex case to which it did not necessarily apply and then people would ‘well, actually,' you to death.Chris: Yeah. Well, and I think there's a lot of us in the security community who are in the security one-percenters. We're, “Hey, yes, I'm a cloud security person on a 15-person cloud security team, and here's this awesome thing we're doing.” And then you've got most of the other companies in this country that are probably below the security poverty line. They may or may not have a dedicated security person, they certainly don't have a SIIM, they certainly don't have anybody who's monitoring their endpoints for malware attacks or anything else, and those are the companies that are getting hit all the time with, you know, a lot of this ransomware stuff. Healthcare is particularly vulnerable to that.Corey: When you take a look across the industry, what is it that you're doing now at PrimeHarbor that you feel has been an unmet need in the space? And let me be clear, as of this recording earlier today, we signed a contract with you for a project. There's more to come on that in the future. So, this is me asking you to tell a story, not challenging, like, what do you actually do? This is not a refund request, let's be very clear here. But what's the unmet need that you saw?Chris: I think the unmet need that I see is we don't talk to our builder community. And when I say builder, I mean, developers, DevOps, sysadmins, whatever. AWS likes the term builder and I think it works. We don't talk to our builder community about risk in a way that makes sense to them. So, we can say, “Hey, well, you know, we have this security policy and section 24601 says that all data's classifications must be signed off by the data custodian,” and a developer is going to look at you with their head tilted, and be like, “Huh? What? I just need to get the sprint done.”Whereas if we can articulate the risk—and one of the reasons I wanted to do breaches.cloud was to have that corpus of articulated risk around specific things—I can articulate the risk and say, “Hey, look, you know how easy it is for somebody to go in and enumerate an S3 bucket? And then once they've enumerated and guessed that S3 bucket exists, they list it, and oh, hey, look, now that they've listed it, they know all of the objects and all of the juicy PII that you just made public.” If you demonstrate that to them, then they're going to be like, “Oh, I'm going to add the extra story point to this story to go figure out how to do CloudFront origin access identity.” And now you've solved, you know, one more security thing. And you've done in a way that not just giving a man a fish or closing the bucket for them, but now they know, hey, I should always use origin access identity. This is why I need to do this particular thing.Corey: One of the challenges that I've seen in a variety of different sites that have tried to start cataloging different breaches and other collections of things happening in public is the discoverability or the library management problem. The most obvious example of this is, of course, the AWS console itself, where when it paginates things like, oh, there are 3000 things here, ten at a time, through various pages for it. Like, the marketplace is just a joke of discoverability. How do you wind up separating the stuff that is interesting and notable, rather than, well, this has about three sentences to it because that's all the company would say?Chris: So, I think even the ones where there's three sentences, we may actually go ahead and add it to the repo, or we may just hold it as a draft, so that we know later on when, “Hey, look, here's a federal indictment for Company Three. Oh, hey, look. Company Three was actually this breach announcement that we heard about three months ago,” or even three years ago. So like, you know, Chegg is a great example of, you know, one of those where, hey, you know, there was an incident, and they disclosed something, and then, years later, FTC comes along and starts banging them over the head. And in the FTC documentation, or in the FTC civil complaint, we got all sorts of useful data.Like, not only were they using root API keys, every contractor and employee there was sharing the root API keys, so when they had a contractor who left, it was too hard to change the keys and share it with everybody, so they just didn't do that. The contractor still had the keys, and that was one of the findings from the FTC against Chegg. Similar to that, Cisco didn't turn off contractors' access, and I think—this is pure speculation—I think the poor contractor one day logged into his Google Cloud Shell, cd'ed into a Terraform directory, ran ‘terraform destroy', and rather than destroying what he thought he was destroying, it had the access keys back to Cisco WebEx and took down 400 EC2 instances that made up all of WebEx. These are the kinds of things that I think it's worth capturing because the stories are going to come out over time.Corey: What have you seen in your, I guess, so far, a limited history of curating this that—I guess, first what is it you've learned that you've started seeing as far as patterns go, as far as what warrants inclusion, what doesn't, and of course, once you started launching and going a bit more public with it, I'm curious to hear what the response from companies is going to be.Chris: So, I want to be very careful and clear that if I'm going to name somebody, that we're sourcing something from the criminal justice system, that we're not going to say, “Hey, everybody knows that it was Paige Thompson who was behind it.” No, no, here's the indictment that said it was Paige Thompson that was, you know, indicted for this Capital One sort of thing. All the data that I'm using, it all comes from public sources, it's all sited, so it's not like, hey, some insider said, “Hey, this is what actually happened.” You know? I very much learned from the Ubiquiti case that I don't want to be in the position of Brian Krebs, where it's the attacker themselves who's updating the site and telling us everything that went wrong, when in fact, it's not because they're in fact the perpetrator.Corey: Yeah, there's a lot of lessons to be learned. And fortunately, for what it's s—at least it seems… mostly, that we've moved past the battle days of security researchers getting sued on a whim from large companies for saying embarrassing things about them. Of course, watch me be tempting fate and by the time this publishes, I'll get sued by some company, probably Azure or whatnot, telling me that, “Okay, we've had enough of you saying bad things about our security.” It's like, well, cool, but I also read the complaint before you file because your security is bad. Buh-dum-tss. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Please don't sue me.Chris: So, you know, whether it's slander or libel, depending on whether you're reading this or hearing it, you know, truth is an actual defense, so I think Microsoft doesn't have a case against you. I think for what we're doing in breaches, you know—and one of the reasons that I'm going to be very clear on anybody who contributes—and just for the record, anybody is welcome to contribute. The GitHub repo that runs breaches.cloud is public and anybody can submit me a pull request and I will take their write-ups of incidents. But whatever it is, it has to be sourced.One of the things that I'm looking to do shortly, is start soliciting sponsorships for breaches so that we can afford to go pull down the PACER documents. Because apparently in this country, while we have a right to a speedy trial, we don't have a right to actually get the court transcripts for less than ten cents a page. And so, part of what we need to do next is download those—and once we've purchased them, we can make them public—download those, make them public, and let everybody see exactly what the transcript was from the Capital One incident, or the Joey Sullivan trial.Corey: You're absolutely right. It drives me nuts that I have to wind up budgeting money for PACER to pull up court records. And at ten cents a page, it hasn't changed in decades, where it's oh, this is the cost of providing that data. It's, I'm not asking someone to walk to the back room and fax it to me. I want to be very clear here. It just feels like it's one of those areas where the technology and government is not caught up and it's—part of the problem is, of course, having no competition.Chris: There is that. And I think I read somewhere that the ent—if you wanted to download the entire PACER, it would be, like, $100 million. Not that you would do that, but you know, it is the moneymaker for the judicial system, and you know, they do need to keep the lights on. Although I guess that's what my taxes are for. But again, yes, they're a monopoly; they can do that.Corey: Wildly frustrating, isn't it?Chris: Yeah [sigh]… yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot of value in the court transcripts. I've held off on publishing the Capital One case because one, well, already there's been a lot of ink spilled on it, and two, I think all the good detail is going to be in the trial transcripts from Paige Thompson's trial.Corey: So, I am curious what your take is on… well, let's called the ‘FTX thing.' I don't even know how to describe it at this point. Is it a breach? Is it just maleficence? Is it 15,000 other things? But I noticed that it's something that breaches.cloud does talk about a bit.Chris: Yeah. So, that one was a fascinating one that came out because as I was starting this project, I heard you know, somebody who was tweeting was like, “Hey, they were storing all of the crypto private keys in AWS Secrets Manager.” And I was like, “Errr?” And so, I went back and I read John J. Ray III's interim report to the creditors.Now, John Ray is the man who was behind the cleaning up of Enron, and his comment was “FTX is the”—“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy information as occurred here.” And as part of his general, broad write-up, they went into, in-depth, a lot of the FTX AWS practices. Like, we talk about, hey, you know, your company should be multi-account. FTX was worse. They had three or four different companies all operating in the same AWS account.They had their main company, FTX US, Alameda, all of them had crypto keys in Secrets Manager and there was no access control between any of those. And what ended up happening on the day that SBF left and Ray came in as CEO, the $400 million worth of crypto somehow disappeared out of FTX's wallets.Corey: I want to call this out because otherwise, I will get letters from the AWS PR spin doctors. Because on the surface of it, I don't know that there's necessarily a lot wrong with using Secrets Manager as the backing store for private keys. I do that with other things myself. The question is, what other controls are there? You can't just slap it into Secrets Manager and, “Well, my job is done. Let's go to lunch early today.”There are challenges [laugh] around the access levels, there are—around who has access, who can audit these things, and what happens. Because most of the secrets I have in Secrets Manager are not the sort of thing that is, it is now a viable strategy to take that thing and abscond to a country with a non-extradition treaty for the rest of my life, but with private keys and crypto, there kind of is.Chris: That's it. It's like, you know, hey, okay, the RDS database password is one thing, but $400 million in crypto is potentially another thing. Putting it in and Secrets Manager might have been the right answer, too. You get KMS customer-managed keys, you get full auditability with CloudTrail, everything else, but we didn't hear any of that coming out of Ray's report to the creditors. So again, the question is, did they even have CloudTrail turned on? He did explicitly say that FTX had not enabled GuardDuty.Corey: On some level, even if GuardDuty doesn't do anything for you, which in my case, it doesn't, but I want to be clear, you should still enable it anyway because you're going to get dragged when there's inevitable breach because there's always a breach somewhere, and then you get yelled at for not having turned on something that was called GuardDuty. You already sound negligent, just with that sentence alone. Same with Security Hub. Good name on AWS's part if you're trying to drive service adoption. Just by calling it the thing that responsible people would use, you will see adoption, even if people never configure or understand it.Chris: Yeah, and then of course, hey, you had Security Hub turned on, but you ignore the 80,000 findings in it. Why did you ignore those 80,000 findings? I find Security Hub to probably be a little bit too much noise. And it's not Security Hub, it's ‘Compliance Hub.' Everything—and I'm going to have a blog post coming out shortly—on this, everything that Security Hub looks at, it looks at it from a compliance perspective.If you look at all of its scoring, it's not how many things are wrong; it's how many rules you are a hundred percent compliant to. It is not useful for anybody below that AWS security poverty line to really master or to really operationalize.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking the time to catch up with me once again. Although now that I'm the client, I expect I can do this on demand, which is just going to be delightful. If people want to learn more, where can they find you?Chris: So, they can find breaches.cloud at, well https://breaches.cloud. If you're looking for me, I am either on Twitter, still, at @jcfarris, or you can find me and my consulting company, which is www.primeharbor.com.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to all of that in the [show notes 00:33:57]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. As always, I appreciate it.Chris: Oh, thank you for having me again.Corey: Chris Farris, cloud security nerd at PrimeHarbor. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry, insulting comment that you're also going to use as the storage back-end for your private keys.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Episode SummaryChris Farris, Cloud Security Nerd at Turbot, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss the latest events in cloud security, which leads to an interesting analysis from Chris on how legal departments obscure valuable information that could lead to fewer security failures in the name of protecting company liability, and what the future of accountability for security failures looks like. Chris and Corey also discuss the newest dangers in cloud security and billing practices, and Chris describes his upcoming cloud security conference, fwd:cloudsec. About ChrisChris Farris has been in the IT field since 1994 primarily focused on Linux, networking, and security. For the last 8 years, he has focused on public-cloud and public-cloud security. He has built and evolved multiple cloud security programs for major media companies, focusing on enabling the broader security team's objectives of secure design, incident response and vulnerability management. He has developed cloud security standards and baselines to provide risk-based guidance to development and operations teams. As a practitioner, he's architected and implemented multiple serverless and traditional cloud applications focused on deployment, security, operations, and financial modeling.Chris now does cloud security research for Turbot and evangelizes for the open source tool Steampipe. He is one of the organizers of the fwd:cloudsec conference (https://fwdcloudsec.org) and has given multiple presentations at AWS conferences and BSides events.When not building things with AWS's building blocks, he enjoys building Legos with his kid and figuring out what interesting part of the globe to travel to next. He opines on security and technology on Mastodon, Twitter and his website https://www.chrisfarris.comLinks Referenced: Turbot: https://turbot.com/ fwd:cloudsec: https://fwdcloudsec.org/ Mastodon: https://infosec.exchange/@jcfarris Personal website: https://chrisfarris.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn and we are here today to learn exciting things, steal exciting secrets, and make big trouble for Moose and Squirrel. Maybe that's the podcast; maybe that's the KGB, we're not entirely sure. But I am joined once again by Chris Farris, cloud security nerd at Turbot, which I will insist on pronouncing as ‘Turbo.' Chris, thanks for coming back.Chris: Thanks for having me.Corey: So, it's been a little while and it's been an uneventful time in cloud security with nothing particularly noteworthy happening, not a whole lot of things to point out, and honestly, we're just sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel for news… is what I wish I could say, but it isn't true. Instead, it's, “Oh, let's see what disastrous tire fire we have encountered this week.” What's top of mind for you as we record this?Chris: I think the most interesting one I thought was, you know, going back and seeing the guilty plea from Nickolas Sharp, who formerly was an employee at Ubiquiti and apparently had, like, complete access to everything there and then ran amok with it.Corey: Mm-hm.Chris: The details that were buried at the time in the indictment, but came out in the press releases were he was leveraging root keys, he was leveraging lifecycle policies to suppress the CloudTrail logs. And then of course, you know, just doing dumb things like exfiltrating all of this data from his home IP address, or exfiltrating it from his home through a VPN, which have accidentally dropped and then exposed his home IP address. Oops.Corey: There's so much to dive into there because I am not in any way shape or form, saying that what he did was good, or I endorse any of those things. And yeah, I think he belongs in prison for what he did; let's be very clear on this. But I personally did not have a business relationship with him. I am, however, Ubiquiti's customer. And after—whether it was an insider threat or whether it was someone external breaching them, Krebs On Security wound up doing a whole write-up on this and was single-sourcing some stuff from the person who it turned out, did this.And they made a lot of hay about this. They sued him at one point via some terrible law firm that's entire brand is suing media companies. And yeah, just wonderful, wonderful optics there and brilliant plan. But I don't care about the sourcing. I don't care about the exact accuracy of the reporting because what I'm seeing here is that what is not disputed is this person, who whether they were an employee or not was beside the point, deleted all of the audit logs and then as a customer of Ubiquiti, I received an email saying, “We have no indication or evidence that any customer data was misappropriated.” Yeah, you just turn off your logs and yeah, you could say that always and forever and save money on logging costs. [unintelligible 00:03:28] best practice just dropped, I guess. Clowns.Chris: So, yeah. And there's definitely, like, compliance and standards and everything else that say you turn on your logs and you protect your logs, and service control policies should have been able to detect that. If they had a security operations center, you know, the fact that somebody was using root keys should have been setting off red flags and causing escalations to occur. And that wasn't happening.Corey: My business partner and I have access to our AWS org, and when I was setting this stuff up for what we do here, at a very small company, neither of us can log in with root credentials without alarms going off that alert the other. Not that I don't trust the man; let's be very clear here. We both own the company.Chris: In business together. Yes.Corey: Ri—exactly. It is, in many ways, like a marriage in that one of us can absolutely ruin the other without a whole lot of effort. But there's still the idea of separation of duties, visibility into what's going on, and we don't use root API keys. Let me further point out that we are not pushing anything that requires you to send data to us. We're not providing a service that is software powered to people, much less one that is built around security. So, how is it that I have a better security posture than Ubiquiti?Chris: You understand AWS and in-depth cloud better. You know, it really comes down to how do you, as an AWS customer, understand all of the moving parts, all of the security tooling, all of the different ways that something can happen. And Amazon will say, “Well, it's in the documentation,” but you know, they have, what, 357 services? Are you reading the security pages of all of those? So, user education, I agree, you should have, and I have on all of my accounts, if anything pops up, if any IAM change happens, I'm getting text messages. Which is great if my account got compromised, but is really annoying when I'm actually making a change and my phone is blowing up.Corey: Yeah. It's worth pointing out as well that yes, Ubiquiti is publicly traded—that is understood and accepted—however, 93% of it is owned by their CEO-founder god-king. So, it is effectively one person's personal fiefdom. And I tend to take a very dim view as a direct result. When you're in cloud and you have suffered a breach, you have severely screwed something up somewhere. These breaches are never, “Someone stole a whole bunch of drives out of an AWS data center.” You have misconfigured something somewhere. And lashing out at people who reported on it is just a bad look.Chris: Definitely. Only error—now, of course, part of the problem here is that our legal system encourages people to not come forward and say, “I screwed up. Here's how I screwed up. Everybody come learn from my mistakes.” The legal professions are also there to manage risk for the company and they're like, “Don't say anything. Don't say anything. Don't even tell the government. Don't say anything.”Whereas we all need to learn from these errors. Which is why I think every time I do see a breach or I do see an indictment, I start diving into it to learn more. I did a blog post on some of the things that happened with Drizly and GitHub, and you know, I think the most interesting thing that came out of Drizly case was the ex-CEO of Drizly, who was CEO at the time of the breach, now has following him, for the rest of his life, an FTC order that says he must implement a security program wherever he goes and works. You know, I don't know what happens when he becomes a Starbucks barista or whatever, but that is on him. That is not on the company; that is on him.And I do think that, you know, we will start seeing more and more chief executive officers, chief security or information security officers becoming accountable to—or for the breaches and being personally accountable or professionally accountable for it. I think we kind of need it, even though, you know, there's only so much a CISO can do.Corey: One of the things that I did when I started consulting independently on AWS bills back in 2016 was, while I was looking at customer environments, I also would do a quick check for a few security baseline things. And I stopped doing it because I kept encountering a bunch of things that needed attention and it completely derailed the entire stated purpose of the engagement. And, frankly, I don't want to be running a security consultancy. There's a reason I focus on AWS bills. And people think I'm kidding, but I swear to you I'm not, when I say that the reason is in part because no one has a middle-of-the-night billing emergency. It is strictly a business-hours problem. Whereas with security, wake up.In fact, the one time I have been woken up in the middle of the night by a customer phone call, they were freaking out because it was a security incident and their bill had just pegged through the stratosphere. It's, “Cool. Fix the security problem first, then we'll worry about the bill during business hours. Bye.” And then I stopped leaving my phone off of Do Not Disturb at night.Chris: Your AWS bill is one of your indicators of compromise. Keep an eye on it.Corey: Oh, absolutely. We've had multiple engagements discover security issues on that. “So, what are these instances in Australia doing?” “We don't have anything there.” “I believe you're being sincere when you say this.”Chris: Yes.Corey: However.Chris: “Last month, you're at $1,000 and this month, you're at $50,000. And oh, by the way, it's the ninth, so you might want to go look at that.”Corey: Here's the problem that you start seeing in large-scale companies though. You or I wind up posting our IAM credentials on GitHub somewhere in public—and I do this from time to time, intentionally with absolutely no permissions attached to a thing—and I started look at the timeline of, “Okay 3, 2, 1, go,” with the push and now I start counting. What happens? At what time does the quarantine policy apply? When do I get an email alert? When do people start trying to exploit it? From where are they trying to exploit it?It's a really interesting thing to look into, just from the position of how this stuff all fits together and works. And that's great, but there's a whole ‘nother piece to it where if you or I were to do such a thing and actually give it admin credentials, okay, my, I don't know, what, $50, $100 a month account that I use for a lot of my test stuff now starts getting charged enormous piles of money that winds up looking like a mortgage in San Francisco, I'm going to notice that. But if you have a company that spending, I don't know, between ten and $20 million a month, do you have any idea how much Bitcoin you've got to be mining in that account to even make a slight dent in the overall trajectory of those accounts?Chris: In the overall bill, a lot. And in a particularly mismanaged account, my experience is you will notice it if you're monitoring billing anomalies on a per-account basis. I think it's important to note, you talked about that quarantine policy. If you look at what actually Amazon drops a deny on, it's effectively start EC2 instances and change IAM policies. It doesn't prevent anybody from listing all your buckets and exfiltrating all your data. It doesn't prevent anybody from firing up Lambdas and other less commonly used resources. Don't assume oh, Amazon dropped the quarantine policy. I'm safe.Corey: I was talking to somebody who spends $4 a month on S3 and they wound up suddenly getting $60 grand a day and Lambda charges, because max out the Lambda concurrency in every region and set it to mine crypto for 15 minutes apiece, yeah, you'll spend $60,000 a day to get, what $500 in crypto. But it's super economical as long as it's in someone else's account. And then Amazon hits them with a straight face on these things, where, “Please pay the bill.” Which is horrifying when there's several orders of magnitude difference between your normal bill and what happens post-breach. But what I did my whole post on “17 Ways to Run Containers on AWS,” followed by “17 More Ways to Run Containers on AWS,” and [unintelligible 00:12:00] about three services away from having a third one ready to go on that, the point is not, “Too many ways to run containers,” because yes, that is true and it's also amusing to me—less so to the containers team at AWS which does not have a sense of humor or sense of self-awareness of which they have been alerted—and fine, but every time you're running a container, it is a way to turn it into a crypto mining operation, in some way shape or form, which means there are almost 40-some-odd services now that can reasonably be used to spin up cryptocurrency mining. And that is the best-case breach scenario in a bunch of ways. It costs a bunch of money and things to clean up, but ‘we lost customer data.' That can destroy companies.Chris: Here's the worst part. Crypto mining is no longer profitable even when I've got stolen API keys because bitcoin's in the toilet. So, now they are going after different things. Actually, the most recent one is they look to see if your account is out of the SCS sandbox and if so, they go back to the tried-and-true way of doing internet scams, which is email spam.Corey: For me, having worked in operations for a very long time, I've been in situations where I worked at Expensify and had access to customer data there. I have worked in other finance companies—I worked at Blackrock. Where I work now, I have access to customer billing data. And let me be serious here for a second, I take all of these things seriously, but I also in all of those roles slept pretty well at night. The one that kept me up was a brief stint I did as the Director of Tech Ops at Grindr over ten years ago because unlike the stuff where I'm spending the rest of my career and my time now, it's not just money anymore.Whereas today, if I get popped, someone can get access to what a bunch of companies are paying AWS. It's scandalous, and I will be sued into oblivion and my company will not exist anymore and I will have a cloud hanging over my head forever. So, I have to be serious about it—Chris: But nobody will die.Corey: Nobody dies. Whereas, “Oh, this person is on Grindr and they're not out publicly,” or they live in a jurisdiction where that is punishable by imprisonment or death, you have blood on your hands, on some level, and I have never wanted that kind of responsibility.Chris: Yeah. It's reasonably scary. I've always been happy to say that, you know, the worst thing that I had to do was keep the Russians off CNN and my friends from downloading Rick and Morty.Corey: Exactly. It's, “Oh, heavens, you're winding up costing some giant conglomerate somewhere theoretical money on streaming subscriptions.” It's not material to the state of the world. And part of it, too, is—what's always informed my approach to things is, I'm not a data hoarder in the way that it seems our entire industry is. For the Last Week in AWS newsletter, the data that I collect and track is pretty freaking small.It's, “You want to sign up for the lastweekinaws.com newsletter. Great, I need your email address.” I don't need your name, I don't need the company you work at. You want to give me a tagged email address? Fine. You want to give me some special address that goes through some anonymizing thing? Terrific. I need to know where I'm sending the newsletter. And then I run a query on that for metrics sometimes, which is this really sophisticated database query called a count. How many subscribers do I have at any given point because that matters to our sponsors. But can we get—you give us any demographic? No, I cannot. I can't. I have people who [unintelligible 00:15:43] follow up surveys sometimes and that's it.Chris: And you're able to make money doing that. You don't have to collect, okay, you know, Chris's zip code is this and Bob's zip code is that and Frank's zip code is the other thing.Corey: Exactly.Chris: Or job titles, or you know, our mother's maiden name or anything else like that.Corey: I talk about what's going on in the world of AWS, so it sort of seems to me that if you're reading this stuff every week, either because of the humor or in spite of the humor, you probably are in a position where services and goods tied to that ecosystem would be well-received by you or one of the other 32,000 people who happen to be reading the newsletter or listening to the podcast or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's an old-timey business model. It's okay, I want to wind up selling, I don't know, expensive wristwatches. Well, maybe I'll advertise in a magazine that caters to people who have an interest in wristwatches, or caters to a demographic that traditionally buys those wristwatches. And okay, we'll run an ad campaign and see if it works.Chris: It's been traditional advertising, not the micro-targeting stuff. And you know, television was the same way back in the broadcast era, you know? You watched a particular show, people of that demographic who watched that particular show had certain advertisers they wanted.Corey: That part of the challenge I've seen too, from sponsors of this show, for example, is they know it works, but they're trying to figure out how to do any form of attribution on this. And my answer—which sounds self-serving, but it's true—is, there's no effective way to do it because every time you try, like, “Enter this coupon code,” yeah, I assure you, some of these things wind up costing millions of dollars to deploy at large companies at scale and they provide value for doing it. No one's going to punch in a coupon code to get 10% off or something like that. Procurement is going to negotiate custom contracts and it's going to be brought up maybe by someone who heard the podcast ad. Maybe it just sits in the back of their mind until they hear something and it just winds of contributing to a growing awareness of these things.You're never going to do attribution that works on things like that. People try sometimes to, “Oh, you'll get $25 in credit,” or, “We'll give you a free t-shirt if you fill out the form.” Yeah, but now you're biasing for people who find that a material motivator. When I'm debating what security suite I'm going to roll out at my enterprise I don't want a free t-shirt for that. In fact, if I get a free t-shirt and I wear that shirt from the vendor around the office while I'm trying to champion bringing that thing in, I look a little compromised.Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I am—[laugh] I got no response to that [laugh].Corey: No, no. I hear you. One thing I do want to talk about is the last time we spoke, you mentioned you were involved in getting fwd:cloudsec—a conference—off the ground. Like all good cloud security conferences, it's named after an email subject line.It is co-located with re:Inforce this year in Anaheim, California. Somewhat ominously enough, I used to live a block-and-a-half away from the venue. But I don't anymore and in fact, because nobody checks the global event list when they schedule these things, I will be on the other side of the world officiating a wedding the same day. So, yet again, I will not be at re:Inforce.Chris: That is a shame because I think you would have made an excellent person to contribute to our call for papers and attend. So yes, fwd:cloudsec is deliberately actually named after a subject line because all of the other Amazon conferences seem to be that way. And we didn't want to be going backwards and thinking, you know, past tense. We were looking forward to our conference. Yeah, so we're effectively a vendor-neutral cloud security conference. We liked the idea of being able to take the talks that Amazon PR would never allow on stage at re:Inforce and run with it.Corey: I would question that. I do want to call that out because I gave a talk at re:Invent one year about a vulnerability I found and reported, with the help of two other people, Scott Piper and Brandon Sherman, to the AWS security team. And we were able to talk about that on stage with Zack Glick, who at the time, was one of basically God's own prototypes, working over in the AWS environment next to Dan [Erson 00:19:56]. Now, Dan remains the salt of the earth, and if he ever leaves basically just short the entire US economy. It's easier. He is amazing. I digress. The point being is that they were very open about talking about an awful lot of stuff that I would never have expected that they would be okay with.Chris: And last year at re:Inforce, they had an excellent, excellent chalk talk—but it was a chalk talk, not recorded—on how ransomware attacks operate. And they actually, like, revealed some internal, very anonymized patterns of how attacks are working. So, they're starting to realize what we've been saying in the cloud security community for a while, which is, we need more legitimate threat intelligence. On the other hand, they don't want to call it threat intelligence because the word threat is threatening, and therefore, you know, we're going to just call it, you know, patterns or whatever. And our conference is, again, also multi-cloud, a concept that until recently, AWS, you know, didn't really want to acknowledge that there were other clouds and that people would use both of them [crosstalk 00:21:01]—Corey: Multi-cloud security is a nightmare. It's just awful.Chris: Yeah, I don't like multi-cloud, but I've come to realize that it is a thing. That you will either start at a company that says, “We're AWS and we're uni-cloud,” and then next thing, you know, either some rogue developer out there has gone and spun up an Azure subscription or your acquire somebody who's in GCP, or heaven forbid, you have to go into some, you know, tinhorn dictator's jurisdiction and they require you to be on-prem or leverage Oracle Cloud or something. And suddenly, congratulations, you're now multi-cloud. So yes, our goal is really to be the things that aren't necessarily onstage or aren't all just, “It's great.” Even your talk was how great the incident response and vulnerability remediation process was.Corey: How great my experience with it was at the time, to be clear. Because I also have gotten to a point where I am very aware that, in many cases when dealing with AWS, my reputation precedes me. So, when I wind up tweeting about a problem or opening a support case, I do not accept as a given that my experience is what everyone is going to experience. But a lot of the things they did made a lot of sense and I was frankly, impressed that they were willing to just talk about anything that they did internally. Because previously that had not been a thing that they did in open forums like that.Chris: But you go back to the Glue incident where somebody found a bug and they literally went and went to every single CloudTrail event going back to the dawn of the service to validate that, okay, the, only two times we ever saw this happen were between the two researcher's accounts who disclosed it. And so, kudos to them for that level of forward communication to their customers because yeah, I think we still haven't heard anything out of Azure for last year's—or a year-and-a-half ago's Wiz findings.Corey: Well, they did do a broad blog post about this that they put out, which I thought, “Okay, that was great. More of this please.” Because until they start talking about security issues and culture and the remediation thereof, I don't give a shit what they have to say about almost anything else because it all comes back to security. The only things I use Azure for, which admittedly has some great stuff; their computer vision API? Brilliant—but the things I use them for are things that I start from a premise of security is not important to that service.The thing I use it for on the soon-to-be-pivoted to Mastodon Twitter thread client that I built, it writes alt-text for images that are about to be put out publicly. Yeah, there's no security issue from that perspective. I am very hard-pressed to imagine a scenario in which that were not true.Chris: I can come up with a couple, but you know—Corey: It feels really contrived. And honestly, that's the thing that concerns me, too: the fact that I finally read, somewhat recently, an AWS white paper talking about—was it a white paper or was it blog post? I forget the exact media that it took. But it was about how they are seeing ransomware attacks on S3, which was huge because before that, I assumed it was something that was being made up by vendors to sell me something.Chris: So, that was the chalk talk.Corey: Yes.Chris: They finally got the chalk talk from re:Inforce, they gave it again at re:Invent because it was so well received and now they have it as a blog post out there, so that, you know, it's not just for people who show up in the room, they can hear it; it's actually now documented out there. And so, kudos to the Amazon security team for really getting that sort of threat intelligence out there to the community.Corey: Now, it's in writing, and that's something that I can cite as opposed to, “Well, I was at re:Invent and I heard—” Yeah, we saw the drink tab. We know what you might have thought you heard or saw at re:Invent. Give us something we can take to the board.Chris: There were a lot of us on that bar tab, so it's not all you.Corey: Exactly. And it was my pleasure to do it, to be clear. But getting back to fwd:cloudsec, I'm going to do you a favor. Whether it's an actual favor or the word favor belongs in quotes, the way that I submit CFPs, or conference talks, is optimized because I don't want to build a talk that is never going to get picked up. Why bother to go through all the work until I have to give it somewhere?So, I start with a catchy title and then three to five sentences. And if people accept it, great, then I get to build the talk. This is a forcing function in some ways because if you get a little delayed, they will not move the conference for you. I've checked. But the title of a talk that I think someone should submit for fwd:cloudsec is, “I Am Smarter Than You, so Cloud Security is Easy.”And the format and the conceit of the talk is present it with sort of a stand-it-up-to-take-it-down level of approach where you are over-confident in the fact that you are smarter than everyone else and best practices don't apply to you and so much of this stuff is just security theater designed as a revenue extraction mechanism as opposed to something you should actually be doing. And talk about why none of these things matter because you use good security and you know, it's good because you came up with it and there's no way that you could come up with something that you couldn't break because you're smart. It says so right in the title and you're on stage and you have a microphone. They don't. Turn that into something. I feel like there's a great way to turn that in a bunch of different directions. I'd love to see someone give that talk.Chris: I think Nickolas Sharp thought that too.Corey: [laugh]. Exactly. In fact, that will be a great way to bring it back around at the end. And it's like, “And that's why I'm better at security than you are. If you have any questions beyond this, you can reach me at whatever correctional institute I go in on Thursday.” Exactly. There's ways to make it fun and engaging. Because from my perspective, talks have to be entertaining or people don't pay attention.Chris: They're either entertaining, or they're so new and advanced. We're definitely an advanced cloud security practice thing. They were 500 levels. Not to brag or anything, but you know, you want the two to 300-level stuff, you can go CCJ up the street. We're hitting and going above and beyond what a lot of the [unintelligible 00:27:18]—Corey: I am not as advanced on that path as you are; I want to be very clear on this. You speak, I listen. You're one of those people when it comes to security. Because again, no one's life is hanging in the balance with respect to what I do. I am confident in our security posture here, but nothing's perfect. Everything is exploitable, on some level.It's also not my core area of focus. It is yours. And if you are not better than I am at this, then I have done something sort of strange, or so of you, in the same way that it is a near certainty—but not absolute—that I am better at optimizing AWS bills than you are. Specialists exist for a reason and to discount that expertise is the peak of hubris. Put that in your talk.Chris: Yeah. So, one talk I really want to see, and I've been threatening to give it for a while, is okay, if there's seventeen ways—or sorry, seventeen times two, soon to be seventeen times three ways to run containers in AWS, there's that many ways to exfiltrate credentials from those containers. What are all of those things? Do we have a holistic way of understanding, this is how credentials can be exfiltrated so that we then as defenders can go figure out, okay, how do we build detections and mitigations for this?Corey: Yeah. I'm a huge fan of Canarytokens myself, for that exact purpose. There are many devices I have where the only credentials in plain text on disk are things that as soon as they get used, I wind up with a bunch of things screaming at me that there's been a problem and telling me where it is. I'm not saying that my posture is impenetrable. Far from it. But you're going to have to work for it a little bit harder than running some random off-the-shelf security scanner against my AWS account and finding, oops, I forgot to turn on a bucket protection.Chris: And the other area that I think is getting really interesting is, all of the things that have credentials into your Cloud account, whether it's something like CircleCI or GitHub. I was having a conversation with somebody just this morning and we were talking about Roles Anywhere, and I was like, “Roles Anywhere is great if you've got a good strong PKI solution and can keep that private certificate or that certificate you need safe.” If you just put it on a disk, like, you would have put your AKIA and secret on a desk, congratulations, you haven't really improved security. You've just gotten rid of the IAM users that are being flagged in your CSPM tool, and congratulations, you have, in fact, achieved security theater.Corey: It's obnoxious, on some level. And part of the problem is cost and security are aligned and that people care about them right after they really should have cared about them. The difference is you can beg, cry, whine, et cetera to AWS for concessions, you can raise another round of funding; there have solutions with money. But security? That ship has already sailed.Chris: Yeah. Once the data is out, the data is out. Now, I will say on the bill, you get reminded of it every month, about three or four days after. It's like, “Oh. Crap, yeah, I should have turned off that EC2 instance. I just burned $100.” Or, “Oh hey, we didn't turn off that application. I just burned $100,000.” That doesn't happen on security. Security events tend to be few and far between; they're just much bigger when they happen.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me. I'm sure I'll have you back on between now and re:Inforce slash fwd:cloudsec or anything else we come up with that resembles an email subject line. If people want to learn more and follow along with your adventures—as they should—where's the best place for him to find you these days?Chris: So, I am now pretty much living on Mastodon on the InfoSec Exchange. And my website, chrisfarris.com is where you can find the link to that because it's not just at, you know, whatever. You have to give the whole big long URL in Mastodon. It's no longer—Corey: Yeah. It's like a full-on email address with weird domains.Chris: Exactly, yeah. So, find me at http colon slash slash infosec dot exchange slash at jcfarris. Or just hit Chris Farris and follow the links. For fwd:cloudsec, we are conveniently located at fwdcloudsec.org, which is F-W-D cloud sec dot org. No colons because I don't think those are valid in whois.Corey: Excellent choice. And of course, links to that go in the [show notes 00:31:32], so click the button. It's easier. Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it.Chris: Thank you.Corey: Chris Farris, Cloud Security Nerd at Turbot slash Turbo. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment that resembles a lawsuit being filed, and then have it processed-served to me because presumably, you work at Ubiquiti.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

In this episode, we are talking about the emotional toll of OCD.  Kim: Welcome back, everybody. This week is going to include three of some of my most favorite people on this entire planet. We have the amazing Chris Trondsen, Alegra Kastens, and Jessica Serber—all dear friends of mine—on the podcast. This is the first time I've done an episode with more than one guest.  Now, this was actually a presentation that the four of us did at multiple IOCDF conferences. It was a highly requested topic. We were talking a lot about trauma and OCD, shame and OCD, the stigma of OCD, guilt and OCD, and the depression and grief that goes with OCD. After we presented it, it actually got accepted to multiple different conferences, so we all agreed, after doing it multiple times and having such an amazing turnout, that we should re-record the entire conversation and have it on the podcast. I'm so grateful for the three of them. They all actually join me on Super Bowl Sunday—I might add—to record this episode. I am going to really encourage you to drop down into your vulnerable self and listen to what they have to say, and note the validation and acknowledgment that they give throughout the episode. It is a deep breath. That's what this episode is.  Before we get into this show, let me just remind you again that we are recording live the Overcoming Depression course this weekend. On March 11th, March 18th, and March 25th, at 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, I will be recording the Overcoming Depression course. I am doing it live this time. If you're interested in coming on live as I record it, you can ask your questions, you can work along with me. There'll be workbooks. I'll be giving you a lot of strategies and a lot of tools to help you overcome depression.  If you're interested, go to CBTSchool.com/depression. We will be meeting again, three dates in March, starting tomorrow, the 11th of March, at 9:00 AM Pacific Time. You will need to sign up ahead of time. But if for any reason you miss one of them, you can watch the replay. The replays will be uploaded. You'll have unlimited on-demand access to any of them. You'll get to hear me answering people's questions. This is the first time I've ever recorded a course live. I really felt it was so important to do it live because I knew people would have questions and I wanted to address them step by step in a manageable, bite-sized way. Again, CBTSchool.com/depression, and I will see you there. Let's get over to this incredible episode.  Again, thank you, Chris Trondsen. Thank you, Alegra Kastens. Thank you, Jessica Serber. It is an honor to call you my friend and my colleague. Enjoy everybody.  Kim: Welcome. This has been long, long. I've been waiting so long to do this and I'm so thrilled. This is my first time having multiple guests at once. I have three amazing guests. I'm going to let them introduce themselves. Jessica, would you like to go first? Jessica: I'm Jessica Serber. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I have a practice specializing in the treatment of OCD and related anxiety and obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders in Los Angeles. I'm super passionate about working with OCD because my sister has OCD and I saw her get her life back through treatment. So, I have so much hope for everyone in this treatment process. Kim: Fantastic. So happy to have you. Chris? Chris: Hi everyone. My name is Chris Trondsen. I am also a licensed marriage family therapist here in Orange County, California at a private group practice. Besides being a therapist, I also have OCD myself and body dysmorphic disorder, both of which I specialize in treatment. Because of that, I'm passionate about advocacy. I am one of the lead advocates for the International OCD Foundation, as well as on their board and the board of OCD Southern California, as well as some leadership on some of their special interest groups. Kind of full circle for me, have OCD and now treat it. Kim: Amazing. Alegra? Alegra: My name is Alegra Kastens and I am a licensed therapist in the states of California and New York. I'm the founder of the Center for OCD, Anxiety and Eating Disorders. Like Chris, I have lived experience with OCD, anxiety, eating disorders, and basically everything, so I'm very passionate. We got a lot going on up here. I'm really passionate about treating OCD, educating, advocating for the disorder, and that is what propelled me to pursue a career as a therapist and then also to build my online platform, @obsessivelyeverafter on Instagram. GRIEF AND OCD Kim: Amazing. We have done this presentation before, actually, multiple times over the years. I feel like an area that I want to drop into as deeply as we can today to really look at the emotional toll of having and experiencing and recovering from OCD. We're going to have a real conversation style here. But first, we'll follow the format that we've used in the past. Let's first talk about grief and OCD because I think that that seems to be a lot of the reason we all came together to present on this. Alegra, would you talk specifically about some of the losses that result from having OCD? I know this actually was inspired by an Instagram post that you had put out on Instagram, so do you want to share a little bit about what those emotional losses are?  Alegra: For sure. I think that number one, what a lot of people with OCD experience is what feels like a loss of identity. When OCD really attacks your values, attacks your core as a human being, whether it's pedophile obsession, sexual orientation obsessions, harm obsessions, you really start to grieve the person that you once thought you were. Of course, nothing has actually changed about you, but because of OCD, it really feels like it has. In addition to identity, there's lost relationships, there's lost time, lost experiences. For me, I dropped out of my bachelor's degree and I didn't get the four years of undergrad that a lot of people experienced. I mean, living with OCD is one of the most debilitating, difficult things to do. And that means, if you're fighting this battle and trying to survive, you probably are missing out on life and developmental milestones. Kim: Right. Was that the case for you too, Chris? Chris: Yeah. I actually host a free support group for families and one of the persons with OCD was speaking yesterday talking about how having OCD was single-handedly the most negatively impactful experience in his life. He is dealt with a lot of loss. I feel the same way. It's just not something you could shake off and recover from in the sense of just pretending nothing happened. I know for me, the grief was hard. I mean, I had mapped out what I thought my life was going to look like. I think my first stage of grief, because I think it became two stages, my first, like Alegra said, was about the loss. I always wanted to go to college and be around people in my senior year, like make friends and things like that. It's just my life became smaller and smaller. I became housebound. I missed out on normal activities, and six years of my life were pretty much spent alone.  I think what Alegra also alluded to, which was the second layer of grief, was less about the things that I lost, but who I became. I didn't recognize myself in those years with OCD. I think it's hard to explain to somebody else what it's like to literally not live as yourself. I let things happen to me or I did things that I would never do in the mind state that I am in now. I was always such a brave and go-for-it kind of person and confident and I just became a shell of myself. I grieve a lot of the years lost, a lot of the things I always wanted to do, and places I wanted to go. And then I grieve the person I became because it was nothing I ever thought I could become. Kim: Jessica, will you speak also to just the events that people miss out on? I don't know if you want to speak about what you see with your clients or even with your sibling, like just the milestones that they missed and the events they missed. Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. My sister was really struggling the most with her OCD during middle school and high school. Those are such formative years, to begin with. I would say, she was on the fortunate end of the spectrum of being diagnosed relatively early on in her life. I mean, she definitely had symptoms from a very, very young age, but still, getting that diagnosis in middle school is so much before a lot of people get that. I mean, I work with people who aren't diagnosed until their twenties, thirties, and sometimes even later. Different things that most adolescents would go through she didn't.  Speaking to the identity piece that Alegra brought up, a big part of her identity was being a sports fan. She was a diehard Clippers fan, and that's how everyone knew her. It was like her claim to fame. She didn't even want to go to Clippers games. My dad was trying to get tickets to try to get her excited about something to get out of the house. She missed certain events in high school because it was too anxiety-provoking to go and it was more comforting to know she could stay in the safety of the home. Their experiences all throughout the lifespan, I think that can be impacted. Even if you're not missing out on them entirely, a lot of people talk about remembering those experiences as tainted by the memories of OCD, even if they got to go experience them. Kim: Right. For me, as a clinician, I often hear two things. One is the client will say something to the likes of, “I've lost my way. I was going in this direction and I've completely lost the path I was supposed to go on.” I think that is a full grief process. I think we've associated grief with the death of people, but it's not. It's deeper than that and it's about like you're talking about, identity and events and occasions.  The other thing that I hear is—actually, we can go totally off script here in terms of we've talked about this in the past separately—people think that once they're recovered, they will live a really happy life and that they'll feel happy now. Like, “Oh, the relief is here, I've recovered.”  But I think there is a whole stage of grief that follows during recovery and then after recovery. Do you have any thoughts on that, anybody?  Alegra: Well, yeah. I think it reminds me a lot of even my own experience, but my client's experiences of when you recover, there tends to be grief about life before OCD. If I'm being perfectly honest, my life will just never be what it was before OCD, and it's different and wonderful in so many ways that maybe it wouldn't be if I didn't have OCD. But I'm laughing because when you were like, “I'm going to mark my calendar in July because you're probably going to have a relapse,” then I have to deal with it every six months. My brain just goes off for like two weeks. I don't know why it happens. It's just my OCD brain, and there's grief associated with that. I can go for six months and I have some intrusive thoughts, but it doesn't really do anything to me to write back in it for two weeks. That's something I have to deal with and I have to get to that acceptance place in the grieving process. I'm not going to have the brain that I did before OCD when I didn't have a single unwanted sexual thought. That just isn't happening. I think we think that we're going to get to this place after recovery, and it's like game over, I forget everything that happened in the past, but we have to remember that OCD can be traumatizing for people. Trauma is stored in the body. The brain is impacted and I think that we can carry that with us afterwards. Kim: Right. Chris: Yeah. I mean, everything that Alegra was saying—I'll never forget. I always joke, but I thought when treatment was done, rainbows were going to shoot out and butterflies. I was going to jump on my very own unicorn and ride off to the sunset. But it was like a bomb had gone off and I had survived the blast, but everything around me was completely pulverized. I just remember thinking, what do I do now? I remember going on social media to look up some of my friends from high school because my OCD got really, really bad after high school. I just remember everybody was starting to date or marry or travel and move on and I'm like, “Great, I live in my grandma's basement. I don't have anything on my calendar. I'm not dating, I don't have any friends. What do I do?” I was just completely like, “Okay, I don't even know where to begin.” I felt so lost. Anything I did just didn't feel right. Like Alegra said, there was so much aftermath that I had to deal with. I had to deal with the fact that I was lost and confused and I was angry and I had all these emotions. I had these memories of just driving around.  As part of my OCD, I had multiple subtypes—sexual intrusive thoughts, harm thoughts. I remember contamination, stores around me would get dirty, so I'd be driving hours to buy products from non-dirty stores at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, crying outside of a store because they were closed or didn't have the product I need, getting home and then my checking would kick in. You left something at the store, driving back. You just put yourself through all these different things that are just not what you would ever experience.  I see it with my clients. One client sticks in mind who was in his eighties and after treatment, getting better. He wasn't happy and he is like, “I'm so happy, Chris. You helped me put OCD in remission. But I now realize that I never got married because I was scared of change. I never left the house that I hated in the city I didn't really like because I was afraid of what would happen if I moved.” He's like, “I basically lived my OCD according to OCD'S rules and I'm just really depressed about that.” I know we're going to talk about the positive sides and how to heal in the second half, but this is just really what OCD can ravish on our lives. Kim: Right.  Jessica: If I can add one thing too really quickly, something I really think is a common experience too is that once healing happens, even if people do get certain parts of their lives back and feel like they can function again in the ways that they want to, there's always this sense of foreboding joy, that it feels good and I'm happy, but I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time. Or what if I go back to how I was and I lose all my progress? Even when there are those periods of joy and happiness and fulfillment, they might also be accompanied with some anxiety and some what-ifs. Of course, we can work on that and should work on that in treatment too because we want to maximize those periods of joy as much as we can. But that's something that I commonly see, that the anxiety sticks around just in different ways. OCD, SHAME, & GUILT Kim: Yeah, for sure. I see that very commonly too. Let's talk now about OCD, shame, and guilt. I'll actually go straight to you, Jessica, because I remember you speaking about this beautifully. Can you explain the difference between shame and guilt specifically related to how it may show up with OCD?  Jessica: Yeah. I mean, they're definitely related feelings but they are different. I think the simplest way to define the difference is guilt says, “I did something bad,” whereas shame says, “I am bad.” Shame is really an identity-based emotion and we see a lot of shame with any theme of OCD. It can show up in lots of different ways, but definitely with some of the themes that are typically classified as Pure O—the sexual intrusive thoughts or unwanted harm thoughts, scrupulosity, blasphemous thoughts. There can be a lot of shame around a person really identifying with their thoughts and what it means about them. Attaching that, meaning about what it means about them. And then of course, there can also be guilt, which I think feels terrible as well, but it's like a shame light where it's like, “I did something wrong by having this thought,” or just guilt for maybe something that they've thought or a compulsion that they've done because of their OCD.  Kim: Yeah. I've actually also experienced a lot of clients saying they feel guilty because of the impact their OCD has had on their loved ones too. They're suffering to the biggest degree, but they're also carrying the guilt of like, “I've caused suffering to my family,” or “I'm a financial burden to my parents with the therapy and the psychiatrist.” I think that there's that secondary guilt that shows up for a lot of people as well, which we can clump in as an outcome or a consequence or an experience of having OCD. Chris: Yeah. I mean, right before you said this, Kim, I was thinking for me personally, that was literally what I was going to say. I have a younger sister. She's a couple of years younger than me and I just put her through hell. She was one of the first people that just felt the OCD's wrath because I was so stressed out. She and I shared a lot of the same spaces in the home, so we'd have a lot of fights. Also, when I was younger, because she looks nothing like me—she actually looks more like you, Kim, blonde hair, blue eyes—people didn't know we were related. People would always say things like, “Oh, is that your girlfriend?” So then I'd have a lot of ancestral intrusive thoughts that caused a lot of harm to me, so I'd get mad at her. Because I was young, I didn't know better. And then just the hell I put my mom through.  I always think about just like, wow, once again, that's not who Chris is. I would jump in front of eight bullets for both my mom and my sister. I remember one time I needed something because I felt dirty, and my mom hit our spending money so that if there was an emergency. My sister knew where it was and she wouldn't give it to me. I remember taking a lighter and lighting it and being like, “I'll burn your hair if you don't give me the money,” because I was so desperate to buy it because that's how intense the OCD was. I remember she and I talking about that and it just feels like a different human. Once again, it's more than just guilt. It's shame of who I had become because of it and not even recognizing the boy I was now compared to the man I am now, way than man now. OCD AND ANGER Kim: One thing we haven't talked a lot about, but Chris, you just spoke to it, and I've actually been thinking about this a lot. Let's talk about OCD and anger because I think that is another emotional toll of OCD. A lot of clients I've had—even just recently, I've been thinking about this a lot—sometimes instead of doing compulsions, they have an anger outburst or maybe as well as compulsions. Does anyone want to speak to those waves of frustration and anger that go around these thoughts that we have or intrusive whatever obsessions in any way, but in addition, the compulsions you feel you have to do when you have OCD? Alegra: I feel like sometimes there can be maybe a deeper, more painful emotion that's underneath that anger, which can be shame or it can be guilt, but it feels like anger is maybe easier to express. But also, there just is inherent anger that comes up with having to live with this. I remember one time in my own personal therapy, my therapist was trying to relate and she pulled out this picture that she had like an, I don't know, eight-year-old client with OCD and was like, “She taps herself a lot.” I screamed at her at that moment. I was like, “Put that fucking picture away, and don't ever show that to me again. I do not want to be compared to an eight-year-old who taps himself, like I will tap myself all day fucking long, so long as I don't have these sexually unwanted thoughts about children.” I was so angry at that moment because it just felt like what I was dealing with was so much more taboo and shameful. I was angry a lot of the time. I don't think we can answer the question of, why? Why did I have to experience this? Why did someone else not have to experience this? And that anger is valid.  The other thing that I want to add is that anger does not necessarily mean that we are now going to act on our obsessions because I think clients get very afraid of that. I remember one time I was so fucking pissed at my coworker. He was obnoxious when I worked in PR, and I was so mad at him, I had to walk outside and regulate. And then instantly, of course, my brain went, “You want his kid to die?” or whatever it was. I felt like, oh my God, I must really want this to happen because I'm mad at him. In terms of anger, we can both feel angry and not align with unwanted thoughts that arise. CAN OCD CAUSE ANGER ISSUES?  Kim: Right. OCD can attack the emotions that you experience, like turn it back on you. It's funny, I was doing a little bit of research for this and I typed in ‘OCD in anger.' I was looking to see what was out there. What was so fascinating to me is, you know when you type something in on Google, it shows all of the other things that are commonly typed in. At the very top was ‘Can OCD cause anger issues?' I was like, that is so interesting, that obviously, loved ones or people with OCD are searching for this because it's so normal, I think, to have a large degree of just absolute rage over what you've been through, how much you've suffered, just the torment and what's been lost, as we've already talked about. I just thought that was really fascinating to see, that that's obviously something that people are struggling with.  Chris: When you think about it, when we're struggling with OCD, the parts of our brain that are trying to protect us are on fire or on high alert. If you always think about that, I always think of a feral dog. If you're trying to get him help, then he starts to bite. That's how I honestly felt. My anger was mostly before I was diagnosed, and once again, like I said, breaking things at home, screaming, yelling at my family, intimidating them, and stuff. I know that once again, that wasn't who I am at the course. When I finally got a diagnosis, I know for me, the anger dissipated. I was still angry, but the outbursts and the rage, and I think the saddest thing I hear from a lot of my clients is they tell me, I think people think I'm this selfish and spoiled and bratty and angry person. I'm not. I just cannot get a break.  I always remind parents that as your loved one or spouses, et cetera—as your loved one gets better, that anger will subside. It won't vanish, it won't disappear, it may change into different emotions, like Alegra was saying, to guilt and to shame and loss of identity. But that rage a lot of times is because we just don't know what to do and we feel attacked constantly with OCD.  Kim: Yeah. Jessica: I also want to validate the piece that anger is a really natural and normal stage of grief. I like that you're differentiating, Chris, between the rage that a lot of people experience in it versus maybe just a different type of anger that can show up after when you recognize how—I think, Alegra, you brought up—we can't answer the question of, why did this happen to me? Or “I missed out on all these times or years of my life that I can't get back.” Anger is not a problem. It's not an issue when it shows up like that. It's actually a very healthy natural part of grief. We want to obviously process it in ways that really honor that feeling and tend to that feeling in a helpful way. I just wanted to point out that part as well. DO YOU CONSIDER HAVING OCD A TRAUMATIC EVENT?    Kim: Yeah, very, very helpful. This is for everybody and you can chime in, but I wanted to just get a poll even. Alegra spoke on this a little bit already. Do you consider having OCD a traumatic event? Alegra: A hundred thousand percent. I'm obviously not going to trauma dump on all of you all, but boy, would I love to. I have had quite a few of what's classified as big T traumas, which I even hate the differentiation of big T, sexual assault, abuse, whatever. I have had quite a bit of big T traumas and I have to say that OCD has been the most traumatizing thing I have been through and I think we'll ever go through. It bothers me how much I think gatekeeping can happen in our community. Like, no, it's only trauma if you've been assaulted, it's only trauma if X, Y, and Z. I have a lot of big T trauma and I'm here to say that OCD hands down, like I would go through all of that big T trauma 15 times over to not have OCD, 100%. I think Chris can just add cherries to the cake, whatever that phrase is. Chris: Yeah. This is actually how the title, the Emotional Toll of OCD, came about. We had really talked about this. I was really inspired mainly by Alegra talking about the trauma of OCD and I was like, finally, someone put the right word because I always felt that other words didn't really speak to my personal experience and the experience I see with clients. We had submitted it for a talk and it got denied. I remember they liked it so much that they literally had a meeting with you and I, Kim, and we're like, “We actually really love this. We just got to figure out a way to change it.” Like Alegra was saying, a lot of the people that were part of a trauma special interest group just said, “Look, we can't be using the word ‘trauma' like this.” But we had a good talk about it. It's like, I do believe it's trauma. I always feel weird talking about him because sometimes he listens to my stuff, but still, I'll say it anyways. But my dad will hopefully be the first to admit it. But there were a lot of physical altercations between he and I that were inappropriate—physical abuse, emotional abuse, yelling, screaming. Like Alegra said, I would relive that tenfold than go through the depths of my OCD again where I attempted suicide, where I isolated, where I didn't even recognize myself.  If ‘trauma' isn't the correct word, we only watered it down to emotional toll just to make DSM-5 folks happy. But if ‘trauma' isn't the word, I don't know what is, because like I said, trauma was okay to describe the pain I went through childhood, but in my personal experience, it failed in comparison to the trauma that I went through with OCD.  Alegra: I also want to add something. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I'm thinking about the DSM definition, I think it's defining post-traumatic stress disorder. I don't think it's describing trauma specifically. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's criteria for PTSD. I will be the first to say and none of you have to agree. I think that you can have PTSD from living with OCD. DSM-wise diagnostically, you can't. But I think when people are like, “Well, that's not the definition of trauma in the DSM,” no, they're defining PTSD. It's like, yeah, some people have anxiety and don't have an anxiety disorder. You can experience trauma and not have full-blown PTSD. That's my understanding of it. Kim: Yeah. It's funny because I don't have OCD, so I am an observer to it. What I think is really interesting is I can be an observer to someone who's been through, like you've talked about, a physical assault or a sexual assault and so forth, and they may report I'm having memories of the event and wake up with the physiology of my heart beating and thoughts racing. But then I'll have clients with OCD who will have these vivid memories of having to wash their hands and the absolute chaos of, “I can't touch this. Oh my God, please don't splash the water on me,” Memories of that and nightmares of that and those physiological experiences. They're remembering the events that they felt so controlled and so stuck in. That's where for me, I was, with Chris, really advocating for. These moments imprint our brain right in such a deep way. Alegra: Yeah. I'm reading this book, not to tell everyone to buy this book, but it's by Dr. Bruce Perry and he does a bunch of research on trauma and the brain. Basically, the way that he describes it is like when we experience something and it gets associated. Let's say, for instance, there are stores that I could go to and I could still feel that very visceral feeling that I did when I was suffering. Part of that is how trauma is stored in the brain. Even if you logically know I'm not in that experience now, I'm not in the war zone or I'm not in the depths of my OCD suffering, just the store, let's say, being processed through the lower part of your brain can bring up all of those associations. So, it does do something to the brain. Kim: Right.  Chris: Absolutely. I was part of a documentary and it was the first time I went back to the home that I had attempted suicide, and the police got called the hospital and all that. It was a bad choice. They didn't push me into it. It was my idea because I haven't gone back there, had no clue how I'd react and I broke down. I mean, broke down in a dry heaving way that I never knew I could and we had to stop filming and we left. Where I was at my worst of OCD was there and also at my grandma's house because that's where I moved right after the suicide attempt. I'd have people around me, and still going down to the basement area that I lived in. It is very hard. I rarely do it. So, I have a reaction. To me, it was like, if that isn't once again trauma, I don't know what is. Alegra: It is.  Chris: Exactly. I'll never forget there was a woman that was part of a support group I ran. She was in her seventies and she had gone through cancer twice. I remember her telling the group that she's like, “I'll go through cancer a third time before I'll ever go back to my worst of OCD.” Obviously, we're not downplaying these other experiences—PTSD, trauma, cancer, horrible things, abuse, et cetera. What we're saying is that OCD takes a lasting imprint and it's something that I have not been able to shake. I've done so much advocacy, so much therapy, so much as a therapist and I don't still struggle, but the havoc it has on my life, that's something I think is going to be imprinted for life. Alegra: Forever. Jessica: Also, part of the definition of trauma is having a life-threatening experience. What you're speaking to, Chris, you had a suicide attempt during that time. Suicidality is common with OCD. Suicidal ideation, it's changing your life. I think Alegra, you said, “I'll never have the life or the brain that I had before OCD.” These things that maybe it's not, well, some of them are actually about real confrontation with death, but these real life-changing, life-altering experiences that potentially also drive some people to have thoughts or feelings about wanting to not be alive anymore. I just think that element is there. Alegra: That's so brilliant, Jessica, because that is so true. If we're thinking about it being life-threatening and life-altering, it was life-threatening for me. I got to the point where I was like, “If something doesn't change, I will kill myself. I will.” That is life-threatening to a person. I would be driving on the freeway like, “Do I just turn the car? Do I just turn it now? Because I was so just fucking done with what was happening in my brain.” Kim: It feels crisis. Alegra: Yeah. Kim: It's like you're experiencing a crisis in that moment, and I think that that's absolutely valid. Alegra: It's an extended crisis. For me, it was a crisis of three to four years. I never had a break. Not when I was sleeping. I mean, never. Chris: I was just going to add that I hear in session almost daily, people are like, “If I just don't wake up tomorrow, I'm fine. I'd never do anything, but if I just don't wake up tomorrow, I'm fine.” We know this is the norm. The DSM talks about 50% of individuals with OCD have suicidal ideation, 25% will attempt. This is what people are going through as they enter treatment or before treatment. They just feel like, “If I just don't wake up or if something were to happen to me, I'd actually be at peace with it.” It's a really alarming number. THE EMOTIONAL TOLL OF OCD TREATMENT Kim: Right. Let's move. I love everything that you guys are saying and I feel like we've really acknowledged the emotional toll really, the many ways that it universally impacts a person emotionally and in all areas of their lives. I'm wondering if you guys could each, one at a time or bounce it off each other, share what you believe are some core ways in which we can manage these emotional tolls, bruises left, or scars left from having OCD? Jessica, do you want to go first?  Jessica: Sure. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is—I'll speak from the therapist perspective—if you're a therapist specializing in treating OCD, make sure you leave room to talk about these feelings that we're bringing up. Of course, doing ERP and doing all of the things to treat OCD is paramount and we want to do that first and foremost if possible. But if you're not also leaving room for your client to process this grief, process through and challenge their shame, just hold space for the anger and maybe talk about it. Let your client have that anger experience in a safe space. We're missing a huge, huge part of that person's healing if we're leaving that out. Maybe I'll piggyback on what you two say, but that's just the baseline that I wanted to put out there. Chris: I could go next. I would say the first thing is what Jess said. We have to treat the whole person. I think it's great when a client's Y-BOCS score has gone down and symptomology is not a daily impact. However, all the things that we talked about, we aren't unicorns. This is what many of our clients are going through and there has to be space for the therapist to validate, to address, and to help heal. I would say the biggest thing that I believe moves you past where we've been talking about is re-identity formation. We just don't recognize until you get better how nearly every single decision we make is based off of our OCD fears, that some way or another, what we listen to, how we speak, what direction we drive, what we buy. I mean, everything we do is, will the OCD be okay with this? Will this harm me, et cetera?  One of the things I do with all my clients before I complete treatment is I start to help them figure out who they are. I say, “Let's knock everything we know. What are the parts of yourself that you organically feel are you and you love? Let's flourish those. Let's water those. Let's help those grow. What are some other things that you would be doing if OCD hadn't completely ransacked your life? Do you spend time with family? Are you somebody that wants to give back to communities? What things do you like to do when you're alone?” I help clients and it was something I did after my own treatment, like re-fall in love and be impressed with yourself and start to rebuild. I tell clients, one of the things that helped me flip it and I try to do it with them is instead of looking at it like, “This is hard, this is tough,” look at it as an opportunity. We get to take that pause, reconnect with ourselves and start to go in a direction that is absolutely going to move as far away from the OCD selves as possible, but also to go to the direction of who we are. Obviously, for me, becoming a therapist and advocate is what's helped me heal, and not everybody will go that route. But when they're five months, six months, a year after the hard part of their treatment and they're doing the things they always picture they could do and reconnecting with the people that they love, I start to see their light grow again and the OCD starts to fade. That's really the goal.  Alegra: I think something that I'll add—again, I don't want to be the controversial one, but maybe I will be—is there might be, yes. Can I get canceled after this in the community? There might be some kind of trauma work that somebody might need to do after OCD treatment, after symptoms are managed, and this is where we need to find nuance. Obviously, treatments like EMDR are not evidence-based for OCD, but if somebody has been really traumatized by OCD, maybe there is some kind of somatic experience, some kind of EMDR, or some kind of whatever it might be to really help work on that emotional impact that might still be affecting the person. It's important of course to find a therapist who understands OCD, who isn't reassuring you and you're falling back into your symptoms. But I have had clients successfully go through trauma therapy for the emotional impact OCD had and said it was tremendously helpful. That might be something to consider as well. If you do all the behavioral work and you still feel like, “I am really in the trenches emotionally,” we might need to add something else in. Chris: I actually don't think that's controversial, Alegra. I think that what you're speaking-- Alegra: I don't either, but a lot of clinicians do. Jessica: No, I agree. I think a lot of people will, and it's been a part of my recovery. I don't talk about a lot for that very reason. But after I was done with treatment, I didn't feel like I needed an OCD therapist anymore. I was doing extremely well, but all the emotions we'd been talking about, I was still experiencing. I found a clinician nearby because I was going on a four-hour round trip for treatment. I just couldn't go back to my therapist because of that. She actually worked with a lot of people that lost their lifestyle because of gambling. I went to her and I said, “What really spoke to me is how you help people rebuild their lives. I don't need to talk about OCD. If I need to, I'll go back to my old therapist. I need to figure out how to rebuild my life.” That's really what she did. She helped me work through a lot of the trauma with my dad and even got my dad to come to a session and work through that. We worked through living in the closet for my sexual orientation for so long and how hard coming out was because I came out while I was in the midst of OCD. It was a pretty horrible coming out experience. She helped me really work through that, work through the time lost and feeling behind my peers and I felt like a whole person leaving. I decided, as a clinician, I have to do that for my clients. I can't let my clients leave like I felt I left. It was no foul to my therapist. We just didn't talk about these other things.  Now what I'll say as a clinician is, if I'm working with a client and I feel like I could be the one to help them, I'll keep them with me. I also know my limitations. Like Alegra was saying, if they had the OCD went down so other traumas came to surface and they've dealt with molestation or something like that, I know my limitations, but what I will make sure to do is refer to a clinician that I think can help them because once again, I think treating the whole client is so important.  Kim: Yeah. There's two things I'll bring up in addition because I agree with everything you're saying. I don't think it's controversial. In fact, I often will say to my staff who see a lot of my clients, we want to either be doing, like Jessica said, some of the processing as we go or really offer after ERPs. “Do you need more support in this process of going back to the person you want?” That's a second level of treatment that I think can be super beautiful. As you're going too with exposures and so forth, you're asking yourself those questions like, what do I value? Take away OCD, what would I do? A lot of times, people are like, “I have no idea. I have really no idea,” like Chris then. I think that you can do it during treatment. You can also do it after, whichever feels best for you and your clinician.  The other thing that I find shows up for my patients the most is they'll bring up the shame and the guilt, or they'll bring up the anger, they'll bring up the grief. And then there's this heavy layer of some judgment for having it. There's this heavy layer as if they don't deserve to have these emotions. Probably, the thing I say the most is, “It makes complete sense that you feel that way.” I think that we have to remember that. That every emotion that is so strong and almost dysregulating, it makes complete sense that you feel that way given what you're going through.  I would just additionally say, be super compassionate and non-judgmental for these emotional waves that you're going to have to ride. I mean, think about the grief. This is the other thing. We don't go in and then process the grief and then often you're running. It's a wave. It's a process. It's a journey. It's going to keep coming and going. I think it's this readjustment on our thinking, like this is the life goal, the long-term practice now. It's not a one-and-done. Do you guys have thoughts? Jessica: I think as clinicians, validating that these are absolutely normal experiences and you deserve to be feeling this way is important because I think that sometimes, I don't think there's ill intent, but clinicians might gaslight their clients in a certain way by saying, “This isn't traumatic. This is not trauma. You can feel sad, but it is absolutely not a trauma,” and not validating that for a person can be really painful. I think as clinicians, we need to be open to the emotional impact that OCD has on a person and validate that so we're not sitting there saying, “Sorry, you can't use that word. This is not your experience. You can be sad, you can be whatever, but it's not trauma,” because I have seen that happen. Kim: Or a clinician saying, “It's not grief because no one died.” Jessica: Yeah. It was just hard. That was it. Get over it.  Kim: Or look at how far you've come. Even that, it's a positive thing to say. It's a positive thing to say, but I think what we're all saying is, very much, it makes complete sense. What were you going to say, Jessica? Sorry. Jessica: No. I just wanted to point out this one nuance that I see come up and that I think is important to catch, which is that sometimes there can be grief or shame or all these emotions that we're talking about, but sometimes those emotions can also become the compulsion themselves at times. Shala Nicely has a really, really good article about this, about how depression itself can become a compulsion, or I've seen clients engage in what I refer to as stewing in guilt or excessive guilt or self-punishment. What we want to differentiate is, punishing yourself by stewing in guilt is actually providing some form of covert reassurance about the obsessions. Sometimes we need to process the true emotional experiences that are happening as a result of OCD, but we also want to make sure that we're on the lookout for self-punishment compulsions and things like that that can mask, or I don't know. That can come out in response to those feelings, but ultimately are feeding the OCD still. I just wanted to point out that nuance, that if someone feels like, “I'm doing all this processing of my feelings with my therapist, but I'm not getting any better or I'm actually feeling worse,” we want to look at, is there a sneaky compulsion happening there?  Chris: I was just going to quickly add two things. One, I think what you were saying, Kim, with your clients, I see all the time. “I shouldn't feel this way. It's not okay for me to feel this way. There's people out there that are going through bigger traumas.” For some reason, I feel society gives a hierarchy of like, “Oh, if you're going through this you can grieve for this much, but we're going to grief police you if you're going through this. That's much down here.” So, my clients will feel guilty. My brother lost an arm when he was younger. How dare I feel bad about the time lost with OCD? I always tell my clients, there's no such thing as grief police and your experience is yours. We don't need to compare or contrast it to others because society already does that. And then second, I'm going to throw in a little plug for Kim. I feel as a clinician, it's my responsibility to keep absorbing things that I think will help my client. Your book that really talks about the self-compassion component, I read that from cover to cover. One thing that I've used when we're dealing with this with my clients is saying like, “We got to change our internal voice. Your internal voice has been one that's been frightened, small, scared, angry for so long. We got to change that internal voice to one that roots for you that has you get up each day and tackle the day.” If a client is sitting there saying that they shouldn't feel okay, I always ask them, “What kind of voice would you use to your younger brother or sister that you feel protective about? Would you knock down their experience? No, you would hold that space for them. What if we did that for you? It may feel odd, but this is something that I feel you need at this time.” Typically, when they start using a more self-compassionate tone, they start to feel like they're healing. So, that's something that we got to make sure they're doing as well. OCD AND DEPRESSION Kim: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. One thing we haven't touched on, and I will just quickly bring it up too, is I think secondary depression is a normal part of having OCD as well and is a part of the emotional toll. Sometimes either that depression can impact your ability to recover, or once you've gone through treatment, you're still not hopeful about the future. You're still feeling hopeless and helpless about the way the world is and the way that your brain functions in certain stresses. I would say if that is the case, also don't be afraid to bring up to your clinician. Like, I actually am concerned. I might have some depression if they haven't picked up on it. Because as clinicians, we know there's an emotional toll, we forget to assess for depression. That's something else just to consider. Chris: Yeah. I'm a stats nerd and I think it's 68% of the DSM, people with OCD have a depressive disorder, and 76% have an anxiety disorder. I always wonder, how can you have OCD and not be depressed? I was extremely depressed when my OCD was going on, and I think it's because of how it ravishes your life and takes you away from the things you care about the most. And then the things that would make you happy to get you out of the depression, obviously, you can't do. I will say the nice thing is, typically, what I see, whether it's through medication or not medication, but the treatment itself—what I see is that as people get better from OCD, if their depression did come from having OCD, a lot of it lifts, especially as they start to re-engage in life. Kim: All right. I'm looking at the time and I am loving everything you say. I'd love if you could each go around, tell us where we can hear more about you. If there's any final word that you want to say, I'm more than happy for you to take the mic. Jessica? Jessica: I'll start. I think I said in the introduction, but I have a private practice in Los Angeles. It's called Mindful CBT California. My website is MindfulCBTCalifornia.com. You can find some blogs and a contact page for me there. I hope to see a lot of you at the IOCDF conference this year. I love attending those, so I'll be there. That's it for me. Kim: Chris? Alegra: Like I said, if you're in the Southern California area, make sure to check out OCD SoCal. I am on the board of that or the International OCD Foundation, I'm on the board. I'm always connected at events through that. You can find me on my social media, which is just my name, @ChrisTrondsen. I currently work at the Gateway Institute in Orange County, California, so you can definitely find me there. My email is just my name, ChrisTrondsen@GatewayOCD.com. I would say the final thought that I want to leave, first and foremost, is just what I hope you got from this podcast is that all those other mixed bags of emotions that you're experiencing are normal. We just want to normalize that for you, and make sure as you're going through your recovery journey that you and your clinician address them, because I feel much more like a whole person because I was able to address those. You're not alone. Hopefully, you got from that you're not alone. Kim: Alegra? Alegra: You can find me @obsessivelyeverafter on Instagram. I also have a website, AlegraKastens.com, where you can find my contact info. You can find my Ask Alegra workshop series that I do once a month. I also just started a podcast called Sad Girls Who Read, so you can find me there with my co-host Erin Kommor, who also has OCD. My final words would probably be, I know we talked about a lot of really dark stuff today and how painful OCD can be, but it absolutely can get so much better. I would say that I am 95% better than I was when I first started suffering. It's brilliant and it's beautiful, and I never thought that would be the case. Yes, you'll hear from me in July, Kim, but other than that, I feel like I do have a very-- Kim's like, “Oh, will I?” Kim: I've scheduled you in. Alegra: She's like, “I have seven months to prep for this.” But other than that, I would say that my life is like, I never would've dreamed that I could be here, so it is really possible. Kim: Yeah. Chris: Amen. Of that. Kim: Yeah. Thank you all so much. This has been so meaningful for me to have you guys on. I'm really grateful for your time and your advocacy. Thank you. Chris: Thanks, Kim. Thanks for having us.  Alegra: Thanks, Kim.

About ChrisChris is a mostly-backend mostly-engineer at Remix Labs, working on visual app development. He has been in software startups for ten years, but his first and unrequited love was particle physics.  Before joining Remix Labs, he wrote numerical simulation and analysis tools for the Large Hadron Collider, then co-founded Roobiq, a clean and powerful mobile client for Salesforce back when the official ones were neither.Links Referenced: Remix Labs: https://remixlabs.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisvermilion TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Tailscale SSH is a new, and arguably better way to SSH. Once you've enabled Tailscale SSH on your server and user devices, Tailscale takes care of the rest. So you don't need to manage, rotate, or distribute new SSH keys every time someone on your team leaves. Pretty cool, right? Tailscale gives each device in your network a node key to connect to your VPN, and uses that same key for SSH authorization and encryption. So basically you're SSHing the same way that you're already managing your network. So what's the benefit? Well, built-in key rotation, the ability to manage permissions as code, connectivity between any two devices, and reduced latency. You can even ask users to re-authenticate SSH connections for that extra bit of security to keep the compliance folks happy. Try Tailscale now - it's free forever for personal use.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Logicworks. Getting to the cloud is challenging enough for many places, especially maintaining security, resiliency, cost control, agility, etc, etc, etc. Things break, configurations drift, technology advances, and organizations, frankly, need to evolve. How can you get to the cloud faster and ensure you have the right team in place to maintain success over time? Day 2 matters. Work with a partner who gets it - Logicworks combines the cloud expertise and platform automation to customize solutions to meet your unique requirements. Get started by chatting with a cloud specialist today at snark.cloud/logicworks. That's snark.cloud/logicworksCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. When I was nine years old, one of the worst tragedies that can ever befall a boy happened to me. That's right, my parents moved me to Maine. And I spent the next ten years desperately trying to get out of the state.Once I succeeded and moved to California, I found myself in a position where almost nothing can drag me back there. One of the exceptions—basically, the only exception—is Monktoberfest, a conference put on every year by the fine folks at RedMonk. It is unquestionably the best conference that I have ever been to, and it continually amazes me every time I go. The last time I was out there, I met today's guest. Chris Vermilion is a Senior Software Developer at Remix Labs. Chris, now that I finished insulting the state that you call home, how are you?Chris: I'm great. I'm happy to be in a state that's not California.Corey: I hear you. It's, uh—I talk a lot of smack about Maine. But to be perfectly direct, my problem with it is that I grew up there and that was a difficult time in my life because I, really I guess, never finished growing up according to most people. And all right, we'll accept it. No one can hate a place in the same way that you can hate it if you grew up there and didn't enjoy the experience.So, it's not Maine that's the problem; it's me. I feel like I should clarify that I'm going to get letters and people in Maine will write those letters and then have to ride their horses to Massachusetts to mail them. But we know how that works.Chris: [laugh].Corey: So, what is Remix Labs? Let's start there. Because Remix sounds like… well, it sounds like a term that is overused. I see it everywhere in the business space. I know there was a Remix thing that recently got sold to I think it was at Shopify or Spotify; I keep getting those two confused. And—Chris: One of the two, yeah.Corey: Yeah, exactly one of them plays music and one of them sells me things except now I think they both do both, and everything has gone wonky and confusing. But what do you folks do over there?Chris: So, we work on visual app development for everybody. So, the goal is to have kind of a spreadsheet-on-steroids-like development environment where you can build interactively, you have live coding, you have a responsive experience in building interactive apps, websites, mobile apps, a little bit of everything, and providing an experience where you can build systems of engagement. So tools, mobile apps, that kind of work with whatever back-end resources you're trying to do, you can collaborate across different people, pass things around, and you can do that all with a nice kind of visual app developer, where you can sort of drop nodes around and wire them together and built in a way that's it's hopefully accessible to non-developers, to project managers, to domain experts, to you know, whatever stakeholders are interested in modifying that final product.Corey: I would say that I count as one of those. I use something similar to build the tool that assembles my newsletter every week, and that was solving a difficult problem for me. I can write back-ends reasonably well, using my primary tool, which is sheer brute force. I am not much of a developer, but it turns out that with enough enthusiasm, you can overcome most limitations. And that's great, but I know nothing about front end; it does not make sense to me, it does not click in the way that other things have clicked.So, I was fourth and inches from just retaining a contractor to build out a barely serviceable internal app. And I discovered, oh, use this low-code tool to drag and drop things and that basically was Visual Basic for internal apps. And that was awesome, but they're still positioned squarely in the space of internal apps only. There's no mobile app story, there's—and it works well enough for what I do, but I have other projects, I want to wind up getting out the door that are not strictly for internal use that would benefit from being able to have a serviceable interface slapped onto. It doesn't need to be gorgeous, it doesn't need to win awards, it just needs to be, “Cool, it can display the output of a table in a variety of different ways. It has a button and when I click a button, it does a thing, generally represented as an API call to something.”And doesn't take much, but being able to have something like that, even for an internal app, has been absolutely transformative just for workflow stuff internally, for making things accessible to people that are not otherwise going to be able to do those sorts of things, by which I mean me.Chris: Yeah. I mean, exactly, I think that is the kind of use case that we are aiming for is making this accessible to everybody, building tools that work for people that aren't necessarily software developers, they don't want to dive into code—although they can if they want, it's extensible in that way—that aren't necessarily front-end developers or designers, although it's accessible to designers and if you want to start from that end, you can do it. And it's amenable to collaboration, so you can have somebody that understands the problem build something that works, you can have somebody that understands design build something that works well and looks nice, and you can have somebody that understands the code or is more of a back-end developer, then go back in and maybe fine-tune the API calls because they realize that you're doing the same thing over and over again and so there's a better way to structure the lower parts of things. But you can pass around that experience between all these different stakeholders and you can construct something that everybody can modify to sort of suit their own needs and desires.Corey: Many years ago, Bill Clinton wound up coining the phrase, ‘The Digital Divide' to talk about people who had basically internet access and who didn't—those who got it or did not—and I feel like we have a modern form of that, the technology haves and have nots. Easy example of this for a different part of my workflow here: this podcast, as anyone listening to it is probably aware by now, is sponsored by awesome folks who wind up wanting to tell you about the exciting services or tools or products that they are building. And sometimes some of those sponsors will say things like, “Okay, here's the URL I want you to read into the microphone during the ad read,” and my response is a polite form of, “Are you serious?” It's seven different subdirectories on the web server, followed by a UTM series of tracking codes that, yeah, I promise, none of you are going to type that in. I'm not even going to wind up reading into the microphone because my attention span trips out a third of the way through.So, I needed a URL shortener. So, I set up snark.cloud for this. For a long time, that was relatively straightforward because I just used an S3 bucket with redirect objects inside of it. But then you have sort of the problem being a victim of your own success, to some extent, and I was at a point where, oh, I can have people control some of these things that aren't me; I don't need to be the person that sets up the link redirection work.Yeah, the challenge is now that you have a business user who is extraordinarily good at what he does, but he's also not someone who has deep experience in writing code, and trying to sit here and explain to him, here's how to set up a redirect object in an S3 bucket, like, why didn't I save time and tell him to go screw himself? It's awful. So, I've looked for a lot of different answers for this, and the one that I found lurking on GitHub—and I've talked about it a couple of times, now—runs on Google Cloud Run, and the front-end for that of the business user—which sounds ridiculous, but it's also kind of clever, is a Google Sheet. Because every business user knows how to work a Google Sheet. There's one column labeled ‘slug' and the other one labeled ‘URL' that it points to.And every time someone visits a snark.cloud slash whatever the hell the slug happens to be, it automatically does a redirect. And it's glorious. But I shouldn't have to go digging into the depths of GitHub to find stuff like that. This feels like a perfect use case for a no-code, low-code tool.Chris: Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, that's a cool use case. And I… as always, our competitor is Google Sheets. I think everybody in software development in enterprise software's only real competitor is the spreadsheet.Corey: Oh, God, yes, I wind up fixing AWS bills for a living and my biggest competitor is always Microsoft Excel. It's, “Yeah, we're going to do it ourselves internally,” is what most people do. It seems like no matter what business line I've worked in, I've companies that did Robo-advising for retirement planning; yeah, some people do it themselves in Microsoft Excel. I worked for an expense reporting company; everyone does that in Microsoft Excel. And so, on and so forth.There are really very few verticals where that's not an option. It's like, but what about a dating site? Oh, there are certain people who absolutely will use Microsoft Excel for that. Personally, I think it's a bad idea to hook up where you VLOOKUP but what do I know?Chris: [laugh]. Right, right.Corey: Before you wound up going into the wide world of low-code development over at Remix, you—well, a lot of people have different backstories when I talk to them on this show. Yours is definitely one of the more esoteric because the common case and most people talk about is oh, “I went to Stanford and then became a software engineer.” “Great. What did you study?” “Computer Science,” or something like it. Alternately, they drop out of school and go do things in their backyard. You have a PhD in particle physics, is it?Chris: That's right. Yeah.Corey: Which first, is wild in his own right, but we'll get back to that. How did you get here from there?Chris: Ah. Well, it's kind of the age-old story of academia. So, I started in electrical engineering and ended up double majoring in physics because that you had to take a lot of physics to be an engineer, and I said, you know, this is more fun. This is interesting. Building things is great, but sitting around reading papers is really where my heart's at.And ended up going to graduate school, which is about the best gig you can ever get. You get paid to sit in an office and read and write papers, and occasionally go out drinking with other grad students, and that's really about it.Corey: I only just now for the first time in my life, realized how much some aspects of my career resemble being a [laugh] grad student. Please, continue.Chris: It doesn't pay very well is the catch, you know? It's very hard to support a lifestyle that exists outside of your office, or, you know, involves a family and children, which is certainly one downside. But it's a lot of fun and it's very low stress, as long as you are, let's say, not trying to get a job afterward. Because where this all breaks down is that, you know, as I recall, the time I was a graduate student, there were roughly as many people graduating as graduate students every year as there were professors total in the field of physics, at least in the United States. That was something like the scale of the relationship.And so, if you do the math, and unfortunately, we were relatively good at doing math, you could see, you know, most of us were not going to go on, you know? This was the path to becoming a professor, but—Corey: You look at number of students and the number of professorships available in the industry, I guess we'll call it, and yeah, it's hmm, basic arithmetic does not seem like something that anyone in that department is not capable of doing.Chris: Exactly. So, you're right, we were all I think, more or less qualified to be an academic professor, certainly at research institutions, where the only qualification, really, is to be good at doing research and you have to tolerate teaching students sometimes. But there tends to be very little training on how to do that, or a meaningful evaluation of whether you're doing it well.Corey: I want to dive into that a bit because I think that's something we see a lot in this industry, where there's no training on how to do a lot of different things. Teaching is one very clear example, another one is interviewing people for jobs, so people are making it up as they go along, despite there being decades and decades of longitudinal studies of people figuring out what works and what doesn't, tech his always loved to just sort of throw it all out and start over. It's odd to me that academia would follow in similar patterns around not having a clear structure for, “Oh, so you're a grad student. You're going to be teaching a class. Here's how to be reasonably effective at it.” Given that higher education was not the place for me, I have very little insight into this. Is that how it plays out?Chris: I don't want to be too unfair to academia as a whole, and actually, I was quite lucky, I was a student at the University of Washington and we had a really great physics education group, so we did actually spend a fair amount of time thinking about effective ways to teach undergraduates and doing this great tutorial system they had there. But my sense was in the field as a whole, for people on the track to become professors at research institutions, there was typically not much in the way of training as a teacher, there was not really a lot of thought about pedagogy or the mechanics of delivering lectures. You know, you're sort of given a box full of chalk and a classroom and said, you know, “You have freshman physics this quarter. The last teacher used this textbook and it seems to be okay,” tended to be the sort of preparation that you would get. You know, and I think it varies institution to institution what kind of support you get, you know, the level of graduate students helping you out, but I think in lots of places in academia, the role of professors as teachers was the second thought, you know, if it was indeed thought at all.And similarly, the role of professors as mentors to graduate students, which, you know, if anything, is sort of their primary job is guiding graduate students through their early career. And again, I mean, much like in software, that was all very ad hoc. You know, and I think there are some similarities in terms of how academics and how tech workers think of themselves as sort of inventing the universe, we're at the forefront, the bleeding edge of human knowledge, and therefore because I'm being innovative in this one particular aspect, I can justify being innovative in all of them. I mean, that's the disruptive thing to do, right?Corey: And it's a shame that you're such a nice person because you would be phenomenal at basically being the most condescending person in all of tech if you wanted to. Because think about this, you have people saying, “Oh, what do you do?” “I'm a full-stack engineer.” And then some of the worst people in the world, of which I admit I used to be one, are, “Oh, full-stack. Really? When's the last time you wrote a device driver?”And you can keep on going at that. You work in particle physics, so you're all, “That's adorable. Hold my tea. When's the last time you created matter from energy?” And yeah, and then it becomes this the—it's very hard to wind up beating you in that particular game of [who'd 00:15:07] wore it better.Chris: Right. One of my fond memories of being a student is back when I got to spend more time thinking about these things and actually still remembered them, you know, in my electoral engineering days and physics days, I really had studied all the way down from the particle physics to semiconductor physics to how to lay out silicon chips and, you know, how to build ALUs and CPUs and whatnot from basic transistor gates. Yeah, and then all the way up to, you know, writing compilers and programming languages. And it really did seem like you could understand all those parts. I couldn't tell you how any of those things work anymore. Sadly, that part of my brain has now taken up with Go's lexical scoping rules and borrow checker fights with Rust. But there was a time when I was a smart person and knew those things.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Strata. Are you struggling to keep up with the demands of managing and securing identity in your distributed enterprise IT environment? You're not alone, but you shouldn't let that hold you back. With Strata's Identity Orchestration Platform, you can secure all your apps on any cloud with any IDP, so your IT teams will never have to refactor for identity again. Imagine modernizing app identity in minutes instead of months, deploying passwordless on any tricky old app, and achieving business resilience with always-on identity, all from one lightweight and flexible platform.Want to see it in action? Share your identity challenge with them on a discovery call and they'll hook you up with a complimentary pair of AirPods Pro. Don't miss out, visit Strata.io/ScreamingCloud. That's Strata dot io slash ScreamingCloud.Corey: I want to go back to what sounded like a throwaway joke at the start of the episode. In seriousness, one of the reasons—at least that I told myself at the time—that I left Maine was that it was pretty clear that there was no significant, lasting opportunity in industry when I was in Maine. In fact, the girl that I was dating at the time in college graduated college, and the paper of record for the state, The Maine Sunday Telegram, which during the week is called The Portland Press Herald, did a front-page story on her about how she went to school on a pulp and paper scholarship, she was valedictorian in her chemical engineering class at the University of Maine and had to leave the state to get a job. And every year they would roll out the governor, whoever that happened to be, to the University of Maine to give a commencement speech that's, “Don't leave Maine, don't leave Maine, don't leave Maine,” but without any real answer to, “Well, for what jobs?”Now, that Covid has been this plague o'er the land that has been devastating society for a while, work-from-home has become much more of a cohesive thing. And an awful lot of companies are fully embracing it. How have you seen Maine change based upon that for one, and for another, how have you found that community has been developed in the local sense because there was none of that in Maine when I was there? Even the brief time where I was visiting for a conference for a week, I saw definite signs of a strong local community in the tech space. What happened? I love it.Chris: It's great. Yeah, so I moved to Maine eight years ago, in 2014. And yeah, I was lucky enough to pretty early on, meet up with a few of the local nerds, and we have a long-running Slack group that I just saw was about to turn nine, so I guess I was there in the early days, called Computers Anonymous. It was a spinoff, I think, from a project somebody else had started in a few other cities. The joke was it was a sort of a confessional group of, you know, we're here to commiserate over our relationships with technology, which all of us have our complaints.Corey: Honestly, tech community is more of a support group than most other areas, I think.Chris: Absolutely. All you have to do is just have name and technology and somebody will pipe up. “Okay, you know, I've a horror story about that one.” But it has over the years turned into, you know, a very active Slack group of people that meet up once a month for beers and chats with each other, and you know, we all know each other's kids. And when the pandemic hit, it was absolutely a lifeline that we were all sort of still talking to each other every day and passing tips of, you know, which restaurants were doing takeout, and you know which ones were doing takeout and takeout booze, and all kinds of local knowledge was being spread around that way.So, it was a lucky thing to have when that hit, we had this community. Because it existed already as this community of, you know, people that were remote workers. And I think over the time that I've been here, I've really seen a growth in people coming here to work somewhere else because it's a lovely place to live, it's a much cheaper place to live than almost anywhere else I've ever been, you know, I think it's pretty attractive to the folks come up from Boston or New York or Connecticut for the summer, and they say, “Ah, you know, this doesn't seem so bad to live.” And then they come here for a winter, and then they think, “Well, okay, maybe I was wrong,” and go back. But I've really enjoyed my time here, and the tools for communicating and working remotely, have really taken off.You know, a decade ago, my first startup—actually, you know, in kind of a similar situation, similar story, we were starting a company in Louisville, Kentucky. It was where we happen to live. We had a tech community there that were asking those same questions. “Why is anybody leaving? Why is everybody leaving?”And we started this company, and we did an accelerator in San Francisco, and every single person we talked to—and this is 2012—said, you have to bring the company to San Francisco. It's the only way you'll ever hire anybody, it's the only way you'll ever raise any money, this is the only place in the world that you could ever possibly run a tech company. And you know, we tried and failed.Corey: Oh, we're one of those innovative industries in the world. We've taken a job that can be done from literally anywhere that has internet access and created a land crunch on eight square miles, located in an earthquake zone.Chris: Exactly. We're going to take a ton of VC money and where to spend 90% of it on rent in the Bay Area. The rent paid back to the LPs of our VC funds, and the circle of life continues.Corey: Oh, yeah. When I started this place as an independent consultant six years ago, I looked around, okay, should I rent space in an office so I have a place where I go and work? And I saw how much it costs to sublet even, like, a closed-door office in an existing tech startup's office space, saw the price tag, laughed myself silly, and nope, nope, nope. Instead installed a door on my home office and got this place set up as a—in my spare room now is transformed into my home office slash recording studio. And yeah, “Well, wasn't it expensive to do that kind of stuff?” Not compared to the first three days of rent in a place like that it wasn't. I feel like that's what's driving a lot of the return to office stories is the sort of, I guess, an expression of the sunk cost fallacy.Chris: Exactly. And it's a variation of nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM, you know? Nobody ever got fired for saying we should work in the office. It's the way we've always done things, people are used to it, and there really are difficulties to collaborating effectively remotely, you know? You do lose something with the lack of day-to-day contact, a lack of in-person contact, people really do get kind of burned out on interacting over screens. But I think there are ways around that and the benefits, in my mind, my experience, you know, working remotely for the last ten years or so, tend to outweigh the costs.Corey: Oh, yeah. If I were 20 years younger, I would absolutely have been much more amenable to staying in the state. There's a lot of things that recommend it. I mean, I don't want people listening to this to think I actually hate Maine. It's become a running joke, but it's also, there was remarkably little opportunity in tech back when I lived there.And now globally, I think we're seeing the rise of opportunity. And that is a line I heard in a talk once that stuck with me that talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity isn't. And there are paths forward now for folks who—I'm told—somehow don't live in that same eight-square miles of the world, where they too can build tech companies and do interesting things and work intelligently with other folks. I mean, the thing that always struck me as so odd before the pandemic was this insistence on, “Oh, we don't allow remote work.” It's, “Well, hang on a minute. Aren't we all telecommuting in from wherever offices happen to be to AWS?” Because I've checked thoroughly, they will not let you work from us-east-1. In fact, they're very strict on that rule.Chris: [laugh]. Yeah. And it's remarkable how long I think the attitude persisted that we can solve any problem except how to work somewhere other than SoMa.Corey: Part of the problem too in the startup space, and one of the things I'm so excited about seeing what you're doing over at Remix Labs, is so many of the tech startups for a long time felt like they were built almost entirely around problems that young, usually single men had in their 20s when they worked in tech and didn't want to deal with the inconveniences of having to take care of themselves. Think food delivery, think laundry services, think dating apps, et cetera, et cetera. It feels like now we're getting into an era where there's a lot of development and focus and funding being aimed at things that are a lot more substantial, like how would we make it possible for someone to build an app internally or externally without making them go to through a trial-by-fire hazing ritual of going to a boot camp for a year first?Chris: Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think there's been an evolution toward building tools for broader problems, for building tools that work for everybody. I think there was a definite startup ouroboros in the, kind of, early days of this past tech boom of so much money being thrown at early-stage startups with a couple of young people building them, and they solved a zillion of their own problems. And there was so much money being thrown at them that they were happy to spend lots of money on the problems that they had, and so it looked like there was this huge market for startups to solve those problems.And I think we'll probably see that dry up a little bit. So, it's nice to get back to what are the problems that the rest of us have. You know, or maybe the rest of you. I can't pretend that I'm not one of those startup people that wants on-demand laundry. But.Corey: Yet you wake up one day and realize, oh, yeah. That does change things a bit. Honestly, one of the weirdest things for me about moving to California from Maine was just the sheer level of convenience in different areas.Chris: Yes.Corey: And part of it is city living, true, but Maine is one those places where if you're traveling somewhere, you're taking a car, full stop. And living in a number of cities like San Francisco, it's, oh great, if I want to order food, there's not, “The restaurant that delivers,” it's, I can have basically anything that I want showing up here within the hour. Just that alone was a weird, transformative moment. I know, I still feel like 20 years in, that I'm “Country Boy Discovers City for the First Time; Loses Goddamn Mind.” Like, that is where I still am. It's still magic. I became an urban creature just by not being one for my formative years.Chris: Yeah. No, I mean, absolutely. I grew up in Ann Arbor, which is sort of a smallish college town, and certainly more urban than the areas around it, but visiting the big city of Detroit or Lansing, it was exciting. And, you know, I got older, I really sort of thought of myself as a city person. And I lived in San Francisco for a while and loved it, and Seattle for a while and loved it.Portland has been a great balance of, there's city; it's a five minute drive from my house that has amazing restaurants and concerts and a great art scene and places to eat and roughly 8000 microbreweries, but it's still a relatively small community. I know a lot of the people here. I sort of drive across town from one end to the other in 20 minutes, pick up my kids from school pretty easily. So, it makes for a nice balance here.Corey: I am very enthused on, well, the idea of growing community in localized places. One thing that I think we did lose a bit during the pandemic was, every conference became online, so therefore, every conference becomes the same and it's all the same crappy Zoom-esque experience. It's oh, it's like work with a slightly different topic, and for once the people on this call can't fire me… directly. So, it's one of those areas of just there's not enough differentiation.I didn't realize until I went back to Monktoberfest a month or so ago at the time at this call recording just how much I'd missed that sense of local community.Chris: Yeah.Corey: Because before that, the only conferences I'd been to since the pandemic hit were big corporate affairs, and yeah, you find community there, but it also is very different element to it, it has a different feeling. It's impossible to describe unless you've been to some of these community conferences, I think.Chris: Yeah. I mean, I think a smallish conference like that where you see a lot of the same people every year—credit to Steven, the whole RedMonk team for Monktoberfest—that they put on such a great show that every year, you see lots and lots of faces that you've seen the last several because everybody knows it's such a great conference, they come right back. And so, it becomes kind of a community. As I've gotten older a year between meetings doesn't seem like that long time anymore, so these are the friends I see from time to time, and you know, we have a Slack who chat from time to time. So, finding those ways to sort of cultivate small groups that are in regular contact and have that kind of specific environment and culture to them within the broader industry, I think has been super valuable, I think. To me, certainly.Corey: I really enjoyed so much of what has come out of the pandemic in some ways, which sounds like a weird thing to say, but I'm trying to find the silver linings where I can. I recently met someone who'd worked here with me for a year-and-a-half that I'd never met in person. Other people that I'd spoken to at length for the last few years in various capacity, I finally meet them in person and, “Huh. Somehow it never came up in conversation that they're six foot eight.” Like, “Yeah, okay/ that definitely is one of those things that you notice about them in person.” Ah, but here we are.I really want to thank you for spending as much time as you have to talk about what you're up to, what your experiences have been like. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you? And please don't say Maine.Chris: [laugh]. Well, as of this recording, you can find me on Twitter at @chrisvermilion, V-E-R-M-I-L-I-O-N. That's probably easiest.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:28:53]. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I appreciate it.Chris: No, thanks for having me on. This was fun.Corey: Chris Vermilion, Senior Software Developer at Remix Labs. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment, and since you're presumably from Maine when writing that comment, be sure to ask a grown-up to help you with the more difficult spellings of some of the words.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Episode Notes:A discussion recently concluded 20th Party Congress and what to expect ahead in US China relations. I'm pleased to welcome back Chris Johnson, CEO of Consultancy China Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis and former Senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. This is the 7th Party Congress that Chris has analyzed professionally.Links:John Culver: How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan - Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceTranscript:Bill: Welcome back to the very occasional Sinocism podcast. Today we are going to talk about the recently concluded 20th Party Congress and what to expect ahead in US China relations. I'm pleased to welcome back Chris Johnson, CEO of Consultancy China Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis and former Senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. This is the 7th Party Congress that Chris has analyzed professionally. So we have a lot of experience here to help us understand what just happened. Chris, welcome back and thanks for taking the time.Chris: My pleasure. Always fun to be with you, Bill.Bill: Great. Well, why don't we jump right in. I'd like to talk about what you see as the most important outcomes from the Congress starting with personnel. What do you make of the leadership team from the central committee to the Politburo to the Standing Committee and what does that say about.Chris: Yeah, well, I, think clearly Xi Jinping had a massive win, you know, with personnel. I think we see this particularly in the Politburo Standing Committee, right, where on the key portfolios that really matter to him in terms of controlling the key levers of power inside the system. So we're talking propaganda, obviously, Uh, we're talking party bureaucracy, military less so, but security services, you know, these, these sort of areas all up and down the ballot he did very well.So that's obviously very important. And I think obviously then the dropping of the so-called Communist Youth League faction oriented people in Li Keqiang and Wang Yang and, and Hu Chunhua being  kind of unceremoniously kicked off the Politburo, that tells us that. He's not in the mood to compromise with any other  interest group.I prefer to call them rather than factions. Um, so that sort of suggests to us that, you know, models that rely on that kind of an analysis are dead. It has been kind of interesting in my mind to see how quickly though that, you know, analysts who tend to follow that framework already talking about the, uh, factional elements within Xi's faction, right?So, you know, it's gonna be the Shanghai people versus the Zhijiang Army versus the Fujian people. Bill: people say there's a Tsinghua factionChris: Right. The, the infamous, non infamous Tsinghua clique and, and and so on. But I think as we look more closely, I mean this is all kidding aside, if we look more closely at the individuals, what we see is obviously these people, you know, loyalty to Xi is, is sort of like necessary, but not necessarily sufficient in explaining who these people are. Also, I just always find it interesting, you know, somehow over. Wang Huning has become a Xi Jinping loyalist. I mean, obviously he plays an interesting role for Xj Jinping, but I don't think we should kid ourselves in noting that he's been kind of shunted aside Right by being pushed into the fourth position on the standing committee, which probably tells us that he will be going to oversee the Chinese People's Consultative Congress, which is, you know, kind of a do nothing body, you know, for the most part. And, um, you know, my sense has long been, One of Xi Jinping's, I think a couple factors there with Wang Huning.Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.One is, you know, yes, he is very talented at sort of taking their very, uh, expansive, um, theoretical ideas and coming up with snappy, um, snappy sort of catchphrases, right? This is clearly his, um, his sort of claim to fame. But, you know, we had that article last year from the magazine, Palladium that kind of painted him as some sort of an éminence grise or a Rasputin like figure, you know, in terms of his role.Uh, you know, my sense has always been, uh, as one contact, put it to me one time. You know, the issue is that such analyses tend to confuse the musician with the conductor. In other words,  Xi Jinping.  is pretty good at ideology, right? And party history and the other things that I think the others had relied on.I think the second thing with Wang Huning is, um, in a way XI can't look at him I don't think, without sort of seeing here's a guy who's changed flags, as they would say, right? He served three very different leaders, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and now Xi , um, and, and continued on and I think at some level, uh, and we look at the rest of the appointments where it appears that, uh, loyalty was much more important than merit.Um, where that's also a question mark. So there's those issues I think on the Politburo. You know, you mentioned the, the Tsinghua clique it was very interesting. You had shared with me, uh, Desmond Shum of Red Roulette fame's Twitter stream sort of debunking, you know, this, this Tsinghua clique and saying, well, it turns out in fact that the new Shanghai Municipal Party Secretary Chen Jining can't stand Chen Xi, even though, you know, they both went to Tsinghua and were there at the same time and so on.Um, you know, who knows with Desmond Shum, but I think he knows some things, right? And, and, and it just a reminder to us all, I think, how little we understand right, about these relationships, especially now, uh, with Xi's concentration of power. And also a situation where we've had nearly three years of covid isolationBill: Right. And so it's really hard to go talk to people, even the fewer and fewer numbers, people who, who know something and can talk. Back to the standing committee. I, I think certainly just from friends and contacts the biggest surprise you know, I think, uh was Li Keqiang and Wang Yang not sticking around. And as that long explainer said without naming them they were good comrades who steps aside for the good of the party in the country,Chris: Because that happens so often,Bill: whatever that means. Um, but really the, the bigger surprise was that, oh, Cai Qi showing up. Who I think when you look at the standing committee, I think the general sense is, okay, the, these people are all, you know, not, they're loyal, but they're also competent, like Li Qiang, Chris: Right, Bill: The likely new premier number two on the standing committee is pretty competent. The Shanghai lockdown, disaster aside, Cai Qi on the other hand, was just, looks more like, it's just straight up loyalty to Xi. I think he was not really on anybody's short list of who was gonna make it on there. And so, it does feel like something happened, right?Chris: Yeah. Well, um, a couple things there. I think, um, one, let's start with the. The issue you raised about the economic team cuz I think that's actually very important. Um, you know, I, at some level, sometimes I feel like I'm sort of tiring my, of my role as official narrative buster or a windmill tilter.Uh, whether, whether it's pushback from Li Keqiang or the myth of the savior premier as I was calling it, which, uh, we didn't see, or that these norms actually aren't very enduring and it's really about power politics. I, I think I'm kind of onto a new one now, which is, you know, Xi Jin ping's new team of incompetent sycophants.Right? That's kind of the label that's, uh, come out in a lot of the takes, uh, since the Congress. But to your point, I mean, you know, Li Qiang has run the three most important economic powerhouses on China's east coast, either as governor or as party chief. Right. He seems to have had a, a good relationship with both.Private sector businesses and, and foreign, you know, people forget that, you know, he got the Tesla plant built in Shanghai in a year basically. Right. And it's, uh, responsible for a very significant amount of, of Tesla's total input of vehicles. Output of vehicles. Excuse me. Um, likewise, I hear that Ding Xuexiang, even though we don't know a lot about him, uh, was rather instrumental in things.Breaking the log jam with the US uh, over the de-listing of Chinese ADRs, uh, that he had played an important role in convincing Xi Jinping it would not be a good idea, for example, to, uh, you know, we're already seeing, uh, sort of decoupling on the technology side. It would not be a good idea to encourage the Americans to decouple financially as well. So the point is I think we need to just all kind of calm down, right? And, and see how these people perform in office. He Lifeng, I think is perhaps, you know, maybe more of a question mark, but, But here too, I think it's important for us to think about how their system worksThe political report sets the frame, right? It tells us what. Okay, this is the ideological construct we're working off of, or our interpretation, our dialectical interpretation of what's going on. And that, I think the signal there was what I like to call this fortress economy, right? So self-sufficiency and technology and so on.And so then when we look at the Politburo appointments, you can see that they align pretty closely to that agenda, right? These people who've worked in state firms or scientists and you know, so on and forth.Bill: Aerospace, defenseChris: Yeah, Aerospace. Very close alignment with that agenda. I'm not saying this is the right choice for China or that it even will be successful, I'm just saying it makes sense, you know,Bill: And it is not just sycophants it is actually loyal but some expertise or experience in these key sectors Chris: Exactly.  Yeah, and, and, and, and of interest as well. You know, even people who have overlapped with Xi Jinping. How much overlap did they have? How much exposure did they have? You know, there's a lot of discussion, for example, about the new propaganda boss, Li Shulei being very close to Xi and likewise Shi Taifeng.Right? Uh, both of whom were vice presidents at the party school when, when Xi also was there. Um, but remember, you know, he was understudy to Hu Jintao at the time, you know, I mean, the party school thing was a very small part of his portfolio and they were ranked lower, you know, amongst the vice presidents of the party school.So how much actual interaction did he have? So there too, you know, I think, uh, obviously. , yes these people will do what Xi Jinping wants them to do, but that doesn't mean they're not competent. On Cai Qi, I agree with you. I think it's, it's, it's difficult. You know, my speculation would be a couple of things.One, proximity matters, right? He's been sitting in Beijing the last five years, so he is, had the opportunity to, uh, be close to the boss and, and impact that. I've heard some suggestions from contacts, which I think makes some. He was seen as more strictly enforcing the zero Covid policy. Right. In part because he is sitting in Beijing than say a Chen Min'er, right.Who arguably was a other stroke better, you know, candidate for that position on the Politburo standing committee. And there, you know, it will be interesting to see, you know, we're not sure the musical chairs have not yet finished. Right. The post party Congress for people getting new jobs. But you know, for example, if Chen Min'er stays out in Chongqing, that seems like a bit of a loss for him.Bill: Yeah, he needs to go somewhere else if he's got any hope of, um, sort of, But so one thing, sorry. One thing on the Politburo I thought was really interesting, and I know we've talked about offline, um, is that the first time the head of the Ministry State Security was, was. Promoted into the Politburo - Chen Wenqing.  And now he is the Secretary of the Central Political Legal Affairs Commission, the party body that oversees the entire security services system and legal system. and what do you think that says about priorities and, and, and where Xi sees things going?Chris: Well, I think it definitely aligns with this concept of Xi Jiping's of comprehensive national security. Right. We've, we've seen and heard and read a lot about that and it seems that the, uh, number of types of security endlessly proliferate, I think we're up to 13 or 14Bill: Everything is National Security in Xi's China.Chris: Yeah. Everything is, is national security. Uh, that's one thing I think it's interesting perhaps in the, in the frame of, you know, in an era where they are becoming a bigger power and therefore, uh, have more resources and so on. You know, is that role that's played by the Ministry of State Security, which is, you know, they have this unique role, don't they?They're in a way, they're sort of the US' Central Intelligence Agency and, and FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation combined, and that they do have that internal security role as well, but, They are the foreign civilian anyway, uh, foreign intelligence collection arm. So perhaps, you know, over time there's been some sense that they realized, yes, cyber was great for certain things, but you still need human intelligence.Uh, you know, we don't know how well or not Chen Wenqing has performed, but you know, obviously there, this has been a relentless campaign, you know, the search for spies and so on and so forth. Um, I also think it says something about what we seem to be seeing emerging here, which is an effort to take what previously were these, you know, warring, uh, administrative or ministerial factions, right, of the Ministry of Public Security MPS, the MSS, uh, and even the party's, uh, discipline watchdog, the, uh, Central Commission on Discipline inspection, you know, in an effort to sort of knit those guys into one whole.And you know, it is interesting.Chen wending has experience in all three of those. He started off, I think as a street cop. Um, he did serve on the discipline inspection commission under, uh, Wang Qishan when things were, you know, really going  in that department in the early part of, Xi's tenure and then he's headed, uh, the Ministry of State Security.I think, you know, even more interesting probably is. The, uh, formation of the new secretariat, right? Where we have both Chen Wenqing on there and also Wang Xiaohong as a minister of Public Security, but also as a deputy on the CPLAC, right? And a seat on the secretariat. And if we look at the, um, The gentleman who's number two in the discipline inspection, uh, space, he was a longtime police officer as well.So that's very unusual. You know, uh, his name's escaping me at the moment. But, um, you know, so in effect you have basically three people on the Secretariat with security backgrounds and, you know, that's important. It means other portfolios that might be on the secretariat that have been dumped, right? So it shows something about the prioritization, uh, of security.And I think it's interesting, you know, we've, we've often struggled to understand what is the National Security Commission, how does it function, You know, these sort of things. And it's, it's still, you know, absolutely clear as mud. But what was interesting was that, you know, from whatever that early design was that had some aspect at least of looking a bit like the US style, National Security Commission, they took on a much more sort of internal looking flavor.And it had always been my sort of thought that one of the reasons Xi Jinping created this thing was to break down, you know, those institutional rivalries and barriers and force, you know, coordination on these, on these institutions. So, you know, bottom line, I think what we're seeing is a real effort by Xi Jinping to You know, knit together a comprehensive, unified, and very effective, you know, stifling, really security apparatus. And, uh, I don't expect to see that change anytime soon. And then, you know, as you and I have been discussing recently, we also have, uh, another Xi loyalist Chen Yixin showing up as Chen Wenqing's successor right at the Ministry of State SecurityBill: And he remains Secretary General of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission too.Chris: Exactly. So, you know, from, from a, a sheet home where Xi Jinping five years ago arguably had very loose control, if at all, we now have a situation where he's totally dominant. Bill: I think the, the official on the Secretariat, I think it's Liu Jinguo.Chris: That's the one. Yes. Thank you. I'm getting old…Bill: He also has, has a long history of the Ministry of Public Security system. Um, but yeah, it does, it does seem like it's a, it's a real, I mean it, I I, I don't wanna use the word securitization, but it does like this is the indication of a, of a real, sort of, it just sort of fits with the, the general trend  towards much more focus on national security. I mean, what about on the, the Central Military Commission? Right? Because one of the surprises was, um, again, and this is where the norms were broken, where you have Zhang Youxia, who should have retired based on his age, but he's 72, he's on the Politburo he stays as a vice chair of the CMCChris: Yep. Yeah, no, at, at, at the rip old age of 72. It's a little hard, uh, to think of him, you know, mounting a tank or something  to go invade Taiwan or whatever the, you know, whatever the case may be. But, you know, I, I think here again, the narratives might be off base a little bit, you know, it's this issue of, you know, well he's just picked, you know, these sycophantic loyalists, He's a guy who has combat experience, right?And that's increasingly rare. Um, I don't think it's any surprise that. That himself. And, uh, the, uh, uh, gentleman on the CMC, uh, Li, who is now heading the, um, Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also has Vietnam combat experience, not from 79, but from the, uh, the border incursions that went on into the80s. Um, so it's not that surprising really.But, but obviously, you know, Zhang Youxia is very close to Xi Jinping, their father's fought together, right? Um, and they have that sort of, uh, blood tie and Xi is signaling, I want, uh, I. Political control and also technologically or, or, um, you know, operationally competent people. I think the other fascinating piece is we see once again no vice chairman from the political commissar iatside of the PLA.I think that's very interesting. You know, a lot of people, including myself, were betting that Miao HuaWould, would, would get the promotion. He didn't, you know, we can't know. But my sense is in a way, Xi Jiping is still punishing that side of the PLA for Xu Caihou's misdoings. Right. You know, and that's very interesting in and of itself.Also, it may be a signal that I don't need a political commissar vice chairman because I handle the politicsBill: And, and, and he, yeah. And in this, this new era that the, the next phase of the Xi era, it, it is, uh, everybody knows, right? It's, it's all about loyalty to Xi.Chris: we just saw right, uh, today, you know, uh, yet, yet more instructions about the CMC responsibilities, Chairman, responsibility systems. Bill: Unfortunately they didn't release the full text but it would be fascinating to see what's in there.Chris: And they never do on these things, which is, uh, which is tough. But, um, you know, I think we have a general sense of what would be in it, . But, but even that itself, right, you know, is a very major thing that people, you know, didn't really pick up. Certain scholars, certainly like James Mulvenon and other people who are really good on this stuff noticed it. But this shift under Hu Jintao was a CMC vice chairman responsibility system. In other words, he was subletting the operational matters certainly to his uniformed officers, Xi Jinping doesn't do thatBill: Well, this, and here we are, right where he can indeed I mean, I, I had written in the newsletter, um, you know, that she had, I thought, I think he ran the table in terms of personnel.Chris: Oh, completely. Yeah.Bill: And this is why it is interesting he kept around folks like Wang Huning, but we'll move on. The next question I had really was about Xi's report to the party Congress and we had talked, I think you'd also, um, you've talked about on our previous podcasts, I mean there, there seems to be a pretty significant shift in the way Xi is talking about the geopolitical environment and their assessment and how they see the world. Can you talk about a little bit?Chris: Yeah, I mean, I think definitely we saw some shifts there and, uh, you know, you and I have talked a lot about it. You know, there are problems with word counting, right? You know, and when you look at the thing and you just do a machine search, and it's like, okay, well security was mentioned 350 times or whatever, but, but the, you know, in what context?Right. Um, and, uh, our, uh, mutual admiration society, the, uh, the China Media project, uh, I thought they did an excellent piece on that sort of saying, Remember, it's the words that go around the buzzword that matter, you know, just as much. But what we can say unequivocally is that two very important touchstones that kind of explain their thinking on their perception of not only their external environment, but really kind of their internal environment, which had been in the last several political reports, now are gone. And those are this idea of China's enjoying a period of strategic opportunity and this idea that peace and development are the underlying trend of the times. And, you know, on the period of strategic opportunity, I think it's important for a couple reasons. One, just to kind of break that down for our listeners in a way that's not, you know, sort of, uh, CCP speak, , uh, the, the basic idea was that China judged that it's external security environment was sufficiently benign, that they could focus their energies on economic development.Right? So obviously that's very important. I also think it was an important governor, and I don't think I've seen anything out there talking about its absence in this, uh, political report on this topic, It was a, it was an important governor on sort of breakneck Chinese military development, sort of like the Soviet Union, right?In other words, as long as you were, you know, sort of judging that your external environment was largely benign, you. Didn't really have a justification to have a massive defense budget or to be pushy, you know, in the neighborhood, these sort of things. And people might poo poo that and sort of say, Well, you know, this is all just rhetoric and so on. No, they actually tend to Bill: Oh, that's interesting. Well, then that fits a little bit, right, Cuz they added the, the wording around strategic deterrence in the report as well  which is seen as a, you know, modernizing, expanding their nuclear forces, right?Chris: Exactly, right. So, you know, that's, uh, an important absence and the fact that, you know, the word, again, word searching, right. Um, strategic and opportunity are both in there, but they're separated and balanced by this risks and challenges, languages and, and so on. Bill: Right the language is very starkly different. Chris: Yeah. And then likewise on, on peace and development. This one, as you know, is, is even older, right? It goes back to the early eighties, I believe, uh, that it's been in, in these political reports. And, uh, you know, there again, the idea was sort of not only was this notion that peace and economic development were the dominant, you know, sort of trend internationally, globally, they would be an enduring one. You know, this idea of the trend of the times, right? Um, now that's missing. So what has replaced it in both these cases is this spirit of struggle, right? Um, and so that's a pretty stark departure and that in my mind just sort of is a real throwback to what you could call the period of maximum danger for the regime in the sixties, right? When they had just split off with the Soviets and they were still facing unremitting hostility from the west after the Korean War experience and, and so on. So, you know, there's definitely a, a decided effort there. I think also we should view the removal of these concepts as a culmination of a campaign that Xi Jinping has been on for a while.You know, as you and I have discussed many times before, from the minute he arrived, he began, I think, to paint this darker picture of the exterior environment. And he seems to have always wanted to create a sort of sense of urgency, certainly maybe even crisis. And I think a big part of that is to justifying the power grab, right? If the world outside is hostile, you need, you know, a strongman. Bill: Well that was a lot of the propaganda going into the Party of Congress about the need for sort of a navigator helmsman because know, we we're, we're closest we have ever been to the great rejuvenation, but it's gonna be really hard and we need sort of strong leadership right. It was, it was all building to that. This is why Ci needs to stay for as long as he wants to stay.Chris: and I think we saw that reflected again just the other day in this Long People's Daily piece by Ding Xuexing, right, Where he's talking again about the need for unity, the throwback, as you mentioned in your newsletter to Mao's commentary, there is not to be lost on any of us you know, the fact that the Politburo standing committee's. Uh, first field trip is out to Yan'an, right? I mean, you know, these are messages, right? The aren't coincidental.Bill: No, it, it is. The thing that's also about the report that's interesting is that while there was, speaking of word counts, there was no mention of the United States, but it certainly feels like that was the primary backdrop for this entire discussion around. So the, the shifting geopolitical, uh, assessments and this broader, you know, and I think one of the things that I, and I want to talk to as we get into this, a little bit about US China relations, but is it she has come to the conclusion that the US is implacably effectively hostile, and there is no way that they're gonna get through this without some sort of a broader struggle?Chris: I don't know if they, you know, feel that conflict is inevitable. In fact, I kind of assume they don't think that because that's pretty grim picture for them, you know? Um, but I, I do think there's this notion that. They've now had two years to observe the Biden administration. Right? And to some degree, I think it's fair to say that by certain parties in the US, Xi Jinping, maybe not Xi Jinping, but a Wang Qishan or some of these characters were sold a bit of a bag of goods, right?Oh, don't worry, he's not Trump, he's gonna, things will be calmer. We're gonna get back to dialogue and you know, so on and so forth. And that really hasn't happened. And when we look at. Um, when we look at measures like the recent, chip restrictions, which I'm sure we'll discuss at some point, you know, that would've been, you know, the, the wildest dream, right of certain members of the Trump administration to do something that, uh, that's that firm, right? So, um, I think the conclusion of the Politburo then must be, this is baked into the cake, right? It's bipartisan. Um, the earliest we'll see any kind of a turn here is 2024. I think they probably feel. Um, and therefore suddenly things like a no limits partnership with Russia, right, start to make more sense. Um, but would really makes sense in that if that is your framing, and I think it is, and you therefore see the Europeans as like a swing, right, in this equation. This should be a great visit, right, for Chancellor Scholz, uh, and uh, I can't remember if it was you I was reading or someone else here in the last day or so, but this idea that if the Chinese are smart, they would get rid of these sanctions on Bill: That was me. Well, that was in my newsletterChris: Yeah. Parliamentary leaders and you know, Absolutely. Right. You know, that's a no brainer, but. I don't think they're gonna do it , but, but you know, this idea definitely that, and, and when they talk in the political report, you know, it, it's, it's like, sir, not appearing in this film, right, from Money Python, but we know who the people who are doing the bullying, you know, uh, is and the long armed jurisdiction and , so on and so forth and all, I mean, all kidding aside, I think, you know, they will see something like the chip restrictions effectively as a declaration of economic war. I don't think that's going too far to say that.Bill: It goes to the heart of their sort of technological project around rejuvenation. I mean, it is, it is a significant. sort of set of really kind of a, I would think, from the Chinese perspective aggressive policies against them,Chris: Yeah, and I mean, enforcement will be key and we'll see if, you know, licenses are granted and how it's done. And we saw, you know, already some, some backing off there with regard to this US person, uh, restriction and so on. But, but you know, it's still pretty tough stuff. There's no two ways aboutBill: No, and I, I wonder, and I worry that here in DC. You know, where the mood is very hawkish. If, if people here really fully appreciate sort of the shift that's taking, that seems to be taking place in Beijing and how these actions are viewed.Chris: Well, I, I think that's a really, you put your hand on it really, really interesting way, Bill, because, you know, let's face it really since the Trump trade war started, right? We've all analysts, you know, pundits, uh, even businesses and government people have been sort of saying, you know, when are the Chinese gonna punch back? You know, when are they going to retaliate? Right? And we talk about rare earths and we talk about Apple and TeslaBill: They slapped some sanctions on people but they kind of a jokeChris:  And I guess what I'm saying is I kind of worry we're missing the forest from the trees. Right. You know, the, the, the work report tells us, the political report tells us how they're reacting. Right. And it is hardening the system, moving toward this fortress economy, you know, so on and so forth. And I wanna be real clear here, you know, they're not doing this just because they're reacting to the United States. Xi Jinping presumably wanted to do this all along, but I don't think we can say that the actions they perceive as hostile from the US aren't playing a pretty major role in allowing him to accelerate.Bill: Well, they called me. Great. You justifying great Accelerationist, right? Trump was called that as well, and, and that, that's what worries me too, is we're in. Kind of toxic spiral where, where they see us doing something and then they react. We see them do something and we react and, and it doesn't feel like sort of there's any sort of a governor or a break and I don't see how we figure that out.Chris: Well, I think, you know, and I'm sure we'll come to this later in our discussion, but you know, uh, yes, that's true, but you know, I'm always deeply skeptical of these inevitability memes, whether it's, you know, Thucydides trap or, you know, these other things. Last time I checked, there is something called political agency, right?In other words, leaders can make choices and they can lead if they want to, right? They have an opportunity to do so at in Bali, and you know, we'll have to see some of the, you know, early indications are perhaps they're looking at sort of a longer meeting. So that would suggest maybe there will be some discussion of some of these longstanding issues.Maybe we will see some of the usual, you know, deliverable type stuff. So there's an opportunity. I, I think one question is, can the domestic politics on either side allow for seizing that opportunity? You know, that's an open.Bill: Interesting. There's a couple things in the party constitution, which I think going into the Congress, you know, they told us they were gonna amend the Constitution. There were expectations that it, the amendments were gonna reflect an increase in Xi's power, uh, things like this, this idea of the two establishments, uh, which for listeners are * "To establish the status of Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the Party's Central Committee and of the whole Party"* "To establish the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era"The thinking, and I, I certainly believe that, I thought that they would write that in. There was some talk that, uh, Xi Jinping Thought the longer version would be truncated to just Xi Jinping thought. that possibly he might get, a, a sort of another title like People's Leader. None of those happened. One thing that did happen, What's officially translated by the Chinese side in English as the two upholds- “Uphold the 'core' status of General Secretary Xi Jinping within the CC and “Uphold the centralized authority of the Party” those were written in. And so the question is, was there some kind of pushback or are we misreading we what mattered? And actually the two upholds are more important than the two of establishes.Chris: Well, I, and I think it, this may be a multiple choice answer, right? There might be elements of all the above in there. Uh, you know, I think it is important that he didn't get the truncation to Xi Jinping thought. You have to think that that was something he was keen on. In retrospect, it may be that it was something akin. I've always felt, you know, another thing that was on the table that didn't happen was reestablishing the party chairmanship. My view had always been he was using that largely as a bargaining chip. That, you know, in some ways it creates more trouble than it's worth you. If you're gonna have a chairman, you probably have to have vice chairman and what does that say about the succession? I mean, of course he could have, you know, a couple of geezers on there.  as vice chairman too. , But I, my view was always is he was holding that out there to trade away. Right. You know, at, at the last minute. Um, maybe that's what happened with Xi Jinping thought. I don't know.You know, uh, there have been some media articles, one of which, You and I were discussing yesterday from, uh, the Japanese, uh, publication Nikkei, you know, that suggested that, you know, the elders had, this was their last gasp, right? So the Jiang Zemins and the Zeng Qinghongs and Hu Jinataos, so on. Um, I'm a little skeptical of that. It is possible. Uh, but, um, I, I'd be a little skeptical of that. You know, it's, it's not at all clear that they had any kind of a role, you know, even at Beidaihe this year and so on, Jiang Zemin didn't even attend the Party Congress so clearly, you know, he must be pretty frail or he thought it was not with his time. You know, a little hard to say, but, you know, I kind of struggle with the notion that, you know, the 105 year old Song Ping gets up on a chair or something and starts,  starts making trouble. Right. You know, uh, the poor man's probably lucky if he stays awake during the meeting. Bill: One question, and again, because of the, just, you know, how much more opaque Chinese politics are than the really I think they've ever been. Um, but just one question. It mean, is it possible, for example, that you know, it's more important to get the personnel done. It's more, and then once you get your, you stack the central committee, you get the politburo, you get the standing committee, that these things are sort of a next phase.Chris: yeah, it's entirely possible and, and I think it, it, it does dovetail with this idea that, you know, another reflection from both the political report and the lineup in my mind, is Xi Jinping is a man in a hurry. Right? And he's kind of projected that, as you said, the great accelerator since he arrived.But I think he sees this next five years is really fundamental, right in terms of breaking through on these chokepoint technologies as they call them. You know, these sort of things. And so maybe therefore having the right people in place to handle, you know, uh, speedier policy, execution, you know, was more important.Likewise, I mean, he's sort of telegraphing, He's gonna be around for a while, right? No successor, no visible successor anywhere. Bill: A successor would need likely need five years on the standing committee. So we're looking at ten more years.Chris: Yes, exactly. And so there will be time. The other thing is, um, Xi Jinping is a, is a sort of determined fellow, right? You know, so of interest, even before the 19th Party Congress, I'd been hearing very strong rumors that the notion of lingxiu was out there, that he was contemplating it, right? And so then we see the buildup with, uh, Renmin lingxiu and so on and so forth.And, you know, it didn't happen clearly at the 19th. It didn't happen. But it doesn't mean it won't, you know, at some point. And I think it's really important also to think about, you know, We just saw a pretty serious, um, enterprise of the, you know, quote unquote norm busting, right? So what's to say that mid-course in this five years, he doesn't, uh, hold another sort of extraordinary conference of party delegates like them, Deng Xiaoping did in 1985, right, to push through some of these. You never know, right? In other words, these things don't necessarily have to happen. Just at Party Congresses. So my guess is, you know, this isn't over yet. Uh, but you know, at some level, given how the system was ramping up with those articles about Navigator and the people's leader stuff and so on, you know, that's usually a tell, and yet it didn't happen. And, and so something interesting there. Bill: now they're in the mode of, they're out with these sort of publicity, propaganda education teams where they go out throughout the country and talk about the spirit of the party Congress and push all the key messaging. Um, you know, so far none of those People's leader truncation have happened in that, which is I think an area where some people thought, Well, maybe that could sort of come after the Congress.Chris: What is interesting is it's all two establishments all the time in those discussions, so that's been very interesting since it didn't make it into the, uh, into the document. I guess the other thing is, At some level, is it sort of a distinction without a difference? You know, I, I haven't done the work on this to see, but my guess is short of, you know, the many times they've just junked the entire constitution and rewritten it, this is probably the most amendments there have been, you know, in the to at one time. You know, to the 1982 constitution, and most of them are his various buzzwords. Right. Um, and you know, I think you've been talking about this in the newsletter, there may very well be, uh, something to this issue of, you know, which is the superior thought two establishments or to upholds/safeguards?Bill: and even if the two establishes were superior and then it didn't go in, then somehow it will be theoretically flipped to what got in the ConstitutionChris: I mean, I guess the, the, the thing though where we, it's fair to say that maybe this wasn't his ideal outcome. To me, there's been a very clear and you know, structured stepwise approach on the ideology from the word go. Right? And the first was to create right out of the shoot, this notion of, you know, three eras, right?The, Mao period, Deng  and those other guys we don't talk about it anymore, period.  and Xi Jinping's new era, right? And then that was. You know, sort of crystallized right at the 19th Party Congress when you know, Xi Jinping thought for horribly long name went into the Constitution. And so, you know, the next step kind of seemed like that should be it.And as we've discussed before, you know, if he's able to get just Thought, it certainly enhances his ability to stay around for a very long time and it makes his diktats and so on even more unquestionable. But you know, you can say again, matter of prioritization. With a team where there's really no visible or other opposition, does it really matter? You know, in other words, no one's gonna be questioning his policy ideas anyway.Bill: Just an aside, but on  his inspection, the new standing committee will go on group trip right after the Party Congress and the first trip sends key messages. And group went to Yan'an, you know, they went, they went to the caves. Um, and you know, in the long readout or long CCTV report of the meeting, the visit, there was a section where the tour guide or the person introducing some of the exhibits talked about how the, the famous song, the East Is Red was,  by a person, written by the people sort of spontaneously, and it w it definitely caused some tittering about, well, what are they trying to signal for?You know, are we gonna be seeing some  Xi songs? there's some kind of really interesting signaling going on that I don't think we quite have figured out how to parse Chris: My takeaway on all this has been, I, I need to go back and do a little more book work on, you know, what was, what was the content of the seventh party Congress? What were the outcomes? I mean, I have the general sense, right? Like you, I immediately, you know, started brushing up on it. But, you know, Xi delivered a, an abridged work report. Right, A political report, which is exactly what Mao did then. I mean, in other words, they're not kidding around with the parallelism here. The question is what's the message?Bill: Just for background, at the visit last week to Yan'an, and the first spot that was in the propaganda was the, the, site of the seventh party Congress which is where…to be very simplistic, the seventh party was really moment, you know, as at the end of the Yan'am rectification came in, it was the moment where sort of Mao fully asserted his dominance throughout the system. Mao Thought etc. Right? The signaling, you could certainly, could certainly take a view that, you know, he doesn't do these things by coincidence, and this is. This is signaling both of, you know, can through anything because they, livedin caves and ended up beating the Japanese and then won the Civil War. You know this, and we can, and by the way, we have a dominant leader. I mean, there are ways, again, I'm being simplistic, but the symbolism was not, I think one that would, for example, give a lot of confidence to investors, which I think is, you know, one, one of the many reasons we've seen until the rumors earlier this week, a, pretty big selloff in the, in the Hong Kong and manland stock markets rightChris: most definitely. And I think, you know, this is the other thing about, about what I was trying to get at earlier with, uh, forest and trees, right? You know, in other words, . Um, he's been at this for a while too. You know, there's a reason why he declared a new long march right in depths of the trade war with Trump.Bill: And a new historical resolution, only the third in historyChris: Yeah. And they have been stepwise building since then. And this is the next building block.Bill: The last thought, I mean, he is 69. He's. 10 years younger than President Joe Biden. He could go, he could be around for a long timeBill: well just quickly, cause I know, uh, we don't have that much more time, but I, you say anything about your thoughts on Hu Jintao and what happened?My first take having had a father and a stepfather had dementia was, um, you know, maybe too sympathetic to the idea that, okay, he's having some sort of a senior cognitive moment. You know, you can get. easily agitated, and you can start a scene. And so therefore, was humiliating and symbolic at the end of the Communist Youth League faction, but maybe it was, it was benign as opposed to some of the other stuff going around. But I think might be wrong so I'd love your take on that.  Chris: Well, I, I think, you know, I, I kind of shared your view initially when I watched the, uh, I guess it was an AFP had the first, you know, sort of video that was out there and, you know, he appeared to be stumbling around a bit. He definitely looked confused and, you know, like, uh, what we were discussing earlier on another subject, this could be a multiple choice, you know, A and B or whatever type scenario as well.We don't know, I mean, it seems pretty well established that he has Parkinson's, I think the lead pipe pincher for me though, was that second longer one Singapore's channel, Channel News Asia put out. I mean, he is clearly tussling with Li Zhanshu about something, right. You know that that's. Yes, very clear. And you know, if he was having a moment, you know, when they finally get him up out of the chair and he seems to be kind of pulling back and so on, you know, he moves with some alacrity there,  for an 80 year old guy. Uh, I don't know if he was being helped to move quickly or he, you know, realized it was time to exit stage.Right. But I think, you know, as you said in your newsletter, I, we probably will never know. Um, but to me it looked an awful lot like an effort by Xi Jinping to humiliate him. You know, I mean, there was a reason why they brought the cameras back in at that moment, you know? Unless we believe that that just happened spontaneously in terms of Hu Jintao has his freak out just as those cameras were coming back in the stone faces of the other members of the senior leadership there on the rostrum and you know, Wand Hunting, pulling Li Zhanshu back down kind of saying basically, look buddy, this is politics, don't you don't wanna, that's not a good look for you trying to care for Hu Jintao. You know, I mean obviously something was going on, you know? No, no question. Bill: Right. And feeds into  the idea that Hu Chunhua, we all expected that he at least be on the Politburo again, and he's, he's off, so maybe something, something was going Chris: Well, I, I think what we know from observing Xi Jinping, right? We know that this is a guy who likes to keep people off balance, right? Who likes to keep the plate spinning. He, this is definitely the Maoist element of his personality, you know, whether it's strategic disappearances or this kind of stuff. And I think it's entirely plausible that he might have made some last minute switches right, to, uh, the various lists that were under consideration that caused alarm, you know, among those who thought they were on a certain list and  and no longer were.Bill: and then, and others who were smart enough to realize that if he made those switches, they better just go with it.Chris: Yeah, go along with it. Exactly. I mean, you know, in some ways the most, aside from what happened to Hu Jintao, the, the most, um, disturbing or compelling, depending on how you wanna look at it, part of that video is when Hu Jintao, you know, sort of very, um, delicately taps Li Keqiang on the shoulder. He doesn't even look at it, just keeps looking straight ahead. Uh, and that's tough. And as you pointed out in the newsletter and elsewhere, you know, how difficult must have that have been for Hu Jintao's son Hu Haifeng, who's in the audience watching this all go on? You know, it's, uh, it's tough. Bill: And then two two days later attends a meeting where he praises Xi to high heaven.Chris: Yeah, exactly. So, so if the darker narrative is accurate, I guess one thing that concerns me a bit is, as you know, well, I have never been a fan of these, uh, memes about comparing Xi Jinping to either Stalin or Mao in part because I don't see him as a whimsical guy. They were whimsical people. I think because of his tumultuous upbringing, he understands the problems with that kind of an approach to life, but this was a very ruthless act. If that more malign, you know, sort of definition is true and that I think that says something about his mentality that perhaps should concern us if that's the case. Bill: It has real implications, not just for domestic also potentially for its foreign policy.Chris: Absolutely. I mean, what it shows, right to some degree, again, man in a hurry, this is a tenacious individual, right?  if he's willing to do that. And so if you're gonna, you know, kick them in the face on chips and, you know, things like that, um, you should be taking that into consideration.Bill: And I think preparing for a more substantive response  that is more thought out and it's also, it happened, it wasn't very Confucian for all this talk Confucian definitely not. and values. One last question, and it is related is what do you make of this recent upsurge or talk in DC from various officials that PRC has accelerated its timeline to absorb Taiwan, because nothing in the public documents indicates any shift in that timeline.Chris: No. Uh, and well, first of all, do they, do they have a timeline? Right? You know, I mean, the whole idea of a timeline is kind of stupid, right? You don't, if you're gonna invade somewhere, you say, Hey, we're gonna do it on on this date. I mean, 2049. Okay. Bill: The only timeline that I think you can point to is is it the second centenary goal and, and Taiwan getting quote unquote, you know, returning Taiwan to the motherland's key to the great rejuvenation,Chris: Yeah, you can't have rejuvenation without it. Bill: So then it has to be done by 2049. 27 years, but they've never come out and specifically said 27 years or 2049. But that's what No. that's I think, is where the timeline idea comes from.Chris: Oh yes, definitely. And, and I think some confusion of. What Xi Jinping has clearly set out and reaffirmed in the political report as these important, um, operational benchmarks for the PLA, the People's Liberation Army to achieve by its hundredth anniversary in 2027. But that does not a go plan for Taiwan make, you know, And so it's been confusing to me trying to understand this. And of course, you know, I, I'm joking, but I'm not, you know, if we, if we listen now to the chief of naval operations of the US Navy, you know, like they're invading tomorrow, basically.My former colleague from the CIA, John Culver's, done some very, you know, useful public work on this for the Carnegie, where he sort his endowment, where he sort of said, you know, look, there's certain things we would have to see, forget about, you know, a D-day style invasion, any type of military action that, that you don't need intelligence methods to find out. Right. You know, uh, canceling, uh, conscription, demobilization cycles, you know, those, those sort of things. Um, we don't see that happening. So I've been trying to come to grips with why the administration seems fairly seized with this and and their public commentary and so on. What I'm confident of is there's no smoking gun you know, unlike, say the Russia piece where it appears, we had some pretty compelling intelligence. There doesn't seem to be anything that says Xi Jinping has ordered invasion plans for 2024, you know, or, or, or even 2027. Um, so I'm pretty confident that's not the case. And so then it becomes more about an analytic framework. And I, from what I can tell, it's seems to be largely based on what, uh, in, you know, the intelligence community we would call calendar-int.. calendar intelligence. In other words, you know, over the next 18 months, a lot of stuff's going to happen. We're gonna have our midterm elections next week. It's pretty likely the Republicans get at least one chamber of Congress, maybe both.That would suggest that things like the Taiwan Policy Act and, you know, really, uh, things that have, uh, Beijing's undies in a bunch, uh, you know, could really come back on, uh, the radar pretty forcibly and pretty quickly. Obviously Taiwan, nobody talks about it, but Taiwan's having municipal elections around the same time, and normally that would be a very inside Taiwan baseball affair, nobody would care. But the way that KMT ooks like they will not perform, I should say,  in those municipal elections. They could be effectively wiped out, you know, as a, as a sort of electable party in Taiwan. That's not a good news story for Beijing.And then of course we have our own presidential in 2024 and Taiwan has a presidential election in 24 in the US case.I mean, look, we could end up with a President Pompeo, right? Or a President DeSantis or others who. Been out there sort of talking openly about Taiwan independence and recognizing Taiwan. And similarly, I think whoever succeeds, uh, President Tsai in Taiwan, if we assume it will likely be a a, a Democratic Progressive party president, will almost by definition be more independence oriented.So I think the administration is saying there's a lot of stuff that's gonna get the Chinese pretty itchy, you know, over this next 18 month period. So therefore we need to be really loud in our signaling to deter. Right. And okay. But I think there's a risk with that as well, which they don't seem to be acknowledging, which is you might create a self-fulfilling prophecy.I mean, frankly, that's what really troubles me about the rhetoric. And so, for example, when Secretary Blinken last week or the before came out and said  Yeah, you know, the, the, the Chinese have given up on the status quo. I, I, I've seen nothing, you know, that would suggest that the political report doesn't suggest. Bill: They have called it a couple of times  so-called status quo.Chris: Well, Fair enough. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's fine. Um, but I think if we look at the reason why they're calling it the so-called status quo, it's because it's so called now because the US has been moving the goalposts on the status quo.Yeah. In terms of erosion of the commitment to the one China policy. And the administration can say all at once, they're not moving the goal post, but they are, I mean, let's just be honest.Bill: Now, and they have moved it more than the Trump administration did, don't you think?Chris: Absolutely. Yeah. Um, you know, no president has said previously we will defend Taiwan  multiple times. Right. You know, um, and things like, uh, you know, Democracy, someone, I mean, this comes back also to the, the framing, right, of one of the risks I think of framing the relationship as democracy versus autocracy is that it puts a very, uh, heavy incentive then for the Biden administration or any future US administration to, you know, quote unquote play the Taiwan card, right, as part of said competition.Whereas if you don't have that framing, I don't think that's necessarily as automatic. Right? In other words, if that's the framing, well Taiwan's a democracy, so we have to lean in. Right? You know? Whereas if it's a more say, you know, straight realist or national interest driven foreign policy, you might not feel that in every instance you've gotta do that,Bill: No, and and I it, that's an interesting point. And I also think too that, um, I really do wonder how much Americans care, right? And, and whether or not we're running the risk of setting something up or setting something in motion that, you know, again, it's easy to be rhetorical about it, but that we're frankly not ready to deal withChris: Well, and another thing that's interesting, right, is that, um, to that point, Some of the administration's actions, you know, that are clearly designed to show toughness, who are they out toughing? You know, in some cases it feels like they're out toughing themselves, right? I mean, obviously the Republicans are watching them and so on and all of that.Um, but you know, interesting, uh, something that came across my thought wave the other day that I hadn't really considered. We're seeing pretty clear indications that a Republican dominated Congress after the midterms may be less enthusiastic about support to Ukraine, we're all assuming that they're gonna be all Taiwan support all the time.Is that a wrong assumption? You know, I mean, in other words, Ukraine's a democracy, right? And yet there's this weird strain in the Trumpist Wing of the Republican party that doesn't wanna spend the money. Right. And would that be the case for Taiwan as well? I don't know, but you know, the point is, I wonder if the boogieman of looking soft is, is sort of in their own heads to some degree.And, and even if it isn't, you know, sometimes you have to lead. Bill: it's not clear the allies are listening. It doesn't sound like the Europeans would be on board withChris: I think very clearly they're not. I mean, you know, we're about to see a very uncomfortable bit of Kabuki theater here, aren't we? In the next couple of days with German Chancellor Sholz going over and, um, you know, if you, uh, read the op-ed he wrote in Politico, you know, it's, it's painful, right? You can see him trying to, uh, Trying to, uh, you know, straddle the fence and, and walk that line.And, and obviously there are deep, deep divisions in his own cabinet, right? You know, over this visit, the foreign minister is publicly criticizing him, you know, and so on. So I think this is another aspect that might be worrisome, which is the approach. You know, my line is always sort of a stool, if it's gonna be stable, needs three legs, right.And on US-China relations, I think that is, you know, making sure our own house is in order. Domestic strengthening, these guys call it, coordinating with allies and partners, certainly. But then there's this sort of talking to the Chinese aspect and through a policy, what I tend to call strategic avoidance, we don't.Talk to them that much. So that leg is missing. So then those other two legs need to be really strong. Right. Um, and on domestic strengthening, Okay. Chips act and so on, that's good stuff. On allies and partners, there seems to be a bit of an approach and I think the chip restrictions highlight this of, look, you're either for us or against us.Right? Whereas I think in, you know, the good old Cold War I, we seem to be able to understand that a West Germany could do certain things for us vis-a-vis the Soviets and certain things they couldn't and we didn't like it and we complained, but we kind of lived with it, right? If we look at these chip restrictions, it appears the administration sort of said, Look, we've been doing this multilateral diplomacy on this thing for a year now, it's not really delivering the goods. The chips for framework is a mess, so let's just get it over with and drag the allies with us, you know? Um, and we'll see what ramifications that will have.Bill: Well on that uplifting note, I, I think I'm outta questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add?Chris: Well, I think, you know, something just to consider is this idea, you know, and maybe this will help us close on a more optimistic note. Xi Jinping is telling us, you know, he's hardening the system, he's, he's doing this fortress economy thing and so on. But he also is telling us, I have a really difficult set of things I'm trying to accomplish in this five years.Right? And that may mean a desire to signal to the us let's stabilize things a bit, not because he's having a change of heart or wants a fundamental rapprochement, so on and so forth. I don't think that's the case, but might he want a bit of room, right? A breathing room. Bill: Buy some time, buy some spaceChris: Yeah, Might he want that? He might. You know, and so I think then a critical question is how does that get sorted out in the context of the negotiations over the meeting in Bali, if it is a longer meeting, I think, you know, so that's encouraging for that. Right. To some degree. I, I, I would say, you know, if we look at what's just happened with the 20th party Congress and we look at what's about to happen, it seems with our midterms here in the United States, Who's the guy who's gonna be more domestically, politically challenged going into this meeting, and therefore have less room to be able to seize that opportunity if it does exist.Exactly. Because I, I think, you know, the, the issue is, The way I've been framing it lately, you know, supposedly our position is the US position is strategic competition and China says, look, that's inappropriate, and we're not gonna sign onto it and forget it.You know, my own view is we kind of have blown past strategic competition where now in what I would call strategic rivalry, I think the chip restrictions, you know, are, are a giant exclamation point, uh, under that, you know, and so on. And my concern is we're kind of rapidly headed toward what I would call strategic enmity.And you know, that all sounds a bit pedantic, but I think that represents three distinct phases of the difficulty and the relationship. You know, strategic enmity is the cold, the old Cold War, what we had with the Soviets, right? So we are competing against them in a brass tax manner across all dimensions. And if it's a policy that, you know, hurts us, but it hurts them, you know, 2% more we do it, you know, kind of thing. I don't think we're there yet. And the meeting offers an opportunity to, you know, arrest the travel from strategic rivalry to strategic enmity. Let's see if there's something there/Bill: And if, and if we don't, if it doesn't arrest it, then I think the US government at least has to do a much better job of explaining to the American people why we're headed in this direction and needs  to do a much better job with the allies cuz because again, what I worry about is we're sort of heading down this path and it doesn't feel like we've really thought it through.You know, there are lots of reasons  be on this path, but there's also needs to be a much more of a comprehensive understanding of the, of the costs and the ramifications and the solutions and have have an actual sort of theory of the case about how we get out the other side of this in a, in a better way.Chris: Yeah, I think that's important. I want to be real, um, fair to the administration. You know, they're certainly more thoughtful and deliberative than their predecessor. Of course, the bar was low, but, um, you know, they, they seem to approach these things in a pretty. Dedicated and careful manner. And I think they really, you know, take, take things like, uh, looking at outbound investment restrictions, you know, my understanding is they have been, you know, seeking a lot of input about unintended consequences and so on. But then you look at something like the chips piece and it just seems to me that those in the administration who had been pushing for, you know, more there for some time, had a quick moment where they basically said, look, this thing's not working with multilaterally, Let's just do it, you know? And then, oh, now we're seeing the second and third and other order consequences of it. And the risk is that we wind up, our goal is to telegraph unity to Beijing and shaping their environment around them as the administration calls it. We might be signaling our disunity, I don't know, with the allies, and obviously that would not be a good thingBill: That's definitely a risk. Well, thanks Chris. It's always great to talk to you and Thank you for listening to the occasional Sinocism podcast. Thank you, Chris.Chris: My pleasure. Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Steph talks about binging a few Things Worth Learning podcast episodes and particularly enjoyed an episode that featured one of thoughtbot's design directors, Sameera Kapila. Sam shared her expertise about management and inclusion, and Steph shares her favorite parts. Chris shares the story of a surprising error and the resulting journey through database transactions and Sidekiq that eventually resolved the issue. He also shares some follow up on the broken build and the merging process changes they introduced (spoiler, the process changes have been rolled back). Leading Inclusively, with Sameera Kapila - Things Worth Learning Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiV6_3pZFc0) How to Skim a Pull Request (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/a-smelly-list) Isolator (https://github.com/palkan/isolator) aftercommiteverywhere (https://github.com/Envek/after_commit_everywhere) timefora_boolean (https://github.com/calebhearth/time_for_a_boolean) Transcript: STEPH: Oh man, I'm about to stop eating my pop-tart. I'll put it away. It's within distance. I'm going to eat it. CHRIS: Your high-fat content unfrosted pop-tart. STEPH: You know, surprise Sunday twist: it has icing on it. CHRIS: Steph, who even are you? STEPH: [laughs] CHRIS: There are a few canonical anchor facts that one knows about other people, and when one of those... STEPH: I like to keep everyone, including myself, on their toes. CHRIS: Or you've just secretly accepted that the icing adds another textural flavor adventure component. It's just better with icing. STEPH: All right, all right, all right. There's a complicated answer to this. And the complicated [chuckles] answer to this is that the more organic ingredients that I recognize when reading about pop-tarts are by a particular company, and they all have frosting on them. And the more generic pop-tarts that don't have frosting on them, I don't know how to pronounce a lot of those ingredients. So I'm like, no, but okay, I still eat them. But I prefer the ingredients I can pronounce. So I either go with the ingredients I can't pronounce or have a little bit of frosting on my pop-tart. And I'm going with the non-cancer route for today. CHRIS: For today, in this moment, and accepting the frosting. Okay, all right. Well, that is complicated. [laughs] It's tricky out there. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: And together we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. So, Steph, what's new in your world? STEPH: Hey, Chris. So the weather, I'm going to talk about the weather for a little bit. [chuckles] It's been almost non-stop rain for the past several days, which is fine. I'm sure it's great for plant life. But it's really hard on my dog Utah because then we can't go outside for our normal walks and playtime. Although he is my four-legged water baby because he absolutely loves water, and puddles, and playing in the rain. So he's very fine with going outside and playing for a long time. But then I have to essentially give him a full-on bath before I want to bring him back in. So not wanting to have to give him a bath each time, in the spirit of improvising, we started finding more indoor games to play. And I've started teaching him to play hide and seek. And he's not great at it mainly because he will only stay until I'm out of eyesight, and then he will come and find me. And so I have to be really, really fast at finding a hiding spot to like dash around a corner or hide behind the door. But I think he enjoys it because he will find me and then he seems very excited. And we go back, and we play again. And so I just have to work on teaching him to wait a bit longer so I can find better hiding spots. CHRIS: When you said that, at first, I was like, how did you teach him to hide? But I realize he's only playing the seek part of the game, and you're only playing the hide part of the game. STEPH: [laughs] CHRIS: I'm just so used to you exchange roles back and forth. First, you hide, then you seek, and then you switch it up. That would be a lot to get your dog to be like, now I'm going to secretly hide. STEPH: [laughs] I'd be very impressed. Yes, we have very distinct roles in this game. I am the one that always counts and hides. But he's a very good seeker. So that's been fun. We just got to work on getting a little better at it. But on a more tech-related note, one of the design directors at thoughtbot, Sameera Kapila, who also goes by Sam, was a guest on the podcast Things Worth Learning, which is hosted by Matt Stauffer. And Matt is also the host of The Five-Minute Geek Show and The Laravel Podcast. And in the show Things Worth Learning, Matt meets with individuals that are excited to share something that they're deeply passionate about; maybe it's tech, maybe it's not. And I've binged a couple of those episodes. And I really like how you can choose between the podcast format or the YouTube format. So then you can really watch the conversation unfold, which I know you and I a couple of times have thought it would be fun if people could see us because there are so many facial emotions and gestures that go along with conversations. So it was really delightful. And speaking of delightful, Sam shared her expertise about management and inclusion. And I definitely recommend listening to the episode because I can't share everything that Sam shared. But a couple of the topics that Sam mentioned that I really enjoyed and would love to chat about, so the first one is about helping someone, in this case, someone that you manage that comes to you with a concern. So there's often a presumption that just because someone comes to you with a concern or an issue that they've experienced at work, that they're the ones that will also want to work to address that concern, and that's often not true. It can be true; maybe that person wants to be involved. But they're often coming to you in the leadership or management role to say, "Hey, I've had this issue," and they really want help with that instead of walking away with homework for it. Because then that trains people to essentially be in this mindset of well, if I bring up this concern, then I'm going to be the one that has to address it, even if I'm the one that's most negatively impacted by this. And addressing this concern could be actively harmful to me. And she shared a really great real-world example from her own experience where her and another co-worker had noticed a concern about the hiring process. And her and that co-worker got together, and they talked about the concerns. They even rehearsed for the meeting because they were trained by the tech industry to say, "Hey, if you bring up a concern, you're going to be responsible for addressing and then resolving that concern." And so they had that meeting with the person in leadership. And they were pretty nervous about how it was going to go. And that person in leadership said to them, "Thank you both so much for sharing that. That must have been such a burden. And this is my responsibility to fix. And here are what my next steps are." And that was amazing because it allowed Sam and the other person to go back to client work. And they also received follow-up conversations about how that issue was being addressed. So there was even that feedback loop as to how things were going to change. And I have a personal example that...I really resonated with the example that Sam provided because I remember there are different teams that I've been a part of, where often I was one of the few women engineers on the team. And so we often have conversations about how do we get more women engineers into the company? And they're wonderful conversations. But there's a part of me that always felt resentful about, like, why am I here? Why am I the one fixing this? I understand I have some more insight and expertise, and experience in this area. But I was also frustrated by the fact that I was the one that was in that meeting often with other women, and it felt like our responsibility to fix this. And I used to feel bad about feeling resentful towards that. Because I was like, shouldn't I want to help other people? And I do. But Sam's example really helped remind me and clarify that yes, just because there's a concern doesn't necessarily mean you should be the one to address it. And it really takes everybody involved, or it takes leadership to step up and address that concern. CHRIS: Oh, that's really interesting the way Sam is framing that and describing the situation of not having any problem that you bring in be now your work to solve. Like, oh, I found the issue, and now we've got to go do this. But the idea that you can bring something to light and then be able to walk away from it. And the particular thing that you were saying that if your interaction is always that when you reference something when you bring in a concern that then your manager works with you to figure out how you can solve it, then you get this mental block of like, well, do I even want to say anything? Because I don't want to try and deal with big, amorphous unclear issues. So maybe I just won't even say anything. And so this as a way to make sure that there's room for all of the conversation is a really interesting framing that I hadn't really thought about, frankly, but it's very interesting. I haven't seen this interview either. So I'm definitely excited to give this a look because Sam is wonderful. And the topic that you're describing here sounds fantastic as well. STEPH: Yeah. There was an important moment for me where...one of my managers is Matt Sumner, who's been on the show. And when Matt was my manager, at one point, we were having a one on one, and we would often go for walks for our one on one. And I mentioned something about "I have this concern, or I have this problem, but I don't really know how to fix it. So I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about it." And Matt, in his delightful way, was like, "We can still talk about it. You don't have to have an answer or a solution." I'm like, "Yeah, but I feel like I should be able to fix it. Like, if you have a concern, or if you have something that you want to gripe about, then you should come to the table with solutions for it." And Matt was like, "No, you don't need to do that at all. We can totally gripe about stuff or talk about concerns and then either figure out the solutions together or go to other people for ideas." And that was really important to me because, like you'd mentioned, otherwise, it felt like this mental block where then it feels like you can't air out some of the things that you're worried about or have concerns about because then you think you're the only one responsible. And you may not be able to come up with the best solution. You may need other people to then help you strategize and come up with ideas. And I just love, love, love that part of Sam's discussion. And oh, there was one other part about the conversation. Well, there are lots of parts that were amazing. But another one in particular that blew my mind is about Comic Sans, the font, the font that everyone loves to hate. [chuckles] And I learned that it's one of the most legible fonts for kids. And it's one of the more accessible fonts for people with dyslexia. And it's actually recommended...I think there are still more academic studies that need to be done to really classify fonts that are best for people that have dyslexia. But Comic Sans is recommended by The British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Association of Ireland. And there are some other really great posts that talk about the benefits of using a font like Comic Sans because the typeface has long ascenders and descenders and generous letter spacing and asymmetrical lowercase b and d to then help distinguish those letters. And I just thought that was so cool. This font that everybody wants to rip apart because it seems whimsical, unprofessional gets overused. There are lots of reasons, I suppose. [laughs] But there's a really big benefit to it, and it can help others. And I just found that very whimsical in itself. CHRIS: I love the idea that there are multiple levels of knowing about Comic Sans. First, you're just like, I don't even know the name, but it's that comic book-looking font. And then obviously, the next step is to be like Comic Sans? How could you ever use that? It's an atrocity. And then it's like, but actually, Comic Sans has some things going for it. And it is a really interesting consideration and something that you wouldn't necessarily think of. But then once you learn it, you're like, okay. Man, I wonder how many other things in the world have this interesting shape to them? Hmm. STEPH: Do you know the history behind Comic Sans? CHRIS: I do not. STEPH: I read about it fairly recently, but I'm probably going to botch some of the details. But I believe it was designed or created by Vincent Connare. And it was created for Microsoft. And Vincent was working on a project where I think there was a dog that was essentially going to have these bubbles that would then show you different parts of the application and walk you through the different features. And the dog had a very comic book feel to the character. And so then Vincent designed a font to go along with that comic book character, this dog and came up with Comic Sans. I don't think the dog actually launched with that particular font. But since the font was still developed, it was released as part of the available fonts. And there we go, there is the birth of Comic Sans. And then it just received so much love and ire all throughout history. [chuckles] CHRIS: There's something that you said there that I want to loop back on when you were talking about chatting with Matt Sumner and saying, "Here's this thing, but I don't know how to solve it. So I don't even want to bring it up." I really liked the framing that you gave and the fact that Matt was like, "No, no, we can still talk about it. We can at least explore this thing, have a conversation." I think that's really wonderful. There's a very similar thing that I experience a lot when doing code review, particularly when I'm in more of a leadership role within a team, which is I often want to highlight something that feels a little bit off to me in the code, but I may not have a specific solution. Like, I may see a variable name, or I may see a controller action that feels like it's the wrong shape or something. And I'll often name it but explicitly say, "I actually don't have a better idea here. So feel free to continue on with this, but I want to name it. So in case that sparks something in you, if you were also feeling some incongruousness, maybe it's worth you spending another minute to think about it, but I want to make sure my comment isn't blocking or otherwise making you feel uncomfortable." If I just come to you and I'm like, "This feels wrong," and that's all I say, that to me is unacceptable code review. Because now I want all of my code review feedback to be very actionable, it's either here's the thing that I feel strongly I think we should definitely change this. If you disagree, let's have a conversation. But yeah, this one definitely needs to change. Here's the thing that, like, I don't know, maybe we could break this into two lines and split it up. But if you don't like that, that's fine. Do whatever. And so then it's I've given the person my thoughts but given them clarity and a free rein to do whatever they want with that information. And then there are ones where I'm like, I don't even know what I think we should do here, but I think something. But if you don't have any ideas...like, I don't have any ideas specifically. If you don't have any ideas, it's fine. We'll continue on with this and maybe revisit it down the road. But I want to make sure each of those different tiers is actionable for the other person, and I'm not just giving them homework or something to be sad about because that would be bad code review. STEPH: I'm just imagining a PR comment that says, "I don't know what we should do here. But I don't think this is it," [laughs] and that just creating sadness. That's so interesting to me because I have flip-flopped with that opinion in regards to there are times that I very much resonate and do what you just said where I will point out to someone where I'm like, "I'm not sure why, but I just have concerns about this. And I don't know if you also ran into anything that was weird about this and would like to talk about it. I don't have any really great ideas, so I think this is good for now. And we should keep moving forward, so we're not blocked on it," but just wanted to, as you mentioned, highlight it in case it sparks something for the other person or for someone else that's reviewing the code. And then there are other times where I'll look at something, and I'm like, "Yeah, it's not great. There's something that feels brittle or potentially maybe hard to maintain or things like that. But I don't have a better idea." And I don't comment on it because I'm like, I don't want to distract that person or block them. And I do think it's good enough, and I don't have anything to add to the conversation, so I just leave it out. So it's interesting to me where is that line of when I feel like it's important enough to comment to then potentially spark some conversation versus just letting it go so then I don't add any distraction to their work? CHRIS: I think it's when the spidey-sense gets past 47%. It's a very specific number. I do the same thing where there's something, and I'm like, you know what? I can't even clearly express what about this makes me feel something off, and so I won't even comment on it, and I agree. And then there are things that trip past some magical line in the sand. And I'm like, you know what? I think I'm going to say something here, but I don't even have a recommendation. And then there's a whole spectrum of the nature of code review and, again, 47% being the specific number. STEPH: There's actually a thoughtbot blog post that correlates nicely to that concept of spidey sense. It's written by Mike Burns, and it's titled How to Skim a Pull Request. But essentially, grabbing from one of the lines here is where Mike presents an unexplained, incomplete, and arbitrarily grouped list of keywords that will cause us thoughtboters to read your code with more care and suspicion. [laughs] That feels perfectly aligned with that idea of spidey sense, spidey-sense 101. I'll be sure to include a link in the show notes. Or, you know, 40%. CHRIS: I think it was 47%. It's a very precise number. [chuckles] STEPH: Very precise nonsensical number. Got it. [laughs] CHRIS: If I'm making up fake statistics, I'm not going to have them round to an even 10. [laughter] STEPH: Makes it seem more legit somehow. CHRIS: Exactly. STEPH: But that's really the novelties that I wanted to chat about. Mid-roll Ad And now a quick break to hear from today's sponsor, Scout APM. Scout APM is leading-edge application performance monitoring that's designed to help Rails developers quickly find and fix performance issues without having to deal with the headache or overhead of enterprise platform feature bloat. With a developer-centric UI and tracing logic that ties bottlenecks to source code, you can quickly pinpoint and resolve those performance abnormalities like N+1 queries, slow database queries, memory bloat, and much more. Scout's real-time alerting and weekly digest emails let you rest easy knowing Scout's on watch and resolving performance issues before your customers ever see them. Scout has also launched its new error monitoring feature add-on for Python applications. Now you can connect your error reporting and application monitoring data on one platform. See for yourself why developers call Scout their best friend and try our error monitoring and APM free for 14 days; no credit card needed. And as an added-on bonus for Bike Shed listeners, Scout will donate $5 to the open-source project of your choice when you deploy. Learn more at scoutapm.com/bikeshed. That's scoutapm.com/bikeshed. STEPH: What's new in your world? CHRIS: I have some follow up on a recent topic that we talked about. So we had a kerfuffle which I described where we had a branch that got merged and the rebase some stuff got out of hand. And so we introduced some process, the protected branch configuration within GitHub that required the branches to be up-to-date before they can be merged and CI to be passing. And everybody was happy. It was like, this is great. Turns out it was never turned on. That's actually the day I was like, man; this is really straightforward. There's been no annoyance here. And then I got to the point where it was like; this seems weird because we just merged a lot of things in rapid succession. I went and checked, and it turns out what I thought was the name of the branch protection rule in GitHub's UI is, in fact, a regular expression pattern. It might not be a full regular expression but like a wildcard pattern for the branch name to match to, and so it's specific. I created this rule, and in small, gray text underneath, it said, "This applies to zero branches." I missed that the first time but then the second time going back, I was like, oh, I actually wanted it to apply to more than zero branches. So I went back in and changed that. It's a great example of very subtle UI that just slipped past me. STEPH: I was going to say in your defense, the very subtle gray font to say, "This applies to zero," feels tricky. CHRIS: That...also, going through the work of creating this thing and if that results in zero branches that would match, maybe that's the thing to emphasize on creation. I would love that. Because in my case, I was trying very specifically to target an existing branch. There is the ability to say, "Oh, any bugfix-* named branch," if you're using branch naming strategies like that, you can use this for that sort of thing. So it may be that currently, there are no branches with that name. But in my case, I was just like, please, main, anytime anything is happening on main, that is what we want to do. I just needed to put the word main there. But anyway, once I actually turned it on, insufferable, absolutely not, cannot survive in this world. We have a relatively small team. There are three of us, and not everyone is even full-time, and my time is pulled in a lot of different directions. So I'm actually not pushing as much code as I might otherwise. Even with that, nope, absolutely not. Our CI is like; I don't know, five-ish minutes per run. Turns out, especially Monday mornings, we have a volley of things that will have been reviewed and trickled in through Friday afternoon. And then there's a bunch of work we want to land Monday morning. And then, just at any point, it turns out, yes, this was untenable. So we have turned it off. I would like to revisit this down the road and introduce the MergeQueue functionality, so the idea of being able to say, "Yeah, you just name when you want something to go in, and then the system will manage the annoying finicky work there." But for now, I had to give up on my dream of everything running on CI, on a feature branch, before it gets merged. STEPH: Ooph, that phrase, "I had to give up on my dream," that breaks my heart for you. [laughs] CHRIS: I may be going a little bit fanciful with my language but, like, a little. STEPH: [laughs] CHRIS: I liked this thing. I want to exist in that world. But it is not feasible given the current state of the world. And that will only get worse over time, is my expectation. So I get to revisit this when I have the time to more thoroughly figure a thing out. But for now, I don't know, merge whatever; it will be fun. STEPH: There's a small part of me that feels a little reassured that it was a terrible time, although I hate that it was a terrible time. But I have felt that pain on so many other projects where I am constantly waiting, and I'm constantly checking to be like, can I merge? Can I merge? Can I merge? And then I can merge, but then someone beats me to it. And I'm like, oh, then I got to restart. And I got to wait, and I'm constantly checking. So that feels like it helps validate my experience. [chuckles] I am excited for that MergeQueue. I would be super excited to try that out and hear about how it goes just because that seems more like the dream where you can just say, hey, I want this PR to go whenever it can go. Just take care of it. I want it to be rebased, whatever the flow is, and have it be merged, so I don't ever have to check on it again. CHRIS: But once we configured this, there was a new thing that appeared in the GitHub UI, which was auto-merge. And so that was a button where I could say like, "Hey, merge this whenever CI passes," which was a nice upgrade, but it didn't have the additional logic of and rebase as necessary. Or the more subtle logic of like, you don't actually want to rebase where you have five different branches that are all trying to merge, and they keep rebasing. You want to have the idea of a queue, and so you get in line. And you rebase when it's your turn, and then you run the CI. And you try and be as smart as possible about that. If anyone at GitHub is listening, I would love if you all threw this into your platform, and then you could ping Slack if anything went wrong. But otherwise, there are, like I said, existing tools. At some point, I will probably, I don't know, over a long weekend or something like that, sit down with a large cup of coffee and explore these. But today is not that day. STEPH: I'm excited to hear about that day. CHRIS: So that is a tale of woe and sadness. But luckily, I get to balance it out with a tale of happiness and good outcomes. So that's good. The happiness and good outcome story does start with trouble, as they always do. So we had a bug that occurred in the application where something was supposed to have happened. And then there was an email that needed to go out to tell the user that this thing had happened. And the bug popped up within AppSignal and said something was nil that shouldn't have been nil. Particularly, we're using a gem called Time For a Boolean, which is by Caleb Hearth. And he's a former thoughtboter and maintains this wonderful gem that instead of having a Boolean for like, is this thing approved, or is it paid? Or is it processed? You use a timestamp. And then this gem gives you nice Boolean-like methods on top of that timestamp. Because it turns out, very often just having the Boolean of like, this was paid, it turns out you really want to know when it was paid. That would be a really useful piece of information. And so, while you're still in Postgres land, it's nice to be able to reach for this and have the affordances of the Boolean-like interface but also have the timestamp where available. So anyway, the email was trying to process but that timestamp...let's pretend that it was paid as the one that matters here so paid at was nil, which was very concerning. Because this was the email that's like, hey, that thing was processed. Or let's say it was processed, actually, because that's closer to what it was. Hey, this thing was processed, and here's an email notification to tell you that. But the process timestamp was nil. I was like, oh no. Oh no. And so when I saw this pop up, I was like, this is very bad. Everything is very bad. Oh goodness. Turns out what had happened was...because I very quickly chased after this, looked in the background job queue, looked in Sidekiq's UI, and the job was gone. So it had been processed. I was like, wait a minute, how? How did this fix itself? Like, that's not the kind of bug that resolves itself, except, in this case, it was. This was an interaction that I'd run into many times before. Sidekiq was immediately processing the job. But the job was being enqueued from within the context of a database transaction. And the database transaction had not been committed yet. But Sidekiq was already off to the races trying to process. So the record that was being worked on, the database record, had local changes within the context of that transaction, but that hadn't been committed. Sidekiq then reads that record from the database, but it's now out of sync because that tiny bit of Sidekiq is apparently very fast off to the races immediately. And so there's just this tiny little bit of time that can occur. And this is also a fun one where this isn't going to happen every time. It's only going to happen sometimes. Like, if the queue had a couple of other things in it, Sidekiq probably would have not gotten to this until the database transaction had fully closed. So the failure mode here is super annoying. But the solution is pretty easy. You just have to make sure that you enqueue outside of the database transaction. But I'm going to be honest, that's difficult to always do right. STEPH: That's a gnarly bug or something to investigate that I don't think I have run into before. Could you talk a little bit more about enqueueing the job outside the database transaction? CHRIS: Sure. And I think I've talked about this on a previous episode a while back because I have run into this one a few times. But I think it is sufficiently rare; like, you need almost a perfect storm because the database transaction is going to close very quickly. Sidekiq needs to be all that much more speedy in picking up the job in order for this to happen. But basically, the idea is within some processing logic that we have in our system; we find a record, we do some work. And then we need to update that record to assign this timestamp or whatever it is. And then we also want to inform the user, so we're going to enqueue a job to send the email notification. But for all of the database work, we are wrapping it in a transaction because we want it to either succeed or fail atomically. So there are three different records that we need to update. We want all of them to be updated or none of them to be updated. So, therefore, we wrap it in a transaction. And the way we had written, this was to also enqueue the job from within the transaction. That wasn't something we were actively intentionally doing because those are different systems. It doesn't really mean anything. But we were still within the block of ApplicationRecord.transaction do. We're now inside of that block. We're doing all of the record updates. And then the last piece of work that we want to think about is enqueueing the job to send the email. The problem is if we're still within that database transaction if it's yet to be committed, then when Sidekiq picks up that job to run it, it will see the prior state of the world. And it's only if the Sidekiq job waits a little bit that then the database transaction will have been committed. The record is now updated and available to be read by Sidekiq in the correct updated state. And so there's this tiny little bit of inconsistency that can happen. It's basically because Sidekiq is going out to Redis, which is a distinct system. It doesn't have any knowledge of the database transaction at play. That's why I sometimes consider using a Postgres-backed background job system because then actually the job can be as part of the database transaction. STEPH: Cool. That's helpful. That makes a lot of sense the way you explained the whole you're actually enqueueing the job from inside that transaction. I'm curious, that prompts another question. In the case where you mentioned you're using a transaction because you want to make sure that if something fails to update so, everything gets updated together, in the event that something does fail to update because you were previously enqueueing that job from the transaction, does that mean that the update could have failed but that email would still have gone out? CHRIS: That does not. And the reason for that is because we're within dry-monad world. And so dry-monad will implicitly capture the ActiveRecord rollback, which I think is an exception that gets raised or somehow...But basically, if that database transaction fails for any reason and ends up getting rolled back, then dry-monads will not continue processing through the rest of the sequential operation. And so, therefore, even if we move the enqueuing of the email outside of the database transaction, the sequential nature of that processing and the dry-monad stuff that we have in play will handle that. And I think that would more generally be true because I think Rails raises an exception on rollback. Not certain there. But I know in our case, we're fine on that. And we have actually explicitly checked7 for that sort of thing. STEPH: So I meant a slightly different question because that makes sense to me everything that you just said where if it's outside of the transaction, then that sequential order won't fire because of that ActiveRecord migration error. But when you have the enqueuing inside of the transaction because then that's going to be inside of the sequential order, maybe before the rollback error gets raised. Does that make sense? CHRIS: Yes. I think what you're asking is basically like, do we make sure to not send the job if the rest of the stuff didn't succeed? STEPH: I'm just wondering from a transaction perspective, actually. If you have a transaction wrapped block and then you have in there, like, update this record, send email, end block, let's say update...well, I guess it's going raise because you've got probably like an update bank. Okay, so then yeah, you won't get to the next line. Got it. Got it. Got it. I just had to walk myself through that because I forgot that you probably...I have to visualize [laughs] as to what that code probably looks like. All right, that answered my question. CHRIS: Okay. So back up to the top level then, this is the problem that we have. And looking through the codebase, we actually have it in a bunch of different places. So the solution in any one of those cases is to just take the line of code where we're saying enqueue UserMailer.deliver_later take that line of code, move it outside of the database transaction, and make sure it only happens if the database transaction succeeds. That's very easy to do in one case. But my concern was this is a very easy failure mode to end up in. And this is a very easy incorrect version of the code to write. As far as I can tell, we never want to write the code where this is happening inside of the transaction because it has this failure mode. But how do we enforce that? That was the thing that came to mind. So I immediately did a quick look of like, is there a RuboCop thing I can do here or something? And I actually found something even more specific, which was so exciting to find. It's a gem called Isolator. And its job is to detect non-atomic interactions within database transactions. And so it's fantastic. I was like, wait, really? Is this going to do the thing? And so I just installed the gem, configured it where I wanted, and then ran the test suite. And it showed me every place throughout the app right now where we were doing this pattern of behavior like enqueueing work from within a database transaction, which was great. STEPH: Ooh, that's really nifty. I kind of want to install that and just run it on my current client's codebase and see what I find. CHRIS: This feels like something like strong migrations where it's like, yeah, this is great. I kind of want to have this as part of my core toolset now. This one feels even perhaps slightly more so because sometimes I look at strong migrations, and I'm like, no, no, no, strong migrations, I get why you would say that, but for reasons, this is actually fine. And they have configurations within it to say, like, no, this is okay. Isolator feels like it's always telling me something I want to know. So this, very quickly, I'm like, I think this might be part of my toolset moving forward on every single app forever. And actually, there's another gem that I used. It's made by the same team. So this is from the folks over at Evil Martians, which is another Rails consultancy out there in the world. And the Isolator gem is one thing that they've produced. And then I think the same author of it who is an Evil Martian's employee created the aftercommiteverywhere gem. So aftercommit is one of Rails' ActiveRecord callbacks. But in this case, it allows you to use it everywhere, as the name implies. And so rather than actually having to take that line of code out of the database transaction block, which is naturally where we would write it because that's how we think about the code and how we want to express it, you can just use this aftercommit method, wrap the call in that, so it's after_commit, and then a block. So either braces or do..end. That enqueueing of the email now just gets wrapped in that. And so what that does is it says, "Defer this until after the transaction commits. If the transaction does not commit, if we roll it back, then don't run it." And what was nice is the actual code change when I finally submitted all of this was add the gem to the gem file. And then everywhere that we're doing the wrong thing, which running the test suite told me, I just went in, and I wrapped that line in after_commit and a block. And it was such a nice, clean...like, I didn't have to move the code around or actually shift the lines, which was my first attempt at this. I was able to just annotate each of those lines and say, "You're special, you're special, you're special," And then I'm done. And again, the first gem told me every case where I needed to do that. It's like, well, this is a wonderful little outcome here. STEPH: That's really nice, yeah, how you can make the changes and then, like you said, re-run the test or re-run that gem, and it lets you know what else still needs to be updated. I'm intrigued where you mentioned you didn't have to move any lines, though. Maybe I just need to look at the gem and see it, but I'm still envisioning that you have your transaction do block. And then you're doing some things; you're updating records, and then you have your end. And then after that, it's when you want to enqueue the email. And with this after_commit, you actually added that method call inside of the transaction but then wrapped the call to Sidekiq to send the email inside of that block. CHRIS: Correct. Yeah. So it's basically like saying, "Here's almost an anonymous function." If you think about a Ruby block in that nomenclature, you're saying, like, here's some work to do when and if the transaction succeeds. And so it meant that I was able to keep the code in the way that we as humans would talk about it but deal with the murky details, and edge cases of database transactions, and Sidekiq, and whatnot. Sort of just handle it by saying like...it almost feels like an annotation or a decoration or something like that. But it was this, in my mind, almost like a perfect melding of I don't want to think about this. Oh, cool. Okay, here's a quick, easy way to deal with it but to not have to fundamentally change how I write the code. STEPH: Interesting. So I like all the things you're saying. I'll be honest, I'm not totally sold, and I'm trying to think of why. I think the benefits...one, as you mentioned, it's something you don't have to think about or at least signals to others that hey, maybe you should think about this to the extent that you use after_commit. And so that way, you don't have these asynchronous events taking place inside the transaction. So I like that visibility and communication to the rest of the team. Putting it inside of the transaction feels interesting. I don't know why; I feel a little weird about this. [laughs] I'm bringing my true self. CHRIS: That's fair. So if we're being honest, I solved this first by finding the Isolator gem. Well, I solved it first by just doing it manually. I went through the app, and I found all the places. And I was like, you know what? I'm worried that the next person authoring code like this, it's so easy to fall into this trap. Like, this is such a subtle little thing that our brains are not thinking about. And so I had first fixed it, and so I had a diff that involved moving lots of lines of code, every instance of this moved from being in the database transaction out of it. And that was fine. I was fine with that as a solution. But it was a little bit noisy because I was moving a bunch of lines. So then I brought in the Isolator gem. I actually reset that, and I went back to before I had made the fix, ran the test just to make sure Isolator was actually finding every instance. They did; that was great. So I was like, all right, cool. This is better because now I have this thing that will tell anyone when this happens. So I'm very happy about that. Because frankly, this is some hard-earned knowledge that I had to read Sidekiq and remember how database transactions work and convince myself of what was going on here and finally come to what I believe the solution is. And now Isolator is just like, cool, that's encapsulated. And it gives a very nice failure message in the test suite. So it's like, excellent. I really like this. But still looking at it, the diff, the amount of code that I had to change, it's like, well, naturally, this is how we want to write this code, but for reasons, we can't. And it's appeasing the computer more than it's appeasing the reader or the author of the code. And so then I happen to be reading through the Isolator gem's README, and they mention the aftercommiteverywhere gem. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So one more time, I reset. And then I really tried fixing it with after_commit. And the look of the diff there felt nice to me because the lines got a little more on them, but they didn't move. And so it's like, this is how we naturally would have authored it, and now it works correctly. And I liked that. But I understand your hesitation because you're like, but the thing is, it's wrong. And so you've made the wrong not wrong anymore, but you didn't...and so I get your hesitation. I still like the fancy version. STEPH: Yeah, I think you just helped me figure out my grumpiness with it or why I'm not totally sold on it. And it was in regards to adding a dependency to avoid a noisy diff is the oversimplified version that I was processing or the reason that I was a bit grumpy about adding this other gem for that. But then you also just brought a lot of other really good reasons. One thing that you said that I do really like is adding tools that help us author code in a more natural style, the way that we want to highlight this process, and how this application does work, and how this business logic flows. So given in that light, that makes me feel better about it. But yeah, I think that was my initial grumpiness. I was like, it'll be a noisy diff. It's okay. CHRIS: I think I definitely share your hesitation, or you're like, hmm, that's an interesting reason to bring more code into the application. But at the same time, I think the counterpoint that comes to mind for me is we're using Ruby because of its expressiveness; at least, that's why I'm using Ruby. I really want the code that I write to be as close as possible to the thing that I would say to another human about like, oh okay, when a user signs up for the application, we need to create a record in our system, and then we need to send them an email. And then we need to do this other thing. And so, the closer that our code is to those words that I would use to describe to another human, the happier I am. And I will put in some pretty significant effort to hold that line as long as the code can also be correct. And so, the Isolator gem here does a great job of enforcing that correctness. And then after_commit allows me to still maintain that expressiveness and not have to think about the murky details as much or not have to reshape my code to match the murky realities of different persistence engines. But I do agree. I think it's a good thing to look at and ask, like, is it worth it? Are you sure? And in this case, I will say, "Yeah, I think so," but with that amount of certainty in my voice, [chuckles] which is not a ton. STEPH: I think this is going back to my days of working with dependency bot PRs where every time there was an upgrade for a gem, I always ask, what do you do here? [chuckles] Do we need to upgrade you? Can we just remove you from the codebase? So I'm fairly...I don't know, resistant is a strong word. I'm skeptical of when we're adding stuff in, and I just want to question the value that it's adding. But I want to circle back to something that you said, and that is hard-earned knowledge. And that part I understand so much where when you have gone through a fair amount of work to uncover an issue, and then you want to make sure that others don't have to go through that. This is a really nice way to highlight; hey, there's something that's tricky about computers and software here, and we need to watch out for that. And I want to help you lookout for that. Versus this is just inherit information where this needs to happen outside or after that transaction. And so that makes a really nice entry point where someone can look to say, "Why did we add this gem?" And then there's a commit message that goes with it that explains this is why we use this after_commit gem because we're specifically looking to avoid this type of bug. And I love that. CHRIS: Yeah, I think more lines of git commit message than diff on this one. So yeah, I wrote a short novel describing all of the features, describing the different pieces that are coming together. And then it's actually a +28 -6 diff. So it's a very small code change. But yeah, lots of story captured there. STEPH: And if you had just moved the lines, you could still have that commit message. But it's not likely that someone's going to look up that git commit change or that message that went along with it because they're not going to know to blame that one. But if they look at that particular edition of after_commit, they're more likely to find that historical context. So long story short, I think you have walked me through my initial grumpiness and provided some really good ways to avoid that really tricky failure mode for other developers. CHRIS: Well, thank you. I'm getting Steph's seal of approval starting from grumpy places. [laughs] I feel good. All right. STEPH: I'll have some special Stephanie's approval stickers designed and printed for you. CHRIS: I hope you're not joking because I very much want a yellow heart that says, "Steph-approved." STEPH: [laughs] CHRIS: And I can put it on PRs, and I can put it on the wall. [laughs] STEPH: Well, now I have to find a sticker designer and make a...well, it's just a yellow heart. I can probably handle this. I'm going to use Comic Sans. That will be the approved part. [laughs] Yellow hearts and Comic Sans for everybody. CHRIS: Well, with that absolutely fantastic call back to earlier parts of the episode, shall we wrap up? STEPH: Let's wrap up. CHRIS: The show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. STEPH: This show is produced and edited by Mandy Moore. CHRIS: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review in iTunes, as it really helps other folks find the show. STEPH: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us at @_bikeshed or reach me on Twitter @SViccari. CHRIS: And I'm @christoomey STEPH: Or you can reach us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. CHRIS: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. All: Byeeeeeeee! Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

On this episode, Chris talks about testing external services and dissects a tweet on refinements for Result. Steph talks about thoughbot's recent improvement to their feature flag system. Links: refinements For Result (https://twitter.com/alassek/status/1430683412264857600) Faking External Services in Tests with Adapters by German Velasco (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/faking-external-services-in-tests-with-adapters) Testing Interaction with 3rd-party APIs (https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/videos/testing-interaction-with-3rd-party-apis) Transcript: CHRIS: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. So, Steph, what's new with you? STEPH: Hey, Chris. Well, today is Summit Day at thoughtbot, and it's the day where all the bots gather, and we hang out, and we chat, and we play games. And it's a lot of fun. We're actually taking more of a respite this year just because life has been taxing. And so we decided to give people more of the day off. So we still had some fun events, but most of it is everybody gets a chill day. Do something that brings you joy is the theme of the day. But we had Lightning Talks, which is my favorite thing that we do on Summit Day because I realize that I just work with the coolest people, and they have such interesting things to talk about. And we had such a variety of topics. So one of them, Alex Chen taught us acronyms in K-pop. And Sam Kapila, our resident foodie, taught us about a variety of spices. And one of my favorite talks was by Akshith Yellapragada, and it's the top 10 best limo entrances by The Bachelor, and it was phenomenal. And I really want to share some stuff that I learned with you. CHRIS: The Bachelor like the TV show? STEPH: Yeah, like the TV show. Are you familiar with it? Have you seen it before? CHRIS: I am familiar with it. I know it exists. I know that there's a spinoff, The Bachelorette. And I believe we have now exhausted my information on the matter. STEPH: [laughs] That's fair. For anyone that hasn't seen the show, the show revolves around a single person. For the bachelor, it's a single bachelor who dates a number of people over several weeks, and then they narrow down the people. There are elimination rounds, and the whole goal is for them to find their true love. So each week, someone is eliminated, and I think the show ends with a marriage proposal. So it's a wild show. It's something. [chuckles] And in Akshith's talk, I learned some really fun terminology. The first one is the Crown, and this is actually an important building block because we're going to get to the rest of the terminology that uses this word, so we got to start here. So the first one is the Crown, and this is the person that everyone's competing for. So they're the star of the show. They're the one that everybody is hoping to fall in love with or will fall in love with them so they get a marriage proposal. So then the other stuff that I've learned is all about the entrance because again, we're talking about the top 10 best entrances. And one of them is the sidecar entrance. So this is where the player, because yes, this is totally a game, has someone assist them in meeting the crown. So it could be like a family member, maybe it's like your grandma. And then there's TOT, T-O-T, which is short for Trick Or Treat. And this person exits the limo wearing a costume. So it's someone wearing a shark costume. There was someone wearing a sloth costume where they really dedicated to the role, and they climbed a tree and hung from a branch. I don't know for how long but for long enough to really vibe with the role. And then there's the Kringle, and this person brings a prop or a present to the Crown. And there's the Grandy, and this player arrives in something other than a limo. So the example that Akshith provided is someone arrived in a motorized cupcake. CHRIS: Was the cupcake edible? STEPH: I don't think so, fair question. [laughs] CHRIS: So really just like a go-kart that looked like a cupcake, not really a motorized cupcake, if I'm going to meet pedantic about the thing, [chuckles] which I think is my job. STEPH: Yes, it is a motorized non-edible cupcake, but that seems like something a next player should do. They should really up the game, and they should bring an edible motorized cupcake. CHRIS: Yeah, because you get the visual novelty, but then you layer on top of it that it's actually something that you can now eat, and it's a double win. STEPH: Ooh, and then you're a Grandy, and you're a Kringle because you arrived in something other than a limo, and it's a present. CHRIS: I love how you have so deeply internalized this now that you're like, ooh, okay. I can remix here. I'm going to bring together the pieces. Yeah, all right. Yeah, this all makes sense. STEPH: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Those are most of my notes for today. I have some tech stuff too, but this felt like the most important thing to start the show with. CHRIS: We use the phrase tech talk and nonsense to describe the show often, but I think nonsense and tech talk is the correct orientation. STEPH: [chuckles] CHRIS: Correct in terms of importance and chronological order, and whatnot. But yeah. STEPH: I love that we start with a bit of nonsense. So I do have some tech stuff. But first, before I share any of that, what's going on in your world? CHRIS: I'm sure there's plenty of nonsense in my world, but at the top of my list is some tech stuff. So someone on Twitter, Adam Lassek, reached out and he suggested related to the conversation and the back and forth that I've been having with myself around some of the data structures within the app that I'm building…So I've talked about the dry-monads result object, and there's this success and failure. And I wanted to introduce this new method called bimap, but I wanted to do it in a reasonable way. So I wrapped, and then I wrapped, and I wrapped things. As an aside, former colleague and friend of the show, Joel Oliveira, sent a wonderful tweet which was a reference to the SNL video where they make a taco and put it inside of a pizza and put it inside of a bag. And that was his joke about it, which I really liked. That was an excellent reference. But in this case, Adam Lassek reached out and suggested if I'm that squeamish about monkey patching, which I am, have I considered refinements? And so he sent an image of a code sample, which is so kind of him to send that much detail over, but it was interesting because I know of refinements in Ruby. I know of that as an alternative to monkey patching, a more refined way, but a safer way, a more controlled way to alter code, but I've not actually used them. STEPH: I'm not familiar with refinements. What is that? CHRIS: Refinements are a way...so similar to monkey patching, where you say like, I'm going to reopen this class or this module and define a new method or redefine a method or do something like that, a refinement is a way to do that in a scoped manner. So I'll be honest, I'm not super familiar with them. I think I came into Ruby at a time where the community was moving away from monkey patching. And the dogmatic swing of the pendulum was like, that's a bad thing to do. And so even the refinements were introduced, as far as I understand it, to be a more controlled way to do it. So it's not just like, hey, cool. This module is redefined now in your app in a magical way that's really hard to figure out and hard for folks to debug refinements. You have to explicitly opt into within a certain lexical scope. I'll be honest; I know that at the headline level. I don't actually know the ramifications or where and when you can use them and how you can. But I know that that was the idea is refinements are a way to do monkey patching but in a more controlled, more understandable manner, and so the code sample that Adam shared does that. And it's very interesting. As I'm looking at it, I'm like, okay, that's cool because I think it'll be a little bit safer. But at the end of the day, my concern wasn't safety in this case because I was introducing a method that would be new, that would be additive to the API of this module that I'm working with, and so that I think of as a relatively safe operation. My hesitation was more around how does someone figure it out if they're working with this? And particularly, the name of the method that I was introducing was bimap so, B-I-M-A-P. And if someone sees that in our codebase and is like, "Bimap, where is this coming from?" Well, this is one of those dry-monad result objects. And they go to the code, and they try and look it up in the docs, and they're just not going to find anything. And I can imagine losing a lot of time to try and chase that down. There are ways to figure it out. There's the method in Ruby, which is a wonderful trick for chasing things down. Or if you grep the codebase, you'd find it. But I think I'm possibly over-indexed on worrying about that lost time, that moment. But I've lost that time so many times in my life where I'm like, I can't grep for this. I can't Google for this. And so I have so strongly moved in the direction of being like, everything should be grepable, everything should be googleable. Those are the two of the things that I believe about software. I think I believe a bunch of stuff. STEPH: I think we have a full episode that talks about what we believe in software. CHRIS: I believe we do. STEPH: Cool. Thanks. Yeah, I have not heard of refinements. That sounds really interesting. I really like that bit about everything should be grepable, and everything should be googleable, googling everything. I kind of agree with that one. We live in a world where we're always doing bespoke things so that one feels a little bit harder that we're always going to be able to Google it. But then that encourages people to constantly publish the bespoke work that they're doing so then others can benefit from that work. But the grepable, I absolutely agree with that one. It's so frustrating where I see a method, but I cannot find its definition. And then having the ways to figure out where that method is defined to then find its definition is crucial. CHRIS: Yeah, it's interesting. I definitely feel that way very strongly. And it's in such stark contrast to Rails. Rails is like, hey, don't worry. There's going to be a lot of methods. You don't need to worry about where they come from, or why they exist, or what they are, or what they do. Well, probably what they do. But all of the magic inflections on database tables,, and suddenly you have methods named after every column. That's both very magical and hard to grep for or impossible to grep for, but it also leaks the entire structure of your database into your application in a way that I've always felt a little bit complicated about. And so explicitness, grepability, those are things that I care about. There's another one, delegates in Rails, that I sometimes pause around using especially when it's like delegates 19 methods to user prefix user. And so you end up with methods that are like username. And that's a delegation to the user object to get the name method off of it, but it creates the method user_name. And you're never going to be able to grep for that. And it saves like a little bit of code, definitely, but it saves this very obvious, very knowable code. So this one I actually shy away from using delegates in most cases, and I'll just write out the methods manually because sometimes I like to hear the clackety of my keyboard. There's a reason I have a clackety keyboard. STEPH: You want to get your money's worth. You want to clackety as much as possible. Yeah, I'm also not a fan of delegates. This may be a lie, but I don't know that I've actually ever used it. I've worked with it, but I can't think of a time that I've implemented delegates. Maybe that's a lie, but I'm going to say it anyways because that feels true, at least in the last couple of years. CHRIS: I feel like that could be true for the last couple of years. I would be surprised if you have never even added to a delegates line. Because that's the thing, you can just keep shoveling stuff into them as well. So I would put money on you having used it at some point and then just forgotten about it. But who knows, maybe not. STEPH: This is where we play two truths and a lie and that one's my lie. [laughs] Yeah, that's also fair about adding to it because if that's already defined and it's easier to add to it, I don't know. Who knows what past Stephanie has done, probably some wild stuff. CHRIS: It's unknowable at this point. It's lost to the sands of time. But looping back to the core thing of this refinement and the module, I think I'm leaning in the direction of doing that and unwinding my wrapping and wrapping layer thing. Because obviously, as I talked about...I think it was the previous episode or maybe two episodes ago. There was conceptual complexity to the additional wrapping layer. Even as I was fully in the context of working on that, I was still getting myself confused in either triple wrapping or then unwrapping too much or whatever. And these are the concerns with this type of code. So moving away from that feels better, having just a single layer of context wrapping around a given value. And then the other thing it's actually just a lot less code, and it's less prone to error, I think. That's my hope. I have to look into exactly how refinements get used, but I noticed in a couple of places that sometimes we were wrapping with this local value object that gave us the bimap method, and sometimes we were forgetting to. And so, I could see that being a very subtle, easy way to introduce failures into the app that would be hard to catch just by looking at it. So I think having a more global refinement...although I think that's sort of a contradiction, a global refinement because I think refinements are meant to be local. But anyway, I'm going to look into it because it's a much more concise code sample than what I have. Yeah, I'm going to poke at that a little bit. But it was an interesting exploration of some different things. And then it forced me to consider why am I so resistant to monkey patching at this point, especially in this particular case where I think it's okay-ish? STEPH: That's a good question. Do you have any insights? I am also resistant to monkey patching. I feel that pain and also that timidness of diving into that space. But I'm curious, have you figured out any other reasons that you really prefer to avoid it? CHRIS: I think this one falls into that sort of...what's the word? Like tribal knowledge of we've been burned by it in the past and therefore we build almost a...religious is too strong of a word but that sort of cultural belief. This is a thing that we do not do because of the bad things that we've experienced in the past. And there are a lot of things that fall into that experiential negative space. So with monkey patching, things that I know we can run into is if I introduced this bimap method, but I introduce it subtly differently than the library will eventually, then they could eventually introduce it themselves. And suddenly, I have this fork of my code expects it to work this way, but you've now implemented it that way. I no longer can upgrade. This is a critical piece of infrastructure in my app. I've just painted myself into a corner by doing this. Whereas if I do this wrapping layer, that's my code. I own that. It's not going to be a problem in that same way. There's also the subtlety, the grepability that sort of thing is a concern in my mind. Like, is this our code? Is this their code? Is this an engine? Being able to find code within a codebase, I think, is a critical thing. And so that's a part of the hesitation. I also know longer ago prototypes...I want to say Prototype JS was the name of the project, but it was one that was just like, yeah, JavaScript doesn't have enough stuff in the standard library. So we're just going to override everything and add all of these wonderful methods sort of in the way that Active Support does, which is an interesting comparison. But the JavaScript community definitely moved away from Prototype. And now JavaScript is a language or the standard runtime that's available in most JavaScript engines. It has a lot of the methods, but there are conflicts, and stuff gets weird, and it's all complicated. But again, as I thought of it, Active Support is a complete contradiction to everything I'm saying. Active Support just adds whatever to anything, 2.days.ago. Why does the number 2 have a days method? Because it's great, that's why. But I'm just a walking contradiction, I guess. STEPH: Everything you said really resonates with me. And I'm just trying to reason with myself like yes, Active Support uses a lot of this, a lot of metaprogramming, and adds everything it wants to. So why does that feel okay? And I wonder if it comes down to one is more almost like an agreed standard. It's built by a team, and it's maintained by a team, and then it's used by a large number of people, and then you get that feedback. Or maybe it's not even just a team, but it's a larger community versus if it's internal to your software team, maybe that doesn't feel like a big enough group or if it just needs...Rails is also documented. So maybe that's part of it, too, is if you are going to dive into that space, it's easy to discover, and it's well-documented as if you are building an open-source project that other people are going to use. Like, you designed for the intent of people to use this pattern that you've introduced, then perhaps that's when it starts to feel okay. , But the experiences I have had is where people basically will add some dynamic programming or monkey patch an existing feature. And then that's very hard to find and has surprising results, or it gets outdated. So I guess it comes down to who are you designing for? Are you designing for more of an open-source community, or you're at least designing for the people behind you that are going to be using this? Or is this a one-off adventure that you have chosen for yourself and future developers to discover? [chuckles] CHRIS: Yeah, I think that's a good summary, although I'm open to the fact that I exist in a state of contradiction. I'm also fine with that, to be clear. [chuckles] But I think what you said is true, and I think there is subtlety and nuance and reasons that it's okay in one context and less okay in others. And that idea of just like, I don't know, this is one of those things that I got in my head that I've done the thinking a long time ago to decide this is a thing I don't do. So now, in order to override that, I would have to do so much thinking. I would have to be like, all right, well, my brain tells me, no, but I'm going to go reread everything about monkey patching right now to convince myself that it's okay or to fully get the context and the subtlety and the nuance. And so sometimes we have to rely on that heuristic knowledge of monkey patching, nope, don't do that. That's not a thing, but other stuff is fine. And well, Active Support is fine because it's Rails. But it is interesting to observe contradictions and be like, huh, look at me go. All right. Well, moving on. STEPH: It's our lizard brain that's saying, "Hey, there's danger here." [laughs] CHRIS: Exactly. STEPH: I rather like living in a world of contradictions, or at least I find it that I'm drawn to them. And maybe that's also one of the things that I really like about consulting is because then I join all these different teams, and I hear all these different opinions. So as I'm forming these opinions around something like tests are great, I really like tests, and then someone's like, "I really hate tests." I'm like, "Cool. Let's talk. I want to understand why you don't like this thing that I think is wonderful because then I'm really interested." So I find that I'm often really drawn to contradictions as I like hearing opinions that are very different than mine and finding out why people have a different opinion than mine. CHRIS: Yeah, the world is full of contradictions. So it's, I think, at least a useful way to exist in the world, to be open to them and to enjoy exploring them. But yeah, I'll update in future weeks if I do end up going the refinements route. I'll let you know if anything interesting falls out of that. And now we're going to take a quick break to tell you about today's sponsor, Orbit. Orbit is mission control for community builders. Orbit offers data analytics, reporting, and insights across all the places your community exists in a single location. Orbit's origins are in the open-source and developer relations communities. And that continues today with an active open source culture in an accessible and documented API. With thousands of communities currently relying on Orbit, they are rapidly growing their engineering team. The company is entirely remote-first with team members around the world. You can work from home, from an Orbit outpost in San Francisco or Paris, or find yourself a coworking spot in your city The tech stack of the main orbit app is Ruby on Rails with JavaScript on the front end. If you're looking for your next role with an empathetic product-driven team that prides itself on work-life balance, professional development, and giving back to the larger community, then consider checking out the Orbit careers page for more information. Bonus points if working in a Ruby codebase with a Ruby-oriented team gives you a lot of joy. Find out more at orbit.love/weloveruby. STEPH: So we made a recent improvement to our feature flag system, which I'm really excited about, that we have found a way to improve that workflow because it felt really great that we're...well, okay, I should say that with a caveat. It felt really great that we're using feature flags to ensure that the main branch is always in a deployable state. But it did not feel great around how tedious it was becoming to add all of the feature flags specifically because each time we're adding a feature flag, we're having to add a migration. So we're having to run a migration, add the feature flag column, and then we can interact with that feature flag. And that part's okay. It was more removing that feature flag once we're done with it, that that part was starting to feel tedious because then that's becoming a two-deploy process. So one change is to remove the code that's relying on that feature flag. And then the second deploy was to actually drop that column because we wanted it to be safe to make sure that the code wasn't trying to reference a database column that didn't exist anymore, which is what happened at one point at first when we weren't doing the two-deploy process. So the improvement that Chris White came up with is where we're now using a Postgres JSONB column. And it's here that we actually have a feature flag YAML file. And we can have the name of the feature flag. We have a description of the purpose of the feature flag. And we have an enabled property on there, so then we can turn it on and off. The benefit of this is now we don't have to do that two-deploy process. And we also don't have to run a migration for when we're adding a new feature flag. So we can add it to the feature flag file, we can load it in, and then we can set that property to say, "Yes, this is enabled," or "No, it's not." And that has just simplified our feature flag process. One tricky bit that I believe the team ran into is around enabling this with Active Admin because Active Admin was just relying on those database columns to then turn something on or off. But then we've added some methods that work well with Active Admin that then say, "Read from here when you're checking to see if something is enabled," or "Look at this list to see which feature flags can be turned on and off." So it's been a really nice improvement, and everybody on the team seems to be in favor of the ways that we've improved this. So it's been really nice. So I wanted to come back and bring an update on how we've simplified our feature flag system. CHRIS: That definitely sounds like a nice improvement, the ability to just more regularly iterate around that or taking away the pain, any pain associated with using feature flags. Because they are such a nice thing to have, but there's that overhead. Then you start to have that voice in your head that's like, do I really need a feature flag for this? Could I just sneak this one in? And we always regret that. I had a similar thing this week where I wrote some code. I didn't quite write as many tests as I should have. And it was wildly broken, just like all of the connection points through everything were broken. But then it pushed me in an interesting direction where I was like, well, what I'm going to do is write an integrated test. It was basically an event coming in from a webhook that then enqueued a job, which did a thing, which then spit out an email. But it was broken at like three layers, and I was very embarrassed, if we're being honest. But, I don't know, I was just having a low energy afternoon, and I did not write the test, which I know I'm supposed to do. So similarly, any pain that we can take out of these things that we're supposed to do, any way that we can pave the happy path, I'm all about those. I'm intrigued because I think we've talked about this before, but it sounds like you guys have a very home-grown feature flag system. Is that true? STEPH: We do. CHRIS: Is there something about it that makes it unique to your situation, or was it just like that's what happened? Someone early on was like, "We need feature flags. I can just do the simplest thing that works," and then that's where you're at now or? STEPH: You're asking a very good question. And I'm trying to recall what led us to the state that we're in because I feel like we had this same discussion several episodes back when we were introducing the home-grown feature flag system. And I was like, there are reasons, but I didn't really dive into those reasons because it felt very custom to the application. But now I've forgotten what those reasons were. So I think you ask a great question where it'd be worth revisiting to confirm that yes, there's a reason for this home-grown version versus using something like Flipper. CHRIS: I'm glad I'm at least consistent over time in the questions that I ask and the heuristics that I have. This does feel like one of those things. It's not quite like crypto where I'd be like, we can never write our own crypto. But a feature flag system, I would be really intrigued if there are things that they are just workflows or functionality that you really need that are not supported by any of the existing solutions that are out there. I think audit trails is an interesting one. I think Flipper has a hosted product at this point that does that, but the local version wouldn't necessarily. So maybe that's a thing that you want to get. Again, I'd just be really interested. It sounds like the current state of the world that you have is enabled or disabled; just broadly, that's it. Those are the two states for any given flag. Is that true? STEPH: It is. There's nothing complex with the flags in that nature. And then we use naming to indicate if something is more for beta, so if it's a change that we're making to the codebase, but it's a feature flag that we plan on removing, versus maybe it's a feature flag for enterprise customers. CHRIS: Oh, interesting. I wouldn't think of using a feature flag in that context where it's going to be like a persistent, long-lived; this is conditional logic around some state or some property of the viewer. I think of feature flags as a way to gate code conditionally based on a point in time. And the reason I asked about the enabled-disabled basically like the Boolean state for your flags is when I've worked with feature flags in the past, I've liked having the ability to say, for this user or these users, or this group of users, which we've named this is our beta list…and it's the ten people that just really love the product and are happy to bump into some rough edges. And so we'll put things on for them first or even like percentages, so roll it out to 10% and then 50% and so on. And I think the larger an application and user base gets, the more that sort of thing starts to feel right. STEPH: Yeah, we certainly have some complexity around where each customer can really specify which features that they want. And then the features also differ a bit for each customer. So we are in a world where we're pretty customized or configurable for different customers. And whether that's something that we could simplify, that would certainly be a good question or something to pursue. But part of this also feels like our decision may have been based around what the system was already doing, and we're looking for ways to make slow improvements versus trying to redesign the whole thing. Because initially, the way we were customizing all of these different features for customers was in a YAML file. And that part was painful because then, anytime we wanted to make a change, it required a deploy. So the introduction of feature flags is really to get away from having to deploy to then make a small change like that. But now that we're in the space that we can easily configure that change and do that on the fly and not have to issue a deploy, I think we're now in a good space to reassess. And the team may have some really good answers. Perhaps I'm just not recalling as to why we've chosen the more home-grown feature flags. But yeah, I'll visit that topic and report back. Because I've been coasting along on our new system and enjoying it, but you're asking some really good questions. CHRIS: I mean, as an aside, if you're coasting along and really enjoying it, then maybe you don't need to ask any questions. It's still interesting. I would be intrigued to know. But if it's not causing you any pain, then you probably shouldn't change it. Because frankly, changing out the feature flag system is going to be non-trivial, I'm pretty sure. You could feature flag the feature flag system, and then you can transition from one to the other. You need a third feature flag system for that. But anyway, I digress. [chuckles] STEPH: You referenced crypto earlier. So I think I like the feature flag, the feature flag system. We should have some crypto flags in there somewhere. I think that's a thing too. But I think the main goal if I'm looking into changing it would be, circling back to what we were talking about earlier, is discoverability, so having a home-grown feature flag system. How easy is it for…if nobody was around on the team and there was someone new working with it, how easy would it be for them to turn something on or off? And if that's easy, then that's great. Then I think we've got a great home-grown system. If that's challenging, then I definitely think it's worth reassessing. And now a quick break to hear from today's sponsor, Scout APM. Scout APM is leading-edge application performance monitoring that's designed to help Rails developers quickly find and fix performance issues without having to deal with the headache or overhead of enterprise platform feature bloat. 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CHRIS: One of the things that's been interesting working lately in the app that I'm building is thinking about testing. We have a number of interactions with third-party services. Frankly, a lot of the app is that at this point. We have a handful of different external data providers systems that we're interacting with, webhooks and flows and things like that. And so we had to make that decision that you always have to make in these sorts of situations which is, how are we going to test this? And there's a wonderful blog post on the thoughtbot blog called Faking External Services in Tests with Adapters. It's by the one and only German Velasco. And it is a beautiful summary of the different approaches that you can take, but it really dials into one, which is the adapter pattern. There's also a weekly iteration episode on Upcase with Joël Quenneville, which discusses a little bit more of an exploration of the different options. There are sort of a handful of different options that we can consider your whereas the blog post by German talks specifically about the adapters approach. But to talk about them briefly, there's one where you can go all the way outside your app, spin up a fake service. Typically, we would do this with Capybara Discoball, which is a wonderfully named project. But it allows you to spin up a little Sinatra app type thing such that your web application is still making quote, unquote "real HTTP requests." This external service is going to catch that and respond with whatever canned data or structured responses that you want. But you still have the ability in that to, say, tell it to create data beforehand or be in a certain state or respond with certain data or have any stateful persistence. So if you create a record in that external system, and then later you query for it, that system can do that. But it has the complexities of now, your test suite is running different systems. And do you have thread-safety or all that kind of stuff? So that's a particularly complex end of the spectrum. At the lowest end would be stubbing and mocking. You just take whatever external clients you have, and you're mocking the API calls in them. That's the lowest end. And that's the one, especially for feature specs, those I try and avoid. Then there's a middle ground of like WebMock or VCR, those sort of things where you're saying whenever you see an HTTP request that looks like this, respond in this way. You record the cassettes, all that kind of stuff. And then there's the one that we've settled on, which is the adapters. So the client that we've introduced in our local codebase to interact with any of these third-party systems internally has a class attribute, a cattr_accessor in the Rails parlance, I believe. And that allows us to switch out the backend. And so we have a real HTTP backend, and that's the one that actually runs in production and a test in-memory backend. And that in-memory backend can implement whatever logic. We're ending up with one of them almost recreating this external service, sort of re-coding some of their inconsistencies or oddities but also features and whatnot. But it feels like it has struck just the right balance, and it allows our feature specs to be very rich, very real. We start up the world, and we say, "Hey, external service be in this state." And then I'm going to go visit the page. I'm going to see the data. But we are almost making real HTTP requests. It's very close. It's always an interesting choice to make here. I'm very happy with the one that we've made, but it's still not perfect. There are always going to be trade-offs between the different options here. But it's always interesting revisiting this and being like, which one am I going to choose today? STEPH: I feel like my natural progression when testing external services; I always start with WebMock, and then I progress to using adapters. And then from there, I go to actually replacing the HTTP service that is receiving and then returning a response, like you mentioned to Capybara Discoball earlier. So I can certainly see what you like about the adapter pattern. You mentioned that you're coding some of the inconsistencies. That feels very real. I'm curious if you have an example of how you've had to manage that recently. CHRIS: A specific example would be the external API responds with certain error codes or error structures. So it's an error. It has a status of a number and then a reason, or sometimes instead of a key that is reason; it's the message. So it's like, oh, okay, I see that in this endpoint, you respond with reason, and then this endpoint you respond with message. So now, do I encode that into my fake? I guess I do. So my adapter now implements things like that. There are cases where it's inconsistency where I'm like, well, this is the way they behave. So I would like our test suite to exist in the context of that because then our app is getting exercise in a real way. But in some cases, it's like little bits of logic validation that an external system might do if that's an important part of the flow. The app that we're building has a lot of forms and a lot of data validation and things like that. And so, we want to make sure that we have robust handling around that robust messaging to the user so that it's very clear what they need to do and how they need to respond to things. And so putting in little bits of that like, oh, that's how you format a phone number, okay, cool. Our fake will also format phone numbers in that way, things like that. STEPH: Every time the topic of testing external services comes up, I really, really want VCR to be the answer. I really like the idea of being able to validate that...because you'd mentioned that we're programming the expected return from this other service. And it's very easy to get out of sync with those actual responses. And then we don't really have a great way to stay up to date other than we wait for production or staging environment to fail. And then we realize something has changed, and we have to go and update either our mock or our adapter. And maybe that doesn't happen often if you're working with an external service that is very good about broadcasting when they have a breaking change. But if you're working with a less stable endpoint, then I always want VCR to really work. But it's just one of those areas where I'm like, yes, that's the thing that I want. I want this idea where I can rerun my tests in a way that they actually hit that service and record the response. But then I have felt pain [chuckles] from working with VCR and how it's configured, and how people have used it. It's one of those where I don't blame the library. I like the library. But the way people have implemented it and test I have felt a lot of pain from that. CHRIS: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. It feels like it's nice if you can push the mocking all the way out to that layer. Because like right now, our codebase has code in it that is subtly changing the behavior for a test, and I don't like that. It's only the swapping out of the adapter, so it's a very minimal thing. And we try and push all logic away from that such that the test adapter is as similar as possible to the real production situation. But it's enough difference that I agree I would like if VCR would just like, I catch the HTTP requests, and I respond with the same thing and sometimes we can pass through. I do think one of the fundamental limitations, or at least very hard to get right things, would be sequential requests. So I post to this endpoint in the external service, which creates some data. And then later, when I make a GET request to their endpoint, I should get back that data that I just created. That's, I guess, doable because you can have sequential requests, have cassettes that are first this request, then that request, then that request. And it knows that, like scope them to a given spec. But that feels extra difficult. And it does, again to your comment, the maintainers of that project do a wonderful job, but it's a really hard target to hit. STEPH: Well, and one of the other hard requirements with using a tool like VCR is then that external service really needs that sandbox staging environment that you can use. So that way you can create this data, you can rerun your test. So they're actually going to hit this real environment. They're going to create this data and that not have any harmful effects. And then you can record fetching that data. So it requires a lot of pieces to fall into place for it to work well. But then I was just thinking as you're talking about adapters, I'm like, yeah, I love the adapter pattern. I've really enjoyed that one for testing as well. But then I immediately start to think, oh, well, what happens when it gets out of sync, and how do we know that it got out of sync? And I don't have a great answer to that. CHRIS: Production blows up, obviously. STEPH: Production blows up, and then we go update our adapter. That's very calm. [laughs] CHRIS: It would be great if CI could more proactively catch that or...yeah, I agree. I would love if VCR would work because that facet of it is so attractive. But [chuckles] I've never gotten to walk exclusively the happy path with VCR. So here we are. This is a classic case of here's four options as to how we can think about this hard and important thing that we do in our codebases, and they all have trade-offs much like everything else in software. STEPH: I'm going to add this to my developer bucket list to live in a world where I can easily validate if an external API has changed or not and then also have tests that know when something has broken before production does. CHRIS: Ooph, dare to dream. I like it. STEPH: I'm a dreamer. CHRIS: I want to live in that world. Well, with that wonderful dream to take us out, should we wrap up? STEPH: Let's wrap up. The show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. CHRIS: This show is produced and edited by Mandy Moore. STEPH: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or a review in iTunes as it helps other people find the show. CHRIS: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us at @_bikeshed on Twitter. And I'm @christoomey. STEPH: And I'm @SViccari. CHRIS: Or you can email us at hosts@bikeshed.fm. STEPH: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. All: Byeeeeeeeee. Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

It seems like selling a product that is designed to make you feel good should be a cake walk. But as we all know, business is never easy, especially when you’re breaking into the supplement and nutritional bar space, which is overcrowded with industry giants such as Clif bars and KIND. So what’s an upstart company with a solid product and good intentions to do?On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, we found out when we talked to Chris Bernard, the co-founder, CEO and Chief Mood Officer for Mindright, the good mood superfood. As it turns out, there are a few ways that a small new company can make a splash, especially in the digital space. Chris explains how organic reach outs and authentic connections formed through his partnership with Rob Dyrdek has helped Mindright create an influencer and ambassador community that wins against influencer fatigue. Plus Chris, he digs into why a content strategy that blends humor and education is what gets the attention of the digital audience. Enjoy this episode.Main Takeaways:Be Serious… But Have A Laugh: Fun and funny content is a great way to build a relationship with consumers and to sell the lifestyle that you want your brand to be about. But you also have to balance real education and sales tactics into your content along with the comedic elements so that customers can get the full picture of what a brand is, why they should buy it, and to convince them to complete the purchase.Can I Get A Sample?: Free samples used to be a staple at grocery stores and markets everywhere, and those samples were a key way that new companies created buy-in with potential customers. Now that the industry has shifted away from that model, finding a new way to hyper-target customers with influencers, deals, and content is the best way to bring customers into the fold.Influencer Fatigue: Consumers are wise to the influencer strategy these days, and their fatigue is real when it comes to consuming influencer content. In order for brands to fight that fatigue and win engagement, building buzz around future products rather than current offerings is one of the best ways to do it.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey, everyone and welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at mission.org. Today on the show we have Chris Bernard, the co-founder and CEO and Chief Mood Officer at Mindright. Chris, welcome to the show.Chris:Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.Stephanie:It's good to have you. Would you rather have me call you Bernie? Which one do you want?Chris:My friends and my coworkers call me Bernie, but whatever you're comfortable with.Stephanie:I'm your friend.Chris:Okay, call me Bernie.Stephanie:All right. I like it. So in the beginning, I like to always hear about your background, your journey and how you got to Mindright. So maybe if we could start there. What did you do before Mindright, we'd like to hear.Chris:What I did before Mindright was I was in action sports for a little over 15 years. I represented brands like Burton Snowboards in their sales and marketing channels as an independent contractor. I left that business in 2015 and I invested in a company called, Buff Bake which was protein snacks and protein cookies, nut butters and I came on board with them as part of that investment as the CEO and I helped them run that company for a few years until I was ready to try something new and had an idea and ended up launching this Mindright.Stephanie:So did you have the idea for Mindright right after Buff Bake or was there something in between there?Chris:It was something in between and it just evolved very quickly into what it is today.Stephanie:Okay. What was your original idea? And then what is it today?Chris:Vegan cookie dough.Stephanie:Well that sounds good. I dig that.Chris:It was okay. It wasn't great and that's why I kept it out of the vine and I think we'll probably get into it. But one of the things that dismissed the idea was it really for me, I was looking for something condition specific. Functional foods are really driving the category right now and it's all about condition specific. Foods that drive beauty from within, through collagen, immune support, sleep support.Chris:It's really how we came to Mindright. We started to see this trend in supplements and when you're looking for trends that are going to be shifting to food and beverage, you always start with supplements and you see this rise of adaptogens and nootropics and brain supplements and anti-aging and it's just skyrocketing growth in supplements. It was this idea of how do we support our lifestyle through our mindset, our long hours, our drive, our energy levels through ingredients that support cognitive function. And that's where we started was this idea of cognitive food support and I came to my partner with this idea, he absolutely loved it. At the time the working name was Feed Your Brain.Stephanie:Cool. I like that name.Chris:And it was just really focused on brain health.Stephanie:Do you have a background in this world? How would you even know? When I'm thinking about brain health, I'm like, "Feels like there's so many things. I should be doing facial or I should be doing this. I should be doing so many things." Did you have a background in this where you already knew this makes me feel good? Or did you have to learn all about it?Chris:No, I just knew I wasn't feeling good. I always feel this brain fog and slow and besides this fact that you just hit 40, things start to slow down a little bit and you're looking for ways to support your lifestyle and just keep your edge and just keep moving forward and you start researching and there's a lot of great information around brain health, mental wellbeing, nutrition and other things that support those functions.Stephanie:Okay. And so what were some of the ingredients that you started finding that you're like, "We need to have this in some kind of bar."Chris:It was like lion's mane, Gingko biloba, both of which didn't make the cut at the end.Stephanie:Oh, how come?Chris:Well this is where I was going was, as we started with Brain Health, my partner who is a very big advocate of testing and research pushed to really go out and survey a group around 350 people. And while cognitive function was important to them, what indexed the highest was, "Do you have foods and ingredients that help me feel good? Happy, good mood. I want to be focused and feeling good." And this theme of feel good, just kept popping up and popping up and we took a step back and it was indexed so high. Like, "Why don't we just lean into good mood?" We've got a set of ingredients. We've got some data behind some of the ingredients we're using to really support enhancing your mood, decreasing your stress and giving you energy. All the things you need to feel good. So we need to do it. And that's how Good Mood Superfood was born.Stephanie:Cool. And did you always know that it would turn into a bar or did you have other thoughts early on?Chris:We had many thoughts and we still have many thoughts. This was our way of really standing up the brand, getting a feel for our branding, our message, bars is just the starting point. We have a really dynamic innovation pipeline of other snacks, drink blends, hydration drink. Things that will help support other areas of brain health.Stephanie:Very cool. So let's talk a bit about your partner and how that working relationship is and how you even landed him as your partner.Chris:So I was introduced to Rob Dyrdek, legendary TV personality, former skateboard, a professional athlete. Rob has a show on MTV right now called Ridiculousness. I grew up watching his other shows, Rob & Big and Fantasy Factory, as many of us did.Stephanie:Rob & Big, that's a good show.Chris:It was amazing. So then we just look forward to every week watching. He's just such a character and dynamic human being. But what people don't know is he runs a really diverse, exciting venture creation studio. He refers to himself and the people around him as do or diers, people that are interested in investing in themselves, growing businesses from the idea stage to the exit. And he's invested in several brands, primarily at the startup stage. And when I came to him, I was in the transition period in my life. I didn't know why I was meeting him.Chris:I was going to go in and just introduce myself. And I brought Buff Bake with me just in case he was interested in investing because always looking for investors and he made me tell him my life story from the day I was born until the day I ended up sitting in the chair in front of him.Stephanie:Wow. I should have done that.Chris:It's not that interesting. But he really liked it. And I spent 55 of my 60 minutes talking about myself and then he's like, "Okay. So what's up with these cookies? What's up with this Buff Bake? He's like, "Okay. Those are really good. I like them but I really like you. If you have some ideas or you want to do something, come back and let's talk about it."Chris:I left and I got a call two weeks later from him, wanted me to come back again. Again, didn't really know why I was going there. He wanted to pitch me on some ideas. And it just flew over my head. I went home, I called his COO and I was like, "What's he looking for?" He wanted an idea from me. He wanted to work on something. So I had been in the background working on these cognitive ingredients, paired with superfoods and brought it back to him as a whole package. I came in with fully developed samples around bars and coffee creamers and bites to really articulate what this could look like. And he was so excited about the presentation. He just sealed the deal with me on the spot and we were off to the races.Stephanie:That's amazing. What does the partnership look like with him? How's he involved?Chris:He is very, very involved. He wants to be very involved in the creative process, but also through all the funding, the financial rounds, building the infrastructure of the company. He has built a really strong team around him. Managing the finance arm, managing the marketing project teams. So it's an extension of my team. We are true co-founders, he's very, very involved in the business and he and I are either working together on the daily basis or he and his team are fully integrated in.Stephanie:That's really cool. And it seems like once you get access to him and then you had his network, it brings in other investors as well.Chris:Yeah. So that's the next thing that happened. So we stand this thing up and we start to go out to bring in some strategic capital to help push things along. We started with some traditional resources and private equity and some strategics within the space. And then we started talking to his network a little bit and all of a sudden we saw how excited they were and one conversation led to the next, led to the next, the next thing you know it's Marcus Lemonus from the profits. Jonas was extremely excited about the project. He now sits on the board with myself and Rob. Joe brought his brothers on as well. Jordan McGraw, Travis Barker, Ken Roxanne. It's just this star-studded list of really great mindset celebrities and athletes. Very, very exciting.Stephanie:It seems like you have your own portfolio of influencers. You can get the word out there. While most people you're trying to even think about, "How do I even tap into one of those?" You've got this whole little Rolodex just working for you.Chris:Right. So it's exciting. I think that being able to have that leverage and that advantage really puts us in a unique position to tell the story.Stephanie:Awesome. So tell me a bit about, you said that you were getting samples when you were going to go and show him what you could do. What did that process look like? Because to me thinking about even making any kind of food and then getting the packaging and then getting ingredients that maybe some people aren't the most comfortable with. If you hear some of the words you'd be like, "Well, what is that like? Is that even safe?" Tell me what that process looked like to even find someone who could make the bar that you wanted to taste good and have all that ready for the sample day.Chris:It's funny. You start with the manufacturers. Every manufacturer has a food scientist, R&D, most of them do. Food scientists and R&D department. And most of the time, if they're excited about your project, they will help your R&D. It comes with strings attached and not always do you end up owning your IP, which is important if you're interested in exiting your company at some point, but you learn the process of what goes into R&D products.Chris:And I came in, you come in with a brief and your core tenants for, "These are the ingredients that I would like to use as superfoods. These are the outputs that we'd like to achieve, enhance mood, stress, energy. These are the functional ingredients we're thinking about." And then you work with the ingredient suppliers to understand efficacy and transparency around their ingredients. And you let these guys do their job and you like what you like and you don't when you don't. And I think we did about 13 rounds of this bar until we landed in a place that we felt really good about.Stephanie:That wasn't just you testing it or were there other people trying it?Chris:It was Rob and the entire team. His close team is a team of five.Stephanie:That is awesome. What kind of lessons did you learn when going through that process? Anything that you would maybe do different?Chris:Well, I'll tell you one thing. We tried to be everything but the kitchen sink. We wanted to be keto, we wanted to be paleo, we wanted to be zero sugar. We wanted to be everything. Vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and have functional ingredients that support incredible, feel, good vibes and decrease your stress. And we were realistic that not all of that was going to work and our guiding light really became taste. If it doesn't taste good, I don't care if it has all those things, it's just not going to work for us. So we planted a flag and it was about taste. And we want this thing that tastes good. And if it has five or six or seven grams of sugar, we use a coconut Palm sugar, which we felt really good about. It was therapeutic. It was like, "Okay, great. We don't have to use sugar, alcohol, or stevia or erythritol or anything. We're going to use coconut Palm sugar. It's a low-glycemic sugar. It tastes great. The bar still has 50% less sugar than an RXBAR or competitor. And we felt really great about that.Stephanie:That's awesome. How do you view the landscape right now? Because I know when I go into certain grocery stores, I'm like, "Wow, there's so many bars." There's the original type RXBARS but now it feels like there's so many offshoots. Everyone's trying to do lower sugar. Maybe not what you're doing, but how do you make sure that you're staying ahead of them and also differentiating yourself where people are like, "Oh, obviously we can see why they're different than all these other bars."Chris:I think again, it came down to taste, great amount of protein, our base values of, it is plant-based vegan, it is dairy free, it is protein packed and low sugar were really important to us. But I think we'll continue to stand out with what our functional message around supporting mood through these super foods and ingredients. And we are just sticking with that.Stephanie:How do you get in front of new people though? I'm thinking about back in the day, samples where you're like, "Oh, I would never have thought to buy that, but now I can see it's healthy for me and good." How do you approach that now trying to get in front of new people and have them try it for the first time?Chris:It's difficult, especially through a global pandemic of people at home and not having opportunities sample in the markets or elsewhere. And for us, it's just leaning into our influencers, our investment community, paid ads, really important. Finding unique ways to drive trial, pinpointing and targeting specific communities. It'd be really great to be everything to everyone but if we could just focus on this core group that's committed to their mindset. They're coaches, they're hustlers, they're the boss, they're the mom and they're focused on what it takes for them to be successful every day. We call them the happy hustlers. That's where we're starting. Our initial reaction was the right one. They're really resonating with the product. They're speaking about the product for us organically. And we're just going to continue to focus on that community right now. And then it'll just hopefully grow from there.Stephanie:It also seems like you have a really good idea around your social presence and how you want to present yourself. It's like a fun whimsical looking, at least your Instagram feed and it's not overly product driven, but it's more selling the lifestyle behind it which I really liked.Chris:Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's what's resonated the most is people are realizing that Mindright is a lifestyle. It's not just about the products. We want to support you beyond that. And as you'll see over the next couple months, we're really going to lean into what it takes to have a better mood, to put the work into your mental wellbeing and really drive home this good mood movement. And being approachable and fun, makes it just easier to pay attention and watch and fun and funny is part of feeling good. And that's the message that we want out there.Stephanie:It sounds like your content strategy you're about to ramp up around those areas. How are you going to keep it balanced between educational, which I feel like a lot of people need education around the ingredients and why they're added and how they need to be mixed together and then the other side around even outside of the product. Like you said, just good mood and how to feel happy and mindfulness and it's like a whole different business over there. How are you thinking about balancing that and connecting with the right audience?Chris:It's just that. It's balancing, trying different things. It's balancing being funny with incorporating lifestyle and people enjoying the product. You're going to just start to see more direct response and testimonials. We are looking to partner with therapy based apps and other entities that help make mental health and wellness really accessible. We're going to have our investment team and our influencers talking about the work that it takes to get Mindright. It's not just, this bar is not going to solve your problems, it's not. But if you focus on your nutrition and you incorporate things like the importance of sleep and getting exercise and some type of a meditation routine, all of these things combined bring you to that next place.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. It's not just try one thing and all of a sudden everything will be solved, like many things and there's no magic potion.Chris:I think that that's where other companies that are trying, mood or all of these other cognitive functional ingredients, they could fall short because they're making it just about that. And I think that we'll go along for the ride and we'll be there to support our customers along the way.Stephanie:That's great. So you just mentioned influencers. I'm going to go and I want to hear how you view working with influencers because we've had quite a few brands on the show and they talked about it. Some people, amazing experiences if you find the right person who is all in, it's not just sharing a quick message of like, "Here's my teeth whitener and it works great for me go buy it." Versus maybe the ones that are really in they're even part the product development. How do you view a good working relationship with influencers? And more than one, since you have many that you have to balance.Chris:I think for us, it's about being authentic. If it's not something you enjoy and you truly believe in it comes through. You see it and you feel it. And I think having our influencers part of our ambassador program, which we're just at the early stages of building out, is a really important part around building the authenticity of their message. Our influencer program is very small right now, we're still identifying how they're speaking about the brand and what are the best ways to do that. But what we've gotten so far comes from a really organic place. We haven't paid for any influencers yet. All organic because people are enjoying the product and sharing the message with their community.Stephanie:Are you sending them free samples or is it more your investors giving it to their friends who are other influencers probably. And then it's organically happening through that way?Chris:A little bit of both. We identified people that live within our community that we would like to target and say, "Hey, we'd love your feedback. No expectations. You don't need to post. We just ask you tell us how you enjoyed the product. How'd you feel? What do you think about the packaging?" And then it just happens organically.Stephanie:How do you view the longterm strategy around influencers? Because sometimes it feels like they'll have this excitement and a big blip where their network sees it. And then there's maybe diminishing returns and people are either hit over the head with it too much. Or like, "I bought it. It's good." Or the person's not as excited anymore as they were maybe in month one. How do you keep them engaged or be like, "Okay. We're kind of good for now."Chris:We see that fatigue all the time. And I think for us, it's the excitement around what's coming. It's creating community around the lifestyle and the future launch of our new products. The bar is here today. It might not be here in three years from now. It's about continuing to evolve and supporting our needs today.Stephanie:Makes sense. So tell me a bit more about this ambassador program that you're building.Chris:We're at the early stages where we're leaning into this mindset community from happy hustlers. We have three investors on the team that live and breathe in that space. And that's Chris and Lori Harder, their lifestyle coaches and then Lewis Howes who also has a podcast, The School of Greatness. And just really leaning into what they do and how they do it and their communities coming to us and we're setting them up and they're incentivized by product. One of the angles that we're working on right now is charity. When they post, we will support a soon to be identified a mental health charity with an investment.Stephanie:When they're posting about the bar or the company, something like that, then it's like, "Okay, that's a point towards this charity or effect."Chris:Exactly. Those are the early stages. We're still in development. It's still being worked out. We're less than two months old in the market, so we're close.Stephanie:Are there other ambassador programs that you look at where you're maybe taking some key learnings from where you're like, "I know this one works well and I want to implement some of those strategies into Mindright as well."Chris:Yes. A lot of them are custom built though. There's a lot of really great app solutions that work really well and incentivize through product or discount or payment. We want to try to be more organic. I've seen some great custom ones that are gamified, that built community around this excitement around this app itself and the message. So work in progress.Stephanie:That'd be cool to circle back and hear what you ended up building and how it's working and the results. So tell me about your distribution strategy and where you're thinking about selling. Are you on Amazon? Is it just your website and how do you think about where you actually want your bars to be sold right now?Chris:It's everything digitally native. So we are alive on our website getmindright.com. We're on Amazon. We're looking at a various array of subscription box companies. But the really big one right now is all of the delivery convenience guys. So this new evolution of convenience, prime is not good enough. It can't be there the next day. It needs to be there in 20 minutes. So we're looking at partnerships with goPuff, FastAF, Dot. We're in the process of vetting those guys out right now and seeing which one makes the most sense. And I think that can meet format. It's just growing and exploding right now. Through COVID people were forced to adapt to Amazon and delivery service and it's here to stay. It's here to stay. Those conveniences will never change.Stephanie:Are you worried about maybe your brand and the story not being told correctly when you're starting to have many outlets for your products going out and you can't fully control the messaging or?Chris:Yeah. I think that's why picking the right partner for these delivery services is key because we want to make sure that we have the ability to tell a story, whether it's this big or in a banner. It's really partnering with the right team to help make that happen. And then we have a lot of work to do on our end. And I think that our community will help push people to these services. Amazon, getmindright, goPuff, that's where we go and they'll really rely on on that. It's challenging.Stephanie:Yeah, no. Especially when you have so many different people you're vetting right now and thinking about all of the control that you could be losing but also all the access that you're going to be gaining. It's tricky. Because this is a commerce show, I want to hear about your ecommerce strategy around what's working. What do you think that you're doing on your website that maybe is unique and others haven't tried out yet or that you're like, "This is a good tip that more people need to know about."Chris:I think it being less templated and more just an experience where it just feels fun. It makes you dive a little bit deeper to find out what's going on. What works for some people doesn't always work for others and I think this format is working well for us right now.Stephanie:Do you find yourself being able to look back at maybe your experiences at Burton and other places and pulling some lessons from there? Or is it such a different market that you're like, "That probably wouldn't work for this product."Chris:I think it's very similar. I think at the end of the day, you're selling an item that you're passionate and excited about and what is the best way to share that with your friends or your customers? It's very similar in that sense.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. So where do you guys want to be in one to three years? What are you hoping to achieve?Chris:We're looking to achieve this just amazing platform of good mood foods that span across really great retailers, Whole Foods, all the natural channels. It would be really great to see it everywhere obviously, but this really accessible approach to foods that help support your mood.Stephanie:Have you started talking to Whole Foods and other retailers like that?Chris:We've had some early conversations, but we really want to stay firm on this digitally native approach. I think that one thing that I'll add is testing is worth spending money on. Just test landing pages, AB testing, digital testing, customer testing. It has opened my eyes to this completely different world. And it is a true science. And when you understand that word that works, that picture that works, that landing page that just converted, it's a science. And then you can continue to really invest towards those things that are working because you know there's turn on that.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. What is a finding that maybe came out of some of those tests where you were like, "We would have never changed this, changed the product, change the website, but now that so many people are saying this, we're definitely moving forward with that.Chris:I would go back to the beginning where Rob and I, Mindright. There was two different names before Mindright. And now I look back, I'm like, "Neither of those would have worked. Mindright should have always been number one." We tested Mindright. Mindright worked really well but We wanted to brand the ingredients themselves. And we were like the unstoppable blend. We're unstoppable. This mentality of you cannot be stopped, masculine. And we were so sure of it and it failed miserably.Stephanie:They were like, "I don't like that."Chris:No, no. So now at the happy brain blend.Stephanie:That makes me feel happy. That's more on brand.Chris:Yeah. And then from that moment on we're like, "That's our guiding light." It makes me feel happy. Does it? Yes Or no. Okay. It's in.Stephanie:And how are you doing these tests? How are you going about trying to get this feedback? Are they surveys or what are you all doing behind the scenes?Chris:Yeah. Surveys. Right now, we've moved to more surveys. We're surveying around our current database of growing email subscriptions and then we're going to start doing some stuff through Instagram, social media. But the original testing went through a market research firm.Stephanie:All right. Well, let's shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Chris:No.Stephanie:Nope. Be right back. Need to go get some more tea. Get In the right mood here. All right. Well, we will move on anyways. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Chris:Oh my gosh. My podcast would be about thinking big. My whole life I never thought big. I thought pretty small and I put roadblocks up in front of myself and I think that now as I sit on a board with Rob Dyrdek and Joe Jonas, literally anything is possible and it would be about stories and ways to help open up your mind to anything is really possible. And I think as cheesy as that sounds, it really is. And I feel like here in my home with my kids and now that we're talking about getting Mindright and this positive growth mindset and to hear them talking about it, it's a real thing. I don't have a title yet. I'll let you name the podcast.Stephanie:There you go. I'll help you name it. Who would you bring on for your first guest?Chris:I bring in Rob. He is an amazing person to talk to about all of this stuff. His mindset is just next level with what he does to keep his energy and his success where it is. It's remarkable.Stephanie:Awesome. What does your mindfulness practice look like?Chris:I'm sorry.Stephanie:What does your mindfulness practice look like? How do you stay centered and balanced and not getting pulled everywhere when doing a startup?Chris:I think for me, I committed to getting up early every morning. I have to be up by 5:00,5:15 or else I can't do the things that I want to do for myself, which is exercise or just have a moment of meditation. Whether it's a minute or five minutes or 20 minutes. I try to do that every morning. I have four kids so life is really hard sometimes. Here they are.Stephanie:I feel that.Chris:So it's get up early, it's a few minutes of meditating and just understanding where I'm at and being really grateful for that. Exercise, 30 minutes. That is my non-negotiable. I have to get 30 minutes in, if I don't my day is just off and once in a blue moon we have a sauna that was gifted to us by-Stephanie:Wow.Chris:It was miracle. That's another podcast.Stephanie:Yeah. Okay. I want that friend. Gift me a sauna.Chris:It was some local guy just giving it away. He was moving.Stephanie:What area of California do you live in because I don't know about many local areas being like, "Here's a sauna. Do you want ice staff as well?"Chris:I'm on the hunt for one of those. So, if you know one. I started fasting, so I intermittent fast. I don't eat my first meal until 12:00 or 1:00. And I found it's really helped with inflammation and energy and I feel great. I also stop thinking through COVID I just-Stephanie:So impressive.Chris:30 days and then you felt great and 60 days, I'm like, "Wow, I feel awesome." And it just stuck.Stephanie:All right. Last question. Two more questions. What's one thing that you don't understand today that you wish you did?Chris:What don't I understand. I don't understand a lot of things let's be honest.Stephanie:Good answer. Just everything. Lots of things.Chris:No. I think for me, part of the reason why we're starting digitally native is almost a personal challenge to myself. I know retail really well, I know relationships, building brands, building distribution, working with brokers. I don't understand digital that well. And it can be frustrating at times because the learning curve is pretty steep and it's always changing every day because you're learning something new and I think digital marketing I don't know very well.Stephanie:Well, you'll be learning it with this company. So that's great.Chris:It'd be great to hire the right people to help you.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. 1,000% to that one. All right. And then the last one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Chris:I think it's these convenience delivery guys. I think they're going to change the game for a lot of people. FastAF is a really good example of what's happening with commerce outside of food and beverage, because they're delivering unique gifts. You need a gift and you're going to a party in an hour, they'll be there in 20 minutes with this beautiful candle or gift item which is just changing the way that we do everything.Stephanie:Yeah. Oh, I completely agree. All right. Well, this has been such a blast. I feel like my mind is really in the right place now after this interview. Where can people find out more about you and Mindright?Chris:Check us out at getmindright.com or on Amazon.Stephanie:All right. Cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show.Chris:I really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Some brands are lucky enough to have a built-in audience of millions, while others need to develop an audience from scratch. Chris Mainenti has been on both sides of the coin and he knows that in either situation, once you have a base of potential customers paying attention to you, the next challenge is converting those browsers to buyers. Chris is the Director of Commerce Strategy at Discovery, Inc. where he is helping turn the millions of viewers who tune into Discovery’s channels such as HGTV, TLC, Food Network and more, into customers who buy across various platforms. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Chris explains how he put his history of building audiences at previous companies to work at Discovery — including some tips for young companies on how to utilize newsletters. And he discusses how to use the data you collect as a starting point for creating a more personalized, one-to-one relationship with your audience on various platforms. Plus, he looks into the future to predict how shoppable experiences will be made possible with universal add-to-cart and buy-now options. Main Takeaways:Developing Your Audience: Audience development goes beyond marketing. When you are building your audience, you have to know who you are as a brand and understand the audience you have and want to bring in, and what they want and need. In the early days of a brand, certain audience development strategies work better than others, including tapping into the power of newsletters.Lights, Camera, Take Action: Every company is collecting immeasurable amounts of data, which then needs to be sorted, analyzed and acted on. But the actions you take should be nuanced and applicable to the specific needs of specific audiences. For example, it would be wrong to lump together all of the women in your audience because a woman who is exploring your dot-com presence is likely looking for something different than a woman that is scanning a QR code on their TV. Those segments of women shop differently, and therefore should be approached in unique ways after the data tells you what they each want.Dreams of a Universal Cart Experience: Many believe the future of ecommerce revolves around the development of a universal cart experience. Every business wants to create shoppable moments and engage with customers across many different platforms. But getting to this nirvana means you also have to remove all the friction points.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles co-founder of mission.org. Our guest today is Chris Mainenti, the director of commerce strategy at Discovery Inc. Chris, welcome to the show.Chris:Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate you having me on and talking all things commerce here in the current climate that we're in.Stephanie:Yeah. I am very excited to have you guys on. I was just thinking about how long Discovery channel, and all the other channels, HGTV, and Food Network and Travel Channel have been in my life and with that, I want to hear a little bit about your role at Discovery. I mean, it seems like there's so much going on, so many digital portfolios that you guys have over there, and I think just a lot behind the scenes that an average consumer wouldn't even know. So, I'd love to hear what you're up to at Discovery. What is your day-to-day look like?Chris:Sure. So, I would say, first and foremost, for commerce specifically in the digital media space, we're probably slightly different than a lot of others. We're really multifaceted in terms of how we work, and who we work with across the org. Obviously, like you said, Discovery is huge, has a ton of major, major worldwide brands. So, we actually sit on the portfolio wide level with our lifestyle brands, and we're really in the weeds with them on the day-to-day basis. And, that really starts with, obviously, our editorial teams. That's our bread and butter, that's our voice and our authority in this space. So again, that's really where we begin, and that's obviously where we're doing our content output, and producing all of this great shopping content for our different audiences, and again pulling our experts from all of these different brands to come together.Chris:So again, folks are really getting the full spectrum of expertise in all of these different categories. And from there, it just really starts branching out into other groups. So, we work heavily with our ad sales and branded content teams, where we work on much larger partnerships and deeper integrations which we can talk about today as well. We have a licensing team, where we work on licensed products, and we take our learnings that we're seeing on our shopping content on a day-to-day basis, and analyze that, and then speak with licensing to see where there may be some room to actually create a new line with one of our partners.Chris:We also, believe it or not, and I know you don't know this, we have a video games team at Discovery, and we work closely with them as well on trying to find those shoppable moments, and again bringing our brand and our voice into those games when they're being built. So again, we're always serving the reader no matter who or where they are, and again pivoting as necessary. So, those are just a few groups, and obviously our marketing and ops, and audience development teams were heavily embedded with as well when it comes to promotion.Chris:So again, there are just, I would say, a lot of areas that we focus on. I know in the beginning it was always all about, commerce is part of diversifying your revenue streams at a digital club. But, we see it more as now, we're trying to diversify our commerce stream into all of these other areas. So again, a lot of exciting stuff has already happened, and we're working on some cool stuff too as we head into next year. So, a lot of exciting stuff in an area that's obviously blowing up for a variety of reasons.Stephanie:That's a lot going on there. It's actually really interesting because you just mentioned video games, and I just did a recap episode with one of my coworkers for the first 50 episodes of this show, and the one thing I was bringing up was like, "I think there's a big opportunity in having shoppable moments in these worlds or video games." And, we were mentioning Unreal and Epic Games specifically, that I hadn't really seen that yet. So, it's interesting that you guys are starting to explore that arena, because it feels like that's something of the future, but it's needed, and that's where everything's headed.Chris:Yeah. And again, I can't stress enough. I mean, our portfolio is just so suited for so many of these different, avenues that we could always find something where, again, we're not being gimmicky just to say we're there. This is our bread and butter, and we're making sure that we stick to our tried and blue, into who we are, and not shy off too much, and again just try to say, "We did something here or there." Really making sure we're always serving our audiences and giving them what they want on the platforms they want.Stephanie:Yeah. Which I think that's a really good jumping off point, then because that was actually my one biggest question I had of how do you strategically think about what an audience wants without disrupting the content? I mean, it seems so tricky, because you see a lot of shows, and whatever it may be where you might have product placement in a show or a movie, but it might not actually uplift sales, because it wasn't done correctly. Where I was also just talking about the Netflix original, the organizing show where they partnered with the container store, and how they had an instant, I think was a 17% uplift in sales after that show aired. That worked, and many others don't. So, how do you guys think about making those shoppable moments, and actually having it work?Chris:Sure. First and foremost, I think, you have to be honest and say, "Look, not everything is going to hit." And honestly, it's not always meant to always hit. So, I think we go into that, first being real with the current situation, and understanding not everyone is going to want every single thing. We're always talking about integrating, promoting, so on and so forth. So, I would say that's first. Secondly, again, we start with, what's our expertise? What do we believe in? And, what do we want to showcase to our various audiences across all of these different platforms? And then, from there is when we start to really start getting down to the nuances.Chris:And look, we have created what we dub internally as the commerce hub, where we're bringing in data feeds from all different platforms, our affiliate networks, our in-house reporting platforms, social, so on and so forth, bringing that all together. And again, understanding, what are people consuming? And, what is their mindset when they're on social, versus linear, versus a DTC, or our dot-coms. And, really starting to look and pull out trends from that. I always like to say I prefer the term data influenced versus data driven, because you can't just take a dashboard of data, and sort in descending or ascending order, and say, "Okay. Whatever is at the top or bottom, do or don't do." And, call it a day.Chris:We focus much more heavily on insights, and use that data as a jumping off point, but then do very, very deep analysis, and pull actionable insights out of that for all of our different brands and teams for when they're creating new content, or when we're optimizing old content. Again, wherever that is. And then, I think lastly with that comes, how do we visualize that to the audience. On digital.com, is it more about, again, really simple to read, simple call to actions to buy items. Again, on linear, what is that? A QR code experience? Is it some type of more deeper integration with a smart TV company on our TV E experiences? Is it more deeply integrated where you can actually tap to purchase within the app? So on and so forth.Chris:So again, there's just a lot of things that we're looking at. We never make it cut and dry, that's probably because personally I don't think anything is ever cut and dry, especially this space and shopping behaviors across, not only brands but the platforms those brands are on, and that's how we look at it. I know that's a lot, and that sounds a bit crazy, but we do really pride ourselves on, again, using these things as a jumping off point and then really diving in deep and making sure that we're serving our audiences, again, where they like to consume this content.Stephanie:Got it. Yeah. It sounds like everything is very custom, and every channel and project you start from scratch where you start figuring out what your audience might like. But, do you have any internal formulas where you're like, "Well, we always follow this in the beginning." and then, it goes crazy after that, because we find other things out. Is there anything that's similar among all the campaigns or projects that you're working on, at least from a starting point?Chris:Yeah. I think, honestly, it's probably not surprising whenever you're talking about items on sale, or whenever we're talking about certain merchants, or price points, or categories, like organizing and cleaning is always up there for us. We know very specific furniture categories that do very well for us. So, we do have our basic what we call playbooks that we start off with, but like you said, we still are always constantly learning and pivoting as necessary. I think a perfect example is in the beginning of the year, I don't think anyone in this world saw what was coming, so we were doing our thing, and then when everything started to unfold, we got together and we had to pivot. And again, the good thing about Discovery's brands is, again, we are so widespread in terms of the categories that we're experts in, that we were able to easily pivot and, again, make sure we're giving our audiences what they need at that moment.Stephanie:Do you see more companies starting to shift? Like media companies turning into ecommerce companies, and ecommerce companies turning into media companies. I've heard that saying quite a bit, especially over the past six months, but it feels like you guys have been there for a while. Do you see other companies looking to you for maybe best practices of like, "How do I make this shift?" Or, "Should I make this shift?"Chris:100%. I think, the beauty in that is that we can coexist and really do things that benefit each of us. I don't think this is an either, we succeed or they succeeded. This is, I think a space where we can coexist. The way I always like to frame this when I'm talking to our merchant partners, and talking internally, is we're really here to humanize the star review. When you come to us, you're not just going to see, again, this is a four out of five, or this is a five star, item, and that's it from the random ecosystem of the internet. We are heavily focused on saying, "Look, here are the things we recommend, and why." And, I think that's where our partners can really leverage us, and where you're really seeing us shine. Again, we don't have to just throw a bunch of random stuff out there and hope for the best.Chris:Again, given our brands and our standing in this space, we can really leverage our expertise and authority there when growing this portfolio with all of our partners. To be honest with you the thing that drove me to Discovery the most was, "Wow, these are huge brands, with huge audiences, and huge respect. Now, we just got to tie all of that together, and go from the moment of inspiration to action." And then again, that's what we've been working on.Stephanie:That's really cool. With all the data that you were mentioning earlier, since you joined have you seen any changes in consumer shopping behavior?Chris:So, yes. Obviously, the biggest one occurring this year, and that was with online grocery. I think it's no surprise that it's been building up now for a year or two in terms of mainstream, but it never really caught on. It's only a five to 10% of folks are really engaging and entertaining the online grocery space. But then again, obviously, earlier in the year when things started to shut down, and people were uneasy about going out, we did see huge spikes in that space, obviously, on our FoodNetwork.com site. And, I would say that continued for a bit, and did peter out a bit recent months which, again, is obviously expected. So, I think that's probably one of the big ones.Chris:The other thing that we have seen, not so much in terms of major shifts in shopping behaviors, just more increased sales in categories that we already know are performing. So, organizing and cleaning is always been a winner for us, and then as the months went on, we've just seen it doing better for us. I think we do a lot of buying guides where we talk about the best cast iron skillets on Food Network, or the best humidifiers on HGTV. We started to see those things gain more and more traction as we went, and we're attributing some of that to us really getting our audience to trust us, and now know that they can come to us as a trusted resource to really be a personal shopper for them.Chris:And again, we've seen that across the board in all of our main categories. The only other thing I'll say in terms of, not only, I wouldn't say shifts in behaviors, but just something else we've pulled out from the data is that, everyone loves a good deal and good price points, but our audience is willing to spend more, especially when those items are either offered at a discounted rate for a holiday or something, or if we've worked with the merchant to get an exclusive discount for our audience, so we have also seen uptakes in that as well. But again, holistically, we haven't seen any huge shifts outside of, like I said, the online grocery, which again is expected given the situation we've been in.Stephanie:Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I saw for the Food Network, I think you had a subscription platform and you partnered with Amazon. Was that something that was already in the works, or did that get sped up once everything was happening with COVID?Chris:Yeah. So, that was already in the works with our DTC group, and for folks who don't know that's our subscription platform on the Food Network side that we call internally FNK, because it's just easier. And yes, that was in the works, and again we're working more and more in getting that to more and more folks who are really looking to get more classes, get more recipes, just be more intimate with our brand. Stephanie:Yeah. It looked very cool. I was on there looking around at, "Oh, you can follow these chefs and have cooking classes with them, and then you can tell your Amazon Echo to order it for you the exact things you need." And, it looked like it would be really fun to engage with that.Chris:Exactly. It goes back to that 360 approach that we have really been focused on, when it comes to our shopping portfolio.Stephanie:Yeah, that's very fun. So, you've talked a lot about partnerships where you've touched on a bit. But, tell me a little about what does a partnership look like from beginning to end? What does that process look like when you're finding a partner, figuring out how to actually strategically partner with them in a way that benefits both parties? What does it look like behind the scenes?Chris:Sure. So, I think there's really two paths there, there's the partnership stuff that we handle directly with merchants through affiliate networks, and so on and so forth. And, for that we do a lot of research on our end, again we already know what type of product hits, what type of merchants hit. So, one thing we do is take that and then say, "Okay. What are similar merchants in this space?" And then, we'll reach out and discuss the opportunity of working together on that front. And then I would say, on the other side, bigger picture stuff is, again, we're heavily embedded with our ad sales team on much larger partnerships.Chris:And, I think a great example of that is our shop the look campaign with Wayfair, which is a deep integration that spans across linear and digital that, again, was really spearheaded by our sales team that we then came in and assisted with. But, for folks who don't know, basically what this is, when you go to any of our photo inspo on hgtv.com, you'll see a little flyout of all the products within the image that are shoppable on Wayfair.com. And obviously, that's not just a basic integration that you just wake up one day and do. So for that, we came together and we've said, again, "What can we do that is going to benefit both of us, that's going to serve our audiences for the long run, and really make a successful integration here?" So again, that's what turned into shop the look.Chris:It's one of our best partnerships that we have across our dot-coms right now, and it's super successful, our audience loves it. And again, I think It's always starting with, "Well, what is the goal? And, what do we want to achieve from this?" I think sometimes people get too focused on, "What looks cool?" And like, "Let's just do that." We wanted to really focus on, "Well, what's the goal here?" And, what do we think we can create that's actually going, again, to help our audiences that come to hgtv.com be inspired and feel comfortable, making purchases based off of what they're seeing.Chris:So, that's really how we approach these, we're super particular about who we work with, and what that looks like. You mentioned the Amazon partnership, we have a really strong relationship with them as well. And for us, again, it's always looking at the brand and our audiences first and saying, "What makes the most sense for them?" And then, that's when we start peeling the layers here, and figuring out what are those experiences that we could bring to them on different platforms.Stephanie:Yeah. I think that's really smart. Like you said, not to just do something because it looks cool or seems cool, but actually do something that you know the audience will like, and will convert into sales to also help the partner. What are some of the success metrics for the shop the look campaign for example? What did you go into hoping to achieve when you set up that partnership? Is it affiliate based, or what do you guys look for and be like, "Oh, this is a successful campaign versus the previous ones that were maybe okay, or good."?Chris:Yep. So, I think just simply put it, consumption and sales are the big ones. Consumption being, are we seeing more and more folks coming to these different integrations across our platform, and then again how are they translating into sales? Looking at things like, "Okay, so we are getting them to Wayfair.com, but once they're on Wayfair.com what are they doing?" So obviously again, looking at conversions, average order value, so on and so forth. Again, just to really gauge what these audiences are looking like, as the days, weeks, and months go by. I would say, one of the things that we were looking for, especially as COVID first hit was, "Are we seeing an increase, a decrease? What are we seeing in terms of shopping behaviors across our platform?" And again, the metrics we looked at for that was, obviously, click through rates, conversion rates, average order value. Because we even saw in some instances where experiences weren't driving as many views or clicks, but the average order value was much higher.Chris:And again, just goes to show that our audience is a very qualified audience that trusts us, and is willing to spend with us. So, we try to pull out all of these different metrics. I think one of the things with commerce that is either for better or worse, is that you can't just look at one metric and just live and die by that number. So again, that's why we have a handful. And look, we also pivot based on what that platform is, what the experience is, who the partner is, so on and so forth. So, we don't have a one size fits all solution, again, that was done by design. And, that's how we approach these things. And again, just making sure that we stay true to who we are, and we're benefiting everyone involved.Stephanie:Got it. How do you keep track of, if there's a TV viewer who's watching HGTV, and then you're trying to send them to maybe Wayfair to shop that look like, what are the best practices with converting those people, but also keeping track of them in a way that's not maybe creates friction? Are you telling them, "Go visit this URL."? Or how do you go about that?Chris:Yeah. So, totally right. I think, obviously, the most common ways of driving from linear to digital is the QR code experience. And, we're actually working on some of those solutions as we speak and trying to understand, again, what will it take to bring more linear folks from TV down to digital, and like you said, make this a frictionless seamless experience? So again, is that as simple as a QR code, or again is this more about a stronger deeper integration that's a bit more sophisticated and partnering up with folks who can actually understand what is on screen at any moment, and then surface that product on screen.Chris:Again, if you have a smart TV and allowing folks to enjoy that experience, or again, when it comes to TV E we have our go apps that you could log into with your cable subscription. And again, obviously, it could be more sophisticated on your mobile device. So, what does that look like? Is it again, while you're watching it at minute three or whatever, five minutes in, do you surface what is currently being seen in the screen and saying, "Look, shop this room?" And, what do you do from that point down to the device. Can it be as simple as just a tap to buy, or do you have to tap and then open up a new browser window? What do those integrations look like? Again, ultimately trying to find the most frictionless experience. So, I think we're still experimenting with that. I don't think anyone in this space has really nailed that down in terms of what is shoppable TV, or just shoppable video in general? And again, how do we go beyond what just looks cool and turn that into actionable?Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, I think creating a frictionless experience is key, and there's a lot of room for innovation in that area. I'm even thinking about just Instagram, where I'll find a blogger I like and I really like her outfit, and then it's like, "Okay. Well, now go to the link in my bio." And then, that's going to open a LIKEtoKNOW.it app, and then maybe you'll be able to find the outfit. But at that point, it's probably just on the home screen if that new app. And, it just feels like there's so many places for a customer to drop. I guess I was just really eager to look at that outfit, so I stuck with it. But any other time, I probably would been like, "Oh, that's too much work." It seems like there's just a lot of room for innovation around this shoppable moments, whether it's TV, social, video, audio, anything.Chris:Yeah. I mean, I think you nailed it right there. I think Instagram is a perfect example, and that's a platform we're looking at as we speak, and we have some ideas around that as well. Because like you said, our goal here is to, how do we cut out all of these extra steps that are unnatural? Normally, when you see a product you like, you want to be able to say, "Okay. Great. Let me buy that." Not let me go to a bio, let me click this link, let me wait for this page to load, let me do that checkout experience is completely different from the platform I was just on. And then obviously, you're playing around with browser settings and everything else.Chris:So, I think you're spot on, and again that's something we're heavily focused on, again, literally as we speak. And, what does a more integrated Instagram shopping experience look like for Discovery and our partners? So, there's going to be more to come on that soon. But, we are thinking about that, and trying to find, again, these ways to make it as frictionless and seamless as possible. Again, no matter where our audience is consuming our content.Stephanie:Yeah. Well, it seems like if anyone can figure it out, it would be all because it's not like you're trying to put your products on someone else's show, or having to utilize someone else's platform. You have your own platform, you have your own shows, you can build new shows, and try out different ways to influence. There's shopping behaviors. That seems like there's just a ton of opportunity for you to experiment with everything that you all have.Chris:Yeah. No. A 100%, and those are these ad conversations we're having with a lot of our partners as well, and understanding from their world how they see it, and then bringing our world into that, and marrying that together, again, so we can coexist here, and at the end of the day just create a better experience for our viewers.Stephanie:Yep. Love that. So, what are some of your favorite platforms that you guys are experimenting with right now? You said, you were looking into Instagram, but what's really performing for you, and what are some of the more moonshot platforms that you're trying out, and you think it will be good, but you're not so sure?Chris:Sure. Yeah. I mean, obviously, the bread and butter is our shopping content on our dot-coms, those are our top performers. But, I will say some of the more areas of interest, again we already spoke about Instagram. But, another one where we are seeing some really good traction, believe or not, is in the Apple News space, most notably on Food Network. We're getting a lot of traction on that platform, and seeing what our audiences are resonating with the most on Apple News, which I again I know it maybe a shock to some folks, but I think-Stephanie:Yeah. So, tell you more about that. I mean, I have an Apple phone, but I have not opened up Apple News probably since I got the phone, so tell me more about, what are you guys doing there?Chris:Sure. Yep.Stephanie:Because you're the first person who said this.Chris:Okay. All right. Again, understood I know that's not always the first thing that jumps into someone's mind when you're talking about commerce, and lifestyle brands, especially because they name Apple News. But again, I know you don't really use it, but again this is just the basic free version that's included with your device when you get it. And again, we're syndicating our day-to-day content onto that platform. And, we've built really strong audiences across Apple News. And again, it's a similar experience to our dot-coms, just slightly different because it has to fit obviously the specs of the Apple News platform. But again, we just have seen some really strong successes in different areas, again most notably in the buying guide space, or sales events that are happening, and dabbling with pushing notifications for that.Chris:Obviously, with some of the recent shopping events that occurred, we built a push notification strategy around that as well, and it did really well for us. So again, I think that's one of those ones that is also intriguing to us. But I think, again, the high level, we really are trying to be everywhere it makes sense, but also really tailoring our content and strategy based on what that platform is. So, for some of the stuff that's working on Apple News may not make sense for Instagram or vice versa, so on and so forth. So I think, again, those are two areas. And I would say, the last thing that we're really, or me personally is really intrigued by, is this universal cart experience/straight to cart experience that more and more folks are dabbling with. There's a handful of platforms out there that can help publishers do this.Chris:And for folks who aren't familiar with this, it's basically saying, if someone comes to HGTV, or FoodNetwork.com, or tlc.com, and they see an item they like on there, instead of saying, "Buy now on X merchant site." And getting thrown off to that merchant, you could hit buy now, or add to cart, and you could actually check out within our platform, which I think is definitely going to be a big piece of the puzzle for the future of commerce on digital publishers. I think the big question will just be adoption, and then what does that look like. I think, again, Discovery is in a perfect position for this, because folks are already coming to us for this expertise, and know and love our brands already. So, there won't be a lot of convincing in terms of like, "It's okay to check out with us as well."Chris:But again, we're anticipating some shopping behavior adoptions that are going to occur during that process. But again, I think that's an area where you really start to open up a lot of new doors here when it comes to shopping for digital media sites. And, I think that's when it gets even more exciting for deeper integrations with Instagram shopping for example.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, I love that. I mean, I'm excited to look into the Apple News more. And, I was just intrigued by that, because I like hearing things that others have not said yet. Because I'm like, "Oh, that means there could be opportunity there if you know how to work with the platform." Especially, if you can set up a push notifications. That's huge to make it in front of Apple users. And then yeah, I completely agree about the being able to shop instantly from a page. We just had the CEO of Fast on, Domm. And, I thought it was really interesting how he was talking about how every website should have buy now buttons under every single individual products, and he went into the whole thing of, "You actually will have higher conversions." Because of course, I was like, "Well, then you have to get past the minimum shipping amounts, and maybe higher order values, if you let me add stuff to a cart." And he said, "Based on everything they've seen, people will buy more if they can buy it instantly." And, it'll batch it in the background and ship it out after the fact, all together. So-Chris:Yeah.Stephanie:... I think you said it.Chris:Yeah. Convenience is key. I mean, everyone likes convenience, and again that's our hypothesis as well here, that we do plan to see increased conversions by building a more intimate shopping experience across our dot-coms with a lot of our partners.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. So, the one big topic I also want to touch on was about audience development. So, when you guys, you have these huge audiences that you can tap into, but for especially a smaller brand, I want to hear how you all think about building that audience to then eventually being able to sell some products to them as well. What does that process look like? And, how can a new brand do that?Chris:Sure. So, I think first and foremost, I think it's important to understand what is audience development as it relates to your brand and organization. I think the biggest misconception with the term audience development is, "Oh, yeah, it's just another word for marketing." But it's not, and this has been written about it as well. And, I think the easiest way to think about this just in a very basic form is, marketing is more about how you want to look to the world as you bring those audiences in initially. More on the branding side of things, whereas dev is now like, "Okay. So, who are we to the world?" And, really drilling down on understanding those audiences that were brought in and who they are, and then building those audiences through different engagement tactics and community tactics.Chris:So, I think that's always a good place to start, to understand how those two worlds kind of then meet. And then once that happens, to answer your specific question, again start with understanding who your audiences are, and where they are. I think sometimes and probably not so much now, but in the past when I was first getting into this space, I think a lot of people just thought that, "Well, content is content. It could be put anywhere, and it's going to work the same way everywhere. Obviously not the case, even more so for shopping content, and behaviors. So, it's really, again, drilling down and pulling out insights based on, "Okay. Who is my Facebook audience? Who is my newsletter audience? Who is my Apple News audience?Chris:And, really starting there, and once you understand high level who they are, what they like, what they're consuming. More specifically when you talk about newsletters, what type of keywords are working to increase open rates, and so on and so forth, then you could start drilling down on the specifics. Saying like, "Okay. High level, here are the different topics and content archetypes that are working, now how do we build out an editorial calendar with that in mind." Again, with the understanding that we're not just going to set this and forget this across the board. What this looks like in newsletters is going to be slightly different than how we're positioning it on Facebook for example, and so on and so forth. So, I really think that's the key right there, and using data to your advantage and saying, "Okay. Well, here's all the different metrics that we're currently compiling, which ones can we look at, and pull from to better understand what these audiences are coming to us for." And again, working with your editorial teams, and the branding teams to bring that all together and say, "Okay. Now here's the plan for output."Stephanie:Yep. Got it. So, if you don't have an audience, and you're starting really from scratch, where would you start? Because I read quite a few articles, maybe from your past life at other companies about you increasing conversion rates by 60%, through maybe newsletters or increasing newsletter subscriptions? Is that maybe a place that you would start? Or where would you recommend someone brand new, who's like, "I don't really have an audience. I have five followers on Instagram."? What's the best way to acquire an audience and then keep them around to build it?Chris:Yeah. So I would say, if we're talking about limited resources and funding, I do think newsletters are a great place to start. And that's really because, it gives you an opportunity to have this one-on-one intimate relationship with the folks on the other side that for the most part you're not having to be held against what the algorithm is going to decide to show at any given day. Obviously, you have to worry about, spam and junk mail and things like that. But for the most part, if you're running a really clean newsletter list or lists, you don't have to worry about that so much. So, I do think, starting in the newsletter space is a really low budget, friendly way to start growing audiences, and it's really great to use as a gut check to see what is resonating. You could look at your open rates, you could look at your click to open rates.Chris:Again, you can monitor what the churn is and stop to see if what you're producing is causing people to drop off for good, so on and so forth. So I do think, for publishers where it makes sense that is a great place to start. You can obviously acquire new users through a bunch of different audience development tactics, whether it's on site widgets or modals, or do some small paid spend to try to bring folks in, and do the sweepstake partnerships as well. Again, obviously I'm a little biased, just because that is part of my background. But again, over the years, newsletters, again, I know they're not the sexiest platform to talk about, but they have been the most consistent in terms of performance and really bringing your most loyal and engaged users from that platform.Stephanie:Yeah, I completely agree. And, you also get access to quite a bit of data that you don't on other platforms, and if you can figure out how to properly engage with them, you could have newsletter subscribers for years to come, which is everyone's goal.Chris:100%. Yeah. And, I think even to take that one step further, you could even start to get more and more personalized where you get to a point where you're launching a newsletter to half a million people, and no two newsletters are alike because it's all based on past user behaviors that you were seeing within email and the dot-com, and again adjusting that based on different predictive intelligence tools. So again, I think 100% there's a lot there, and if done correctly, and go a long way. I mean look, this has been tried and true in the space. We see a lot of folks who start there, we're even seeing in the news media space a lot of journalists, and editors, and things like that backing off from the larger brands, and going this newsletter route to get their word and opinion out. So yeah, I think email is here to stay, and it's going to be a huge piece of the puzzle moving forward.Stephanie:Yep. I agree. So, you've been in the media world for a while, I think I saw at least back to 2012, maybe even before then.Chris:Yeah.Stephanie:I went as far as I could on your LinkedIn, I think it cut off.Chris:No, you got it. Yeah. I have been in media basically since the day I got out of college. So-Stephanie:Okay. Well, this is the perfect question for you then. What do you think the future of online commerce in media look like? Maybe in 2025 or 2030, what does that world look like?Chris:Yeah. So, I think it's going to be an extension of what we talked about a little earlier about this universal cart experience, and turning digital publishers into this space where audiences can come and also feel comfortable making those purchases. And again, not being bounced off to third party sites, and really being able to start building an even stronger shopping relationship with your audiences, because again with a universal cart experience, also comes a lot more first party data where you could, again, focus on more one-to-one relationships with your audiences, again, specifically in the shopping space, which I think is key.Chris:And, I don't foresee a place where merchants are going to have a huge problem with this, because, again, you're just helping to legitimize their product. Like your previous guest said about increased conversions. I think that's another huge piece of this puzzle. So again, it's really just now, again, bringing this all together, this whole 360 approach and saying, "Look, you're not just coming to us for flat inspirational content, you're now coming to us for the inspiration, and the ability to take action immediately." Again, versus being bounced off to one, two, three other platforms depending on which platform you're on, like your experience with Instagram.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, I love that answer. Really good. So, now that we're talking a little bit about the future, what do you not understand today that you wish you did?Chris:What do I not understand today that I wish I did? That's a that's a good question. So, as it relates to commerce?Stephanie:Yep. Or the world, where you're like, "I really just wish I knew more about this." But yeah, it could be a commerce one, that would be cool too.Chris:Sure. I would say, I think not so much about not understanding this, but more not understanding why it's not better. And, that goes back to, I would probably say, affiliate data, and what that data looks like, and what partners have access to, or don't have access to. Obviously, being a part of many different networks, and merchants being on all different networks and so on and so forth, it becomes, quite difficult to manage all of that data coming in, and really having a platform that can easily bring this all together in a unified way. We do have a really strong partner that we work with to aggregate a lot of this data. Again obviously, it's never going to be perfect, because you're pulling it from all different places, and you have to understand, "Well, how does this platform leverage conversion rates and click through rates, versus this platform?" And again, just like, "What do those measurements look like?" And, the methodology behind them.Chris:So, that becomes challenging. But, I do think that's probably one of the biggest things that I just wish. And, I know it's not easy, hence the reason why it hasn't really been done yet. But, finding a more universal way to bring all this data into one data warehouse. Again, we were working on some stuff along those lines, but just high level, just generally speaking in this space, I do think that's one of the more challenging situations that a lot of digital media folks are in when it comes to with the shopping space.Stephanie:Yeah. That's a great answer. It does feel like a lot of technologies in general started out in that way. Very chaotic, things are everywhere, data is everywhere, and then things eventually end up in a dashboard, or it starts coming together in a more useful way. So, I hope that world comes to be in the future as well.Chris:Yeah. I mean, look, at the end of the day, that's only going to help all parties. It's going to help the audience, it's going to help the media company, it's going to help the merchant, so there's definitely reason to really get this right. But again, then, to do a bit of a 180, I think that's why you're going to start seeing these universal cart experiences take off more and more, because it does make that a bit cleaner in terms of what you're going to have access to and when.Stephanie:Yep. Very cool. All right. So, we have a couple minutes left, and I want to jump into the lightning round, brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. They're the best. This is where I'm going to throw a question in your way and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Chris:Let's do it.Stephanie:All right. What's Up next on your... Well, do you have Netflix? I would say Netflix, and I'm like, "He's going to be like, "No.""Chris:I do.Stephanie:Okay. What's up on your queue? And then, you can also tell me what's up on your Discovery queue?Chris:Fair. So, I'll start with us first.Stephanie:All right. Go ahead.Chris:And, I think this is so obvious, but huge 90 Day Fiancé fans. And, I will say my wife actually started that. I wasn't always, but she was like, "Come on, we got to watch it." And, this was a couple years ago. And, once I started, we have been heavily invested ever since. So, from a brand standpoint, we're 90 Day through and through. So, I think again-Stephanie:I like it.Chris:Yeah. Probably obvious to a lot of folks just because of the success of it, but that is our thing there. And then, she's also actually a huge fan of Discovery ID, it's her favorite channel by far. So, we got both ends of the spectrum there, right?Stephanie:Yep.Chris:Discovery ID, the DLC. But again, that just goes to show the strength of our portfolio. And then, on a personal front, I would say, what we're actually currently watching is the Borgias on Showtime. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. But, it's three seasons, so that's good for me. I'm not a huge binger, but I can get through a three season watch, so we're currently in the middle of that.Stephanie:Cool. I have to check that out. Yeah. 90 Day Fiancé, so I have a twin sister, and she's obsessed with that show, and she's been telling me I need to watch it. And, I've been like, "No, I'm not watching that." So, now that you say you also enjoy it, maybe I'll have to want to check that out.Chris:Yeah. Come on. It's only fitting now. You got to at least give it a shot.Stephanie:Yeah. I think I will after this. That'll be the rest of my day.Chris:Perfect. So, I've succeeded tonight.Stephanie:You did-Chris:I converted someone.Stephanie:You can tell everyone, "I got a conversion."Chris:Exactly.Stephanie:What's Up next on your reading list?Chris:On my reading list. So, this is also probably slightly depressing, but I'm actually currently reading the Plague.Stephanie:That's [inaudible 00:49:47]. I mean, I don't even know what that is, but I'm like, "No." I mean, is it good?Chris:Yeah. I mean, so far, I'm only maybe a quarter of the way in. it's just eerily similar to the situation we're currently in, and obviously this was not written recently. This is old Camus. But yes, so that that's what I'm currently reading. So, not exactly an uplifting read, but I do think interesting to say the least in seeing some of these parallels that, again, just six, seven months ago we thought were just crazy things you would read or watch on Netflix.Stephanie:Yeah. Well, if you enjoy the full read, let me know, maybe I'll check that out.Chris:Will do.Stephanie:Next up, if you were to have a podcast, what would it be about, and who would your first guest be?Chris:That is interesting. If I had a podcast. For me, I think I probably wouldn't fall into the current podcasting world that pulls a lot of talent from different areas, and makes that the centerpiece of their podcast. I would much rather try to get in the weeds with folks who are making a difference on a local level. I think especially in this political climate, I think that sometimes gets lost that we think it's only the top that matters, and nothing lower does, which I think is completely false. I think everything starts at the local level. So, I would love to give more exposure and light to those folks who are doing the dirty work on the ground which, again, sometimes gets lost in the standard media cycles, or across social media for example.Stephanie:Yes, I love that. It's also something we're exploring here at Mission is local level podcasts, because I think that's what people are leaning into now. They have lost that also a sense of community with everything that's been going on, and you might want to know what your neighbors or community is up to, and also what they're doing, like you said, on the ground level. The next one-Chris:100%. I think it's super important. Go ahead.Stephanie:Yeah. What does the best day in the office look like for you?Chris:The best day. So, when that was a thing-Stephanie:When you went to the office, and you weren't just in your house in New York.Chris:Exactly. Honestly, the best part about that is, being able to... And, now I feel it even more, is having that change of scenery, and being able to have those face-to-face interactions with folks. I recently read a study where, I think it came out that people were actually working longer hours, and having more meetings, while working from home, because they don't have those passerby conversations in the hall, or going in and out of the restroom, and so on and so forth. Which, again, I don't think people appreciate until it's gone. And for me, that's been a huge piece of the puzzle that's been missing during these times is that, human interaction. I think everyone wants to think that working from home is the future, I'm just not sold on that yet.Stephanie:Yeah. I think the flexibility, maybe, but I think a lot of people are eager to get back and see their coworkers, and have coffee together and whatnot. So, there'll be pent up demand, as economists would say.Chris:Exactly.Stephanie:All right, Chris. Well, this has been such a great interview, where can people find out more about you and all the fun work you're doing at Discovery?Chris:Sure. So personally, you can find me, Chris Mainenti on LinkedIn, and we can connect there if you'd like to chat further. But more importantly, if you love our brands, you know where to catch us on TV. And then, similar to dot-com, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Travel Channel. We're everywhere and we look forward to continuing to serve our audiences wherever they are, and really helping them through these trying times that we're all in.Stephanie:Yep. And most of all, go watch 90 Day Fiancé, everyone. I mean, I feel like you need that fun.Chris:Exactly. For the handful who haven't yet, including you, obviously.Stephanie:Yeah. I know. Such a veil. All right. Thanks so much, Chris. It's been fun.Chris:Likewise. Thanks so much again. Bye-bye.

What do underwear models, Frank Sinatra impersonators, and a partnership with Anheuser-Busch have to do with selling alcohol? For Saucey, it was about changing consumer behavior in an industry that hasn’t truly been disrupted since the 1930s.  Chris Vaughn is the founder and CEO of Saucey, an alcohol delivery service. Since launching in LA in 2014, Saucey has broken into 20 metro areas and has continued to grow.  Getting off the ground wasn’t easy, though, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Chris takes us through the trials and tribulations of bringing Saucey into the market — from regulatory issues to investor and customer skepticism. Plus he explains how they pushed through the hardships and used edgy creativity to break into a market that was set on shutting them out.  Key Takeaways:   Bring On The Crazy Ideas: When working with smaller budgets, it’s critical to think outside the box with your marketing efforts. The money might not be there to do customer acquisition in traditional ways, so shifting to a scrappy mindset may be key. What partnerships can you form? What unique campaign can you launch that is outside of the traditional ones in your industry? Tune in to hear how Saucey generates new and noteworthy campaign and partnership ideas that generate results.  Disrupting An Undisrupted Industry: The alcohol industry has remained relatively the same since prohibition ended in 1933, mostly because of harsh regulatory guidelines and big brands owning most of the market. But, as buying behavior has moved online, enterprising companies like Saucey have capitalized on new opportunities. Why your first customer matters: Landing your first “name brand” client can make every future sale that much easier. Many companies got their start by being able to point to a well known first client, and seeming larger than they actually were. For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles. And today on the show we have Chris Vaughn, the CEO and Founder at Saucey. Chris, welcome. Chris: Thank you for having me. Stephanie: Yeah, I'm excited to have you. It might be 9:00 AM here, but I'm trying to get into the beverage mindset right now. Thinking about my 5:00 PM drink. Chris: Yeah. Nice, good. I like that. Stephanie: Yeah, I know. So Saucey, tell me a little bit about what it is and how you started it, the whole backstory. I want to know it all. Chris: Sure. So we started Saucey in late 2013. We really had this hypothesis that... I guess even before it was a hypothesis, we have this idea that you could have basically anything you wanted delivered, but for some reason you couldn't have alcohol delivered. In some major cities like New York, The Bodegas would run it over to you and whatnot, but for the most part in a city like LA, where we're based, that really wasn't an option. Found that to be really interesting, particularly given that the buying behavior around alcohol seems to be such an impulse driven buy. I know I'm going to have dinner tonight. I know I'm going to buy groceries at some point this week or next week, and delivery for those categories, mirror that behavior. Chris: Grocery delivery is more about saving me the time of shopping the whole store. Food delivery is this convenience driven thing. I know I'm going to have dinner, but it's kind of, "What do I feel like having?" And alcohol is this heavily impulse driven by where maybe I have dinner and it gets to be eight, nine o'clock at night, I'm watching a show or Netflix or whatever it may be. And I feel like having, some wine or I feel like having a cocktail, or beer, or whatever it is, or some friends are going to come over and they text me, "Hey, you want to get together?" And then and then you need to buy something. And so given that the buying behavior was so again, I think a non-planned purchase occasion we found that delivery would be the perfect fit for that type of purchase. Chris: So we started to look into the industry a little bit, and I think that the things that really opened my eyes was there clearly have been very, very little innovation in the alcohol industry really since [prohibition 00:02:32]. Most of the innovation had taken place on the brand side, creating new brands, new brand categories, but very little to do with how alcohol gets distributed or purchased. It was also fascinating to see that the brick and mortar landscape had effectively been built out to mirror that type of impulse driven buying. There's more liquor stores in the United States than grocery stores or gas stations. And that mirrors this behavior of, "Oh, I feel like having something." Run out to the corner and go get it. Chris: Then lastly, I think we clearly identified that there was a huge brand loyalty when it came to the products. I'm a Bulleit Bourbon drinker, I'm a Tito's vodka drinker. I'm a Coors Light drinker, whatever it may be, but almost no loyalty when it came to retail. Yeah, I'm on my way home. We'll stop here. I'm on my way to my friend's house I'll stop there. With the exception of some major holidays. Major holidays, go to Costco, stock-up or some of that type of buying. We found that delivery would be the ideal use case where we could not only capture more of a customer's purchases than any of the traditional brick and mortar players, but obviously service and provide a solution to this need of this impulse driven buying, or this last minute buying. Chris: We actually came up with the idea where... or how we came up about Saucey was I had floated it by a very close friend of mine at the time we were working at another company, and my girlfriend at the time, now wife with three kids we were camping up in Yosemite and we went up on this big hike, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. And I was talking through it with her and she was like, "I think you should do this." I came back and shared it with my close friend, and another close friend of this company called Text Plus where we were all working. Daniel Leeb, and Andrew Zeck. Andrew Zeck was one of their head mobile engineers, and ran their whole iOS team. Daniel Leeb was effectively leading their product of those teams. Chris: I said, "Listen, I think there's a big opportunity in alcohol delivery. And I think that the margins are there to support the business. It's a little brutal in food and some of these other categories, I think we can do it and alcohol, and here's what I think it could look like." Immediately we started working together. Nights and weekends spending a lot of time on the weekends and late into the night, trying to put this thing together. Dan did all these initial mocks of what it would look like. We didn't have the name Saucey at the time. We were trying to think of different names. Andrew was starting to program what the prototype would be, and we were working on doing all the specs. Chris: And then I was out trying to find who our first liquor store partner was going to be working with legal counsel and then subsequently talking to the ABC and some of the regulatory committees, or the regulatory bodies on, "We would like to do this. How do we do it, not only in compliance, but what are some of the issues you guys have in this industry, and how, as we're thinking about it, how can we maybe solve some of that stuff?" Like underage drinking, and be more proactive about ID verification, or there's cash under the table transactions, have everything go through credit cards. It was a fascinating time, we started working on that, I want to say October, November 2013, we really got our heads down and we launched in May 2014. Chris: Our first ever delivery. So remember Andrew dispatched it, Dan and I drove it. Was a bottle of Johnny Walker black label, to a guy named Vincent Rella who we actually ended up hiring, not that long after. Stephanie: Oh, that's great. Go Vincent. Chris: Yeah, it was interesting times. Stephanie: How did Vincent find you? First customer, did he actually find your app, or how did he even stumble upon you guys? Chris: I think Vinnie had loosely known Andrew. We all posted on Facebook, and we did all these things, and he saw the post and just said, "Oh, I'll try that." And then we ran the order to him and he goes, "Yeah, I know that guy." And then it was exciting. And of course those early days, we got one order, two orders in a day. And we did all the deliveries ourselves, taking turns on a schedule throughout the week, having to rotate who is going to be dispatching, who was going to be out delivering. An internal irony to the story was we wanted the service. We wanted to be able to order a bottle of wine, or a case of beer or something to your house, and so we built it. But what we actually ended up doing is just all of our time, seven days a week was out delivering to everybody else, and then we could never use it ourselves. So it was interesting. Stephanie: How it works. When you guys were doing that, any funny stories that you remember from when you were personally delivering, or doing the pickups and drop offs? Chris: Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of interesting stuff. I think- Stephanie: Here we go. Chris: ... we did probably a thousand orders between us before we started really hiring any outside couriers. At the time alcohol delivery was also very new, which I think is interesting. When you think about delivery as a category, food delivery has been around for decades, grocery delivery has been around for decades in one form or another, used to be able to call it the corner grocery store or place a fax order, and have things brought to you from your local market. Alcohol delivery in most major metros started six or seven years ago with us and a few others. And so it was a very new behavior. I think all the customers in the early days, the first additional hurdle, everyone was just asking, "Is this legal?" Everybody. Investors, customers, et cetera. Chris: We had to do a lot of work, both in our email content, as well as in our investor materials to walk through conversations we had had with the regulatory bodies, what the law says, how we think about these different things. So those early were just like, "Is this legal? I don't know, I'll try it sounds cool." Stephanie: Like sneaking out behind their bush, like, "Okay, drop off the goods." Chris: Exactly. And we'd show up in 25, 30 minutes and they were blown away, but we definitely had a couple of customers open their door, just totally nude, and totally unfazed. And you had to do a double take, and then, "Can I see your ID?" They'd walk back, come back, still totally naked, hand you their ID, you'd scan it and then turn over their order. That definitely happened more than once. Stephanie: Odd. Chris: People with unusual animals or pets. There was one customer that had like a snake wrapped around her arm. I remember one of those delivered, and was trying to hand it to her, and the snake's on her arm. And we were like, "Wow, this is some interesting stuff." But also lots of just, fairly standard and normal deliveries for the most part, people just super excited to use the service, and check out what it was all about. Stephanie: Yeah. That's really fun. So what kind of challenges did you run into when you were starting this, and working with these agencies and whatnot? Chris: Yeah. Licensing and working with licensed retailers is a challenge. The regulatory environment of alcohol being different on the state by state basis. So you're effectively dealing with 50 countries in the US, as opposed to having the rules all be the same. You can't ship alcohol across state lines, spirits and other things. So there's just a lot of barriers and a lot of reasons as to why Ecommerce has not taken place historically in alcohol, while fashion, and consumer electronics, and even cars and all these other things have picked up. Big followings in the Ecommerce world, set up at East Coast warehouse, a West Coast distribution center, take online orders, ship them out to everybody, and then optimize more distribution centers, see a faster delivery times. Chris: In alcohol, there is a whole series of barriers. One, that you mentioned is regulatory. You have to work with a licensed retailer, or get a license yourself. You're going to get a license yourself, and you don't previously have one that can be a very long and arduous process as to proving you are who you say you are, there's something in alcohol called the three tier system, which means you can only effectively be a manufacturer, a brand like Anheuser-Busch, a distributor like Southern & Wine Spirits, or Southern Glazer's, or a retailer. And if you're one, you can't be the other. So alcohol flows through about three to your system. There's some exceptions in wine, obviously, but it divides up the industry in many ways. Chris: There's many reasons why, I think even in like the private equity world there's been roll-ups of laundromats, there's been roll-ups of car washes. There's been roll-ups of grocery chains. There's been roll-ups basically any category you can think of. When it comes to alcohol, it can get pretty difficult because when you're trying to roll-up a bunch of liquor stores or roll-up a bunch of these licensed entities, these different regulatory bodies want to know every single person that has even a fractional amount of ownership. So you could have a PE firm, or a venture firm, all of a sudden being in a situation where they're having to go back to their LPs to get identification cards for people to list them on licenses. And so it's just a very challenging environment as to how people have been able to operate in this space. Chris: I think also because of the shipping regulations you had a lot of categories that were it's not as simple as setting it up and shipping. And then take that a step further when you think about fundraising, or capital, a lot of endowment funds, pension funds have carve-outs for things, like don't touch anything to do with alcohol, tobacco, firearms, pornography. So there's entire institutions, or very large venture funds, or funds of funds that have invested in all these different VCs that in those early days just wouldn't touch alcohol as a category. So when you think about building a service in an Ecommerce space where you can't ship all over the place, that's a challenge. Everywhere you go you have to deal with licenses and/or different regulatory guidelines on a state by state basis. That's a challenge. Chris: When you're looking to raise capital, large sums of capital to go and attack this big problem. And there's a whole swarms of buckets of capital that literally can't touch the category. That's an uphill battle. And so most, I think the capital injections into the industry have usually been families that have come in, or you've seen someone's creating a brand. They usually do these friends and family rounds. But again, very little going into like a big marketplace, or very little venture or private equity money pouring into the space over the years. Some of the big challenges that we had was in all of those buckets. We launched in LA, but then dealing with even expanding into other cities, looking at the regulatory environment as you go into other markets, thinking about licenses and protecting our partners' licenses, and ensuring ID verification, the way that payments worked, worked properly. Chris: You just have to be very careful on the regulatory side and on the capital raising side, you have to be very resourceful in thinking about who your partners are going to be, and who you'd be able to raise capital from. I think some of that's changed now, particularly during COVID and the acceleration of a lot of things online, you're seeing all sorts of barriers, and regulatory guidelines be changed or altered in some ways to adapt to this new normal, and that includes capital as well. But back then, it was very much a little bit of a taboo service, and taboo marketplace that we had to raise money for. Stephanie: Yeah. I was just going to say, with all of those things you have to think about, and then you also have to think about building local marketplaces to find the drivers, and find the retailers, and the customers, how did you figure out which steps needed to come first without getting overwhelmed? Because that whole list that you just gave me, I'm like, "Oh, I would have given up, that's like very intense and I don't even know where to start." So how did you unravel that, and figure out, "Here's things that we want to focus on first?" Like, did you focus on the product, or the regulatory aspect, or did you like divide and conquer? Chris: We divided and conquered I think the way as founders, we've been extremely fortunate that we just work really well together. We still hang out together. We're still very close friends today. That's not always the case with people who have been working together for over six years this closely. But we couldn't find a better group of people to work with and just have inherent trust in each other as we're building this thing. A lot of my role in those early days was the regulatory, and compliance and working with the different regulatory bodies, legal councils and whatnot, and that really was gating factor one. You don't do that correctly, as we saw with other services, you could be shut down tomorrow, or your ops could be turned off, and then you could also have that stigma against your business. So you got turned off, you were a little blahzay about how you were thinking about the rules in a regulated environment. We had to be just above reproach when it came to that. Chris: Two, Dan, and Andrew were really focused on the product and engineering. And then when we put those things together, it was a definitely collective effort, but that also fell heavily on my plate as it related to capital raising. So Dan and Andrew in many ways we're running and setting up a lot of the operations and business product, the design, the roadmap, and I was out there bringing in the dollars, and making sure that we don't all get arrested. It was very good in the early days to be able to work that closely together. And obviously that's permeated throughout our, our journey over the years. I think yeah, we knew early on that it's a big opportunity in the space and that you'd have to be willing to take on a certain amount of brain damage if you were going to build something great here, and that's a bit of a moat. Chris: We've seen a lot of people dip their toe in alcohol, realize there's all these compliance things or whatnot, and just give up. We've I think over the years have developed a little bit of a specialty or become known as entrepreneurs as the guys that are willing to go through just crazy amounts of complexities and brain damage when other entrepreneurs maybe wouldn't take on those challenges, and love it or hate it, that's become our specialty to some degree. Stephanie: That's great. Tell me a little bit about some of your early marketing efforts. They looked pretty unique, and I was hoping you could touch on that and talk about how you acquired some of your early customers? Chris: Sure. The early days you had very small budgets. When we first launched, we were effectively bootstrapped and very shortly after launching had raised a small amount of money from an angel who was a terrific early believer in the company and maintained support throughout the years. But I mean, how do you make as much noise as possible with very small budgets? And we just had this approach of we're in the alcohol space. I think, our first thing we looked at was retail alcohol does marketing very poorly, or in a very boring way. If you look at how customers are adopting any type of brand or brand category or marketplace, usually there's a little bit of brand identity, or something you're trying to communicate to them. Chris: Retail alcohol's literally just, "Hey, we have Smirnoff, it's on sale. Come to me. Hey, I have SKYY vodka, it's on sale. Come to me." There's almost nothing... even if you look at the brand names and logos of most of the major alcohol retailers throughout the country, they're just like gimmicky whatever. We knew that we wanted to take more of the marketing style that takes place in the on-premise world — bars, restaurants, hospitality, leisure, et cetera — that I think translate some of these alcohol brands' vision to the customer very well, which is not, "Hey, come to our bar restaurant, hotel, whatever, because we have alcohol here." It's come here because it's a good time. And you'll be here with friends, and all these things that alcohol subtly sits in the background. Chris: We wanted to mere that type of approach over to the off premise world where it wasn't, "Hey, come here cause we have alcohol." Or, "Hey, we're alcohol delivery." Or, "Hey, get beer delivered." Or whatever maybe. It was trying to communicate fun and interesting messages, plans for people, different things they could do in their city. Wild and crazy activations that just got them excited, and just falling in love with the brand. And then subtly, by the way we deliver beer, wine, spirits, mixers, snacks, ice cream, all this type of stuff. So our activations really mirrored that philosophy of saying, "How are we going to deliver plans to people, or excitement to people?" Chris: One of our first big stunty activations, we partnered with a terrific company, LA company called MeUndies, which is the world's most comfortable underwear, and we just said, how do get a bunch of attention together, and do something that customers would love? And we came up with MeUndies underwear models, delivering sleepover packs that were pajamas and underwear, and a bottle of tequila, a bottle of wine or whatever it may be. It was male and female underwear pairs. Underwear models going out, and delivering. So anybody who ordered- Stephanie: Were they just in their underwear? Chris: They were just in their underwear, so you have anybody who ordered to have this female and male underwear model would come and show up at their house and deliver their sleepover pack. And we structured a great partnership together, rolled it out and we got just shy of a hundred million press impressions inside of a week, basically for free. Chris: We also did on Frank Sinatra's birthday in December, we partnered with the Sinatra family, Jack Daniels, and I believe it was Universal Music and anybody who ordered Jack Daniels, it would be delivered by a Sinatra impersonator. And they'd give you an LP and sing songs to you and do all this type of stuff. We did a handful of other really stunty activations. We took a page out of Uber's book. We delivered cuddly puppies, and donated proceeds to different animal charities and all sorts of stuff like that. Then we backed those types of campaigns with other things that we could afford at the time, which was we did a lot of door hanger campaigns. We did a lot of early stage for direct mail to 21 plus mailing lists. Chris: We did a lot of Facebook ads, Facebook native ads at the time. In the early days of any marketplace, you can acquire tons of customers on Facebook, relatively cheaply, and then your CAC start going up. So it's always a challenge to figure out as you saturate a channel, or saturate a market, how to change either how you're running the ads, or new ways to acquire customers or not be so dependent on one channel. But in the early days it was bracketed as deliver wild and crazy activations that get people talking about us. And then let's backfill that with a little bit more direct response media that maybe they heard about us from a friend because we did this crazy thing, and then they saw some Facebook, and then they saw us on their door. The combination of those things hitting people multiple times really drove a lot of that early adoption. Stephanie: Yeah. That's really, really fun. I love that story, is such a good idea and a good reminder to be creative in the early days and get the most bang for your buck. So what does your customer acquisition look like today, and how are you measuring that? Chris: It's a little different today running across a lot more channels, but I would say that a core tenent of our marketing has always been our referral program. We think that that's the best way that anybody's going to adopt a new service or product is hearing about it from a friend. And so we always push our referral program. It's always been our highest performing and fastest conversion customer acquisition channel that we do run ads across tons of different paid media channels. Obviously, the social, podcasts, radio, out-of-home, less so out of home right now for obvious reasons, and then we do a lot of partnerships with the big alcohol brands to drive awareness through some of their channels. We work with different influencers and then have started exploring some things like streaming, and whatnot. Chris: I think the most fascinating things that have happened on all these channels during COVID is obviously about 50% of somebody's alcohol purchases. It's usually fairly split between on premise and off premise. Bars, restaurants, stadiums, hotels, et cetera, over here. Grocery stores, alcohol delivery services, Ecommerce whatever over there, and half of those purchased venues effectively got turned off. So you had this influx of 50% of somebody's buying jump over to the other side, the off-premise buying behavior. And then you had people not wanting to go wait in lines and all this type of stuff. And so the search traffic went through the roof, time to first conversion shortened at rates that we had never seen before. We had higher intent, customers coming in, and just looking for alcohol delivery, "Is this even possible? Is it possible in my city?" Chris: We've been fortunate enough to have a great ops team that we've expanded dramatically, our footprint. We've launched dozens and dozens of new markets and cities over the past few months, been acquiring customers in all those new markets and cities. Partnering with terrific brands to help drive awareness and let people know that they can use the service. Then acquiring people at very different numbers than we've seen historically, an example would be when COVID really started to kick off, our Facebook customer acquisition costs dropped to about a 10th of what it's been for roughly six years. Time to first conversion, which share is usually around 14 days, someone downloads the app and they're waiting for that first use case. Chris: "Oh I feel like having that bottle of wine. Oh, I'm watching a show, I'll try ordering six pack of beer." Or whatever it is, dropped down to effectively a day. People were just searching for the service, found it, used it. And then second purchase happened before that 14 day mark as well. So you went from having time to first conversion be 14 to 20 days, and then it's all about getting to that second and third purchase. You had purchase one, purchase two, basically happening inside of that first purchase period of time. The customer acquisition costs on a lot of major channels dropped to a 10th of what they normally have been. Then we saw other people willing to spend a lot more media dollars. And then obviously when you think about marketing as well, so much of it is just how you cut through the noise. Chris: If you go back there's a lot of terrific documentaries on Netflix about history ad agencies and all this stuff, but there wasn't tons of marketing being thrown at people the way it is today, back in the fifties and sixties. And so a creative ad, like the Volkswagen think small, or something like that could just cut through everything and take over a nation. Today, it's very difficult. How do you come up with campaigns that cut through the noise that feel genuine that people respond well to? But when you had entire industries been negatively impacted by this pandemic and pull back, a lot of their marketing spend, a lot of that "marketing noise" had died down. And so if you were a service that was still operating the ability to just make sure the customers knew about you was in a heightened state than it had been in. Chris: So there's been a lot of changes over the past couple of months, both in terms of how we do marketing operations, and work with our customers. But yeah, we've obviously been very blessed by sheer dumb luck in this sense on being in a category that has been positively impacted as opposed to negatively impacted. Stephanie: Yeah. That's amazing. Very cool to hear about the time to first conversion and all that. How would you guide someone to create a marketing campaign that does stand out among the noise? Like even outside of a pandemic, and how to make sure it's authentic, but also unique. How do you guys even think about that when building your campaigns? Chris: Yeah, I mean, it sounds cliche. It's just put yourself in the customer's shoes. Be a customer for a day, go on to social media, take a drive around, look at the billboards, look at the signs. Look at the ads that are being served up to you. What's attractive? What do you like? What stands out? What feels cool? Having a barometer for just what I think really impacts somebody is important. And then translating that into your own campaigns is key. We've done most all of our stuff over the years in house. In terms of ad copy, and ad creative, and CRM, creative and copy, and all that type of stuff. But it's just putting yourself in the customer's shoes, what feels genuine, find brands that you really like what they're doing, and they feel honest and interesting and original, and they create interesting templates and guidelines. Chris: There is a creative agency called Gin Lane, which has since pivoted into creating their own products that built these templates for a whole bunch of companies, one being Hims & Hers, and a handful of other very well known brands today. But yeah, I mean, it's just what feels honest, what stands out, and do things that get people talking. It's fairly simple, but I think our barometer's just always been if you do what gets people talking, and is cool and genuine, then people will talk about it, and they will share with their friends. If you do something boring, or off-putting, who cares? Stephanie: Yeah. You'll be like everyone else. I love that. So with all the changes that have been happening, what updates did you have to make to your website, if any? Is there anything that you completely changed to try and... website or app either one, or like, this is a new user that's coming in, or now we have this new group that we need to focus on retaining who has never been here before. Any strategic updates or changes that you've made to your mobile or desktop presence that have really positively impacted like conversions and revenue and whatnot? Chris: Yeah. I mean, some of the initial stuff was very simple. It was just categories. So obviously coming into the app in those early days, people were looking for anything from wine, but also PPE equipment, and masks, and gloves, and hand sanitizer, and things like that. A lot of our stores and markets carried those things, toilet paper, paper towels, et cetera. Canned soup, frozen pizzas. So we've had that stuff for years, though a lot of people don't necessarily know it, but it was just making sure that that was very prominent in both our content marketing, as well as in the app and the website. So when people showed up they knew that that was available and they could use it. Then operationally, it was obviously it was getting out in front of a lot more people, so rapid expansion of our delivery footprint and neighborhood coverage throughout the country, so that more and more people could use us. Chris: Then obviously all the communication and work that went into little things operationally, like in certain States that require signature capture at the time of delivery, not just ID capture, but signature capture as well. Working with different people to get those signature capture requires lifted. So you could have more of a contactless delivery, it's not the same as delivering a sandwich where it can just be left at your door. You do have to see the person. You do have to visually identify them and scan their ID. But that can still happen in a contactless manner, where they just hold out their ID, you scan with the phone, and nobody's swapping goods or anything like that. So yeah, there's little things around COVID protection, primarily around contactless delivery, and ensuring a signature capture was waived in certain States. Chris: Showing more prominently categories of products that people were looking for, but particularly around stocking up or staying safe at home, or staying safe with PPE gear, putting up protocols to all of our retail partners on how they need to be picking and packing products and operating at retail. In some cases helping them source their own protective gear. Then yeah, on the site and in the communication email... I was recently speaking to somebody else about this, but we just had to basically torch all of our content marketing that was planned, where March was all March madness. We had tons of ad campaigns and things lined up for that going into different sports seasons, sports openers. All of that media and content pretty much could be very tone deaf if you just went as is. Chris: So all of our planned content marketing and even some of our campaigns and video shoots or photography, all those things, were basically just nixed it all and had to start from scratch on the marketing side. But the team there did a fantastic job. Stephanie: Yeah. It seems like there's so many things that were changing and you guys were able to act really quickly to pivot, and showcase the products that were already there and personalize it in a different way. Yeah, that's really awesome. What metrics are you looking at to measure success for your business? Chris: For us, alcohol's a little bit different than food. Food you eat every day, or dog walking was a big category. People that I remember early days, some of these venture guys, I don't think quite understood the category, not speaking about our investors, speaking about other people that we would pitch, and they ask things like, "Well, we saw this dog walking app and the retention is... they get used like nine times a month." Are people going to use your service nine times a month?" And it was like, well, I'd say, "Well, that dog is alive every day of the week, no? So if the dog is alive, it needs to be walked every day. Right? And if people are working then yeah, they need a service to walk the talk every day of the week that they're at work." Stephanie: Why are you comparing us? Chris: Yeah. Or even food you need to have food, and am I going to cook? Am I going to buy something at the store? Am I going to have it delivered? But when it came to alcohol, it's a little bit, I'd say roughly 15 to 20% of your customer base and in alcohol is really the people that drink a little bit more frequently, or several times a month. It's not as exaggerated as like sports betting or gambling where some instances we've seen platforms where 0.3% of the customer base is driving 70% of the revenue. And it's all about maintaining that 0.3%. In alcohol it's finding the people that enjoy the category, maybe have a wine in the evenings, or a couple of times a month or whatever it may be, and nailing that customer use case. Chris: Then we have other customer use cases where people just use for gifting, or people use us as their office for gifting all their employees, or having office happy hours, or having business orders. So it's really segmenting and cohorting all the different types of use cases, and customers that relate to this product. It's obviously a big space over a hundred... these are pre COVID numbers, but alcohol is roughly a little over $200 billion a year in sales, in the US. Roughly 55% off premise, 45% on premise. It's a big space, and it's all about finding obviously the people that use your category. I think as we think about just our marketing may change, or customer acquisition may change, or who the customer is, it's always just identifying those use cases. And some of those use cases have obviously changed right now. Where we're supporting more of that on-premise behavior. Zoom happy hours, people socially drink it with their friends, but from home. It's been interesting. Stephanie: Yeah. I really liked the idea of putting the users into cohorts based on why they're using the product. That's a really good point. The other big topic I wanted to talk about that could be probably a whole entire episode is all around partnerships. I want to hear what it's like partnering with these companies, like the industry that maybe hasn't really been online, the alcohol industry previously, what does that look like behind the scenes? How are you going about partnering with these companies right now? Chris: Yeah. Partnerships is a huge part of our business, both on the marketing side, as well as just how we operate as a company. We're a marketplace for the most part. We partner with existing retail locations where we'll partner with a store in a geographic area and then funnel all the volume and requests effectually to that store or a handful of stores in that area. So partnering with liquor stores and retail stores all throughout the country. And then we partner obviously with the Diageos, and Bacardis, and AB InBevs, and those guys of the world. When we first got started, the first ever brand partnership that we did was with Anheuser-Busch, and they actually reached out to us. It was this is this $200 billion market cap company. And I think they had just started their first digital team, which was less than half a dozen people up in a garage in Palo Alto. They called the beer garage. Chris: A guy by the name of Mike Raspatello reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, "Hey, I'm from Anheuser-Busch. We saw..." I think probably because of the MeUndie's campaign, "We saw what you guys are doing, and we want to have a conversation about how do we work together? We're trying to take on digital for the first time, and we're part of this beer garage." It get morphed into what later became ZX Ventures, which became like a venture team of theirs. And then is this big team now of hundreds of people over at Anheuser-Busch, back then it was mostly, I think Mike and a handful of people up in Palo Alto. He reached out, and he's like, "Yeah, we're talking to Instacart, we're talking to you guys, talking to one or two others." And we did a campaign where we promoted certain products in the category. [inaudible 00:39:47], and Stella Artois, and a handful of their portfolio products, and saw could you increase by featuring different brands? Could you increase their share of category? Chris: For them it was, "Our historical share of beer category is X at retail, in this new online world, how do we make sure that it is more than X?" And every brand has approached it that way. We are X percent of our categories in retail, how do we make sure in online we are more than X? We ran the campaign and did extremely well. Mike was absolutely instrumental in that, and terrific at Anheuser-Busch. He'd probably hate me for saying that, he's a hilarious guy who's in Chicago now and catch up with him. He's one of my favorite people, but yeah, we ran this campaign and they came back to us afterwards and they were like, "Man, you guys just worked so seamlessly with us. It went so smoothly it didn't go as smoothly with some other people. How big is your company? You guys got like four or 500 people?" And I think it was just Dan, Andrew and I at the time. I was like, yeah, totally. Totally we have 500 people. Stephanie: Huge backend helping us here. Chris: Exactly. I was hesitant to let them know, but I was like, "No, it's three of us right now, and a handful of couriers." And they were like, "What?" It was interesting in those early days, it was a little bit of fake it till you make it, in making us feel much bigger than we were in year one. That helped us get some of those very early partnerships. And then obviously as we started doing more and more creative stuff a lot of brands came knocking at our door. In many ways, outside of just promoting people in categories, or integrating them into our content, we did some big activations and made a lot of noise with different people. Like you saw with the Jack Daniels, and Sinatra impersonators and stuff like that. Chris: In many ways I think people started to treat us a little bit like a creative agency, they'd come to us to say, of course, we're going to do paid placement, but what else do crazy people come up with? We'd come up with all sorts of cool stuff for these brands. And in many ways we became like an outsourced agency that would help them with that stuff, or even help them with some of their Facebook spending. "Hey, we're currently with agency X running Facebook ads, they're telling me a customer acquisition cost of 137 bucks is fantastic. Is it fantastic?" We don't know, it sounds great to me. They have all these slides and whatnot, and we're like, "No, that's atrocious. That was absolutely terrible." Stephanie: Yeah. Oh man. Chris: "Let us help you figure this stuff out." So in the early days it was again, just being extremely helpful, but then sometimes that's not always scalable being very handholding and helpful with each brand. You can't translate that at our team size to every brand. And so it was coming up with a lot of templates and guidelines. Finding out what's effective. How do we translate what's effective to each brand? Today, our team on that front does a terrific job of still being able to come up with really creative and interesting campaigns with companies and execute on them. I think the biggest change that I've seen is in those early days, a lot of these... they're like institutions. These brands, or portfolio holdings are just huge, had very rigid brand guidelines. Chris: I remember working with a big very famous champagne brand, and effectively the model was they have a brand authenticity team that is just protecting everything related to that brand. And they spend months specking out what a campaign looks like for billboards, TV, all this stuff. And we were effectively just another channel to put that campaign into. And that just didn't work. We speak to our customers in a very unique way, and you take this billboard and then just put it in Saucey, and it looked very foreign. People recognize it as a foreign object, and don't respond well. And so the brands that earlier were able to say, "You guys know your customers better than we do. So we're going to give you relatively all the creative freedom to speak to them, with some approvals." Those were the people that performed the best, and those are the people that have continued to perform the best. Chris: I think the biggest change that I've seen is you've had a lot of these huge alcohol companies go from having zero person digital teams to having fully built out futures in digital teams. Then the biggest next step was those teams doing a fantastic job of working with senior leadership at those organizations to get them out of the more rigid guidelines around brand identity and being much more flexible in how they both think about campaigns, creative talking to people, et cetera. And that's been a huge shift for them. Stephanie: Yeah. I love that story, especially about Anheuser-Busch. And it's just a good story that highlights the importance of finding that first partner and really giving them, like you said, like a frictionless experience where they walk away like, "Wow, that was easy. I didn't really have to do anything. And the team just took care of it for me." Even if it semi kills you to begin with, like that doesn't have to be a for everything, but maybe first big fish, [inaudible] like, "Here's our partner." Is what can bring all the other partnerships your way. So yeah, such a great reminder. All right. I want to move into a lightning round, I know we don't have that much time left. So lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud is where I will ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Chris, are you ready? Chris: I'm ready. Stephanie: All right. What is your drink of choice? Chris: I like Michter's Rye neat. Stephanie: On the rocks, or how do you make it? Chris: Just neat, Michter's Rye neat, is my favorite. Second favorite probably be Tito's Martini. After that probably jumping into beer or wine. Stephanie: All right. What's up next on your Netflix queue? Chris: I'm big into murder mysteries and prison documentaries and things like that. So probably something about international drug trade, or world's toughest prisons in Russia or something along those lines. Drives my wife absolutely crazy. Stephanie: Oh, man, that sounds very interesting. Also, our producer, Hilary said, "Neat means no ice, Steph." Got it. Thank you, Hilary. I apparently do not know alcohol, so that's on me. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about, and who would your first guests be? Chris: I've thought about this a little bit. I think that I personally, when I was first starting working on businesses or trying to build a career, you see the end result of all these people, and you miss a lot of the details that got them to where they're at, or got them to how they think about the world and where they're at. Guy Raz, obviously, with How I Built This does a fantastic job of telling the idea of a company from start to finish. I'd love to even know the backstory before that of a lot of entrepreneurs. How did you get to the place where you wanted to jump off a cliff and start the company? You can have a little bit on the company, but really how did you shape what ultimately became this person that's willing to take risks, and do all these different things? Chris: I think to be totally honest, my first interview would probably be my co-founder, Dan Leeb. He has an unbelievably interesting story. I've that all sorts of twists and turns in life. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met. I would start a hundred businesses with that guy, and it would be an interesting one to listen to. Stephanie: Cool. That sounds good. I would definitely listen. And I love the story or founders stay together and stay friends because you always hear that not always being the case. So it's really fun hearing that. Yeah, you guys continue to be good friends to this day. That's awesome. The last one, what is your favorite piece of tech, or an app that's making you the most efficient right now with work? Chris: Just my phone. My phone, and these ear buds it's 90% of what's happening. Stephanie: All right. Chris: But yeah, I'm on the phone, most of the day, working with teams, video conferencing so these AirPods, or AirPod Pros with the noise canceling, that's a game changer. I got three little kids running around working from home, so we got a noisy household. So you got to be mobile and be able to communicate with everybody. Stephanie: Yup. I can relate with you there. And I almost forgot the hardest question that I need to ask you. What one thing will have the biggest impact on Ecommerce in the next year. How could I forget that one? Chris: I mean, outside of what's already happening with COVID, I think the biggest changes will be regulatory. We'll see what happens, but things like telehealth, or telemedicine, or even grocery, or even alcohol where you're seeing a lot of the legislation and regulations that have been sitting on the books for decades or 70, 80 years in many ways are all being revisited right now to adjust to this new normal. People have been trying to push for those legislative changes for years and years and years. And it's just been under the stack of papers, because, "Why is this so important?" Sort of, "Who cares, we'll get to it eventually." But you're seeing a lot of that accelerate right now. And I think a few big changes depending on what industry you're in, could really unlock an entirely new world for certain Ecommerce categories. Chris: So I think legislation driven by change of life, change of pandemic, I think will be very interesting to watch. And I think you'll see not only new categories come online, but the dramatic acceleration of some of the existing categories. Stephanie: Well, I love that. That's a great answer. I'm glad I remembered to ask that question. Well, Chris, this has been such a fun interview. Where can people learn more about you, and Saucey? Chris: You learn anything you need about Saucey at saucey.com. If you want to learn about me, I guess you'd listened to this podcast, go from there. I don't have a huge online presence, stay relatively private. But I think that, you want to learn more about Saucey, go saucey.com. Stephanie: Cool. Well, I like being exclusive source, so for all things, Chris Vaughn, you're welcome everyone. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's been great. Chris: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.  

Published Oct 8, 2017 VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Chris: G'day world. Chris Hogan and Andrew Groat coming to you live from ME Media studios here in Burleigh Heads, where we're produced Get Fact Up. Our new way of producing our Get Fact Up series is via Vodcasting in this studio, which is available for hire for you as well. How you going Andrew? Andrew: Yeah good, how are you Chris? Chris: Awesome. So today we're going to be talking about influencer marketing. We actually alluded to that last week, we said we needed a whole new show for that. Firstly, let's dive into it, what is influencer marketing? Andrew: So influencer marketing, for me, I think leverage. So, you've got your own circle of followers and things like that and you can slowly expand that but when you're working with influencers, you're talking to someone who's got much larger reach, they've got higher indorsement with all their fans, they've got all the content out there already, you're just playing in bigger circles and there's specific metrics that you need to look for, which you've detailed here. Chris: Yeah, so exactly what you've just said, breaking out of your existing circle and into other people's circles. Influencers can be anything from social influencers, be it Facebook, YouTube, Twitter- Andrew: Instagram. Chris: ... Instagram. But also bloggers. Let's not forget the bloggers, okay. Where to from there? Andrew: Content producers. Chris: Content producers. Andrew: More of less, yeah. Chris: Exactly, yeah. SO they're creating original content. Andrew: And they've been doing it for long enough that they've gained trust and all that sort of thing. They've got momentum, they've got inertia with what they're doing and they're doing it for the love of the people, so they've really got that connection there and that's what you want to tap into. Because as a brand, as a business, that's hard to do. There's always that distrust so it's associating yourself with these people that have the ears of everyone else, you know? Chris: Absolutely. So these people have essentially, like you just said, alluded to, they have been doing it for the love of it for a long time before they've actually been able to monetize it. Not all of them even are monetizing. Andrew: I think most people, they have to do it about 2 years before they really see a proper return on investment. Chris: Easily. Andrew: So it has to be a hobby for the longest time and that's the only way to really get that sort of trust and momentum with the endorsement. Chris: So we've got two different ways to utilise ... use, influences to help your brand run a campaign, boost the reach of your brand or product or increase sales etc. So there's two ways to do that, we can either attract or engage them. Andrew: By attracting we're creating something that they need or we're delivering something that they need. And then we're reaching out to them, we're basically just directly contacting and finding these people and being like, "Hey, I've got something for you or I want to pay you to interact with my brand" or something along those lines. Chris: Yeah for example. Research companies do that all of the time. They put out these beautiful slide decks and infographics and what not on ... what are the statistics in certain countries around certain stats, and if they make it even more beautiful then other people, other bloggers, other news corporations actually go and use those stats and cite them in their blog and link back to them. Andrew: Yeah exactly. So using bloggers as an example, they need to get their content from somewhere, they can't just make it up out of thin air. They're people like you and I, they'll search for these facts and when they find it, they're going to use it in their content and if you're presenting it to them in a way that's really, really helpful for them, then they're definitely going to choose you over something else. Chris: So that's the attraction method that we're going in to so we'll keep going down that road for a second. So have we got some example that ... Andrew: Yeah, okay. So I had a think about this, because we were talking about this recently. Obviously, it requires a bit of work, you have to really think, you have to really research your influences, you have to find these people first and you have to look at what they're creating. So, these people are creating this stuff, what do they need to create this stuff? They need facts and figures and juicy content, they need videos and images, they don't know how to do all this stuff. So you make this for them and basically present it, you can just present it in a way, you can just have it out there and they'll find it or you can contact them. Chris: That's the engaging way, yeah. Andrew: Example is, so you look at your niche, let's say, because we were talking about this today, a local attraction. So you look at the influence in that niche, it's going to be something like travel bloggers. If we're saying Australia or even Gold Coast, it'll be like a travel blogger or local guide or something along those lines. What type of content do they create? They're going to create lists, like Top 10 things to do in the Gold Coast. Let's use as an example, Top Ten Things to Do Outdoors. They need to get their info from somewhere about things to do around the Gold Coast, they're not literally going to go and search, go to all these places and figure this stuff out, they'll search this on Google. So you need to be ready for that, and you create something and ... Something that we do a lot of here at ME Media is we create Go-to guide articles, where it's like, we're creating the best guide for a particular topic to attract influences. And this guide will have everything someone would possibly need if they wanted to spread the word about something. So using the local attraction as an example, you would create an article that's basically like, "This is why this attraction is the perfect outdoor experience." Videos, images, tonnes of facts and all sort of juicy stuff that someone could quote, cite, link to or something like that as an influencer, like a travel blogger. And you could even go one step further and contact them and say, "Hey, love what you do. I've written something that perfectly fits in with what you do, would love to see it on your list" or something like that. Chris: And some of them will obviously be so into it, doing it for the love of it, that they see the benefit of improving their content, that they'll actually ... no problems, just do it. Andrew: Because the thing is they have to create this stuff, and if you're giving it to them exactly as they need it or they're finding you on the web exactly how they need it, then they're going to use you, you're making their life easier. This is kind of a business for them so if you're giving it to them on a platter- Chris: They're journalist right? Andrew: ... they're going to choose you over- Chris: They need stats. Andrew: ...yeah they're journalists, they're going to choose you over someone that's making it difficult. Or the less research they have to do, the better. Chris: So these people, when we're attracting them and you're engaging them, it's a blurred line in this particular case, where you're actually calling them up or emailing them, they're not an influencer yet, maybe they're still growing their channel and growing their audience. Yeah, we're getting into the potential engagement- Andrew: It's always give and take. I mean, they're using you to basically look good. If they look like an expert because of you then you're giving them something, if you get a whole bunch of traffic because they've endorsed you, then you get something. It's kind of a joint venture, the influencer model. And the thing is, when someone is going to create this sort of content, they think ... We talk about it, influencer strategy, the objection's always, we should be creating content for our potential customers and this is where we need to look at the circle of reach. Your potential customers are only this big but- Chris: Because you're playing in your existing circle right now. Andrew: ... your existing circle. But if you think outside the box just a little bit and say, "Okay, my potential customers only go this far and they don't necessarily trust me" then you look at the people that can influence that and you're like, "Wow, their reach is huge" and everyone trusts them. So if you can attract them, that little bit of work that you've done to connect with them, it's just exposing you to a bigger, more trusting audience. Chris: So I want to get into the engagement side of things because then that reveals the metrics. So obviously you can actually go out and find these particular influences and engage them and yes, pay them to actually- Andrew: Yeah you just have to have something for them because it's a business for them. Chris: ...pay them to do brand mention, do a custom piece of content and so on and so forth. So when we're doing this, influencer marketing is a real deal. We've spoke about the demise of broadcast and the rise of online media. Like I said, we've got Instagrammers, we've got Facebookers, we've got YouTubers and we've got bloggers, but the metrics aren't all the same. If you're engaging people on these social channels or in their channel of choice then we have to be really- Andrew: Smart. Chris: ... honest with ourselves that we're not going to always get increased sales, increased conversions, increased traffic. So let's dive into Instagram just for a second. Instagram is very popular for influencers, there's heaps of them there. Yes, there's fake one too, but there's still a lot of legit ones there. And they've been doing this for quite a few years now. Andrew: Most of them since the start of Instagram, the ones that are doing well, yeah. Chris: Instagram's all about engagement, clearly, one word. That's what sums up Instagram when you're looking at metrics. So likes, comments, re-grams, brand mentions, so re-grams being like a share, and hashtags. So you can look at trends for hashtags. Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative). But the thing you won't get from Instagram is traffic and probably not sales either. So you have to be smart about this. If you're going to engage an Instagram influencer, you don't want to be getting traffic and sales, you don't want to be thinking like that, it's brand exposure exclusively. Chris: You might grow your Instagram channel, yeah, that's fine but then you can leverage off that to increase sales. Andrew: In some other way, yeah. Chris: But directly, we're talking about direct metrics from these influencer campaigns. So let's talk about Facebook metrics. So obviously the content that gets released, you'll get likes, comments, shares, brand mentions, page likes could increase on your own channel. Remember they're not actually on your channel creating the content and sharing the content. They're created it and sharing it through their own channel because that's where their audience is. But they can help boost your page likes as one of the metrics. Andrew: Yeah, there's more of a connection than Instagram. And you know, there is the website traffic but you're still in a tight knit social platform and people don't want to leave. People that are on Facebook don't necessarily want to leave Facebook unless they're looking for something. So you still have to remember it's better for just increasing your Facebook reach, increasing your branding. It's still the same, but you can get traffic from it. Chris: You can do website traffic, you can increase conversions and you can increase sales. So it's possible but even though we say it's possible, we've gotta have a really honest conversation with these influencers before we start. What have you done before, what have you actually done for other brands before? Have you increased sales? Have you increased conversions? Ah, no. Okay, well I'm still fine with going ahead with you but if we can't increase sales and that, let's look at what we can increase, let's look at the metrics we can measure and can improve on and then have a conversation around that. Let's not assume that everyone's going to increase sales and conversions. Andrew: And partly, you need to be smart about this. You can't approach a Facebook influencer and expect them to increase traffic to your website. So you need to remember that on your side as a business approaching an influencer. But then yeah, they need to be clear about that, because they may not be able to deliver that. So it's just about getting that agreement in place, the right agreement. And then just making sure, yes I believe you can deliver that because that's what this channel does, and then them just delivering on what they've said. So if you don't have that in place then it can be tricky, it can be muddy waters with influencers. Chris: Yeah. And then we've got bloggers. Obviously, from bloggers we can increase traffic, we can potentially increase our SEO, so our keyword ranking, referrals from that particular source, we can track that, conversions and sales. So bloggers are pretty straight forward. Andrew: I personally think that, influencers, bloggers are the best influencers. You can use that in a lot of different directions. And anyone that's a blogger also has ... they're across all their social channels. Because I mean, they're a personality, they need to make sure all this is right, they know how to share on social and thing like that. Chris: Bloggers are also meant to divulge that the content that they're producing has been paid for. Just a hot tip there. So even though ... because Google's watching, Google's always watching, and if they see a link from your site and they come to understand that, hang on a minute, you're creating content that's paid content, so advertorial like content, and you're not divulging that, all of a sudden all of that effort and money that the brand actually paid that blogger to create just went down the tube because Google just found out that, oh no, they're being paid for that content so disregard it, it's not organic. Andrew: Because Google's a business. They don't want to be delivering something that's dishonest. Chris: Well you shouldn't be able to pay for SEO, that's what Google's all about. SEO is earned. So YouTube metrics. So brand, channel subscriptions. So brand engagement, brand awareness and channel subscriptions can be metrics. Traffic to your website because you can actually put links in the descriptions. Referrals, so we can see where the referrals are coming from, they're coming form YouTube. There will actually be, potentially some difficultly around tracking those referrals, so be careful about that. Conversions, so we could potentially increase conversions, maybe the content they've produced gets embedded, you imbed that content on your product pages, potentially, hey that's boosting trust right? Someone else created a piece of content about the product that I'm trying to sell, beautiful. And they're authentic, they're trustworthy. Andrew: Yeah YouTube can be a really good one because YouTube gets really loyal followers. So if you find someone that's got loyal following and they create a video about your brand, what you do, a product, something along those lines, it can be really, really good and they can send a lot of really loyal traffic there. It's just ... been around for a long time and people are very fierce about their loyalty on YouTube. So it can go both ways, it can also go badly if you're approaching the wrong type of YouTube influencer because it's very strong. That strong loyalty, yeah, you have to make sure you're getting the right type of thing to the right type of person on there. It's kind of like Reddit. You don't want to go on there with something that's obviously a branded message, people don't ... they'll be very clear if they don't respect it. Chris: Authenticity. All about authenticity, being true, being trustworthy. These influencers, they're taking a risk when they're taking on your brand and most of them aren't going to actually do it if they feel that it's too risky. They're actually going to say, "Well, no. I need to know that I believe in your product, your brand before I actually do it" and if it's coming from a place of trust and authenticity than their audience is going to love it and it's going to be forever. Don't forget that the content they create is forever. So if they sell out on one person, their audience might die and not engage as much on the next person and they know that. So look, I think we should wrap that up in the interest of time. That's been influencer marketing, I hope everybody's got some education around that. I think it's a great conversation Andrew. I hope you're enjoying this new format of Get Fact Up, I know I am, in and out. And, look, more to come. I'm not sure what next week's going to be about. Andrew: We could even continue with this, but maybe we'll do something different next week. Chris: Predictions, predictions. So one of the predictions is that influencer marketing is on the rise, it's huge and it's going to be tried and tested a lot more over the next ... now, year. It's happening right now, more and more people are signing up for it. So I think that advertising budgets are going to be seriously affected. I'm saying that a minimum of 10%, maybe 25% of marketing budgets are going to shift to influencer marketing. Can't measure that, I doubt we can measure that, sorry. Prediction that you can't measure. Andrew: I forgot that we were doing the predictions so you kind of sprung this one me. But for me, I think it's the influencers that are doing live video that are going to be the ones to watch. No one really knows how to track live video, the metrics are all weird because you don't see it until after ... it's historical metrics on live video, it's weird to figure out exactly how it works at this stage. But the influencers that are doing live video well, they're going to be the ones, I think, to watch in the future and that's going to be the format to watch in the future. Chris: Yep. Well, thanks very much to Rogue microphones for our beautiful microphones, they are sexy microphones. And thanks very much to ME Media, our agency, our content marketing agency and also thanks very much to Beach City, who is also an influencer marketer in their own space as well, doing plenty of live videos. Thanks very much guys and keep watching.

Published Nov 13, 2017 Chris: Good day, world. Chris Hogan and Andrew Groat coming to you live from the MeMedia studio here at Burleigh Heads for "Get Fact Up" episode number 68 - on important marketing metrics to track. How you going, Andrew? Andrew: Good. How are you? Chris: Good, mate. So website traffic is probably the number one metric that people tend to track when they're looking at - obviously their marketing reports. And we know that being that high a level probably isn't good enough. Andrew: Yeah, traffic's not really that important. There're other things that you should be looking at. Chris: Cool. So we've got some example Google Analytics snapshots that we've got here from the Interwebs. And we wanted to just have a look over those and break some of them down. So here we have the Google Analytics snapshot of acquisitions and channels, it's real easy to find. And it's breaking down that high level traffic into multiple different channels... Andrew: The different marketing streams, yeah. So this one's eCommerce business, and straight off the bat you can see that something's wrong here, ‘cause you've got paid searches as the highest traffic. But, you need to circle a few things here, so the problem here is the bounce rate is massive. Paid search, high bounce rate, a lot of money's gone down the drain quite frankly. Chris: So let's talk about bounce rate while we're on that. So between 55% and 70% bounce rate is considered high. Anything over 70% is considered pretty much extreme. So it's time to bring that down. Andrew: So just to explain what a bounce is, it's when someone comes to your page - doesn't click on anything and then they leave. So someone that didn't interact with your page at all. Chris: And bounces can happen a lot. Especially in search and social - ah sorry, in paid search and social, because people have searched for a particular product. Andrew: They may not necessarily wanna see it. You might have put it in front of them when they don't want it. Chris: In paid search they've searched for a particular product, they've clicked on that link to that paid page and they've seen what they wanted to see - probably priced, they're shopping around, boom they're gone again. If you didn't entice them to click through to another page, then essentially they've bounced. And they could've been sitting on that page for a long time. In fact, they could've been sitting on that for hours, all day, reading all the content that you had to offer, but if they didn't click through to another page it's called a bounce. So the same thing can happen in social, right? Because... Andrew: Yeah, we say this all the time that social's people's down time. And if you're putting ads in front of them and they don't realise it, they've clicked through to an ad, they're often just gonna bail back out of that. Social traffic tends to have high bounce rate and lower engagement metrics because of that. But, it's a great branding opportunity, it's not a right off there. You just have to be showing the right sort of content, maybe not necessarily trying to get someone to buy something straight from Facebook. Chris: And then we've got on that same slide we've got their conversion rate, and 3.11 conversion rate. Conversions categorised as 2% as average, 5% is good and 10% plus is great. So they're sitting between averaging good. Now if we were going to say, for example if the client said, "Hey, while I'm getting lots of traffic on paid search, that's great, I'm gonna increase my spend." Andrew: Well I would say don't even bother. Especially when you have a little bit further down that email traffic is a 10.24% conversion rate. I would be saying do more email campaigns, 'cause that's obviously working really well. And then maybe have a look at bringing this bounce rate down, put a bit of work into that. Make some more relevant content, have a look at your page load potentially and have a look at your targeting - maybe you're showing your ads to the wrong people. Chris: There's so much you can do in eCommerce. Show that there's a sale on and that it's a limited time. For example, there's a counter there just above the "add to cart" button that says buy now or you'll miss out. For instance... Andrew: Get some more testimonials. Get some more reviews and writings and things like that. Chris: More content on that page essentially. So that is called conversion rate optimisation. Improving your page to improve conversions. If you can improve those conversions then potentially go back and invest more dollars into that paid advertising. Andrew: I would also say maybe get a heat map or a screen recording software installed on the website and actually get some hard data - hard evidence about what's going on there. It might just be as simple as there's no calls to action above the fold, it might be a real easy fix. Chris: Could be an error. Paid search - don't forget if you've got so many heaps of campaigns, that's a very high level view. You could have one campaign that's absolutely tanking because for whatever reason your products are no longer available, discontinued or something like that. Andrew: Yeah, that's right. Especially with AdWords, it could just be one keyword's just ruining your entire campaign. It's really important to be looking at those metrics as well. Chris: So let's move on to slide 7 where we've actually got a different eCommerce business where their highest traffic source is organic. Andrew: Whoa, yeah, they're doing really well. 11% conversion rate. Chris: And they're converting 11% on that organic traffic. That's really good. Essentially then we looked at paid searches, their second biggest paid channel. And they've got a 7% conversion rate there. And so therefore they're advertising campaign on AdWords needs tweaking and improving because obviously there's a good conversion rate happening in organic. There's not a lot wrong with their pages, but that conversion rate indicates to me that maybe their actual advertising campaigns wrong. Andrew: Yeah, that's what I think. Maybe they just needed to tighten up what they're targeting there. Another good thing that I've seen with this one - we've got a great ad, but they've got their revenue filled in there. So they're actually pushing data of all their sales back, which is awesome because that means they can actually measure ROI properly, so you can have a look at your AdWords page and analytics - you can see how much you spending and what you're getting back for it, then you get that ROI metric. That's awesome if you can actually get that, it's not possible for everyone. Chris: Which comes down to cost per acquisition. Andrew: That's right, so if you know that then you can scale as far as you want. Chris: So cost per acquisition is basically cost per sale. Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Chris: Instead of tracking cost per click, track cost per acquisition. If you bring that down... Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Also, here their bounce rate is incredibly low on this one. Chris: Yeah, 19.43% on organic search and 14.78% even on paid, which is just awesome. Really good. Andrew: Two other metrics I think worth mentioning here because this is so high on this one I just want to say. Under behaviour on here, you've got bounce rate, pages per session, average session duration. Pages per session is really important, that's how many - for each person that comes to your site, that's how many different pages they go on there. And if you're above 2.5% that's pretty good. Their average pages per session across all channels is 6.89%, that's great. That means people are really searching around going through everything. Chris: Yup. Andrew: Also, the session duration: 3 minutes, that's great too. If you've got above 2 minutes that's awesome. People spending a lot of time on their website. They've obviously got a lot of really good related content, a lot of good internal linking. I'd say they've got a really good interface there as well. Chris: So, on product pages you may also be interested in if they're doing blogging then potentially they've got interlinked pages. Here's the product we're talking about - go and check it out in the cart, all that sort of stuff. Andrew: They've got a great funnel, that much is obvious. So yeah, they're doing great. Chris: Slide 8, we've got a service based business, and obviously which means no eCommerce tracking on the site. And the highest channel - highest volume of traffic coming through is via organic for this one. Now, they've got a 56% bounce rate on their organic and 2.12 pages per session. Andrew: It's not bad. Chris: Yeah, that's right. Andrew: But there's room, room to improve, that's for sure... Chris: There is room for improvement. So, with bounce rate, like we said, that people are coming in and their not exactly seeing what we wanted them to see and they're leaving. But with 2.12 pages per session on organic - they kind of are finding what they are wanting to find. They're not really that eager to make an inquiry because their actual conversion rate is low, in the 2%'s, so it's an average conversion rate. Andrew: Yeah, so maybe there's a trust issue there and that's where I'd say probably maybe looking at getting some reviews, testimonials, that sort of thing - maybe having a look at the form, reducing the amount of fields in the form. Just to bring down all the barriers, make it easier for an inquiry to happen there. Chris: Really good point you've made there, Andrew, about the barriers to inquiry and completing a form. Those - Don't ask for too much information, what do you really need from people? Name, phone number, email address - that's pretty much it. Andrew: Yeah, like that's it. Even have a request to call back can be a better option than having an inquiry. Sometimes people don't feel that comfortable about filling all that information in. Chris: An optional message field is good. I think leave that one optional. So the top 3 required and an optional message field, boom. And then that could absolutely increase the conversion rate on those inquiries. Andrew: If I was to give these people any advice, though, it would be look at they're social campaigns, though here. Cause you can see there that their conversion rate is .9% on social. Bounce rate's 84%, like obviously they're sending the wrong message out there or maybe just reaching the wrong people. There's massive room for improvement there. Chris: Yeah, hard one, I'm with you on that. There's definitely some improvements that are needed. I mean, what are they sending people to this site for? Is it to consume content? They're not really clicking through to other pages on the site. It's - pages per session 1.6, time on site a minute ten. They really do need to reconsider why they're sending people there and... Andrew: Obviously sending them there for maybe promoting blogs or something like that. But then you just have to look at what they're doing next. Chris: They need to encourage and click through... Andrew: Calls to action in their blogs. Chris: Yeah, super important. Cool. Slide 9, we've got another service based business. So again organic search is the highest traffic source. Bounce rate is lower, 48%, that's great. It's good, rather. And 2.39 pages per session, which is pretty much average there. And a conversion rate of 4.84%. So, their conversion rate's obviously better than the last. And that means that their calls to action are much better and their barriers... Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative)... Chris: Their forms are probably better. They potentially got testimonials or some kind of - they've developed some kind of trust with the audience to encourage that inquiry. Maybe there's some sort of free offer, potentially round that... Andrew: Yeah, their funnel could just be better overall. And it might just be a type of service that people are more interested in, in general, you never really know that. Chris: Industry comes in... Andrew: That's right, yeah like some people just have a tough industry that you always have to consider. Chris: Exactly. So apart from website traffic sources we wanna focus on what's happening out there in amongst the other - I guess campaigns that we could be running. So, obviously social is probably the most popular and most common activity that people are undertaking when they're doing marketing. I think we've spoken about this before, but just to recap, what's some of the metrics people need to be tracking when they're doing social campaigns? Andrew: Okay, big thing for me is always engagement, especially the social. You wanna say that people are actually interacting with your content. Clicks through the website not always that important, 'cause you can see that they might be doing nothing when they get to the website. Most important thing is that they're having a good time on the social platform first and foremost. And then something that people don't often look at is one called "social clicks", which is a sort of like the viral effect. It's when someone's interacted with your content and then their friends doing it or maybe they've shared it to someone else. That's that sort of roll off growth effect that happens on social, that's a really important one, cause that means that the community's accepting it. It means it's getting shared around. Chris: And another really important metric that people need to be targeting - I'm sorry, monitoring when they're looking at their reports, their monthly reports, is search into results pages. So the results of their ranking of their keywords in search. Andrew: That's right. So you can look at your traffic for organic and that's great but you really wanna know where it's coming from, because you wanna know what you wanna optimise for on what you should be creating more content for. If you're not using a software for tracking your search engine results, you can go into search console and everyone should have search console. Google search console set up. You can have a look at your keyword report in there and that'll show you all the traffic that's coming in for different keywords and it will also show you the impressions for different keywords. So you can see who's seeing you for different keywords. And that at least is very important because that data's not in Google analytics anymore. Chris: It's not a complete picture because Google has wiped out a lot of the keywords that people actual typing in under a category called, "not provided", but... Andrew: It shows a lot more than Google analytics at least. Chris: Exactly. Andrew: So you get something there. Chris: Yeah. Is that all we got time for? Look I think this is a very high level view. Still, we've sorta dived in a little bit. But, with eCommerce there's so much more you could be looking at. Once you've got some of that conversions - what's happening with the conversions? Well potentially people are getting to the cart, and they're abandoning cart. So you need to look at the exit pages and what can you do there? Well you can be running automated email campaigns. You can be running remarketing campaigns on Google AdWords and social. There's lots of opportunities there. But again we said we're gonna have a high level view, and I think we've done that here so hopefully that's - I guess helpful. Anything to add, Andrew? Andrew: You know what? We could just go on forever. But I think maybe we'll do one on each specific channel, in the future, I'd think it'd be good. Chris: Yeah. Great! Well, thanks very much for your time. That was "Get Fact Up", episode 68. And you're here with Andrew Groat and Chris Hogan from MeMedia, here at the Burleigh Heads Studio's on the Gold Coast. Cheers.

Published Nov 28, 2017  - G'day world, Chris Hogan and Andrew Groat coming to you live from the MeMedia studio here at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast. How ya goin', Andrew? - Yeah, good. - Awesome. - How're you? - Yeah, I'm good. I hear you had a double strength real coffee. - Yeah, I'm shaking a little bit right now. - Good, let's get started. Today we're talking about multichannel strategy and what people are really doing in their short-term, long-term strategies, and we've just had something huge dumped on us in the last week in terms of changes in the marketplace. So do you wanna share what's happened? - Yeah, so Facebook recently went, underwent some pretty big changes, and it's not all set in stone just yet, but it's caused huge problems for a lot of people. I was talking to a friend of mine recently who, she runs an e-commerce business, really successful, and these Facebook changes has like dropped her organic reach of that 1%, and if you think like, what's the point of even having a following if you're only reaching 1% of them? Sales dropped by 30%, ad costs have doubled. It's, yeah, it's crazy. You add all that together, that's a big problem. Luckily, she's one step ahead with that, and was already building up an AdWords channel, but I mean, that's not like for like. The viral strength of Facebook can't be replaced by AdWords. AdWords is like a regular stream of ROI, but, yeah, the product releases you do on Facebook would just explode and get a lot of business in, so, yeah, it's a big issue and there's a lot more hustle and ad-spend to have to make up for that. - So just on that. Basically this huge change has happened on Facebook. People don't know what's going on. I think you mentioned that their help section on the help forum-- - Yeah, yeah. 'Cause it's not just that, like, all sorts of ad formats have changed, and settings have changed, and things just don't work quite so well anymore, and I was researching something, 'cause we had this change in ad formatting happened, and I went to find out why, and their entire help system had gone down, like the knowledge base and the support website, so, yeah, it's crazy, and the lesson in all this is don't put all your eggs in one basket really. - Yeah, exactly. So essentially, this massive change has happened, people's businesses and their sales are being affected massively because they've been using Facebook as a source of traffic, which is obviously equated to sales for them, and yeah, like you just said, if Facebook was your only strategy, even though as much as we love Facebook for its power or virility and its targeting capabilities, when they implement a change like this with no explanation, which they can do, they don't have to explain to anybody-- - They don't answer to anyone, it's their platform, so if they just change stuff and people don't like it-- - Yeah, and so then we're left sitting here potentially with no sales coming through the door, or a fraction of the sales coming through the door, and because we relied on one single channel to bring those in, we have to diversify, we have to move very quickly and jump onto a different channel. And just like you said, putting all your eggs in one basket, potentially isn't the right strategy. It's not a good strategy. - Even if it's going quite well. - [Chris] Exactly, and-- - Well, almost especially if it's going quite well, 'cause guaranteed something's coming. Always seems to be like that, like ad policy changes, feature changes, reach, audience, just without warning can change, especially with Facebook, they're quite reactive. If someone complains, they're just like all right, that feature's gone. - So putting all your eggs in one channel, or source of revenue or traffic, is a bad idea, and we have spoken about before that one reason why it's a super bad idea is because people out there, you guys don't own this channel. You've got no say in what happens on this channel, so whether it's Facebook, whether it's YouTube, whether it's Google advertising, whether it's Instagram, LinkedIn, you're renting space. - Yeah, you may think it's yours, especially if you're building a following, you may think it's yours, but reach changes, and you realise, okay, this isn't mine at all. - Yeah. - You know? - And the only thing that we've said that people own is their own website. Okay, I'll say this, but it still doesn't apply. The only thing we really do own is the organic traffic to our website, and obviously yeah, we can't dictate what's happening in Google land either. Search engine results and pages can change, and algorithms can change on Google, and your SEO ranking could tank, yeah, but, if you've got a very strong Google organic source of traffic, and versus having a strong paid traffic, then your business is gonna be far more secure, just using those two examples. - I would say you need both. - Of course. - And sort of beyond that, not just one pay channel. I'd probably look at having Facebook and Google. I'm not so sure about any of the other paid channels, but you wanna have both of those just in case. You should be working on the organic just in case. Protect yourself even further from there, build up a mailing list with everyone that's coming in, collect details, maybe an MMS list or something like that as well. - MMS messaging is massive, yeah. - Yeah, always keep on top of SEO. There's a lot more to it that you need to do. - So you build up a database, own as much of that, those people's details as possible, and don't just rely, like you just said, don't just rely on email, have MMS and SMS as a backup, and if comes down to it, maybe we need to go back to snail mail. There's always that, yeah. - There's always that. - Another one, remarketing should be in there as well. You should have remarketing cookies. That's one people often overlook. 'Cause that gives you more control over your paid channels, if you are building up like an audience as well. Building up your own audience, rather than just using targeting. - Yeah, so, and then just today, it's been announced here in Australia, so we're actually filming on a Thursday, you'll see this Monday, but, today Amazon Australia goes live, and I believe it's for a select few people, it's gonna happen in a couple hours, I believe, and there you go, there's another channel that people could be tapped into, products, selling your products on Amazon, and, whoa, have I got some predictions around what Amazon's gonna do to retail here in this country. - Yeah, get ready. They're scared, like if you've seen, what's the guy from Harvey Norman, the guy that owns it? It's not Harvey Norman, but anyway, he's terrified of Amazon because it's all these sorts of old retail companies, they're just not gonna be able to cope with it. - Gerry Harvey, yeah. - Yeah, that's him. - Yeah, absolutely, and jeez he's changed his tune. He didn't believe in e-commerce at all several years back. Yeah, so Amazon is gonna make a huge difference, and if you don't understand the model of Amazon, so essentially what can happen is brands, manufacturers, can put their products there, retailers can put their products there, as a source to be a distribution agent for any sales that happen there on said product. Amazon can actually distribute, so they have a thing called fulfilment by Amazon, so they have warehouses that they've created throughout Australia, or sorry, creating throughout Australia, and so therefore, people can actually have their product shipped by Amazon, and so Amazon also have indicated that they will potentially go into bricks and mortar retail so people can actually walk into a store. Now, that hasn't happened yet. And when we start to talk stats and things like that, a lot of us are super scared in the retail space due to the fact that one in two online sales are happening on Amazon in the USA, but something to be very considerate of is that the USA is a massive country and the distribution networks are far better than what we have here in Australia, so we do need to probably liken ourselves more to what's happening in Canada when it comes down to Amazon. And so Amazon, I don't know the stats of what's happening out of Canada, but one of the difficulties they're having in Canada is the distribution networks. Everybody's almost just as spread out there as they are here in Australia. So, what does this really mean for, basically retail here in Australia? Well, I have a prediction that, basically, those big shopping centres that we love to visit here on the Gold Coast, they're gonna basically turn into distribution centres. They're gonna turn into maybe restaurants and cafes, more so than your shops, which we'll go in and try stuff on. Stuff is gonna be delivered by drone, it will happen, and I predict that in five years, we will be seeing that stuff happen throughout the world. Now, whether it happens here first or whether it happens somewhere else, Amazon said they wanna do it, and it's gonna happen. - They've got too much money. No one's gonna be able to stop them from doing this stuff. - Yeah, so, there's a whole other conversation we could have around Amazon, but I think, just to get back to our point, that a multichannel approach is best. Distribute your following, your audience, your sources of traffic, across multiple channels. While we love Facebook, putting all your eggs into Facebook, that Facebook basket, is not necessarily the best choice. Instagram, same deal. And so we do come back to what is the best thing that we can do as a short-term strategy and as a long-term strategy, and what is that? - Content marketing, yeah. - There you go, yeah. - And then use all your pay channels and your following and all that sort of thing to buffer and strengthen that via promotion. Obviously, yeah, you wanna get some regular income from these as well, but, also keep a portion of that budget for growing your content marketing channel, because that's the only one you really own. Even then, you don't own it but that's the one you have the most control over, and that you find the most strength from long term. - 'Cause push comes to shove and you've got a heap of content that you've created, it's taken you years to create that content, and you've got it all housed on YouTube or Vimeo, and they start to do something. - Yeah, next minute algorithm change, yeah. - You can pull it all down and upload it to your own website. All that content can still be available that you've created, but if you didn't have the content to start with, you're behind the eight ball, massively. And so then on your own channel, your website, is still the most reliable channel that you can put money into and invest in, and I think that everybody needs to really start now, start yesterday, doing that content creation, and it's good to have this kind of conversation, and look at it from a different angle, isn't it, because essentially, we talk about it all too often. If you go back through our history, you'll see that we talk about content marketing, produce content, do it all the time, distribute through social, all the time, but we're talking about from case studies, and this is another case study, and this is another angle to look at it from, isn't it? It's just a super compelling reason to do it. And that way, your short-term goals, your short-term marketing goals can be bursts of goals. Oh, look, Facebook's got this happening right now. Their algorithm's doing this right now. They've got fantastic ads right now. Great, let's use it. - Yeah, how can we use it, but it might be a flash in the pan, it might not. Especially with Facebook. They release all these new ad formats, next week, they're gone again, 'cause it doesn't work, so, yeah. - So Facebook have also started bringing out a Facebook creator app, encouraging-- - Oh, Creative Hub, yeah. - Encouraging, well, yeah. I personally don't know much about Creative Hub, because it's not really fleshed out yet, right? - No, it's far from fleshed out. - Okay, so, but the creator app that appears on the App Store, basically encourages people to create more content for Facebook. Now, they've done it specifically for individuals. Last week we spoke about personal branding and how it's not really an awesome strategy, and that takeaway was make more your brand more personable. Well, Facebook's bringing out a Facebook creator app to basically get people to create more personal content, so you cannot use it for your brand pages, and the reason why it was brought out is so that those people that are doing Facebook Lives on their own profiles can get some analytics, can get some insights into what's happening on that content that they're sharing through their own personal Facebook timeline. What's the message there that I'm trying to get to is that content is king. Content, comes back to content again. Facebook are doing this, it comes back to content. Yeah, okay, they're not letting their brands to utilise that Facebook creator app. Brands don't need to. They already have their Facebook insights coming through many other sources, whether it be their own insights or third-party apps. So, yeah. It's just very clear to me and yourself, and when this happened just this week, this massive change, this blowup, in terms of Facebook algorithm changes and ads not working as they were the week before, it was just, we had to talk about it, even though we don't know what's going on. We're just like everybody else out there. We're actually sitting here going, um, so, Facebook ads stopped working and our sales plummeted. Would we sit around and wait? - No, no. - [Chris] For Facebook to come good again? - No, well, it may not. They may not even release an announcement. I mean, they've done this before. So, yeah, could be one step ahead. - Yeah, absolutely. I think that's all we've got time for. I did a lot of talking then, and you had the coffee. So thanks very much for watching Get Fact Up. As you know, we like to bring to you you know, what's happening right now, keeping ourselves on our toes, keeping you on your toes. Keep listening. All of our episodes are hosted on MeMedia.com.au, or we can just Google Get Fact Up, and they're also hosted on YouTube, so you can go through all of those there. We're using YouTube, yeah, not Facebook. We upload to Facebook as well. - Yeah, it's everywhere. - Yeah, it's everywhere. So thanks very much for watching, guys, and stay cool, appreciate your time. - Thank you.

The American dream no longer represents home ownership. Whether you’re looking to rent or buy, everyone wants the same thing: A place they call, “home.” Not a house, but a home. There is a difference. Today, I am talking with Chris Litster, CEO of Buildium, which helps property managers handle properties, leases, tenants, and units. Chris shares how property management firms should focus on customer service, relationships, and reputation. You’ll Learn... [06:53] Service Oriented, Relationship Focused: Avoid treating residents, owners, or vendors adversarially, if you want to be a successful property management firm. [07:43] Millennial and Baby Boomer generations view home ownership as a burden. When things change, personally or professionally, they want to be able to move. [09:25] One reason to rent is to avoid dealing with and doing maintenance. Time is better spent focusing on other priorities. [11:19] Multiple generations want technology from property management companies to automate payments, submit maintenance request, and perform other tasks. [12:04] People demand a strong relationship with their property management “firm.” Their moving away from using the term, “Landlord,” because of the baggage it brings. [12:25] Property managers should make their language more friendly and appealing. [15:50] Property management firms should shift their mindset to be service-oriented and understanding to have stronger relationships and less resident turnover. [17:40] Property managers have a massive network and influence with owners, tenants, potential residents, and others. They can cause a ripple effect and change the world. [19:50] Every property manager says they’re the only good ones. All others are terrible. A mindset of scarcity has been falsely created in the industry. [20:50] Low levels of awareness and perception impact a business’s ability to grow. The industry needs collaboration over competition. [22:41] Buildium believes, knows, and has evidence that service orientation and relationships matter. [25:38] Core principle and goal of technology is to take care of customers and solve their problems efficiently. [28:53] Strategic vs. Tactical Timing: Expanding and growing a business takes time and effort. Automating processes gives you time to think strategically. [30:57] SEO Lottery Addiction: Spending revenue on SEO won’t generate ROI. [37:21] Ladder of Autonomy: Companies that understand their business, customers, message, and differentiator are at the top level and benefit everyone involved. [38:43] Fundamental Funnel Basics: Brand, pricing, reputation, Website, sales process. Tweetables American dream no longer represents home ownership. Landlord Stereotype: Evil person who collects your rent, but doesn’t take care of things. Low levels of awareness and perception impact a business’s ability to grow. The industry needs collaboration over competition. Resources Chris Litster’s Email Address Buildium All Property Management - a Buildium Company Constant Contact MailChimp DGS 3: Buildium’s 2015 State of Property Management Report – Part 1 DGS 3: Buildium’s 2015 State of Property Management Report – Part 2 National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) The Iceberg Report Google Ads DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason: All right, we are live. Welcome, DoorGrow hackers to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it, you think they’re crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I’m your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show. Today, I have a special guest. I am here hanging out with Chris Litster, the CEO of Buildium. Chris, welcome to the DoorGrow Show. Chris: Hey, Jason. How are you? Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I’m just flabbergasted by that opening. The energy, I could already feel it. It’s going to be a great hour. Jason: Yeah. I put quite a bit of thought into that little intro. Chris: It’s great. It’s fantastic. Jason: Yeah. We’re pretty passionate about this and we want to champion a cause here. Chris, I’m really excited to have you on. I love to get a little bit of background on you and how you got connected to Buildium. Give us a little history here. Chris: Sure. I’ve been with Buildium now for just over a little bit of 2½ years. I have been in the SMB or the small- and medium-sized business market space for probably 15–20 years. I’ve been in tech for a lot longer than that. I was with IBM for a while, a couple of other tech companies, then I landed at Constant Contact in 2006. It was an email marketing firm for small businesses like MailChimp and a couple of other players in that space. I was with Constant Contact for 10 years, started with them, they’re pretty small, and that when we grew them and scaled with a great team at Constant Contact. Ultimately, ended up selling them three years ago, selling Constant Contact. Took a year off to reacquaint myself with my wife and three boys. During that 10 years they have the short end of the stick as we’re building Constant Contact. During that time off, I had the opportunity, through different acquaintances and such, to meet the former CEO and one of the founders of Buildium, Michael Monteiro, who I know that you had on this show. Michael, at that point, was interested in just talking with folks who had scaled companies before. Buildium was on the verge of that inflection point of really scaling and revenue growth was starting to really accelerate. Michael and the team at that time over the past 12 years or so, had grown Buildium to where it was. Now, because of our great product, great team, and great customers, we are ready to go to the next level. We started talking and it took three times of meeting each other. Finally, it was either he or maybe it was I who had said, “Hey, wait a minute. Do you want me here and did you say, ‘Hey, would you want to join us?’” I wasn’t really ready to jump back into the space yet but there’s so many great things going on here at Buildium that I decided to. The fact that Buildium again was focused of small and medium business was something that really attracted me because this is where I get my passion from the small business folk. The fact that it was then focused on one vertical instead of hundreds, that being property management on the residential side, I jumped in. I joined a couple of years ago as the Chief Customer Officer and for that, I was responsible for sales, marketing, partners, support, and success. I did that for the next year, year-and-a-half or so. Around that time, Michael and I started talking about Michael looking to transition out of the CEO role. He’s been the CEO since founding—that was 12 years or so—and we started talking. Last July, we went through the transition. I have now been the CEO since last July and I’m loving every minute of it. Jason: Cool and what’s he up to now? Chris: Michael and Dimitris, our other founder, are both advisers here at Buildium. Dimitris has a couple of things going on but he’s here a couple of days a week helping us out with some of the larger initiatives that we have going on. Michael’s here a couple of days a week advising me, the rest of the exec team. They’re both active board members for Buildium. It’s just great having them both here because it just adds to that continuity, builds on the history. I can turn to him and say, “Hey, this customer that’s been around for 10 years. How did we get them and what were the things that they were looking to do 10 years ago?” so that when I go and meet them, I know the history that they’ve had with Buildium and how we’ve helped them grow. Jason: Great. The topic that we had discussed or that we had down is homes, not houses. Let’s get into that. What do you mean by homes, not houses? Chris: Great question. I’m sure, as many people know, Buildium is in the residential space, as far as helping property managers with our platform to manage their properties, manage their leases, tenants, and units. Also on the accounting side. We have 16,000 customers, we’re managing on the platform about 1.8 million units, and through that, we have the ability to not only talk and speak with our customers in the residence, but also because of our partnership with NARPM and a few other things, we do a ton of research. We have most certainly seen over the past couple of years, this trend where the idea of the importance of relationships between the property management firm and their residents has really taken on a new and different light where relationships have become so important. As part of that, the realization that regardless of if you rent or if you buy a home, everyone is looking for the same thing. Even when you are a renter, you are actually looking for a place that you can call home. The idea of referring to this as a rental property or a rental unit, in the minds of the resident, they’re really looking to understand and get that feeling of, “Hey, I’m going to call this home.” Why are they doing that? Because frankly, there’s many trends that are going on, both at, let’s say, the millennial segment as well as in the upper segments of the baby boomers, where this idea of the American Dream where it used to represent home ownership no longer really stands for that. It’s the whole idea of that, ‘I just want to find a home.’ By calling it a home and not a house, what we’re trying to do is bring that idea of belonging and bring that idea of where can I put my roots down. Just for the fact that I didn’t sign a mortgage and I have a rental agreement, doesn’t mean that my aspirations are different somehow. Because of that, property management firms should really take that idea really as far down the road as they can and understand that they have to be service-oriented. They have to be relationship-focused. This idea sometimes of looking at residents or your owners or your vendors in somewhat of an adversarial way, is no longer something that you can do if you really want to be a successful 21st century property management firm. Jason: That makes a lot of sense. I think part of the challenge is that nowadays, millennials and the younger generation, a lot of them see home ownership as a burden. They see it as a tether in a lot of situations. We live in a day and age in which people can work from coffee shops, they can have freedom, they can travel, and jobs change. It’s no longer the day and age where people will stay in the same career sometimes for just 20 years. When things are changing, they want to be able to move. I think also, one of the reasons I’ve always enjoyed renting was I didn’t have to do the maintenance stuff. I do want to have to deal with that. I either have to hire a house manager to manage the property for me or have a property manager that helps manage those things for me. I don’t want to have to deal with that. My time is far better spent on my business, with my family, those kind of things, and that’s not just a priority for me. I don’t have any sort of kick out of doing that stuff. Chris: Exactly and that’s not only. So, 100% on the millennial side. The idea that even though they may only be a resident for a year or two years, again, they still want to have that strong feeling of being able to call this their home. The same thing, for different reasons, is on the baby boomer generation. Here we now have this generation who are quickly becoming empty nesters left, right, and center, and they now have really no more great use for the large house that they have in the suburbs. They have all this space, again to your point, they no longer want to have to clean in every week and they no longer want to maintain this beautiful house. So, what they’re doing is actually selling their houses. We’re seeing a big trend of, for example, there’s a brand new neighborhood here in Boston that has just grown over the past decade or so called the Seaport. Many empty nesters are moving into the Seaport and renting. Actually, they’re renting it with some of the leases are almost renting at will, a three-month lease, a half year lease, for the same reasons that you talked about. They want to now travel. They want to have that flexibility that, should they want to pick up and explore another part of the country or another country altogether, they don’t want to be burdened, like you said, tethered down by the fact that they’re carrying this mortgage. That is changing on the top end as well. The interesting thing that binds these two segments together, these two parts of our industry together, is they’re both asking for technology. They’re both asking for technology with their property management companies for automation of payments, understanding, “Hey, if I have burst pipe, I don’t want to have to call but rather perhaps tell Alexa that there’s a burst pipe or you log into the portal to put in there maintenance request. Even though many people look at millennials and baby boomers as quite different—in many cases they are—there’s a huge intersection in the property management space that both of these segments share. The largest one that we’re seeing, there’s two. One, again is around technology and the other one is demanding a really strong relationship with their property management firm and actually moving away from even using the word ‘landlord’ because there’s just so much baggage in that word. But saying, “My property management company,” or, “My property manager,” it really works to strike in the relationship that they’re looking to have. Jason: Let’s talk a little bit about the language then because I think that does matter. I think you’re right. The word ‘landlord’ is always been displayed or the archetype of the landlord is this sort of evil person that you have to pay rent to and that doesn’t take care of things. This is what you’ll see in shows. They’re often this great antagonist in virtually any show. Because we’re talking about homes, not houses, what sort of language should a property manager be using? How should we be rephrasing this to make things a bit more tenant-friendly and shifting towards being more appealing towards residents? Chris: That’s it. That last word you just used. We strain and really speak with our property management customers about the idea of resident versus tenant. There’s just a deeper meaning around resident as opposed to lacking emotion the word tenant. As the title of what we’re talking about here today, wherever you have that opportunity, use the word home as opposed to unit. Unit is so devoid of any emotion. Even if it’s a rental apartment or even if it’s a multifamily property, when you’re talking with the residents, talk it in a sense of their home. And the idea of partnership. We talked about looking for a deeper relationship amongst all of the different constituents that our property management company works with. Instead of looking at it as us and them, you talk about the partnerships. The partnership that you have together with your vendors, the maintenance vendor or your service partners. The partnership that you have with your owner. So really, getting away from, again, that adversarial type of thing and being deliberate about using this language and taking the time to check yourself as a property management firm, to make sure that you’re using that language that holds your constituents or your partners in, as opposed to setting up that wall between you and your resident, you and your vendor, or you and your owner. Jason: Got it. I’ve heard some property managers joke that calling your clients your owners has this psychological negative impact. If you call somebody your owner, they own you. You’re like a slave to them. Chris: Yeah. You reminded me of another one. Definitely that idea of client versus owner, tenant versus resident, service partners instead of, “This is my landscaper or roofer.” Jason: I like the idea of service partners instead of just vendors. The latter sounds pretty cold. All right, we’ve addressed several target audiences here that are connected to property management. Tenants instead of our residents, owners instead of our clients, vendors instead of service partners. Are there any other groups we’re missing here? Chris: No. I think, yes, it’s language but if you look at the property management firm itself, there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen. It’s that idea of being service-oriented and being understanding that if you get that service-orientation, you’re going to have stronger relationships and you’re going to then hopefully have residents who stay in your properties longer, so then not having to deal with your turnover expense, the constant ins and outs, and just building those bonds. Ultimately, again, building the language with that mind shift. We have customers that are just living into this idea. Not only are they growing, they start to get a reputation for this. We know in our space, word of mouth is so important that they’re seeing people coming to them and saying, “Hey, I’ve heard that you really are doing something different and you really are looking to help with the service perspective. And on top of that, you’re using some cool technology that helps build on the relationships.” This idea of technology taking out the human factor is not what we’re talking about. Being a technology vendor, some people are somewhat surprised to hear that. We look at technology being the enabler, to help firms become more efficient so that they then have the time to be able to focus on building these relationships, making sure they’re service-oriented, and making sure frankly that they’re differentiating themselves from everybody else in the pack. Jason: I think that’s a really important distinction. Going back to what you’re talking about, you’re talking about with residents, with clients, service partners, you’re talking about just in general being a more respectful company honoring other people, caring about other people. I really believe that property managers have a massive network. They have a massive ripple effect between all the owners, all the tenants, all the different people that they connect with, even potential residents, they are able to have quite a big influence. It can be a bunch of little micro interactions that are negative, and it can be lots of micro interactions that are positive. That little shift, even in language and little things. This is what gets me excited about our company, DoorGrow, and impact that we get to have through our clients. But I really believe that good property management can change the world. Chris: I completely believe that. I’m with you 100%. That’s so great. Jason: So, good property management can change the world. Bad property management [...] industry and it can have a massive ripple effect either way. Chris: Well, think about this. To you’re point, driving and if you’re commuting somewhere, we know that property management firms love to have the banners, love to have the advertising, “This building is managed by so-and-so.” If they have a bad reputation, people that are two, three, or four degrees away from that actual company, there’s a good change that they know of that reputation. So, even though I’m not directly involved in XYZ property management firm, when I drive into Boston every morning, I know of folks, those that aren’t even our customers, I know the reputation that they have. I think that’s a good example of that ripple effect. They’re always out there. You can’t miss those banners. There’s just this constant on of this advertising for these property management firms, that if they don’t have that great reputation to back it up, like you said, it can impact them pretty directly. Jason: I think it’s even bigger than that and I want everyone listening to realize this. A lot of property managers I talk to, they say, “Well, we started our company because there weren’t any good companies in our market,” or they tell me, “We’re the only good ones. All the other ones are terrible.” But everyone says that. What’s interesting is I think some people have this mindset of scarcity that I think has been falsely created in this industry. In single family residential, according to Iceberg Group, we’ve got about 70% that are self-managing. There’s tons of blue ocean, tons of available potential market share, and yet everybody’s been fighting over the coldest, worst, most difficult leads. I think the thing to realize is that there really isn’t scarcity right now in the US. There really is not and the thing that I really want listeners to pay attention to is that the companies that have bad reputations in your market are hurting your ability to grow your company because of that. The awareness level is low and the perception level is low. Those two things are impacting your ability to grow. I think what the industry needs right now is collaboration over competition. Collaboration allows you to feel safe helping your competitors. A rising tide raises all ships is sort of true but it sinks some because the tide is low in the industry as a whole. Some of those ships are not seaworthy and they’ll sink. But I think if you can lift up the ones that are seaworthy, there’s going to be a lot more business to go around. The ones that are at the top promoting the industry are going to be the ones that win. Anytime there’s a new business category in the US, the person that builds the category instead of their own individual brand is the winner. Google built the category of internet search. Now we google everything. Whether you’re on any other search engine, “I’m going to google it.” Kleenex built the category of disposable paper facial tissue. Everyone was using handkerchiefs before that. So now, Kleenex is synonymous with any tissue. “Give me Kleenex.” Property management has been held back, I believe, and has a huge opportunity to grow. It’s been around for decades but the problem is the awareness level is on par with brand new industries. I don’t even know of any other new industries that exist in the US that are as young in reputation, perception, and that sort of infancy other than maybe marijuana, vaping and these kind of things. Property management can be as big, I think, as the real estate industry. It has that potential. We barely scratched the surface. Chris: I completely agree. It’s funny that you used the all the boats rising because we talk about that all the time here at Buildium. We talk about the idea that this industry is ripe for so many things as far as growth and a little bit of disruption, as far as technology adoption, and it’s all for the idea of introducing the true human element into the industry. Further, this idea that everyone who really buys into that is then going to rise up because as you said, I think there’s enough pie for everybody. It’s really interesting when we’re at either some of our meetups or we’re at NARPM, there is a real camaraderie around those folks. You can almost tell those folks that have really been successful around this idea of understanding, it’s the strength of relationships that count. Why? They’re not threatened by the other property management firms because they know that their relationships are solid, that their residents, their clients, their service partners are going to stay with them, because they know the reason that they’re going to stay with them. They don’t mind talking with other PMCs because they know that they’re solid in their business. What really working here to try to bring that element, obviously in addition to the technology. But there is a change that needs to happen and frankly, it’s not just a, “Hey, we think you should change.” What we’re saying is, “We 100% believe, know, and have evidence that people who take this idea of service orientation, this idea of relationships matter, and using technology to get to those, we know it works.” Again, 16,000 customers and we have so many of them that are successful, who have bought into that entire idea. What do they have? They have happy long-term residents, they have happy clients, and they have happy service partners that aren’t going to go anywhere else because they know they’re in it together. That’s what we’re looking to really continue to help and help the entire industry here, which is really exciting. To your point, there’s an opportunity here that not too many industries have. We have seen research that says that the property management industry is the third highest industry in interaction with constituents, let’s say, because they have to deal with residents, they have to deal with their clients. That idea of total interaction and ongoing interaction with people, it’s the third highest. What are the other two? Hospitality and retail. That’s pretty good company that they’re in and hospitality and retail understand that relationships matter. Now, it’s time for the third person or the third set in this industry to realize that. Jason: That’s really an interesting little factoid right there. Let’s go back to what you mentioned earlier. You’re talking about tech enables you to spend more time on relationships. I think there is this mythical creature that everybody’s chasing after that looks like this robot that will run their business for them. They can cut out relationships and they can have this business that runs itself. It could be super easy. I think when we chase that mythical creature, we end up chasing a pipe dream. It becomes really difficult and we alienate ourselves from our customer base. I think that’s an important thing to point out what you’ve mentioned earlier. I love technology. I’m a total nerd, I love it, I love automation, I love geeking out on this stuff. But the whole goal of all of it, everyone needs to remember the core principle that it’s about your customer. It’s all about giving your customer more depth. I think instead of trying to hit more people, more superficially, more quickly, we need to figure out how to go more deep, more personal, and connect more with more people. If that becomes the focus, then we can leverage technology and automation to take care of the mundane, while we focus on the relationships and getting us personal and as deep as possible. I’ve noticed that a general rule I give to my team, that if any is a sticky or difficult communication, or situation, or somebody’s not happy, we want to go as personal as possible. The most personal would be in person. Second most would be a video call like this. Third would be maybe a phone call. But it needs to be as personal as possible because it just calms the situation down, it makes things easier, and really that’s what people want. People want to be taken cared of. A business only exist if it’s serving somebody and if it’s solving their problems and their pains. That’s only the reason a business exist. You cut yourself off from the customer, you’re really killing your ability to have a business. Chris: Right. Do you want to come and do our copywriting? You’re hitting on every single thing that are just so fundamental to what we believe here at Buildium. The idea of using technology for technology’s sake is a non-starter. The idea of using technology, as you talked about, to serve something and what we truly believe, after talking with our customers and understanding the industry, that using technology leads to the greater efficiency that offers you the ability to then spend your time where you can and where you should from an important business perspective. There are two things. The efficiency brings your ability to spend time with, again, your various partners or clients and your residents. So really, get to know them, to really understand them, to really interact with them because now you don’t have to be chasing them for, let’s say, the rent payment because that’s automated. You don’t have to be chasing them for understanding their tasks, their needs from a maintenance perspective because that’s automated. Rather, what you need to talk with them about is, “Hey, am I meeting your expectations to help you build this home, this idea of a home?” “Hey, am I meeting your expectations as my client?” “Hey, how can we think of growing this business together?” That’s the second part. The second part is how do I look to grow my business? If your goal as a property management firm is to continue to expand, that takes a lot of time. That takes a lot of effort. You really need to understand what type of properties you’re really good at, what types of residents you really want to have, what type of clients you really want to get in business with. That’s not something you can just do haphazardly. You have to work at it. You have to plan at it. If you’re not focused on, as you said, those things that can be repeated and processes that can be automated, that gives you the time to really think of you business strategically to continue to help grow. You are, in a directed fashion, going after and driving how you want to grow your business, so you’re growing your business and your business isn’t growing in spite of you or growing at you. You’re taking control of it and you’re working in a methodical way now to grow your business and become more efficient. Jason: You mentioned something that stood out to me, talking about strategic timing. This is one of the first things we have clients do when they come aboard with us, is we have them do a time study to get really clear on how much strategic time they’re spending in the business and how much tactical time. Usually, their strategic and tactical ratio is almost 99% tactical. It’s like everything is completely tactical. You’re just doing work in the business. You’re handling emails. You’re doing phone calls. You’re dealing with your calendar. You’re just working. Business can’t grow if there isn’t strategic time. Strategic time is the time you spend to focus on growth. If that doesn’t exist, you won’t be growing. I think another thing that’s important to point out is you talked about how customer service and relationships really matters. One thing to point out that I think a lot of property managers listening, I talked to hundreds of property management business owners that they want to do good customer service. They want to be the good company. I don’t think of of them wake up in the morning and say, “I want to be terrible to tenants, I want to be terrible to my owners, and fight terrible customer service.” I think one of the big things holding them back is that the entire industry is addicted to the SEO lottery. The SEO lottery is a losing game for the majority but you get a few noisy winners that hit the jackpot. They tell everybody how they built their business and grew things, they get the top spot in Google, and everybody chases after this myth or this thing like they’re playing the slot machine in Vegas. It’s harmed the entire industry because if the company is spending their hard-earned revenue on SEO, pay-per-click, pay-per-lead, content marketing, social media marketing, and they’re not getting an ROI, then the first thing to go is customer service. They’re worst off than if they have just not spent the money in the first place because they didn’t get an ROI. So, then the first thing to go is that customer service. They’re not growing. There isn’t growth. There isn’t going to be customer service. So, if anybody’s listening, shameless plug, talk to DoorGrow. We help people get out of that problem and then you can move. I find that when people solve that problem, the next thing they want to focus on is everything else. They want to focus on systems and processes, building a team, creating culture, focusing on the customer, and then they get in to making a difference. But when you’re starving, you’re not too focused on anybody else. I think there’s a Chinese proverb that says, “Your own toothache is more important to you than a million people dying on the other side of the world,” or something like that. Chris: I have not heard of that one. That’s pretty interesting. Jason: I may have adapted it, but... Chris: I agree with you. I agree, let’s say 99%, and the reason being is because we’re also, as part of the growth aspect of what we offer and what the industry likes is that we do have the whole property management side of our business. However, I’m going to caveat with that, there is a massive impact of relationship and reputation in that side of the business as well. Why? Because you have prospective clients going to that side and going that that marketplace, and ultimately being exposed to local property management firms because they’re interested in having a third party manage their properties for a myriad reasons as to why they no longer want to self-manage. There is a reputation and relationship aspect that plays into that exposure as well, because again, it goes back to the banners on the side of the building ad that I’ve talked about. When you are exposed to potentially these three, four, whatever other property management firms, if you have a good reputation, I will contend that that owner probably has heard about you. If you have a bad reputation, they’ve probably have heard about you as well and they immediately are going to discount you. If you have a good reputation and they see that, “Okay, this property management firm has said, ‘Yes, I’m open to looking to get more greater properties under management,’” they’re going to turn to that, one that they have a little inkling as far as, “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that this is a good firm.” I agree with you about the vast majority of what we’ve just talked about. However, reputation and relationships even matter in that space, too. What goes of value, of all the channels, it’s not binary. It’s not the idea of, “Oh, I can just,” to your point, “focus on this execution aspect and not stuff over here,” because this stuff over here is also going to matter in whatever marketing channel or marketing activity you use. Jason: Absolutely. If somebody shores up all the major league should exist in the sales pipeline all the way from awareness to closing a contract, then it makes sense absolutely to do different advertising methods, all probably management. But if you have a massive leak where you have this horrible reputation online, or your website doesn’t create trust or convert or answer their core questions, or your pricing is off in your market, or your branding is off like they think you’re a real estate company or something generic with properties or they’re confused, there’s a lot of potential pitfalls. If you have all those pitfalls, you can turn the spigot on full-blast and it’s not going to work very well. If you have those things tight, you can squeeze blood from a stone and you can use allpropertymanagement.com, you can do SEO services and focus on that, maybe get more business. But you need to make sure that you end up foundation of it, like you said, is word of mouth and reputation. That’s going to trump everything. It’s like a clamp on the pipeline. You could have everything else in alignment but if you have really bad reputation, they’re going to check you out. Even if your website’s amazing, even if your advertising and copywriting are on point, they’re going to go check you out because they want to feel safe. If you’re a one-star company, they’re going to feel a little bit nervous talking to you, and then you’re going to have to figure out how to spin it. Like, “Oh, the tenants just hate us but the owners love us or something like that. Chris: This is something from a small business perspective that it’s not only property management but it’s everywhere. It’s that idea and I think what you’re saying is shoring up your business model before you pour a ton of gas on the top of what we call a funnel. I can’t tell you the number of not only property management firms but owners from all different types of SMBs. When you start to talk with them and they want to do that top of funnel stuff, they want to do all of that because sometimes that’s more attractive. It leaves a more sexy type of activities about growing your business. Then when you go, “Okay. Well, are you going to be able to keep that? Are you going to be able to get a response to that lead within a matter of minutes? Are you going to be able to service that prospect all the way through? And then are you going to be able to keep that prospect if they become a customer for a long time because you’re all service?” That’s when you start to see the whole, “No, I can’t do that. No, I can’t follow-up. I really don’t understand that. I don’t really have good service levels.” It’s very hard for folks to say, “Wow, that would be a waste of money, actually, to really expand my top of funnel work until I get,” like you just said, “everything shored up.” When that happens, you know it. For us here, we talk about the ladder of autonomy. It’s kind of a 50s phrase but companies that are just existing or at the bottom of the ladder. Customers have this level of autonomy because they have all their you-know-what together, they understand their business, they understand their customers, they understand their message, they understand the differentiator, they’re working on a completely different level than other folks in their industry, notably on the property management side. Our whole goal is to get everybody up to that top level on the ladder so everyone, again, we think will benefit from it, the ripples, the network effect that you talked about is going to be there. Who’s going to benefit as well? Residents, clients, and service partners. Jason: Yeah and that’s why at DoorGrow we shifted our focus just to help optimize that whole funnel so it makes sense. Once you have that dialed in, everything is more effective. [...] is more effective, Google Ads is more effective, everything becomes more effective when you take care of those things. I usually use the analogy, it’s like trying to do bodybuilding and you’re not eating food and sleeping but you take some really great supplements. Supplements are not going to cut it, but supplements can really help you get to the next level, probably, if you take care of the foundational basics. Dialing your brand, your pricing, your reputation, your website, your sales process, all these things that are in the funnel, these are the basics. These are [...] any business, like you said. Chris: It’s [...], Jason. I love that that’s your philosophy. It’s so important. And also, everyone here at Buildium is going to be psyched that I said the word funnel a number of times because I talk about [...] company. Jason: I love the idea of a funnel. It’s a great metaphor as well. Is there anything else we should discuss here on this idea of homes, not houses? If not, let’s let you plug something. Chris: I think we covered it. Again, the idea of more and more over the years, we think it’s going to become almost a requirement. Those folks that are grabbing on to it today, competition is there, things are hotter than ever, and it is not nice to have anymore. Other industries have been disrupted through this very same idea and now, we see evidence, we talk with our customers, we talk with general folks that aren’t even our customers in the industry, and we really see this big wave coming. Luckily, it’s also a cool time because the technology is there to enable the way to become more efficient through those processes that you talked about that are more on the just everyday ongoing type of things. Technology is there now to really allow this to happen. It is an exciting time. It’s an exciting time to be a vendor, it’s an exciting time to be a service provider in this space as you guys are, to see where it really goes. Just the whole property management industry is pretty hot right now and I just like to be a part of it. It’s really exciting. Jason: Chris, it’s been great having you on the show. I feel like we had a lot of synergy. I really like you. You strike me as a visionary entrepreneur, a decade building up Constant Contact, all this kind of stuff. Not every company is lead by a visionary. I always feel safer with a company that is led by a visionary entrepreneur. That’s why I use T-Mobile, that’s why I have Apple products. I feel like there’s always been these visionaries at the helm of these companies. One thing I want to point out, to plug Buildium or make them look maybe even better, is we’ve been talking all about being focused on the customer, being focused on your customer, serving your customer. We’ve been talking about that for property management companies, but I’m getting the sense that this is how you and your company view dealing with your own constituents, your own customers, that you want to serve their needs, make a difference for them, and not just squeeze dollar out of them. Chris: 100%. Jason: And to that point, some companies are focused primarily, first and foremost, as to serve investors. There’s a different focus there instead of serving their constituents. I think there’s been a lot of talk about this and a lot of pain by people in some other property management software and it’s really difficult to switch. So, maybe you can touch on that difference a little bit with Buildium and maybe you can tell us how does somebody switch this? Somebody listening might be like, “Hey, maybe I like this guy Chris. I’d rather have him at the helm where I’m tethering my whole business to.” Chris: Yeah. I hope there’s a lot of people that have that reaction. It is a core, foundational reality that we love here at Buildium. It’s something that Michael and Dimitris started years ago. It’s something that I 100% believe in. I think that’s why Michael and I hit it off so well so quickly. It’s actually the core essence of every single Buildium and there’s more than 200 of us now that believes in. We do not believe that we’re going to be a 100-year company who changes the face of property management if that’s not at our core and it is. There’s a reason why we believe that customer success and customer support is not a function in a company but it’s everybody. There’s also a reason to believe that we’ll stay on the phone with customers for however long they need it. Again, property management on the accounting side is pretty involved. We’re not talking about accountants. We will stay on the phone and we will ride out the basic T account and say, “Here’s your debit, where’s the credit?” and we will walk them through that. Why? Because it leads to that relationship and then it leads to that idea that our customers are going to stay with us longer, they’re not going to think about jumping even if there’s a cheaper price or less expensive offering, and they’re going to tell their friends. Word of mouth in this space is so important as it is for our customers. It’s so important for us. This is not corporate baloney that we’re talking about. It is something that we talk at every single company meeting, we talk about every single functional meeting. We have people listening to our phone calls all the time. We have people out in the field, employees are out in the field meeting with customers. You got to fly to California? Go fly to California. It’s going to pay off with the lifetime relationship that we end up with our customers. How can people switch and if they are interested in getting to know me? cmlitster@buildium.com. Just email me. We have our standard customer success or support line. It’s on buildium.com. I have literally dozens, hundreds even, customers that I know personally, that the rest of my executive team, leadership team, and all of the Buildians. We know these customers. Just because we’re 16,000 strong doesn’t mean that you’re just a number. We will be here for anything that you need. We just had customers up here the other day. We have a brand new office, which is great because we grew out of our other one and we spent the whole day with these customers just answering whatever questions in doing whatever we tend to do. It is a core element of what makes Buildium, Buildium and to your point, we 100% believe it. It sets us apart from the pack. It creates space between us and other folks. Frankly, we’re only going to build on it and we’re all going to make it better so that space is just going to get bigger and bigger. Again, thank you for the visionary aspect. I think also, other folks are focused on just the technology, all product. We have a very good to great product that already throws a ton of value at our customers, that is only continuing to get better. We’re investing heavily in it but we’re also investing heavily in the relationship side. It is something that we have the ability to continue to grow and make even stronger. It’s not something that’s going to go away as we continue to expand. I’ll also say, we have investors, too, and those investors couldn’t be more supportive of our vision, our mission, and the alignment we have around the idea that is the customer’s first always. It makes my job easier from a board perspective because they’re actually pushing me probably even more to make sure we don’t lose that, which is fantastic. I will always be. A hundred years from now, I won’t be here but I know the idea of customer’s first and always at Buildium will be. Jason: Love it. Chris, really excited to connect, get to know you a little bit better, and hear a little more about Buildium. Chris: Thank you so much. Jason: And I appreciate you coming on the show. Where can people find Buildium? Chris: buildium.com and they can find me at cmlitster@buildium.com. Jason: Perfect. All right. Chris, thanks so much for coming out. Chris: Jason, I want to have you come out to Boston and see our nice new offices and spend some time with us. Jason: Yeah, you’ll have to have me come out. I’ll check it out. Chris: Love it. Jason: We’ll hang out. Chris: Yeah. It will be great. Jason: We’ll talk shop. All right. Cool, Chris. Thanks for coming on. Chris: Thanks. I’ll talk to you. Jason: All right, great. It’s great having Chris on. So, if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, and you want to make a difference, and some of the things in the show hit a pain point for you, then make sure to reach out to DoorGrow. We would love to connect with you. We also have a really clear vision that we want to transform this industry and make a difference. It’s not just hype for us. That’s what gets me fired up and excited. The clients that are closest to me know that. That’s why I do what I do. It’s super rewarding and fun for me to hang out with other entrepreneurs. I really enjoyed doing this conversation with Chris. Make sure to check us out at DoorGrow. If you are not in our Facebook group and you want to be a part of a community where the tide is raising all the ships, make sure you get into the DoorGrow Club. Go to doorgrowclub.com. It’s a Facebook group. It will redirect into Facebook. doorgrowclub.com and it is free but it’s only for property management entrepreneurs. If you’re an entrepreneur in this space, you’re a business owner, you have a company, or you’re looking to start one, make sure you join our group and start getting [...] in. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.  

We have the pleasure of speaking with Chris Moreland, the chief diversity and inclusion advocate at Vizient. He explains why he puts inclusion first and talks about the top three things most companies are getting wrong when it comes to D&I.Connect with Chris on LinkedIn!https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjmoreland/Connect with us!https://linktr.ee/livingcorporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach.Ade: It's Ade.Zach: So listen, y'all, we gonna get straight to it this time, 'cause we have a really special guest. I'm really excited. Today we have the opportunity--we had the opportunity rather to sit down and speak with Chris Moreland. He's the chief inclusion and diversity advocate at Vizient Incorporated, based out of Dallas, Texas, and I'm just gonna read a little bit of his profile so we can kind of talk about what we're talking about today. Known for possessing a contagious regard for winning, a bias for action and a healthy disrespect for insurmountable challenges. A street-smart C-level leader with a diverse industry background, an indispensable partner for innovative organizations, people development, and building teams. Chris is best known for leading organizations through change, developing innovative solutions, and deciphering ambiguity. He established a track record of performance and execution at Fortune 500 icons like Vizient, Microsoft, Expedia, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi, and Mobil, okay? So this person that we got to speak to today, he and I had an amazing conversation about inclusion and diversity, and in the conversation that you're gonna hear, you'll hear why he puts inclusion first, but we're really excited and want y'all to hear the whole interview, and so we don't want to make it too long by, you know, adding to it, so--Ade: We're gonna keep it short and sweet.Zach: That's right, we're gonna keep it short and sweet. So unfortunately, Ade, no Favorite Things this week.Ade: Nope, but we have an amazing, amazing, amazing interview, so it's good.Zach: It's dope. And after the interview, you know, we'll wrap from there, but the next week we've got a B-Side, and it's me and Ade talking about the interview, talking about D&I, and, you know, having fun. Hopefully y'all laugh. Maybe y'all will cry. Maybe you'll laugh and cry at the same time. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe. [strange noise]Ade: What was that noise? [laughs]Zach: It was like a [strange noise]. It was a shrug. That's, like, a shrug if I was to put a noise to it. [again]Ade: I'm gonna pass on your sound effects skills once again.Zach: Man, my sound effects skills are fire, but that's okay. In fact, you know what? Hold on. JJ, go ahead and give me some air horns, one time for ya head top, for Chris Moreland, 'cause he gave us a fire interview. [imitating air horns] Let's go. [JJ drops 'em] I'm giving him the air horns before we even get to the interview. That's how fire the interview was. What's up?Ade: Look, I don't disagree. Shout-out to Chris. Amazing conversation.Zach: Shout-out to Chris.Ade: You on the other hand are a walking dad joke store.Zach: Yo, I really feel like--so watching that movie Us, I really feel as if that character that ya mans was playing was really just me in, like, five years with no beard, but that's me.Ade: Like, Winston Duke's character?Zach: Yes, I feel like that's me.Ade: I have not heard great reviews, so you probably should not--Zach: No, first of all, Us is fire, and we can talk about that later.Ade: Well, not--you know what? Yes, let's close this out.Zach: So shout-out to Chris, shout-out to Vizient, and yo, shout-out to him being the chief storyteller at Storyteller's Consulting. He's gonna talk a little bit about that in the interview as well, and we'll make sure we have all of this information in the podcast notes, but look, until next week, it's been Zach.Ade: And this has been Ade.Zach: Y'all check out this interview. Peace.Ade: Peace.Zach: And we're back. And so as we shared before the break, we have Chris Moreland on the show. Chris, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?Chris: I'm fantastic. Thanks so much, Zach.Zach: For those of us who don't know you, would you mind sharing a bit about yourself and how you got into your field?Chris: Absolutely. Well, my name is Chris Moreland. I reside in Dallas, Texas, and I am now the chief inclusion and diversity advocate at Vizient. Vizient is basically a supply chain company that does GPO for health care systems. We do about 100--maybe 105, 110 billion dollars worth of hospital spend on an annual basis.Zach: That's awesome. You know, I guess for me--so let me just say as a quick aside, and this isn't even in my questions, but I just wanted to say it--it's really inspiring to see a person of color, and frankly a black man, in such a position of influence, and I'm just really excited to have you here. So I probably should've said that at the beginning. I don't really care. This is our show. I just want to tell you that I'm happy that you're here.Chris: It's good to be here. It's good to be here.Zach: Absolutely. So look, let's get into it. So I'm on this app, right, called Fishbowl, and it's an anonymous posting app for consultants. Every now and then diversity and inclusion comes up, and most are disillusioned by the topic because it's being seen as a lot of talk and very little walk. So what do you think are some of the top three things most companies are getting wrong when they talk about diversity and inclusion?Chris: Right. That's a really good question, Zach, and it's not a simple answer, but I'll try to simplify the answer. There are several things that companies are not getting right, and if you--if you look at the most recent research, I think it points to some very important things that I think, going forward, we really need to focus on. The first thing is that most companies tend to put diversity and inclusion into the bucket of human resources as though it is part of a function which is different than the function of marketing, which is different than the function of, you know, research and development, which would be different than the function of sales. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes, by putting it specifically in a function. The second thing that I think goes wrong often times with the way companies approach diversity and inclusion is around--they use education as a way of changing behaviors, and we can talk about this a lot more later, but education has been proven now as being the least credible way of changing a human being's behavior, okay? And then the third piece, which I think a lot of people get wrong as far as diversity and inclusion, is how they think about diversity and inclusion relative to accountability. It's one thing to talk about it, but it's a whole 'nother thing when no one ultimately is accountable for the changes that they would like to make relative to diversity and inclusion.Zach: Expound upon that a bit more if you could.Chris: Absolutely. So the first piece around which function generally owns diversity and inclusion, and that being human resources. The reason why that normally doesn't vet out very well for companies is that the organization then feels like their [?] human resource officer is ultimately responsible for diversity and inclusion, and that's an error. Diversity and inclusion should be part of every function. It should be part of the culture of the organization. It should not be quarantined off into a specific function, because it should flow just like values, just like goals, just like culture. It should be part of the way we do business. It should be used as an enabler, not as a functionally-constrained part of an organization. You know, the second piece, which points education--education, as you know, is something that people try to use to make different decisions and result in different behaviors, but as you know if you've ever gone to church, if you've ever seen students in school, education doesn't necessarily mean that once a person knows what they should do, knows the right thing to do, understands the impact of certain actions, that they are going to then adopt those habits, those practices. Each of us go to church every Sunday, and we--depending upon what denomination you may be part of, but you can see the same church crowd that sits in the pews on Sunday, they go out and cut each other off in traffic immediately following the service in some cases, and so it's--you know, it's a bad way of thinking that "I'm going to change the behavior by telling you the right thing to do." And in the last piece, which is what I call just accountability, is that, you know, again, if it's in HR, a lot of times HR feels accountable solely, but no one else in the organization feels as though they have any accountability. They feel as though it has been quarantined off and thus there is a function that is accountable for it, but that is the only function that ultimately becomes accountable for it in that instance, so yeah.Zach: Man, that's incredible. When you and I first met, we talked about diversity and inclusion, and you told me--you said, "Zach, you know, a lot of times people get those letters--the order of those letters wrong, and they should be putting inclusion first." So let me ask you this - what does inclusion really mean practically, and how can companies actualize inclusion in the workplace?Chris: Right. So inclusion, in my title and at least at Vizient, we actually put that word in front of diversity, because inclusion has more to do with the actions that you are taking. Inclusion has to do with "Who's in the conversation? Is the conversation being had? Does everyone's perspective, opinions, and backgrounds matter? Is there value seen in my difference?" Not "Am I different?" Diversity, which really comes from a Latin root word meaning "divertere," or "to divert, to separate." It's the differences between us. It's pretty much meaningless in any organization unless you have the inclusion part first, and the inclusion means that I see you, I see your differences, and I see the value in those differences, and ultimately I don't want to move forward with any decision, with any strategy, with any proposal, until I get all different sides of this idea understood and heard, because understanding that when I am inclusive I actually get a much better outcome. It should always precede diversity. Diversity by itself is pretty meaningless unless it is preceded by inclusion.Zach: Yeah. No, absolutely, and so I'm curious - what methods have you seen that are effective when it comes to organizations really leaning into the inclusion piece of their I&D strategy?Chris: Right. That's a great question, because there is a--there is a huge difference. It's like night and day when it comes to organizations and effectiveness of those organizations when you do lead with inclusion. A couple of practices. One, there is--there are very few human beings that I've met thus far who are openly and consciously biased. In other words, open and conscious bias means that I see you, I see your differences, and I am absolutely just going to deliberately exclude those differences from my decisions, from my thoughts, from my practices, from my campaigns and everything else. When I lead with inclusion, what it does is it says I understand that I have this subconscious, this subliminal, this unconscious ability or need or desire to assimilate with those things that look similar to me, and we all have this in our personalities. We all want to assimilate with like things. We want to be around people who look like us, act like us, talk like us, have the same backgrounds as us, because it makes us more comfortable, and there's nothing wrong with that, but in order to actively have an inclusive culture, you have to understand that it's an uphill battle. It goes against our natural tendencies, and so when organizations actually adopt a truly inclusive culture, it doesn't start with just education, making people aware of the subconscious knack to go away from things that are not like you. It actually does more than that. It goes to creating an understanding of what those differences are and why and how those differences can and should be used to create greater value. I'm not talking about, in this case, educating you on unconscious bias. I think you may remember more recently in the news Starbucks had a situation with one of their restaurants, and they shut their stores down for an entire half-day, and what they did was they focused on educating people on unconscious bias. So there was a training that was done around unconscious bias, and the net effect of that training based on all research is that it had a shelf life of about 90 minutes.Zach: 90 min--an hour and a half?!Chris: 90--an hour and a half. It had a shelf life of 90 minutes, but then our natural, innate tendencies go back to exactly the way we were before we were exposed to that education and training. And so the good thing is that they at least acknowledged that there needed to be something done. The bad thing is that they're using the same tools that we used in 1962, in this country, in order to make civil rights the rights of everyone, and you can see, you know, 50 some odd years later, the outcomes are the same. It's because the techniques and the practices are the same. A lot of it is education, and then the second piece to that is legislation. So when you educate and legislate, you believe that, "Oh, things are going to change." They don't change. These are behavioral tendencies that we have to tap into in order to try and counteract things and make people's behaviors actually change.Zach: Well, see, it's interesting that you say that because--in terms of the historical lens by which you're looking through to discuss inclusion and diversity and facilitating change, because I don't necessarily know if I--if I see a lot of the historical narrative being engaged when we talk about effective methods and approaches to really driving inclusion and diversity, and often times, in my experience, these programs rarely even engage the subject of race explicitly, even to the point where they may create, like, different points of diversity. Like, diversity of thought, diversity of education, and yes, I'm not saying that those points don't exist, Chris, but historically, like, those points, they're strongly interwoven with the intersection of gender and ethnicity, right? But I don't know if I necessarily 1. see a lot of invoking of history when we talk about education and effective methods moving forward in the future, and I don't know if I see a lot of--in fact, sometimes I hear diversity of thought or diversity of education or diversity of background really used as replacements for diversity of race and intersection between--intersectionality of gender and race. Have you seen that? And if you kind of see where I'm coming from, why do you think that is?Chris: Yeah. So let me answer both questions pretty quickly, and then I'll get into a little detail. So the answer is yes and yes. Yes, I have seen it happen. Yes, it is very, very frustrating, and yes, I do understand why it is happening the way that it is happening, because--first let's go back to the terms of diversity and inclusion and why most people tend to use the word diversity preceding the word inclusion. It is because it is a lot easier for me to point out all of the differences between, you know, the 7.5 billion people that are in this world. I can tell you there are differences for all of us, and we should all be aware of and appreciative of all of those differences, but let's think about that at a neurological level, because that's where change happens. It happens at a neurological level. So Zach, if you walk into a room, and a person who walks into a room--and you're originally from where, Texas?Zach: Yes.Chris: Okay, so you're originally from Texas. So you walk into a room, and then right next to you a straight Caucasian male walks into the room, and his background just happens to not be from Texas. Let's say he's from L.A., okay? So he has diversity of experience. You have diversity of race. You both walk into the same room, and you're both seen by a group of executives that are sitting around the table that you're about to engage. Sitting around that table, what do you physically think the reaction will be of your presence versus your male straight white counterpart's presence who just happens to be from L.A.? Both having diversity, you know, based on just them walking into the room. And again, the audience--let's say the audience is full of Texans, okay? So if you--go ahead. Please answer that question, and then I can go on.Zach: [laughs] Yeah, I think--I think that if it's all Texans and they are, let's say, all white men, I think they're gonna gravitate and presume that the white--my white counterpart is the more senior, more competent authority in the space.Chris: Exactly. There are a certain set of assumptions that go into your brain, in other people's brains, the second you or I walk into a room. The second you or I walk into a bus, the second you or I walk into an elevator. And again, I do not blame the neuroscience behind the minds of the individuals who make assumptions as soon as you or I walk into a room, but it is very different when I used the word diversity talking about race versus when I use the word diversity and I talk about a person's background or a person's education, because certain people have certain assumptions that are attributed to their physical being. They can't help it. You can't help what I think about when I look at you as you walk into a room. You have no control over that. It's just like the white straight male from L.A. cannot help what I may think about him when he walks into the room, but some of these assumptions, some of these thoughts, some of these implicit biases are nothing--they have nothing to do with who's standing in front of you, okay? So I think--going back to your question, I think a lot of times--in the field of diversity and inclusion we've now migrated away from the cornerstone of diversity and inclusion, which had everything to do with gender and race, and we've migrated now to diversity of thought, diversity of background, diversity of experience, diversity of a lot of different things, and I'm not saying any of those things are wrong, but I am saying that neurologically, when I think about the word diversity, the reason why I believe we have to go back to the cornerstone of diversity, which has everything to do with gender and race, because of that reaction when you walked into the room with your white male counterpart. Until I can get this country and individuals in corporate America past the fact that they have no control over that implicit bias associated with that initial impression, then I cannot move forward and start thinking about other forms of diversity because there is an implicit association associated with just your physical presence that, quite frankly, has a stereotype associated with it, and it has a whole set of thoughts and assumptions associated with just your physical presence, which is where I think the work needs to be done, which is where I think we need to start building from.Zach: So you've made mention about making authentic connections and those neuropathic pathways. I'd love to hear more about that. When we first spoke, like, you talked about that. I'd love to hear more about that, because as you and I know, the real change happens at the executive level. So one, please expound a little bit about those pathways and those genuine, like, connections, and then what methods have you seen be effective in driving that sort of openness to be connected outside of one's comfort zone at, like, the top and highest of levels?Chris: Wow. So big question. [both laugh] I'm gonna start with three words, and then I'm gonna dive into each of those words just briefly so I can uncover some of what you've asked. The first word I want to talk about is a word called covering. The second word, or words, I want to talk about is safe place, and then the third word that I want to talk to you about is change and change management, okay? And these are all different, but they're all connected. So covering, let's start off with that. The reason why men and women who look like you and I, who work in corporate America, spend a large percentage of their time covering is because we understand that there are certain stigmas associated with our physical presence and there's no getting around it. The reason why you or I might not necessarily be as open to talk about some of our childhood experiences in the corporate setting is because we do not feel as though they are appropriate, and so we hide them, we cover them. Covering is an actual term that was coined back in the mid-'60s by a sociologist who talked about stigmas associated with all different types of people, and we all have them, you know? Straight white men also have the habits of covering, but they are a lot deeper when it comes to some of the underrepresented races in this country. So if you're either foreign background or of a heritage that puts you into a category as far as being called brown of some sort or shade in this country, you spend a lot of your physical energy covering, covering up who you authentically are, because you do not feel as though it's appropriate. You do not feel that you will have a good opportunity to assimilate unless you cover. And covering goes across the board. It's everything from how you groom yourself to, you know, as you're getting older, some of us, you know, color the gray hairs that may be popping out of our heads, and others of us cover even things like our bodies. Our bodies are a lot of times covered. There's a--the first billionaire female in this country made a billion dollars by covering women. It's the woman who started the SPANX brand in this country. The first billionaire woman under 40, I believe it is. SPANX. SPANX is nothing more than us having an openly bias toward a thinner physical person, and thus SPANX helps us do that, and so we like to cover the fact that we are not necessarily of a certain physicality, and we hide that through things like SPANX. So covering is where a lot of this starts. Go ahead. You have a question.Zach: I was gonna say--you were talking about SPANX. You know, it kind of reminds me of the first black--the first black female billionaire, Madam C.J. Walker, right?Chris: Absolutely, absolutely.Zach: Right? With selling perms and relaxers, right? Like, that was--I think that kind of falls into the bucket of covering. Please continue though. This is amazing.Chris: Yeah. No, you've hit something that is extremely important. I wasn't gonna talk about it because a lot of us suffer from this, but the reason why weaves, the reasons why straight hair, the reason why the European look for African-Americans in this country has been such a phenomenon and has made so many millionaires and billionaires in this country, is because of this thing called covering. When we view something as being the way that we need to better assimilate, we spend our entire lives trying to fit that image, trying to mold ourselves into the image of what we want to assimilate into. We bleach our skin. We straighten our hair. We change the way our body is shaped, all with an effort to cover who we actually are. So a lot of this starts with the idea of [or phenomenon?] called covering. Let me move to the second piece, which is safe space. Safe space is what your executive leaders at every major corporation in this country need to create in order for other people not to feel the need to cover. A safe space is basically an environment or a culture where inclusion is part of what they just do. Inclusion means that I am going to allow you to show up and be your authentic self because I think there is so much value in that. "Chris, I want you to come to work. I want you to dress, act like, be like, you know, fashion yourself after who you really are versus who you believe we want you to be, because we see value in that. We see and understand the value of your differences. We want to know who you are really, and through that story we're actually going to use it to create a better organization, a better company, a better culture." So the idea of creating a safe space can only be done when senior leaders see and understand the influence that they have on an organization and in a culture. If you've ever been in an organization where you felt like there were certain things you can't do, you can't say, certain ways that you just can't act--and not because they're inappropriate, but just because the leader, who creates the culture, has already deemed certain things as being inappropriate, and if you've been in any corporation in this country you know, depending upon which company you're a part of, there's certain things that are just not allowed, and those certain things often times are usually authentic parts of who you are. They're not abusive. They're not distasteful. They're just part of who you naturally are. One key example is my administrative assistant, who for the longest time had been wearing hair pieces and weaves and wigs and everything else, and she had been working for me for about two years, and she called me one weekend in almost a panic, and I answered the phone and I said, "What's going on? What's happening?" And she just happens to be African-American, and she said, "Chris, I'm going to text you a picture of me, and I want you to let me know if it's okay." I said, "Okay," and I thought it was--I thought it had more to do with clothing that she was wearing. She texted me a picture of her wearing her natural hair.Zach: Oh, wow.Chris: Wearing her natural hair, and she said, "Is it okay if I show up to work on Monday without my wigs?" And I said to her--and I'm not gonna use her name 'cause I don't want to embarrass her on this podcast, but I said, "Oh, my God." I said, "You look beautiful." I said, "You look like my sister. You look like my daughter. You look like my mother. You look like my friend. You look like the person who is my partner at work, and I love your authentic self." I said, "Do not ever feel like you have to cover who you are to show up at work." She says, "Well, I just wasn't sure if it was appropriate," and I told her--I said, "You are beautiful as you are. Please show up just like the picture has you," and again, all she did was allow her hair to be natural, and it was just curly, a little kinky, but it was the cutest, most beautiful picture I have ever seen, and since time she has worn her natural hair every day of the week.Zach: That's beautiful, yeah.Chris: Exactly. I could not make this story up. So as a senior leader, your job, your accountability, is to create a safe space so that people who are different can actually show up as themselves. The third piece that I would talk to you a little bit about is called accountability or change management, and when I say change management/accountability, what that to me says is that's, again, the job of the senior leaders in the organization, and that has more to do with if they show up as what I call Pepsi perfect, then they have already set the standard. If they do not or are not willing to show any humility or vulnerability, then no one else will feel like they can make mistakes or be vulnerable. They set the stage, the culture, for the organization and how the organization is going to evolve, and when they believe that they have to be perfect or show up perfect or set requirements such that there can be no mistakes, then you get very unauthentic, unengaged people showing up. The last piece of your question was methodology, and "Chris, how do you think we can use--what methodology have you used to try to create this environment of safety, this culture of inclusion and the ability for people to show up authentically?" And I'll tell you, it starts at the neurological level, and that is it has everything to do with your ability to articulate who you really are, and I call that story-telling. And the reason why I call it story-telling is because there is actually a neuroscience change that happens in your brain when you hear a person's story. When you take the time to understand a person's background, when you take the time to understand what has gotten a person to where they are in life, you change yourself. The reason why you change is for two things actually. One, the reason you change is because your brain doesn't know the difference between an experience and a story. So if I tell you a--if I tell you about a story, it is the same thing as if you were to experience it yourself. If I talked to you about my story of growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, and basically having to take two buses and a train to get to school every day and some of the experiences that I had going through, you know, high school and college, after I finished my story, Zach, you will neurologically change, because your body--your brain doesn't know the difference between my story and you actually experiencing some of that yourself, and so you get this flood of hormones that go through your body which actually change the neuro-receptors in your brain and make--because your brain has this thing called plasticity, you actually change. You feel different about me, and the reason why you feel different about me is because you see a part of you in me. Because it may be a completely different experience that I had in high school or college or even in the work environment, but as I tell you my story, you see yourself in me, and it brings you and I together. And it's not just you and I, it's me and the CEO. It's me and the chief marketing officer. It's me and the chief operating officer. So as opposed to that person or those people relying heavily on what they physically see when I walk into the room, when I tell them my story and I learn their stories, they can no longer look at me the same way because they have neurologically changed. We have created relationship where was none before.Zach: Wow.Chris: Yeah.Zach: [both laugh] Hold on. You know what I like about you, Chris? Well, I like a lot of things about you, but I like the way that you be--you be hitting, like--you be hitting [?] bars, and then you'll be like, "Yeah." Like, "That was fire and I know it. React to that." [both laugh] No, no, no. There's so much there, and I think--first of all, we're probably gonna--we're definitely gonna have to have a part two to this podcast because I want to get deeper. At the same time I don't want us to go have a two-hour podcast, but I do want to follow-up on something. So then when you're talking about creating these--like, sharing these stories and making these connections, you know, what are ways that black and brown professionals coming into an organization can facilitate that in a way that manages up? Like, what are ways that they could do that and help move the needle forward in their favor? What are ways that they could--they could share their stories and create those connections that would support and help them in their careers?Chris: God, that's a great question. So I'm gonna use a term which is based on education, which I told you at first that education does not necessarily change you, but I want to use this term from education 'cause you can start using it and applying it in your day-to-day. And it's a whole study and science around this thing called emotional intelligence, okay? So emotional intelligence, a quick definition of what it is - it's just your ability to take everything that's going on today in your life, Zach, everything that happened, you know, this morning--you know, you, you know, getting out of bed at a certain time, having to, you know, get certain things done, worrying about certain other things that probably lingered from the weekend--your ability to take all of those things that are just clawing and drawing at your attention and put them to the background and focus on Chris during this podcast. Your ability to do that is the quick definition of what emotional intelligence is. It's all of our ability to take everything that's going on in our lives and put it as a backdrop and to be present and able to listen to and serve the person who is sitting in front of us. So taking ourselves and putting ourselves secondary to another human being, but how does emotional intelligence actually help us as we're trying to create these inclusive organizations, to your point or your question, "How do we manage up?" We do it by being emotionally intelligent, and I'll give you a little bit more definition about how that application actually works at work. First of all and foremost, emotional intelligence is the best-correlated skill set to career advancement that there is. Let me pause and say that one more time. Emotional intelligence has the greatest correlation to career advancement than anything else. It is higher than IQ. You may get a job because of a high IQ. You get promoted because of a high EQ, and in this case EQ is emotional intelligence. And so how does that show up and how does that work? It works like this. As you get into an organization--and let's just say that you are different from an ethnicity or from a race-based perspective--first of all, all eyes are on you, and you probably know that if you've been employed by any of the major Fortune 1500 companies in this country, and because all eyes are on you, you get a lot of exposure that you had not even really anticipated or asked for, but the way you manage that from an emotional intelligence perspective is that you spend all of your time trying to find out and figure out what is going on with other individuals and people around you. One of the first things I did when I came to Vizient seven years ago--this is the truth--is that I went up to the CEO--first of all, I didn't take the job until I got a chance to meet the CEO, and I made that a prerequisite before I even came to the organization because I knew that the CEO creates the culture, and I wanted to figure out exactly what type of culture he had created. The first meeting that I had with him, the first thing that we talked about was his dress, the way he dressed, and the reason why we talked about the way he dressed is because he dressed the way I had always wanted to dress. It was very colorful. He had--you know, custom jeans on. He had designer shoes on. I mean, even to this day I can't afford everything that he wore, but it was so well put together that our first conversation was around his dress. I then wanted to understand how did he progress through the organization, so we had a really long conversation about the fact that he started out as an analyst, you know, 30 something odd years ago and then eventually was promoted up through the ranks of CEO. I found out about his wife and her background and the fact that she started out as a CPA. I also had many, many conversations with him about his son. He only has one son, and his son at the time was just about to enter college, and he had an incredible attraction to African art. I also found out that he spent a lot of time in New Mexico, and the reason why he spent a lot of time in New Mexico is because 1. it gave him a chance to get away from Texas, and 2. he was able to basically walk down the street and people really not know who he was or what he did. So he could kind of not have to be a CEO for those periods of time where he got a chance to get away. The reason why I tell you this story is because I immersed myself in understanding who he is, how he thought, how he worked, what was important to him, what his likes were and what his dislikes were, and as I did that, as I immersed in his life, he then paid the same respect to me. He paid the same respect to me, because he began asking questions about me and my story and what brought me to where I was in my career, in my life, in my work and everything else, and we built a very strong relationship. I'm gonna pause on that word relationship, because a lot of times the things that hold us back in corporate America, especially if we show up either from a gender difference or from an ethnicity difference, is that we don't take the time to form those relationships, and they have to be formed very selflessly. Very purposefully but very selflessly. You cannot walk into a relationship and expect a person to just automatically, you know, ask you about your family or your spouse or your education or anything else like that, even though that's a big part of your story. You have to first start out by asking them about themselves. I always tell people when they're about to go to an interview or if they're about to, you know, have a first conversation with another human being, and I tell them, "Use the 80/20 rule," and the 80/20 rule says that you should only talk 20% of the time, because when you're talking, you're not listening. When you're talking, you're not able to hear the story of the other person who is in front of you, who emotional intelligence tells you should be the center of your attention for that interaction. Does that make sense?Zach: It does make sense. For sure, for sure. So let me ask you this, because I'd like to get, you know, your prediction. Based on your expertise as an I&D subject matter expert, like, what is the future of I&D if it stays its current course?Chris: Yeah. I will tell you if it stays its current course--we've seen the current course trajectory for inclusion and diversity over the last 50+ years. We still have the same representation of minorities in CEO positions and board director positions and females in CEO positions and board director positions that we've had for the last, you know, 30+ years. That course has not changed. We have the same make-up as far as individuals who are moving into C-level jobs. We've got the same make-up that we've had, you know, for the last 35, 40+ years. That trajectory has already been put in place, and it continues to be there even though the demographics of this country have completely changed. As a matter of fact, if you're under the age of 18 right now, the majority in this country have actually become the minority and the minority have become the majority, but it doesn't mean--because the numbers are there, it doesn't mean that there will be change in organizations and corporations and boards of directors and people making key decisions. If you look across the world, we see where that phenomena has happened in other countries, where the minorities in a country are actually still in powerful positions over the majority of people who actually happen to be part of the organization or the countries, because they have not changed. They have not understood how to change the mindsets and really tap into the value of the vast majority of people who actually inhabit the place that they're at geographically. So the current trajectory has already proven out that it will remain the way it is, and the bad side, the down side of that trajectory, is that we don't have the ability to tap into one of our greatest resources, which is the true, rich diversity of people that walk into organizations every day, that walk into churches every day, that walk past you down the streets every day.Zach: Hm. That's a heavy--that's heavy, but this has been a great discussion, Chris, and, you know, before we wrap up, I'd like to know - are there any other projects that you're working on?Chris: Yes. Yeah, so the one--the latest project that is just unfolding at the conclusion here of 2018 has been a small I'll just call it boutique consulting firm that I just decided I'm going to create, because I don't see the current trajectory changing, and I said, "You know what? At the end of the day, one person can make a difference if they just figure it out and start doing it in a very meaningful way," and so I just started a small firm called Storytellers Consulting, and Storytellers Consulting has a lot to do with what we just discussed on this podcast, and that is teaching executives how to tell their stories and how to bring the stories out of the people who they work with and how to create inclusive cultures and how to create safe spaces and how to evolve organizations into becoming more inclusive. If there is nothing that is done at the neurological level, change will not happen, period. So here's my final thought on how change happens and why I know for sure this is true. So January. January is the most important month of the year for a lot of people, because they make a lot of promises to themselves. Most of us--most of us make promises like, "I'm going to lose that 10, 15, 20 pounds that has burdening me for the last, you know, 15 years of my life." That resolution lasts 'til about February 15th. I always give people right up 'til about Valentine's Day, and then the behaviors go back to what they used to be, right? And the reason why the behaviors go back to what they used to be is because change management requires for people to actually change neurologically, and the only way that that happens--let's call it for the sake of losing weight--the only way that you're gonna physically be able to lose weight and keep it off is if something triggers you to know that my behavior has to change or else there's either a consequence or else I see the benefit so much that I'm not gonna go back to my bad habits, and for a lot of people, those changes happen only when you get burdened with something like--something bad is gonna happen to you if you don't lose weight. Like, you get a call from the doc and they tell you the consequence of you not losing the weight. So short of that--because most people are not faced with that--short of that, we've got to change neurologically, which means that in order for me to physically make sure that you're going to stick to your commitments, I've got to explain to you in a way that makes so much sense that you are not gonna go back to your bad habits regardless of the temptation. The reason why this is so important is because, again, for most of us, we get off the diets by February 15th, and the reason being is because we've done nothing to convince ourselves that we have to be on that diet or we have to change our way of living. In diversity and inclusion, that neuroscience change starts with creating a relationship. The same exact thing would happen if you were to--as opposed to telling someone else that you're gonna lose a whole bunch of weight, if you signed up and created, let's say, a partnership with someone and said, "You know what? For the next year, you and I, three times a week, are gonna meet at the gym. We're gonna go together. I'm gonna hold you accountable, you're gonna hold me accountable, and we are going to change our lives together." When there is that partnership, that relationship, that neurological change inside of your head, inside of your body, it has a lot better of an opportunity of sticking, and so that's exactly what we want to do with Storytellers Consulting. That's exactly what we want to do when it comes to change management just in general across the country.Zach: This has been a phenomenal conversation. I just--I really appreciate it, Chris. Before we let you go--I know you just shared some--first of all, you've been dropping sauce this entire conversation, but do you have any final thoughts or shout-outs?Chris: Yeah. I guess the final thought or shout-out I have is 1. I really want to just let people know that one, there is no criticism associated with, you know, where we are today in this--in this country relative to diversity and inclusion. I do not feel like it is anyone's fault. I don't want anyone to, you know, hear this podcast and believe that, Zach, you or I are saying that there are so many social injustices going on in this country that, you know, this is just a throwaway or there is someone to truly blame for everything. That is not the message whatsoever. The message is that most of our current existence, most of our decisions, most of our behaviors, they are so subconscious, unconscious, subliminal, that we're not even aware of it a lot of times, and so all we're doing, all we're saying, all we're advocating for is for people to actually do things that are more consciously driven, and when you do things that are more consciously driven and there's a motivation and a methodology for you to do that, then we can actually make change, and that is exactly what we're advocating for, is that we just really think about this from a historical perspective, realizing certain things have just not been that effective, you know? The legislation that we did back in the '60s and, you know, all of the affirmative action pushes that we've done through the '70s and '80s, you know, as great as they've been, you know, to make people feel better, they really have not necessarily touched on the--on the real metrics associated with businesses and corporations in this country, and our organizations are missing out on an incredible opportunity to tap into what is now going to become the majority population in this country. And so again, my shout-out [?] to take a very introspective look and approach at what are we personally doing right now to build relationships that actually go beyond our racial differences, go beyond our gender differences and create true, meaningful, authentic relationships with other human beings by getting to know them at a neurological level. A lot of times, that is done through stories and through the art of storytelling.Zach: Chris, we definitely appreciate you being on the Living Corporate podcast today, and we consider you a friend of the show, and we hope to have you back, man.Chris: Thank you so much, man. It has been a pleasure and a gift and a blessing. Thank you.Zach: Amen, man. Peace.Chris: Amen. All righty, be well.

Download this Episode Body language is one of the most important tools in your arsenal to build a rapport with your clients. Today we discuss how much more important your body language is to your clients than your words and your tone. We discuss the ins and outs of the handshake, when to avoid closing the deal, and what different signals mean. Tune in and don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes! Our body language conveys a clear message. Rethink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 25:59 RTRE 53 – How Body Language Can Improve Your Real Estate Business  [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody welcome back. This is re:Think Real Estate your number one source for real estate, business, news, tech and tactical advice. Today we're talking about body language and why that's important in your real estate business. Christian. What do you think about body language buddy? [Christian]: The language of the body. [laughter] I think it's good. I think it's something we probably don't focus on enough because you know there's a lot of subconscious queues that we take from tone of voice and the…and the disposition of someone's body that we don't really recognize. You know we focus on scripts and what we say but you know it's actually a relatively small amount of our communication, affective or not is through our words. [Chris]: Absolutely. So interestingly enough if you haven't…to anybody out there if you haven't researched how body language works and how communication works, about 7% of all communication is vocal. Those are the words that I speak. The words coming out of my mouth. And 30…what was it? 38% of all of it was actually vocal. That is the inflection, the tone of our voice makes up more of the communication that we're…in the message that we're sending to others, than do the actual words that we speak today. [Christian]: Wait is that why my wife is always upset with me? And she never focuses on what I say but how I say it? [Chris]: Yes. Yeah that's actually… [Christian]: Lessons to learn there. OK.  [Chris]: And yeah. So interestingly enough that you bring that up. People that are naturally able to read a room, so if you've come across somebody and you're like “Wow they're very perceptive”, it's because they pay attention to body language. And women are way better at this than men are. Just naturally they stop and think.  But 55% of all communication is through body language. It's nonverbal. It's in the gestures that we make. It's in how we present ourselves. And, you know, for anybody watching this you're not gonna see anything that I am doing but you'll hear in the vocal inflection more than you'll pay attention in the words that I am saying just statistically. So please keep listening to my inflection. [laughter] But it's extremely important. And I think that in real estate we have all these sales gurus that are telling you “This is what to say, this is what to say. Call them. This is what you need to say to somebody”. They're writing scripts down. They're telling you how often you need to call somebody. They're telling you when like who you need to call. You need to call all your neighbors and you're doing circle prospecting and you're inviting them all to you open house.  But it doesn't tell you that…none of these coaches talk to you and say “And by the way when you call them don't do this and talk like “Hi my name is Josh and I am a realtor and I am listing the house down the street. We have an open house coming up and I would like to invite you there [flat intonation]”. Because you're gonna put everybody to sleep. Not only that but nobody wants to talk to somebody that they don't know and they're not passionate or enthusiastic about anything that they're saying so the inflection makes a difference. What do you think Christian? [Christian]: I think you're real spot on there sparky. [Chris]: Just keep petting my ego. [Christian]: Yes. [Chris]: Like words I never get tired of hearing. “You're right”. [Christian]: Yes it's interesting because so much you know with something like google something like audio podcast, all you're hearing is the voice of the content and the inflections. Right? So like on my other podcast it is interview based. It's the Sea Town podcast. What I started doing is instead of having the guest sit you know across a chair across from me, everybody sitting and talking, I use my stand desk and we put the microphone in the middle and we stand. And have a conversation.  Because there is actually you know statistics that talk about, you know, you actually have a lot more energy naturally and a lot more expressive when you're standing and you can talk with your hands and you're not like standing in a chair. And so you can actually hear them in someone's voice as far as their energy level and their excitements if they're standing versus if they're sitting. You know.  And I notices that myself. Like if I am monologue-ing or something I have to be really intentional like if I am doing video I need in my head I need to be super over the top excited because it might actually come out to the other person like I am talking normally. [Chris]: Yeah and I mean it's really weird because a lot of people talking about the inflection in your voice like if you're selling something you need to be passionate about it. Because people hear the passion more than they hear the words that you're saying. So if you're sitting down with a seller or a buyer and you're talking about “Oh this is the process and this is how we're gonna help you buy the house and we're gonna get you prequalified [flat tone]” versus “Hey this is awesome. You're at a stage now where we have a lot to do and here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get you prequalified and you're gonna talk to X,Y,Z lenders and once we get the prequalification down we're gonna start doing the home search. So you've given me some of the things and…[excited tone]”.  The message is completely different. Inflection in how you talk. People can hear passion. People can hear whether or not you actually care about what you're doing. [Christian]: They can tell whether or not you believe in the product you are selling so to speak. [Chris]: Yeah. [Christian]: Yeah. [Chris]: “I think everybody should own a home” [flat tone] “I THINK EVERYBODY SHOULD OWN A HOME” [excited tone]. [Christian]: Your examples are killing me. Stop. Stop.  [Chris]: [laughter] So I mean and then it comes down to like the body language. Right? So once you're actually in front of people how important is body language? Well not only it is 55% of all communication but it…body language permeates even our vocal. It permeates our vocabulary. Right? You're got phrases like ‘to shoulder a burden'. ‘To face up to it'. ‘Keep your chin up'. ‘Put your best foot forward'. They all describe how we can approach things and inevitably these phrases give an innate understanding of what that message is supposed to portray. Even if you're not able to communicate it verbally. Right? People just understand what those mean. And that's because we understand the messages that come across through body language.  All right so here is some things that we could talk about how we can add body language into your repertoire. How you can focus on improving things. So there was a study done on using your index finder to point. And first off you should never point with your index finger mainly because there is lots of cultures that consider it rude.  Secondly because this study had 2 different audiences, same speaker, same speech. In one speech the speaker was pointing with his index finger. In the other speech he was gesturing with his hands open, palms open, hands up. And 80…over 80% of the audience was receptive and thought that he was well mannered in the…in the speech where palms were open. Under 40%...actually over 40% of the audience thought he was arrogant and did not know what he was talking about in the speech where he was pointing with his index finger. So there is some food for thought there. [Christian]: I mean I find that pretty interesting. I was talking about a case study. What…if our listening are thinking to themselves “What are we talking about when we're talking about body language?”. Like the things that come to my mind are the obvious ones like if I am sitting you know leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed I am giving off, you know,  the impression that I am closed and I don't give a [censored] about what you're saying. [Chris]: Yeah. [Christian]: If you know I am generally sitting with open posture I am receptive to what someone is saying or respectful or whatever. [Chris]: Yeah. And… [Christian]: Here are some examples. [Chris]: In most times you're right. Now there is a few reasons people are gonna sit with their arms crossed though. People are gonna sit with their arms crossed either they don't give a [censored] about what you're saying and they just…they…nothing you say is gonna get through to them or maybe they're anxious. Maybe they're nervous.  All 3 of those feelings will come across when somebody is crossing their arms. For example, you know crossing arms isn't just it as a…crossing arms is the most common especially for kids. But as people grow up they get more kind of conscious about what they're doing with their hands and arms. They start taking on more of a subtle role.  So if anybody has ever watched Prince Philip. Prince Philip will grab and adjust his cufflink which is his arm crossing his body. It's a nervous tick that he has and he does it whenever he is in large crowds. Same thing Queen Elisabeth. She will clutch a purse. She will hold with both hands so she is crossing her body. And people, adults do this all the time.  So it's just watching for the subtleties and it's learning to understand what they're actually doing. And this is super important because Christian if you're sitting across from me and you're a seller and you're talking about listing your house and your arms are crossed it's not a good time for me to go in for a close and ask you to sign stuff. [Christian]: [laughter] Yeah it doesn't seem like a lot of buy in, you know. [Chris]: No it's time for me to start digging in and asking you questions to find out what's really bugging you. So I mean… [Christian]: What would you say… [Chris]: Go head. [Christian]: Sorry didn't mean to interrupt your example. I was gonna say what are some examples for real estate agents to come across as far as like being in tune not only to your own body language but to your client's body language as far as what they may be saying without saying it? [Chris]: Well for us we want to make sure that we're doing a few things. 1, we want to be open. We want to gesture with our hands open not with our index fingers. We never want to cross our body so when we're seating we're not crossing our legs. Now women in you're wearing a skirt that is an exception. But we're not fidgeting. We're…our arms are open. Our arms and hands are not touching. Arms are not crossed. Sitting upright with a good posture. Those are all extremely important.  Second your handshake. Your handshake is incredibly important. You want to have a firm handshake. There is 3 different styles of handshake and they all mean different things, right. If your handshake is palm up than that's kind of a submissive handshake. Those are things that you would give when you're meeting the pope, right. Somebody who is in a very important higher up kind of status.  And then for the opposite of that is the palm down handshake where you are displaying authority. It could be a power symbol. So for the most part when you're meeting with people especially clients, people that you're doing business with you want to make sure that their handshake is vertical. Right, your palm is up and down and you want it to be firm.  And then starting off with a good handshake because once…if the handshake gets [censored] up, if somebody misses whatever it is just grab their elbow, do it again. Say “Hey let's get this right” because doing something like that is gonna show them that you care enough about them to make sure that you're getting off on the right foot and you're gonna make sure that the meeting is important. [Christian]: Say when I mess up on a handshake I just go in for the awkward like “Hey bro…” bro hug you know. That usually…wait I don't close my deals.  [Chris]: Yeah never met someone with those [laughter]. That usually doesn't work.  [Christian]: Yeah I wouldn't recommend it on the first meeting. [Chris]: So there is actually ways that you can really make a handshake more powerful. But if somebody is…if you just know them, right, it creeps people out if you like touch them and give them a handshake. But if you just spend time like an hour getting very personal with somebody about what they have going on like when you shake their hand to leave you can grab the outside of their hand. Say “Thank you for your time.” Or maybe their elbow and just handshakes shouldn't be more than 3 seconds. [laughter]. If they are they get creepy. But just doing that extra gesture shows that you care, that you can empathize with what they go through.  It's just not something that you do right when you meet somebody cos than it's weird and creepy and they're gonna think that you're inauthentic. So I mean there is a lot of things that we can do as agents to use our body language to make a…the experience more warm, more inviting for our clients and the people that we're meeting on a daily basis.  [Christian]: Alright. So…So Chris give me some examples. Let's do a brief list of body language to dos and body language to don'ts [laughter]. Things not to do. Let's start with some stuff that we should be doing like specifically regarding, you know, maybe common interactions that a real estate agents would have with a client. What are some things they wouldn't be conscious of when meeting a client? [Chris]: Well when you're meeting a client you always want to make sure that you're making eye contact. That you're not crossing your hands. You're not fidgeting with anything. You are giving them your full attention. It's important that you have good posture. That you're upright. Shows that you are caring and paying attention on what they have to say. [Christian]: OK now what if let's say they are from an Asian background. Because a lot of these body language to dos are relevant to the American culture which you know to some other cultures we seem aggressive. [Chris]: Yeah we definitely do. [Christian]: But the Asian cultures you know it's respectful to you know not make eye contact and look down you know or be more passive you know. [Chris]: Culture is definitely something to pay attention to because it is extremely important. There is a great book out there and if I can remember it I will post it in the links. Which is basically like a cheat sheet of how to interact with like 100 different cultures. And what's…what's considered appropriate and what's not. So that's really up to the individual to know who they are gonna be meeting with. And to make sure that they understand how they need to act.  Body language though is gonna be pretty universal. If you are fidgeting is gonna come across that you are not interested. If you're crossing it's gonna be closed off. And the reason body language is so universal is because that's how communication happened before language developed. Like we had silent movies. Silent movies worked before audio came into the movies. People understood what was going on and that was universal. People can understand a story based off of not having words. [Christian]: Sure interesting, interesting reminder yeah. [Chris]: Sure there are cultural things but for the most part you want to be open, you don't want to have anything crossed because you want to be considered trustworthy. You don't want to touch your face. You don't because touching your face is like a nervous tick for a lot of liars so you just want to stay away from all of that and just focus purely on what the other person is doing. Don't fidget. Pay attention. [Christian]: But what about the…the common…I don't know if it's a myth or not. You know I have heard that if people are lying they always look up and to the left. You know like that kind of stuff I mean like is…Because I know like when I think. Like if someone asks me a question I have to think about it. I notice that I look away. While I am thinking I don't look back like I don't know like that is subconsciously picked up or matters. You can't really control it. [Chris]: Well people pay attention to that stuff but I don't know if it's about a lie. So for that I think people look up in a way because they want to focus on their thought process and not be distracted by the person that is right in front of them. You want to pay attention to the person as much as possible. And sometimes they might ask you a difficult question and you need to think about some details but I will try not to pure away if possible. But you know that is a little outside of my realm. I am not too familiar how the unconscious works with you know look up and left or look up and right. [Christian]: Very true.  [Chris]: Based off of what you were saying. [Christian]: OK so what…what…So getting into some of the things not to do. You know you mentioned you want to focus on the other person. What about when you focus on in the wrong way of too much and you know people get a creepy vibe? What are some body language things that give off that that ? You don't want it. [Chris]: I think [crosstalk]. For me really the worst is a bad handshake. The dead fish, the like bone crushes. The…the sweaty palm I mean it's…those handshakes, those meetings never go well. Somebody comes in and they're meeting with me and they come off the back like immediately I need to go the restroom and like wash my hands. And I understand, there is a certain…there is a percentage of the population that is like…somewhere between 10 and 15% of the population I think that suffers from a medical condition where they just overly sweat. I get it. But if you're going into a business meeting before you go in have a handkerchief. Get a little dried off there and than, than start.  [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: And I would probably say that the limp, the limp fish is like way worse the bone crushes. That's probably the second worst in my book. [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: But that's like to me that's like the holy grail. You don't violate that. [Christian]: Sure. Would you say that…that you kind of…I know it is a general statement but that…what does a handshake say about someone like either a bone crashes to me that says hey they are trying to…they are coming in aggressive. And they're trying to dominate the other person. [Chris]: Exactly. [Christian]: While the limp fish is like super passive, not gonna have an opinion about things. Doesn't want to offend people. [Chris]: So the limp fish is an interesting one because for the most part yes. They're like…they're the message it conveys is that they're submissive. They're not gonna be very strong. But there's a cavy out there. If they work in a profession where they use their hands like if they're a surgeon don't expect to get a strong handshake from a surgeon. Especially if they're a very good one because their hands are insured. Because if…if they just do that naturally like all means to protect the tool that is their livelihood.  But yeah typically the bone crusher is a power move. People don't do that on accident. They do that because they want to make an impression. And I think a lot of people come in with the bone crushes thinking “Oh I am gonna show them that I really mean business and I am gonna crush their hand and show them that this is a strong handshake”. But the reality is that if you go to do something like that to somebody and you are not their superior, you are not in a position of authority with them it's a complete turn off. I had a home inspector do that for me and you know what I am not messing with them. I don't want to deal with anybody that is just trying to put on a show. And you know be more important than they are. Just vertical… [Christian]: Type a yeah? [Chris]: Yeah. Firm match the grip of somebody…of the other person. That's all you gotta do. It's not hard. It's not rocket science. [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: But I am finding out that like I don't know, did your dad ever teach you how to do a handshake when you were younger?  [Christian]: My dad didn't teach me [censored]. I hope he doesn't listen to this podcast. [laughter]. Not now there wasn't a lot of intentional training that I remember from my dad unfortunately. [Chris]: OK so a lot of…a lot of man get that. [Christian]: Yeah. [Chris]: Women don't. That's not something that is taught to women. So women have to get out and learn these stuff because they will come into…if a woman comes in and they do a very weak handshake in a business environment they're gonna be thought of as feminine. And they're gonna be treated as such.  If they don't come in with that firm handshake that says “Hey I am here I am on equal ground with you and we're gonna do this” than there is…it's been traced that they'll be treated differently. Conversely if they come in with a bone crusher nobody is gonna want to deal with them. They're here for a power play which… [Christian]: Sure. I am sure there is gonna be some subconscious double standard where they're gonna be “Me and you rather as dudes and not used to think in terms of…and OK if a guy you know does this thing this is my response but if a woman does it I am gonna think about it differently” you know like… [Chris]: Yeah. [Christian]: Yeah that can definitely be unfair in the business world. You know kind of a double standard that we subconsciously apply.  [Chris]: Definitely. There is a great book for anybody who is interested in learning more about body language and how it can impact and shape how your business ventures go. Not only in your business life but it also talks about things that you need to know in your daily life. How to read a bar, how to read a party and you're able to see how people are feeling based off of how they interact. The book is called The Definitive Book of Body Language. The Hidden Meaning Behind People's Gestures and Expressions. By Allen and Barbara Peas [phonetics]. It's a great book. Currently reading it now and somewhat sound like an expert based off of that but don't take it for granted.  [Christian]: Oh yeah. [Chris]: I get my info from books.  [Christian]: I will make sure it doesn't go to your head. [Chris]: Thank you. I appreciate that. No it's definitely good stuff. It's important that we pay attention to how we're communicating with people not just verbally, not just vocally but also through our body language. So everybody thank you so much for tuning in. This has been another episode of re:Think Real Estate. We'll be back next week. Nate will be back. And I think we've got some guests coming up soon. So we will have some good guests. We'll see you soon.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Ever wonder why some people leave a bad taste in your mouth after meeting them? Successful marketing requires building a relationship with your audience. Many real estate professionals avoid this and instead grab a bullhorn and shout at their audience expecting the same results. Tune in for today's episode to hear us talk about how to NOT be annoying in your interactions with the public. The re:think real estate podcast is hosted by Chris Lazarus, Nathan White, and Christian Harris. Thank you for tuning in. Please subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Audio length 30:15 [music] [Chris]: Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech. [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris Lazarus here with Christian Harris and Nathan White. What's going on guys? [Christian]: Hey fellas what's happening? Alright [laughter]. Today we're gonna talk about being annoying [laughter].  [Chris]: That's a great intro for that Christian. Before we get started Nate how is your CRM doing? [Nathan]: Yeah…anyway… [Chris]: [laughter] Alright. So yeah, we definitely want to talk about being annoying and how not to do that. Today's episode we're talking about marketing. And our good friend Joe Rand over from JoeRand.com just came out with an article a few days ago which was “Stop being annoying-The 3 phases of communication technology and why nobody likes us”. So great article. Nate you found this. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it? [Nathan]: Well I didn't find it. It happened…you know I found it, whatever. I saw it. It was funny because I was having thoughts like Joe was having and Joe was much better with words than I, that's why he has a couple of books right? But I just…I was getting annoyed because like I get on Facebook right and it's just…it's just…It's not even Facebook anymore. What we used to know right. It's kind of like you know how MTV changed. It's all marketing. It's just marketing. And a lot of it it's realtors who won. I mean I'm not…I hate to be that guy to pick on our industry but again we got a content. It's horrible but again you know whether it's from…And I mean I am looking here right now. Some golf advert to realtor, to realtor, to realtor. Like it's just nonstop and it's poor. And I don't know I feel like we find a good you know what would you call it, a medium, and than we go and ruin it and people hate us for it. And Joe you know wrote the article about how to stop being annoying. He offers a 3-part solution. Phase 1 the excitement. Phase 2 solicitation. 3 is the protection.  [Chris]: Let's talk about that. [Nathan]: Well let's talk about it but I want to get to the point real quick on this and then we go back to the 3 phases.  And then he offers he says “What's the solution?”. He says “Well we can't do anything about everyone else”.  I agree 100%.  “But we can police our own behavior”. Instead of using email, social media, phones to make annoying calls that only serve our own interest we need to focus our outbound marketing efforts on providing a service to other people. Think about what they need not what you need.  [Christian]: But being client centric? What. That's crazy. Thinking about other people.  [Chris]: I've never heard of that before.  [Nathan]: I don't think we've ever talked about that have we? [Chris]: No it's completely out of line with this show.  [Nathan]: So Phase 1. Phase 1 is excitement. [Chris]: And so phase 1 like I think he compared it to people getting an answering machine right. Everybody got an answering machine and everybody wanted to see the red light blinking and then telemarketers just ruined it. And then nobody has an answering machine now and people barely check their voicemail. [Christian]: Sure I mean I think the idea is you know I mean there's quite a number of books on you know technology and evolution of it and this plays right into that theme of when something new comes out it's exciting. Everyone wants it. You know it goes back to like the days of pre-TV with you know door to door salesman. You know like being at home is boring so people wanted people to come to the door.  And then that got saturated and you know you had the mail. People enjoyed getting mail and then you know solicitations and advertisement got in the mail and now people you know hover over the recycling bin throwing away mail.  And you know now you're getting that you know with social media. Like you used to enjoy getting on social media and checking in with friends and whatever and now you have to whip 30 you know half of it is solicitations from agents or other marketers, you know, as agents. We're getting solicited for leading this or growing your business that you know by who knows who. You know so self-described gurus. And you know now you have to filter there. Now you know it takes away the joy of what once was. Looking forward to getting online or looking forward to getting the mail or looking forward to someone getting to your house. Now it's annoying. [Chris]: Yeah we find something that we enjoy. We get excited about it. New technology and all the advertisers start catching on to it. They start saying “Oh we can reach people in a new way through this technology”.  And then they start soliciting and soliciting and hounding us left and right through the mediums that we're enjoying. And that's the end game right? Because that's how these platforms make money. It's though advertising. They're advertising companies.  And then what happens next that's what Joe says is phase 3. That's protection. We stop paying attention to them. We develop coping mechanisms to not be solicited and not listen or not pay attention to the ads that are coming on. And I think that this is a big reason why our attention span has now become that's less than a goldfish. Because that has been a coping mechanism to pay…to not pay attention to all of these solicitations that we're getting.  [Christian]: Yeah I mean I would say that part of it is just a medium of social media. Not necessarily being advertised. You know it's you know there's another big leaf. There is a message in that medium so it's not just the only thing they're consuming is the message you know but consuming a message via print versus auditory, versus you know social media. You know like it's gonna do different things in your brain. You respond differently you know.  But it doesn't help that we now have all this extra white noise to filter through to get to what we actually wanna see which is typically you know friends and family and not solicitors trying and sell us something. [Chris]: Absolutely and so let's talk about how we cannot be annoying. You know I friend people in real estate all the time and last week somebody reached out on Facebook, sent me this message. This person is in real estate.  This is what they said “Hey Christopher I almost didn't message you because I don't want to come across spammy. LOL. My wife and I have had some great result with “Thrive”. More energy [cough] mental clarity, weight management. I even sleep better. It might be for you and I think or it might not and that's OK. Just wanted to share what's working for me. Would you be open to more info?” There's absolutely nothing of value that that person delivered to me. And it's just… [Nathan]: If you're not sleeping well it could be of value. [Chris]: Well do I want more energy or do I want to sleep better? I mean does…is it just me or those 2 are completely different ends of the spectrum?  [Nathan]: [censored] I just want my kid to stay in his bed at night and not interrupt my sleep so if they can fix that for me in that email. [Chris]: [laughter] I mean it's what has become of people. And that person is in real estate and they are paddling a multi-level marketing product on the side. I mean do you think that their real estate marketing may end up following similar pattern? I don't think it's a farfetched to actually see that leap being made. [Nathan]: I think-no go ahead sorry. [Chris]: No I mean I…kind of the point I kind of make here is if you're just going out and peddling something in front of somebody they're gonna ignore you. Those are the coping mechanisms that we have developed now. It's no longer…like we don't like being sold things.  [Nathan]: No I am attracted to the brands or things that eat my curiosity. That I don't feel like they're jammed down my throat.  And so I'll use a perfect example and in no form or shape I represent them but recently I have been doing the Purple Carrot Meal Delivery right. And I just hashtag it on my Ohio running realtor Instagram. You know “#purplecarrotblablabla”. The…I take pictures of the food which is really good. But I have had more people reach out to me just through organically saying “Hey can you tell me a little bit more about Purple Carrot?”.  I am not…I am not on there going “Purple Carrot is the bomb bla bla bla”. I put what the meal is. I state you know whether it is cous cous or whatever it may be, insert a joke there and take a really nice picture and then put it out there.  And I have had a lot of people private message me or DM me or whatever you wanna call it and say “Hey can you tell me more about it?”. I am not forcing it down anybody's throat. I am not saying you have to have this”. But it has created interest.  I am a brand ambassador for Prevail Botanicals. You don't see my thread on Facebook with Prevail every day. We use a hashtag. We don't jam it down your throat. Have that people say “Hey what stuff do you use with your sore muscles and your AT pains from running and bla bla bla” and I say “It's Prevail”.  If they wanna know more than they'll ask but I feel it's the same with real estate. Like if somebody is really genuinely interested in real estate they're gonna ask you. Just...you don't have to jam it down people's throats. At least I believe that you're a [censored] realtor. Like just I don't know I feel like we're so over the top. Like over the time. Like “What do you like better this back porch or that back porch?” “What I like is when you don't post [censored] like that personally but…”  [laughter] Like nobody cares right. I just…They don't care about interest rates unless they are buying a house. They don't care about houses unless they are buying a house. So that's me and it works for me. It doesn't mean it works for everybody else. And my colleague, Mr. Harris, has his hand up over there so I am gonna let him talk on that. I am gonna thank you Christian.  [Christian]: Alright. I am gonna play the devil's advocate here for a sec. What if someone…What if someone is listening and thinking “Well how do we know they're real estate agents there?” Where is the balance between letting someone know and being in sales and annoying when you talk about houses? [Nathan]: Because there is a way to be subtle about it. Like you know…like I don't…I just…like when I go to a closing the biggest thing that I do other than my hashtag that's on a separate entity but I check into a closing and I put “Doing a closing thing”. People know…I mean most people know, I don't want to say everybody, but they know that I am a realtor or that in some way I am doing that business. And there's other ways.  I don't know. I just don't want my social media feed filled with that crap and guess what I have taken the option of doing. I have taken the choice of filtering all that out. You know. It's that old advertisement. You don't like something on the TV change the channel. I have changed the channel. So… [Chris]: I think it all comes down to the message. Marketing is required. The marketing is the…it is the whole process of staying top of mind in our sphere but there are different ways that we can do it right.  So an example is, Nathan you just brought up rates. Your typical buyer doesn't care about the rate. Unless they're very savvy. They care about the payment. So if your post on social media “Up rates just jumped again” and all you talk about is the rate than that doesn't really provide any value to them. That your target audience may know that you have something to do with real estate but they're not really paying attention to that message.  On the other hand if you say “Rates just jumped again” so…and then you kind of put that in context and say “Well a $200.000 house now the payment went from on average about 12.000 to now about 13.000” that means something a little bit more that is easier for somebody outside of the industry to understand.  I think that marketing involves us putting ourselves in the potential client shoes. The shoes of the consumer, to understand what is important to them.  If you talk about due diligence right they don't care about due diligence. They buy a house once every 10 years. They don't need to know that stuff every day. They need to know what is going on in the community. Right.  Realtors should be the digital mayor of the community. They should be out there saying “Well we have these festivals going on. I'll see you there”. Or share a personal story that really somebody can resonate with that may reflect around what you do professionally that gives some sort of authenticity and come insight to show that you're human and that you're not just trying to sell them on something. Because that's…that's been the focal point for everything that we do. That's the idea behind client's centricity. Is putting their needs first. We need to do that in our marketing too.  [Christian]: I think you being up an interesting point. It's a lot of it comes down to marketing you know that is that. And in my experience yeah the majority of what is being peddled out there is marketing in real estate you know by franchises, by gurus, by trainers is pretty much the opposite of you know Joe Rants “Don't be annoying”.  You know they say “You gotta be top of mind”. And to them that's making your phone calls and pestering people and going online. And if you go “Oh by the way if you know anyone that can buy or sell a house” like everyone is taught to say that so everyone says it so no one…so it means nothing to no one. People are just like “Oh yeah that's what a realtor says” you know. It's like a stand up. You know that's bad marketing. That is low bar. I am not thinking I am just told to do this and I am gonna do it and supposedly that will give me result. They probably are not the results that you want.  [Chris]: I think you just hit the nail in the head there.  [Nathan]: I do too. [Chris]: Thinking. And that's the problem. If you're gonna market effectively you have to think about what the message is that is gonna solve the problem for your consumer. [Christian]: Well you have to start with who your consumer is. You know if it is the population that you asked well there is your first problem. Like that should not be your targeting market. You know. [Chris]: You've got different segments right. You've got …there might be an itch that you work. And that might be your thing to go after her whether that we based off of a previous profession, a hobby. Whether you're running or cycling or you just love giving back in the community and you're in the philanthropy space. You have geographic which is you can market based off of where you live and where you do business or you can go and just focus on something specific in real estate right.  If you focus on if you're in the equestrian market and you've grown up in the equestrian world and you understand horse ranches better than anybody else that is something that you can specifically market to but the fact is that no matter what you're marketing to, what segment that is you've gotta find out a way to provide value to them.  It's geographic. Share what's going on in the community. I can't tell you how many times I have heard that said, “Share what is going on in the community“ and how little people actually do it.  [Christian]: Yeah I mean even if you don't have all that figured out just be an interesting person [laughter]. I mean like I think like Peter Lorimer or something you know. Obviously he's got a big personality like British accent and stuff but like this guy has hands in everything. And it's all really interesting to watch or listen to. You know, and I get the impression he is trying to sell to me. Like it's always helping agents or you know “Look at this cool thing, this is what I am doing in my life right now”. Like it's never “Hey if you're looking to buy or sell you know in Los Angeles…” or whatever you know yeah I mean you could figure it out.  So going back to kind of our initial conversation about Joe Rants 3 things it's as you were giving that example you know you received a social message whatever it was. It is interesting that we have gotten you know most people think we are related to this. We've gotten so far along the hiatus to the sales pitch that they don't even pretend it's not a sales pitch. They just come up like “Hey I hope this isn't annoying to you” or “I hope this doesn't come off as spammy” [laughter] which really means “This is a standard sales pitch”. [Chris]: Yeah you know “I am about to annoy the hell out of you”. [Christian]: As if that's more authentic and will make it less salesly or you're more likely to you know like they think that that's they know that's a barrier and they think that admitting it will be less a barrier. When in reality that's just like “Oh thankfully I didn't read the whole message. Delete”. Just put it up front so I can delete quickly you know.  [Chris]: Definitely. I mean my response to him was” you know “You should have stuck with your gut. [laughter]. It was definitely spammy and annoying. And shouldn't have messaged me.” But agents do that all the time. Real estate agents they do the same thing that multi-level marketing people are doing. “Hey haven't talked to you in a while. Wanted to reach out and let you know I am in real estate now. Do you know anybody that is looking to buy or sell in the next you know 30-60-90 days”. Whatever it is.  Agents do that all the time and there's…it's actually really easy to not do that. Like if you meet somebody and they ask you what you do the first thing you're gonna say is “Real estate”. And they're just gonna come down and immediately ask you how the market is. That is the instantly question that the buyers or anybody that you meet are gonna ask you once they find out that you're in real estate. So what do most agents do? Well most agents the moment they get asked that question they say “The market is great. The market is great. When are you looking to move?” or “Are you looking to move?”. They immediately position themselves for the time share pitch. And that's the high pressure.  [Christian]: That's desperate. [Chris]: They come off as desperate. And the people that are on the opposite side they don't feel like they're on a conversation anymore. They feel like they're being cornered into becoming a lead. And people don't want to be considered a lead. They want to be considered you know their name and they don't want to be you know a prospect.  So a great way that that can be changed is instead of asking them “Well you know are you looking to buy or sell?”. “Who is your realtor?” “Oh I don't have a realtor I am not in the market”. “Oh great well not everybody is in the market at all time. So who do you call when you need to file your tax assessment? Who do you call when you're trying to figure out how much money you should spend on the renovation and you want to make sure that you don't get negative equity?” “Like these are kind of free services, they're complimentary services that we offer to everybody in the community as part of our company and I'd love to be able to be that person for you if you ever need to reach out. If some of these people end up using me to buy or sell some of us don't but it's not a big deal but we're here for you and we want to provide value”.  Doing something like that the conversation goes a whole different way. People have respect for you for not trying to sell them. They thing that you're a professional and that you don't need to beg for the business and it's just a different impression that we can leave on the people that we meet. [Nathan]:  That's just…it makes me think of this example of why we have a bad name. Next door you know the social site, right? OK right so somebody the other day posted “Hey I got friends looking to move in the neighborhood. If you know anybody looking to sell let me know.” Of course it got like 5 responses right. And one of those responses is somebody I know that is getting ready to least and bla bla bla. What they didn't realize as soon as they responded the person said “Well I am an agent and I've got clients looking in this area, what do you have and I'll let you…” It's the classic [censored] you know. They didn't have anything.  [Christian]: Switch.  [Nathan]: It was just the baiting switch. And my client was just like “Man that is so shady” and I was like “And people wonder why we have such a bad name. When you do [censored] like that it's just horrible”. I like…I wanted to message everybody in that thread and “Hey you do know this person is an agent and they're actually not looking for their family member, they're trying to find new clients. Like it's such a [censored] shady way to do things”.  [Christian]: Do you guys follow the broke agent? [Chris]: [laughter] Yeah on occasion.  [Nathan]: Yeah you're talking to him [laughter]. [Christian] Alright. You know there's a funny you know GIF meme he posted the other day. It was like it was a clip from one of The pirates of the Caribbean movies where Jack Sparrow is being chased across the beach by a mob, you know. It's like I think the subtext was like “You know when someone posts online about their selling their house and these agents just the mob of agents chasing them you know”. It's like pretty much sums it up. [Nathan]: Yeah they go “Opportunity oh my God lets start salivating and jumping over each other”. [Chris]: So lets talk about that. If someone posted online that they want an agent what do you do? [Christian]: They usually won't though. They're usually more cryptic like “I am moving to this area” or “I am fixing my house up to sell”. Like you…I mean no one goes out there and says “Hey I am looking for an agent”. [Chris]: Well like OK so whatever the message is whether that is cryptic or direct what do you do? [Christian]: Well usually there is over 150 replies by other desperate agents by the time I read it so I usually do nothing.   [Chris]: OK. Nate do you do anything on those posts? [Nathan]: It depends. And sometimes yes I will. But I try to spin it from what you said. What value I can give them upfront. And part of that I think it's just being honest you know. So…you know again if they choose you than great. I have never had it happen. Actually no. I take that back. I had person that I did speak with who actually didn't list their home but they appreciated that I was just honest. They felt that everybody reached out to him swung him some line of [censored] and I just told him what I felt. But we all know that's me so… [Chris]: Well you're good at that. So one of the things that has worked for me because I actually have gotten some business off of some of those posts. Everybody is gonna comment “Oh so and so is a great realtor. So and so is a great realtor”. What I have done in the past is I have reached out to them directly. Send them a private message.  [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: If I knew them personally I would send them an email or text. I would just say “Hey I saw your post online. I know you're gonna have a million people that are hounding you for business. Just be careful who you hire. Make sure you vet them properly. If you need anything just know that I am in real estate and…” Throw a couple of credential in there but just let them know that if they have any questions you know we're here to answer it.   I have had more conversations with people like that and I have received probably 6 or 7 referrals off of threads where people were like hundreds steep. I have received 6 or 7 of those referrals where I have messaged different agents and let them know the exact same thing. And people appreciate that. They don't like being sold. They don't like being pressured. And it's just a different environment. You get out of this competition thread and you get into this 1 on 1 message. And people like feeling like they're the center of the universe so you just make them feel that way.  [Nathan]: I agree.  [Chris]: Good so I like being right. [Christian]: So awkward silence yeah. How do you sum up this episode? What are your takeaways here other than don't be annoying? [Chris]: Yeah I mean we've gotta be careful with our message. It's so easy to get out there and just want to tell everybody that you're in real estate. But I think that agents need to put some thought behind what they're saying. And really think about how it's gonna come across to the people that they're delivering the message to.  We've talked about proving value throughout the history of the show. And I think that now more than ever that's gonna be more and more important. Especially with the rise of the high byer where they're getting ads saying “Hey it's so easy don't deal with all the hassle. Don't deal with being hounded by 100 agents when you comment online. Don't deal with staging or showing or any of that just let us sell it.” And people are so willing to avoid us and to avoid the showings and the solicitations that they're willing to give up 20-30% of the total value of their house just to not do that. And I think that that is absolutely insane. So we've got to shift our focus. Anything else guys? [Christian]: I would say if this is confusing to you as an agent forget everything that's you know your broker or the better agents told you about it in prospecting and hounding people and being top of mind. Just think to yourself “Hey would I like someone else to do this to me?”  If the answer is “No I don't want someone calling me pretending like they care about me just to ask if I am looking to buy or sell this year” well don't do it.  If you don't want someone knocking on your door without you inviting them over, don't [censored] do it. You know I mean like it's really not that hard. Stop making excuses about “Well this is my job and if I don't tell them or bug the [censored] out of people, if I am not annoying than I am not doing my job”. Well figure out how to do it not annoying or you will find another job to do.  [Chris]: And I'll just add on to that because calling is important. It's not to say “Don't call your prospects” but when you call them don't say “Hey do you…I can sell your house. I can do this”. [Nathan]: [laughter] Don't lead with that.  [Christian] Provide some value. Yeah. [Chris]: You know provide value. “Hey what can I do to help? I am sure you're getting a million calls right now” or “It's been a while since we've touched base. What…Where are you in the process?”. Make it about them. [Christian] Right and I will add. The value is not you calling them as an agent. You know I have had…I have seen online threads where basically an agent has been told their whole career to provide value but they don't know what that is. They think just them showing up is them providing value.  You know like it's…It reminds me of the scene from Office Space where you know the guy is being grilled like “What exactly did you say you do here?” “I AM A PEOPLE PERSON. WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!” [laughter]. “I PROVIDE VALUE. WHY CAN'T ANYONE SEE THAT?” Like you're probably not providing value if people can't see that. [Chris]: Exactly. [Nathan]: Amen. Cool.  [Chris]: Hey any final words? [Nathan]: No. Don't be annoying. I agree that what Christian said, if it would bother you than you probably shouldn't be doing that. Just what sounds like common sense is really not common sense or maybe is that whole adage of the easiest thing to do are the hardest things to get done.  [Chris]: I like it. Alright. Well everybody thank you so much for tuning into our 50th episode of Re:Think Real Estate. We appreciate you tuning in and listening. If you haven't yet please go to the website rtrepodcast.com. Subscribe so you never miss and episode and give us a 5 star review on iTunes and Google Play. We'll catch you next week. Cool.  [music] [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this weeks episode of the Re:Think Real Estate  Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch, K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

There's been lots of industry chatter about the difference between running an agent-centric brokerage vs. a client-centric brokerage. Today we break down the article written by Erica Ramus for Inman News. The client experience drives the culture, training, and behavior for how brokerage offices interact with their sales agents. We spend time clarifying the difference between the two philosophies and share insight into how our businesses are run. Tell us what you think in the comments below! Episode Transcript RTRE_Ep_46  Audio length 25:46 RTRE 46 – What is a Client Centric Brokerage? [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris Lazarus here with Nathan White and Christian Harris. Guys how are we doing today? [Christian]: Great thanks for asking. Happy to be here.  [Nathan]: Fantastic and cold as you know what because it was 66 the day before yesterday and now it is 21. I don't understand what is going on. [Christian]: The joys of being in the mid-west. [Nathan]: Oh my God.  [Chris]: How is everybody coming across with the weather? [Nathan]: Listen I can't wait to…I can't wait to get to Florida in a week in a half so it's coming. [Chris]: I feel you. We're heading there the same weekend I think. [Christian]: We are yeah. [Chris]: So we were just talking before we started kicking off and there was a great article that came out on Inman recently by our friend and former guest on the show, Erica Ramus about the difference between agent centric brokerages and client centric brokerages and why an agent centric broker is not the way to go for the future.  So…There was a lot of kick back. It was a hugely popular article. I got a little bit of a quote in there. Christian was majorly quoted in the article because… [Christian]: I am very quotable.  [Chris]: Yeah you're a very quotable guy apparently. [laughter] So Christian why don't you tell the audience a little bit about the article and what the difference is between being agent centric and client centric? [Christian]: Sure yeah I mean in a nutshell you know it was nice because we met Erica at Inman Connect last year in 2018 San Francisco and between me you and Jackie Sotto [phonetics] you know there was definitely some like mindedness as far as how we run our brokerages or any brokerages and focus on building it with a client experience in mind.  And so I think the article is based off of you know kind of the strength we so in Inman or different conferences where a lot of…you know the bigger brokerages would get up and just kind of tell and tell they're agent centric. You know it's all about the agent experience, all about the tools, all about the support. And very little talk about the client you know which to me and to her seems very backwards.  So, you know, she reached out to us and we got some of her ideas and wrote an article and it seems like it kind of hit it…It hit a nerve. You know a lot of people understood that. Essentially what we're saying with being agent centric…or sorry with being client centric is that everything we do is informed by how we as a brokerage can empower our agents to provide a better service and experience for their clients. And ultimately their clients, our clients if they're successful you know brokers become known for something, we're doing something big and better as opposed to just turning up transactions like a big franchise might and not really having any oversight or care how the agents do the business. They just want them to do business. [Chris]: So it's…It's not about attract, retain, recruit the agent. It's about providing the experience for the client and how…how can…I think a lot of the pushback from some of the comments on the article talked about “Well why can't you have both?”.  [Christian]: There was a…when there was pushback that's kind of what I saw. And to me that says that they don't really understand the mindset. Because you can't have both. You can't be centered on 2 different philosophies. Right? You're either agent centered… [Chris]: You represent the buyer and the seller at the same time. [Christian]: Exactly. There's a conflict of interest there because it's…your focus and direction is gonna be going in 2 different ways. Because I think a lot of the franchiser are focusing on they're talking about being agent centric, they're focusing on recruiting, retention, how can we give the agents the things that they think they want, that they think will help them to be successful. But most of that stuff centers around legion back office stuff, CRM, technology. Very little that interfaces with the client and has anything to do with the client experience.  I mean there are some exceptions in there as far as like the marketing maybe with Compass or something. But most of it is geared around you know “How can we please the agent to build our brand?” And to me that seems backwards you know. And maybe that's just the mentality but in the indie brokerage we have lectures about being smaller and how to control that experience and how the agents we have and their focus better. You know to me it's all about how can we service the client better and everything we provide to the agent in support to new tools is geared towards that. As opposed to just making them feel good or providing free business or something and it doesn't really have an impact on how they service their clients or how they interact with their clients.  [Chris]: So Nate you were the big franchise and then you went to a smaller more growth orientated firm. What's your take on this from an agent's perspective? [Nathan]: Oh man well I feel like if you're agent centric than you're more of an owner centric kind of guy. Right. It's about profits and bottom lines to the individual that owns that brokerage if you would. Shoot. I also…well you know if I go back to when I became an agent I wasn't taught about the client experience. You know I was taught “Let me show you how to lead generate”.  There was never anything about taking care of the client, putting the client first. It was about “You need to make 100 calls a week, you need to have your lead trackers sheet and out of 100 you hope to get 1”. But nobody said anything about “This is how you take care of a client”.  And so for me luckily coming from a hospitality background I get it. I understand what it means to take care of a client. Have I not hit it out of the park with a few? Yeah I have. We all falter, right? But I…I…I have better grasp I guess because of the hospitality industry. And I actually see people that, at least in my market, that got into the industry the same time I did that have a hospitality background have done well because they understand client focus. So you know not the 2 mowed horn but as we were talking I am in the top 15% in Ohio. For agents. I am a solo guy. [Chris]: Congrats. [Nathan]: Again…Thank you. I go to…I take care of my clients and I think 98% of my clients would tell you I would bend over backwards. I would do what is necessary for them because ultimately it is my reputation as well. So… [Christian]: Yeah I think…I think that's a good…Obviously agents tend to have a different perspective as brokerage owners. Well I think the good brokerage owners have been agents or still are in some regards so they're connected to that side of things.  You know it makes sense I think to a lot of people if you're gonna be client centric that's the agent who is doing that. Some of the push back I have seen is, well the brokerage client is the agent and their job is to service them while the agent's job is to service the client. You know I think that kind of goes to me it says you don't really understand this mentality. You know, because if you as a brokerage owner if the brokerage doesn't care about the client experience or the clients, well their agents aren't gonna care about them. You know that mentality and that transaction mentality is gonna triger down. [Chris]: That is amen. Amen. It all comes from the leadership. Leadership sets the tone for everything that is gonna happen in the company. And if the leadership is saying “You know what go on sell, sell, sell and not focus on the relationship or the experience that that client is gonna have” than how do you think that that is gonna play out long term?  [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: If the firm said “Go on recruit, recruit, recruit” and all it wanted for you to do is recruit for your down line than how does that benefit the end user? How does it benefit the consumer? Because the broker owns the contract. The agent leaves, the broker still owns the client. And every single industry except for real estate, every single industry cares about that consumer experience. Any financial advising firm, any single one of them. You know all their advisers are independent contractors. They still care about the end user experience.  [Nathan]: Again I go to the restaurant background. It's simple as like caring about the food that comes out of the window that goes to the guest, right. It's about driving those relationships. We talked in the last episode and the one before that about 2019. Back to basic relationships.  Again this relationship is not only from agent to agent but more importantly just agent to your client…to you to your client. And having that relationship that is meaningful. I don't know, you know, I called a client the other day and just to say “What's going on?”. They haven't bought or sold anything for over a year but it was just “Hey what's going on? How are you? How is Bobby? How is Sue?”. You know like you just have those relationships. Care about your people. It will go a long way to serve you better. [Chris]: Wait you actually care about your clients? I didn't realize you did that. [Nathan]: I do. I don't care about the co-host I work with but I… [Christian]: He pretends not to care about people. He is a teddy bear inside. [Chris]: OK. [laughter]. [Nathan]: I pretty much am a teddy bear. People figure it out and I am like [inaudible]. So… [Chris]: We have seen those articles come out on you. [Nathan]: Yeah. They didn't interview me about those things. I don't know it's maybe because I drop the F bomb too often. But… [Chris]: Probably they did the background on you and they were like “Yeah…” [Christian]: we'll pass. [Nathan]: Yeah and you know looking through some of the comments that you said you know on this article some people just truly they just don't get it. I am like, you know, you want to beat them over the head. I am just like “Really how do you not…how do you not understand that?”. [Chris]: Well I think one thing I have learned over the last year and a half, if you focus on the consumer that doesn't mean that you're ignoring your agents. [Christian]: Exactly. That is a common misconception. [Chris]: It is a common misconception so that's why I think a lot of people don't understand why you can't have both. But a broker that is running an agent centric firm, the job for that broker is to recruit, retain and develop agents and that is it. It doesn't…They don't care about the interactions that that agent has with that customer or the client. The end user experience does not matter. It is all about the experience that the agent has with the firm. Does the agent have the technology? Does the agent have the tools and the training to do their job? Is the training going to allow them to sell and create a massive income? It doesn't necessarily mean it teaches the agents how to have a great customer experience or built a referral based business.  [Christian]: Yeap. [Chris]: And when we're talking client centric from a firm perspective it means that we are teaching and training the agents how to give their clients the best experience possible. It doesn't mean that we're not training them how to lead gen. It doesn't mean that we're not training them on all the tools. It doesn't mean that our agents aren't important to us. Because the agents are the life load of the company and their success is our success. [Christian]: Amen. Yeah. [Chris]: But it does mean we're putting on the clients first. [Christian]: Yeah I mean just got a second there if someone I mean a listener is having…can't wrap in their head around this I would say that you know if a brokerage is agent centric you're probably not gonna get a great, you know ,customer experience from that agent. Or if you are it's gonna be very hit and miss depending on you know the agent.  But if you're client centered you're also going to be providing the tools resources training to that agent to make them as successful as possible. So you know you focus on one you're not gonna get the other. You focus on client centric you're gonna get both.  [Chris]: Absolutely. [Christian]: You know another way to look at it is you know if you're at a brokerage and you're like “I can't really tell like are they…like are they client centered or they're agent centered”. I think one key indicator of that is does the brokerage, the guy who does the brokerage, does the managing brokers, do they care how you do your business? If they don't care and they just want you to follow up on your leads and they close transactions they're agent centered.  You know they don't care about the reputation of the brokerage. They don't care how they…you know if you get referral business because they don't care how good you are at servicing your clients. [Chris]: If it's uniform? Right? If you go from broker to broker and you get the same type of answers. If it's all focused on the client versus if it's all about your business. That's another good way to tell. [Nathan]: I would like to add actually ask a question because I don't know. I am sure there is but whoever is listening, hey Sean Carp if you're listening email me at nathan@linkapm.com but I want to know who teaches, if there is a brokerage that really teaches this. I don't know about it either that… [Christian]: Wait we do but… [laughter] [Nathan]: Well right right I am just saying outside of our… [Chris]: If you're in Georgia 770-509-0265 call us for career info. [Nathan]: Outside of our spectrum like and I specifically mean more big bucks but like… [Christian]: Sure. [Nathan]: I would like to go you know of it's possible on my market but I would travel to within the Ohio region, to go and hear somebody. I would really love to hear somebody speak about it and just see what they're saying because I feel like I have a good grasp of what I again hospitality is and that's customer, client centric. I mean hospitality right.  I would love to hear that. So anybody out there knows hey hit us up, shoot us an email. I'd love to hear it. Sean Carp I am sure you know somebody you could direct me to so do that. But I would be curious. [Chris]: I would like to hear that too mainly because I feel this is a growing movement. I think after…after the whole Facebook debacle with peoples' privacy and big companies, the focus really for the last 6-9 months in business has really been on being human. Humanizing business, focusing on the relationship and I think that has just started to gain steam. So anybody who is doing that please let us know. [Nathan]: Amen. [Christian]: You know I would say you know for listeners who are listening to this, this would be like “Why do I care like hay are you guys talking about this”. I would say it matters because the reputation in that industry is not great. And it's not great because of the transactional, non-relational sales, salesyness of industry.  And because of that there has been huge gaps in the industry that left room for people like Zillow and Redfin to come in. Now you can you know be mown to them and whether on not become a brokerage or whatever but it's your fault. It's the industry's fault that Zillow is thriving. Because they're…they're unapologetically client centered. And here we have agents who are arguing about whether or not you should be client centric. It's like you don't get it. Like you're gonna become obsolete. [Nathan]: Because of [censored] like you we have the reputation we have. [Christian]: Yeah exactly. [Chris]: But we're talking about the agents. [Christian]: Right. In our little spheres we're trying to make a difference, you know. [Chris]: It being all about the agent is why NAR sold realtor.com.  [Christian]: Yeah. [Chris]: It being all about the agent is why the MLS has kept all the data public and Zellow exists. Agent centricity caused the problems that are there because we didn't focus on the consumer. [Christian]: Yeah exactly. [Chris]: Period. [Christian]: Exactly.  [Chris]: So if I am agent Christian… [Christian]: You're a Christian agent or agent Christian? [Chris]: No if I am an agent, Christian. [Christian]: Oh comma Christian. OK got it.  [Chris]: Comma Christian. If I am an agent and I am looking for a broker. I am building my business. I am with a broker. I don't know if I am agent centric or client centric. And I am hearing this podcast and I am like “Maybe I want to be with a client centric broker”. What impact would that have on my business?  [Christian]: I think that would have a huge impact because they are gonna be focused on your success and your repeat referral business based on the outstanding experience you provide which unfortunately a good experience is not a common thing or focused in real estate. Even…even from an agent perspective.  So I mean I think it would…Yeah we were talking about how you're differentiating yourself. Having a good client experience I guess is a general thing. You can do it in many different ways but being that…having that as a focus that is going to differentiate you more than anyone else. And you know a big part, a big key part of that is what systems you have in place in order to have clear and consisting communication because the single biggest thing you can do when it comes to, you know, servicing your client is communicating well, being available. You know to me it's basic stuff but you know when I hear you know other people's clients or friends of mine who have had bad experiences it almost always centers around “I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't get a hold of my agent you know they didn't tell me anything”. And that is a really simple problem to solve.  [Nathan]: So let me ask the questions to the broker. I mean I have my own answer if you would but so what does that look like? What's…what's an example. I don't want to use I use myself in fact which is great, right.  So I just closed on a very nice home for a client of mine that is from Brazil. They relocated here for work and they are back in Brazil doing some stuff. They needed the home painted. They needed new flooring installed and several other things. They were gonna be and actually are as we speak gone to Brazil. Who do you think is taking care of getting that painting estimates and getting the house painted, letting contractors in and getting contractors in for the floor. Finding the selections, making sure…To me that is client centric. I've gotten my check, it's already cashed. It's in the bank. But I want to make sure when they get back from Brazil that this home is ready to go. That they can move in and be seamless and I know plenty of agents who once they got that check they would have been like “You're on your own”. [Chris]: Oh yeah. [Nathan]: So to me…To me that's…that's client centric. Like I don't want to say I am going above and beyond but I feel like that's…that's what I need. I've got another client getting ready to sell their home. They're older. They're moving into a retirement community. They have to move all their furniture. They're 80 years old. Who do you think is moving it? Me. [Christian]: Your contractor filling for Home Depot? [Nathan]: Nope me. I am the one out there. My title company is actually gonna assist me and we're gonna get these people moved. Those are the things to me that there's…you can't even put a value on it. And it reaps rewards. So if you do things like that for your client you will win all day. That to me is what it looks like. I would assume to you all that's the same kind of thing or different examples.  [Christian]: Word. I want to hear what our listeners think. I want comments. I want dumpster fire. I want bickering. No I don't want that. I just want to know what people just think. [Chris]: Yeah I want the client to tell us if an agent centric is better. [laughter] No one thing is we're all on the independent side but I don't want our listeners to think that being client centric is exclusive to the independent side. I don't want them to think that you know the franchise or large firm cannot be focused on not being client centric because we have a great example of a client centric person which is Joe Rand. Who is Rand realty, metro…not metro. Better homes and gardens Rand realty out of New York. And he literally wrote the book on this. [Christian]: He's got a new one coming out that talks about it.  [Chris]: Exactly. It's coming out and it is incredible. And it's all about being good at your job. And that is what client centricity is about. As the agent it's about being good at your job and if you're with a client centric broker they are going to help you be good at your job and not just at lead generation converting and selling. But long term business building, creating a referral book that is going to help you set yourself apart like the best agents. Because the bets agents are the ones that are getting 80-90% repeat referral business because they have done the work, they have built the relationships, they have focused on the client.  And that's it. It's not…It's not exclusive to a small firm, it's not boutique, it's not independent. It's not franchise. It's about the leadership and whether or not the leadership is setting the example with the agents that…It is not OK to not focus on your clients. Or if they're setting the example that as long as you keep closing the numbers we're gonna be happy with you. That's it. [Nathan]: Yeah I agree. [Christian]: Yeah you're right. Amen.  [Nathan]: Alright and drop the mic. Mic dropped. [Chris]: I can't drop it it's on a suspended arm.  [Christian]: That's true it's suspended yeah.  [Chris]: Alright so before we wrap up for this episode any final thoughts on agent centric versus client centric and I think we're starting to beat a dead horse here but final thoughts? Nate, Christian go.  [Nathan]: It's not rocket science people. We didn't invent anything new. We're not coming up with something that's different. It's…I don't know. It's kind of the human thing. Be kind. Do what's right if that makes sense. So it should. I don't know thought the easiest things to do are the hardest things to get done so… [Christian]: Yeah I agree you know. You know it seems like it should be kind of the basics for like how we do business but unfortunately it's very rare so hopefully it becomes less rare but then we'll have to figure out some other way to distinguish myself in our brokerage so [laughter]…but I will cross that bridge when it gets there.  [Chris]: Absolutely. Couldn't agree with you guys more. I think that one thing that agents should look at if they're trying to figure out if being client centric is for them, look at every single other business industry period. And whether or not they put their clients' needs above everything else. Or if they decide that selling and then forgetting about them is the best thing. If they're…you can look at any company, any case study, any MNA they're all going to involve how the customer is treated and how the client experience is. I mean you can look at Ask Jeeves versus Google. Does anybody talk about Ask Jeeves anymore? No they don't. Google has… [Christian]: In the last 15 years.  [Chris]: Google has focused on the client and they have provided what the customer wanted. You can look at Zillow that's because we didn't do our jobs. So let's start now.  It's been a great episode. Thank you everybody for tuning in. This is re:Think Real Estate. Please go to rtrepodcast.com. Subscribe to the newsletter so you get a notification every time we launch a new episode. Go to iTunes leave us a 5 start review and share this. Please share with your friends, anybody in real estate that you think needs to hear it. Share the message. We'll talk to you next week.  [music] [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licenced for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

KERI: Hey guys! It’s Keri TV. I have a very special guest today. I’m super excited to introduce Chris Dyson, a fellow colleague at the agency. We have something we’re so excited to share with you that’s become a little bit more mainstream in the agent circles.  It started as an agency exclusive, and it’s called the PLS, which stands for the... CHRIS: Pocket Listing Service. KERI: Pocket Listing Service. We’re going to explain a little bit today on our episode on what that means and how it benefits you, agents, and why It’s so great. KERI: First, to start things off, what is a pocket?  That can be a very confusing term. Pocket is slang for listings that we have that are not on the MLS. If something’s on the multiple listing service, It’s pushed out to Zillow, RedFin, and every website possible.  It’s a pocket, so It’s something secretive that you have in your pocket. CHRIS: Correct. KERI: It’s an off-market property.  Off-market, but with sellers that are willing to sell.  That being said, Chris, tell us a little bit more about the PLS.  Thanks for being here today, too. CHRIS: My pleasure, thanks for having me.  Very exciting. KERI: Very exciting. CHRIS: It’s what Keri perfectly described. Pocket listings have actually become more and more prominent in our market, as you know.  Frankly, it was born from frustration in, as you know as as well, we would get sent hundreds, probably, sometimes thousands of emails a month from clients saying that I have this pocket listing.  I’m looking for that pocket listing. Frankly, I was frustrated.  There was nowhere we could go and search for that information when you needed it. If the email came and you didn’t have a client, and it was gone and it was forgotten about. KERI: Yeah. CHRIS: It was really born to try to fix that problem.  To have somewhere agents could find information that they’re already sharing in an email.  If that could live in a searchable platform, that was the goal. KERI: Yeah, and it’s amazing.  Who gets too many emails?  I know I do.  I’m trying to find that random email that had a pocket when you get a new call if the new buyer is just super hectic. CHRIS: That was really the impetus that started the platform. KERI: Cool. How does it work? You’ve got the platform. Tell us more about how it functions and helps agents and clients. CHRIS: The biggest key with PLS is that it is an agent-only platform. KERI: Okay. CHRIS: Obviously, the conundrum is, how to do you market an off-market property? KERI: It’s off-market. CHRIS: Exactly. What does that mean? KERI: How do you do that? CHRIS: The only way you can really do that effectively, the key with it, is that these are sellers who want to adopt an off-market strategy. They either demand discretion, which in the big cities, especially Los Angeles, we have a lot of celebrities who don’t necessarily want their information in the public realm. KERI: Exactly. CHRIS: I don’t know an agent who doesn’t have a client that would say, I will sell it at this number, but I don’t want to go to the hassle of putting it on the market.  KERI: Exactly. CHRIS: What do you do with those? KERI: Hey guys, want my very expensive listing? CHRIS: Yeah!  The key is to make the platform only accessible to agents.  That, one, helps keep the information out of the public domain, which is what the seller is asking for in the first place.  Secondly what that does, which is probably the most important thing that this site is designed to try to achieve, it lets agents leverage this information to give us all a competitive edge.  I think what’s really become a huge problem or an issue for agents is now the MLS is sharing information with the Zillows, the Trulias, and the Redfins. Clients are saying, why do I need an agent?  Everything’s available online. KERI: Right. CHRIS: Part of what the PLS allows the agent community as a whole to do is take the information that sellers want to be kept out of the public realm and leverage that to give us all the information that our clients don’t have access to, and in turn, make everybody more valuable. KERI: Very valuable  What happens if somebody’s got their property listed on the PLS and nothing happens?  Say there’s no showings or offers.  What happens next? CHRIS: This is probably where, again, the PLS can be valuable to potentially all listings.  I’m sure you have clients that think the house is worth more than you think it’s worth. KERI: Not at all! CHRIS: Not at all, right?  One of the coolest things that we’ve seen over the last year is that agents have used the PLS to list properties in a ‘coming soon’ capacity, before putting them on the MLS. KERI: Ah, okay. CHRIS: That’s right.  In a lot of instances, the property is sold, which is amazing.  A lot of agents have actually used it as a tool to get a price reduction out of their sellers.  Those sellers who think it’s too much, if it hasn’t moved and they haven’t gotten the activity, it’s given them the ammunition and the data to go back to the seller and say, listen.  The agent’s have seen this.  We haven’t got a call.  Let’s put it out and get it onto the MLS at a more realistic number.  Zero days on market.  That has been a really cool thing to see honestly. KERI: Yeah. CHRIS: I’m delighted that that’s really happening. KERI: Because days on market can translate to a lack of value. If something’s on the market too long, it becomes a stale listing. You know. The whole nine yards.  So the type of agents that are on the PLS, when you say to your seller, it’s been on here and say we haven’t had much traction, who’s in this, besides the agency’s agents?  These are some of the top agents in the nation.  What other types of agents?  How do we explain to our seller’s who’s looking? CHRIS: I mean, the majority of our agents are LA based. KERI: LA based? CHRIS: It’s only effective if you have a critical mass of agents in any particular place. KERI: Exactly.  Those agents are on the site. CHRIS: That’s right. We now have just a shade under six thousand agents. KERI: Six thousand agents, oh my gosh. CHRIS: I include them. If you can reel off all the top agents in town, they all have memberships. KERI: Mh-hmm. CHRIS: You can really argue to your seller that the best agents in the business are going to see your information KERI: Mh-hmm. CHRIS: If it’s not selling, maybe we should rethink our strategy, going to the MLS. KERI: That’s an amazing, coming-soon platform, to make sure that you hit the market at the right price that attracts buyers. CHRIS: Yeah. KERI: Brilliant! I didn’t even think about that. CHRIS: See? KERI: What about for buyers that are looking?  How would they benefit working with agents who are members of the PLS? CHRIS: Again, it gives those buyer’s agents access of entry that their clients don’t have.  It makes you look better. KERI: Okay!  We like that. CHRIS: That’s exactly. KERI: Good. CHRIS: I think, in any business, someone’s only going to work with you if you offer value and have information they don’t have access too. KERI: Exactly. CHRIS: Part of this is to try to give that to the agents and help protect and ensure the industry as a whole, Keri. KERI: Yeah. CHRIS: That’s the plan. KERI: Transparency and value is the highest of important qualities all our clients want.  They want agents that are doing something, that are different, and that provide valuable information, because there’s so much of that online. They can get properties and comps. They can get all the tools they need, but something like this creates another echelon in our industry. CHRIS: Yes. KERI: Which is amazing. CHRIS: Perfect. That’s it. KERI: What are some examples of times where PLS has made a huge impact?  What are some of the success stories you’ve heard of? CHRIS: Listen, again, I’m delighted to say that I get texts and emails all the time. I actually got a text from Marshall Peck, mentioning him. Marshal listed a house.  He texted me in the morning to say that he had a house that was coming on the flats, Beverly Hills.  He put it on and then texted me back half an hour later and said, just got three calls in ten minutes.  Now, I’m able to go and actually get the listing signed.  We got a listing signed as a result of putting it on the site that he didn’t have the executed contract in full. KERI: That’s amazing. CHRIS: That’s unbelievable. KERI: That’s a huge benefit.  Yeah. CHRIS: Yeah.  We’ve had deals done, we had a deal that we followed. An agent brought a property on at six point five and sold it for seven point two within in a week. KERI: What! Multiple offers off-market. CHRIS: Multiple offers off-market, yep.  KERI: That’s brilliant. CHRIS: A lady at PLG estates, Carey Moore. This was for a property in Griffith Park.  She got her asking price through the site.  It’s really working. KERI: Amazing. CHRIS: It’s amazing.  I’m delighted. KERI: I actually had an interesting case.  I met some buyers, some clients, at an open house.  They knew eight other agents.  They were like, Keri, we know this person.  We know purple bricks.  We know all these different agents who are willing to give us money back, this whole thing.  When I met them for the second time, I let them know about the PLS, and it showed them inventory on there that wasn’t available through their other agent friends who were on the MLS and they were like, Keri, we love you.  Can’t wait to work with you. CHRIS: Amazing. KERI: Yeah. It’s been an incredible tool in this day, with all the information out there.  Yeah.  Okay, speaking of the PLS and some of these beautiful properties, I was just looking through, a couple days ago, I saw this one on Oriole in West LA. Not West LA.  The one for twenty-nine million, that was just listed.  That is unbelievable.  I’ll show you a picture. CHRIS: It’s a cool house. KERI: A few pictures of that one. CHRIS: Yeah. KERI: Then the one in Malibu, on Murphy. CHRIS: Yeah. KERI: Those views are amazing. The one in Playa on Trolleyway, that’s very rare for that area, on the beach there. CHRIS: I mean, we’re very lucky to have a ton of really relevant inventory, and, quite frankly, if you’re not on there, you’re unnecessarily putting yourself at a disadvantage.  I mean, God bless what everyone wants to do, but this is really information you should have access to.  And it’s free.  Still. KERI: And it’s free! CHRIS: There’s no excuse. KERI: It’s free.  We like that. CHRIS: Yeah. Still free. KERI: Definitely, if you’re an agent, let us know if you’re interested in the PLS, and if you’re looking to work with an agent, make sure they are a member of the PLS so you have all the access.  Here Chris, I know you’re busy with this entire new amazing website and obviously servicing all your clients. CHRIS: Yeah. KERI: Thank you so much for being here. CHRIS: My pleasure. KERI: I can’t wait to post this.  Thank you guys for watching.  See you next Tuesday on Keri TV.    

Chris got fired from his last job, thankfully! He was speaking with co-workers about his affiliate revenues he was making on the side and his boss found out and fired him! Fast forward almost 10 years and Chris is the host of the UpFuel Podcast and an expert in the Amazon Affiliate space. He is the owner of several businesses in the Amazon space, including affiliate, SaaS and physical product businesses. His opinions and recommendations are not theories…they are from real life experiences. Chris is humble…you'll get that in the Podcast. He didn't sell or pitch anything. He just shared his experiences being an Amazon Affiliate entrepreneur. One thing he said over and over when it came to being successful within the Amazon Affiliate space is to “differentiate” your site. Make sure that whatever product line you choose to pursue, that you differentiate your site from others…there needs to be a strong reason why the end user would review products on your site versus the competition. Episode Highlights: Chris has been self-employed for just under 10 years. His Amazon Affiliate income replaced his “job” income…before he was fired. He owns wordpress plugins, saas, affiliate and physical product businesses. Each niche has its strengths. Choose a niche that is of interest if you are starting out. If you are building a portfolio of Amazon Affiliate sites, then a system and process takes precedence over passion. Price point matters GREATLY within the affiliate space. Develop a product review site, not an information site to help buyers make decisions. Content is still critical, and Chris outsources much of it these days. Amazon's cookie length is 24 hours, allowing you to make money off products you are not reviewing. A long term approach is the key to long term success. Building links can accelerate ranking, but is no replacement for good quality content. When buying…beware of PBNs! Transcription: Mark: Joe how are you? Joe: I'm doing fantastic Mr. Daoust, how about you? Mark: Good. I'd understand you talked to a friend of Quiet Light and a friend of Brad one of our brokers here, Chris Guthrie. Joe: Yeah Chris is from UpFuel.com and AmaSuite and I mentioned those upfront because we didn't talk about it at all during the podcast. He's an entrepreneur, have been self-employed for about 10 years, went off on his own after he got fired. He was actually talking to his coworkers and bragging about how much money he was making doing affiliate marketing and his boss found out and fired him; probably the best thing that ever happened to him because he'd been doing very well ever since. And the subject of the podcast is really specifically focused on the Amazon Affiliate Space. Meaning you build the site doing product reviews on say vacuum cleaners and people look at those reviews click on one that they like and it takes them to Amazon, somebody buys it on Amazon and you get paid. And it's really Chris's … one of his areas of expertise and I mentioned Up Fuel which is his podcast and his blog that he talks about this on so I would recommend people tune in. But also AmaSuite which is a software service that he's built that helps people sort of narrow the path in terms of what they want to find, what products, how to … what niche, what category and he didn't talk about it at all. He didn't pitch. He didn't promote so I'm doing a little bit for him because what I was trying to get was a clear path for people that want to either build one from scratch or buy one and grow it or things of that nature. And I think that he was hesitant to talk about his own product because he's such a nice guy. He really … listen Mark I'm going to, don't let this go to your head but he reminded me of you a little bit which is he just wants to have conversations and help people. And when he helps people it comes back around. And it was a great great great show and I think it'll help a lot of people in terms of the Amazon Affiliate Space. Mark: He reminded you of me huh? Joe: Yeah just the better looking, a lot better looking. Mark: The poor fellow. Joe: All right well let's get to it … I mean if you … it's got to be good so let's get to it then. Mark: All right here we go. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Chris Guthrie on the line with me. Hey Chris how are you doing? Chris: I'm doing well thank you for having me. Joe: Chris you're like a … you're a little bit of famous in my world you know. You are. You're like a star. I know you from your podcast and we've run in the same circles for years but didn't get a chance to meet each other until last October right? It's Rhodium Event Weekend out in Vegas. It turns out you're very good friends with one of our brokers here, Brad Wayland. You guys are in the same neck of the woods I think right? Chris: Yeah well actually he's an up and a little bit south to Seattle; he's over several states but- Joe: Okay so in the internet world I guess you're in the same neck of the woods because you're- Chris: That's right. Joe: You should like candies; you guys don't even if grocery's on. Chris: Yeah. Joe: But you talk to each other often? Chris: Definitely, yup. Joe: Well he speaks very highly of you. And I … as I said pre intro here we don't do fancy intros. I don't have your bio in front of me. I know about you. I know what you do a little bit. But I think folks want to hear it directly from you. So why don't you give us a little bit of background on how you got started in the internet space and what you do for a living these days. Chris: Definitely. Yeah so probably the reason why I try and put myself out in the first place is just because it leads to conversations and other different types of opportunities. That's kind of some eyesight a long time ago when I was digging into this online space that I wanted to blog about it and talk about it because it would lead to relationships and friendships that I count people out and they count me out. And that's sort of why when you said the famous thing I think … I don't really think that but it's more just that's kind of why I went with that direction. But yeah I pretty much just have been doing various online businesses now for about 8 ½ years full time. On the Amazon Affiliate Side of things that's actually how I was able to first leave my day job. I was just fired but I left ahead that job and was able to just keep doing online stuff because my Amazon Affiliate income had replaced my day job income. And so I just basically got to work the next day working on building more sites and growing the main primary site I had at the time. But yes so other than Amazon Affiliate thing I also run WordPress plugins, a SaaS company, physical product company, and other different types of Amazon Affiliate or well regular affiliate websites as well. So a bunch of different things along the way but yeah I've been here right for quite a while. Joe: So what's your favorite in terms of running the business? Do you like the physical product space which takes working capital and things of that nature or the Amazon Affiliate Space? Chris: It's tough to say because each one has its benefit. With the affiliate side of things, you don't have any … you don't have to deal with any capital it's just other than your initial capital to invest in the content creation and building a site out. There isn't going to be as many costs associated with that especially once you get up in ranks and start making money. And then there is … in many cases there's less ongoing expenses. But on the physical product side you're constantly putting in more cash and then a lot of cases it's just a matter of trying to lay the damage to yourself for as long as possible so you can continue to grow that business. I mean everyone has a different goal in terms of what they want to do with any business type but in the physical profit side you've got to do … you've got to re-invest so much more. So I can't really answer I guess one way or the other I think it really comes down to what people are most interested in. For me, I like both and so that's kind of why I still kind of have my feet in both areas; both on the physical product side and if the affiliate side and then also selling software and things like that. Joe: Got you. Well as we talked a little bit before we started recording, I've sold a number of affiliate spaces, businesses where they're selling Amazon Affiliate products and making money through Amazon Affiliates. And it's becoming more and more prevalent in some of the event groups like Rhodium Weekend, a lot of folks getting very interested in that. I've always been in the physical products space, I had a couple of content sites and my physical products site was actually write good quality content and Google will reward me was my methodology. And it happened but I sold physical products. But the affiliate space is fascinating for me and I think more and more people are wanting to learn more about it. So that's obviously why we're chatting today and want to really get your expertise on how do you get started in this space? How do you focus on growth? Can you ramp it up? Can you do pay per click? Do you do social media? Do you do the tricks and tactics that they do with physical products on Amazon, or what's the approach? And then maybe keep in mind that we have both buyers and sellers that listen to the podcast. So tell me from a starting point how do you begin in the Amazon Affiliate Space? Do you just simply research a product, pick one, and go with it? Do something you love? What would you recommend to those listening? Chris: Yeah definitely. So for the way I like to do things is I like to look into … it's more of a just general niche research. And that's of course … you said that where there's a lot of baggage because there's a whole different bunch of different ways you can do this. You can use various tools to help with the research process. You can just go out to Google based on things you're interested in and do research in that way. On the Amazon Affiliate side, that's what I'd spent more of my time doing was focusing more on areas that I was most interested in personally. So I had a site that was focused on like smaller computers and that was something that I was interested in personally. So that's kind of how I decided. I was looking at the various niches online and what people were ranking for and how they're making money. And it just seemed like a lot of the content they are creating wasn't really … in many cases at least for the niche that I was in before I sold that site, they weren't even actually reviewing the products that they're talking about. They are just basically writing articles and using CNET [inaudible 00:08:34.7] large conglomerates, larger websites to come up with the information they could write about. So what I did and so I was … you know contacted these companies and got them to send me products for free and I sent it back and do things like that. So with any site that I do whether it's Amazon Affiliate or anything else it's … for me, it's mainly about finding a way to differentiate. So looking at any niche is just okay what can I do to be better or to better serve the audience than the existing niches that are out there? So I usually- Joe: Okay. I would think it would matter that it's something you're interested in because with an Amazon Affiliate Space you're reviewing the products. You're writing content about it. You're sharing your voice and your opinion. It seems like it'll be important that is something that you like. Chris: Yeah definitely I mean that's … for me that was the approach. I mean I think that if the goal and this isn't something that I've done personally but if the goal is to really systemize and launch dozens of sites or something like that then you would need to just … you could really do just things your interested in because you can't potentially run out of those. But you'd be looking at different types of criteria just like what's the average sign price of a product, that's one of the things that you focus on as well is if you're focusing on a niche where the price is much higher then you can make more money in Amazon's Affiliate program because of the way they have the structure; their affiliate payouts. But that's something to consider as well is just the price of the items that are going to be sold. Joe: Okay so focus a little bit on something that you like but also look at the math behind it in terms of the Amazon Affiliate Payouts and the different categories that they have and the price points. Because you're going to get a paid … you get paid a percentage of the close transaction I assume; is that right? Can you touch on that a little bit, how you make money as an affiliate? Start from scratch and assume that people are tired of physical products or tired of SaaS products and they want to maybe buy one of these. How do you make money doing it? Go right into that a little bit. Chris: Yes, so the way that it's done pretty much is just focusing on … actually to see and try to pull up the actual charts that I have memorized it off the side of my head but each category will have different types of payouts. And pretty much the way you can … I would say and try and pull it really quick but I have it in front of me … yeah, so the way that I would that is find- Joe: So somebody reviews a product and let's say they're reviewing vacuum cleaners. And someone sells vacuum cleaners on Amazon; obviously, they do. And I'm talking about the reviews on those physical products and someone clicks on the link and goes to buy it on Amazon, I get paid a percentage of that but I never have to own the physical product that's the upside of this right? I get a percentage of the sale but never have to purchase the inventory, correct? Chris: Exactly yup and in pretty much the … and I was trying to find the category here, so every category is different and they'll show you which … what the fees are like I'd give you one example, so if it's outdoor tools for instance that's 5.5% as a percentage that you'll get. And the great thing too is any time that you send someone to Amazon you'll get a commission on any product that they buy while they're on Amazon. So even if you're referring people to vacuum cleaners then you can get sales on other types of these accessories as well within a 24 hour window. That's the cookie blank for Amazon. Joe: Excellent. So I know that with physical products you can get to the top fairly fast. There's different processes and categories and not just on Amazon but if you're selling a physical product all that you need to do is pay some PPC ads for instance with Google Ad Words. It's not a winning formula oddly … obviously all the time but with affiliate how are you getting traction? How are you getting up to page one of the search engines and is it a short term game or is it a long term game? Chris: Yes, definitely more of a long term game. With any website that I'm trying to build out and rank it's more of kind of like we say you're creating content or someone is creating content for you. Looking at what's ranking there and listing okay what can I do that's better than that? And then having someone or doing it yourself. Creating out that content and creating something better. Things that you can do to accelerate the process of trying to rank would be building links and doing things like that. For me most of the time it's more of an emphasis on the content creation side aspect but like in the case of the examples I was referring to before that I sold, I would do things like trying to … because mine was in the tactical category, I try to do things like breaking news within that niche. And I would contact larger sites to say hey this product is available on Amazon now. And like in gadget and other types of sites like that, I had a link back to my site because of doing that. So it's like another way to try and help with getting more link authority from external sites that would help with the content that I was creating for that site. But that's kind of the process that … and I would never do anything like pay advertising for affiliate sites. It's … and I'm not sure if any of Amazon affiliate person out there that's doing that. For me I just … it never [inaudible 00:13:30.0] just because I know that the margins you're getting from the sales of the products you're referring rather. Joe: Yeah. Chris: There's not really enough money actually if I'd like to drive then paid traffic to try and convert that paid traffic. Joe: Right. Chris: Years and years ago people would do just racked paid advertising straight to Amazon's website and you could do that before they banned it but that was like years and years ago. Joe: Got you. Well, they get smarter every year and fix the problems and make it tougher. And the people that are doing it right, I think survive in the long run and knows that cheating to get to the top end up getting kicked to the curb hopefully anyway. Chris: Yeah. Joe: So with an Amazon affiliate site, some people have the impression that if you've got a physical product site that you're constantly managing customer service, constantly managing inventory and that it's a grind, you get to constantly churn out new skews to stay on top of the competition and then, of course, grow beyond Amazon.com to the different countries. It sounds like and some people get the impression that it sounds like, seems like Amazon Affiliate would be build it and let it grow slowly and it's a lot less work. But from what you just said which is breaking news and staying on top of things you're putting in the same kind of effort on a daily basis I would assume with an affiliate business as you are with that physical products business or is that not the case? Chris: It's not necessarily the case. I think it really depends on the niche that you're in because you know it like before we hit recording you mentioned another mutual friend that does Amazon Affiliate things as well. Joe: Yuan Fitzner let's just say his name out loud. So Fitzner it's you and he's a great guy. For anybody who doesn't know him, find him through Rhodium Weekend; he's fantastic. Chris: Yeah so he's probably a good person at all as well but he doesn't do any link building, right? He focuses more on just creating the content and that's similar to the strategy that I do as well. But in the case of the niche that I was in specifically before I sold that site doing that as a strategy was … I knew there was a benefit there. Because I think one time Engadget linked to the site and they didn't change the affiliate link. I think it was like several thousand dollar affiliate fees that they … but in that case, it was more just like here is something that fits- Joe: You didn't point that mistake to the under laying and good backing. Chris: None of it, it's just like tip line and you just say hey here's this product that's out now and people are probably excited about it and it's available on Amazon now. And yes that was a nice little bonus but … so now it was more of like niche specific. I definitely think that … I'm probably more often than not actually. You're building out affiliate sites because I had other sites as well. I have other sites that it's not like that. Where we're not trying to break news or do things like that. It's just more niche specific. Even people in the technical space they don't want to do that approach and they don't have to. I mean that's just kind of the style that we chose for that site. Joe: Okay so good quality content, SEO friendly over the long run and theoretically you'll get rewarded. Is that the basic simplified dumbed down approach? Chris: Yeah I mean it does simplify it but that's really kind of the core. And I think I really emphasize just the differentiation aspect. Like any site that I build it's always like okay I don't really want to enter this area unless I'm willing to do something multiple times better than what's already there. So that's the approach I take for really building any site. Joe: What are some of the mistakes that you've made then in terms of doing these affiliate sites? I mean what did you learn the hard way? Chris: Yeah. So of the some of the mistakes I made was … at least for me personally, I do better having fewer sites and just focusing on doing really well with those sites as opposed to having many sites. Like another [inaudible 00:17:09.7] can find that was Spencer he … years and years ago he used to do like hundreds of niche websites and make money from Google AdSense. For me I never … she was interested in doing that type of approach and systemizing in that way. But for me at least it was just a matter of trying to focus on two small niches and so I can … I think I had one that was on HDMI cable reviews. Which was a fail because that was … HDMI cables are inexpensive and then it's also it's just kind of a small niche and … well, not necessarily a small niche but it was kind of a … it was hard to do well with that one then than some of the other niches I went after. Joe: That could seem like it would change a whole lot over the years either. Chris: Yeah I mean it was … well, that's the change in standards in terms like new for kay, signals and things like that. But yeah it was just like if you can go with higher price items that's helpful right? With the part that I was doing is computers and so it'd be you know … or small laptops rather that would be more of a payout each time. Joe: Okay, I had an example given to me maybe at December, January you know someone that was passionate about … I think it was salt water fishing and writing a blog about salt water fishing and within that doing the affiliate links on the different tackle and lures that you can get with salt water fishing. Would that be an approach that someone could take? You know if I have a passion like that whether it's salt water fishing or basket weaving if you will, to build a site based upon that passion and then just go with that approach? And then the follow up question is all right great how do I learn about SEO as you have over the years? What resources do you have? Because it seems again really simplified to say just build a site that you really are passionate about, find great products, review them, and off you go. But you're still got to build an SEO from this site and write good content that that the … your Google is gonna love, right? Chris: Yeah so going back to the example, I think if you're building out just a site that you're passionate about and then trying to then add Amazon Affiliate as like a monetization … kind of like an add-on, I think it's harder to make Amazon a larger portion of the revenue for that site. If the goal isn't from the start like hey we're going to build out like a more of a review type site as opposed to here's something that we're interested at about just general information and then here is while reading this article happened to may be interested in this specific lure or whatever the example is you gave. Joe: Salt water fishing. Chris: Yeah, so that just from what I've been looking at sites in the past it just seems like that's more challenging. What usually ends up happening in those types of cases, the website owner usually ends up making a larger portion of their money just from banner ads or other types of ad platforms like that and then Amazon is more of a supplemental as opposed to the sites that I build. It'd be more … really focused around the review side of things. And so it'll just be like people that are coming to this content are interested in reviews about this product and so then that traffic is more likely to buy something than people that are just interested in general information come to my site and then they may or may not be in a buying state. Joe: So a clear differentiate is a content site that's just giving information about products in general versus a review site when you're comparing a variety of different products. And when you choose one of those products it's going to Amazon and you get a percentage of that revenue. That'd be, right? Chris: Yeah and I don't think it's a bad thing to do … really your example where you're building out because it's great to generate revenue from ads and just have a lot of traffic as well just from various articles you're writing and all about salt water fishing and then also be able to make money from Amazon with the Affiliate Program. It's just there's two different ways that you might see sites if you're on the buying or building or selling side of things. Joe: Well on those three sides which do you like … do you think, let's just talk about two; building or buying. We had Walker Deibel on the show a couple of weeks ago talking about build versus buy or buy versus build. It's actually in a book. He's coming on the Quiet Light team as an advisor in July. Do you personally in terms of specifically the affiliate space, Amazon Affiliate Space do you think it's better to build or to buy? Chris: Well I've done all of them. Build, buy, sell, every aspect on the Amazon Affiliate Side. I prefer now at least … I've been doing this for a lot longer to … or that depends right? Because it depends on for me at least where my capital might be tied up; either I just recently bought something or I'm doing other investments that are outside the online space and I want it just free of capital. And so I'm not actively looking to buy something or I'm just trying to focus on okay now that I've got that other thing going on but I can try and focus on scaling up all my things and as well. I prefer, if I had to pick one I'd say I prefer building and then being able to sell after that because for me at least I'd like to be able to invest less of my own personal cash. I know you mentioned [inaudible 00:22:18.3] before, [inaudible 00:22:19.4], a lot of the buyers there they don't have access to capital that I don't have access to through … you know people have consider with more money that they can then use as investing partners. And so I suppose if I … given the opportunity I had more capital then I would probably be doing more buying. So I guess it's tough to say. If you don't have cash and you want to just get started then building would make the most sense and maybe you can sell once you get to a certain point. That gives you some capital to either reinvest and build more sites or maybe build or buy other things. But if you have access to capital from … for any reason then buying would be great because you're able to just start with something existing. Joe: How long has it been for you from that build to sell? Do you typically hold something for 12, 24, 36 months? What have you seen? What do you try to set as a goal for yourself when you're building something? I think okay I'm going to build this to eventually sell it if that's your goal, how long do you like to hold it for? Or does it just depend? Chris: Well, a lot of the times it's more just a … it really does depend. Because half the time I do this site … well most of the time actually when I do these sites it's more a matter of I'm building something up, I like the cash flow and that's kind of the main goals is just building our monthly cash flow from various websites, businesses, etcetera. So that's kind of more of what I'm after is just getting more cash flow and then rather than just trying to pull out my capital right away and just to sell. So for me, it's all about the cash flow and I am not always interested in exactly trying to sell. Joe: How many how many balls do you have in the inner; Amazon affiliate wise, how many sites are you juggling now? Chris: If I were to add up all the different sites it'd probably be … I had to look- Joe: You know it's more than a dozen or so when you have to look. Chris: Well, no it's more I was trying to get a specific number. I'll say it's less than a dozen but I also include in that other affiliate sites that just make money from other CPA type offers opposed to Amazon. Joe: Got you. Chris: Because kind of once … for me, Amazon was a starting point. That was kind of how I got into the whole space was building out this Amazon Affiliate Site, I was doing it on the side outside of my working hours in a completely unrelated job and just trying to find a way to earn enough money to do this full time. And then once I started making enough money from Amazon it opened up all these different opportunities to try and do other things as well. And that's one is going to software, creating tools for Amazon Affiliate Sellers or well affiliates rather and doing things like that. Joe: How long has it been since you were thankfully fired from the last day job you had? Chris: Yeah, I was looking it up. Actually, I have it on my calendar October 13th is the day and it was … it will be nine years this year, later this year rather. And then I'll be 10 years the next year but that will be sort of, that'll be what 2000 … I'm trying to think now what the year it is, 2018 so it's 2009 I believe. Joe: 2009. Chris: Yeah. Joe: It's a long time to be self-employed; it's impressive that you pulled that off. Chris: Yeah. And now for me at least it's more of a matter of just further building out multiple different income streams and revenue streams from a variety of different businesses. There's … well, that's a whole other discussion right whether you should focus on just one thing or kind of spread it out. For me, it was more like build something out that starts making cash. And it's like well I don't know if I can really sell this for enough to make it worth selling. It's not going to change my life in any meaningful way so I'll keep it and have someone help me out to run it. Well, that's kind of the approach I'm working with. Joe: So if someone is listening to this and they were in your shoes, you know where you were 10 years ago and they had a day job and they want to do what you've done which is building Amazon Affiliate Sites and make some income on the side what should they expect? Should they … if they pick a category they like, they do a review site, they sign up, they get involved should they … would your expectations that they're going to hit 1 out of 10 on sites that they do, 2 out of 10, 5 out of 10. What would you give them in terms of a ratio so that they can understand and of course these are all ballpark numbers and what kind of money can they really make? I mean we're talking about on the small side a few thousand bucks a month and the people that are big and really experienced at this you know what kind of money are they making? Chris: Yeah you know that's a tough … it's tough I think with the ballpark it's a challenge to give an answer to that because the experiences that people have may lend themselves to be able to be successful more easily. Joe: All right, well look everybody listens to me all right. And they're like Joe you're an idiot but I like you and you know would … I have people tell me like they feel like we're old friends from this nude podcast. But you know me through Brad, we chatted, if I was to do this … let's be specific. You could say … be honest say, Joe, you're going to do 1 out of 10. Just face it, Joe, you're not going to do well. I mean you're the expert what would you guess if people are going to do this with some these in experience on a thing that they love and they're smart and they're going to do research online, they're gonna go to your podcast, they're going to go read everything about Chris Guthrie and figure how you do it. What are they going to do, 1 out of 10, 1 out of 5, what do you think? Chris: Ah if they're learning from me it's going to be 100% right. Joe: You're a humble guy every time okay. Chris: Yeah and though I'd say probably it's … with a lot of things, you get into it and sometimes they'll hit and they'll do well. So for me, the best site that I have was doing over 10k a month. Joe: Okay. Chris: Worst site would be like $300 a month. And that's where I'll be some of the weaker ones and then some are them between where I have a few thousand or so. Hit rate would be more like maybe 25-50% with sites that would be doing pretty well. But it … yeah, it's just really tough to answer that question for me. Joe: You improved that hit rate I would assume with the research that you do upfront. Is that right? I mean just like a physical products business on the web, on Amazon or Shopify whatever it is if you do your research up front; what are the competition price points, how are you going to sell it, things of that nature- Chris: Yeah. Joe: And you're doing the same thing with Amazon Affiliate; you need to pick a product with a great margin, something that you can write about, something that has been up searches online. What tools do you use to help … even if you have a passion for something whether it's worth it on … whether it's worth creating an Amazon Affiliate Business? So are there certain tools that you use to help that hit rate go up? Chris: So well tools for like the research side of things? Joe: Yeah to help ensure that the path that you're going down is going to be as successful as possible. Chris: Yes, I use a lot of SEMrush actually. So I use that tool quite a bit because I just like to pull up a site, see what stuff is ranking well, where they're getting their traffic from and- Joe: Do you have the paid subscription for that or do you just use the free version? Chris: So I fluctuate off and on. So from the process of building or going back to yeah I'd more than all do the paid subscription, and then if it's okay we've got enough stuff on our plate let's just focus on what we have and not create anything new then it's like well I don't really need to pay extra subscription right now. So I fluctuate in and out. Ahrefs is another tool I use as well although that was another one that I just was okay I got a good sense of where our competitors are in their links, where they're getting traffic, and okay I cancel out as well. So it's like- Joe: I always get that one wrong, it's A-H-refs is that right? We did a giveaway when we launched the podcast on an account on a subscription for that but it was Mark's area of expertise. Can you spell it out for me? Chris: Yeah, it's A-H-R-E-F-S.com and I'm not even sure how you're supposed to pronounce that either. Joe: Okay. Chris: So I mean I met someone that works for the company at that conference as well. I didn't bring that up but yeah- Joe: Mumble what they said that'll generally work. If you actually … the way my 16 year old does, he just speaks confidently and I believe him when he's comp … no idea what he's talking about but he speaks confidently. I think that's the trick. Chris: Yeah. Joe: All right so Ahrefs- Chris: Yup. Joe: You went through it and that one is more of what links the sites have right? Is that what you're looking at? Chris: Yeah, so it'd be more like looking at both viewers and the lengths for me. I was merely just trying to see where my key rankings were and so I was kind of more just tracking how it is we're doing. For SEMrush that's why I would use just the tool for research. And the thing is that here's what … the thing with tools and especially the two tools I just mentioned they've been around for years and years and years so they have so many different things that I probably didn't even know. Like I probably didn't even need one or the other it's just like when you get comfortable using one tool for one thing you'd use it for just that one thing. And then you might use this tool for the other thing. But that's kind of what the approach I would do. Joe: Okay. So do that research upfront and what you're looking for is traffic, competition, links, things of that nature before you go down the path to increase success rate, any other recommendations that you'd give somebody just starting off? Chris: Just the main thing I would say is well … I mean if you're looking at what … just looking at larger sites that are doing well. Seeing … I try to reverse engineer a lot. So when you're looking at starting from now that you're doing your research process and seeing what sites are getting in the traffic beyond just like figuring out why are they getting this traffic. Is it because they have a bunch of links pointing at them? Is it because their content is much much better? That's … I guess I keep coming back to this like but it's always for me differentiation. What is it that they're doing that's really doing that is working really well for them and then how can I do better than that? And so in the process of doing that research and looking at that then you're going to see okay it looks like they're using AdThrive or something for their ad platform and then they're using Amazon's Affiliate Program and maybe they're using LinkShare so you link to Walmart and things like that. Joe: From a buyer's side if somebody came to you and said “Hey look I'm looking at buying this site can you give me your opinion on it?” What things should buyers look for that maybe somebody in the Amazon Affiliate Space has done this sort of cheat and it's not going to last, is there anything that stands out that people should be aware of or look for? Chris: It's not because … you want to look at where they … if they are building links you want look at where they're doing it because there's you know PBNs or things like that are definitely more gray area. Joe: If I were … go ahead and say what PBN stands for, please. Chris: Yeah, Private Blog Networks, that's where people build out like huge networks of blogs and then they use links on those blogs and point them at the site. And then those blogs are getting traffic or links part of them as well. So that looks like you're getting links from higher quality sites when in fact they're just sites people would construct pretty much solely for the purpose of pointing links at properties they own or properties their clients own. And I can't remember exactly how long ago it was but Google cracked down and quite a bit. From what I've seen people kind of just got it underground and so it's kind of the [inaudible 00:33:26.3] a lot but … so looking at that is helpful in terms of how a buyer can protect themselves from that. Usually, you're able to use some of these third party tools to help check that out. There's also things where if you're signing an agreement that's saying I haven't used a PBN and then you find out that they are because maybe you're ranking stopped or go down because they've stopped in turning to run that PBN and point the links at you then that's something that you could have legal recourse to go after them. But that might be something out of buying side that included- Joe: Yeah, that's what you definitely don't want to have to do is to go after them after the fact. Chris: Yeah. Joe: Because you're chasing them for money that you gave them which is never a good position to be in. Chris: Yeah. Joe: But certainly doing the research to see where those … where the traffic's coming from and see if there is a PBN and trying to avoid it as much as possible. I think a lot of the times Chris getting to know the person, trusting a broker that's involved if there is one involved, really getting to know the seller in a positive manner. I always recommend whether it's a $35,000 site and it could apply to 3,500 as well, or a 3.5 million dollar site, if you're buying it, it's your money, you worked hard for it, get on a plane, spend an extra thousand dollars stay in a Holiday Inn whatever and meet the person face to face. Do a Zoom or Skype conference call so you can see them and talk to them but meet them face to face before you close the transaction. You can go under LOI in advance but I just don't think there's a better substitute for a handshake, having a lunch or dinner or beer and getting a better feel for them. Of course, you've got to do that due diligence and that research and hire experts like yourself or [inaudible 00:35:14.5] whoever might do the research if you don't have it to protect your money. It's something you worked hard for and I can tell you right now that when you make an investment and you blow it, it's really really hard to pull the trigger again. I know a lot of people that have done that. I know more people that have been incredibly successful and then unsuccessful. But those that thought they knew everything and thought that everybody was kind and trustworthy like they were and they pulled the trigger and something changed in the world, there was a shift with an algorithm update or whatnot and things just fall apart. They can fall apart very quickly. So lots of research meet somebody face to face, use the tools that you're talking about, the Ahrefs and SEMrush, check for PBN things of that nature. You know most people are good but it's the few bad ones that you just want to avoid in my opinion, in my experience. As far as up the top line revenue you think you know if somebody that can do this maybe they're making $10,000 a month that they do really well, how many hours a week are we talking about that is going to take to operate a business of this nature? Chris: It's definitely if … so for I guess it depends. For me, I'll give … I can really only speak to my own experiences. So for that site that like my bigger site that I had before I sold it, it was probably 15 hours a week or so and then the rest of my time was on other projects. So it wasn't like a full time thing because I was doing it outside my day job in the first place and then I only added a little bit more time because then I thought okay well I've got this new time. I don't want to have all my eggs in one basket because now I have no job and just one primary site and then other sites that are also helpful but wouldn't be enough for me to cover my bills and for … at the time I was like okay I just want to make sure I could … I don't have to go back and get a job. Joe: [inaudible 00:37:01.3] Chris: And so that's kind of the approach that I took and it worked for that site. It really depends on me and a lot of times too with Amazon Affiliate Sites especially, you're able to hire out for a lot of aspects of the process of building; either building, maintaining, any aspect to that because it's just content creation and there are a lot of writers that you can find. They can cover that part. And so if you're not doing it yourself and you're finding ways to get yourself out of that process then it can be much further reduced. Now I try and just … for me it was I try to only come up with ideas and then work with people that can help implement a lot of these or to … it's more just about trying to really limit the amount of time I spend on actually like creating content for instance. I might like to write about something on a blog personally but if I can have someone else do it then it wouldn't make sense for you to do that. Joe: Yeah, content creation can take an awful lot of time. Chris, we're running out of time. Can you share any last minute thoughts or recommendations for those that are listening that are either building, buying, or selling Amazon Affiliate Sites; any last minute advice that you would give them? Chris: Yeah, I would just say that … well, actually I'd say if anyone is curious or has other questions feel free to … I would like to say feel free to email me. Joe: You know without a doubt I want to … let's talk about how they reach you. We'll put it in the show notes as well but you know throw out whatever email address, phone number, blog sites, anything you want to share right now I'd be happy to do that. But we'll also put it in the show notes so everybody can find it in writing and get a link there too. Chris: Yeah so to answer your question I'd say decide on what you want to do right? If you're trying to … and everyone probably has a different expertise or where they're at with their life, what they want to do. If you're limited by a capital and you have a lot of money to invest then it may make sense to just simply build something so you can build it up and then come to your brokers like you guys of course and then sell it and that can give you cash that would … you could then use to reinvest and do those things. And that might be something you would do while you're still at your day job. If you're already on a site where you have access to more money then buying something would make sense. And being able to then take where you're at and growing it from there. I'd really just say that decide which focus you want to go with. Make sure you find ways to differentiate. I mean I kind of bring out that this whole time but for me, everything that I've done with any business is always been for me differentiation and finding ways to do much better than the competition. Joe: That seems to be the good … best key word here is just be different. You don't want to be like everybody else; differentiate yourself. Still do all the things right, still build something that people want to come to and trust but differentiate yourself in whatever way that you can. Excellent. Chris, how do people reach you? How do they find you? Share any information you can now so that they can get in touch with you and talk about this. Chris: Yeah, so best place would probably just be UpFuel.com which is my site. We didn't talk about it much but I sell the WordPress plugin that helps people with Amazon Affiliate things as well and that's EasyAzon.com. Joe: EasyAzon.com? Chris: Yeah so if it's … if you're running WordPress and you know a lot of people do of course then that's a software you can use to help with creating links and earning more money from those links as well. Joe: Excellent. I will make sure that link is in the show notes as well. So UpFuel.com, EasyAzon.com anywhere else that you are in the world? Chris: Twitter @chrisguthrie and yeah so that's probably the main ones but I'm happy to … if any … if you're on the buying side and you're just looking for second opinion, I try and I've just done well with trying to provide value and people with no expectation, no return and then things work out so- Joe: I agree. Just help people have good conversations and it comes back around. All right man listen I appreciate it Chris thanks so much for your time. Hopefully, folks that are either building buying or selling Amazon affiliate sites will get some good resources here. Thanks for your time today I appreciate it. Chris: Thanks.   Links: Upfuel.com: An up to date article with respect to the Amazon affiliate niche. Easyazon.com: The plugin that a lot of WordPress users install as well (they have over 10,000 installs). AMASuite.com: Discover products and how to differentiate and source them inexpensively.

Chris: Yeah, yeah we're rolling. Yeah? Kat: Is there enough light? Okay, no that was already on. I think I'm becoming addicted to light. Chris: You've got it down. All right. Kat: Okay, we're live already. Chris: Yeah ... what? Kat: What, mother fucker- I get ... Chris: You're gonna have to redo it. Kat: I can't redo it. I'd have to- Chris: [crosstalk 00:00:30] Oh, no. No, that one's done. Yeah that's- Kat: This is live. We're already live. What you're saying is being heard. What I'm saying is being heard. Chris: That is so funny. Kat: I think people have heard it before. What's up? Chris: Yes, it's working. Kat: We are technological geniuses. Chris: We just did have it take off a certain [crosstalk 00:00:50]. Kat: We've made ... They didn't do much. Hey, I managed to get the internet working for a second and a half. Chris: Oh my God. Kat: Can we kick this off by telling people the quotes of the day, Chris? Chris: All right we can share this. Yeah, all right. Kat: So should I tell them one from the other day or is it gonna off our buyers? Chris: No, no, no, we share. We're truly authentic [crosstalk 00:01:08] Kat: We're here for authenticity. We are literally about to fu- ... We are about to launch. Am I allowed to swear? Chris: No. Kat: No? Chris: No swearing. Kat: Okay, sorry. We are literally about to launch our supplement. We get to that in a moment but first I'd like to tell you three very informative and important quotes that I've been noting down. Chris just ... This is a man who, when you meet him or you see him, even online, you'll see that he is one of the most genuine good guys in the world. Kat: He is the nicest man in the world. He's one of my closest friends. I love him to death, he is the nicest, sweetest, person. Would never hurt anything and yet he just comes out and then he seems very like ... Wow, that was quite rude. Chris: Sorry, that is true. Kat: So the other day we're like "What should we call our livestream for our prelaunch live stream which shoots on Friday?" And I'm like thinking of creative titles cause I'm awesome at that and he's like, "Can we just call it-" Chris: Headlines are key. Kat: "This is why you're fat and we're not." And I'm like, "Wow." Chris: Because within context as well, we were talking about ... Kat: Please explain. [crosstalk 00:02:12] Chris: How we used to do diets before we used to be massive carbophobes and then over lunch we were talking about how we're just been loving eating carbs but doing it the right way. And how much better in shape we are now. And it's just- Kat: Well this leads me into the next quote which i that well ... Chris: Yeah, nicely done. Kat: Which is that we set up the lighting, and I'm like "Damn, that lighting's good." And Chris goes "Damn, it's good." And he goes, "Or is it just cause we look so good?" I'm just like "Wow, just be matter-of-fact about it." Oh, do you need to share that to your page? Do you need to share that to your personal page? Chris: Yeah. I can, with you. Kat: Okay, so we are ... oh and what was the third quote? Chris: What was the third one? Kat: Damn it, there was another really good one from just a second ago. So there was the one about "This is why you're fat and we're not." There was "Is this lighting really good or it just cause we look really good?" And then there was another one that just happened just then and it was so funny. I nearly wrote it down and then I was like "No, there's no way I would forget that." It will come back to us divinely. Chris: Not sure. Kat: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the show. Chris: We've got some big news. Kat: We have huge news, I think we're not even allowing ourselves to be ... Chris: So exciting. Kat: As excited as we are. I know I think we're not letting ourselves be as excited as we really could or should be about this. I think we're excited and we're like this is a big deal, and I'm just like "No, but do you understand what a big deal it is?" Chris: This is a big deal. This is a really big deal. Kat: Two plus years in the making? Chris: It's even longer. Kat: I think it's three years [crosstalk 00:03:49] ... Chris: We can put this dick ends downs. Kat: I think it's like pre ... dick- really? We started to formulate this before time began in our souls. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Kat: That's how good we are. I got to the quote book, the intelligence was coming through divinely from generations before but in a physical human sense, maybe three years. Chris: [00:04:07] Particularly there's star dust in there. Kat: Well it's actually ... Yes. And gold dust. You get a little piece of my soul. That's some powerful stuff. Look what I've created. Chris: That's really funny. Don't worry about the lighting. We're good. Kat: Yeah, we're good. We're good with the lighting. So we might be a little bit excited. We might be coming across as a little bit extra hysterical than normal, but it is such a huge deal. And welcome, welcome, welcome to everybody. I'm so happy and grateful that you're here with us. Kat: Hello over on our business page and hello on our personal page, and hello wherever else you are. I am either going to talk excitedly in a hilarious or just randomly crazy way for now, or I'm going to just stop and let Chris present with deep profound wisdom. Chris: I'll chime in as well. Oh, always. Kat: All the things. But let's just quickly say ... Okay, Lisa just summed up the whole entire situation. Chris: Wee. Kat: He says, "Wee." That's exactly right. We have an amazing founding deal. Chris: Founding special. Kat: But we're not going to tell you about that now, because we've got too many other exciting things to say. Chris: Yeah, we've got some more important news. Kat: Okay, I'm done. Chris: Okay. Kat: For now. Chris: Well we haven't decided on everything at this moment. So we need to do this together. So this is actually like ... Kat: Co-creation. Chris: Exactly. We all need to come together right now and actually sort this out. Kat: Yeah. So just stop what you're doing, put it down. Chris: Because this is literally the only time you are ever going to get this special at this product, this price, ever. Kat: Ever. Obviously if you've been following Kat for any time and even myself, you'll know that we want to celebrate. Actually, you know what's really interesting? This little bit random, I actually went through the ... See, Kat you're looking gorgeous. Chris: Yeah, I'm all right as well. Kat: No, I think that's definitely for you, sorry. Not me. Oh, thank you. I'm going to take that. I'm taking it from here. Thanks, Lonny. Chris: Kat, how high can you go. Random segue, we actually just reviewed the ... With my other coaching business, reviewed what the key parts of what the most accessible coaches are doing right now. What was ... What have they done? There was two things that was actually really interesting. Chris: One was how long they've been in the programme and why they're succeeding. So it's a common factor, and two, was they always jumped on the programme as fast as possible. Kat: Of course. Fast action takers. Chris: I know, but it was actually really interesting for me to actually see it. Kat: Oh, it was actual research. Chris: Yeah, we actually went through everything. Kat: That's gold. I say that all the time. Chris: The most successful people. No, it's legit. Kat: Oh, hello. Yeah. Chris: Yeah, well, exactly. Fair enough. Kat: We literally became business partners over cauliflower. Chris: Cauliflower and chicken? Kat: I could have make that some more exciting. Well, there was one. But it was a two-second decision, wasn't it? Chris: Yeah, it was. Kat: It was. Oh, then you came around and we talked about it the next day again, but it had already obviously ... Really we're just joking around nothing. We did a hilarious life show together. Chris: Yeah. Kat: But that is so true, and I say that all the time when I'm working with high level badass entrepreneurs and creators. I always say, "I want to work with the people who say 'yes' straight away." Because that's like me, and those are the people who get awesome freaking results. So we're really here today not just to ... With such excitement and gratitude and passion launch our product, finally. Kat: But we're also here ... There it is. We're also here to really honour those people who already know that they want one of our ... Oh, look at Ryan. You couldn't have product placed him any better than the hat. Ryan says, "Is this the one I tried last year at your place? It tasted amazing." I think my second one did have vodka in it. All right, just hold the final ... Let's save the shenanigans part of what you can do with this for later. Kat: Let's just talk pure. In fact, it was very healthy in the process of my training. But yes. So we didn't even prepare that little bit of testimonial earlier at all from Ryan who says it tastes amazing. It tastes freaking amazing. Okay, I'm getting distracted again. Continue on. Chris: Okay. There's a few things that we've all got to sort out right now. One, when you actually have to get onboard these founders special. Two, we're going to share with you actually how much of a discount that you're going to get and that's a lifetime discount as well. So we're going to make this as much of a no brainer as possible. Kat: Oh, I just remembered the other quote. Chris: Oh, what was the other quote? Kat: It was I said to you, "Is that really sneaky?" And you said, "Yeah." I really like it. Chris: Okay, just kind of side note, that was ingenious business strategy that we actually did when you just said we ... Kat: Because I'm a ninja. As I proved to you earlier. Chris: We share that later. We share that later. Keep business strategies coming down on this as well. It's all working. So two things we're going to work out. One, when you actually have to get on board by, because this can only last so long and we're going to have to cut it right now. So this, it's actually going to be pretty limited. Because we can only take so many people on board. Kat: Yeah. Chris: Two, the discount you get, which is a lifetime discount. And you know what? Three, we actually just added in. Sorry, for the first 100. First 100? Kat: Oh, I thought it was going to be 50. You're seriously pulling this up for 100 people? Chris: I want to be really nice, because I wore my give shirt today. Because I want to give. Kat: Oh, I want to cut it off really. I like to make people jump on board or work for it. Chris: No, we'll do 100, because there's a lot of ... Yeah, okay. No. Kat: All right, that means I have a point saved for later to make a decision about something. Chris: All right. You got one brownie for later. One video for later. Kat: I'll get to be in charge of something later. Chris: First hundred people that are going to be coming on board, you're going to get a copy of my book, "Craving the Truth", which is actually the book where I show you how to be able to get into the best shape of your life, and how to not do it by doing depriving diets, which we have right here. Tada. Kat: There it is. Fabulous book. Chris: So you'll get a copy of "Craving the Truth" as well coming on board in this, but we can only do that for the first hundred. Kat: For free. Extra fast action, take a bonus. On top of the crazy discount. Oh, wait. Do we make them pay full price if they're getting a book? Chris: I don't want to have to make them pay full price. Kat: All right. Why not? I was just trying to be funny. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's fine, because my lighting's fabulous. Chris: Yeah. You look good, life is good. So if you want a copy of the book for free, where I give you the diets. We talk work outs. We talk actually what Kat and I are doing. You're going to have to get on board really quick as well, but also, lifetime discount. Can we tell them how much the discount is? Kat: No, make them work for it. Send a love heart shower. Chris: Oh, yeah, I love how you do this. Kat: A load of love hearts, and we're just going to tell them the office straight away. Just like that? Chris: Melissa. Kat: Hi. Chris: Thanks, Mel, appreciate that. Kat: Yeah, there you go. Chris: It's a great pull. Kat: Let's. So we just give ... Whoa, you guys loving the love heart shower. Thank you. Chris: Whoa. Kat: Do you want a comment something hilarious or just comment get on with it already? Chris: Let's have best comment. I will just give you a copy of the book straight away. Kat: I can't talk through this offer, because I'm going to get too giggly and excited like a little kid at Christmas, and I'm not going to get the details right. I'm trying very hard to restrain myself here, but I'm so excited. So Chris is going to tell you the deal with it. It's literally more crazy than what we thought we were going to do. We dropped down an extra ... We actually dropped down an additional ... Chris: No, let's prepare for lunch. Kat: Over an additional 20 percent on what was already the reduced founding members price. Chris: Yeah, it was. Kat: Wait, did you just say they get to lock it in for life? Chris: Yeah, it's lifetime. Kat: I thought we were just giving that for the first month. Chris: Lifetime. This is exactly. Kat: What? Chris: When you get on board, but here's the thing. When you get on board, you get it for life. If you ever leave. Kat: You're out. Chris: Never get it again. Kat: We're never talking to you again. Chris: No. We'll talk to you, but you just want to get the discount again as well. Kat: If you buy us a drink. Chris: You've got to ... You actually get the discount for life. Kat: Yeah, that makes sense. Chris: That's a bit of a no brainer. Kat: That is a no brainer. Couple of no brainers. I'll eat anything that tastes delicious, especially if it helps me look that pretty. Thank you. Chris: Oh, that's really sweet. Kat: That's all the alignment. I'm reverse ageing. When you ordered this product, you will reverse age from between two and five years in the first 10 days. Chris: We can't say that. Kat: Hashtag disclaimer. I just it. Chris: The FDA does not agree with that at all. Kat: Shut up. Chris: I have to be legitimate with this stuff. Kat: I mean it. I mean it, because I decided, and I get what I decide. Can we just bring the mindset side into it? It's fine. When you sign up I'll get you a special training for free on the reverse ageing. How's that for a bonus? Chris: All right. Kat: Oh, let's have that in as a top 100 bonus. I will do a training on how I reverse age for free for the first 100 people, and I'm not kidding. Chris: I'll buy that. Kat: Look at this skin. I'm nearly 50. Chris: That's very funny. Kat: Well I'm 38. I'm nearly 39. But I'm reverse ageing at the speed of light. Everybody knows that. Chris: No, actually ... This gets really good. What we haven't actually said as well is if you get on board this offer today, you will be able to join the tribe. So what we're starting in part is our private tribe, yeah. Kat: Oh, yeah. We're getting to our programme. Chris: It's going to be a little bit ... It's probably something we should talk about right now as well. Kat: Wait, do we actually? No, this is for real now. I'm not pretending. Are we actually giving them that? Chris: Yeah, they get a private group. It's already set up. Kat: Oh, of course. Yes, all right, fine. Onward then. Chris: This is stupid. Kat: Okay, I'm done. I'm done with my talking. I've got the entertainment, and now Chris is going to tell you the deal. The deal is about to drop. We are going to give you a link. You're going to click it, you're going to buy, and you're going to have a glass of water to celebrate, since you don't have the product yet. I'm waiting. Chris: Well you do have to wait. Kat: But we'll drink something in your honour. Chris: You do have to wait. So let's break this on down. Number one, first 100 people, I'll give you a copy of the book and I'll send it straight to you. Number two, you get the discount for life, and it's over 40 percent the discount as well. So that's a bit of a no brainer as well. Kat: We want to make it crazy no brainer for sure, legitimately of course. Chris: Yeah, I know. Three, you get access into ... whilst you have your membership, whilst you're getting this each month sent to you, you have access into the tribe, which is where Kat and I are going to be sharing with you what we do with our food, with our diets, with our training. I'm going to be in there giving you as well, because I've got literally 12 months worth of training, nutrition and lifestyle coaching ready to rock 'n' roll for you. Chris: So you'll get access into that private community where it's members only in there, and then ... Kat: That's got content from both of us, which is combining over 30 years of experience and knowledge and application and results. If you can, have some brain power. Chris: We literally needed a team member to go through how much content we had. Kat: It was several staff members who had to go through that and have been doing it for nine months. Chris: I feel so sorry for Jess actually. Kat: And Mim, shout out to Mim. And Jess too. Chris: And Mim. Yeah, sorry, too. Bingo. Kat: And shout out to Ash and Bron as well who've had so much to do with this launch and does so much work on that. Chris: I wish they were here. I got a notification on my page. Kat: I just was reading it over actually. Really. Chris: Okay, awesome. So you get the book. You get 40 percent discount and that's for life. You get access into the tribe as well. Now what we're going to do ... Kat: We were going to ... Sorry. I know I'm just terrible at cutting you off. I'm the worst at that. But we were going to charge for the tribe. We were going to do it as a separate. Chris: No, we are going to charge for the tribe. Kat: Yeah, but we were going to make it like you would pay a bit extra to get the coaching platform, as well as the product, and then it would be extra, extra for people who just wanted the coaching, which is basically means stupid people, because why would you not buy this? Then we decide to give it for free. Chris: So if we actually boil this down right now. Kat: Yeah. Chris: What the offer is is the super food blend will actually be recommended retail for $97. The tribe, our coaching community that's private for members only, that's actually priced at $50 a month for that. So obviously that's $150 a month, but if you get on board now, can we say it? Kat: Let's just do it. We've dragged it out long enough. They've been waiting and wanting. Chris: If you get on board now, you will get everything, which is sent to you each and every month, and your monthly membership into the tribe, and it's only going to be for $59. So we're cutting off $90 every month, and that's a life time discount going into it. So literally, there's a massive discount. So that's something like ... It's a gigantic discount. Kat: Whatever it is. Chris: First 100 people, I'll send you a copy of the book for free. Kat: And you'll get my reverse ... And you'll get my training on reverse ageing if you're in the first 100 people as well, which is completely serious. Chris: All right, Ricky. So Ricky asked a really good question. Can you consume it if pregnant? Now with supplements, you do technically have to say and you'll see on the back here, "Caution, if pregnant or nursing or taking medication, consult your health care practitioner before use." Kat: It's required to say that. Chris: My Lauren, wife, she has been pregnant with two children whilst taking this and my daughters have this as well. So when they ask for chocolate, they're actually asking for this bad boy. Kat: Yeah, I give this to my kids as well. Who are young as you know. It's required to say that. It's required to obviously that you've got to consult with your medical adviser that. Chris: Yeah, good question. Kat: I would take it. Lauren took it, etc. I just want to also clarify, really we had it locked in that launch offer ... That the retail price, the price that we will be selling it at. It's not just like what we're saying is retail. We will be selling it at $97. We were going to do the founding members offered at I think $79. That was locked in, and that was decided. Even up until last Friday. Kat: We did the pre-launch video and had some fun with that on Friday. You might have jumped on on that. Oh, we were supposed to notify people. I will send them a link after this, yeah. Chris: Yeah, we'll send them. Kat: I can't even remember why we decided to drop it down so much more. I think we just ... We get so excited. We are so proud of this and so excited and it's been so much work and blood and sweat and tears that's gone into this on Chris' behalf. I really just want to honour him. He's an amazing business partner and friend, and the work that he's put in. Literally travelling the Earth to create pharmaceutical great product in the world. Kat: It is literally the most exceptional formulation that you could come up with. Digestive health, probiotics, all this good stuff, but then also, working together with somebody that you're obviously good friends with, that's not automatically enough to make a great business partnership as I know a lot of people know. Chris: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kat: So it's just been amazing to have a shared vision for something that we're both so excited to bring to life. It's been a little painstaking at times to get to where we're already, but like any amazing vision brought to life, you've got to be willing to go through those periods where it's things are going slow than you want or you thought something was just going to work, and then it didn't. Kat: So it's been quite the journey, and it's been one that's been heavily supported by the people we just mentioned and shouted out earlier as well. So there's a lot that's going into this and it really is. It's such a big deal. It's something that we know that we're going to take for life, be proud of for life. We really trust and belief that when you start to take this, firstly, the taste of it is incredible. It just tastes amazing. It's chocolate flavoured greens powder. It's flavoured naturally with cacao. Kat: It tastes incredible. Every single person who tried it is like, "Holy crap, where can I get this? I want to take this forever." So we know you're going to love the taste, but the benefits and the health side of it, the brain power side of it. The mineral focus side of it. The fact that you're just getting all these good things covered for yourself and your family in one hit. We know that you're going to be part of this for life as well. Kat: So this is something that for long haul it's not just business on the side of our respective empires that we already have. We really see it as a vision for the community that we want to build of like-minded individuals, like us, like you who are committed to being about us in every aspect of life. In business we brain function, and looking and feeling hot AF as well of course. Kelly says can you use it if diabetic. Chris: Yeah, you can. It actually says on here "diabetic safe". Where did I actually have to say that? Here. Last bullet point. No, extras. No extra added sugar. It is diabetic safe. It is only flavoured with stevia. So you only use the really good stuff. Please post the ingredients out. Yeah, Angela if you click the link that you'll get access to ... Kat: We could give the link. Chris: I will give you the link. If you click the link, you'll get access to the page which has the full ingredients on there for you. So you can actually read this rather than me sticking this up to the camera. It's still not being readable as well. Now, what we also have done is we put a 60-day guarantee on this. So we want you to taste it. Kat: That's how confident we are. Chris: We want you to use it. Exactly. That's how much we ... We're a little bit cocky when it comes to this. Because we know it's that good. We've been using it for that. Angela, you're absolutely welcome. So we want you to get your hands off it ... On it. When you get your hands on it, and you start using it, you'll see. You'll actually notice the difference as well. So what you want to be able to do is number one, it's not about supplements. Chris: Now let's just talk right now. I want to jump in and talk about ... Yeah, sorry, go. Kat: Should I give the link or should we give them preparation that I'm going to give you the link, because we are doing this first hundred thing. Chris: Oh. Kat: Let's tell you what we want to tell you, so that you're paying attention, and then we're going to drop the link. Chris: Okay, let's do that. Kat: Yeah. Chris: We'll jam real quick, and then we'll give you the link so that you can get access to all this stuff right now. So I want it in my mouth right now. Kat: All right. Well, it's a sensory experience, and you can tap into the collective energy. That's right here in this space and place. Here is some we prepared earlier. Chris: Jaya, can you put your email below and I will literally send you a copy of my book, because that was the best comment so far. Kat: Comment of 2018 award. We're adding that to our book of hilarious quote. But we will drink some in honour of everybody. You can tap into our collective energy. Chris: Right, cheers. So I'll answer Theo's question. So this is what we're doing. Because we're doing the very first batch, for all of our members with this super food blend, it's going to take between three to four weeks for everyone to get there. So that's why we're doing this founders special. So we want everybody to come on board. Now, and this is what I want to say and this is why it's so important. Kat: Yeah. Chris: It's not about supplement. Kat: That's why we're doing a huge discount. Chris: It's not about the supplements. Jaya, thank you so much. Can someone remind me to send Jaya a copy of that? Kat: Yes, I'll email you right now. Chris: Or just ... perfect. It's not about supplements, okay? So why are we actually talking right now? Why are we starting a health and fitness company? Why are we wanting to help you with this stuff? It's because you want to be able to look, feel, and function great. You want to be a part of the one percent of the one percent. You want to look great. You want to feel great. You actually want to perform really well, and that's not just the body performing on a biochemical level. It's how your brain performing as well, and you're actually enjoying it. Chris: How do we actually do this? It's not just by taking a supplement. Supplement's the cherry on the top, and we're going to be the first people that now run a supplement company to tell you it's not abut the supplements. This is why we're doing the tribe. So we help you, we show you, we teach you. We're giving you actually what's needed when it comes to, what to eat, how to eat, how to set up your lifestyle. What about when it comes to your work outs? When it comes to your movement as well. Chris: So especially when I break it down in the book, I show you the actual workouts and there's a yang and a yin philosophy. So like a yang, this is going to be a white training. A yin, it's going to be a walking. It's going to be your saunas, your ice punch pools, your meditations, all these kind of things. Kat: Yoga. Chris: Yoga. All these things we need to be able to put together. So it's a holistic approach to giving you exactly what you need. That's why when I first ... One of the reasons, our first conversation, we're like, "Hang on, there's a lot of 'supplement companies' out there and they're doing sometimes great products, sometimes crappy products. Let's not even go down that path." What's missing right now? No one's giving you both. No one's giving you here's the great ... Literally world best formulations, raw products, and manufacturing process. Kat: And taste. Chris: And taste. Which is kind of the most ... It's not technically the most important thing. But it's the most important in the sense that you're not going to take it if it doesn't taste amazing. It tastes so good that you just ... You want to have more. You just want more. I was crying when mine ran out. My samples that I had at home. Kat: Yeah, I had to get more for Kat. Chris: I had to have a massage to get over it. Kat: And a meditation, and some prayer. Some prayer. Then I may have harassed him over what's happened. I literally once was tapping in from every city around the world going, "So can you send some to New York? How about Florida? How about Texas? How about LA?" Chris: I tried to send it to her in two different cities. Kat: But I kept moving too quickly. Chris: And it kept missing. Kat: Come in San Diego, take me around. Chris: Obviously what I want to get across to make sure that we do this right is while we're doing the tribe is so literally Kat and I can give you what's needed to be able to make sure that you look, feel and function the way that you want. It is literally like that. Then when you want to put the cherry on top, when you want to perform. Because this is the thing and I talk about this. Chris: Number one, that our food quality that get isn't as good as it should be. You're not getting all the nutrients. You're not getting everything that you really need at the end of the day to be performing your best. We have high stress levels in our modern lifestyle. We have a lot of chemicals in our environment that help us become toxic. So we want to be able to become un-toxic. We want to be able to get rid of that stuff. Chris: So this is why we started with literally a greens formulation. But it's not a greens formulation. This is ... Kat: So much more. Chris: A super veggie type antioxidant blend. It's got a fruit antioxidant blend. It's got digestion support, and it's got a probiotic blend in here as well. So this is why we want to try and you come at this, because the thing at the end of the day is I don't want you to have a covered or room full of supplements. You want a handful of things, and that's what we're going to be doing, Kat and I together. We're going to be coming together. Kat: There would be new products. Chris: And are really doing a few products that give you the biggest bang for your bucks. So you can actually get on with your life. Because what I don't like is trying to do so many different things, that when we have more important things to do, I don't want to be worrying about my diet, or my work outs, or I'm not looking as I good as I feel like I should be. Or all that kind of shit. Chris: I'm a dad. I am running businesses. I want to be able to enjoy life. I want to be able to have us come together and just have fun. I don't want to be absolutely hating life because I'm doing a dive. Kat: You want to look and feel your best and be your best, and be fitting everything in but doing it just with ease and flow as well. We both, this is another thing. We've both done the hustle life before. I love the word hustle by the way. For me that means something powerful and flow based, but what I mean is we've both done business and life and fitness in way where it was kind of burning yourself out or pushing beyond a healthy limit and that's nothing I look back on and regret, because it made me into who I am now. Kat: But at this point in my life, and for both of us as well, it gets to be about having it all whilst operating at a level of excellence. Feeling your best, looking your best, being at your best, and having it jus be flow and ease. So there's already so many things that each of us do and support our communities to do that create that just through lifestyle and the way we choose to live our lives and live according to our values and so on. Kat: This just takes it to that next level. It's about enhancing a way of life. So that's again another reason why we've created the tribe to go with this to support you with the education, the information, and the empowerment, to get the results that you need. So we will be giving you the nutritional information literally over 30 years or at least over 25 years of combined experience between us. Chris: Over 24 years. Kat: At a really high level as well, where both of us really dedicated our money and our time to learning and studying with the best people in the world, and that's how we met. Through classes around the world. We're bringing you the most cutting edge, real nutrition information, hormone information, fat loss information, digestions, stress management, sexual energy and libido as well. All ties in together. Sleep quality. Kat: Mindset, of course, right? The ins and outs of the trainings side of it as well as the nutrition side of it, and we're teaching from a standpoint of full life in a way that feels amazing. It's not a freaking diet. It's not a quick fix. It's not do this for six weeks or 12 weeks. We're bringing to you our combined experience of well over two decades, and where we can look back and go, "We did all that crazy stuff and maybe you did as well." Kat: It is what it is. Now we actually have a way of living where we get to look and feel and function at a standard of excellence 24/7 always. It's just how it is. We don't sacrifice anything in order to look our best and feel our best. We know that you don't have to as well. So this is not come on board, our magical diet that's going to fix you, and then you're left floundering afterwards, rebounding back. Kat: This is make some small simple adjustments that are going to immediately feel amazing for you. You're going to be immediately be elevated internally and in your energy and your emotions, and even dare I say spiritually, because of course it heightens everything. You're going to see those physical shifts and changes as well. I get asked all the time. I know Chris gets asked all the time, "How we can be such busy, successful entrepreneurs both with our own families and small children, and still get to have ... be in great shape and be legitimately healthy and brimming with energy, and have the energy to do all those things?" Kat: That's so easy. We let it be so easy. It's such a small amount of time or energy that creates such a massive return on that. So everything that this is about. Like Chris said, it's not just a supplement. It's you get this amazing supplement and you get everything that since ... Yes, hold it up. Everything that's inside of us that we've taken all this time and effort and working with literally tens of thousands of clients between us over the past, decade plus, in order to just know what works for life. Kat: So I said at the start of this that I feel like I can't fully express what a big deal it is, and I feel like maybe I'm now starting to express what a big deal it is. But should we? Do you want to add something there or should we give them this link? Chris: I think we should give them the link. Kat: I don't know why I feel nervous. So hang on. Chris: It's good. Kat: Should we give them the link to the Facebook group as well or we just give them this link? Chris: No. Kat: No. Chris: The what? Kat: No, the one from the other day I meant. All right. We'll figure that out later. Chris: Oh, no, give them that link. Kat: Okay, so now, are you ready? Are you excited? Are you eager? Are you going to send me another love heart shower? Are you ready to click by pull out your credit card, get it at the ready, and here's what you're going to do. In about 19.5 seconds or however long it takes me to stop talking, I'm going to ... Which could be 19.5 years. I'm going to put this thing into the comments here. Kat: You are going to click the link. You are going to grab your credit card. You're going to run to the back of the room, and you're going to purchase this product. Chris: All right, hang on. Kat: Hang on. You're only supposed to say three things. That's what I'm telling from this stage, wait. Get your credit card, click the link, buy the product, be in our top 100, get Chris' book for free. For being a fast action taker badass, just like we are, you know your life is going to change for life, and you get a free book as well. It is amazing. And you get my free training on reverse ageing. Chris: I'm really excited for that. Kat: Me too. Yeah. I'll give you the link. I'm ready. This is it. This is it. This is the moment of truth. Chris: They just want us to getting it taken out really quick. I would literally be ... Kat: Yeah, I'd be running to the back of the room or to wherever your credit card is. Chris: Oh, God. Oh, shit. Just happened. Kat: We just? Did we just break the internet. Boom, boom, boom. Okay, I feel like we needed to prepare the drummer as a roll sound. I could have played when I did that. I actually feel like I need to take a breath. Chris: Oh, that's good. Oxygen's really good as well. To set fire. Kat: Can I just add that to quotes? Quotes from Chris. Oxygen is really good for you. Okay, what else are we going to say? Chris: Oh. Kat: Oh, did you tell them to comment there? Or are they just saying how it is over there for the fun of it? How did that just start happening? Chris: I don't know. Kat: Is it because they clicked this? Chris: I have no idea. Kat: What happens? Chris: Yes, it is. Kat: Oh. Chris: Oh, we can see everyone coming through on this one. Kat: We can see who's signing up. Chris: Going up. Kat: Go, go, go, go, go. Oh, we can see all the notification. Chris: I didn't ... This is ... Kat: Tamara's in. Michelle clicked the link. Sarah clicked the link. Chris: That's really funny. Kat: Come on, keep going. All right, and oh, when is this? Ooh, Thalika. She's on it. Just on it. Chris: Laura. Kat: All right. This is so exciting. Chris: This is so fun. Can I share? This is more exciting. I remember when I did my very first online fitness launch. Kat: Laura can't click. Chris: I had the PayPal app on my phone. And when I did the launch, it was like my PayPal app on my phone make a little ding noise. Or no, like a payment would have gone through. This is more exciting because it's a hell of a lot more people coming through. Kat: Sage says, "I can't click." You might have to try different device, because people are definitely clicking. And it's working. So how's this, though? It is so exciting. Last night I was out with a friend, and she's like, "So, what are you doing tomorrow? I'm like, "Oh, yeah. I'm doing whatever and whatever." Then I'm like, "Oh, and I'm just launching a supplement company with my friend Chris till 11:45. Kat: It's like, "Wow, this is huge." That would be huge. We're just quickly launching a supplement company that we're going to take. Angela says, "I can't click on iPad." What can we do about that if people can't click on some devices? Do you have it? Because this is the mo ... Do you have a different link? A longer one? Chris: Can you comment back then or? Kat: No. Chris: PM them? Kat: Do we have a different version of that link? Chris: No. Kat: No, I don't know what to do about that. Ash and Bronwyn, are you on? Chris: What's your problem? The request to the group. Theo. Did you click the link Theo, that Kat has just given you? Kat: Okay, one second. We tested this 1600 times. We will not be swayed. I'm clicking it now. Chris: It's definitely working. We're seeing people still coming through. Kat: Okay, so when I click that, it goes me to Facebook messenger. Chris: Don't worry, Theo. We'll get your link. IPhone can, iPad can't. Kat: It's taking me to Facebook messenger when I click it. Is that right? Chris: Yeah. Kat: Then where is the link that they're going to get that message to them? Chris: The link to ... Yeah. So we'll send you to Facebook messenger, and then Bronwyn said type it in. Kat: Then you've got to press get started. Chris: Then I should maybe put zero admin. Yeah, see, there you go. Kat: Okay. So when you ... We thought we tested it all, whatever. So when you click it, it's going to take you to Facebook messenger. It may not work on the iPad. Then it's going to ... Then you're going to click get started, and then it's going to start, "This is MBB Bot. The My Body Blend's Messenger System." Chris: Oh, my God. Kat: It will say it in that voice. Then it will say, "Do you really want access to a secret launch of Super Food Blend?" It will say it in that voice. Then you'll press "hell yes," which I'm doing now. Hell yes, I just did it. Now it says, "Awesome Katrina, click the prelaunch of verboten below to get our one-time only freelance offer for ..." Okay, I feel that we're being repetitive. For our brand new Super Food Blend. Kat: Plus, if you think there's anyone else who might need to know. I mean why would you take him in unless you want them in the top 100? So now I'm clicking that link, wait for it. Shana says, "Get started." I see you guys on it, just on it. Chris: It's really cool how I can see you from one and then comes through to the other one. Kat: This is a genius. Chris: Theo, you figured that out, great job. Kat: This is a genius strategy. I just got through the sales page. Chris: Can't believe this works. Kat: Right here, live, on this live stream. There it is. Chris: So this is only for the private launch. So obviously once this gets closed down, you're not going to get ... Kat: Take it out. You can't get in on this deal again. Chris: Yeah, you can't get access to this, because we can't keep this up forever. Kat: So talk them through what are they going to receive once they then signup and purchase. Chris: Cool. Kat: Because just a reminder that the product is going to come. Explain all that. Chris: Yeah. So obviously the founders special with what we're doing today is we're doing our very first batch, and you're going to be a part of this. So it's going to take three to four weeks for you to get your actual first Super Food Blend delivered. We're going to be sending it straight to you, but that's why we also have the MBB tribe. So the tribe is going to be where Kat and I are going to be in there making sure that you get access to what's going to be the right meal plan, the right workouts. Chris: I'm going to be in there doing live streams, answering your questions. Kat's going to be talking about anti-aging. Plus, if you get in first 100, which honestly it might be taken up already. I don't know, you're going to have to just get on board. Kat: Just go, go, go. Chris: I'm going to give you a copy of "Craving the Truth". That's going to break down literally what you need to be doing with your meals, with your workouts and lifestyle, and what we're also going to be doing is this special that you get access to today is for life. If you stay on board with this, that means you get this lifetime discount. Chris: So normally Super Food Blend. This has got the RLP of $97 just for one. The actual tribe, that sells for $50 a month. That's $150, but you get access to it today for only $59. So that's a massive discount. I don't know percentage was, what it is, because I'm horrible at math and that's okay. Melissa. Yay, got my confirmation email. So there we go. Kat: Yay, celebrate. Chris: It's coming through already. So that's fantastic. So we want to make sure that everybody come on board because we've got a couple wait up our sleeve. Like tomorrow I'm going to be jumping on board doing a live show, walking you through how we actually get the right meal plan, because what we start with, this is a little bit of secret sauces, how I kick start fat loss is what I do is we do a 14-day metabolic restart. Chris: So what we do is actually in the first 14 days we actually get your body to learn to burn body fat. Now most people are trying to talk about how do I speed up my metabolism? That's actually the wrong question I believe, because let's think about the analogy of driving a car. People are saying, "How do I speed up my metabolism?" They're just thinking about, "How can I drive my car faster?" But what if your car is actually heading in the wrong direction? Chris: So you just say, "Going in the wrong direction faster." So what we got to do first is make sure that you go in the right direction, which is how do you get your body to actually tap into body fat stores, how do you actually burn body fat for fuel. Then we talk about actually speeding our fat loss. But what we do is once we actually get your body tapping into body fat stores effectively, then we actually start talking about stress. Chris: So what the biggest problem is to me people are stressed. They've got too high cortisol levels. They started throwing other things like testosterone, pregnenolone, all these ... Actually, let's not go down the whole monogram, because that's going to be too complicated right now. But what we're going to do is we turn your body into actually being able to burn body fat for fuel first, then we talk about actually being able to lower stress. Chris: So what you'll find is most people when first getting the guides and plans I'm going to be sending through to you, think it's too easy and there's not enough. But you'll find that your body will actually be able to lose weight faster, because we're doing things easier. Because what's the biggest problem so many people fall into and I know we've done it before is you decide that you're going to lose weight. So what do you do? Chris: You cut your foods down, you ramp up your workout. Kat: Do some drastic random stuff. Chris: You do more, more, more, more, more, and then what happens when you hit the plateau? Because you will hit hit the plateau. Kat: What happens is you crack it and eat a freaking container of cookies. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Kat: If you're a woman. Chris: If you're a man as well. Kat: I never did this. Chris: I did. Kat: Okay. Chris: That's the big problem. So you wind up crack it, and you start binge eating, and then you feel guilty, and that's bad. So mentally that's bad. Or you actually have to start eating less and less and less, because you're trying to get to that deficit. So what we do is we say, "Let's actually do a bottoms up approach." So let's start from the bottom and we actually build your food, so you'll see that we actually increase your food intake. So you're actually eating more and losing weight, because the whole just eat less move more scenario, it's a myth. Kat: Boring. Chris: I wrote a freaking book about the myth of it, and it's not fun at all. Kat: Yeah. I just love everything you said. I love how you're just on a ... Did this stuff just comes out of you because you're so passionate about it and you know it so well? Chris: I know I did it wrong for so long. Kat: It is what we live and breathe. It is just ... I think you can see your passion coming through right, and you're just going to continue to get so much more of that and all of our knowledge and learning and support and accountability through being part of this tribe. So originally we will ... completely keep them two separate products. The coaching platform versus the product. Kat: Then we're like, "No, of course we're going to honour the people who buy this amazing thing, and really are committed to change their lives, not just to taking a supplement." The thing is I don't know. There's so many more things that I probably could say. But I think we've kind of covered the best of it, and we're just so excited to welcome you. We can see people ... Thank you and it says thank you. Kat: We can see people over on ... So we've got Chris. My friend here and Chris' friend here. Chris' friend is hooked up to the My Body Blend's page. So that's where you go when you click the link, you'll go to the Facebook messenger of the My Body Blend's page which is our joint business page. You'll then follow the prompts there, and you'll jump on to the sales page that way. So we can see people's responses that are coming up on his phone, which is super cool. Kat: So this is ... It's just huge. It's the bringing to life of something that's been several years in the making in the physical sense. 10 plus years of friendship in the making, decades of learning and knowledge in the making, something I always wanted to do. Something I know Chris always wanted to do, and what an incredible thing to be able to do this with somebody who you have such a close friend in your life, but who you know is also going to deliver the level of support and empowerment for your tribe, that you would do yourself. Kat: That's just such a huge big deal when being in business is somebody else to know that their work ethic and how they shop and their level of passion and commitment to change people's lives is the same. So this is the beginning of an amazing journey for you. If you are joining us, how long will we be keeping the founders special open for? Chris: I only wanted to do ... Kat: We had a little fight about it. Chris: Yeah. That's all right. We're allowed. But what about if we do for just 24 hours? Kat: What? Chris: No, we don't do it in 24 hours. Come on, I'm not the queen of scarcity. I'm making people move fast, but I feel like we could give them. But it doesn't matter, because you would just click and buy it now anyway, otherwise you would have been in the top 100, and you'd be a crazy person. Kat: Well how long do we let this video run for then? Because we have to take this video down. Chris: I feel like I don't know what the answer is that I'm supposed to say now. I feel like we didn't rehearse this properly. That is because we didn't rehearse it. Kat: We didn't. Chris: Yeah. I didn't really walked in and be like, "Let's do it with the camera on." Kat: Let's just turn the camera on and see what happens, apart from running down funny quotes. Chris: What do you want to say to them? Kat: Did you see that I've written down your quotes over here? I've saved it. I've written down the three quotes so far from Chris if you missed the quotes earlier. The quotes were this. He wanted to call our live show "this is why you're fat and we're not". That was one of my quotes of the year from Chris. Another one is that really sneaky? Me asking about a little Ninja trick. He's like, "Yeah." Chris: We just don't cover a really good Facebook ad strategy. Kat: That is good. Chris, that lighting is so good, Kat. Wait, no, it's just because we look so fabulous. That's my personal favourite. Chris: I'm so happy with that. Kat: Well, I think this is it. Chris: All right. We're going to get busy. Kat: Okay, is this? This is? Chris: Yeah, I know. I just saw these already gotten on board. Kat: I didn't ... See, that didn't happen for me. But if you have any issues or concerns at all, or anything doesn't work for you, maybe test it on a different device. Some people did say it doesn't. Didn't work on iPad. I'm not sure why that would be, but it's definitely working for me on my laptop. It's working on the phone. Of course you compare either of us. Or the My Body Blend's page as well, which is probably the best place to go, because then you'll get supported by our team as well and get answer as quickly as possible. Kat: Seeing infomercial broker, I feel like we got so much gold content. You know what's going to happen now. My team will chop up this live stream, get some clips out of it, caption them up, and we'll just be promoting and having a hilarious time. Shouldn't business and life just get to be fun as well? So that's part of our philosophy and part of what we're here to show you. Chris: You're not having fun, you don't enjoy the life. Kat: You can bet your bottom dollar we're going to be having all sorts of shenanigans in that group once you're in there. Because it's how it should be. That's how it gets to be. All right. Chris: Oh, good. Theo got ... Kat: Oh, you're on. Perfect, Theo. Chris: Confirmation done. Kat: Yay, I'm so excited. Chris: All right, awesome. So we've actually got to get to work, because we've got a lot of members. Kat: Just casually launched a supplement company on a Monday morning in Bali. All right, we're going to go hangout with our members. We're going to see what's up. We're going to see you on the inside, click the link, do the thing, be in the thing. We'll see you in the thing. We love you. Chris: Ciao. Kat: Bye.

Katrina Ruth: So I think it might be the best thing that was ever invented in the history of mankind. Chris: I think it would be. It is. Welcome to Katrina Ruth. Katrina Ruth: Welcome to Katrina Ruth. I am Katrina Ruth Show I think you will find, hashtag. Katrina Ruth: Quick bring the kitchen over here so everyone can see your wizardry. Hello people of the internet. We have an amazing presentation for you today. I'm even going to call it a presentation. I'm going to be super American. Katrina Ruth: Hi Theo! Hang on. We is live! We is live. Okay. Don't even show them. We should do a [inaudible 00:00:59]. We can't just give it away right from the start. Chris: So... Katrina Ruth: We are going to talk about many things. I can't see how many people are on my live stream because that little thing is [crosstalk 00:01:08] Chris: Let's... Katrina Ruth: This makes me feel upset. Do you think it was kind of selfish of us that yesterday we had an entire conversation over lunch about recording it and sharing it with the world. Chris: It should always be recorded when we actually talk at the end of the day. What? Katrina Ruth: We have a WiFi issue already. We won't be foiled. No don't finish. It might have changed itself onto the hotspot. The hotspot of the villas. If you go into settings and see what WiFi it's telling you. Just talk amongst yourselves. Chris has a Wifi issue on his livestream. It's a presentation. It's a conversation. Chris: Do you see this? Katrina Ruth: I don't know. Maybe it doesn't care for having two live streams on it at once. Try again. Now, we're back. Chris: Ta-Da!! Great job! Katrina Ruth: Well done. So yesterday, we had an incredible conversation about being in fantastic shape and eating potatoes. Chris: Sponsored by carbohydrates. This episode. Katrina Ruth: This episode is brought to you by the letter P, for potatoes. Chris: We were extreme carbo-phobes. We both kind of came from the same school of thought. Katrina Ruth: The worst kind. Back in the day. Chris: [inaudible 00:02:45] Katrina Ruth: Just see what happens. Chris: We came from a very carbo-phobe... Katrina Ruth: Upbringing. I want to say upbringing. Chris: School of thought. Katrina Ruth: In the fitness world. Chris: In the fitness world for sure. Katrina Ruth: We are going to get to a point at some time, and we are going to reveal to you the best tasting super food blend in the world. Then we are going to sell it to you. With just incredible flare and pzazz. Chris: Jazz hands. Katrina Ruth: Your mind will be expanded. But first, we are going to tell you a few things. We have known each other for over 10 years. That's a long while anyway. Chris: Would be, yeah. Katrina Ruth: It would've been 2008. Chris: Yeah. Katrina Ruth: It's been 10 years this year. The first [inaudible 00:03:28] course in Sydney. We used to go to the same courses. We were indoctrinated as maybe you have been, into the idea that carbs are bad for you. You can't eat carbs. We are going to talk about many things today. Katrina Ruth: We are going to prove an amazing product. We are going to have a conversation about nutrition. Chris: I think this is also now printables or ideas on why we think you can be in better shape. Live a better life. Ultimately what we are doing and why we really connected, we went through so many bad things. I'll just speak from experience. From street dining, through competing as a fitness model, I went through a bout of bulimia. I went through really unhealthy relationships with food. It sucked. It was really bad. Chris: Now, I do things completely different and that's why we are laughing about it. We remembered while we were having lunch, we completely go by a different set up principles when it comes to food, movement, and life. We are so much happier. I'm in better shape. I am stronger. I literally beat my dead lift last week. This is all through not through dieting. Katrina Ruth: Oh you're back. How come much of this show is there? And only a little bit here. Chris: We are talking into two phones. Katrina Ruth: We have some high tech studio shoot set up. We are very impressive. We impress ourselves. Katrina Ruth: Mine is similar to what Chris just said. I went through fitness obsession days from when I was not even 20 years old. Then into fitness competing. I was a personal trainer for 13 years, that's how we met. Chris is from Sydney and I'm from Melbourne but we went into the same courses and we connected on our principals and values and outlook on life. Then we both started building on my brand and we both feel super successful on my brand. That's just a little bit about us. Katrina Ruth: I was so obsessive about food in my body. I thought I was really committed to health. I wanted to be really committed to health. I think like a lot of women and men, in my twenties, I was so desperate to look a certain way and I wanted to look a certain way. I thought I had to look a certain way in order to be good enough. Katrina Ruth: Can you do me a favour? Can you put the flashlight on my phone. The little light. No, no. The front of it. You see the flash button. Can you press that? I don't know if that makes a difference. Why does it look so dark. Okay, I won't worry about it. Chris: It's kind of the shading. Is it on the camera or no? Katrina Ruth: No. It's just my imagination. Katrina Ruth: I went through all the food obsession stuff. Ten years of eating with some bulimia off and on. At one stage, I was taking 50 or 60 supplements a day. Chris: Like Skittles. Katrina Ruth: I remember being in the gym and you would have a little bag with your supplements in it. It would have 30 different pills in it for each meal, minimum. Sometimes I think I had 40 and you needed a 20 minute break between [crosstalk 00:06:55] Chris: Have you ever thought about how much money you spent on supplements? Katrina Ruth: I might have some point. I always made more than I spend. It was good stuff. We would take some of the best supplements in the world and we were committed. We were doing what we thought was right. If you fast forward to now where we are both older. We both have families, kids, busy businesses as entrepreneur's, living location. Still just as committed to wanting to look and feel fucking amazing. In fact, I would say more committed. Katrina Ruth: At this point in life, there's no fucking way I'm going to take 30 or even 10 different supplements with each meal. I'm not going to do crazy extreme shit to my body any more. I still want to look and feel my absolute best. Which I think is a perfect segway into our amazing product. Chris: Exactly right. For me, this was born out of necessity. I literally looked at myself in the cupboard one day and was like, "This is a joke. Why is there so much going on. It shouldn't need to be this way whatsoever." This is how it was created. What is it that we need at the end of the day? What is it that we actually need to thrive? Let's just focus on that because we don't have the time to do the other stuff. Chris: Time is our most precious asset that we have right now. Katrina Ruth: We don't want to, we don't have the time. I kept buying supplements and they just kept sitting there and then I would feel guilty about it. I do know and understand that in a perfect world you shouldn't need supplements but it's not a perfect fucking world right? We are absorbing so many toxins continually from the environment. We are not always eating ideal food or getting enough sleep and stress. There's so many other considerations. Katrina Ruth: Both of us with our knowledge and backgrounds, if you want to be at your absolute peak and have a standard of excellence in your brain or your body, your gut and all those things. How you look as well, then it is beneficial to take an amazing quality supplement but you're not going to take all this shit. Katrina Ruth: I really tried so hard to get into the greens powder thing. As a fitness queen from way back and somebody who is still obsessive about fitness I was like, "I got to do this freaking greens powder shit." All my friends would be getting it down and working it down and I'm just a little bit defiant, you know? Katrina Ruth: Your screen just exited itself. Your phone is just like it's not happening. I'm a little defiant. A lot of people I know would force these vile tasting greens powders down because they were like, "It's so good for you." I would buy it. I think at one stage I had 10 different containers in my cupboard and I would just not take it. Like most of the people who follow me online, I'm a rebel. I'm not going to do something that doesn't feel good for me. Katrina Ruth: I'm done with the green thing even though I know it's so good for you and amazing. You can see this story is in a long drawn out many, but I think we should reveal our product and then maybe talk a little bit about how this came about. I don't know. Chris: Let's do it. Let's reveal it right now. Katrina Ruth: Reveal, wait! Send a love hash out if you want to see our product. Send me the love heart. Chris: Let's go. Should we wait? Katrina Ruth: Don't try to wait for the love hearts. Make them work for it. Chris: You got to. Katrina Ruth: You got to. Chris: Make the love hearts. Katrina Ruth: My audience knows that I love-[crosstalk 00:10:28] That was really cute and it's broken. I feel like you guys can go more. Go more. Go More. You can do it. Chris: That's very funny. That's so cute. Katrina Ruth: They know what I like. They take care of me see. Chris: Oh, it's like a flower. [crosstalk 00:10:45] Katrina Ruth: How long did it take to formulate this? Chris: It's about two years in the making. Can I just say something as well? Katrina Ruth: Say it all. Chris: When you said, we used to take the best supplements in the world, this is actually made by the same manufacturer. Katrina Ruth: It is the best pharmaceutical grade stuff in the world. All U.S. based. Incredible quality. There it is. There's our product. We are ready to bring it to market. Chris: Super food blend, the company that we have formed is My body blends because it's really all about your body. It's like what is it that you need? The blend of everything you need. That's kind of the conceptual of what's come through. Chris: The reason that we've chosen a chocolate greens to start off with, is number 1, this is the best tasting greens you will ever drink. I'm so happy to say that. It is the best. We put a lot on the line for that. Katrina Ruth: I have footage of over 20 entrepreneurs who've taste tested this at a party at my house. Late last year they were the first to taste test it as far as the public. I'm not kidding. Every single person was like, "Give it to me now, I need to buy it now." They have basically been harassing me ever since. Chris: So sorry to you for making you wait. Katrina Ruth: Everybody's whose tried it's actually here now. Chris: So sorry. Katrina Ruth: It is so good. Chris had done the work and put the time and effort into this to create this and bring the formulation to life. When he was first telling me on how to taste it, I was like, [crosstalk 00:12:20]. We were here in Bali have dinner together and he was like, "I will bring you some around tomorrow and you can try it." I'm like, "Okay, sure I'm going to try it obviously. Sure Sure." Everybody in the health market says that their product tastes amazing. You're like, "It's palatable if I hold my nose." Katrina Ruth: Then, we made some up. What a great idea! Let's have a live demonstration right now. Suffice to say, when I did try it, I was like, "are you kidding me?" It's so hard for me to not curse. I'm trying to restrain my language here. It just comes out. It tastes phenomenal. We are going to tell you about everything that is in there in a moment. Katrina Ruth: What do you need? We have a bowl of ice that we prepared earlier. Actually the butler brought it. Who takes a greens powder currently? Do you take a greens powder? Don't put your hand up, I'm not going to be able to see you. Put a comment in. Do you take a greens powder? I wonder why your live stream is sideways. Your comments are showing up sideways. Chris: It's Instagram. Katrina Ruth: Oh, your on insta. Chris: Facebook kept crashing. Katrina Ruth: Oh okay. Cool. That's why it's staying up there. Katrina Ruth: Do you take a greens powder currently? Or, do you have the greens powder in your cupboard that you feel guilty about not taking because it tastes so bad. Chris: How many different greens have you had before? Katrina Ruth: Well, I've purchased like 10. Then tried one scoop of it. Trainers and friends kept recommending which ever one. Chris: I've had about 30 or above. Katrina Ruth: Then I used to have to put 4 or 5 lemons or limes in them in order to make it drinkable which is not terrible. Chris: Like putting it in a smoothie or something else. Katrina Ruth: But then you kill the smoothie. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's like you would force it down. Katrina Ruth: Theo says, "Used to but haven't in a while." Did you make it strong? Chris: Exactly, you tell the story. Katrina Ruth: But we were going to do a- Chris: What happens when you're having something really good? Let's say you are having a chocolate greens. Maybe it's a really good coffee. Or something else you can mix up in water or a shake. The dilemma that you have is what happens when you get right to the end and you've got maybe a little bit too much for one serving? Katrina Ruth: Like one and a half scoops left. Chris: Yeah, like one and a half servings left. Do you have one really good one? Or, do you break it into two? I'd love to know your answers because we went through and we had the exact same answer yesterday. Katrina Ruth: What a dilemma. Do you go with two half assed ones? This is a true story because I've had three bottles of the product at home. A bunch of my greedy friends kept coming around and helped themselves. Literally people would come to my house, no kiss hello, just like, "Where's the chocolate greens Katty? Can I have some?" I'm not making this up. Chris: That's rude. Katrina Ruth: Mainly the boys. The girls are a little more polite. This is a true thing, right? So then it went really quickly. Then there was enough left for one really amazing shake. I would go like, "It's my last chocolate greens powder until we launch this thing." It was just the samples. So I'm going to have one amazing one or two half assed ones. Well, guess what you think I did? Katrina Ruth: Shauna says, "One big assed one." Yeah, we were on board with that as well. Alright, let's do a live demonstration right now. Oh my god. This is the most amazing thing I ever tasted. We should manufacture and sell this. Chris: It's almost our conversation. Katrina Ruth: Can we do that? That really was my reaction. The first time I drank it I was like- Chris: That's so funny. Katrina Ruth: Holy shit. I feel like it's not possible to impact to you how good this tastes. I feel like you think I'm probably taking this up a little bit. I'm not and I did give it to 20 entrepreneurs when they came to a party at my house. We've got all their testimonials and we have their live immediate reactions on media. We filmed there initial reactions. We will release that video on Monday. 100% of them were like, "Holy shit!" And they were glugging it down like thirsty nomads in a desert out of Vera Wang glasses. Katrina Ruth: It's incredible. It tastes so good. Honestly, I said to Chris, "Can you bring around some of the samples today so we can use it on the live." My real reaction is that I just wanted to drink it. Screw the live. I just wanted to have some. Chris: It's perfectly fine. I think there are a few things we can talk to when it comes to the actual product. Number one, I don't care how healthy or good it is for you. If you can't take it. Or if it's not nice and you can't continue on with it, it's pointless at the end of the day. Katrina Ruth: Right. You're just going to leave it in your cupboard which is what I did and I'm super health orientated, right? Chris: Yeah. Katrina Ruth: But I still didn't take it. Chris: Exactly. You're very motivated individual. You're a go getter. You make stuff happen. Still, if something tastes like ass, you're not going to drink. Katrina Ruth: I don't hate ass. You heard it here. I don't. Some people will. Some people will force it down. A lot of friends and followers are defiant by nature and I don't want to do something that doesn't feel good for me even if I know it is good for me. Chris: You shouldn't. Katrina Ruth: I believe there is a way for everything to feel amazing. Chris: It's like a diet. A diet can be really good for you but if you're not going to follow it then it's pointless because you're never going to stick with it and you're never going to get the results with it. Hands down, it's as simple as that. Katrina Ruth: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-we should talk about the screw macros after this. Chris: Yeah, we will. We will talk about those macros. That's why number one, it does taste so good. You're probably like, "Okay, you're just saying that." But no...literally it's this good. Chris: When my daughters ask for chocolate, they are actually asking for this and that's what they think as a chocolate drink. It's filled with the good stuff. We can talk about the signs for the good stuff, why its got a super veg antioxidant blend. Why it's got a fruit anti-oxidant blend. Why it's got digestive support in it. Why its got a probiotic blend. Why it's actually only flavoured with stevia so it's a good sweetener. It's non GMO. It's gluten free. It's good. That's the thing. Chris: We wanted to have the best quality product because it's going to have to be good, we have it. Katrina Ruth: We both have an extremely high standard when it comes to what we put into our bodies. We've both been in the fitness industry collectively for decades. It's just how it is. If you are going to bring a product to market, it's got to be the best in the world. It's not let's just label something and sell it out there. That's why it has taken several years to bring this to life. This is a huge big dig. Two years of formulating and another six months or so trying to figure out amazon subscriptions. Katrina Ruth: We did it right and we are so proud of this. We are about to give you an insanely amazing [inaudible 00:19:35]. Chris: Maybe we should say, what we are really doing is getting everything ready. This is only for people who are serious with their health and fitness. Katrina Ruth: Yeah. Kind of like an inner circle. Chris: Yeah, that's what we thought. People that we know are going to be jumping on board with this. The people that are like us who are in our inner circle and that's what we like. Number one, what we are going to be doing on Monday and what you will be getting access to on Monday, you literally won't be able to get access to any other time. Katrina Ruth: It's going to blow your mind. Chris: We are making it so much of a no brainer for you to actually want to join us. It goes beyond this. Number one, supplements aren't the be all end all. We going to be the first people to say, it's not about supplements. It's about helping you eat right, move right, live right and be happy with what you are doing day to day. That's going to be a big part of what we are doing. Chris: I even included it in my book as well. I freaking wrote a book that's all about this. Katrina Ruth: A scary amount of references in the back. Chris: 220 scientific references that goes into this as well. The food quality that we have these days isn't as good as what we need to thrive. We have a lot more stress and we have a lot more chemicals in our environment as well. So therefore we need that little bit of extra. Chris: If you are a believer that you need to get everything from your food, I'm not 100% on board with you. The model lifestyles that we live, don't allow that. Katrina Ruth: I think that's true in theory. I agree that's the ideal but is it available? No it's not. Chris referenced stress and I'm just thinking of the pace we live our lives. You kind of want to have it all right? You want to have the thriving business or career and the relationship and the family, if that's relevant, the active social life, and fun and adventure and look and feel amazing as well. If you want to have it all, that's available for you. That pace of life is not necessarily what we were originally designed for and in this environment as well. Chris: This environment is different. This is pretty sweet. [crosstalk 00:22:08] Katrina Ruth: Which is why we are in Bali. You know what I mean. There are so many things that rob out food of nutrition and this is simply about putting into our bodies what is meant to be there in the first place. Treating your body as the premier machine. I've always loved that saying, If you had a Ferrari and you drove it around town, like at an insane speed. Never took care of it and just fully trashed it at some point in time it's going to be a pretty banged up Ferrari. Katrina Ruth: Your body is a high quality vehicle so why not take care of it as one? We made this incredible product and have an incredible supportive community around which includes access to us and to our teams. So many cool things because we are so committed to sharing with our tribe and our like minded friends, clients, etc. There is a really easy and simple way to take care of your nutritional needs. Katrina Ruth: Specifically thinking about busy and driven people, who are conscious of their health in a very real sense; digestive health, mental health, emotional health, physical health. Who also want to look hot and feel hot. I feel like looking hot reflects how you feel. That comes from how your health is on the inside. You want to be operating at a high performance level in different areas of life. Katrina Ruth: Those are kind of the three areas that we address that body, brain and beauty. Chris: Totally. Katrina Ruth: I came up with that. Chris: Obviously. You really just made that up. Katrina Ruth: Carlos Kate says, "What makes it taste like chocolate?" Chris: It's actually the cacao beans. You can see that it has chocolate bean powder which is the natural flavour in it. Katrina Ruth: So good. Chris: Great question. That's why it tastes like chocolate and it is the good stuff. Katrina Ruth: Let's tell people about the offer. On the sales page, which we aren't going to give today. We are going to give it on Monday. We will tell you about this now and how it's going to work. If you definitely want to know when the cart opens, then comment below on this live stream. That way we can come back and notify you. Katrina Ruth: Once you go over there on Monday and read over the sales page, if you wanted to, you can see a whole lot more of the kinds of ends and outs of the formulation- Chris: Technical sides. Katrina Ruth: All that sort of stuff. We are giving you the highlights reel right now. What do we got for these guys on Monday? Chris: There's two big things that we want to be able to give you as apart of what we are doing with Mind Body Blends. One, is the top quality product. You are going to be able to get access to this every single month. It will last you one month. Chris: The second is community. What so many people are lacking right now, is the help along the way. This is where we want to give you the right information. It's not about more information. The first quote that I put in my book was from Derek Sivers. It says- Katrina Ruth: I like Derek Sivers. Chris: I have such a bro crush on that guy. Katrina Ruth: That's so cool. I didn't know you were into him. Chris: I absolutely love him. The quote is, "If it was just more information we need, we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs." It's not about more information. It's not about what you can get on google, watching another video, listening to another podcast, or trying to dive into another book. Chris: What's actually going to create transformation, information to transformation, that's where we want to give you the information so you know what it needs to do. Katrina Ruth: Some Perfecatation. Chris: Oh, I like that. Exactly. Katrina Ruth: And transformation. Chris: She's wired. Katrina Ruth: It's because I had the chocolate greens. My brain powers are activated. I want some more please. Chris: Yes ma'am. Katrina Ruth: Thank you. Chris: What we want to be able to give you, not just the product itself. We are going to be getting you to join the community. Katrina Ruth: Yeah. Critical Chris: This is about building the Mind Body Blend Tribe. Where we are going to be helping you to know what to eat, how to move, how to live. Giving you a behind the scenes and giving you the answers so you know that you can be in the best shape. Supplements aren't the be all end all, okay? We are going to be the first ones to say that it isn't about taking the product. You've got to be able to do the other basics first. Chris: You've got to move right. You've got to eat right. You've got to sleep right. You've got to be happy with your life and thriving in all areas of your life. This is going to be the icing on the cake. Katrina Ruth: Yeah, I love that you just said that. While we are obviously incredibly proud and excited to bring this product to market. Here's the flat out reality. I've given this to well over 20 of my clients and friends. Probably about 30 people in total. 100% of people were like "Oh my god. How quickly can I get this?" Pretty much all of them have followed up and asking if it was ready yet. Katrina Ruth: It tastes so good. People just want to keep drinking it. Then, when you add the high level ingredients, literally the best in the world. How we cover digestion probiotics. It is a no brainer as Chris said. I like to call it a Hell yeah no brainer offer which is what I tell my clients. Katrina Ruth: I know you want to hear the price point for everything we are doing for you. You're going to try it, and if you try it, there's zero doubt in my mind that you are going to continue to order it. We wouldn't bring anything other than that to market. Katrina Ruth: However, I love that Chris just spoke about, we are not here to give you a magic full of solution. Let's not dilute ourselves, are walking around with an exceptional quality of health, physicality, lifestyle, etc. just from taking this, right? It's coming from a way of life. It's coming from our underlying value system. Katrina Ruth: What the Mind Body Blends Community is about, it's about being in it for life. The life that you want to live for life. We really see this as an incredible community to obviously support year round health, nutrition, fat loss, brain power, all that cool stuff. We have so much cool content we have already created. Chris: It's disgusting. Katrina Ruth: Over 12 months of work content already created. Just teaching you everything from our combined expertise of years and years. Sharing and educating with you. Mostly we want to provide that community of like-minded people who are committed to their health, having it all in body, business, career, and in life. Chris: Kat actually just spilled the beans right there. When we were having dinner- Katrina Ruth: The cauliflower. Chris: Cauliflower and chicken. Katrina Ruth: Oh my god. How you felt about that cauliflower before you tasted it. It's how I felt about this. You were like, "I'm sure it's great Kat." Then when you tasted it you were like, "Oh my god!" Chris: Cauliflower is good but it can't be that good. It was legitimately amazing. Katrina Ruth: What were we talking about? Chris: The conversation went to having it all. I was like why do we make so many compromises in life? Why do we say, "Oh I want to build a great business. I want to build a great career but I therefore I have to let my body go and I get fat and I get inflamed. I'm getting unhealthy. Why do I become a dad?" Therefore I have to not be able to build my business or I get a Dad bod which is a bad thing. All of those things. Chris: There's so many compromises we make in life. Stop making all these compromises. Katrina Ruth: Right, you get to have it all. Chris: Just be able to have it all. Katrina Ruth: Yeah. Chris: I love it. Katrina Ruth: Kate said, "Can we sent the list of ingredients because she might want to share it with her clients." We can do that but it's also on the sales page right? Chris: Totally. Yes, so on Monday, you will get all access to that stuff. Katrina Ruth: Are we going through the prices now? Chris: No, hold your horses. Katrina Ruth: Kate asked for that too. Chris: Sorry Kate. Katrina Ruth: This is a pre-launch, Monday we are opening the cart. We are pre-launching the pre-launch right now. That's what's happening right here. Monday the cart goes open where you can jump into our community and some amazing offers on this. We are doing a one time never to be repeated. What we call "Founding Members deal" situation to honour those in our community who are already waiting for this and have had enough of us taking so long with it. Katrina Ruth: We already know so many people who are like, "Just give it to me. Where do I sign up? I don't care about the details." We feel that there is going to be other people who are hearing what you are putting down. I'm willing to put my faith in you. We are giving you an incredible offer with that when we go live on Monday. We will give you all the details of that. Katrina Ruth: On Monday, we will do a live stream as well from our Facebook page for the group. Helen says, "I'm totally sold of course." Kate says, "Do you have a trade price?" I think we will just go through all prices on Monday, right? Chris: Yeah. Totally. Legitimately Monday, you will get access to the price. The big thing we wanted to do is build the community at the start. We are going to go worldwide with this. We are going to go into retail everywhere with this. Katrina Ruth: We are flying a jet. Chris: Yeah. That as well. The biggest thing is that we wanted to make sure that we've got this community with us at the start. We build together. Katrina Ruth: Try to make members. Chris: Exactly right. Katrina Ruth: We always honour those people who are fast action takers just like we are who want to jump on it straight away. Chris: Those people who get results. Katrina Ruth: Of course. Those people who don't over think. Chris: Exactly. Should we get them to join-[crosstalk 00:31:58] I put it into my girls smoothies in the morning. It mixes really easily with water. Katrina Ruth: It's just water and ice. I really enjoy it with just water and ice. Chris: It goes really well with black coffee. Katrina Ruth: I may have made it into a Paleo espresso. It goes great with vodka. It really does. Chris: Or hot coconut milk. Katrina Ruth: I haven't tried that. There were plenty of entrepreneurs at my house that were drinking it with Paleo Espresso Martini's. We put cinnamon on top. Chris: We have a video. We will put it on on Monday. You will see everybody- Katrina Ruth: We put cinnamon on top to make it extra healthy. It tasted amazing. Everybody was just like, "Give it to me. Give me more." What else were you saying? I think I cut you off. Chris: Are there any other questions? Katrina Ruth: No. No. That's all the questions. Chris: Okay. Katrina Ruth: We are going to give them a link to what sir? Chris: Should we give them the link to the private group? The Mind Body Blends Group? Katrina Ruth: Yes, can you? Chris: Actually I already have the URL. Katrina Ruth: Yeah. Just scroll here. Chris: Got it. Katrina Ruth: Chris is just giving you now a link to our closed Facebook community that already exists which is about to blow up in the most incredible way as we start to build up what we are doing in there with the official launch. We've had that group already operational for a little bit of time but now we are officially launching. Chris: What you are going to want to do is make sure you join us in the group. You'll obviously get a lot of access to everything when we are going live on Monday. Plus, you're going to get everything else that we start putting in there as well. Katrina Ruth: Post it all in there. We will do a live stream as well. Chris: On Monday, we will be putting everything together for you. Katrina Ruth: Why won't it let me out of this comment. I was just going to add a note saying, we are already telling you that anyway. I was going to say be in the group to get first information or whatever but we have already told you that. It's so exciting. I think we have said everything haven't we? Chris: Yeah. Katrina Ruth: It's such an honour to be able to share this. Chris: We are so excited. Katrina Ruth: We are joking around and having a good time obviously as you should in business and life. In all seriousness, this is just the most incredible product in the world. I have desire to have my own company or supplement brand for over 10 years. I was a personal trainer for 13 years. How long were you a trainer? Chris: 11. Katrina Ruth: Right, so there you go. 24 years of personal training experience between us. Both of us were so committed to our education and growth. That's how we met. Just going to some of the best nutrition and hormone, strength training and that stuff. I think a lot of trainers are really committed to a standard of excellence. We both thought it would be super cool to have your own supplement company but I looked into it and saw that some people were just buying stuff and putting there own labels on it. Chris: There's a lot of charlotons out there and there's a lot of liars. The scary thing was actually getting into the business now- Katrina Ruth: This took us two years. It wasn't the easy way it was the right way. Chris: It's scary how many people are lying about their products. There's an outpour of quality. A lot of stuff is getting manufactured through China, the sourcing. The manufacturing gradiance is really bad. What they are saying is actually is in the product is simply not there as well. The actual potency of their raw and effective ingredients in there is just not there. Chris: There's a lot of lies. That was one thing for me, is that I want to create something that's really bloody good. So when Kat and I came together, we saw this fusion of what it is we can do and how we can actually create something that's so much easier for people to use and combine it all. As we said earlier, it's not about just the supplements by itself, it's far from that. It's about putting everything together and giving it to you on a silver platter so that you can move forward. Katrina Ruth: Yeah. Chris: Simple. Katrina Ruth: Yeah. You said it all. I'm so excited. I'm also excited to be in business with this guy because we have known each other for so long that you just know how someone is and who they are in business, in life, what their values are. I couldn't think of anyone better to go into business with. Katrina Ruth: I'm such a solid person in so much of what I do. I have my own companies and Chris has his own companies. Now, it's just an incredible thing to come together with a close friend and create a product that's such an incredible quality and be able to share it with the world. I feel like this is a 10 year plus dream that is coming to life for me in terms of having my own supplement company and to be in partnership that shares that vision obviously. Does the work. Comes back to you and supports you. I could go on and on all day. Katrina Ruth: Get in the Facebook group. The comment is pinned there. Get into our free Facebook community. We will be dropping links on Monday. We will be dropping the deal on Monday. We will do a live stream together on Monday. Don't know what time yet but we will announce that obviously. Chris: Exactly. Make sure to join the group so you get access to everything. Katrina Ruth: Yeah. Chris: Drop a comment here as well. I will comment back here when we go live on Monday and let you know. We will be open for a couple of days next week but then we will close it off. It will really just be a limited time for those people who want to get in on the ground floor to jump on board. It's going to be freaking amazing so that's all. That's the whole story. Katrina Ruth: Beautiful. Chris: Alright! Katrina Ruth: I'm so excited that I'll go away. Chris: You're so excited that you'll go away? You may go away. Katrina Ruth: Alright. Chris: Peace. Katrina Ruth: We are going to go. Have an amazing, epic rest of your day. We will see you on Monday and we will be sharing how you can get this incredible product. Katrina Ruth: Oh shit, I've spilled it everywhere. There it is again! Sending you love! Don't forget...life's now, press play.

Chris Chuter: @Chris_Chuter Show Notes: 00:47 - Peeple: What is it? Why? 02:59 - Iterations and User Testing 13:32 - Complexity of Installation 17:26 - Device Integration 22:15 - Setup and Installation 25:35 - Laws and Building Codes 26:39 - Getting Started in this Space 31:29 - Ensuring Quality, Integration Testing, and Deployment Pipelines 33:18 - The Manufacturing Process Resources: If This Then That (IFTTT) Transcript: CHARLES: Hello, everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast, Episode 82. My name is Charles Lowell, a developer here at the Frontside and your podcast host-in-training. With me is Elrick Ryan. Hello Elrick. ELRICK: Hey, hello. CHARLES: And today, we are going to be continuing our series on the Internet of Things and we have someone on the podcast today who's going to talk to us about the Internet of Things. His name is Chris Chuter and he is the CEO, inventor and founder of Peeple. Hey, Chris. CHRIS: Hey. How is it going? CHARLES: It's gone well. Thanks for coming on the program. Peeple, what is it? Why don't you give us a quick overview of the product? Obviously it pertains to IoT, what is it and how did you become involved with it? Let's delve into that. CHRIS: Yes, sure. Let me give you the elevator short version first then we can dive deeper. Peeple is caller ID for your front door. The idea is when you get a phone call and you don't answer the phone, what happens? It goes to your voicemail. You know someone called you. But today, if someone comes to your house, you have no idea that they came unless you're there. This is the central problem that we solved with Peeple. It's a little device, a hardware device, an Internet of Things device that fits over the peephole in your door in the inside of your house. When someone knocks or doors open, you get a push notification on your phone. You can open up the phone and you can see a live view of your peephole. In a nutshell, Peeple is a smart peephole. CHARLES: Is it more for the case when you're not home at all or do you find the people use it for what you would traditionally use a peephole. CHRIS: It depends on the person. Now, my personal use case is for keeping track of wandering kids and that's actually inspiration for this invention. I have two boys and when one of my boys was three years old, he managed to open the door, walk out, go on to the street and walk down to the end of the street. Now, I live in Austin and I live right off the edge of a very busy street. Now, my kid didn't die or anything like that. It's not a really sad story but a neighbor brought my kid home and it was one of those moments as a parent where you're like, "Oh my God. I'm a terrible parent." But being an inventor and an engineer, I was like, "I'm going to hook something up that just tells me when my door is opened or closed," and it morphed into this invention. We showed it to people at South by Southwest almost three or four years ago. That's when we realized we were on to something that didn't exist. It was just a little camera on the door. CHARLES: Tell me about those first versions. I'm so curious. It sounds like there's a lot of layers of functionality that you've been through, a lot of iterations so I'm curious about that. What's was that zero iteration look like? CHRIS: Version 0 was made in 24 hours. It was a hackathon for... I can't remember the name of it. There was a hackathon group that recently imploded and we won this hackathon. The hackathon thing was to make something... I'm not sure if this is for Internet of Things but we were all making that kind of stuff. I made this little Raspberry Pi demo with a little mini door and I had talked to my wife and this is how I was able to make this invention, to keep track the kid as I was busy doing other stuff but I talked her into giving me 24 hours to make this one thing. Then me and another guy, David we won this hackathon. We were like, "We've got to turn this into a real thing," because one of the awards of the hackathon was you go to Silicon Valley, you show this off and you do all this cool stuff with it. We were like, "We've got to actually turn this into something that's presentable." That was Version 0. It was just a little Raspberry Pi. CHARLES: Now, what were you doing to detect the state of the door? CHRIS: That's the crazy thing. The first version of the device had more sensors on it than the final version. The first version had everything. It had a doorbell, it had a knock sensor, it had a motion, it had a speaker that played Paul McCartney's 'Someone's Knockin' At The Door,' but it had an accelerometer. I threw everything in there the first thing and half of it worked for the hackathon demo but it was good enough to win. This is something that, I guess I could call wisdom now but the real thing I learned is you start with everything and then you narrow and get it more tuned and highly focused and more precise as a device, like the difference between the iPhone and the Samsung phones. One of them is to throw everything into it and then the iPhone is just really specialize into a few things really well. The next three years, we're pulling stuff out. CHARLES: What are some examples of that calling that you're describing where you're saying, "I'm to take this out? I'm going to take this out. I'm going to take that out." CHRIS: We got rid of things like the doorbell and some of the other sensors, mainly because it was just a wiring issue and as well as we wanted to keep track when the door was opened and closed. It didn't make sense to have the speaker on there at the time so we really focused more on the accelerometer and the knock sensor for the first version of Peeple. CHARLES: That is not the final version. Is it mostly just the accelerometer? What if someone doesn't knock? I assume there's some sort of detection that goes on with the camera. CHRIS: That's the next version. That's something that we've been working on right now, what we're going to be delivering. We have delivered our first, I would say Version 1.0 of Peeple devices to our customers. There's a thousand of these or so in the wild, all around the world and the next version we have added -- and I guess this my first real announcement of this -- a motion detection module. It's not a camera-based. It's more or less magic and it just works through the door. That's the most I'm going to say on it right now because we're probably the first hardware device that it's actually using this technology. ELRICK: That's an excellent pitch. Everyone loves magic. CHRIS: Yes, it's basically magic. It works through the door. ELRICK: As you were going to these iterations, were you doing like user testing to see what users wanted? Or did you internally say, "This doesn't make sense. Let's just take this out." CHRIS: Absolutely. That's the second part of this story. After this hackathon happened, we prepared to go on the road show to go and show it off to Silicon Valley but in the meantime, this hackathon group, I think it was called AngelHack, it imploded. One of their founders made all these disparaging comments about homeless people and what essentially happened is we lost the award. They said, "We're sorry. We can't give you the award," but we had spent about three months fine-tuning, making something pretty and putting a pitch together. I went in and I pitched at a TechCrunch Meetup in Austin and we came in second at that but during that meetup, I met one of the reporters and said, "You really need to talk to these guys in San Francisco called Highway1," so I did. We eventually ended up moving to San Francisco. Now, the reason I mentioned that to answer your question is they understand this idea of user testing, I think better than a lot of people. Even though they were focused on working on hardware and getting an IoT device that works out there, they were drilling it into our heads is, "You have to get this in people's homes now. I don't care how bad it is. I don't care if you have to hire people, to sit at a peephole and just look through it and pretend like there are hardware device. You got to do this and you have to find out what the problems are, what works. I want you to look at your biggest fears of this thing and you quash them and you do that before you put any Silicon down," so we did that as best we could. CHARLES: So you did that with the Version 0 and Version 1 devices? CHRIS: Exactly, just a Version 0, I have all these pictures. We put them in about 12 to 20 homes and we have these long extension cords powering this thing because we didn't have the batteries to figure out. We had these huge lag problems. It would take like 30 seconds to a minute before something would happen. We had all these issues but in the end, people were still like, "It had these issues. You couldn't do this," but the fact that I had a door log, a door diary as what we're calling it now, that's something I never had before. That's where your secret sauce is so we ran with that. CHARLES: Yeah. That's the kind of thing it never even occurs to you. CHRIS: Exactly. In the app, or at least the early versions of the app, is you have these versions like a calendar that are like, "Okay, I got 10 visits yesterday. I got 20 visits today. No one came to visit me today. I'm so sad," but I have a calendar of, I think it was May of last year when I got visited by three or four magazine salesman in one week so you could correlate that with, "Did we have any break ins?" or something like that. CHARLES: Yeah, it would be interesting to be able to share that data with your neighborhood or somehow coordinate that. one of things I'm curious about too is you did this user testing you were talking about, doing the wiring and the installation, it's a conversation that always comes up when you're talking about custom hardware because there's always the drive to be small, there's always the drive to be have a small form factor and then you have challenges of power like how do you power this device. How cumbersome is the installation onto someone's door? CHRIS: Yeah, we had it all. That's a big difference, I think between San Francisco or Silicon Valley and other towns is there's this acceptance and there's this readiness to participate in the tech scene. We did a call out for volunteers and we had no problems finding them. They didn't mind us coming to their house and hooking up these big, bulky things and just being real intrusive. The fact that we found these people and they were the key to this early stage of, "Do you become a product or do you not?" We were only there for four months but by the end of this time that we were there, there was this legitimate tangible feeling of we're not a prototype anymore. We're a product and we didn't have a product. It was just prettier but we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't think that would have happened had we not gone through this very painful experience with all these poor people that we inflicted our device on. CHARLES: This actually is fascinating because obviously, you're back in Austin now and I never heard of programs like that, like sign up to have someone come up and test it at some alpha stage prototype in your home. That sounds crazy and yet, it sounds like they were just going out of the woodwork. CHRIS: In San Francisco, it's not a problem. If I put the call out now, I probably have to really like, "Here's an Amazon gift card." I have to start doing a little bit of bribery. ELRICK: I think I would sign up just to see the cool tech. CHRIS: Yeah and those people exist. I think we don't have the means to really find them. That infrastructure already exists. In Silicon Valley, you just go down to Starbucks. CHARLES: There ought to be some sort of meetup for people who want to experiment with very early stage IoT devices here in Austin. Maybe, we'll have to look at it. If that doesn't exist, I would love being a guinea pig. I actually think there is an untapped willingness here but there's just not -- CHRIS: I think you need a critical mass of hardware people and hardware devices that are ready to be put in doors or put in the houses. There's definitely some in there. I have a lot of friends and there are hardware meetups that we go to but this stuff takes so long and it's so hard as hardware is hard. There's that small window of, "We got this little idea of a water sprinkler. Do you think anyone want to try it out?" or something like that and then the moments gone. Then six months later, there's another one. CHARLES: Yeah. I wonder if there's a way to really decrease that iteration cycle so that you can get feedback more quickly. I guess the problem is when you need a physical device, you just needed a physical device. CHRIS: We're talking about the Maker Movement and the MakerClub. If you're part of those, these people are hard to find. People that go to Maker Faires, that's the people you're looking for. CHARLES: Right. Now, transitioning because ultimately your target customer base is not makers, not people who are willing to put up with wires and cabling and people doing protracted installation. What does the kind of 1.0 product look like? Because what I'm curious is what immediately jumps to mind is this thing sounds like it's going to probably consume a lot of power. How do you get the power to that and what are the challenges and what are the tradeoffs that you have to make to try and get that power consumption down or get the installation complexity down? How complex is it today to install? CHRIS: I guess, I'll toot my own horn a little bit but I think we have one of the easiest IoT devices on the planet to install. You can possibly not even need tools. You can use your fingers but the biggest challenge for any IoT device is getting that home network connection. If there's been a few technologies through the years in which they've tried to fix this problem, basically just like self-pairing or things like that, like how Bluetooth can sometimes be really cumbersome. Now imagine that with Wi-Fi, it's the same thing but now you've got a password you've got to throw in there. That's really the only real hiccup with the installation on our device and we tried a few things. We went through about three different Wi-Fi chips before we settled on what we were using now. The first Wi-Fi chip was a TI one, which offered this nice pairing capability but it just didn't work half the time. Then we switched to a Broadcom chip, which was really solid and stable but turned out to be the most expensive component in the whole device so we had to get rid of that. The Wi-Fi issue was something we had to solve early because it goes also toward your power consumption. We have a camera and a Wi-Fi chip and both of those take up to 140 to 200 milliamps of juice when they're on. We had to be really smart of when this thing was going to be on and that's essentially when we went in parallel with the knock accelerometer. This device stays asleep most of the time and that's how we get the many months of battery life out of it. We put a rechargeable battery inside, it only turns on when it needs to and it's just hanging around waiting for an event for the rest of the time. Those were the things we were solving to get the Version 1. CHARLES: Now, it's waiting for some event but in order to receive the event, doesn't the accelerometer need to be on? Or is there some motion detector that --? CHRIS: That's a solved problem. good news was that accelerometers are extremely low power in the nano or picoamps but that's also another reason why the motion detection was going to be a hard problem because that is not, unless you're using what's called a PIR that is not a low power solution. CHARLES: Acronym alert. What is a PIR? CHRIS: It's an infrared proximity detection. That's how almost all motion detection cameras work. They have one hole for the camera and another hole for the PIR. The problem with these are is they don't work well in sunlight, outdoor-light and things like that in one of our use cases so we were kind of stuck. That's why we've recently come up with this new motion solution that doesn't rely on that technology -- the magic solution. CHARLES: All right. When we're going to find out about the magic solution? CHRIS: As soon as I ship this next version because it is being used in a few products but it's not really stateside yet and I want to save my thunder but it's something that I think is really cool. It really is magic. It's just amazing to me that it works. CHARLES: Well, I'm eager to see it. You were talking about Wi-Fi being one of the biggest challenges. That's a perfect segue. The connection to the network for something that we're always curious is discovering a new and interesting device is always a pleasure and then the next thought that almost funnels immediately after is how can I integrate this with other strange and wonderful devices to make something even more wonderful? A question we ask everybody is have you thought about how this might be a participant in an ecosystem so if there were other devices around the home, how would they even talk to the people? How might it offer information to someone looking to, maybe do some custom integration in their home? CHRIS: That's a lot of questions in one. Essentially, there's two ways of looking at it. You can look at it from your customer's perspective, what kind of customer do I think is going to have this or is going to use this the most. Back when we came up with this, there were a lot of do-it-yourself types and If This Then That protocol was out there but we really wanted to focus on something that was incredibly easy to use and didn't require you to program anything. I was really frustrated with the whole idea of Internet of Things because it almost implied that you had to be a programmer to use it. I didn't like that at that time. I've since come around to it because there's all these great tool kits out there. We initially looked at integrating with HomeKit. We thought they'd be perfect but what a lot of consumers don't realize is early HomeKit -- I don't believe it does that anymore -- made you modify your hardware to put in this special Apple hardware. When you're making a device, it is so hard just to get the hardware down. It's so expensive. To add anything or to put anything else in there, it's a huge friction point. It's really something that small startups just can't afford to do. A big Nest or a company like that have no problem but when you're making a one device, this is a big deal so we weren't able to really leverage something like HomeKit for an API. But we do have our own cloud-based API. We're RESTful API but it's just not documented and put out in a way where we want to have people programming it. But the good news is we did leverage several APIs when we were making things like the app and doing things like the push notifications and things like that. Now, it turns out that a lot of the case we used are now integrating with things like Alexa and other device protocols so we essentially get those for free. This whole ecosystem is forming around us. Just most important is to get your device out there because you have a vision for what the device will be used for. But then your customers tell you what the device is really useful for and that's when the real work starts. CHARLES: Right. I guess, it's true you have your first line of customers and I guess the use case what I was thinking of is me being a developer. I'm thinking what products could be built then using this as a component, so to speak. Have you'd given any thought to that or have anyone had approached you to say, "This is amazing. I'd like to build this meta product that integrates that," or is it kind of early days? CHRIS: Early on, that was the approach of the Internet of Things and it merged away from that in my experience. Early on, it was all about building blocks. You got to understand, these are old Zigbee Z-Wave programmers and that was the whole concept. Then it got turned on its head by, "I really have this problem that I need to solve and I don't want to have to make a bunch of building blocks to do this." For attacking it from the other side, like you're saying, building up into pieces, I really recommend you talk to the Twine guys -- super mechanical -- they're here in Austin as well. A year or so before, we came out with Peeple. They put out this device which was exactly what you're talking about. An Internet of Things type hub where you just add in all the pieces and then you integrate with everything. They can better give you a story of how that lifeline goes. CHARLES: Yeah, because it's always something you think about because you've got all these wonderful things. CHRIS: Yeah, some would say, an Internet of Things. CHARLES: Yup, or at least a floor plan. ELRICK: When someone gets a Peeple device, what is the full installation story and set up? What is the walkthrough for that? CHRIS: We have a little video of that. What you essentially do for Peeple when you're installing it on the peephole in your door, you unscrew the peephole. Now, the way Peeple's work is they need to handle doors that are variable width, depending on where you live. There's no real standard. All of the Peeple's work by having a shaft that you screw onto another side so it's basically two pieces. Now, one of those shafts holds this bracket that we include in the package. You screw that onto your door with the peephole holding it to the door, then you turn on the Peeple device and you connect it to your home Wi-Fi and then you're ready to go. That's it. CHARLES: That's the hardware side of the onboarding and then what about the software? How do I go and look at my door diary? CHRIS: You do this during the installation. You go to My.Peeple.io and there's a little button to add your Peeple device. UI-wise, it's one user interface among all the platforms whether your Android, iPhone or on a browser. You just go to that webpage and associate your account to your Peeple devices. You will have to log in. You can log in with Gmail, Facebook or just a regular email. Then you add your device and any time you go back to that page, it will show you only the videos from your device so you have a list of all the events from your Peeple device on that page or in that app. CHARLES: That is interesting. I'm looking at the videos right now online. Although my problem actually is I've got a glass door. CHRIS: Yes, we got you covered as well. CHARLES: You do? CHRIS: Yes. The reason you have a glass door or a peephole and many people don't realize this is it because it's required by law. If you ever plan to have run out your house as a multi-family unit, you have to have a peephole or a window surface to where people can look out. Once we figured that, that's when we realized we were onto something. The first versions of Peeple came with these little adhesive pads that we called gecko skin and this is where we learned a valuable lesson. No matter how sticky you make your stickers, they're not sticky enough. We included three of these little tabs in every device to put on a glass door, if you had glass so the Peeple device would work the same way for glass door, except that you would use a sticker, instead of unscrewing the peephole. The only problem with the stickers were is they were not sticky enough. If there was condensation or a weather event or something like that, these things would fall off so we made a modification. We found better stickers and I mailed those out to all the people. But this is why hardware is hard. You're going to make these mistakes. In all our testing, we didn't find this but of course, once you have a thousand testers, you find a little more. ELRICK: That's interesting that you brought up the laws about the peephole. Were there any particular building codes or anything of that nature that you guys had to be concerned about when having Peeple installed things on their doors that you had to figure out before shipping them out? CHRIS: Not really. The Texas property code is more geared among making landlords do the right thing. In case you're wondering, I think it's Texas Property Code 94-152 that covers this. There must be an external viewable portion for all multi-family units to the front entryway. Now, this is just the Texas law. We had to look this up in a few other states and it turns out there's one in San Francisco, there's one in Virginia but they're all different. But so far, we haven't had any issues with any property codes or building code issues. CHARLES: This has been an almost four-year odyssey for you that you've been on, right? CHRIS: Right. CHARLES: You've been involved in this scene and working with hardware probably for a long time even before that, it sounds like. For people who are just getting into it, because I feel like there's this wave cresting now, where these types of startups and these types of side projects and hobby projects are just starting to enter the mainstream. Do you have any advice for anybody who would want to get into this space? CHRIS: Well, that's a great question. Of course. Now, contrary to what you just stated, I didn't have much of a hardware background. I'm a software guy. I can personally attest to the pains of becoming a hardware guy. Now, the irony of this is I do have a master's degree in electronics engineering but electronic engineering is so huge. It's such a big field that you can spend your entire career not doing much hardware. But I always had the ability to go back and build some circuits but I would say the number one thing, if you're not a hardware guy is go to some of these meetups or get involved in a community and find yourself one, someone who has experience doing hardware because coming from the software room, you're used to this flexibility of changing a few lines of code and being everything changing. Now, when you get a hardware guy onboard and our hardware guy's name is Craig, when he comes to work -- CHARLES: Or gal. CHRIS: Yeah, or gal, of course. When they look at the same problems you're looking at, they're like, "Hold on a second. Let's step back. Let's test this." There's this quantitative slowing which you need to have as hardware because once you build a PCB, a circuit board, you are now stuck with that board for the next month or so because it takes a while to make another one so get that right before you jump around and do all these changes. My first advice would be is get help. There's no shame in going out there and you might be surprised. There are so many people out there that want to join in. If you have a good idea, there's plenty of people who want to contribute. CHARLES: Would you say that there are communities out there like the software communities where you have meetups? Some of the software meetups are just fantastic, where people are so welcoming and they're just so excited to share the information that they themselves are so excited about. CHRIS: Yes and there's the same thing as on the hardware side. You would definitely go to a few hardware meetups, there are several in Austin. There's at least one every week and it's a great chance for people to tell these kinds of stories. This is a maker type community so they welcome these ideas because that's what fuels their enthusiasm. Every time someone is doing something new, they want to hear it. That's the change now. This decade has happened to where you can go out and buy a few modules and make your little device. Then there's the next big step of turning it into going from prototype to hardware but you can get all those kinks out without having to make your own printed circuit boards, without having to have a huge firmware background. Just knowing a little bit of tech and a Raspberry Pi, you can test out your inventions at this early stage without having to invest all this money and these other things. There's never been a better time to do it. I would leave your listeners with is if you got something swirling around your head, get a Pi, get a little Arduino and do it. There's nothing stopping you. CHARLES: Yeah, it's shocking how affordable they are. CHRIS: I don't even touch on China, by the way but that's the next step. CHARLES: That's the great thought that I want to leave everybody with but I actually have more questions so we won't leave everybody with that. We'll keep on going because I want to talk about China and I want to talk about something that was in there. You've touched on it a couple of times when telling your story how you go from this just do it, get it out there, get it into people's homes, just get the Version 0 out, just buy an Arduino, slap together something terrible, that is at least one millionth of the dream that you have and you've taken your first step on that odyssey. That's a very common story in software. The way that we develop software too is have these agile methodologies and these techniques to reinforce them, testing, continuous integration, continuous deployment. How does that play out? A fascinating subject to me personally is how do you do that in the context of hardware. A question that I love to ask is how do you do things like ensure quality? How do you do integration testing? How do you have a deployment pipeline if you've got these Peeple devices out there on tens of thousands of doors globally? How do you push out a bug fix or a feature update? What's the automation around that look like? CHRIS: The over-the-air updates are your friend. If you're going to make a hardware device, I recommend making a Wi-Fi enabled device because then your firmware is not locked, then you can do over-the-air updates. That has been a lifesaver. We've done maybe a dozen software updates to our device to date, sometimes little changes, sometimes big changes. But what happens is any time the Peeple device wakes up, it says, "Hello, server," and the server says, "I got an update. First, let me give you all these images." Give me the code. The devices are constantly upgradable, just like you'd expect with software. Now, with some of these Bluetooth devices, you can't do that. You've got to go out the door being ready to go with no issues. It's a friction point to tell someone, "Your headphones can't work now. You need to plug it into a computer. You need to download this firmware upgrade. You need to update the firmware doing it by hand." That just isn't going to fly in today's consumer market so I would recommend if you can, make your device a hardware Wi-Fi device, get a Wi-Fi module in there and that opens up the world to you on doing a lot of these updates, to answer the last part of your question. CHARLES: You mentioned China, since you're touching on the manufacturing process or just the market over there or --? CHRIS: Yeah, be ready to fully commit. I've been to China, maybe four times now. I have a 10-year visa. It took a while to find the right partner and you've got to be boots on the ground in the factory for a couple of weeks just getting the whole line up. It's a whole another product when you're at the manufacturing stage. You're making all these little test things, they've got to hook up the boards to certain devices, they've got to put the firmware on it, they've got to do these things. It's a whole another job. That's why when you do these Kickstarter. They say, "We're going to be out in three months," and then six months later, "We're still working on it." I have a lot of empathy for this because I've lived it. You think, "I've got everything done. My hardware works. All I have to do is team up with someone to just make it and with them, we'll ship it." There's a whole another level to just a manufacturing piece and you can't really learned. There's no real textbooks to learn this because every factories are different. Our factory is right north of Shenzhen and we talked to some US manufacturers but they just weren't competitive to be in the discussion so you pretty much have to go overseas and then you have to sit down with them and just a little bit of communication difficulties can bring down a whole manufacturing line so it's very important that you're very hands on and you see your product all the way to package. ELRICK: That's interesting. I know of it but I never really thought about it because I was really not in that position. What are some of the higher level of things that you should look out for when evaluating a manufacturing partner? CHRIS: We talked to about a half a dozen before we decided on our manufacturing partner. The big one for me was cultural fit. I talked to some of the big ones like the one that makes the Apple phones, we talked to them for a while and I just found that I would say, "We would like to do this or we need this," and then the next week, they'd be asking a question, "What about this?" and I'm like, "Oh, you didn't understand what I was really asking," so you would lose weeks just by tiny misunderstandings. I found a manufacturing partner that has a subsidiary here in the US and my main contact grew up in the United States but he also goes to China every other week. Having that kind intermediary made everything so much easier. The communication was never an issue. I was able to get things done almost twice as quick with the other manufacturers I was talking to. In the end, they also came up with a great price so it turned out to be a win-win. I would recommend talking to the bigger manufacturers but spend a lot of time on the smaller ones and really figuring out is the communication up to snuff to really make your product. It's huge. CHARLES: What a story. I'm really glad that we got to have you on the podcast, Chris because you have the story that starts from literally slapping a Raspberry Pi and an accelerometer and speaker and apparently a bunch of other things on your front door and with an extension cord and walking a continuous path to where you're flying back and forth between China and Austin to inspect and ensure your assembly line and making a real product. It demonstrates that it can be done by the fact that you have done it so I think it serves as an inspirational case for a lot of people out there who might think that this is something that they might want to do. Or think that they're capable of. Thank you so much for coming and talking about Peeple. Everybody, you can go ahead and check it out. It's Peeple.io, right? CHRIS: That's correct. CHARLES: All right. Also, is there anything else that you'd like to announce other than the magic, which you're going to keep a lid on? CHRIS: Yes, I know I'd appropriately teased everyone about that but you can go to our website. If you go to Shop.Peeple.io, we're taking preorders for this next magical version, the Peeple Version 1.1, I guess I'll call it. I would like to add just before we go is if you're going to endeavor to do something like this, make sure you have a very understanding family because they couldn't have done it without a wife and kids that understood my craziness and allowed me to have just a complete mess of our house for, I guess, for three years now. CHARLES: Thanks again and thanks everybody for listening to this episode. You can get in touch with us on Twitter. We're at @TheFrontside and you can always find us on the web at Frontside.io and there's a contact form and we'd love to hear from you, for any reason whatsoever. Thanks, everybody and we'll talk to you next week.

Totally Professional Support Podcast 001   Sonia Caprari and Chris Dabbs CHRIS: Well hello there and welcome to Totally Professional Support’s first podcast ever! My name is Chris Dabbs and I will kind of be your host and with me I’ve got Sonia Caprari, say hello Sonia. SONIA: Hello. CHRIS: Hello. I’ve got Sonia Caprari who is basically the person for Totally Professional Support who deals with all sorts of things and helps lots of small businesses to be able to accomplish their administration tasks properly. So I’m sure I didn’t do you justice there Sonia so do you want to explain exactly what Totally Professional Support does? SONIA: Yes I will. I will start by saying that I’m a virtual assistant and a lot of people as soon as you say that sort of go, “Huh, what does that mean?” CHRIS: Exactly, what does it mean? SONIA: Well I can provide you with administrative support sat at my home office so I don’t have to come to your office, I can do everything that needs to be done from my desk at home. CHRIS: So hang on a second, so I am an employer and I need some – well obviously you will go into what sort of administration tasks you perform – but I need some whatever done and you will be able to do that for me from your own office and not have to come to my office. How does that work? SONIA: There are so many things online now, the software doesn’t really get installed on your computer at work, it can all be done remotely. So that’s how I manage to work from home because all my customers use software that I can access from anywhere. CHRIS: So what sort of software are you talking about there? SONIA: Well predominantly I use email management software which means… CHRIS: So like…sorry, is that like Outlook and things like that? SONIA: No Outlook is completely different. Email management software such as Mail Chimp and A-Webber or Constant Contact, they are the three systems that I can use. And what we do is we use them to send out bulk emails, so things like newsletters, people do e-zines, they send out reference emails or emails that they want their customers to read that contain information that is useful to them. And obviously sending out offers, high value gifts – things like that so you’re engaging with your client, you’re engaging with your customer on a constant basis. CHRIS: Okay, so what you’re saying is like…I guess it’s sending out newsletters to your client base. SONIA: Yes. CHRIS: Oh right. So when I get a, I don’t know, an email from Microsoft or something saying that I subscribe to Microsoft products, would I like to buy another product or we’ve had a change in a product or something like that; they send that out to tens of thousands of people I guess and you manage that for other companies. SONIA: Yes I do, that’s exactly it yes. CHRIS: That would be useful; I think I could do with a service like that actually, to be fair. I’ve got loads of clients and I hardly ever email them properly and that’s completely due to lack of time. SONIA: Well…oh sorry. I was going to say that this is the problem that most people have, it’s a lack of time to collate the information, to get your emails in one place and then to be able to sit down on a regular basis and work out what you’re actually going to send to your customers – so what is it that they want to read from you. There’s a fine line between bombarding them with information and being there on the outskirts so if they ever need you they remember who you are. CHRIS: I think that’s one of the problems, I mean i unsubscribe – I guess this is the kind of thing you are talking about as well about mailing lists – is that I unsubscribe from so many emailing lists because I get three or four emails a day from some people. And I suppose that is not something that you would become involved with I guess that is your client. Okay, let’s have a chat then about how your particular email services or your email management services have helped people. I mean I’ve looked at your explainer video as I say the one that is on your website, which is really great by the way, it just looks so cute. Looking through all the services, you talk about Mail Chimp which you mentioned earlier on, so what happens with that then? I mean so I would, as an employer, would say to you, “First of all here is my account details, you can log in there” and what happens from there? SONIA: Well I can have a login as the client or I actually do have my own Mail Chimp account, I can actually go into the clients email account and set me up as part of their account. So I don’t actually have to log into their own specific account all the time, I can actually access their account through my own. CHRIS: Okay, like a management account or something. SONIA: Yes so you don’t have to leave out passwords and things, especially in my case, if I have another VA that’s working for me I don’t want to give my client’s details to her so I set her up in a different way through her own mail chimp system and therefore she never sees the client’s password. CHRIS: That was a question I was going to ask because you know the privacy of all of these email accounts is paramount, isn’t it, because isn’t there a problem with data protection or something like that? SONIA: Yes you want to make sure that, if you have people working for you, you protect your client and make sure your client’s customers – your clients information – is well protected. CHRIS: Yes I think the penalties, if I remember correctly, for letting your information leak are quite severe nowadays aren’t they? SONIA: Yes. And Mail Chip has a policy anyway that anybody on a list should be there because at some point they’ve given you permission to be on that list, you can’t just spam people. CHRIS: Exactly. So the list, if I remember correctly, whenever I’ve signed up for things I put in my email address and that sort of stuff and then the system – whatever system it is I guess – sends me an email to verify that I have actually requested to be part of that mailing list. SONIA: Yes, Mail Chimp doesn’t actually do that, A-Webber does but Mail Chimp doesn’t. CHRIS: Oh okay, does it not? SONIA: No, Mail Chimp actually believes that you have put these people onto a list because at some point they may have subscribed to a product or a service or they may have filled out a lead page and given you their details. So you are clicking a button in Mail Chimp to say, “Yes, I have permission from this person to use their details.” CHRIS: Oh okay. SONIA: But as I said, A-Webber works in a slightly different way and it does send out a confirmation email. CHRIS: Well it would be interesting, for our next podcast perhaps, to talk about the differences between Mail Chimp and A-Webber you say? Is that the other one? SONIA: Yes. CHRIS: …the differences between those and any others that you think are relevant to our listeners. Okay, now I suppose one of the things that I’ve noticed, we’re talking about mailing lists and all that sort of stuff here, is that there’s some big change coming up – immediately I think there is isn’t there? – in terms of being able to use a return address or something complicated like that. What’s all that about? SONIA: What it is is it’s actually taken effect now, I’ve been telling my clients for months to sort out their email address. So what’s happened is that Gmail and Microsoft have made a policy change, which means this policy change affects the deliverability of your emails if you’re using email management software. So for example, if at the moment you have yourcompanyname@gmail.com... CHRIS: So totallyprofessionalsupport@gmail.com? SONIA: Yes, for example. And you use that email address when you set up your list in Mail Chimp or A-Webber – this will be a policy that is going to take effect throughout everything. CHRIS: So InfusionSoft and all those sorts of shopping carts and all that sort of stuff I guess? SONIA: Yes, anything that is sending out bulk emails to people. So if you’re using as I said, totallyprofessionalsupport@gmail.com, what will happen now is that it’s not going to like that email address because all of these domains…I don’t want to say to people it’s not going to work, your email will be delivered to your clients but they can’t guarantee that it will be delivered to every client. This policy changed is called DMARC and what it does is it looks at the email address that it’s coming from and if it’s not coming from a proper domain name, so I have a domain name that is totally professional support, if it’s not coming from that domain name and it’s just coming from a Gmail account or a Hotmail account or a Live account, it looks at that and thinks it could possibly be spam. CHRIS: Okay, why would they think it’s spam? SONIA: Well in reality if you have a company, you’ve set up a business, you’ve got a website, why are you not using an email that has the same branding as your website domain name? Why are you not doing that? So in reality I’ve got a Gmail account but it’s my personal Gmail account, so I use that for personal emails which is fine because sending an email from your own Gmail account is not bulk sending, you’re just sending emails to whoever you’re sending them to. but I am talking about business accounts, I’m talking about people who are sending bulk emails through a particular email management system, the email management system will look at those email addresses and think they’re spam – that is really what it comes down to. CHRIS: Oh okay. So basically, if you use one of these email management systems and you set it up where it is joeblogswidgets @ gmail.com and that is the address that people see in their email – Outlook or whatever it is. When they receive the email it says “From: joeblogswidgets @ gmail.com” the chances are, what you’re saying is Gmail, Microsoft and all those sorts of people, that email that arrives from that address – in other words from a free address like Gmail – is going to be put into the spam folder and therefore you could end up with your clients not receiving your message at all just because of that. SONIA: Absolutely yes because up to now a lot of spam emails have been created, haven’t they, through Gmail accounts or Live accounts or AOL accounts, Yahoo… CHRIS: Hotmail. SONIA: Exactly, how many people have received an email from a friend with a Yahoo account and it turns out to be a virus? So what it’s trying to say is, “Well if you’re running a legitimate business you should have a legitimate email address.” So you cannot now send bulk emails using a free email address that is really what it comes down to. CHRIS: And you can help, obviously, your clients to make sure that they’re not going to fall foul of this new system by auditing their Mail Chimp setup. How would you go about that? SONIA: Well with my current clients obviously I’ve alerted them all months ago to this and slowly, slowly they’ve been changing their email accounts so they’ve actually got a proper domain name email that can be used in Mail Chimp or whatever. If you haven’t done that yet you need to go back to wherever you purchased your domain name because more than likely you’re given a free, or number of free email addresses anyway when you sign up for your domain. And I think the problem people have is they don’t understand this bit when they set up their website so they end up going to Gmail or somewhere, creating an email account because it’s much easier than doing it through their actual domain provider. CHRIS: Yes I know what you mean because obviously putting in all the settings and all that sort of stuff can be a real pain in the…well backside really I guess because it can be quite complicated. You’ve got IMAPs and POP3s and all that stuff so I can see why people would go to a free service like Gmail or Hotmail or Live or whatever it is to do that. So I can understand that. But you would be able to guide somebody through setting up their email, what is it, server or an account? SONIA: You need to obviously…I don’t know how many people I’ve spoken to who said, “But I don’t know how to get into my domain” uh well I can’t help you there I’m afraid, if you can’t remember the login and password that is a bit of an issue. CHRIS: That’s true, they would have to go back to their domain supplier and request a new password and stuff. SONIA: Yes they would. But if they don’t want to do this themselves then I could certainly do this for them but they would have to give me their login details so that log into their account and then I can have a look from there to see whether they do have a free email address or whether they have to pay to set one up. CHRIS: So really, this could be pretty much a nightmare couldn’t it for people? SONIA: I think it could if you don’t realize the policy has changed because what will happen is a lot of your emails are going to end up going into spam boxes and your customer will never receive the email. CHRIS: Which of course they’ve slaved and worked really hard to make it engaging through the content, through the design and everything else and then it’s just completely wasted and they’ll be scratching their heads thinking, “Why does no one respond to my emails?” SONIA: Well yes and I am going to start looking at people’s stats over the next month, this has only taken effect within the last week, so in the next couple of months I will have a look at that for my current clients and see whether it has gone down with the people that haven’t changed their email addresses yet. CHRIS: So you can actually check out the response rate and the open rate… SONIA: You can see who’s read them, you can see whether they’ve clicked them – there is a little bit of data you can collect from that. Looking at what we’ve done already and looking at what will happen after the first of July it will be interesting to see where the customers have changed their email addresses versus the customers that haven’t changed their email addresses. CHRIS: Yes absolutely. So what is this called again, DMARC? SONIA: It’s called DMARC; the point of it is that…a lot of providers did this a while ago, so people like Hotmail it did actually happen a while ago. It’s Gmail and Microsoft, the two biggest, who have now said, “Right, that’s it” 30th of June it actually to effect. And that’s it, it’s done, it’s happened. CHRIS: Right. And all of this is to stop people from sending spam out really because, as you said before, it’s easy to pick up a Gmail address, easy to setup an account of this, easy to pick up a mailing list of people – which you shouldn’t be doing of course, really you shouldn’t be using any old email list, you should have people who’ve subscribed to your own list – and then they just send out lots and lots of spam, millions of emails a day. SONIA: If you look at your own inbox, your spam box, and I look at mine, I can see the amount of rubbish that goes in there. And unfortunately sometimes people do have a free email account, you don’t receive their emails and the reason for that is because they are being thrown in the spam box, especially if they’ve sent a lot out in the course of day it’s quite feasible for them to end up in a spam box or be stopped because of maybe an attachment that’s in it or something that has been put into the email. So you have to be aware that it’s all very well and good having a free email account but I would only use that now for personal use. If you have a business you should be using your branding for sending out emails so people can recognize you instantly. CHRIS: And actually if you think about it I guess this will help people to understand the implications of your emails being marked as spam and what you can do about that as well. Is that something that you can help people with? So in other words designing their text in their emails and their subjects for the email, which I think also has an impact on this stuff doesn’t it? You know, so that it’s not picked up as spam by whichever email client someone’s using like Outlook or Outlook Express or whatever. Can you help them with that? To make sure that it’s all friendly for the email clients? SONIA: Of course yes. We do try to put relevant subject lines in and not ones that are going to cause an issue. CHRIS: So what sort of ones would cause an issue? I mean I always think that if you see an email that says “Open this!” or “Watch that!” or “This will be great” or something like that, they’re always going to be picked up as spam because who would normally write an email like that? And who would normally put the subject like that? I think that would be a bit strange wouldn’t it? Am I right in thinking that or are those things okay? SONIA: I usually say to my clients if you’re going to use a subject line with such a big exclamation mark at the end of it like “Open now!”, then you should maybe follow that up with the name of your company or you start the subject line with your company name and then you put “Open this now!” CHRIS: So that would make it easier…that would make it more sensible, or sorry, the system would look at it and think, “Okay well that’s probably real because why would there be that name in there.” SONIA: I understand why people want to use a subject line that has that impact because you’re hoping that the person that receives it will actually open it, but yes I think that the subject line is important. CHRIS: Okay, so let’s have a think about exactly how you can help your clients or potential clients or existing clients or whatever, to make sure that their emails aren’t being wasted. You know I know from my own points of view, I work very hard to create my mailing list, I make sure my website’s good, I make sure that all the communication that I send out is interesting and people join my mailing list because they want to know more about me, they want to know about the services I offer and it’s hard. You build up all of these people one by one and then this DMARC comes along and potentially throws all of that out of the window just over one simple mistake that I could make. So can you explain how your system, or sorry, the Totally Professional Support’s system would make sure that that doesn’t happen for somebody? Does that make sense? SONIA: Yes it does. What you need to do is you need to login to your email management software and you’re going to have to make some changes to your lists. CHRIS: This is in Mail Chimp or A-Webber or something right? SONIA: Yes because as you’ve set a list up and you’ve added subscribers to it over a period of time, your list will already have the email address that it’s going to be sent from. So if you need to change your email address because of this DMARC process then you need to go to every single one of your lists and change the email address to a new email address that is part of your branding. So don’t forget, you need to go and log in to your email service provider and check to see whether you have a free email account that you can actually create yourself an email account if you don’t have one already. CHRIS: Based on my domain name already? SONIA: Yes, based on your domain name already. And then once you’ve done all that you can then go into Mail Chimp or A-Webber and change the email address from the old one to the new one. CHRIS: What happens if I haven’t got time for that? Can you do that for me? SONIA: Of course I can, of course, just give me a call. CHRIS: See now this is the power of a virtual assistant because I can call you, you don’t have to come to my office to do all this do you? You can do it from where you are you said earlier on. SONIA: I can, I can do it sat at my desk. CHRIS: And not in my office so that’s a good thing. So basically I save, I’ve got to think of all this from an employer’s point of view; I save money on your travelling, I save money on having a desk space for you to use whenever you come in and there are all sorts of things. And of course, because you’re a contractor, I would also save on any employment costs as well – PAYE, that sort of thing, insurance costs and things. SONIA: Exactly CHRIS: Alright, okay. And how do you charge? Do you charge like hourly or weekly? How does that work? SONIA: I can charge hourly, it depends on the job that I am being asked to do. Most of my customers are on retainer packages which means they buy a package of hours from me and that makes it a little bit cheaper for them to use me. CHRIS: That’s useful I guess, but also, if someone’s away on holiday or sick or something like that and their tasks need to be covered – and I suppose depending on what your skillset is – you could cover those tasks. SONIA: Yes definitely. CHRIS: Oh that’s interesting. I have to talk to you about some other bits and pieces; social media management I think is something that really is something that causes me a lot of problems because there is so much of that social media that needs to be managed in terms of Facebook and Twitter and Google Plus and Pinterest and whichever other ones there are. But is that another service that you guys provide? Please say yes! SONIA: It’s certainly something we can help you with yes. CHRIS: Excellent. Okay well Sonia I tell you what, tell people how they can contact you – you know your telephone numbers and emails and all that sort of stuff – and we’ll go from there. SONIA: If you want to email me its sonia@totallyprofessionalsupport.co.uk, my website is the same www.totallyprofessionalsupport.co.uk, my mobile number is 07526 992 184 if you want to call me. CHRIS: Fantastic. And I guess that if people go to www.totallyprofessionalsupport.co.uk they can sign up for your mailing list so they can get more details and obviously be told when your podcasts are coming out and so that they can subscribe to those. SONIA: That’s right yes. CHRIS: Well everyone thanks very much for listening and we hope that the DMARC system is now completely explained to you. It’s quite an important thing if you want your emails to get through to your clients or potential customers that you fought so hard to build up in your mailing list. You really need to make sure that you’ve changed your from email address from a free one that you may have set it up with. So in other words bill @ gmail.com or fred or bellinda or lucy or whatever @ gmail.com, change it from that and change it to your own domain name’s email address. So in other words change it to bill @ totallyprofessionalsupport.co.uk, otherwise you run the risk of your emails not being delivered to your recipients and that can’t be a good thing. Now Sonia I hope I got that right, is that right? SONIA: You did, yes you did. CHRIS: Hey I’ve learned something, fantastic. And also, the thing I’ve learned is that if I need any help with administration tasks, you guys are the people to call. Okay so thanks very much for that, as I said, my name is Chris Dabbs and that was Sonia Caprari from Totally Professional Support and this is Totally Professional Support’s first podcast. Join us for Sonia’s next podcast where she’s going to be looking at something else that’s really relevant to small businesses and how they can really push forward their marketing by using a virtual assistant like Totally Professional Support. So thanks very much Sonia, is there anything you want to add at the end? SONIA: No thank you. CHRIS: Okay, well thanks very much and bye-bye. SONIA: Bye-bye. www.totallyprofessionalsupport.co.uk www.thepodcaststudio.co.uk

www.unitybodymot.org Video Narrator: If you’re an experienced personal trainer, fitness or movement professional, the chances are you chose your profession because you love the buzz of helping your clients maximize their potential. But it is important to stay ahead of the game by constantly expanding your knowledge by learning new skills, if you don’t your competition will, leaving you playing catch up. So don’t get left behind, with Unity Body MOT you can build your existing skills – not simply the latest fitness fads or equipment but in the very latest information and skills to help you and your clients be more successful. We’ll help you learn the relationship between exercise, movement and injury using the very latest science and research. How and why common exercises and movements are not right for many individuals and advise the right exercises to the right people at the right time. Understand how the majority of tightness mobility injury and other issues occur, what you can do about this, and learn how to relay this new information to clients in plain English; keeping them healthier and happier with their bodies and with you. You will learn precisely how your client’s body is working on the inside so you can help them in a much bigger way than before. These are the skills essential to stay ahead in the game and set you apart as an exceptional fitness, movement or exercise professional. And of course, it gives you the edge when it comes to retaining existing customers and attracting new ones. If you’re serious about your profession and your clients, never stop learning. Contact Unity Body MOT to learn more today for a totally free strategy call to discuss your specific situation and how together we can help elevate your career to another level. Hi there and thank you for joining us for a series of informative, and we hope, useful podcasts for everything a wellness professional needs to know to ensure that their clients are receiving the best training possible, and therefore allowing the trainer to be more successful by having more happy clients. My name’s Chris Dabbs, and as always, I am joined by Simon Wellsted – founder of Unity Body MOT. Hi Simon, how are you? I hope you’re well. Simon: I am good Chris, thank you. Chris: Fantastic, okay. Well really what we’re going to be trying to do today is to acquaint you with what Unity Body MOT are up to and how Unity Body MOT can help you to increase your business. So our podcast is aimed at helping wellness professionals become better acquainted with how to help their clients more by helping them to train effectively while understanding that their clients will gain more when their exercise routines are tailored to meet their clients goals. While taking into account how injuries or infirmities can affect the outcomes. I know that’s a bit long winded Simon but does that sound about right? Simon: Yeah that sounds great. Thanks Chris, that’s a good summary. Chris: Okay. So really looking through your website and watching the video, which of course we heard as an intro at the beginning of the podcast, tell me something about how you would explain this to me if I was a wellness professional looking at helping my clients to become, well, fitter I suppose. Simon: Okay, so I start this by normally saying that a given client will be given a certain set of exercises for a given objective, and those exercises might be fairly typical for a range of clients. But what we are now beginning to understand is that certain exercises are going to be right for some, neither right nor wrong for others and definitely wrong for quite a few. And we reckon that that quite a few is probably 50-60%. Chris: Really? So you’re saying that more than half of the people, potentially, are doing exercises that are what? Injurious or will injure them? Simon: Down the line, potentially, yes. We use the phrase ‘laying the foundations for injury’. So they may not have any symptoms today, they may be perfectly correct, they may have no mobility issues, they may not have any obvious tightness; but what we do know is that if there are things going on inside the body, which we teach PTs about and the PT can find those, they can then make changes to their exercise program to get around those so that the client moves forward faster. Chris. Okay. So you mentioned changes or things going on inside the body perhaps, would the client be aware of these things or is this something that…? Give me an example, if I wanted to do some upper body exercises to try and get rid of my belly, how would your program help my trainer – my PT – to help me to, I guess, achieve my goals? Simon: Okay, so just taking a little bit of a step back, one of the key learning points from the training that we do with personal trainers and other fitness and movement professionals is to say that what they can see and what their clients can see and the information that the client gives back to the trainer can often give a misleading picture of actually what is going on. Chris: Okay. Simon: So they may say, “I’ve got really tight hamstrings”. And one of the key learning points at the very beginning of our training is to say just because somebody has got really tight hamstrings doesn’t mean that you have to work them – stretch them, mobilize them – that tightness of those hamstrings might be coming from somewhere completely different in the body. So we use the phrase ‘a robust and sustainable solution’, if you’re working with somebody and you are giving them exercises and their achieving the objectives in the timeframe that you would expect them to be achieved – fantastic. If they keep on coming back to you week after week and they’ve regressed, and the same problem is appearing, then that’s a really strong indicator that something else is getting in the way – somewhere else in the body is causing that issue – so just progressing with doing that exercise faster, harder, more frequently isn’t necessarily the right answer. Chris: Right. So, okay if something was ringing a bell for me in terms of, what are they called, you know the insoles that you can buy that are specially tailored to your feet? Orthotics or something like that. Simon: Yes, orthotics. Chris: Orthotics. The reason for providing that is because your feet can affect your gait and your stance and how you stand and therefore you can develop back problems or shoulder pain or something like that. So that’s kind of what you’re saying, obviously not to do with orthotics, but that’s kind of what you’re saying. In other words, there may be an issue arising from somewhere else within the body that prevents the exercise from achieving its simplistic goal of, as you were saying with hamstrings, of really sort of loosening up the hamstrings. Simon: Correct. We’re living in a press-button society, everybody wants a quick result for health or any other area of our lives. So people see that they’ve got an issue so people tend to focus on where that issue is. Orthotics is a wonderful example, I’ve done training for podiatrists and demonstrated that we can completely change the biomechanics of the foot by working on the shoulder. Chris: Alright, really? Simon: And that’s not as a manual therapist, that’s as a PT working on the shoulder. So just putting in an orthotic for a runner because they are seen to have a particular gait characteristic, putting in an orthotic to stop that characteristic isn’t necessarily the right answer. And we actually take PT’s through a process – a very simple, quick and safe process – where they can make those determinations for themselves, not just from a ‘should they have an orthotic?’ because obviously PTs are not qualified to put orthotics in. But they are qualified to help somebody achieve mobility through their hamstrings or mobility through their spine, whether that be upper or lower body. Chris: Yeah, I see what you mean because what you are saying is basically, if someone has a pain in their shoulder that could potentially affect their gait because they’re trying to compensate for that pain in the shoulder. Simon: Absolutely. Chris: Whereas the orthotic would mean that they don’t walk in that particular way. What they are doing is transferring, potentially, the issue somewhere else and creating a new one as well as keeping the pain in the shoulder. Simon: You’ve hit the nail on the head there; it’s creating new ones as well. When we’ve run training for podiatrists we’ve demonstrated, actually using them as models, that they’d come out and screen somebody’s foot and reported back to the audience what they found because their foot specialists. We’ve just then told them how to do something very simple on the shoulder from an exercise perspective, then told them to go back and rescreen the foot, and everything’s changed. So sometimes orthotics are required, but for very good medical reasons, sometimes they’re not. What we’re saying is that we can make a very, very good determination as a fitness and health and movement professional whether somebody should be working on their hamstrings, whether they should be squatting, whether they should be moving their spine in a particular way, whether they should be doing upper body extension of their arms in a particular way and we can then say, if the case in a particular client is no they shouldn’t, they’d know that. They can steer clear of those exercises, but also we teach them how to solve that problem as well, from an exercise perspective. Chris: Okay. Is there a simple way to explain to us how the PT, you know the personal trainer or the wellness professional, can actually find a way to work with that client to overcome it? Is it as simple as a manual manipulation of the shoulder? Simon: Yes, we’re not talking about manipulation here, because obviously personal trainers are not typically qualified to put their hands on people in a manual way – that’s a therapy. We’re not crossing over to therapy. Chris: That makes sense. Simon: Yeah, we’re not crossing over the therapy threshold, if you like. Chris: Well no because obviously the osteopaths and all of those people in that world are trained in being able to do that and obviously they need to be able to work alongside professionals. Would that be about right? Simon: Absolutely. What we’re talking about here is a client who doesn’t necessarily have any obvious issues. We use the term asymptomatic; they don’t have any pain, they don’t have any mobility issues that they are aware of, they’re not injured – because a personal trainer, and as they add additional qualifications to their own skills set, they won’t have the insurance to treat that injury. Chris: No, or the training of course. Simon: Indeed. However, we know that if we can help the PT identify that somebody, for example, has a high risk of a knee problem, and that is very simple they can determine that in about ten minutes… Chris: Well that’s my next question. Simon: Absolutely, then certainly for the foreseeable future, that PT should not be recommending that they go on a treadmill or go through exercises which put heavy forces down through the knee. We also teach them how to solve that problem through other exercise options. So they’re achieving the same objectives but not actually putting high pressures through the knee because that particular client has a predisposition to a knee problem and we can determine that and say what the risk is of that person sustaining a knee problem which is relatively new science. So it’s all about doing what’s right for the client, not saying, “Don’t exercise, go and lay down because you can’t exercise.” It’s saying, “Exercise is important but let’s exercise, for you, in this way because you have a, for example, predisposition to a knee problem or back problem” – whatever that might be. We will still exercise but we’ll just do these exercises which don’t exacerbate that particular issue that you have. It may not be painful now but, and then this is the difficulty that we have, in that people don’t understand that they have a predisposition to an injury. Chris: Well exactly there Simon, I mean that’s the thing, if you go and see a personal trainer and you’re undertaking a training regime you may not realize, as you’ve said, that you have an issue with a knee/back problem or anything else. Are you saying that the PT can actually spot that because of compensation or compensatory movements or something? Simon: We give the PT a toolset, a very simple toolset which takes no more than ten minutes to do once their competent at it, and they will be able to pick out whether somebody has a predisposition to a knee problem, whether they have a back problem, whether they have a predisposition to upper body shoulder issues and if those markers are in place then the exercise professional then has a choice: they can say, “Okay I know that, that is really useful information”, educate the client about it which is absolutely crucial, in plain English. Chris: Right, I think more importantly the plain English, exactly. Otherwise you’re potentially giving some bad news to somebody – I don’t know. Simon: Right, it’s got to be all delivered in a positive way. So the way our personal trainers that we train tend to work is to do these tests, they then say to the client, “Well, we know your objectives are to lose weight, to get fitter for running…” or whatever it might be, “because of what I’ve checked on your body, this is the right exercise set for you.” And if the client turns around and says, “Well what about going on a treadmill?” for example, they might turn around and say, “Well actually, at the moment you have a high marker that say you shouldn’t really be putting forces through your knee so we will train you in a different way.” Chris: Okay. So give us an idea of these markers that the trainer would be able to employ, or to identify I guess. I’m thinking it’s something it’s something along the lines of exercising and perhaps there being a perfect range of movement within a joint and then if the client can’t achieve that then that that’s an indicator, or is that too simplistic? Simon: It’s part of the solution. In our training courses we actually teach that there’s two types of biomechanics, and without getting too technical; there is biomechanics from the outside – what we can see – but most people’s view of biomechanics is photographic athletes with little balls on them and watching the angles of their body and various other forces that are acting on the outside. Chris: Yeah I have seen that. Simon: That’s called extrinsic biomechanics. What we are talking about is what is happening on the inside, we can now apply those same principles to various soft tissues of the body. And of course you can’t see those, they are hidden by our skin and our body, you can’t see for example how the hamstrings are pulling and whether their pulling in the right direction. Chris: Well no, exactly. Simon: But we give the trainers the ability to work that out through very simple tests that they do. Yes they have to put the client in particular positions and do certain movements with them that are designed to pick up those markers. And we’re looking at the soft tissues in the body, and that’s everything from joints, muscles, nerves and all the other soft tissue things that are inside our body. And we’re just picking up what we now understand as being markers which give a high degree of certainty that that person should really not be doing that type of movement at this particular point in time. Simon: That’s interesting because of course what that would mean, if you think about it, say I go to the gym and I decide I am going to take on a personal trainer to help me, I would be looking at a plethora of choice really, maybe five, six, seven or eight personal trainers who within that particular gym, and how do I choose? I think that’s one question, if you haven’t been referred to a personal trainer, it is difficult isn’t it? You know I wouldn’t know. So recently, in January of course like with most people – they go to the gym at the beginning of the year, I’m looking at the PTs and I’m thinking, “Okay, that one looks a bit young, that one looks a bit old, that one doesn’t look like they know what they’re doing etc.” so I end up choosing just one guy who seemed okay and who spoke to me in a respectful way. Now I suppose if there’s a way that personal trainers can differentiate themselves in that sort of marketplace because really if you look at it from an economic point of view, someone is making a big investment to become a personal trainer, it is something the love to do and they need it to pay for their own lifestyle don’t they? Effectively it is their job so this is like putting up a new offering, a new service, a new shop front; something to differentiate themselves from their peers who they’re also working with so that they get more business. Is that right? Simon: Absolutely, it’s a very crowded market, the fitness and exercise market. You’ve got personal trainers, you’ve got fitness instructors… Simon: They are different, they have different qualifications. And you’ve got group exercise people as well – Pilates and yoga and other types of exercise. And as with all businesses it is crucial to find unique selling point, something which you can say to your clients which is basically going to give them a hands-up that says, “Hi I’m here, I can do something different, I can actually make sure that the exercise program that I’m giving you is right for your body – tailored for you!” And that is a massive differentiator, it makes them stand out from the crowd, allows them to charge more for their services. Chris: I suppose it would do wouldn’t it? Well yeah if you’re better trained and you’re an expert in something, then yeah you have to charge more for the services. And of course you will keep your clients longer because they are going to be even happier with the results. Simon: Absolutely, I mean the crucial thing is that the client is happy. If the client can get to their objectives quicker, more safely but still achieve the objectives they want to achieve – that’s’ a big tick. If the personal trainer or the exercise professional that their working with can give them some useful information about their body and how their body’s working… Chris: Especially if they didn’t know anything about it is the first place. Simon: Absolutely. So help them in their daily lives especially if they’re, as is very common, somebody who is sitting at a desk behind their PC or driving a lot, then they can give that information. Just like they do currently with nutritional advice, it’s the whole package and this is just a new tick in the box to say, “I can give you a tailored exercise program for your body because I will be able to tell you which exercises are right for you today, which ones are perhaps not so correct for you today,” and if the personal trainer’s got the right mindset, some do some don’t and that is absolutely fine, they can either steer them in the direction of other exercises or use exercises, which they are the professional in, to actually help correct the markers. We can get rid of these markers and that’s crucial. Chris: Well yeah I understand. Again going back to the shoulder, it’s about making sure that the shoulder issue is sorted out through exercise and all that sort of thing. Well that makes a lot of sense Simon and really I’m getting exciting just learning about this. I think when I go to the gym next I’m going to be asking whether or not the exercises that I’ve prescribed are the correct ones. Should I be spending ten minutes on the cross trainer if I have an issue with my hip? Is it a good idea? Simon: Absolutely. I think that’s a perfectly valid question and people are getting more knowledgeable about their own bodies in a whole series of ways. When they go to see the doctor they will typically ask what these drugs or what this intervention is designed to do. When you go to find a personal trainer or any exercise professional, whether it be pilates/yoga, in a gym or a sports coach, it’s really good to ask those questions and get answers back from that professional say, “yes, your body is right for this.” And that’s really where we are now, we have this ability to get this knowledge out there as widely as possible so that the fitness and exercise industry can really be proactive in giving their clients the best exercise program for their objectives and their body. Chris: Okay fantastic. Well I think that what we’ve got now is a real opportunity for PTs, or any wellness professional really, that is involved in mobility or exercise or training or anything like that to really benefit and grow their business whilst helping their clients. So I think that in our future podcasts what we’ll be doing is looking at various tips and tricks that people can learn and actually use with their clients so that they can help them to move forward quickly. And Simon you don’t mind giving those tricks and tips to people do you? Simon: No we can give out a few. Chris: I think it’s a really good, think people will absolutely love that. And then of course, at the end of the day, what makes more sense is that Unity Body MOT offer a full one to one training system that you can either subscribe to and come along and Simon will help you with that so that you can learn a about how your clients work. You want to tell us a little bit about that? Simon: Yes. Our differentiator is that we look to provide training that fits in with the professional’s lifestyle and business. We put on public training courses; we run both a one day and a two day workshop but we also, and actually what I do more of, is the fitness professional will contact me and say, “Love this material, want to learn it. I simply don’t have the time to go on a two day training course, can you come to my gym and train me at my location or can I come to see you?” And I’ll do that and we’ll work out a package, and that can be on a one to one basis or a small group basis. The key part here, if we do that the personal trainers own premises, they can bring clients in. And they learn, obviously the client has got to be okay with this, but they learn with a real client so they can learn the skills and we can be helping a client at the same time. It instills the knowledge more quickly, they haven’t got to go away for a weekend and learn the stuff and then come back to their workplace and think, “Okay, how on earth do I implement this?” Chris: Exactly, so that’s the way you go on training and then you hope you’re going to remember it when you put it into practice, whereas if you have a live client with you – wow! Simon: Absolutely. And then what they do is they join a learning community. We’ve got a secret Facebook group where people who have been on the training are members and the idea then is that they can join that community and ask questions. Chris: And that’s so vital because that’s the thing, people are in isolation more and more and especially, if you think about it, if one out of the ten PTs at a particular gym is on the Unity Body MOT program there is no one that they can discuss it with so you feel very lonely, isolated and all of that knowledge potentially goes to waste. I love that Facebook thing that is brilliant. Simon: And we’re hoping to run other courses around the country as widely as we possibly can but also what I want to do is to put on what I’m calling masterminds, so that once or twice a year we’ll grab a room – at a gym if somebody wants to host it that’s great – or at a hotel or some other venue, people who’ve been on the training can come and collaborate through that. And they can bring case studies if they want, we can do some refresher work, we can answer their questions and we can give them an update because this knowledge is not static, it changes all the time and it is crucial that we give them up to date information. So if something has changed or we’ve got a greater understanding of something that we taught them, we’ll give that information on the mastermind so they’re cons