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Keith breaks down where the U.S. housing market appears to be headed and which regions and states are quietly winning or losing in the population shuffle since 2020—and what that could mean for real estate investors.  You'll also hear about an intriguing cash-flow play in single-family rentals in select Southern markets. Then, Keith is joined by financial strategist and comedian Garrett Gunderson, who challenges the usual "scrimp and save" advice. Together, they explore how to build real wealth without sacrificing your life today, how high-net-worth individuals often get money wrong, and a different way to think about financial independence, freedom, and investing in yourself. Resources: Get Garrett Gunderson's Killing Sacred Cows audiobook free: DM @GarrettBGunderson on Instagram with the words "Keith Cows." Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/595 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, is the future direction of the housing market trending up or trending down? Which states have seen the most population growth? Then powerful wealth mindset tactics with a financial comedian today on get rich education   Speaker 1  0:20   since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads and 188 world nations. He has a list show guests and keep top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com   Keith Weinhold  1:04   the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com   Speaker 2  1:38   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  1:54   Welcome to GRE from Mount Rainier to Mount Rushmore and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and this is get rich education. I am not a Lambo driving influencer that will take any brand deal just to shill a gambling platform instead. Our core strategy at GRE is aging. Well, I've spoken with a lot of LP investors with capital calls and deals that lost all their money. Well, we approach wealth building with discipline and consistency. It doesn't sound dazzling, but it really shines when things go wrong elsewhere, because at least for the core of our portfolios, we get long term fixed rate debt for income property get paid five ways and win the inflation triple crown, and we do it all with a high degree of passivity. Right before I took the mic today, I got a two sentence email from a property manager that said an air conditioning unit's air handler board had to be replaced for $420 I don't even know what an air handler board really is. Now, the manager sent some photos in a written estimate. I quickly checked chat GPT, and I saw that the price was about right, and replied to my manager to go ahead and have that done. That's it an example of relative passivity. US residential real estate has nominally appreciated over every single 10 year period in modern history, despite some occasional short term downturns, even those are not common. Well, we recently had a guest mention that it's 20 years at the longest like 20 years or less is the period of time between which real estate never goes down. He was right. But you actually can't find any 10 year period where home values fell. What about the 2008 global financial crisis, I think that's the first place that the mind goes. Well back then, home values bottomed out at 208k in 2009 before they started growing again. And 10 years before that, the median price it was 157k in 1999 so even when home values hit their GFC low at that point, they were still up 32% from the previous 10 years. So you can confidently say then that over any 10 year period, home prices are up nationally. Now, how about the future? Well, for the future, there is more evidence of rising home prices. Building permits for new homes have fallen to their lowest level since 2019 that's according to the census bureau. So fewer single family homes are being built. Now we plan to discuss that more on. Next week show when we dive deep on does America really have a housing shortage? But this week, more reasons for future home price bullishness is that the labor market now, it's not doing that great. It sure isn't white hot, but unemployment, which was already low, that recently dropped a touch lower to just 4.3% inflation has fallen to 2.4% and wages are rising faster than that. In fact, our own Fed Chair recently remarked at how he's surprised at the strength of the economy. The property market analytics firm kotality, they now expect home prices to appreciate another four and a half percent this year. They and other firms continue to believe that the Midwest will be the hottest area of home price growth even more than that four and a half percent in that region. That is because not only is the Midwest underbuilt, it's that the prices are so affordable that it's attracting young people. The other factor is that mortgage rates recently dipped just below six into the high fives again, and that can release this pent up housing demand, and think about where we've come from. In late 2023 mortgage rates were about 8% and now lower mortgage rates also reduce the lock in effect, so it can create both more sellers and more buyers. The thing to remember is that 70% to 80% of home sellers are also home buyers because they've got to live somewhere. And first time homebuyers, of course, they buy only, they don't sell anything. In fact, former GRE guest in housing wire lead analyst Logan modeshami and Barry Habib were just positing on this at housing wire's latest summit on how the volume of home sales has been depressed for so long that lower rates could very well trigger a rush of buyers, these kind of people that have been delaying purchasing for years, this pent up housing demand being released if indeed rates go lower. People think they know the future, but we don't really know that that's going to happen for sure. But a lot of optimism about this phase of the housing market supported by not great, but decent economic conditions. Of course, that new housing demand is going to manifest unevenly across the nation. So let's talk about the places that have seen the most population growth from 2020 to today, basically the states that support that housing demand. Well, between 2020 and today, the US has grown by about 10 million people. That's over 3% nearly every state grew. But the bigger story is where that growth is happening. And really, here's the jaw dropper as a region, the South, gained more people than all of the other regions combined, about 7.6 million new residents in the south since 2020 the South's population is up 6% the West's almost 2% the Midwest population is up more than 1% and The Northeast up seven tenths of 1% again, this is not per year. This is total population growth from 2020 to today, Florida and Texas, they led the nation among the big states, both up almost 9% sprinting like they just found out that income tax is optional. The Carolinas in Tennessee are big southern growers too. People clearly keep moving toward warmer weather, a lower cost of living, lower taxes and job markets. Nothing new there. California in New York are the biggest losers in absolute numbers, California losing half of 1% of population in New York, a full 1% people keep moving away from these traditionally expensive, high tax coastal states like a buffet when the crab legs run out, people just getting up and leaving. That's not any sort of news story there, either. These trends help cash flow residential real estate investors like us, because the south aligns with that favorable landlord tenant law and those high ratios of rent income to purchase price. Luckily for us, that's where people are moving too. The Midwest has those phenomena as well, although their growth has been slower.    Keith Weinhold  9:39   Now a few Midwest highlights for you. Since 2020 the population of Indiana is up 2.8% quietly benefiting from Illinois. Escape Velocity, Missouri up almost 2% and that's growing mostly in Kansas City and St Louis suburbs. Ohio at almost 1% that's pretty modest growth overall, but Columbus up 5% that is flexing like it just landed a semiconductor plant there in Columbus, the intermountain west has bicep bulging growth, but it rarely works for us, because rents are only a little higher, but property prices are way higher. Yes, those pretty Rocky Mountain states, great Instagram, tough cash flow now Louisiana, it is a state that confounds people. It's a warm place, and it has a low cost of living, you would think Louisiana would be attracting people in droves for those reasons. Well, then why is its population following Louisiana down nine tenths of 1% since 2020 Well, you've got bleak job prospects that make Louisianans leave its tax competitiveness ranks 31st property insurance costs are high thanks to environmental risk. Louisiana has more swamps than beaches. Even the NFL saints were six and 11, and if they had made the playoffs, that wouldn't have made people move back. And hey, no personal shade here, I enjoy going to the New Orleans investment conference in Cajun culture, in Airboat Tours through the alligator filled Bayou, fun stuff, but for income producing property, you got to seek out different characteristics than just vacation Glee or how Good the gumbo tastes keep emotion separate from investing, Hawaii is America's biggest percentage loser. Its population is down one and a half percent since 2020 its cost of living is stratospherically high, with a median home value of just a little over a million dollars. That results in net outmigration to the mainland parts of the Aloha state now experience natural decrease. That means that deaths exceed births. Natural decrease. That's mostly a phenomenon on the Big Island. That's not where Honolulu is. That's where you have Kona and Hilo when young people can't afford to stay demographic gravity kicks in population loss. Hawaii is also highly dependent on tourism, meaning more volatility in recessions. It has contractor availability issues and higher repair costs, partly due to shipping materials to the remote islands. What about the upsides of Hawaiian real estate? Well, you're just going to have this inherent, strong, long term land scarcity and lifestyle desirability overall. Hawaii isn't bad. It's just hard. And I like Hawaii as a place to vacation, so the best times in my life were in Hawaii. Now, with all this said, These are broad generalities about states which are big places themselves right now. There are certainly Missouri real estate investors listening to me that are actually losing, and Hawaii real estate investors that are winning, and even cash flow positive. I'm talking general trends here, and this is with respect to long term rentals, not short term rentals. If your rent to price ratio is as low as point three or point four, like it often is near the coasts, well then you are speculating on appreciation. That's what that means. All 50 states have opportunity. All 50 states have no go zones. People keep moving south. That's a trend that the pandemic accelerated six years ago. More opportunity is concentrated there. That's got nothing to do with vacation excitement. That is population math, and I'm talking about swimming with the tide here in our Don't quit your Daydream newsletter I recently sent you that colorful population change map that I was describing some of there. More recently, I also emailed you that great and rare map of landlord friendly versus tenant friendly states mapped out and a lot of other great stuff.    Keith Weinhold  14:17   Before we bring in our firebrand guest, Garrett Gunderson, I just learned about a really strong opportunity for a provider of single family rentals and duplexes in Memphis and Little Rock. They're providing a locked in 5% interest rate and 5% property management for five years. Yeah, that's not a throwback to 2020 it's what mid south homebuyers calls their triple five program. They are the oldest and most trusted, maybe turnkey investment provider in the country, operating since 2002 and what they do is they offer these fully renovated, occupied rental properties in Memphis and Little Rock, two of the strongest cash flow markets in the South. With financing and management and rates that make the math work like it hasn't in years. So again, 5% interest, 5% property management fees for a full five years. You know those markets, they already had these investor advantage numbers with rent to price ratios mere point eight in Memphis and Little Rock. But yeah, that low 5% mortgage rate, even for renovated properties, not just new build. That's the kind of spread that turns a good deal into a great one. So to give you an idea, if you get a 30 year fixed rate mortgage loan amount of 125k with a 7% mortgage rate, your principal and interest payment is 832, at a 5% rate, it's just 671, so that's $160 more cash flow right there, and it's made a tad sweetener than that with just a 5% Property Management rate. And I don't know how long that offer is going to last, but it is available now and for the next little while, you can ask about it. When you visit mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid southhomebuyers.com and you can ask them about their triple five program. More next. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to Episode 595, of get rich education.    Keith Weinhold  16:19   Flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio, through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture, it's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721, the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre. You know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1-937-795-8989 Yep. Text their freedom coach directly. Again, 1-937-795-8989,   Dani-Lynn Robison  18:08   this is freedom family investments. Co founder, Danny Lynn Robinson, listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. You Brenda.   Keith Weinhold  18:24   Today's guest is someone that America knows as the long haired, bearded money guy in the past, he's drawn physical appearance comparisons to Jesus Christ. He's a prominent financial strategist. Founded an eight figure company, hit the Inc 500 he's both a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. He is just an electric speaker, including appearances in front of dozens of billionaires. And he's just got this great way of speaking to financial freedom that hits you differently. He even has a comedy special that's great to welcome back to the show. Garrett Gunderson,   Garrett Gunderson  19:02   that's good to be back. Man. Is really good. Love your energy. Has a nice intro.   Keith Weinhold  19:07   Well, you give a lot of like, nice guidance to people that's somewhat different than they're used to hearing. You know, Garrett, I think a lot of the conventional guidance is, you know, it's not very far above Elementary School advice like, put your credit card in the freezer so you don't use it too often, but a lot of times you speak to either business owners or people that have already had some success, and I think a lot of your underlying mantra is, hey, you better live your best life now   Garrett Gunderson  19:35   I kind of feel like you are your greatest asset, and if you starve out that asset because you don't feed it with knowledge, or you don't invest in yourself, or you don't gain the skills that really matter because you're so addicted to scrimping and sacrificing and building your balance sheet right, trying to build savings accounts and retirement plans and doing all you can to pay off that mortgage. Yeah, you could become a millionaire on paper. But will you live like one? Will you enjoy your. Life. What about all the memories that you miss along the way? What about having quality of life today and creating a life you don't want to retire from? The wealthy people, they didn't get that way because they shrunk their way there. They didn't get that way because they were amazing budgeters. They built businesses. They created value. They learned how to, you know, sell or speak or market or have business acumen that grow business or to hire people, and having those systems that actually impact more people or more deeply impact the people that they serve, because it's about value creation and their value creators. And I think this notion of just thinking, Oh, I could just trade time for money and set money aside. Man, that's a really painful way to get to a million dollars, but Northwestern Mutual, they just put out an article that said, 32 or 34% of millionaires don't feel wealthy, because if you have money tied up in an account that isn't kicking off cash flow, it doesn't feel like wealth. You can't spend that net worth. It's just a statement if you don't learn how to create cash flow. And I love financial independence, where people have cash flow from assets to cover their expenses now their lifestyle is covered from that cash flow. Now they can reinvest every active dollar into themselves and their quality of life, into more cash flowing assets, into taking trips along the way, not just waiting until they're too old to enjoy it.   Keith Weinhold  21:13   You work with business owners all the time, and you've even worked with some ultra high net worth people that still seemed to scrimp and save. Do you think really, what is that the function of? Is it more of the wrong mindset or the wrong tactics when someone acts that way?   Garrett Gunderson  21:32   It's a mindset that's really kind of handed down to them? Yeah, maybe from their parents or grandparents or from a different era, like there's people that were, you know, in the Great Depression, that then tells stories to their family about how tough it was, and you never know when that money could go away. So you got to hold tight, and it's a scarcity mindset. So one of the wealthiest clients I ever had, I mean, this was a guy who he was worth a lot of money, but you would never know it. I saw him on TV one day. I was like, Dude, he needs new clothes, and we found a strategy to save him a bunch of money. He was just buying his inventory with cash or like, let's buy it on a plum card, and you'll get cash back. I just said, Just take 10% of that cash back, which was over $100,000 a month, and spend it on yourself. He's like, Well, I wouldn't know to spend it on I'm like, Well, how about some new clothes to start with? He's like, Okay. And then the next month, he bought a nest system for his house. The next month he bought a sound system. Eventually, saved up enough money to buy a Tesla, which he really wanted, like it was money that was there for him, but it changed his entire paradigm, because now he had a quality of life. He was very philanthropic and donated money. He built massive businesses, but he never treated himself well. He'd never felt like it was okay to spend that money because of his upbringing, because the way that his parents viewed money and the way that their parents viewed money, and it was always something that felt scarce. So it felt like, okay, will this go away? And the reality was, we just found money in your couch cushions, essentially. So why not enjoy it along the way? He eventually bought a home that he loved on the water, that he loves the garden. I mean, it was like a total transformation with that one simple thing to help him heal his relationship with money, overcome scarcity, because he was already highly productive. He just had to break free from this budgetary mindset.   Keith Weinhold  23:09   That's great. It was almost like, Dude, I can see it in you. Before we even talk. You got that code off the rack at Burlington. I swear you can do better than this. Come on, now   Garrett Gunderson  23:17    30 years ago, 30 years ago too. You know, it doesn't even fit anymore.   Keith Weinhold  23:23   Well, you know, I recently dedicated a complete episode Garrett to the way I put it is that the risk of delayed gratification is denied gratification. Now, there are some good things to be said for delayed gratification, I think, especially when you're younger, or you're just starting out in the working world, and you just tried to cover rent for your apartment and you don't have much else. Delaying some gratification is good. You need to form capital. You need to get liquid. I try to avoid saying stacking savings, because that gets people in the mindset of becoming super savers sometimes, and they miss out on returns. But what I mean about the risk of delayed gratification, being denied gratification, if it's taken too great of an extent, is, you know, I'm talking about the guy where, when he was 24 he used to say, Oh, I'm going to visit the Galapagos Islands someday. That's what I want to do. But you can just tell by the time you talk to the dude, when he's 48 he begins to use the past tense for things he wanted to do, for example, then he might start saying, Oh, well, I guess I never did visit the Galapagos Islands. You know, you can tell with people when they use the past tense, and that's when you know that their future is not bigger than their past, and a lot of that is the reflection of their financial status.   Garrett Gunderson  24:40   I got married at age 23 and the first two years, well, it was really like the first year and a half, maybe I was just such a miser. I gave my wife a $400 a month budget for an apartment, and we found out that there's places you don't want to live in Utah. I didn't know it, but she's like, is this what you want? And I was like, This doesn't feel like a safe neighborhood. And then you. Know, I was like, All right, maybe $600 I was still kind of really scarce. And my parents were like, Why don't you just live in our basement, rent free, and my wife's like, sex free. If you think that's where we're living, I'm gonna live in my parents basement, you know? Because I just thought money was something to save. So I saved me over 50% of my income. And a lot of people were like, that's amazing. Congratulations. Great job. And so I felt really good about it, and then I realized that my business wasn't growing as fast as this other person my age. I met him at an event, and a year later, he was doing better. And I was like, Dude, what's going on? I could hear it in your voice. I could hear like, you're just a different person. He goes, Oh, I'm doing two things. One, I just hired this guy, Steve D'Annunzio, and he changed my entire life. And I was like, I need to meet him. He's like, he happens to be here in Vegas. He's from Rochester. Introduced me. I hired him as my coach right away. I'm hearing all these people talk about strategic coach at the same event, and they had a booth. So I signed up for Strategic Coach, which meant I had to part with some of my money. Think it was $7,500 I hired Steve as a one on one mentor, and all of a sudden I was investing in myself, yeah. And I broke free from those chains of like, reduction and restriction into the game of production. And then I even had a situation where a woman called me out at the same event. This was a life changing event where she's like, I wonder what it's like living in a financial prison you built for your wife. It's like, Oh, see, that's what happened. I thought I was responsible, and building that responsibility that's actually building walls. And when I came home for that event, my wife and I started looking for our home. Within a few months, we found one. I bought a home. It was very easily within my means. I basically made as much as I paid for this house that we loved. We lived there for nine years. We built so many memories. You know, we had our two kids while we were there, I started host study groups, and that year, I grew my income by $170,000 with the coaching of strategic coach, Steve dnunzio And this woman, Nancy, calling me out. The next year, it grew by even more because the skills started to compound. I decided from that moment forward, I would spend at least $40,000 a year, which I might be able to reach for some people, but at least $40,000 a year on mentors. Is a guy named Alan. He writes my meal plans and my workouts, and I'm at 10% body fat because he knows exactly what they do. I do what he says. It was worth this $10,000 investment, because now I pay attention what I pay for, and I look at like if I'm my greatest asset, how can I create more energy? How can I create more value? How can I feel better about myself? How can I show up the very best version of I am, so I can deliver the most to the other people. And so I've always just been in amazing groups. I just got back from two different events in Beverly Hills around amazing people, learning incredible things that allow me to grow. I haven't spent a huge amount of money on a mentor last year to figure out something that I hadn't been able to figure out to this point. It's the same thing I did to become a speaker, to become a writer or even learn how to sell or market, you've got to invest in the skill, not just in the savings account. You grow yourself first, and then you grow your money. If you starve yourself out because you're in that miserly mindset, you're going to stunt your growth and never be fully fulfilled.   Keith Weinhold  27:56   You're your own best investment. And yes, this stuff is the varying definition of investing in yourself. Don't live below your means. Grow your means and all of that.   Garrett Gunderson  28:05   Grow your means and be more efficient within your means. I mean, the best way I know how to save is not overpay on tax, which 98% of business owners are doing that today. You know, don't overpay on interest, because you either restructure your loans, renegotiate your interest rates, reallocate underpouring funds to pay it off, or you remove investment drag. A lot of people have unnecessary fees and hidden commissions that drag on their investments. Or just design your insurance properly so it's more efficient. Those four i's, IRS, interest, investments and insurance show you how to keep more of what you make, take some of that money, build up your foundation so you have a peace of mind fund, so you have staying power, at least six months of liquidity and then invest more into yourself or learn how to create cash flow. This is the game the wealthy play. But the poor middle class, they think it's about paying off a mortgage and funding the retirement plan, and they will argue about it until it's too late, when they get there and now their homes paid off, but the property taxes are higher than their mortgage was 20 years ago, you know. Or they have home maintenance they have to take care of, or inflation has destroyed the value. Like if someone were to put away 100 grand and they wait for 30 years if they got 10% which the market did the last 30 years, if you reinvest dividends, they're going to have right around $1.7 million but if they have to pay 2% in fees, fiduciary fees, 12 b1 fees, which are marketing fees for the fund expense ratio, you know, the fees of maybe a retirement plan, and they now have 2% fees. It only goes to 1.1 million. Huge difference. And that 1.1 million if we account for inflation, even if we said inflation was low, like 2.7% over that 30 years. Well, by the time we pay for inflation and tax, guess what? The purchasing power value is like, 300 grand $300,000 that's a problem, and it's because they didn't learn to create cash flow. It's because they didn't learn to invest in themselves. It's because they relied completely on a market they don't control. I'm not saying the market is completely something to avoid. I'm saying we go in sequence. How do you grow your income for. First, then how do you keep more of the income you make with? You know, financial savvy and plugging leaks. Then learn to grow your money, but maybe growing your money. For some I like to think of like three dimensional assets, like real estate's three dimensional. It can grow in equity, it can create cash flow, and it has tax advantages. But my business is three dimensional, the more my business creates cash flow, without me, the more equity it has, and that business has major tax advantages. So most people are one dimensional, pay off a loan, put a money in retirement account. That's the poor, middle class. Wealthy people build a system where they've got three dimensional assets, equity, cash flow and tax savings. And that is a complete game changer, because then they can employ the buy borrowed I strategy, if you have assets like, you know, an individual stock, or if you have assets, like a piece of real estate or a business, you could borrow against it. There's no tax on that five for life, right? You keep refinancing. Or you can even do charitable trust to avoid the taxes upon the sell of those paying no tax when there's gains. Or you can pass it on to the next generation with a step up in basis, which means they get it at the full value and not have to pay the difference. And if you have life insurance, the life insurance will pay back the loan that tax free as well. So buy, borrow, die. I mean, it's a completely different thought process of defer taxes. If you defer taxes, I get it. You could do a Roth IRA or Roth 401. K Sure, that'll let you put after tax money in and grow it. But where's the cash flow? What's the underlying investment? How does it help you create financial independence? How does it help you does it help you grow your skills to become a better investor? We've been taught to be lazy, not that people are lazy. We've just been taught to be lazy with our money. We've been fed a narrative. I don't have the time, I don't have the skill, I don't have the interest, but I want to have it, so I just hand it over. And who do we hand it over to Keith Wall Street. Wall would you trust Wall Street? Like you flew to Frankfurt not long ago. Would you get on Wall Street airlines where they're like, hey, sometimes our planes go up, sometimes they go down. That would brand, and he'd feel inspired, right? Would you go to Wall Street, you know, hospital? Or like, hey, he lost one of your kidneys, and by loss, we stole it and resold it. You know, like, Wall Street doesn't have a brand. That's good. It's boiler room. It's Wolf of Wall Street. It's the movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas. You know, greed is good like yet that's what people put their money into. And you can go to any downtown and any major city, and guess who has the biggest buildings, insurance companies, banks and Wall Street investment companies. So you're taking the size of your home and shrinking it to build up their building and put money in their pocket. And their story is, it's because they're Ivy League, they're smart. They try to make it complicated, but you don't have to know most of the things you think you need to know about finance. The foundational things are important, how to protect your assets, how to design insurance, to transfer risk, how to have some liquidity, how to automate your savings. And then you focus like Warren Buffett would teach. He said, You know how people would become a better investor if they only had 20 investments they could make over their lifetime? He says, I don't diversify because I'm in the know. He's like, I'm a good businessman, therefore I'm a good investor and I'm a good investor because I'm a good businessman. I don't separate the two. Yeah, most people think he's a stock market investor. No, he buys out the companies in the stock market. Rarely does he have minority stakes in it. He does have some of that, maybe with Coca Cola and apple, but he bought a lot of companies outright, whether it was Geico, whether it was See's Candies, whether it was like he buys these companies, he's so far outperformed the stock market by billions of dollars from an index fund like what he has, versus someone that put the same money in an index fund, Warren has billions more from his investments than the person that put all their money in the index fund, even if it was the same amount. It's completely about strategy, not about luck.   Keith Weinhold  33:30   Yeah, it's the Andrew Carnegie, put all your eggs in one basket and then watch your basket. Yeah? Watch that basket like a hawk. Totally. Yeah. I mean, stacks mutual funds, they have what I call those five simultaneous drags. If you think you're getting a 10% long term return over time, subtract out inflation, emotion, taxes, fees and volatility. What do you have left? Not much. But there's no friction there. It is just the easiest thing to do ever since decades ago, 401 K contributions begin to become automated throughout your paycheck, sometimes even automatically, automated   Garrett Gunderson  34:04   values your permission opt out. It's easy. You have to opt out, right? It's Big Brother. You don't know what's best for you. And by the way, how crazy are four one K's. Part of the reason the market has gone up in value is because people consistently fund for one case, whether the market's going up or down, they're told $8 cost average. So that's artificially fueling the market. When we see the numbers, there's a buffet index, and it's like 2.9 times higher than what he's comfortable with, with the stock market, because of how overinflated the market is, partially due to inflation, partially because people put money in. But let's remember, why did 401, K's even come about? Because pensions failed. And by the way, these pensions failed and they had world class money managers managing these multi billion dollar pensions, but they didn't know about something called disinvesting, or didn't know enough about it. When the market goes down and pension money is owed, they still have to pull money out of the pension to pay the employee which disinvests, which pulls more money out of the account. So now instead of just being 10% down, they might be 17% down. And so even if the market comes back 10% it's 10% of only 83% of the money. So not even back to square one. And if it goes down a second year in a row, they're in real trouble. It starts to chip away at the principal, and they can't recover. And that happened to pensions, and they said, Oh, here, we can't handle these. We're going bankrupt. We're going to get rid of pensions. You take care of it. Well, guess what? Vanguard says, the average balance in a 401, k right now is $148,000 how someone's supposed to live on $148,000 even if you could get 10% that's $14,800 a year taxable, that's not going to do it. Even if you have a million dollars, where are you going to put the million dollars to get the return without risking it going down? Maybe you're going to be in treasuries at 5% that's $50,000 taxable per year. You're a millionaire on paper, but living poorly. That's why I'm here to call these things out. I think that my book Killing Sacred Cows, which was my original New York Times bestseller, which is probably how we met. Yeah, I rewrote it. I rewrote it, rereleased it in 2024 and I'll give people the audiobook. They just have to DM me on Instagram. Garrett B Gunderson and DM the word cows with Keith's name, cows and Keith or Keith and cows. I'll hook you up with the book for free, so you can learn about the nine financial myths. We're talking about some of them here, but there's also some comedy in there, so they can laugh after each chapter. I threw some comedy in there. You know, if you like my comedy, I'm not the funniest comedian. I'm just the funniest money comedian. That's the reality.   Keith Weinhold  36:33   When we had the very inventor of the 401 k plan, Ted benna, come onto the show, he revealed to us that when 401 K plans rolled out, they were first called salary reduction plans. They had to scrap that name in order to foster participation. But reducing your salary is still principally what it does to you. You got to think about it that way and blow up some of these myths. But Garrett, you've already given a lot of great technical information about what someone can do, how someone can think differently. Bigger pictures, we're sort of winding down here. You know, when I'm thinking about this whole delayed versus denied gratification thing, how do you meter it out right throughout your life? I mean, what's your earmark your family legacy? How do you meter it out, right so you don't have too much or too little at the end of your life?   Garrett Gunderson  37:15   I like to see this strategy of, like, what would the rockfellers do that I wrote about is, you know, the beginning before that strategy is you pay yourself first, which has always been around Richest Man in Babylon. Tons of books talk about it. My argument is you want to pay yourself at least 15% of your personal income, off the top, to a separate account. Once you get six months in that account, now you start to invest that money, but you build your stability with that peace of mind. And we want 15% because the luxury once enjoyed becomes a necessity. So you want more money in the future, not the future, not less propensity to you know, there's also, just like planned obsolescence, things break down. You have to repair them. Technological change, we're buying new technology that doesn't even exist. I have now subscriptions to a bunch of AI things that help me out, right? But I'm spending more money. There's also taxes, those could go up in the future, or 38 trillion in debt as we film this, which is a crazy number. And there's also inflation. If we give 3% to each of those five factors, that's 15% now again, use the four i's, IRS, interest, investments and insurance to find that money, not just budgeting. But then here's the magic. At least 3% of your income should go to a separate account called the Living wealthy account. That's your guilt free spending, value based spending account, so you enjoy some money along the way. These are the things that are the finer things in life that people might say are wasteful. You know, there's a book called unreasonable hospitality that talks about this, 11 Madison Avenue was the number one rated restaurant in the world. And, you know, will who wrote the book talked about they had 3% of their budget to just go wild on their customers dream making money, right? So to create the special experience in the restaurant, and even the bear, I think was season three, showed some of that process of how they do that. So I highly recommend taking a certain percentage. You get to enjoy along the way. It could be higher than 3% but start there, and you're going to feel better, you're going to have different energy, you're going to show up in a different way. And then from there, I just believe in having trust, so that your money's outside of your estate, and protecting financial predators so you own nothing but control everything. And I personally use life insurance. I use just standard over, you know, like basically properly structured, optimally funded whole life, so that death benefit will come in after I die. It allows me to spend more of my money and then have it replenished so I can enjoy more of my money along the way, because I know that death benefit will be there for my wife or even for my family trust after I'm gone, so I don't disinherit the people that I love.   Keith Weinhold  39:31   Garrett Gunderson, he can take you through these steps, which he calls financially fit, to financially independent, and then finally to financially free. Tell us a little more about that going through those steps.   Garrett Gunderson  39:44   So financial fitness means your financial house is in order. You've got everything handled properly, car insurance, homeowners, liability, disability, medical life insurance, your corporate structures as a business owner, how you pay yourself, your taxes the last three years and move. Moving forward your investments. It's like, you know what it's going on. You've improved your cash flow, and you're dialed in. You're as safe as you could possibly be. Then financial independence is, how can we create income, especially from a business that comes in when you don't, that's people, that's processes, that's technology, so that you can be involved, but you don't have to be involved. This is the part most people miss, yeah, and I think it's crazy. A lot of people have this notion they're just going to work so hard so they can sell their business one day, I'm like, What about just creating a business that you love so much you don't want to sell it? What about giving up the things that are burning you out and have the employees that can take care of that so you do the things that you love and then just enjoy life along the way, take some little trips, take some time off and come back in. The business grows up when you're away, they learn how to do things without you, and then you can still create value into that business. I sold the business in 2021 and really regretted it, because I kind of was so removed from the business. I kind of felt like it lost its soul and I didn't feel connected to it. So this time around, I started a business in July of 2024 I'm like, I'm only going to work with the P with the people I love, building things that I love, and I'm not going to let myself get burned out by doing too much. We're going to take two weeks in Hawaii coming up here in April, just enjoy some time together as a family. We do quarterly family retreats with my wife and kids. We do traditions with my family up at my cabin, like I want to have this great life where it's blurs the lines between work and play. I have a little quote from someone else that talks about that art of life is blurring the lines between work and play, but also just having complete play sometimes that there is no work. So I come back refreshed, relaxed, rejuvenated and ready to create. And so really, that financial independence gives you permission to swing for the fences and what you do, knowing your foundation is handled, knowing that your lifestyle is covered, from assets to create cash flow gives you work optional freedom. But instead of retiring, think, what could your biggest impact be like? Create the life you don't want to retire from. Create a vision so compelling you can dedicate your life to it and find that the win is actually in the work, not just the outcome. I think that is the elegance of we win when we play, and when we have more play in our life. We don't try to escape from something. And when you start something, you might have to do things you hate, but you can eventually delegate it, and then life becomes great. I mean, one of my early coaches, Dan Sullivan, who I mentioned, a strategic coach. He's in his 80s, still behemoth of creating value in the in the market. To listen to him, you know, he's phenomenal. He's made such a huge difference in my life, and he has no intent of retiring. He just gets smarter every year, adds more value, builds more infrastructure, and he's the one that taught me the merit of free days, just taking time off, taking time away. So, yeah, that's financial independence. Is cash flow, and then financial freedom is a state of mind. It's when money is no longer the primary reason or excuse you would do or not do something. It's a consideration, but it's no longer the consideration means that you have a healthy relationship with money. Money is an asset and an ally, not an enemy. You don't come from a place of scarcity. You come from a place of abundance. You can be more present with your family and doing what you do without feeling distracted. I think wealth is our ability to be present, not necessarily how much money we have in a bank account. I think we have a good amount of money in a bank account, and we can be present. That is like true wealth.   Keith Weinhold  43:12   It harkens back to the John D Rockefeller, he who works all day has no time to make money. Rockefeller would have said, you can architect a wealth plan if your head is down on the assembly line, that means gradually move your offer. It's from trading your time for dollars over to owning assets that pay you to own them. Garrett's comedy special is called the American Ream. There's no D in that word, R, E, A, M. You can look that up, Garrett. It's been enlightening as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show.   Garrett Gunderson  43:43   Hey man, good to be back.   Keith Weinhold  43:51   Always. A lively conversation with Garrett, besides some great mindset perspective, he's really good at saving you tax and setting you up with asset protection. Though he's not as real estateish as me, he's pretty savvy. For example, He's aligned on the fact that, for example, say you have an 80k debt. Well, it doesn't necessarily mean that it makes sense for you to pay that off sometimes it does, but what happens to your net worth anytime you pay off an 80k debt, well, let's see. You've reduced your asset side by 80k and you've reduced your debt side by 80k so your net worth is the same, and retiring the debt means that you might have lost leverage, lost cash flow and lost tax advantages, all at the same time on Instagram, send a DM with the two words, Keith Cows to Garrett B Gunderson, and he'll hook you up with his book for free next week on the show, we go deep on does America really have a housing shortage with an expert analyst. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.    Speaker 4  45:01   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively   Keith Weinhold  45:29   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth. Building, get richeducation.com  

This week on History's Greatest Idiots, we're trying a slightly different mini-documentary format to explore one of the most bizarre success stories in American comedy: Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr., the man who proved you could become a millionaire by hitting produce with a mallet.From Science to SledgehammersBorn 24th July 1946 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Leo suffered severe asthma. His family relocated to South Tampa, Florida, for the warm weather. He became a championship roller skater at his father's rink, but wanted to be a scientist. In 1970, he graduated from the University of South Florida with a chemical engineering degree and English literature minor, then worked as a chemist.But when he became road manager for musician Jim Stafford, Kenny Rogers' manager asked if he would open for Rogers on a 100-night tour. Gallagher went from no stage experience to performing in America's largest auditoriums overnight.The Sledge-O-Matic and Cable Television StardomGallagher's big break came in 1975 with an appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. But his 1980 Showtime special launched him to stardom as cable television exploded. The centrepiece was the Sledge-O-Matic, a parody of infomercials. Gallagher smashed apples, oranges, cottage cheese, Big Macs, video game controllers, and finally watermelons. Chunks exploded into the audience.The first rows were covered in plastic sheeting. Audiences brought raincoats. They called it being 'Gallagherized'. From 1981 to 1987, he produced 16 specials on Showtime. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was America's highest-earning stand-up comedian, performing 200 shows yearly for 35 years, over 3,500 performances total, destroying tens of thousands of watermelons.Critics and RankingsWhilst Gallagher sold out theatres, the comedy establishment had mixed feelings. Critics dismissed his act as lowbrow. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked him 100th on their list of greatest stand-up comedians. Dead last. Gallagher was bitter, feeling underappreciated despite massive commercial success.The Brother WarsIn the early 1990s, brother Ron asked to perform Leo's routines. Leo agreed if Ron made it clear he was Ron Gallagher, not Leo. Ron toured as 'Gallagher II'. But promotional materials became unclear. In August 2000, Leo sued for trademark violation. Courts sided with Leo. But Gallagher's entire family sided with Ron. The estrangement lasted for life.The Final ActGallagher continued touring into his 70s. He owned patents for slot machine software. In 2003, he ran for California Governor, finishing 16th of 135 candidates. He appeared in a GEICO commercial. His health declined with three heart attacks between 2011 and 2012, collapsing onstage in Minnesota and before a Dallas show. Each time he recovered and returned. After 2012, he reduced touring. COVID-19 in 2020 stopped him entirely. On 11th November 2022, he died from organ failure in Palm Springs, aged 76.LegacyGallagher never got respect from the comedy establishment, but he had 35 years of sold-out shows, millions of fans, and the satisfaction of making people happy. Not bad for a guy who just wanted to be a scientist.From Science to SledgehammersThe Sledge-O-Matic and Cable Television StardomCritics and RankingsThe Brother WarsThe Final ActLegacy

This week on History's Greatest Idiots, we're trying a slightly different mini-documentary format to explore one of the most bizarre success stories in American comedy: Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr., the man who proved you could become a millionaire by hitting produce with a mallet.From Science to SledgehammersBorn 24th July 1946 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Leo suffered severe asthma. His family relocated to South Tampa, Florida, for the warm weather. He became a championship roller skater at his father's rink, but wanted to be a scientist. In 1970, he graduated from the University of South Florida with a chemical engineering degree and English literature minor, then worked as a chemist.But when he became road manager for musician Jim Stafford, Kenny Rogers' manager asked if he would open for Rogers on a 100-night tour. Gallagher went from no stage experience to performing in America's largest auditoriums overnight.The Sledge-O-Matic and Cable Television StardomGallagher's big break came in 1975 with an appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. But his 1980 Showtime special launched him to stardom as cable television exploded. The centrepiece was the Sledge-O-Matic, a parody of infomercials. Gallagher smashed apples, oranges, cottage cheese, Big Macs, video game controllers, and finally watermelons. Chunks exploded into the audience.The first rows were covered in plastic sheeting. Audiences brought raincoats. They called it being 'Gallagherized'. From 1981 to 1987, he produced 16 specials on Showtime. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was America's highest-earning stand-up comedian, performing 200 shows yearly for 35 years, over 3,500 performances total, destroying tens of thousands of watermelons.Critics and RankingsWhilst Gallagher sold out theatres, the comedy establishment had mixed feelings. Critics dismissed his act as lowbrow. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked him 100th on their list of greatest stand-up comedians. Dead last. Gallagher was bitter, feeling underappreciated despite massive commercial success.The Brother WarsIn the early 1990s, brother Ron asked to perform Leo's routines. Leo agreed if Ron made it clear he was Ron Gallagher, not Leo. Ron toured as 'Gallagher II'. But promotional materials became unclear. In August 2000, Leo sued for trademark violation. Courts sided with Leo. But Gallagher's entire family sided with Ron. The estrangement lasted for life.The Final ActGallagher continued touring into his 70s. He owned patents for slot machine software. In 2003, he ran for California Governor, finishing 16th of 135 candidates. He appeared in a GEICO commercial. His health declined with three heart attacks between 2011 and 2012, collapsing onstage in Minnesota and before a Dallas show. Each time he recovered and returned. After 2012, he reduced touring. COVID-19 in 2020 stopped him entirely. On 11th November 2022, he died from organ failure in Palm Springs, aged 76.LegacyGallagher never got respect from the comedy establishment, but he had 35 years of sold-out shows, millions of fans, and the satisfaction of making people happy. Not bad for a guy who just wanted to be a scientist.From Science to SledgehammersThe Sledge-O-Matic and Cable Television StardomCritics and RankingsThe Brother WarsThe Final ActLegacy

Patrick Hagen is a Regent University School of Law graduate and works as an Associate Attorney at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. This episode with Patrick Hagan is one that truly captures what it means to play the long game in the legal profession. Patrick takes us down his journey, from growing up with a lawyer father, to scanning documents in his dad's office and deciding law wasn't for him, to working at GEICO, where the spark was reignited, all the way through law school at Regent, clerkships at the state and federal level, and into private practice at Nelson Mullins.Patrick breaks down the two essential skill sets every lawyer needs: the practical lawyering skills and the people skills, and with over 41,000 followers on LinkedIn, he shares how he built an incredible platform around legal writing tips, lessons from the bench, and professional growth, further showing the power of putting yourself out there consistently.This was a fantastic conversation with a guy who truly embodies ownership, mentorship, and playing the long game. One you don't want to miss!Patrick's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hagenlawBe sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.comThe Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa's recorded course!Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!Lawyers in the Making Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Lawyers in the Making Podcast at lawyersinthemaking.substack.com/subscribe

A CMO Confidential Interview with Pete Imwalla, former CEO of RPA and 4A's board member. Pete shares his take on how many tech changes resulted in additional agency headcount, how AI is rapidly reversing that trend, and why many agency valuations have dropped significantly over the last 5 years. Key topics include: why brand building is like infrastructure; how Publicis is bucking the trend; how to think about "in-housing;" and why Paul Roetzer's CMO 2023 CMO Confidential show was prescient. Tune in to hear about the "2nd mover advantage" and why he hates the concept of "future proofing." Agency economics are getting rewritten in the age of AI. Mike Linton sits down with Pete Imwalle 32-year RPA veteran and former CEO to dissect what's changing—and what leaders should do about it. They cover the shift from reach to relevance, why FTE-based fees are misaligned in an AI world, how to separate automation from actual advantage, and where in-housing does and doesn't work. Along the way: the sustained business impact of the Farmers “We know a thing or two…” campaign, the rise of agentic workflows, and why “future-proofing” starts with culture, not clairvoyance. Chapters00:00:00 – Cold open + show setup00:00:22 – Mike's intro, Pete's background, and today's topic00:01:18 – Farmers campaign wins Sustained Effie) and effectiveness creativity00:02:18 – 30 years of change: from Prodigy/AOL/CompuServe to Netscape and the open web00:03:24 – Google + broadband: when digital finally changed consumer behavior00:04:33 – Mobile's second wave and the trap of “mobile-first/AI-first” strategies00:06:01 – How agencies adapted: leadership, curiosity, and tolerance for experimentation00:07:42 – Investing ahead of revenue: offense + defense in capability building00:08:22 – Reach fragmentation: from “40% on Cheers” to only the Super Bowl00:09:18 – The real squeeze: boards treating advertising as expense, not investment00:10:13 – Short-termism, PE/VC incentives, and brand vs. performance00:12:21 – “Adapt or die”: AI as an extinction event? (hat tip: Paul Roetzer)00:13:28 – Agentic workflows: shrinking grunt work (esp. media & strategy ops)00:16:00 – Client asks: “give me savings, don't risk my IP”00:16:36 – Why FTE pricing disincentivizes efficiency; pay for outcomes instead00:17:51 – Three futures: AI-native, AI-emergent, or obsolete00:21:39 – Holding-company moves; why Publicis is outpacing peers00:22:00 – Agency valuations: ~40% decline over five years; second-mover advantage in AI00:26:37 – In-housing: when it works, when it backfires, and true cost to own00:28:48 – Build vs. buy: amortization, maintenance, and staying current00:30:16 – The Geico lesson: investing through the curve until returns flatten00:31:22 – What to test by EOY 2026: culture, change management, and low-hanging automation00:34:02 – Ditch “future-proofing”; hire for curiosity and adaptability00:35:35 – Wrap + where to find more CMO ConfidentialTagsCMO Confidential,Mike Linton,Pete Imwalle,RPA,agency economics,advertising,marketing leadership,AI in marketing,agentic workflows,media planning,marketing strategy,brand vs performance,FTE pricing,procurement,in-housing,holding companies,Publicis,Omnicom,Super Bowl ads,Effie Awards,Farmers Insurance campaign,Geico case study,change management,digital transformation,marketing AI,MarTech,measurement,short term vs long term,CMO,CEO,CFO,board governanceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

HOUR1 Hour 1 of Rush To Reason turns Friday into movie night as Andy Peth delivers two sharply different 5-Star Movie Reviews—one heartfelt, one unsettling. Looking for a feel-good escape or a nerve-rattling experiment? This hour has both. First up is Solo Mio, a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of Italy's charm. Andy walks listeners through a story of heartbreak, healing, and unexpected connection. It's a surprisingly good choice heading into Valentine's season. Then the tone shifts hard with Iron Lung, a claustrophobic sci-fi horror born from YouTube culture. Andy applauds the lead performance and chilling concept, but doesn't hold back on its flaws. His verdict? Tune in to find out. Two movies. Two worlds. Which one's worth your time?

HOUR1 Hour 1 of Rush To Reason turns Friday into movie night as Andy Peth delivers two sharply different 5-Star Movie Reviews—one heartfelt, one unsettling. Looking for a feel-good escape or a nerve-rattling experiment? This hour has both. First up is Solo Mio, a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of Italy's charm. Andy walks listeners through a story of heartbreak, healing, and unexpected connection. It's a surprisingly good choice heading into Valentine's season. Then the tone shifts hard with Iron Lung, a claustrophobic sci-fi horror born from YouTube culture. Andy applauds the lead performance and chilling concept, but doesn't hold back on its flaws. His verdict? Tune in to find out. Two movies. Two worlds. Which one's worth your time?

Sometimes the real magic behind building a standout brand isn't the product at all — but the women it brings together. For Charis Jones, founder + CEO of Sassy Jones, community has always been the secret ingredient. What started as a side hustle selling wholesale jewelry while working at GEICO has evolved into a bold, multi-million-dollar fashion brand — and an even bolder movement of women who gather, travel, celebrate, and grow together both online AND off.In this episode of REWARD: The Podcast of The Trust, our founder Ali Brown sits down with Charis for a vibrant, behind-the-scenes look at how Sassy Jones was built through intuition, proximity, and unapologetic connection. From driving cross-country in her minivan to meet customers face-to-face, to hosting unforgettable community experiences (including a trip to Egypt), Charis breaks down what it *really* takes to turn customers into a devoted community.This conversation is a powerful reminder that in an increasingly digital world, the brands that win are the ones brave enough to go deeper — and offline.On this episode of the #REWARDPodcast, you'll hear:How Charis transitioned from corporate life to founding Sassy Jones — without a master plan Why personal storytelling and meaningful details are essential to building a brand that lasts The underestimated power of offline connection in creating trust and loyalty (trade shows, road trips, real conversations)How a single challenging customer moment unlocked Charis's creative direction and design instinct (this was our favorite!)Ali's insight on why human connection is the ultimate differentiator in today's digital-first marketplaceIf you're building a brand and wondering how to create deeper loyalty, richer relationships, and real resonance — this episode is your invitation to think beyond the product and back into community.And, learn more about The Trust and Charis! Learn more about The Trust – our tight-knit community for 7+8-figure women entrepreneurs Learn more about Charis' company Sassy JonesFollow Charis on Instagram + YouTubeConnect with us on social using the hashtag #RewardPodcast and share your key takeaways from this episode!

My guest this week is Jonathan Sackett, a former D1 track athlete turned music industry insider who recorded at Paisley Park and Flight Time before moving into advertising where he built award-winning work for giants - Geico, Coca-Cola, Walmart, McDonald's, IBM, Harley-Davidson, Budweiser, and Mars. He did it at agencies like FCB, the Martin Agency, DDB, and Ogilvy.He now partners with former NBA star, Jamal Mashburn, as a board member of Mashburn Enterprises and he serves as Chief MarComm and Brand Officer for the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, where he rebranded to NEI and launched the NEI Pioneer podcast, which topped six million views last year.

Gary Mishuris is a CFA and managing partner of Silver Ring Value Partners who combines MIT computer science training with behavioral discipline to practice intrinsic value investing while pioneering practical AI integration in fundamental research.The episode is sponsored by TenzingMEMO — the AI-powered market intelligence platform I use daily for smarter company analysis. Code BILLIONS gets you an extended trial + 10% off.https://www.tenzingmemo.com/And if you haven't yet, find me on Substack!3:00 - Gary frames AI through personal experience: recalls Fidelity portfolio manager using legal pad instead of Excel 25 years ago—illustrates how refusing modern tools creates disadvantage, not discipline.5:30 - The two extremes of AI: Luddite view (AI pollutes your process) vs. magic genie fallacy (ask AI for winning stocks). Reality: AI enables more efficient work, but you still do the hard work.7:15 - “AI natives” concept: younger professionals naturally integrate AI like digital natives adopted technology. Gary warns against becoming dinosaurs by refusing to explore AI's capabilities.12:00 - Key insight: AI forces introspection about your investment process. Where do you add unique value and judgment? Where are repetitive tasks easily enhanced by machines? Must stay “on the loop” and verify outputs.22:00 - Practical AI applications: earnings call analysis, pattern recognition across transcripts, competitor analysis, business model breakdowns. AI excels at synthesis and organization tasks.35:00 - Critical limitation: AI hallucinates and makes mistakes. Never trust blindly. Use AI to generate drafts, frameworks, and organize information—then apply human judgment and verification.45:00 - Discussion of behavioral traps: AI can create illusion of thoroughness through volume. Don't confuse encyclopedic reports with quality analysis. Reference to Buffett's one-page 1951 Geico analysis.58:00 - Warning about endless research: Know when to stop turning rocks. AI makes it too easy to keep researching instead of making decisions. Investment case should fit on one page.1:05:00 - Shorting discussion: timing challenges, asymmetric risk. Emphasis on finding your own process—what works for others may not work for you.1:10:00 - Final wisdom: “Don't equate length with quality. Quality is quality”—whether generated with AI assistance or not. Process matters more than tools.Podcast Program – Disclosure StatementBlue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm's employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice.Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

In this episode of the Tactical Dent Tech Podcast, I break down the real realities of getting paid on insurance jobs, especially when you're doing hail work outside of direct repair networks. Sitting in our new shop, surrounded by active hail jobs, I walk through the exact issues we deal with when it comes to insurance payments — delays, confusion, mixed messages, paper checks, ACH deposits, and why you need systems in place to protect your cash flow as you scale. This episode covers: Why insurance companies struggle to pay non-network shops The difference between proof of payment and promises Why direction to pay is non-negotiable Using power of attorney to keep jobs moving How different insurance companies operate (State Farm, GEICO, Progressive, and others) Why you must "lock the bike up" in your business Creating SOPs for insurance payments Protecting yourself as volume increases Avoiding surprises after repairs are complete If you're doing insurance work — or planning to ramp up hail volume — this episode will help you tighten your process, reduce risk, and make sure you actually get paid without chasing checks. This is one of those conversations where seasoned hail techs will nod their head, and newer techs will take notes. Relate or educate — either way, this one matters. Welcome to the Tactical Tech Movement.

Rich Kahn, CEO and Co-Founder of Anura, is driven by a mission to help businesses grow by eliminating digital ad fraud that silently siphons marketing budgets. A lifelong entrepreneur and developer, Rich is passionate about ensuring that advertising dollars reach real users—not bots, malware, or human fraud. We explore Rich's journey from launching an early digital advertising platform to uncovering widespread fraud that threatened his own business—and how building an internal solution eventually led to Anura. Rich breaks down his Ad Optimization Framework—Minimize Fraud, Optimize Conversion, Refresh Content—and explains why fraud must be addressed before any meaningful optimization can occur. He also shares how ad fraud impacts ROI, why lifetime value matters more than cost-per-click, and the conviction required to build and scale a SaaS company in a crowded market. — Improve Traffic Quality by 25% Overnight with Rich Kahn Good day, dear listeners. My name is Steve Preda, the Founder of the Summit OS Group, and the creator of the Summit OS Business Operating System. And today, my guest isa Rich Kahn, the CEO and Co-founder of Anura, an ad fraud solution that monitors traffic to identify real users versus bots, malware, and human fraud. Rich, welcome to the show.  Thanks for having me today.   Well, it’s super interesting business you have and the entrepreneurial journey. So let’s start with my favorite question. What is your personal ‘Why’, and how are you manifesting it in Anura?  My personal ‘Why’ has always been to help people. Fraud is a huge problem. And it’s no longer a question of if you have fraud, it’s a question of how much fraud you have. And I’m watching people spend millions and millions of dollars on digital marketing and getting it siphoned out by fraudsters with bogus traffic. So the ‘Why’ is that, in all the businesses that I've done, I've wanted to help people grow their business. I want to help people grow their staff. I wanted to help people grow, just in general.Share on X And in this case, with the Anura, I’m able to help them identify, wasted spend, eliminate that so they can grow their marketing campaigns and grow their company. And if they grow their company, then they have to grow their staff, and it’s a good thing for everybody. Yeah, definitely. And until we talked, I was not aware that fraud is rampant, especially in ad spend. It didn't occur to me. And I kind of wonder why this is happening. But tell me how you found this problem, and why do you want to solve this, and how did you get to this point to launch a company about it?  Well, in 2003, my wife and I launched a digital marketing firm. Think of Google, but really small. So it’s text-based ads you can target by keyword, bid price, geography, audience, like it had all these targeting criteria. We launched it in 2003. By 2004, we had a nice, stable list of clients, but we started getting some complaints about the traffic quality. Something wasn’t right. And I’m a developer, so I started looking at the code and realizing, looking at all the analytics and the data, and realized that it was bad traffic, it was fraudulent traffic. So I figured, you know what? I don't want to solve fraud. I want to go out, buy a fraud solution, bolt it onto my platform, and just continue doing my business.Share on X Kind of like buying McAfee for your laptop. You just buy and let it scan and do its thing. But in 2004, it didn't exist any fraud solutions. In fact, the first commercial available fraud solution didn’t start selling until 2008 or '09. So I was a developer, and I said, we're going to lose our business if I don't do something. So I figured it out I'd build it myself, and we did. I wrote the software. It worked great. We had to continue evolving it as fraud evolved. And it got to the point where we started having clients ask—if not beg—to use our software outside of our network. And that’s when we kind of got the idea that this might be a good tool to sell by itself, as opposed to baked into our platform. And that's where we launched it, in 2017. We ended up launching a Anura as a standalone solution.  Wow. I mean, it's definitely, if this is a big problem, it's going to affect everyone who advertises. So it could be hundreds of millions of people. How can someone even make money with fraudulent traffic? How does it help them to make money?   Well, what happens is internet advertising fraud is not illegal. There’s no law that says you can’t do it. So if you do find somebody that’s doing it, it’s really difficult to prosecute them in the U.S. But a lot of it happens overseas, so it’s even worse. There’s a lot of countries that allow all kinds of stuff. So basically, what we focus on is that their job is to try to make money. And I read an article one time from another company that was doing stats on fraud detection. They said the average fraudster—and this is why they do it—makes $5 million a year. But how?  There’s a lot of different ways. It depends if they're buying from Google, Facebook, DSPs, or affiliate marketing. But I’ll give you a simple example. One example, which is affiliate marketing. A lot of companies use affiliate marketing. I think it's a $20 or $30 billion industry at this point. It's a big market. So what happens is, right now, you or I can go to Amazon and sign up for their affiliate program, and every time we send them a new client, they'll give us 5% of what they spend. So I'm getting paid on the spend, right? So what if I sent fake users there? I’m not going to get paid for anything because they're not spending money. But what if I’m the fraudster? I use stolen credit cards to make those purchases. So if the purchase gets made and shipped, I get 5%. Affiliates usually get paid net 7. So I get paid net 7, somewhere across that month, maybe the next month, the person whose credit card was stolen says, “Hey, wait a second, I recognize charges that don't belong to me.” And then the investigation starts and takes months before it comes back to Amazon and says, “Oh, you shipped out a product to a fraudulent credit card. You're not getting paid for this. We're taking the money back.” But by then, they've already shipped the product, so they're out the hard cost of the product. They've already paid out the affiliate. The affiliate has already been paid. The affiliate can continue to do that for weeks, knowing that it’s going to take months for them to get caught. Once they get caught, they just set up another account. And what they're doing is making those affiliate margins. So if they spend a hundred dollars, they make five. If they create dozens and dozens of accounts, you can quickly see how they can make a lot of money in a short period of time. That’s just one example.  Yeah. That’s very interesting. Very interesting. So, okay, that’s really cool. So you basically help people not have the fake traffic. So whatever traffic they have, it’s real. So they pay real prices for real value. That’s got to be a significant improvement in advertising efficiency. What is the kind of improvement that you see on average happening for people?  On average, it’s 25% improvement. So 25% of the marketing dollars that they’re spending is fraudulent. Now, if they buy from like Google and Facebook, it's probably around 10%—they're on the lower side. If you buy from the programmatic space, like The Trade Desk and things like that, it’s upwards of 50%, and then everything else falls in between. All the digital types of marketing. If you're doing influencer advertising, if you're doing affiliate advertising, each one has different levels of fraud that we’ve found. But on the high side is programmatic, and on the low side is probably search and social.   Okay, so this seems like a big part of optimizing an ad, and making it perform better. So what I’d like you to share with us—and we'd talked about this in the pre-call is that you have a framework for generally optimizing digital ads. So what would that look like? And one element is fraud, but what are the other elements, and how do you go about optimizing your advertisement?  Sure. Like the heaviest hitter, in my opinion, is fraud. So you start with fraud, you look at where fraud is, and you minimize that, right? The next thing you want to focus on is conversion value. Every campaign has some level of conversion. It could be as simple as a click. It could be as simple as watching a video. It could be purchasing a product. It could be generating a lead for, let’s say, Hey, save money on my car insurance, and you fill out a lead. So what you want to do is look at where that conversion takes place. First off, you want to analyze the conversions because not all conversions are real conversions. You’ll get conversions like credit cards, fake credit cards being used, or fake information being used in fill in forms, and that’s where the fraud comes in. Once you eliminate that, now you can rely on the data that you see in your conversion value, and you start optimizing your campaigns around that conversion value. So as long as hey, this source is generating me a 20% conversion, this source is generating me 10%. Guess what? I want to stop spending on the 10%, spend more than the 20% just optimizing for the conversion value. And that's what's going to get your campaign to perform at its highest level.Share on X  So what are ways to optimize conversion beyond the fraud piece? Yeah, so once fraud’s out of the game, we’ve eliminated fraud, it’s really focusing on the data. What source you buy the traffic from, what sources they get the traffic from. Because sometimes you might buy a source of traffic like Google, and it may not come from Google. It may come from one of its syndicated partners like a CNN or a weather.com or Bloomberg, somewhere where you’re not familiar with, but if they’re getting traffic, that’s their partner network. They’re getting traffic from there. So you want to identify the sources. It could be by keyword, right? You can take a look and break it down by keyword. If you're looking at Google and maybe you have certain keywords that have a much higher performance because it's a better audience to targetShare on X and then you can have some that are much lower, then you got to decide what the cutoff is. So if you say, “Hey, anything less than a 10% conversion, I'm going to get rid of. And anything greater than 10%, I'm going to buy more of.” So that’s kind of where you focus on your conversion value. And ultimately, it’s to try to maximize your conversion while still spending your budget. Because let's say if you've got a source that's converting at 80%. It's going to be far and few between, and they're going to be expensive, and the volume of traffic is going to be light, and it's not going to be enough. Because if you've got one conversion a month, that's probably not enough to survive your company on. So you got to get somewhere in between, where you get the volume and you get the conversion value that you're looking for to give you the best possible campaign.Share on X So basically, you calculate your ROI on each type of conversion, and you get to a point where you still get a positive ROI. Is there like a rule of thumb? What is the kind of ROI do you need in order for it to generally be worth taking the risk of doing the advertising and putting in the effort?  Yeah. It’s very different from client to client. It’s got to be specific to a client. And I'll give you an example. I used to work with a company called TigerDirect. They were a huge reseller of electronics, computers, computer components, and stuff like that. And they would spend $110 to generate a $20 sale. So everybody knows that’s losing money, right? You're losing $80 on every sale you generate, or whatever the number is. If they're spending $100 to generate a sale just to get a $20 sale, why would they do that?  Well, they know once they get a client in the door, they market. They used to send weekly magazines of all the new stuff that's out in the market, the new pricing index, constant email bombardments. They would call you and say, “Hey, I saw you bought recordable CDs. We have a special on recordable CDs if you're looking for them.” They would market like crazy to their client base, and they would average over $300 per client.  So that’s the lifetime value.   Right. Their lifetime value was much greater than their cost for acquisition. And they were comfortable and in a position to spend that money to acquire the client knowing that they would make the money over time. Most companies don't operate that way. Most companies operate like GEICO—they pay $15 or $20 to get somebody to fill out a form saying they want to save money on car insurance. And they may close 15% of those leads into actual deals. And when they do the math, they’re making money every single lead that they get in, the ones that convert. And on the ones they lose, they're making enough money on the wins that the losses are outweighed, and they're still making money. So again, every company, every product—it's different. I've seen the same industries, like car insurance. Let's stick with car insurance. I've seen four or five companies where I'm looking at their conversion rates. Conversion rates are different. Their ROIs are different, their spend is different—everything's different. It's just targeting different audiences.Share on X  So if I had unlimited funding, let’s say, and I want to ramp up as fast as possible, but I wanted to make it in a smart way. Is there like a rule of thumb that your lifetime value—the profit you make on a customer—has to be 3x the amount you spend on advertising? And the lifetime is measured by the profit, not the top line, but the bottom line.  Yeah, I haven't seen a specific rule of thumb to give clients. Obviously, your lifetime value of a client needs to be more than the cost to acquire that client.  And if you want to be profitable, not every company starts out profitable. Look at Uber—they were a billion-dollar company before they went profitable. They were able to raise enough money to keep everything going, because all they cared about was client acquisition.  Yeah.  Let me get as many clients and as many drivers and riders in the door, as many drivers and riders in the door as they can possibly get so they can own the market. They had a great idea. Lyft was right behind them. They didn’t care. They were able to raise enough capital to just keep spending like crazy, knowing that in the long game, once they owned the market in all the different markets they were targeting, they were going to be profitable.Share on X So they were spending like crazy.  Doesn't that mean that there are some actors in the advertising market that inflate prices because maybe they’re venture-funded, and one out of a hundred company is going to make it unicorn? And the other 99 are going to be spending money on advertising, driving up prices. So if someone comes in and they're bootstrapping, they're going to be hard-pressed to actually make a return on their Facebook ads, because there's so much demand chasing results without appropriate expectation.  Well, if there’s enough demand, then the bootstrapper can make it work. I’ve been a bootstrapper my whole life. So if you’re in a market where there’s enough demand, it’ll work. But if you're in a situation where, let's say today, you decide to come up with a rideshare app, you're going to be hard-pressed to win riders and drivers as a new bootstrapped company. Personally, I don't think Uber would be where it is today if it were bootstrapped. A business model like that required to grow fast, and they needed the capital to do it. So there are certain industries that bootstrappers just aren't going to be able to touch, because you've got a company like Uber that was losing money while acquiring all these new clients, knowing that down the road they would own the network and they would be able to be profitable. That’s a big gamble. Yeah. But it's also all the other companies that get funding but never actually make it. And the venture capitalists are spreading their risk because they invest in ten companies, and if one blows up, that's enough.  Yeah.   So that means that there’s a lot of fake demand, basically.  Well, I’m talking about the demand from the client, not demand from the company. The company has the product, and they're trying to generate demand for their product. So when I say demand, I mean demand from the customer.  No, I mean, demand for advertising.  Oh, okay. Yeah, I see what you’re saying.  So clicks.   Yeah. So there's a limited number of people that are looking for that term. You’ve got a lot of people spending money. It’s going to make it difficult to get it unless you’re spending a lot per click.   Yeah.  So that means that maybe pay-per-click advertising is not for the faint of heart.  I wouldn't say that.  Yeah.   It's not for everybody when you're talking about every industry, right? Certain industries—I’ll give you an example. Let's say you're a roofer. Pay-per-click is going to work great for you because there are only so many roofers in a given area, and there's a high demand for roofing. You can get away with spending a couple dollars a click, where it’s not going to break the bank, and you get that phone ringing. My son, for example, owns a power washing and holiday lighting company. And he does Facebook and Google ads. He’s a small company, bootstrapped, and generates plenty of demand because of that situation. But again, if he decided he wanted to compete with Uber, he'd be lost. So it really depends on the industry, Insurance. Let's say you want to start your own Rich Kahn insurance company. Well, I’m going to be competing against Allstate, Progressive, GEICO—all these companies that are spending heavily in that sector. The only way you're going to get action is to spend more per click than they do. And if I’m spending more per click, and I don’t have the scale like they do, I’m going to lose money. Yeah. Super interesting. So let’s circle back to your framework. So we talked about fraud minimization as a way to optimize ads. We talked about conversion. What's the third leg of this stool?  For me, it’s content.   So let's say you've got fraud out of the game. You optimize by campaign and your ads are showing up number one every single time, but the copy doesn't draw. Or you don't refresh the copy often enough, then it gets stale, and people see it and think, “Eh, let me try somebody new.” So they're always looking for newer content, a way to hook the client. You really have to optimize campaign copy. So again, working with Google—that's ones out there—you have the ability to put up multiple ads, multiple creatives. Their system will automatically take titles and rotate them for you so they stay unique. And then they'll push more traffic to the ones that are getting a better conversion rate or a better click-through rate. So it's about constantly staying on top of your copy. Just like when you watch TV. You'll see the same companies advertising over and over again, but it's always a different commercial because they're trying to hook you. If they played the same commercial for the last 20 years, you'd just tune it out.  Tune it out. Yeah.   Yeah. But when you see something new, it's like, “Oh, let me watch that one.” It's kind of cool. Because the commercials have to have good copy. If it's boring, stale copy, nobody's going to pay attention.  And if it's entertaining, then it's even better, right?   Exactly. If it becomes memorable and you think, “Oh my God, you've got to see this commercial I just saw, it was amazing,” that's the kind of commercial you try to build—but it's very difficult to build.  Yeah, that’s very interesting. The creative element is very important. To catch attention and keep it, it has to be creative, curiosity-inducing, and potentially entertaining. That’s wonderful.  Yeah.  So when did you decide to go all in on Anura?  Yeah. We launched it April 1st, 2017. We spent that first year trying to figure out who we were as a business. Because I'd never sold SaaS before, so I was trying to figure out—do I have a pitch deck? How do I talk to people? What works best? How do I get the person to say they're interested and want to get on a call? There was so many things that we were struggling with that first year. I don’t know if we signed up more than one or two clients that first year. By the second year, we signed up a bunch of clients because we started to figure out what was working, who we’re talking to, the right trade shows to go to, the right Google ad campaigns to run.  And as we started getting that, we started getting our traction and we started growing the client base. So I guess we would say we launched in 2017, but really went all in in 2018. That's when we saw our first couple of clients jump on the software, fall in love with it, give us case studies and reviews, and say, “I can't believe how you changed my business. This is amazing.” Once we got into the hands of a client, and we had one or two clients that really embraced it, that's when we felt, “Okay, we're onto something special. We're all in.” That was about 2018.  And then you started winding down your consulting business and went all in on the SaaS business?  Yeah. We left the Google competitor, the really small Google competitor marketing agency. We left it up for a couple years because we had some clients that were still buying and using it. As the client attrition naturally occurred, we got to a point where we said, “Okay, it's time to shut it down.” That was also around 2018–2019. Basically, in 2018 we pulled all the resources from it and just kept it running for the clients that were still there. They'd been with us for years, so we kept it stable. We weren't going to trade shows, we weren't advertising it. Support was handled by two of us, the client support, actually the whole company was run by two of us, three of us, and we just let it run for a couple of years until the last client jumped off, and then we shut it down. Yeah. Actually, that's a great approach—to evolve from a business that maybe has a ceiling, find another opportunity, start putting more time into it as it takes off, reallocate resources, use the legacy business as a cash cow, your legacy business and then once the new business takes off, then basically cut bait. That’s very interesting. And I’ve seen this happen. I’ve done it myself as well. So what's the hardest decision you've ever had to make in your business?   I’m going over the last 22 years. The hardest decision I ever had to make was firing a best friend. And unfortunately, it actually happened twice. My two best friends—one was a partner and one was an employee. We were working together, and it just got to the point where we had to go our separate ways from a business standpoint, and that hurt the relationship. We stopped talking. It was a bad breakup. And I just ran into them about a year ago, and we picked up where we left off—bygones be bygones. It was tough back then because you have a good friend, and it's like, “Oh, I want to bring my friends into the business. So I always tell new business owners when they're starting: if you're going to start the business with friends as a partner, that's different.Share on X But don't hire your friends as employees. Because if you hire them as employees and you have to make a business decision that doesn't go well for them, they're going to pull the “friend card.” And you’re going to be stuck between either getting rid of a bad employee, and I say bad, but like an employee that you need to get rid of or lose a friend. That’s tough. Friends are hard to come by, especially good friends. Especially when you get older and your kids are out of school, you're not hanging out on the sidelines at sports or having coffee with people. As you get older, there are fewer groups you hang out in, so it's harder to find friends. So it’s not worth losing a friend over business.  Yeah, I agree. I agree. I had this experience as well, and it’s it was super painful for both of us. It did impact the relationship, even though we both put up a brave face over it, but it kind of breaks the trust.  Yeah. It’s not fun.   Yeah. So, final question I want to ask you is: what is the most important question an entrepreneur should ask themselves, in your opinion?  Am I willing to not give up? Like I said, when I started this company, it wasn’t a new concept. If it’s a new concept, it's a lot easier to say, “Man, I'm going to crush this.” Because when we started this, there were probably about a half a dozen different fraud solutions in the marketplace back in 2017. There was a handful of them that were out. They were already getting a lot of traction. I think all of them were fully funded and doing really well. It’s not the greatest time in the world to enter the fraud detection market when you have traction like that—kind of like entering the market trying to compete with Uber. But I looked at it and thought, based on everything I was doing, I think we have a better product. And once we started getting that feedback from clients who use the other products and realized we had a better product, it made me more convinced that this is the direction we want to go to.Share on X We want to turn this into its own company. We want to grow it. And for me, that question is: is this something I can do and not give up on? But if it’s something like you’re like, “Ah, if it doesn't do this, I don't know,” then don't start. Because one of the things you’ll find with most entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs, they don’t give up, persistence. They’re can be smart about it, but persistent.   It’s also a balance. It’s a belief. Maybe this is what you’re talking about that, do you have this conviction that this is going to work out in the end?  Yeah.  So how do you know? How do you know that you are willing to not give up? What makes you be able to make this decision? Is this a decision or is this like an ongoing question that you keep asking yourself?  For me, it's: I've got to run it through my head and feel that it's an unfillable business. And then I got to feel it in my heart. If I don’t feel it in my head and my heart, I’m not going to do it. I’ve had cut dozens and dozens of great ideas, some that I think would be phenomenal even in today’s standard, but I didn't have the resources I wanted behind them. I didn't really have the heart in those businesses, so I didn't start them. I wasn't all in. Like I said before, with this business, when we started it, I was all in with my toe. And then once I started getting feedback from clients, I jumped in. Because then I knew, it wasn’t me saying I’ve got the best solution, it was my client’s telling me I got a better solution. And then as I get client after client, so now you know, you look at seven, eight years later, I’ve got new people in the office. I started working for this new fraud company. I see they’re kind of small compared to some of the other big companies out in the marketplace. And then they’re on the phone with clients who are like ranting and raving about our software. They come back—now they're all in. And that's really what I want is I want every team member to feel that, to know that they're with the right company. It's not just for me—it's for the team too. Share on X Yeah, the team. I agree. That’s super important. Well, I love that. And this whole idea of the client feedback, reinforcing the value, and making people confident to sell it is huge. Yeah.  All right. So if people would like to reach out to learn about your solution—maybe they’re advertising, they’re spending a lot of money, and they want to save the 25% without losing any conversions, or they just want to reach out and learn more about and get to know you—where should they go and how can they reach you?   I would start with anura.io or www.anura.com . We own both. And on there, we have huge amount of resources. We publish several blogs every week. We have dozens of eBooks online. We have the world’s only comprehensive guide on ad fraud, it’s about an 80 page document. So plenty of ways to learn. And then once they want to talk to somebody, once they’re ready, and like they’ve done their research and they’re ready to talk to us, they can fill out a form and we'll reach out, or they can just pick up the phone and call us. If they want to follow me on LinkedIn, that’s my social media of choice. I post videos like this on there, some wacky videos sometimes with me and my grandkids. The best way to find me is just Rich Kahn on LinkedIn. I'm easy to find.   Awesome. Well, Rich, thank you for coming and sharing your framework—the Ad Optimization Framework. So it's content, fraud minimization, conversion, and this idea of conviction: when you are willing to not give up concept. It’s fabulous. For those of you listening, if you found this valuable, follow us on YouTube, check out our LinkedIn page, and stay tuned because every week we are going to get a wonderful contributor like Rich Kahn, the CEO of Anura. So Rich, thanks for coming and thanks for listening.  Appreciate it. Important Links: Rich's LinkedIn Rich's website

Family says GEICO denied claim after accident because they had kids in the car HR3 full 2484 Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000 bsh9IAEHfwqlzQS2JfsAoIlGDxAwBvra news MIDDAY with JAYME & WIER news Family says GEICO denied claim after accident because they had kids in the car HR3 From local news & politics, to what's trending, sports & personal stories...MIDDAY with JAYME & WIER will get you through the middle of your day! © 2025 Audacy, Inc. News False https://pl

Although many news outlets reported Geico denied the claim in question - the claim was not denied. Geico had raised the issue of there being children in the household who were not disclosed to the company. In Michigan, insurance denials must be in writing. https://www.lehtoslaw.com

Child dies from dog bites..."Three Things You Need to Know"..."Molly Robinson Football Preview"...texts....GEICO has dumb reason for denying claimSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Happy Longnight! Today is the December Solstice, and to celebrate we're reviewing a very special holiday episode of 2007 sitcom Cavemen, based on the popular Geico insurance commercials. Everyone is invited, whether we like them or not, so grab a slice of forager's pie and a glass of Beef Fizz and settle in to listen to your favourite palaeo researchers trying to explain basic astronomy. To the cow!LinksWatch Cavemen S01E09 Caveman Holiday on YouTubeListen to our review of Cavemen S01E01Neanderthal dietWeyrich et al. (2017). Neanderthal behaviour, diet, and disease inferred from ancient DNA in dental calculusRichards and Trinkaus (2009). Isotopic evidence for the diets of European Neanderthals and early modern humansBeasley et al. (2025). Neanderthals, hypercarnivores, and maggots: Insights from stable nitrogen isotopesFellows Yates et al. (2021). The evolution and changing ecology of the African hominid oral microbiomeAdler et al. (2017). Evolution of the Oral Microbiome and Dental CariesPhytolithsChinique de Armas et al. (2015). Starch analysis and isotopic evidence of consumption of cultigens among fisher–gatherers in Cuba: the archaeological site of Canímar Abajo, MatanzasSolsticeAnalemmaCrazy Ancient Greek planet mathThe Antikythera Mechanism – Pseudoarchaeology PodcastBeef fizzContactWebsiteBlueskyFacebookLetterboxdEmailArchPodNetAPN Website: https://www.archpodnet.comAPN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnetAPN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnetAPN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnetAPN StoreAffiliatesMotion Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's that time of year again: Brand Federation's Naughty & Nice list is out, and Matt Williams is here to break it down. Matt is President of Brand Federation and former CEO of The Martin Agency, where he led campaigns for GEICO, OREO, UPS, and Walmart. He's also a visiting professor at William & Mary, sharing decades of brand strategy know-how. On this episode, Matt reveals which brands earned “Nice,” which landed on “Naughty,” and what leaders can learn from both. What You'll Learn How brands end up on the Naughty list by ignoring customer context and cultural signals. How Delta, Starbucks, and others earned their spot on the Nice list through clarity, consistency, and smart leadership. Why edgy brand moves succeed or fail depending on strategy and self-awareness. How crisis response can turn a disaster into a win with creativity and cultural savvy. What Apple's place on the watch list says about innovation, risk, and the future of tech brands. Episode Chapters (00:00) Intro (00:52) Matt returns to the show (01:21) Why American Eagle's “Great Jeans” campaign backfired (03:52) Cracker Barrel's tone-deaf rebrand misstep (06:48) Target's DEI reversal and the cost of misunderstanding your customer (09:20) Southwest walks away from its differentiators (11:52) Meta's AI avatars go sideways (12:44) Delta earns a place on the Nice list (13:55) Starbucks returns to the core (16:55) How Astronomer turned crisis into comedy (21:15) Duolingo kills the owl (and nails it) (24:40) Navigating edgy vs. effective brand moves (24:51) Apple lands on the watch list (27:40) The brand that made Matt smile (29:17) Where to learn more about Brand Federation (30:08) Closing Matt Williams is the President of Brand Federation, a brand and marketing consultancy that helps organizations like Harvard, MIT, and Mercy Corps transform their brand strategy for growth and impact. Before that, he spent 26 years at The Martin Agency, rising through strategic planning roles to become CEO. During his tenure, he led strategy and campaigns for GEICO, OREO, UPS, Discover Financial, Benjamin Moore, and Walmart, while guiding the agency to national creative and effectiveness recognition. Matt also teaches as a Visiting Clinical Professor at William & Mary, where he brings decades of brand strategy expertise to future marketers. Matt lights up when talking about Duolingo, specifically the irreverent, persistent, slightly unhinged owl. The way Duolingo leans hard into its mascot's attitude — using humor, edge, and cultural relevance — reflects a brand that truly understands both itself and its audience. The owl's personality, storytelling, and strategic mischief never fail to make Matt smile. Connect with Matt on LinkedIn. Check out the Brand Federation, where you can see the full Naughty & Nice List! Watch or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon/Audible, TuneIn, and iHeart. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help others find the show. Share this episode — email a friend or colleague this episode. Sign up for my free Story Strategies newsletter for branding and storytelling tips. On Brand is a part of the Marketing Podcast Network. Until next week, I'll see you on the Internet! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is Matt Sutton, SVP and head of marketing at Columbia Sportswear, a leader who thrives on tough challenges and new terrain. With 15 years across agency, brand and platform side marketing, Matt's led global teams, own P &Ls north of 700 million and driven growth across apparel, jewelry and home goods. His superpower? Solving brand problems end-to-end, rethinking everything from CRM and brand identity to channel mix and digital transformation. His work has been featured in Adweek, CNBC, TechCrunch, and the New York Times. And he's advised leaders at American Express, Geico, P&G, Expedia, and Nissan on how to turn marketing into momentum.

We are Green-lighting! Announcing the participants for the CTP Cup 2025 (2) Lots of execs moving around all of a sudden A Chocolate Craze PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Interactive Brokers  Warm-Up - Announcing the participants for the CTP Cup 2025 (2) - Lots of execs moving around all of a sudden - Chocolate Craze Markets - NVDA gets the greenlight - Waiting for the ECO - ALL eyes...... Wednesday at 2pm - Oil Dropping - Gas Prices Dropping slightly - Just saw $2.59 for regular unleaded down here - Double edged sword - oil prices dropping is sign of eco slowdown... Nothing to be excited about just yet.... Inflation - PCE comes in a little lighter than expected - However, let us be clear that inflation is not lower and prices grossly above where we were a couple of years ago - Inflation still running at around 3% overall - Fed set to greenlight the rate cut Oil and Gas - Oil has been dropping - reports that use will slow over the next year - Gas Prices Dropping slightly - Just saw $2.59 for regular unleaded down here - Double edged sword - oil prices dropping is sign of eco slowdown... Nothing to be excited about just yet.... Jobs - Reports show that U.S. employers have announced over 1.1 million job cuts in 2025 (as of early December), marking the highest level since the pandemic's start in 2020. - This has been driven by tech integration (AI), economic shifts, and soft consumer spending, with sectors like government, tech, retail, and warehousing leading. Greenlight - No security problems here - Seeking a compromise over controlling exports to China, the US Department of Commerce will soon allow the export of powerful Nvidia GPUs that are roughly 18 months behind its most advanced offerings, according to a person with knowledge of the plan. - The move, which would send Nvidia H200s to China, seeks to find a middle ground between those who oppose exports of any advanced AI chips and those who worry that restrictions will merely hand the market to Chinese competitors. - It also aims to satisfy the Chinese government, which has blocked imports of less powerful chips, such as Nvidia's H20. - This can be gamed ..... - OHHHH - and USA to get 25% of the sales ???? China Not With Program - China is buying soybeans again, but short of President Trump's target, according to CNBC - Really think this is a big game and will not resolve anytime soon - China still holds the cards ECO Data Starting to Flow Again - BLS to publish October PPI data with the November PPI news release on January 14, 2026 - Unemployment report released Dec 16th - This week is a little slow but next week (Dec 15-19) kick it up hard - - - Dec 19 Income and Spending , PCE report, Housing starts, Retail Sales, CPI (Nov), Leading Indicators, Philly Fed, UMich Sentiment Apple Turnover - Not the pastry - In just the past week, Apple's heads of artificial intelligence and interface design stepped down. - Then the company announced that its general counsel and head of governmental affairs were leaving as well. - All four executives have reported directly to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook Berkshire Too - Todd Combs, one of Warren Buffett's investing lieutenants and the CEO of GEICO, is departing Berkshire Hathaway and joining JPMorgan Chase in a new role as part of a major shake-up involving both firms. - Combs is leaving Berkshire Hathaway and his role leading GEICO to run the bank's new investment group as part of its wider "security and resilience" initiative announced in October. AI Frames - Warby Parker and Google announced that the first lightweight, AI glasses developed through their partnership are expected to launch in 2026 - What will be different about these? All others have seemed to failed miserably. Mergers - Maybe - Netflix announced Friday it's reached a deal to buy pieces of Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing a swift end to a dramatic bidding process that saw Paramount Skydance and Comcast also vying for the legacy assets. - The transaction is comprised of cash and stock and is valued at $27.75 per WBD share - Others are offering $30 CASH per share - President Trump has put in his comments that he thinks it may be a tough one to clear - $2.8B breakup fee if Warner Brothers pulls out and $5.8B reverse break up fee if the deal is not approved. Oracle Earnings - Wednesday after the bell - This is the poster child for the vendor and circular financing - Stock was the darling for a minute a few months ago - Written: "The stock has fallen roughly 32-40% from its September 10 peak, erasing its "Nvidia moment" rally and turning Oracle into the primary vehicle for expressing skepticism about the AI build-out and OpenAI's economics." - Briefing analyst Forgot this... - What happened to the Tik Tok deal and the China bad discussion? --- History.... - Negotiations happened between ByteDance, Oracle, and Walmart back in 2020, and later discussions continued under “Project Texas” for U.S. data security. - The proposed structure (Oracle as tech partner, U.S. investors taking a stake) was announced but never finalized into a binding acquisition or spin-off. - Instead, TikTok remained under ByteDance ownership, while implementing U.S. data storage and security measures through Oracle. - The U.S. government extended deadlines multiple times, but no sale or transfer of ownership occurred. - China wins again! So much winning! Private Credit  - Private markets investing startup Yieldstreet, now calling itself Willow Wealth, recently informed customers of new defaults on real estate projects in Houston and Nashville, Tennessee. The letters, obtained and verified by CNBC, account for about $41 million in new losses. - They come on the heels of $89 million in marine loan wipeouts disclosed in September and $78 million in losses previously reported by CNBC. - Willow Wealth also removed a decade of historical performance data from public view in recent weeks. - Total losses? $208 million Pistachios - Dubai Craze - Milk chocolate shell filled with: - Pistachio cream (often blended with tahini for a nutty, slightly savory note) - Kadayif (shredded phyllo pastry) for crunch - Created in 2021, went viral in 2023 via the SOCH -  United States, Iran, and Turkey the biggest producers of pistachios - Argentina betting on it to continue  - adding to their farmland to cover the demand - Dubai Chocolate Bar (the viral pistachio-knafeh chocolate) generated over $50–$60 million in global sales for the year. IndiGo - In November, new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules increased pilot rest periods. - IndiGo failed to adjust crew rosters, causing a severe pilot shortage during peak travel season. - 1000s of flights cancelled - IndiGo apologized and implemented measures like processing refunds, arranging transport/hotels for stranded passengers, and strengthening customer support. - As of this week - still having major problems - stock don 20% from its high on this news (not traded in USA) Grok Report - Using Grok as Copilot is getting a little weird....ChatGPT a little slow - Photo to video clip - pretty cool - Image generation - FAST! - Can have full on conversations and even companions.....(?) - More racy than other Ai (as is to be expected) Age 18+  options - Interesting nd impressive thus far. OMG  - Brown Nosing - Stellantis said it will bring an all-electric small “car” called the Fiat Topolino to the U.S. - The Topolino is actually categorized as “an all-electric quadricycle” rather than a car, according to Stellantis and has a top speed of roughly 28 miles per hour. - Fiat's announcement comes less than a week after President Donald Trump praised small “Kei” cars from Japan and expressed interest in bringing tiny cars to the U.S. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? The Winner for iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt! CTP CUP 2025 Participants: Jim Beaver Mike Kazmierczak Joe Metzger Ken Degel David Martin Dean Wormell Neil Larion Mary Lou Schwarzer Eric Harvey (2024 Winner) FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

In this Nomad Futurist episode, GEICO's Head of Infrastructure — and newly appointed Nomad Futurist Foundation Ambassador — Rebecca Weekly joins co-hosts Nabeel Mahmood and Phillip Koblence to share how a curious kid dismantling gadgets grew into a leader shaping large-scale infrastructure and AI-driven environments. Through stories of early experiments, career pivots, and lessons in adaptability, she offers an authentic blueprint for the next generation of technologists, particularly young women in STEM. Rebecca traces her path from taking apart transparent phones and building her first server at age 12 to overseeing power, cooling, connectivity, data centers, and cloud operations across GEICO's 349 sites and expansive multi-cloud footprint. She distills her responsibilities with clarity: “Everything that we own, every site that we own, I own power, cooling, connectivity. I own all of the logical assets and physical assets at those locations.” Raised in a non-engineering family in Sacramento, Rebecca found a sense of belonging in the computer lab, where tech-minded counterculture kids and musicians helped root her in engineering. She reflects on that formative moment: “I found my people in the nerds. It had nothing to do with family... The tech came in from the nerds hanging out in the school.” Throughout the conversation, Rebecca underscores the importance of adaptability, long-term thinking, and focusing on the “so what” behind technology — capabilities she developed across roles in banking, fabs, semiconductors, EDA, and product management before moving into large-scale infrastructure leadership. Her advice for her younger self, and for today's emerging technologists, is both simple and profound: “Stay curious. Hang out with the nerds… It is absolutely who you surround yourself with and where you focus your energy that defines your outcomes, especially in the world of AI.” Rebecca also speaks candidly about navigating male-dominated environments in finance, fabrication, and high-tech engineering, explaining how being an outsider ultimately became a leadership asset. She urges listeners not to let the experience of being “the only one” diminish their voice: “Being an outlier early, the hardest part is your own mental load. Worry less about what [people] think of you or that you think differently. Worry more about just asking the question.” In the end, Rebecca's story is a testament to curiosity, resilience, and the power of community. Her journey demonstrates how embracing difference, seeking out passionate peers, and staying focused on meaningful impact can shape not just a career, but the future of technology itself. To learn more about Rebecca Weekly, connect with her on LinkedIn.

Jack and Steven are back to talk about the new iPhone pocket (what a joke), Trump and Mamdani's meeting, new movies and shows, and Jack working on a potential new video. It's a work in progress, but progress is being made. Also music is the only proof that time exists. Yeah, nope, not high this episode.

On this installment we tee up three segments from our onsite discussions at Applied Net 2025, a leading insurance tech conference held recently in Vegas. First: Why was … Read More » The post Live from Applied Net: Geico and AI Observations appeared first on Insurance Journal TV.

On this installment we tee up three segments from our onsite discussions at Applied Net 2025, a leading insurance tech conference held recently in Vegas. First: Why was … Read More » The post Live from Applied Net: Geico and AI Observations appeared first on Insurance Journal TV.

Jennifer Tsay is the CEO and Co-Founder of the professional photography platform Shoott, which uniquely offers free photoshoots where clients only pay for the photos they love. Shoott operates in over 60 U.S. cities, supporting more than 750 freelance photographers with supplemental income, and maintain a 4.9 rating on Google across 2400 reviews and counting. With a diverse background in investment banking, strategic finance, project management, documentary film producing, and acting, Jennifer combines her passion for process with her love of art and storytelling to manage growth, strategy, and operations for Shoott. You may know Jennifer from her acting gigs on The Other Two, High Fidelity, The Village, The Blacklist, and Bored to Death as well as spots for Citi, AT&T Wifi, Samsung, Geico, and Manhattan Mini Storage. Jennifer is a Forbes #Next1000 entrepreneur and one of Brit + Co's 30 AAPI Founders We Love to Support, and recently appeared on Entrepreneur.com's Elevator Pitch Season 11.

Mascots are proving to have high value at little cost when it comes to establishing brand traction. How about all the insurance brands clearly benefiting from having a brand mascot like Liberty Mutual's, limu, imu, and Doug, which dominated in ad breakthrough messaging and branding in a market cast study. While All State, Mayhem, ranked first in likability and memorability, Progressives, Flo, excelled in message recall. While Geico's Gecko has maintained a 94% recognition rate and is a driving force in Geico becoming a leading US insurer. Research from Ipso shows that ads with brand characters perform six times better on brand recall than ads without double the attention of celebrity ambassadors. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why do some brands become unforgettable while others disappear? Today, we break down the science behind brand association—the single most overlooked driver of brand choice, preference, and loyalty. Our guest is Ulli Applebaum. Ulli is an award-winning brand strategist and author of The Science of Brand Associations: Win Minds, Win Markets. Ulli explains how the brain stores brand memories, why associations predict sales, and how companies and personal brands can create stronger influence in any category. If you want to build a brand that instantly comes to mind—and comes with positive meaning—this episode is the blueprint. Find the book on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/4or3zOO Learn more about Ulli: https://first-the-trousers.com/ 01:25 – Meet Uli Applebaum & his new book, The Science of Brand Associations 03:05 – What a "brand association network" actually is (in brain science terms) 05:15 – Why marketers ignore brand associations—and why it's a massive mistake 09:32 – Functional vs. meaningful associations (Geico, McDonald's, Rolex, Nutella) 14:28 – The five types of brand meaning: cultural, social, emotional, symbolic, functional 25:03 – How to start building stronger brand associations for yourself or your company 30:40 – The biggest mistake brands make with visual identity and brand assets 40:21 – Practical steps: consistency, emotional resonance, storytelling, and relevance This is the Brands On Brands Podcast with Brandon Birkmeyer www.brandsonbrands.com Don't forget to get your own personal branding scorecard at: https://www.brandsonbrands.com/scorecard CONNECT WITH ME Connect with me on social media: https://www.brandsonbrands.com/mylinks READ MY BOOK - FRONT & CENTER LEADERSHIP I launched a new book and author website. Check it out here. https://www.brandonbirkmeyer.com/fcl CHECK OUT MY COURSES Get tactical trainings and access to one-on-one coaching! https://www.brandsonbrands.com/courses SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER Get the latest news and trends on all things personal branding and the creator economy. https://www.brandsonbrands.com/newsletter

Boo! Welcome to the first Halloween Special from Talk About It! This episode is all treats and no tricks. Greg sits down with his good friend who has his fair share of people dressing as his characters for trick-or-treating or Halloween festivities - actor Jeff Daniel Phillips! Jeff has done everything from being the Geico caveman on all of our screens to Herman Munster in Rob Zombie's remake of the classic spooky family, and he joins the podcast to talk about a new project that he wrote, directed and starred in called Cursed in Baja. The movie centers around his character that takes a trip to Mexico in search of his fortune, but has seizure-like episodes that take him into another scary world. They talk about portraying seizures on screen and the best ways to go about those scenes, and the positive and negative examples of that being done. Also, they talk about Halloween, Jeff's work with Rob Zombie, tips for celebrating Halloween when you have epilepsy or are a caregiver to someone with epilepsy, and of COURSE.... the Geico Caveman. This episode is so much fun, you don't want to miss it! Have a safe and happy Halloween, everybody! Talk About It with Greg Grunberg is excited to be sponsored by Neurelis and by Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Recorded live from Applied Net 2025 in Las Vegas, this special edition of Agency Nation Radio features insights from the industry's biggest event. On this episode, Will Jones, editor-in-chief of Independent Agent magazine, talks with Carrie Poindexter, senior director of agency operations and Jonathan Somich, director of communications at GEICO, about the company's move into the independent agency channel. “I'm here to tell you that we are in the independent agency channel,” says Poindexter. Also, Peter van Aartrijk, executive vice president at Aartrijk, talks with Richard Hartley, co-founder and CEO of Cytora, about Applied Systems' acquisition of the company and how AI can help the industry reclaim time to reinvest in both work and life. Then, Kasey Connors, executive director of the Big “I” Agents Council for Technology (ACT), sits down with Brenna Johnson, vice president of product management at EZLynx, to discuss innovations that make life easier for users. Agency Nation Radio is where insurance professionals turn on the mic and share unscripted stories about leadership, technology, marketing, success and failure—stories that helped make them the professionals they are today. From Main Street USA to the pages of Independent Agent magazine—we've got the stories you want to hear. For more, catch Agency Nation Radio on your favorite streaming platform or visit iamagazine.com/podcasts.  

#627 Ever wondered how to make your business more memorable — and more fun? In this episode, host Brien Gearin sits down with Jan McInnis, comedian, keynote speaker, and comedy writer known as The Work Lady, to explore how humor can be a secret weapon in business and marketing. Jan shares her journey from a marketing career to the comedy stage, and how she now helps companies use humor to connect with clients, engage employees, and make their messages stick. From the psychology behind why humor works to practical tips for finding your “funny” without crossing the line, this conversation will have you rethinking how you communicate — and laughing while you learn! What we discuss with Jan: + Using humor to connect in business + Overcoming fear of “bombing” + How to find everyday humor + Writing comedy for brands and keynotes + Examples from Progressive and Geico ads + Tips for adding humor to emails and presentations + Common sense rules for appropriate humor + The link between humor and storytelling + Humor as a business differentiator + Building confidence to “be funny” at work Thank you, Jan! Check out The Work Lady at TheWorkLady.com. Follow Jan on Facebook and YouTube. Watch the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠video podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this episode! To get access to our FREE Business Training course go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MillionaireUniversity.com/training⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. And follow us on: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tik Tok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To get exclusive offers mentioned in this episode and to support the show, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠millionaireuniversity.com/sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Want to hear from more incredible entrepreneurs? Check out all of our interviews ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we are joined by someone who's seen the collision repair space from multiple angles: operations, insurance, and now investing. Chris Calk is the former Director of Operations at GEICO, where he had a front-row seat to one of the nation's largest DRP programs. Today, he's an active investor and advisor in the industry, helping collision operators grow their businesses and align with the ever-evolving expectations of insurers. In this conversation, we'll dive into what insurers like GEICO look for in the ideal DRP partner, how shops can position themselves for long-term success in these programs, and why strong DRP relationships matter now more than ever. Then, we'll zoom out and hear why Chris has doubled down on collision repair as an investor—what makes this space exciting, where the opportunities lie, and how operators can build businesses that attract outside capital. It's a rare chance to peek behind the curtain of both the DRP model and the investor mindset. Let's get into it. Connect with Chris:  Social: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscalk/  Email: chrisc@arcovaadvisors.com 

In this special compilation episode of Innovation and the Digital Enterprise, Patrick Emmons highlights key insights on digital transformation from top tech leaders. Featuring perspectives from Andrei Girenkov, Christopher Paquette, Ann Yeung, Sandee Kastrul, Deepak Kaimal, Jeff Miller, Christina Garcia, Tanya Hannah, Dan Kirsche, Dom Scandinaro, Subramanian Kunchithapatham, and Gene Kim. The episode delves into leading transformative tech teams, balancing disruption and protection, the role of AI, the need to stay nimble, and the foundational significance of human connection and communication in achieving successful digital transformation.(00:00) Welcome to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise(02:17) Andrei Girenkov Understanding the Scope of Digital Transformation(03:17) Christopher Paquette on Balancing Protection and Disruption(04:00) Ann Yeung on The Role of Corporate Functions(04:52) Sandee Kastrul on Diversity and Innovation(05:22) Deepak Kaimal Leveraging Gen AI for Business Solutions(07:01) Jeff Miller on Navigating Technological Change(07:21) Christina Garcia on Empowering Teams(07:59) Tanya Hannah on Keeping Nimble(08:28) Dan Kirsche on Org Structure and Accountability(09:17) Dom Scandinaro on Growth, and Agility(10:10) Subramanian Kunchithapatham on the Challenges of Digitization(10:53) Gene Kim on Connecting People Through Norms, Rituals, and ProcessesAndrei Girenkov is Chief Technology Officer at CSC Service Works. Christopher Paquette is Chief Transformation Officer at Personify Health. Ann Yeung is VP of Engineering at GEICO. Sandee Kastrul is President and co-founder of i.c.stars. Deepak Kaimal is Chief Technology Officer at COMPLY. Jeff Miller is Chief Product Officer at Coates Group. Christina Garcia is SVP of Engineering at Echo Global Logistics. Tanya Hannah is Chief Information Officer at OneTen. Dan Kirsche is Chief Technology Officer at Chamberlain Group. Dom Scandinaro is Chief Technology Officer at Cameo. Subramanian Kunchithapatham is Vice President - BI Solutions at Morgan Stanley. Gene Kim is an author, researcher, and founder of Tripwire, Inc.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

What do Barton Springs, stormtrooper gear, and Robert Redford have in common?

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Which growth drivers are fueling your agency right now? For today's featured guest, the answer is clear: thought leadership. It's the single biggest driver consistently bringing his agency the best opportunities. While it can be difficult to separate genuine impact from vanity metrics, the deliberate effort to position both himself and his agency as industry experts has proven invaluable for growth. But building that kind of authority doesn't happen by accident. It requires intentional work—stepping onto stages at conferences, showing up in interviews and podcasts, and, just as importantly, encouraging your team to create and share content of their own. In this conversation, he breaks down the strategies that help expand thought leadership beyond the founder, and why agency leaders must remember: expertise is a long game, one that compounds over time to deliver lasting results. Chris Long is the VP of Marketing at Go Fish Digital, a full-service digital marketing agency specializing in SEO, paid media, and content marketing. Over the past 3–4 years, Chris has been leading the charge on marketing and sales for the agency, driving new business growth and experimenting with different channels to see what really works. Spoiler alert: it's not just ads or conferences—it's something much bigger. In this episode, we'll discuss: Thought leadership as your agency's best growth lever. Scaling thought leadership beyond the founder. Building the right systems to encourage your team to create content. Why Content ROI takes patience. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio: If you're leveling up your team and your client experience, your site builder should keep up too. That's why successful agencies use Wix Studio — built to adapt the way your agency does: AI-powered site mapping, responsive design, flexible workflows, and scalable CMS tools so you spend less on plugins and more on growth. Ready to design faster and smarter? Go to wix.com/studio to get started. The Growth Lever Most Agencies Ignore: Thought Leadership Recently, Chris has taken an experimental approach to his agency's growth, testing growth drivers like Google ads, LinkedIn ads, and conferences, and found that thought leadership consistently stood as the biggest growth drivers; one that couldn't be replicated. Forget chasing the latest ad hack or praying your next conference booth delivers ROI—what's consistently driven their biggest, best deals has been showing up as experts in their space. However, thought leadership is hard to measure. It often looks like vanity metrics—views, impressions, shares. But when you zoom out, it's the stuff that actually moves the needle. The more the agency doubled down on creating content, sharing insights, and putting their expertise out there, the more deals they closed. Not just more deals but better ones, with stronger close rates. If you're still waiting for the perfect ad funnel to save your pipeline, you might be missing the obvious. Start building your authority in public. Share your wins. Share what you know. Because thought leadership compounds, and that trust is what gets prospects off the fence. Why Expertise is the Foundation You can't fake thought leadership. It all starts with real expertise. In Chris' words, “the reason someone's going to choose an agency, especially as you start to sell larger deals, is they have to be convinced you're an expert in something.” That doesn't mean you need to be the everything agency. In fact, the opposite. It could be as narrow as being “the best B2B or SaaS web dev shop.” The point is: prospects need to believe you've mastered your corner of the world. That foundation comes from who you hire, the culture you build, and how you innovate—whether that's through proprietary tools, processes, or just being damn good at your craft. In the case of Go Fish, that expertise showed up in real wins (like when their founders innovated on Geico's site and saw traffic spike 2,000%). Those moments of innovation fueled content, which positioned the agency as leaders. And that cycle of expertise, innovation, and thought leadership became a growth engine. Scaling Thought Leadership Beyond the Founder In the early days, thought leadership was usually founder-driven. You're the face, the credibility, the spark. But as Chris points out, that won't scale. At a certain point, you need the team creating and sharing insights too. For them, that meant encouraging everyone to post, write case studies, and share wins. Sometimes it was as simple as, “Hey, we crushed conversions on this client's landing page—let's write about it.” By empowering their team, they kept thought leadership flowing, even as the founders had less time for it. Thought leadership can't be a one-man show forever. As an agency grows, the founders have less time to spend on the day-to-day operations. If you want authority to scale with your agency, bake it into your culture. Train your team to see insights worth sharing. Make content creation part of the job, not an afterthought. The Biggest Mistake: Not Sharing at All So what do most agencies get wrong? They don't share anything. Too many people assume, “Everything valuable has already been said.” Or they think their insights aren't groundbreaking enough. But as Chris points out, “What's obvious to you isn't obvious to everyone else.” That's why simpley sharing SEO best practices on LinkedIn got him traction. What he thought was “table stakes” turned out to be news to his audience. And the more he shared, the more inbound leads followed. If you're holding back because you don't think your perspective matters, think again. Your experience has value—even if it feels basic to you. Building Systems for Thought Leadership If you want your team to start sharing their knowledge, you have to get intentional. At Go Fish, they didn't just hope employees would write content—they built systems: Every new hire had to write two blog posts a year. They tracked contributions in their project management system. They created two career tracks: one managerial, one based on thought leadership as an individual contributor. That last part is huge. By tying thought leadership part of promotions and career growth, they gave employees a real incentive to contribute. Chris himself went from manager (which he admits wasn't his strong suit) to a senior role via the thought leadership track. The lesson here is that if you want consistent content, make it part of how you hire, measure, and promote. Don't just “encourage” thought leadership—bake it into the agency's DNA. The Evolution of Content: From Blogs to Video Back in the early 2010s, blogs were king. One of Go Fish's founders wrote a massive guide on reputation management on the Moz blog that spun up an entire new agency vertical. That was the play then. Today, however, the game has shifted. According to Chris, video on LinkedIn and Twitter is where the biggest impact happens now. Video humanizes your agency. It takes the mystery away for prospects who are wondering: “Who would I be working with? Are they innovative? Do I trust them?” Webinars have also proven effective—letting people go deeper on topics, showcase expertise, and generate leads from long-form content. But the principle stays the same: meet people where they are, with content that builds authority. The Patience Tax: Why Content ROI Takes Years With content creation, you can't expect results in six months. Here's the brutal truth: content is a long game. To do content you can't think even on seeing results in six months. It may take years. Chris has gotten clients that thought about him when they needed an agency because they saw him speak at a conference two years prior. ROI doesn't always show up on a quarterly P&L—it compounds over years. The same goes for video content. Rarely does someone listen to one episode and instantly buy. Instead, they binge for months or years before making a move. That's why consistency matters more than intensity. As Chris said: “I post every day, whether I feel inspired or not. It's about the habit.” If you're evaluating content success after three or six months, you're cutting yourself off too early. Play the two-year game. The deals waiting for you are bigger than the “quick wins” most agencies chase. Consistency compounds. Virality is a bonus, not the goal. Strong Opinions and Deep Dives Win Attention So what type of content catches people's attention? On social media, where everyone seems to be shouting the same advice over and over, you can't be afraid to stand out. Take a stance. Neutral content gets ignored. As Chris points out: “Strong takes do well because people either comment to agree or argue. Either way, the algorithm loves it.” Go deep. Technical, niche content might feel too in-the-weeds, but it builds trust. Posts dissecting patents, experiments, or tools often outperform fluff. You may not think that really long niche content could do well, but people will absolutely watch a three-hour tutorial that proves a creator's expertise—and will come out trusting them more. This is the heart of thought leadership: demonstrating expertise in public. Clients don't want generalists. They want to see you know your stuff, inside and out. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

CMO Confidential — “What Your CFO Wants to Tell You (But Won't)” with CNA CFO Scott LindquistWhat does a great CFO really think about marketing? Mike Linton sits down with Scott Lindquist—CFO of CNA Financial and former long-time CFO of Farmers—to decode the finance side of brand building, performance spend, and the politics of the boardroom. They cover how CMOs should onboard a new CFO, why “marketing math” wins over skeptics, mistakes to avoid in board presentations, and how insurers used bold brand bets to become category killers.What you'll learn • The four archetypes of CFOs—and how to work with each • Why CFOs who are “joined at the hip” with the CEO think differently about growth • How to explain cost of capital and present value like a marketer (and win budget) • The insurance playbook: brand investment, DTC distribution, and lifetime value • Why every large marketing org needs a Marketing CFO (and how to set it up) • Boardroom pitfalls: jargon, 100-slide decks for 20 minutes, and “draining the slide” • Practical tips for building trust: bring the data, surface bad news early, and speak in outcomesGuestScott Lindquist — Chief Financial Officer, CNA Financial. Former CFO, Farmers Insurance. Started at PwC and has led finance through growth, turnarounds, and public-company scrutiny.HostMike Linton — Former CMO of Best Buy, eBay, and Farmers; former CRO of Ancestry. Host of CMO Confidential, the #1 CMO show on YouTube.Who should watchCMOs, CEOs, CFOs, board members, founders, and marketing leaders who need tighter finance alignment and clearer ROI storytelling.Brought to you by TypefaceLegacy marketing tools weren't built for AI. Typeface is the first multimodal, agentic AI marketing platform that turns one idea into thousands of on-brand assets—across ads, email, and video—while integrating with your MarTech stack and meeting enterprise-grade security needs. See how brands like ASICS and Microsoft accelerate content at scale: typeface.ai/cmo.—If you're enjoying the show, please like, comment, and subscribe. New episodes every Tuesday; companion newsletter with the top insights every Friday.#CMOConfidential #CFO #MarketingROI #BrandBuilding #B2BMarketingCMO Confidential, Mike Linton, Scott Lindquist, CNA Financial, Farmers Insurance, CFO, CMO, marketing CFO, finance and marketing alignment, cost of capital, present value, marketing math, LTV, lifetime value, CAC, board presentations, brand valuation, insurance marketing, DTC insurance, Geico, Progressive, performance marketing, media spend, marketing ROI, budgeting, enterprise marketing, MarTech, agentic AI, Typeface AI, ASICS, Microsoft, PwC, executive leadership, C-suite, category strategy, growth strategy, B2B marketing, B2C marketing, onboarding a CFO, sponsorships, vendor management, marketing governance, data-driven marketing, brand building, boardroom communication, enterprise security, AI marketing platformSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A short conversation about Andrew's fantasy draft turns into a long conversation about the cruelty of late-stage capitalism. In other  words, a perfect Labor Day show! Luke and Andrew also discuss Twisted Tea, Hawaiian vacations, and some Labor Day “fun facts.”

Derick Van Ness of Big Life Financial returns to the podcast to discuss with Kiera the new realities of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill — and how dentists can capitalize on the impacts. They discuss bonus depreciation, research and development credits, and more. Further, there's an opportunity for DAT listeners at biglifefinancial.com/DAT, where you can learn if you're overpaying on your taxes and what new opportunities exist. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I'm excited to welcome back a popular guest. He and I have chatted multiple times. We've gone around and around on different topics of how to help dentists build more wealth. So Derick, ⁓ with Big Life Financial, we talked about our research and development credits. Today we're going to be talking about this big, beautiful tax bill, how it's going to impact dentists, how it's going to impact building wealth. I do think it also impacts team members. So Derick, welcome back to the show. How are you today?   Derick Van Ness (00:29) I'm great, Kiera. I really appreciate you bringing me on the show again. It's always fun to talk.   Kiera Dent (00:34) Of course, we all know that I love wealth strategies. love ⁓ it takes time like you and I were talking about pre show. ⁓ I think it's something to educate ourselves on and to be around really smart people and to constantly be looking at different things like I know hot in the real estate world right now and with buying businesses and buying practices, the big beautiful tax bill is actually great for the bonus depreciation coming in. So just like educating ourselves and that's what I wanted today to be.   not getting high into politics. These are bills that are into place ⁓ and how to take advantage of them, how to maximize them. Derick, you work with a ton of dentists. So Derick, for those who don't know, you kind of give a little bit background on how you and I even got connected, how you got into dentistry, ⁓ how does Big Life Financial play into this. We have a lot of mutual clients together. So just kind of give people a background on who you are and how you got to the dental space.   Derick Van Ness (01:26) Absolutely, you know, I started out back in like 2010 2009 2010 helping small business owners with taxes and financial strategy I was working for another firm at the time and I had been a house flipper and if for those of you who remember 2008 wasn't so good if you're a house flipper, right and When that whole thing fell apart kind of fell in my head I took a lot of the skills that I had and a friend of mine hired me to help   Kiera Dent (01:46) It is not.   Derick Van Ness (01:55) small business owners with taxes and financial and business strategy. ⁓ Working with them, I had a chance to work with about 1,500 business owners over seven years. And then eventually went out and started doing my own thing because there were some different things that I wanted to do that they didn't offer. ⁓ essentially, in that time, I worked with a lot of dentists and a lot of doctors. ⁓ And so I kind of stayed in that arena, which led me to ⁓ meeting you, Kiera.   through Mark over at DSI and all the stuff that I'd done with him and then found you guys and just love what you guys do with helping people to build their teams. Cause I'm such a huge advocate of how important that is to have the right team to run your practice, right? Especially if you're going to have multiple practices, it just can't be about you. And so it was just kind of a natural fit. And like you said, you, you definitely love financial strategies. So.   We got into it, we talked about a bunch of different things, had a chance to work together. Like you said, have shared a lot of clients along the way, but it just seems like dentists have a lot of the problems that we solve, which is they pay a of taxes, they make good money, and most of them didn't get an MBA in college to understand how business and finances work. They've had to learn along the way. And so we see ourselves as part of that process of helping dentists become.   better business owners, better entrepreneurs, and honestly create freedom in their life instead of just having a business that runs them, because it's easy to have that happen in dentistry. So that's sort of how we got connected. I don't know, over the last, since whatever 2008, 2009 was, last 15 plus years, I've probably worked with somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 business owners. I would say a good chunk of those have been dentists. So that's how we ended up together.   Kiera Dent (03:48) Yeah.   I love the journey. love hearing what you've done. I also agree on like building wealth. And I think going through dental school, working at the dental college, dentists are coming out with, you know, upwards of 500, 600, 700, $800,000 in debt somewhere up towards that upper million. Midwestern was a very expensive school. looking at that and then watching offices and I remember the first dentist that I worked with and we were partners. We, called her 2.5 because we were 2.5 million debt.   Derick Van Ness (04:03) Cheers.   Kiera Dent (04:18) was like, you better straighten that spine 2.5. Like we need that spine for a long time. But it was something where I realized like, that's a substantial amount of debt. One to walk out of school with two you buy a practice on top of that and then you want to try and like even remotely live your own personal life. It just felt like the odds are possibly stacked not in a dentist favor. I've had several dentists where this is the case where they're multimillion in debt, trying to get these practices off the ground. And so really coming up with   Derick Van Ness (04:43) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (04:47) like yes, long-term, if they make it, awesome. Hopefully it will pay off for them. But what are maybe some strategies and tips that they can do now? I think like so many of us look at real estate and wish that we would have gotten in at the 2008 because now you're selling them out or even in 2020. And so it's like, what can people do now, even if they didn't maximize or we didn't buy practices back in the day when they were so cheap, they were pennies on the dollar. What things can we do now to maximize? I was even talking to this girl the other day.   And she's like, yeah, my baby was born on New Year's Eve. And I was like, wow, talk about a great tax write-off. And she's like, I didn't even know that that was a tax write-off. I didn't even know the benefits of things. And so I feel like just so many little pieces that could make us smarter business owners to, I'm here, I love living in the United States. I love paying taxes for the country that we get to live in. I love the opportunity that we have to be business owners. With that said, I also think it's smart for us to be very wise stewards over our money to figure out different strategies.   And no, it's not sexy. No, it's not fun. A lot of it is just like save, like invest, do the things you're supposed to do. And it's going to be part of what is it? Like the eighth wonder of the world of compound interest. Like there are other pieces, but Derick, like, let's talk about this big, beautiful tax bill. How does this work? How does this impact business owners? What are some of the benefits we can take care of? Now we're talking in 2025, things will change and shift as the landscape shifts, but knowing that's in place, what are some of the things dentists owners can do now?   to maximize that coming out.   Derick Van Ness (06:18) Yeah, you bring up a good point, Kiera. You know, it's not that this stuff happens overnight, but it is, it's systemic, right? You're doing it day in and day out. And tax is one of those things, whether you like it or not, you have to file them every year. And I'm not going to lie to you, that's part of what I like about being in the tax world is people have to do it every year. It's a pretty good business model that way, right?   Kiera Dent (06:30) Right.   I   was gonna say you've got the reoccurring opportunities because it has to happen every year just like dentists have profis every six months. I mean it's a great built-in business. mean kudos to you. I don't enjoy it but it is a necessary evil to be done.   Derick Van Ness (06:52) I totally get that. If you would have told me you're going to work in taxes even 15 years ago when I first got into it, I would have said absolutely not not interested. But what I can tell you is every dollar you make in taxes is the same as a new dollar you make in your business. Right. But you don't have to have employees and risk and additional insurance and additional equipment and all this other stuff. So it really is pure profit when you can reduce your taxes. So   even a small amount of tax strategy can go a very long way in increasing what you get in the bottom line, right? And if you could just take a lot of dentists across the country, they're in the 40 % tax bracket, maybe a little higher or lower depending on your state, but somewhere in that range, if you could even lower that by 10%, that's keeping an additional 10 % of your income. That's a lot of extra money for people to be able to save and put to work without having to go do more risk and...   buy a bigger building and do a build out and deal with more personalities in the office because all of those things are variables, right? So I see it as a pure profit machine if you get it right. And so I've chosen to think it that way because I spend so much time in it, but it really does come down to just keeping a lot more of the money you make. And it's a very potent way to do it because honestly, with 10 to 15 hours a year, so think of that as like one hour a month.   you can really add a lot to the bottom line of what you get to keep. In some cases, we can cut taxes almost in half for high, high income earners. So it's a pretty big deal.   Kiera Dent (08:25) Well, and as you said that I think it's a big deal for today because yes to have that back to you is great. But like we talked about compounding, compounding until you've experienced compounding seems like not real. Just like I think when like you have bought your first house and it's like, how am I ever supposed to do this and make money on it until you bought your first practice? A lot of those things I think feel ⁓ arbitrary, they feel false. And then once you get into the compounding world and you're like, my gosh, like   we're making money without having to do anything. It's like, yeah, I could save on my taxes in a legal, ethical way, have more money at the end of the year that I could then put towards this, like you said, make it work for me. Well, now that it's just duplicating, it's multiplying, it's replicating, those things to me are things I get excited about. Those are things that I look for, because I don't think there's a lot of money.   I call it the money making machine. What things can we put into your money making machine to where it's working for you day in, day out without you having to do any extra work? I think all of us check yes, let's say yes to that. So Derick, let's talk about how we can create more of these money making machines, putting our money to work for us rather than constantly trying to chase the money dream to where at the end of our careers and even during our careers, we're living the lives that we wanted to get to when we first started out into these careers.   Derick Van Ness (09:29) Yep.   Yeah. And I can tell you guys this, if you only walk away with one thing, it's the idea if you want to build wealth, you need to create systematic savings, right? Systematize putting money aside, whether that's actually savings account or investing or however, but just getting money out of the spending cycle and into the building cycle. And it's like watching your child, right? Like in the beginning, kids grow and it's like day to day, you don't see it, but year to year,   it starts to make a bigger and bigger and bigger difference. And then, you know, when they're teenagers, you're just like, what's happening, right? So it's the same kind of thing with your money. In the beginning, if you're just watching a day to day, you don't really see the growth. You have to trust the process, right? But the biggest thing you can do is put that on autopilot, because if you have to automatically go into your bank account every month and move money over or every year, move money over, it's much harder. And like writing,   Kiera Dent (10:28) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (10:42) 25, 50, 100, $200,000 checks feels hard. Setting aside 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, $10,000 a month, and then you cut that in half per pay period, and all of a sudden it gets a lot easier. It's like, oh yeah, $1,000 a pay period, not that big a deal. Much easier than writing a $25,000 check, right? Or two or $3,000 per pay period. It really does add up. And that's where the tax piece comes in is, in many cases, it's like found money. I try to teach our clients to...   Kiera Dent (10:46) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (11:11) save like you're going to pay full blast on taxes. And then when we do the tax strategy, all this money is left over. And so it feels like extra money, and then you can put it to work, right? And that's where you do get to play with some bigger chunks. ⁓ But really, it's that habit of automating, setting money aside. If you can just only take one thing from this, it's that. And taxes can create a huge amount of that for you along the way. So let's talk about the tax bill, right?   Kiera Dent (11:24) Mm-hmm.   Yeah,   let's talk about it. And I just want to highlight on that, Derick, of I was talking to a CPA the other day on the podcast and he talked about how like there's a different psychology of business owners. ⁓ We go from getting a W-2 paycheck that we're used to being able to spend all of it because taxes have already been taken out to them becoming business owners and not having taxes automatically taken from that and needing to be super disciplined on saving. And so I agree with you. And when I realized like,   I got so annoyed when I'm like, great, so now I never get a refund check ever again in taxes. I was like, no, actually it's actually so much better now than it ever was. Because if I just set it aside, I'm like, taxes are pretty simple. I guess there's some nuances to them, but it's pretty much like whatever tax bracket you are, take your profit at the end of the month, set that aside. And lo and behold, if you do the tax planning strategy, like you said, usually I'm ending up with a pretty good substantial chunk at the end of the year that I count as my like quote unquote, like   the refund check or whatever. It's been so long since I've gotten one that I don't even know what it is. But it's awesome because then you have this huge lump of money because you've been saving it. You weren't expecting it. All your expenses in your life is taken care of to where now, like you said, it is really fun. Is that an investment? Is that buying something that I've always wanted to get? Is that real estate money? Because the amount of cash, if you are strategic in how you do it, is exponentially substantial.   It is truly life-changing. So I'm excited, Derick. Let's talk about the tax bill, but I will second you and ditto you and just say, yes, there's discipline to it, but that discipline equals so much freedom on the other side that just try it. Trust us on this. Save, learn to save on it and ⁓ be blown away at how much you're able to have at the end of the year if you do it really well.   Derick Van Ness (13:25) Yeah, I 100 % agree and I love your approach, Kiera. That's exactly what we try to teach with people. So let's talk about the tax bill, right? There's a ton of stuff that's in there that we're not going to touch on because like the child tax credit go up $200 a year. Yes. Is that going to move the needle for you as a business owner? Not really, right? Is there a little bit for senior tax relief in there where there's $6,000 of income that they don't pay taxes on? Yes. Does that really matter for you? Probably not, right? So we're going to...   Kiera Dent (13:33) Okay, let's talk.   Derick Van Ness (13:55) we're going to talk a little bit about a couple of key things that can really move the needle. One of them you alluded to, Kiera, that I think is really important is the idea of bonus depreciation, right? People who don't know what bonus depreciation is, it's when you buy certain types of equipment or real estate, you can take all the depreciation in the first year, right? And that can be ⁓ a huge chunk, especially when you combine it with something like cost segregation. For those of you who don't know what cost segregation is, the two really   Kiera Dent (14:04) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (14:24) work well together. So I think it's worth taking just a sec, even though it's not new, it really enhances this strategy. ⁓ Cost segregation is when you have a piece of real estate, you bring in an engineer, and there are companies that do this, right? So you don't have to know all this stuff. ⁓ But they come in, they reclassify as much of your building as they can as equipment. And so what you get to do is depreciate a portion of the building, the stuff that's equipment much more rapidly. So a lot of times five, seven or 15 years.   versus either 27 or 39 and a half years. So you get a lot more depreciation on the front end. It's not like you get more overall, but money today is worth a whole lot more than money 20 or 30 years from now. You can invest it and use it to grow your business, et cetera. But then when you add bonus depreciation to that, you can get a lot more of it in the first year. what this really means is if you're   Kiera Dent (15:06) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (15:21) buying the right kind of equipment or you're buying a building or you're doing big improvements, you can get a lot more depreciation and that depreciation can save you in taxes, right? And this is one that I feel like most CPAs kind of get bonus depreciation, but a lot of them don't bring in the cost segregation piece. So if you own a piece of real estate, especially if you bought it in the last few years and you haven't done a cost segregation study, this is something that you would have to know about because someone has to physically come to your building. If you haven't done one,   Kiera Dent (15:39) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (15:51) should talk to your CPA about it or talk to someone about it. I'm sure Kiera knows people, we know people, there are plenty of people out there who do it. But that's something worth looking at, especially if your building's worth, I would say, $250,000, $300,000, and you've had it less than five years and you haven't done this, yeah, it's totally worth looking at. It could be a real nice windfall. So that's a big one. It had been in place, then it started phasing out from 100 % to 80 % to 60%.   Kiera Dent (16:04) I   Derick Van Ness (16:20) but now we're back at 100%. So this is a big one, especially if you own your building or you're buying a lot of equipment. ⁓ Another really big one is the SALT tax. Now, people hear SALT tax and they're like, what? They're thinking of like the SPICE, right? SALT stands for state and local tax. And really to simplify this, and there's kind of a workaround in almost every state where you can do it as a pass-through setup. And essentially what that means is,   Kiera Dent (16:27) Mm-hmm.   Bye.   Derick Van Ness (16:49) If you pay all your state taxes before the end of the year, those state taxes become a write off for your federal taxes. Now this was in place up to $10,000. So if you were in a 40 % tax bracket, it could have saved you $4,000. Now it's up to 40,000, four zero, $40,000. So if you're making a lot of money or you're in a high tax state, you can pay those state taxes before the end of the year and it creates a federal tax write off.   And so like if you were in a, you know, paying in a 32 % tax bracket and you paid $40,000, it's going to save you, you know, between 12 and $13,000 in taxes that year, which is pretty significant for found money. All it has to be done is you have to pay those taxes and then your, your CPA or your tax pro has to claim that. Right. So that's another big one that got raised and you probably heard a lot about it in the news because   People were trying to get it raised higher and some people thought it should be lower. It really does favor business owners. It's not something a person who doesn't have a business can do. And that was part of the controversy, right? ⁓ But at the end of the day, it's law. So you should be taking full advantage of that.   Kiera Dent (18:03) I feel like that definitely impacts like the high state tax ⁓ states like California, New York, like some of those bigger ones, definitely because I live in Nevada, it's a no state income tax state. So if I understand correctly, Derick, and this is where I love bringing smart people on, the salt tax doesn't apply to me per se in Nevada, because we don't have state income tax. Is that correct? But in those higher ones, it definitely helps you out tremendously by being able to take those those credits and apply them.   Derick Van Ness (18:32) That is correct, yeah. And like another really high one is Oregon. They have quite high state tax, whereas Washington has none. So yeah, that doesn't apply to everybody. But if you're in a state that has even medium, like I'm in Utah, income tax there is right around 5 % for the state. It's still significant, right? You can still do up to the same amount. You'll just get there slower than if you're in California.   Kiera Dent (18:36) Mm-hmm.   I agree.   Right.   Derick Van Ness (19:00) Once again, just one of those things like you talked about, know, having kids or, you know, having the ADA like disability access to your building or a lot of these other things that like there are a bunch of little things, but they really do add up doing the Augusta rule. I'm sure you guys have talked about a million times and paying your kids properly. And we have a whole strategy of actually how to help people use tax strategy to pay for their kids college, which is a pretty cool one using some of that.   Kiera Dent (19:15) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (19:29) But those aren't part of the tax bill, so we won't dig into that today. ⁓   Kiera Dent (19:32) But they   are smart things to know because as you're listing it off, I think when someone's making, let's say your practice is doing a million, let's it's doing 2 million, 5 million, let's say you're at a 50 % overhead, let's just do 5 million, that's 2.5 mil. Not all of that's going to come to you as profit, but let's use like, it also could be coming to you as profit, even if it's in the form of distributions and different pieces. I'm like,   Derick Van Ness (19:42) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (19:55) on that 2.5, if that's your taxable income, now let's just do, let's say you're in the highest, like that would put you in the highest tax bracket. So we're at a 37%. Like that's almost a million dollars worth of tax money right there on 2.5. So I understand that say 12 grand doesn't seem like that much, but I'm like, but 12 grand is still going to chip down this tax bill. And then you do another 20 grand here, then you do another 15 grand here.   All of that does exponentially chip down and like the bonus appreciation. That's why I think Derick, you're talking like the $200 on a million of taxes, not really going to move the needle, but 12 grand, 15 grand. It's the stacking and being able to keep that money. You have to pay this tax no matter what. And why not like benefit and minimize and reduce it and keep that money. then even worst case scenario, you even go invest it or you put it somewhere like a high yield savings account, but still making 4 % for you.   that you wouldn't have been making so that money's working for you. I think it's a no brainer ⁓ no matter what tax bracket you're in just to see. But like I also think this is where I don't like to get lazy on my taxes like, is it really worth doing the Augustus roll? Yes, it is. Because like you said, every dollar saved today, if I could even take that 600 or that 2000 or that 12 grand, put it in right now, like go back to college. How many of us wish we would have invested at that point in time? 20 bucks when we were in college.   Derick Van Ness (21:02) You   Kiera Dent (21:19) into the stock market and what that would be worth today, I think that there's just value in being strategic and smart and this is how you build wealth. It's not sexy, but if you do it consistently, you will exponentially become wealthier much faster than otherwise. I think it's the fastest way to get to wealth long term because you've got a runway in front of you.   Derick Van Ness (21:38) Well, I'm going to throw something out here, Kiera, because I get to see behind the scenes, right? I work with a lot of successful dentists and dentists have a really good income. Dentists generally are not great at creating wealth. I'll just be totally honest with you. A lot of them, they make enough money that they, ⁓ they can spend and they have a good life and they're able to put some money away, but proportional to their income, a lot of them are not great savers because of exactly what you talked about. A lot of them make all this money, but they got to pay off a lot of debt.   Kiera Dent (21:42) Mm-hmm.   I would agree.   Derick Van Ness (22:08) right, student loans and a business loan. Well, that's a lot of cash flow, especially in the first five years going out of lot of people's pockets. So a lot of times I'll see a dentist and they're making, let's say they're taking home $500,000, which is very common. ⁓ But you look at their investments and everything and they've got 300 grand saved. And they've been at it for 10 years and you're like, what happened? it's they paid off student loans, they paid off business debt.   Kiera Dent (22:27) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (22:33) They've had to invest in equipment along the way. They've had to remodel their office. They bought a house. You know, and they have some nice things. But now when you start going back and saying, hey, we can do this, this, and this, and now you get to save an extra, let's go really, really low, an extra $20,000 a year. Okay. I did some math the other day for our newsletter, $20,000 a year. If that's what someone saved and they just put that money to work at 7%. Over 30 years, they'd have $2.1 million roughly.   Right? So it's like, it's not, it doesn't appear to be a huge thing, but over time it really does add up. And to be quite honest, someone who makes $500,000, I can think of a bunch of ways that are outside of the new tax bill, things we've been doing for years that can really save them a whole lot more than that. And so for a lot of people, like if somebody is making two and a half million dollars, there's actually some advanced strategies that can really move the needle in a big, big way. But these small things like paying your state tax by the end of the year,   It takes you five minutes and you saved 13 grand. Okay, that's a big deal. Doing, making sure you're paying yourself properly so that you don't end up paying self-employment tax unnecessarily on more of your income than you. Okay, that's another seven, 10, 15, 20 grand. ⁓ Paying your kids, Augusta rule, bonus depreciation. Okay, now all of sudden we took a bill that was maybe 120,000 of taxes for someone who makes 500 grand and now they're paying 50.   Kiera Dent (23:34) Hmm.   Derick Van Ness (24:00) So they kept 70,000. Like that's a big deal. You put that together and using the math I just did there, that's about $5 million over 30 years, right? So it's significant and I bring up the two and a half million thing, because I don't see a lot of dentists. I have a few clients that make that kind of money, but most of the dentists, especially people who own one or two practices, they're making between on the lower end, maybe 300, 350, on the higher end, maybe 800, 900,000.   Kiera Dent (24:00) Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   I agree.   Derick Van Ness (24:29) You know, so suddenly an extra 50, 70, 80, $100,000 a year is a lot of money. It makes a really big difference.   Kiera Dent (24:37) I agree.   I even think though, on no matter where your bracket is, I think like, well, one, I just hope I don't know, Derick, I need to surround myself with people like this. I hope that no matter what income I make, I don't ever like pish posh 70 grand. Like I just hope I hope I never I mean, I hope that I'm a freaking billionaire at one point in my life, like that'd be incredible. And like the amount of good that we'll be able to do in this world, like even today. But I'm like, I hope that I stay   humble and grateful enough that I would never say like 20 grand or 50 grand is not worth my time to do ⁓ in a small effort. ⁓ And so I think that that's just a zone of like, let's remember the humility as well of like, yes, these things are tax savings, but they're also going to exponentially grow you, you, your practice, your family, like your contribution, your good that you're able to do in this world. So even if you're not using it for yourself, think of the good that you can give back to this community in this world. So I think   And then I'm also like, yeah, and if you're at 300, 70 grand is a lot. If you're at 900, 70 grand should still be a lot. If you're at 2.5 million, 70 grand should still be a lot for you to where I think like, I also feel it's a skill of staying sharp rather than getting lazy and sloppy as we evolve. I know I've done it. Like I used to be way more scrappy when I first started the company and I'm like, yeah, well, do we really have to do all this? And it's like, but I think this...   sharper we can keep ourselves and the more disciplined we can to be expert saviors. Like I talked to Ryan Isaac of Dentist Advisors often and he and I talk about like the biggest thing is like being a great saver, like building your wealth, but then also not losing your wealth by doing dumb things or not being disciplined and watching what you've built. Like it's kind of two sides of the coin and being able to get there at the end of the day, I think is what we're all striving for. So I think it's brilliant and I hope that nobody says pish posh to us.   Derick Van Ness (26:12) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (26:34) 70 grand if we could save you that much in taxes.   Derick Van Ness (26:37) I sure hope not, right? And if you do, it's because you've got a better use of your time than that. But quite frankly, most of this stuff, especially taxes, the cool thing is we've had a few tax rewrites in the last, you know, 10 years or so. But typically we don't have a lot of tax rewrites. So once you know the rules, it doesn't change that much year to year. A few little things change here or there, but for the most part, if you can take the time.   get yourself the right team or learn the rules yourself. mean, I think even people who know how to do this themselves, having a good tax pro on your team can be worth a lot because things do come up. ⁓ But honestly, most of it, once you know it, doesn't take a lot of time, right? We're talking a couple hours a year. And if you know what you're doing, a lot of this you kind of do along the way or it's already set up, like setting the money aside for taxes that's already set up, paying before the end of the year. That's just the thing you do one time, you write one check or make one payment online and   Kiera Dent (27:17) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (27:32) and you're done, right? And a lot of these things are easy. ⁓ Another one that's a really big one that came up with the tax bill that I'm very excited about is they brought back the research and development credits. And this is another thing that for a dentist, it'll probably take you two hours of time ⁓ to do it, like an hour to work with someone to do the projects, which is basically an interview of what have you done, what's the research so that the tax team can look at that.   Kiera Dent (27:43) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (28:00) And then just getting your tax returns over because not only do these credits come back, but you can retroactively, we've got one year to do this retroactively. You can go back and claim the credits for 2022, 2023 and 2024. And so that gives us three years where you can amend and go back and get that money. And I mean, for a typical dentist, I see on the low end, there are a lot of them. If you're investing in equipment, trying new stuff, which   Kiera Dent (28:15) Wow.   Derick Van Ness (28:29) most dentists to compete have to be doing today. If you're doing, you know, still doing mercury fillings from the seventies, then maybe that's not you. But most people who are listening to your podcast are...   Kiera Dent (28:32) Mm-hmm.   I was going to say you, most of the podcast   community should be in that realm.   Derick Van Ness (28:44) Yeah, I'm kind of joking, but typically, I mean, it's between $10,000 and $20,000 a year. if you have a big practice, I mean, we've had clients that have gotten multiple six figures back because they did some major overhauls and a bunch of stuff. But let's call it $15,000 to $20,000 a year for a lot of dentists. It takes 45 minutes to do it, the interview, and then a little bit of time to review that, make sure it's good.   So let's call it two, maybe three hours of total time to get that money back, right? And you can do this every year when we amend. You have to amend them and they go back to the IRS. And the IRS is taking about a year to get checks out. They're a little buried ever since COVID. They got behind and they just never caught back up. But once you get on top of that for 2025 and beyond, like you can just do it proactively. You just don't pay the taxes. You don't have to wait for a refund.   And so it's another one of those things where you spend an hour or two a year and you get 10, 15, 20, $30,000 a year that you just get to keep. Right. And so this one to me is a huge one for dentistry because the rate at which the industry is changing, right. Uh, went from, from cone beams to milling people, milling their own crowns. Now it's 3d printing pretty soon. It's going to be, you know, a lot of these things you see at the shows with the robots doing things and all kinds of different things that   Kiera Dent (29:50) Awesome.   Totally.   Derick Van Ness (30:12) Dentistry is a very progressive industry, right? A lot of AI coming in with answering phones and scheduling people and answering questions and all of that kind of stuff. You may as well get credits for it. You're doing the work, you're buying the equipment, you're figuring this stuff out. So if you're doing anything where you're upgrading, trying new technology, looking to get better, faster, more efficient, you're probably accruing the credits. ⁓ And it's just something you don't want to miss out on. R &D credits are... ⁓   not as well known as they could be because it's very much a specialty thing and it's relatively new to the tax code. It only became permanent in 2015. It's been around since the 80s but it changed a bunch and became permanent then. And the reason we didn't do it through 2022 through 2024 was there was a change in the 2017 tax code and you know they gave tax breaks.   Kiera Dent (30:43) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (31:07) to corporations, they had to make it up somewhere. And this was the place where they said, if people claim R &D, they also don't get to write off all the expenses without going into all the detail. It just wasn't worth doing. Now we can go back and recover that. Congress didn't think it was even going to become a law. I think they thought they were going to amend it. And then COVID happened. And they sort of forgot about it. So it became a law in 22. Anyway, this is all fixing it. So to me, this is a huge one. It's an easy win for a lot of a.   Kiera Dent (31:18) Yeah.   Derick Van Ness (31:36) a lot of dentists to be able to go out and just get a bunch of money back in taxes you've already paid for stuff you've already done. And it's pretty minimal effort. ⁓ There are lot of different people out there who do it. We do a free estimate for people so they can kind of see what's on the table. But yeah, it's pretty straightforward. To me, that's probably the one specific to dentistry that's going to apply to almost everybody listening almost every year. And so   I kind of saved it toward the end here because I think it's the big win. know, the others, the bonus depreciation can be bigger, but you're probably not buying a business or massive amounts of equipment every year. But if you are, then that's going to be a huge one too.   Kiera Dent (32:20) Yeah. No, Derick, I love that. And I did some math because you talked about like one hour approximately per month to do these things. And I just I did some really, really conservative numbers. So I was like, if we were doing 20 grand of how much we get for tax savings of like actual dollars to you. And that was in 15 hours a year. That's 1333. So about 1400 per hour. And so thinking about a dentist who's producing 1400 per hour.   That's actually, that's a pretty high production. You're producing about $11,000 a day as a dentist at that rate. Then I was thinking like, okay, the R &D is 10 grand, 20 grand in two hours. That's now producing $10,000 an hour. I was like, that dentist would be producing $80,000 a day. Just to put in comparison of your dollar per hour on production, you apply that to your tax savings. I think that it's to me,   Not all dentists are even producing $1,300 an hour. Even very, very skilled dentists, like 500 to 1,000 is actually pretty great. That's what we try to target for doctors to do. 8,000 a day is a pretty good amount. So when I just did the quick math and I'm like, a lot of dentists are not working five days a week. A lot of you are working four days a week. So if you just added this as part of your CEO time, one hour per month to dedicate to this.   What's the ROI of that time? think it's very well worthwhile. And I will agree with you, Derick. We've had you on the podcast before. That's why I had you come back on, because I am seeing multiple clients get these R &D credits coming through that I just think it's a worthwhile thing. Again, I feel like it's Geico. That's what I feel like right now. Like one hour or like one quick call could save you 10 to 20 grand. I think that that to me, again, let's be sharp. Let's be savvy. Let's make sure we take advantage of these opportunities because again,   Derick Van Ness (34:00) you   Kiera Dent (34:13) Like you've said, the compound of that 10 or $20,000 that you get over the course of the next 20 to 30 years while you're doing dentistry, even if it's five years, even if it's 10 years, ⁓ that to me is so worth your time. I feel like that's the best use of your time you can possibly do as a CEO, as a business owner. So Derick, that's why I want to do back on because I think everybody should connect with you. Everybody should talk to their CPAs about this.   I know you guys do the R &D credits. I also know that you guys do accounting. So if people are looking to connect with you, Derick, like what's the easiest way? Like I'm fired up listening to this podcast. I'm committed to my one hour a month. It's like one and a half guys. So you're gonna have to be a little bit more, but I'm committed to that. Where do I start? How do I get going to make sure that I can maximize this big, beautiful tax bill and also the R &D credits for my practice.   Derick Van Ness (35:03) It's a great question. So we actually set up a page just for Dental A Team listeners, right? So it's just, my company's called Big Life Financial. And we do that, it's not big money financial. Our goal is to help you get money out of the way so you can live the life you're here to live as a human, right? And really spend the family time and make the contributions and express yourself as you want to. But it's BigLifeFinancial.com/DAT. So if you go there, it's a research and development credits   opt in right for the page because I think that's the biggest win. But we will also do, if you would like, a full three year tax review for people. Anybody who wants to see, have I been overpaying? There's a million things we didn't touch on today because they're not part of the new tax bill. There are things that have been around for a long time. ⁓ But we can help you to get a good idea of have you been overpaying and what are the opportunities out there? ⁓ And so that's a great way to start. And then from there, if it seems like you want to   Kiera Dent (35:46) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (36:03) find out more, you have questions or things come up, but that's a good starting point, right? It's like a diagnostic that gives us a good place to start from. So BigLifeFinancial.com/DAT will set up a free call. It should only take maybe 15, 20 minutes at first just to answer any question. That's great.   Kiera Dent (36:19) 15 or more could save you.   It really fills up, it's true. It's true. Daria, I do have a question though, because people get creeped out by taxes. How often do doing this and looking back at past taxes alert audits within the IRS? Because people creep out about this.   Derick Van Ness (36:37) So doing it,   so the R &D credits, especially this because they literally passed a law and said, yes, you can go back and do it. So there's going to be a ton of people doing it. So I don't think it's going to be any type of audit unless you really weren't doing research, right? But that's what the interview is for, is to help us to identify it. And our team will essentially tell you what does and doesn't qualify. But there's no risk to it, especially because they're saying, hey, yeah, you can go back and do this. You could.   I mean, you could have claimed it before, but nobody did. So it's not going to stand out. also, even in the past, when we've done this for people prior to that law change, I think out of 16,000 filings, there's been like maybe 12 or 15 audits. It's lower. It's even lower than a typical audit range. And I don't know how that's even really possible, but it's just been very low. It's not something the IRS is really worried about. It's not huge amounts of money.   Kiera Dent (37:10) Mm-hmm.   Derick Van Ness (37:35) You know, some of these other strategies care that you're aware of. people are getting 50, 100,000, $200,000 tax breaks and those are much more highly scrutinized. You really doing this work, which dentists do, uh, and based on your industry, I don't think they're really going to bat an eye. It doesn't mean there's a zero chance, but it's very, very low. Just like if you had a piece of equipment, forgot to depreciate it. Now you went back and amended to do that. It's that straightforward. It's a permanent part of the tax code. It's not gray area stuff.   Kiera Dent (37:42) Right.   which is super helpful. And that's just where I wanted to clarify because I know people get kind of weird of like, yeah, I want to save on my taxes, but I'd rather not get audited. And so I think this is a world where you can be both. You can save on taxes legally, just like the Augustus rule. Like that is something very common. People do it if you don't know about it, talk to your CP about it, ⁓ your kids having real jobs. So I feel like it's something where, like you said, it's not talked about as much, but that does not mean that it is not as commonplace or that you shouldn't bonus appreciation on real estate, on big equipment.   Derick Van Ness (38:10) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (38:36) These are things that I also feel this is the time like a political landscape for you as a business owner to take advantage of tax benefits. The person who's in the White House currently, whatever you choose to believe or not believe is very pro businesses in a lot of ways. And so I'm like, if you're ever going to try it based on who's in office, ⁓ I think now is a great time ⁓ with how many things are coming forward for businesses and being more business. ⁓ I would just say   business friendly, I think is where the political landscape is currently. Again, not to go down a political path, just to be looking at like, if I'm hedging my bets, now is probably a really good time where odds of audits are probably a little bit lower than maybe at other times of the political landscape. So just things to think about. Derick, I love these podcasts. I love building wealth. So guys go to BigLifeFinancial.com/DAT, so Dental A Team. So it's just DAT our initials.   Derick Van Ness (39:15) Yeah.   Kiera Dent (39:32) And Derick will take great care of you. Derick, any last thoughts as we wrap up today? I appreciate you so much being on here.   Derick Van Ness (39:38) No, just think, you know, dentists work really, really hard and I feel like a lot of them don't get the fruits of their labor because there's a lot of these little things that they haven't been taught. And I think all the little things do add up. So, you know, this is one of those things that if you choose to just take it on, figure it out in a year or two, you'll be way ahead of the game and you get to benefit from that basically forever. Right? lot of this stuff, once you figure it out one time, you can just ride.   80%, 90 % on autopilot. So if you've been afraid of it, would say it's climb over that hill, whether it's with us or someone else, it is really worth it. You guys work too hard, take too many risks, deal with too much headache to not get the full amount of the money that you really deserve to keep. So yeah.   Kiera Dent (40:23) I agree.   That's why Derick gets to be on the podcast because we're very aligned. I've always said I want dentists to be insanely wealthy, insanely. I see what you go through in school. mean, 2.5 million debt ⁓ to even get the opportunity to practice. ⁓ That's really where I was on a very strong mission to help dentists just like Derick to be as successful as you want to be. And there's little strategies like what we talked about that are big strategies. So take advantage, get over the hump.   Chat with Derick or your financial advisor or your CPA. But these things, I think, need to be part of your every single year conversations. They need to be talked about multiple times. You need to be asking what's been changing in the tax bill, keeping yourself a part of it. Very simple moves, big gains this year. Derick, as always, thanks for being a part of it. I really appreciate you. And for all of you listening, thank you for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

My guest this week is Eric Williamson, Chief Marketing Officer at CallMiner.Eric brings more than 20 years of experience across tech and consumer marketing, spanning both the agency and brand sides. At CallMiner, he leads all global marketing functions, working hand-in-hand with sales and channel teams to fuel growth and pipeline.Before stepping into his role at CallMiner, Eric served as VP of Brand and Digital Marketing at Acquia, where he led everything from creative to demand generation for the open DXP platform.His agency background includes senior leadership roles at MullenLowe and The Martin Agency, where he shaped digital strategy for powerhouse brands like Google, GEICO, Walmart, P&G, and Microsoft.From Pizza Hut to Intel, Acura to Royal Caribbean, he's been in the trenches of marketing innovation his entire career.

Lance Kistler is a seasoned casting director and co-owner of KAMP Productions (a.k.a. KAMPcasting), operating across New York City and Metro Detroit. With over a decade of experience in commercial, film, voiceover, print, and talent casting, Lance has cast talent for major commercial clients: brands like McDonald's, Geico, Verizon, Nissan, Bank of America, Bose, Disney + Whirlpool, Zaxby's (with Brad Paisley), Toyota, Captain D's, State Farm, Samsung, among many others. *In this Episode, we talk about: * * Misconceptions about voice over casting * How many final choices do clients want to hear + why * Mistakes voice actors make in auditions * Lance's thoughts on AI Connect with Lance on LinkedIn HERE (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lance-kistler-70b48161/) Atlanta VO Studio Upcoming Training Find Your Voice with Daniel Ross (https://atlantavoiceoverstudio.com/what-we-offer-workshops-find-your-voice-workshop/) The Character of You Class (https://atlantavoiceoverstudio.com/what-we-offer-classes-the-character-of-you-class/) (Learn how to bring your authentic voice to scripts) Script Workout with Jill Perry (https://atlantavoiceoverstudio.com/what-we-offer-classes-vo-virtual-script-workout/) Character of You Workout with Steve Henderson (https://atlantavoiceoverstudio.com/what-we-offer-classes-character-of-you-virtual-workout/) Audiobook Performance Class (https://atlantavoiceoverstudio.com/audiobook-performance-virtual-class/) CLICK HERE for 15% off a Voice123 Membership ($495 tier and up) - https://bit.ly/3uPpO8i Terms & Conditions - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CcYMkdLxWfbmwbvu-mwaurLNtWYVpIBgkJpOQTYLDwc/edit?usp=sharing Looking for a VO MENTOR? Check out our Mentorship Membership for just $25/month - https://www.provoiceovertraining.com/300-membership *LET'S CONNECT! * facebook.com/atlantavoiceoverstudio instagram.com/atlantavoiceoverstudio twitter.com/atlvostudio tiktok.com/@atlantavoiceoverstudio YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/atlantavoiceoverstudio Atlanta Voiceover Studio & ProVoiceoverTraining's Classes & Workshops www.AtlantaVoiceoverStudio.com www.ProVoiceoverTraining.com **Sign up for FREE weekly VO tips: https://bit.ly/AVSemail

BOSSes, get ready for an inspiring conversation with a true powerhouse of performance. In this episode of the VO Boss Podcast, we welcome the incredibly talented Stacia Newcomb, a veteran voice actor and performer who has been lighting up the mic and screen for over 20 years!   00:01 - Speaker 1 (Announcement) Hey bosses, if you're ready to start that demo journey, let's craft your professional demo together. As an award-winning professional demo producer, I'll collaborate with you to showcase your talent in the best possible light. From refining your delivery to selecting the perfect scripts to showcase your brand, I'll ensure your demo reflects your skills and personality. Let's create a demo that opens doors and paves the way for your success. Schedule your session at anneganguzza.com today.  00:33 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the Boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a Boss a VO Boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:52 - Anne (Host) Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I'm here with a very special guest who's been lighting up the mic and the screen for over 20 years. Who's been lighting up the mic and the screen for over 20 years?  01:09 Stacia Newcomb is a powerhouse voice actor, performer and creator whose work spans just about every medium, let's say television, radio, video games, audiobooks and even puppetry. You might recognize her as the star voice See what I did there and fuzzy face of star from the Good Night Show on Sprout, where she's brought warmth and comfort to bedtime for kids for over a decade. Not only that, but she's voiced characters for Disney, nickelodeon, pbs, kids and Cartoon Network. And, of course, you've heard her in campaigns for brands like Geico, verizon, subway and Dunkin'. She's made her mark on stage and screen from a memorable appearance on 30 Rock, which I found to be quite interesting We'll talk about that in a minute to sold-out off-Broadway comedy shows like Can I Say this? I Can Shit Show and Potty in the USA. I can't say that because it's my podcast. Yes, these days she's running her own studio in the Berkshires Sound and the Furry where she produces family-friendly content and helps other performers find their voice. Welcome to the show Stacia.  02:12 - Stacia (Guest) Wow, thank you. That was quite the intro.  02:15 - Anne (Host) I'm like wow, I was like wow, I don't think 30 minutes is enough time for us, Stacia, to go through everything that you've done. Let's not, then We'll talk about whatever we want to. It's just, it's so amazing. I mean, so you've been in the industry for over 20 years, which actually to me, I've been in it just the voiceover aspect for like 18. And so 20 years feels like it was yesterday to me. But talk to us a little bit, talk to the bosses and tell us a little bit how you first got into performance. I assume performance was before voiceover.  02:50 - Stacia (Guest) Yeah, yeah, hey, bosses. Yeah, I started as an actor. I wanted to be an actor for as long as I can remember, I mean when I was little. My mom still tells a story about how I performed for all of my five-year-old friends at my fifth birthday party, which sounds like still a good party to me, right? So, yeah, so I started as an actor and through that I tried to just branch off into any direction that I could, to be living a creative life and be able to continue performing in whatever medium I could. You know.  03:34 - Anne (Host) So what was one of the first things that you did? Performance wise, professionally, yes, professionally.  03:38 - Stacia (Guest) So I this is so random, but there is. I'm from Massachusetts, that's where I grew up. In Newport, rhode Island, which I don't know if there are any Gilded Age fans out there there was a mansion, the Astors Beachwood, and the Astors Beachwood was owned by the Astors at the time when I graduated high school. At the time, for about 10 or 15 years, I think they had. They hired actors from all over the country to live there and perform as both aristocrats and servants of the 1890s the year was 1891. And we yeah, it was all improv, like some days I'd be an aristocrat and some days I'd be a little housemaid.  04:22 - Anne (Host) Wow, that sounds so interesting. Now you said Massachusetts. Now see, I'm originally a New York State girl, right, and I've been up and down the East Coast, so Massachusetts would suggest that you have an accent in there somewhere. Yeah, I sure do.  04:37 - Stacia (Guest) It's right there.  04:38 - Anne (Host) Yeah, and of course I feel like, because I had a very New York State accent which was kind of similar, believe it or not, not quite as I don't know, not quite as accented as, not as ugly. Is that what you're trying to say? Oh no, because I would say things like car and water and it would be like really flat with my A is water.  05:01 And when I moved to New Jersey, oh my gosh did they make fun of me, and so I should not make fun of you?  05:04 in New Jersey, in New.  05:04 - Stacia (Guest) Jersey, they say, they say water.  05:05 - Anne (Host) They say water, what's water, and so I literally like and I think you're, I think possibly at the time this was before voiceover I said, oh gosh, all right, so let me try to tame that, and so I did my own taming of my own accent and then ultimately, I got into voiceover.  05:36 And back when I got into voiceover it was a thing to neutral, to quote, unquote, neutralize, whatever that means, neutralize your accent. And I said it was in a pink envelope and I brought it to the backstage door and so I heard myself say that and I was like and so from then on I just I started pronouncing my R's and have never looked back.  06:02 I imagine once you do, you have family that's still in the area.  06:05 - Stacia (Guest) Yes, in fact, we just moved my mom out of the area.  06:08 - Anne (Host) Yeah, when you go to family reunions and I think that when I get around my you know, my family in New Jersey, like we all start talking quicker and then we start, you know, well, let's talk about you know, we just like get into that accent and it just happens inadvertently but outside of the accent. So that's a really cool first gig. And so then did you go to school for theater?  06:33 - Stacia (Guest) We did OK. So I had done a little dinner theater and then I but I had been auditioning in New York. I had a big callback when I was like 18. I was called back for Les Mis and it didn't happen, unfortunately. But it's cool because it led me on other adventures.  06:52 - Anne (Host) Sure, that was one of my first shows by the way that I saw that. I saw that. I was in a show. No, yeah. No, I can't claim that, but but a callback for Les Mis is really awesome.  07:01 - Stacia (Guest) Yeah, it was a big deal, I and I, so I always. The plan was always to move to New York City, but it just takes a while to get on your feet and New York City is very expensive and a little scary when you're you know, sure is Absolutely Very scary.  07:15 Yeah, and so I ended up getting there eventually. But I did go to college and then I quit college because I realized at some point, like I'm getting a degree in musical theater and what am I going to do with that degree? And I'm spending so much money, but when you're 19 years old you don't realize what you're signing on the dot. You're signing your name on the dotted line for thousands upon thousands of dollars and it's the program itself ended up falling apart. And there were all these promises that were made to me, like you know I, because they gave me a bunch of credits because I'd already been working as an actor, and then I was going to go to London and then they were going to give me my master's so I should have had my master's within five years master's in theater performance. They also had a program where, like I would get my equity card and they do theater during the summers. But it was a small liberal arts Catholic college in Minnesota and the program sort of fell apart and I escaped. I was like this is not.  08:21 - Anne (Host) I had to get out of there. I escaped. That was a lot of that was a lot of words, and I'm not going to make this political at all, but that was a lot of words when you said Minnesota Catholic theater. Coming from a Catholic girl.  08:35 - Stacia (Guest) So I get that. Yes, so it was run by these two incredible gay men who were. They were amazing, but as you can imagine the politics at the time and just yeah, they were amazing, but as you can imagine the politics at the time and just yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and so all right.  08:48 - Anne (Host) So you quit college. And then what? I quit college.  08:53 - Stacia (Guest) But I got a job before I left, so I needed the impetus and the excuse to get out, which so I ended up working for Goodspeed Musicals, which is in Connecticut and they're a really pretty famous like regional theater. They'd won a lot of awards at the musical Annie started there, so I went there to be an intern in costuming and then I left that because I was like this is not what I want to be doing, I want to be performing. But it got me back east, which was great, and then from there I ended up taking like odd jobs, living with my parents for a little bit until I landed a show that took me on tour as a one person it was actually two different one woman shows for this company that's an educational theater company, and so I did that for like five years and while I was doing that I was able to make enough money to move to New York City and just keep going.  09:47 - Anne (Host) Now, what shows were those that you did that? The one woman shows, because that's quite a thing to do, a one woman show.  09:53 - Stacia (Guest) Yeah, and they're educational. So we would go to I would go alone really, I would travel all over the country, and one of them I played the fictional best friend of Anne Frank, and then the other one I played this young Irish girl who came over during the great wave of immigrants in the early 1900s. So I would go to, like schools and libraries and small theaters, and it was.  10:16 - Anne (Host) It was really incredible, an incredible job for a learning experience Now, at any given time at this point in your life. Did your parents or anyone ever say to you well, okay, so when are you going to get a real job? Do you know what I mean? Is it that? Was it ever like that for you?  10:35 - Stacia (Guest) I mean, yeah, I mean, I think probably in my own mind I thought not real job, but like when's the real, when are we gonna you know, and certainly when I would do my? You know, when that really happens is like around March or April, when you start doing your taxes and you're like exactly, theater doesn't pay, and so yeah, but I didn't get pressure like that from my parents. I got, I was lucky to get their support.  11:05 - Anne (Host) Yeah, that's wonderful.  11:06 - Stacia (Guest) I mean, they didn't have to support me financially and that's, I think, all that mattered to them.  11:10 - Anne (Host) Well, that's actually huge.  11:12 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) And.  11:12 - Anne (Host) I love that Because you had support to be able to go out and follow your creative dreams, which, I mean, my gosh, you, you've actually I mean you have the gamut of of creative things that you've done, and I imagine that just gives you such wonderful experience, because you're so rounded in all the areas that would make it important for you to be successful in any of those business areas.  11:38 - Stacia (Guest) Thank you, I think it's it's. It's also like trying new things and being new at things and, um, trying to not get be stagnant. You know, like just um, and and even always in my voiceover career, it's like I have to remind myself to uh, like that I get to do this and that that this is what I love, and just to to make it. How do you make it fresh when you've been doing it for so long?  12:08 - Anne (Host) For so long, absolutely.  12:11 - Stacia (Guest) And it's a different thing when you look at whatever you're about to experience or do with fresh eyes or like beginner eyes or like from a beginner experience, because you immediately are like, whoa, I love this, you know, and sometimes I think that can easily bring back the magic to whatever you're working on.  12:34 - Anne (Host) Yeah, yeah. So, these days are you mostly doing voiceover, doing voiceover and performing.  12:41 - Stacia (Guest) Yeah Well, so the pandemic changed a lot of things for me. We, because I've been in New York City and you know I'm still. We still have our apartment in New York City, but I'm mostly up at our house in the woods in the Berkshires. Yeah, I am still auditioning, I am still doing voice, a lot of voiceover. So yeah, I'm kind of all over the place and sort of open to whatever happens. I'm not I think I haven't been fully steering my own ship. I've kind of been like I don't know where are we going to go, Whatever you know, and just being open to whatever.  13:15 - Anne (Host) And there's so much good to be said in that though.  13:18 Yeah kind of allowing it to happen. I, I think for me and I don't know, I don't know what to call it, but for me I've always followed my gut or my intuition, and a lot of times, if things don't come right away, I know they will at some point, but I don't. I try not to rush myself to get to any specific spot, because I know that if it's going to happen, it's going to happen, and and the time it takes to kind of evolve the solution or the you know, to actually say okay, yes, now I know I have more, I have more direction, and now I'm heading in this direction. So I love that you said that. I love that Because you're not always sure right, you're not.  13:55 - Stacia (Guest) You're not. And you know the business has changed so much over the last, you know, over the last five years. I mean it's. It's kind of crazy. It's a new world and it's different. Navigating it is different, even though I'm with the same agents, even though I'm, you know, still in the business and I know the casting people or the producers that I know and have worked with. It's just, it's different. Approaching it like, hey, yeah, I don't have to rush. I really love that, Anne, because I feel like there is a rush.  14:30 - Anne (Host) There's always a rush I want it now. Yeah, no, I agree, I think so many of my students are always. They want it, they want it now, and I'm like, well, there's something to be said to letting it marinate and letting it evolve and letting it happen.  14:43 - Stacia (Guest) And also like looking in the other direction or seeing what else you know, I think. I think a lot of times, artists, especially if you're focused on one particular medium, you just focus on that one thing. And I, I recently started painting. Am I good at it?  15:01 - Anne (Host) No, I love it. I love it, but I don't think anybody could ever accuse you of not like experiencing or exploring different mediums, but it keeps you alive, it keeps you like, creative and happy, and that's what I want.  15:14 - Stacia (Guest) It'd be exactly that like lightens you up and it opens you up to when you are approaching commercial copy or whatever. It is Right Because you're, because you haven't been like. Why am I not looking? Why am I not? What am I? Who do I?  15:31 - Anne (Host) need to be for this piece of copy and you're just, you're just letting it, you're letting it happen. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Oh my gosh. So what? Before I actually talk to you about, let's say, some character, I want to. I have some character questions to ask you, because I think you're always a character in voiceover and no matter what genre you're working on. But I do want to talk about puppetry and what got you into that?  15:51 - Stacia (Guest) I had been doing Pokemon. I was very lucky. When I moved to New York I worked as a cater waiter when I wasn't doing the that one of those one woman shows and a friend had introduced me to the studio that that at the time was recording Pokemon. So you know how it's like things trickle Around. That same time this show was off Broadway it was called Avenue Q and then that musical came to Broadway, which is where I was finally able to get tickets, because you could not get tickets to it and it was crazy and it was such a special show. It's just so funny. The music is great and touching. It has so much heart to it. I mean it's a little dated now, but at the time it was, it was just extraordinary.  16:38 - Anne (Host) And it's still yeah.  16:39 - Stacia (Guest) So in that show for anyone who any of the bosses out there that that haven't seen it or don't know about it in that musical you see the full-on puppeteers playing the puppets on stage and it's so revealing. And me, as a young woman, I always loved puppets. I had puppets as a kid. I had like an Alf puppet from Burger King. I had a Kermit the Frog puppet. I loved puppets. Never thought that it could be a career, never thought in a million years. And when you think about it there aren't a lot of. It seems like there aren't a lot of female puppeteers. There are and there are more, but as I was growing up it was all men really, and then you would have like even the female characters. I mean Miss Piggy's, like one of the most famous women female characters of all time. She's played by a man and so you know the idea of being able to play a, be a puppet. It just was not. It never, you know. And so I saw that show and it was just incredibly revealing to me. It was like a light bulb moment. So I immediately got a puppet and started training.  17:52 I actually was so lucky that I got into a class that John Tartaglia had been teaching at that point in the city and I got to study with him, which was amazing and he's a beautiful human being, and so from there it was just kind of magical. Somehow this show was uh happening. I did another little uh on camera thing, but then this show the good night show happened. I auditioned for it and I had already created this little four-year-old girl character. They wanted me to change it up and make it a boy character. Well, those voices are going to be very similar, because a four-year-old boy and girls can sound pretty similar oh yeah yeah, Actually I was listening to it, I was trying to figure out.  18:35 - Anne (Host) You know, I felt like it could have been either yeah, right, right, because it's so young.  18:41 - Stacia (Guest) So yeah, so I auditioned for it and I booked that job and it became a huge part of my life. I ended up creating a part of the show and writing for the show and helping create the spinoff of the show, and so there's your, there's your acting, your puppetry, your your voiceover.  19:00 - Anne (Host) I mean you're, I mean production, I mean it's all aspects.  19:04 - Stacia (Guest) Yeah, absolutely yeah that's, that's amazing. It was, it was a really it was a really special show and a beautiful community and even now I, michelle who, michelle Lepe, who was the host on the show she still gets messages about, you know, from the kids who grew up with it, just like how much it meant to them, which is very sweet. I don't because no one, because I don't look like this.  19:29 - Anne (Host) Well, you know, I can say something similar because I was a teacher for 20 years and so I watched my kids grow up and I literally had one of them contact me just recently on LinkedIn thanking me for setting them on the path, and I was like, oh my gosh, like that just meant the world to me, and so I think that's beautiful.  19:49 Right, and that's one of the reasons why I love doing any educational voiceover. Sure, because I feel like there's, and not just e-learning, but like medical, like I mean anything that educates an explainer that can help someone, and even corporate. Do you know what I mean? Because you're always come at it from an aspect of how can I help you, the person that I'm talking to, you know, look better, feel better, be better, you know, and really that's commercial too, because it really should be about how you're helping the person that's listening to you, yeah, and connecting in that way, and not necessarily what you sound like while you're doing it, yeah.  20:31 Let's not get wrapped up in that, yeah, no. And so with that, it's a good segue to start talking about characters, because you've done so many characters, but you also have done commercials. So when it comes to characters in voiceover, let's talk a little bit about that. How is it that you prepare for any given piece of copy? Is it always a character?  20:56 - Stacia (Guest) Is it always a character you mean like with?  21:00 - Anne (Host) character copy or what you mean, or any kind of copy. Do you create a character for any type of copy, any type of copy, I think?  21:06 - Stacia (Guest) for me, my approach to commercial copy is it depends on the spot but it also is like how you know the age old question how would I talk to? A friend about this sitcom, you know, like whatever it is, but I and so it's just about bringing my authentic self to it. But also there's a there's. I think there is a musicality to it, but also it really depends on what's on the page right or what we're selling, you know do you ever envision?  21:37 - Anne (Host) do you ever envision yourself as the um, the, the? On camera the zip cream or the character zip cream or the. The person on camera. The character Zipcreme or the person on camera.  21:47 - Stacia (Guest) Sure, yeah, I think I mean I love when you get any kind of visual or if they give you the break of what is gonna be on screen and then you can kind of I love visualizing. I think visualizing because what it does for me is it brings my imagination to life, which immediately I'm having way more fun in the booth yeah. Yeah, and it's enjoyable, even when the copy is like maybe a little like dry or sad or whatever, like liven it up by visualizing what's happening.  22:26 - Anne (Host) Yeah absolutely Believe it or not. That's a big thing. Even if I'm doing e-learning, I'm imagining that I'm the teacher, because I was a teacher for so long and so I can draw upon that experience, and it's better for me to talk almost like a one-on-one coaching with a student. And if I try to envision myself in front of the class, even when I was a teacher, I was always looking at one person at any given time. Yes, so it made it much more personal, of course, and so for e-learning, I'm a character Corporate narration. I'm a character because I work for the company and I'm trying to provide a solution that is going to help the person that I'm talking to, which makes it a whole lot more interesting than if you're just reading about it to someone.  23:15 - Stacia (Guest) Totally yeah, or sound, trying to sound like someone who reads these kinds of things. Right, it's like, because it's a really I think what it comes down to is connection and we, as actors, need to connect right copy, which means I probably need to understand it. That's, that's excellent.  23:25 - Anne (Host) So yeah, so how? What are your steps for connecting to copy?  23:28 - Stacia (Guest) It really depends on the piece. Recently I had to do what was pretty lengthy and I had to do the spot in 15 seconds and it was like okay, I don't usually read things over and over and over again because they feel like there's an element of um, uh, over overdoing it you know, I agree I agree.  23:52 So my booth is here behind me. That's why I'm pointing behind me, in case anyone's wondering Um, and so sometimes when I get in there, I will run it a few times like that particular spot because it had to be so quick. But at the same time, of course, they're going to want it to sound like I just talk, like that, you know, and so it's like it's marrying those two things right when I want it to come off like it feels like me. I'm just sort of having this talk, but I'm also. It's very quick and rapid and it falls within the 15 seconds. Yeah, so my approach is not always the same thing. It really depends on what I'm working with, and sometimes there isn't enough time, like in that 15 seconds, there's not enough time to visualize or do this. It's wall to wall copy and it's also I'm talking about this cool thing that you're going to love, and so it's just about like who sometimes I like playing with? Who am I talking to? Where am I? Proximity is such a fun thing to play with too.  24:57 - Anne (Host) You can do that in a minute or two, totally Right. Yeah, and that's the thing I always try to emphasize to my students is that it doesn't take a whole lot of time to figure out who you are and who you're talking to and maybe set a scene up, yeah, and to get yourself rolling on that. I mean it's nice if you have the entire scene as it progresses through, because that allows you to help tell the story. But if you don't have all the time in the world, but a lot of times we're auditioning in our studios. I mean, we're not live auditioning as much as we used to. Gosh knows that's the case, right? Um, and unless we're like in front of a, we're being live directed. That's a different story, right, but if we've got the time before we go into the studios, I mean, what do you take five minutes?  25:37 - Stacia (Guest) if you put different scenarios on it, because you're probably sending more than one read on this commercial copy and we don't know. But the thing that I've loved playing with recently is I really love doing a take. That's for me what do I want?  25:53 to do with this? How do I want to bring myself to this? Because I think that what makes us viable, that what makes us marketable, is us. We are not disembodied voices. We are human beings with lived in experiences, and so we're not just bringing our incredibly gorgeous voices. We are human beings with lived in experiences, and so we're not just bringing our incredibly gorgeous voices. We are bringing ourselves to this copy and what our lived experiences and our lives, and so that that's really fun to to, just like I would. I would, I would encourage everyone to just do one for you. What do you want it to sound like?  26:29 - Speaker 1 (Announcement) Exactly.  26:30 - Stacia (Guest) Because that's the most empowering feeling is to be like I want to do this with this, and that's when you're collaborating too Sure sure, and is that the take that you submit first?  26:42 - Anne (Host) Not necessarily. Is that take one, or is it the second take?  26:46 - Stacia (Guest) Like lately I have been exploring it and I just feel like I just want to be a little more playful, yeah, and so, yeah, I mean, I say not necessarily.  26:56 - Anne (Host) The truth is I lean towards that one, unless I've worked with the people before.  27:00 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) Yeah, and I know what they're looking for. You know what I mean then I'm gonna just give them what they want.  27:04 - Anne (Host) But uh, if I don't know, and it's not like a critical like I, I always think like it's kind of like gambling for me, right, sure we're all gambling.  27:13 - Stacia (Guest) We're just all right, we're all gambling, right.  27:15 - Anne (Host) So I'm just gonna like, well, you know what, I'm just gonna do my best and I'm gonna, and I'm, and I'm gonna, just, you know, send it and forget it, that kind of thing. So I'm not gonna put so much stock in like, oh my god, did I do the right thing? Did I give them what they wanted? Am I going to get this? I try never to like hope and wish in that way for any job.  27:35 - Stacia (Guest) If you're saying I want to do this and that's where I'm like no, both of those takes are for me. It's not that it's for me, but it's like I'm going to give you what I want to give you, and then I'm going to give you another take of something different that I want to do with this.  27:53 And of course I read all the specs and of course I read and I'll even, you know, watch other spots that they've done to get an idea. Like we got to do our homework right, but then it's like you asked me to do this. I'm going to got to do our homework right, but then it's like you asked me to do this. I'm gonna do it my way. See, it's fun. I'm gonna have fun with it. I'm gonna. It's so much easier to let go when you like, because if you hold on to what you like, if you, if you don't give the what you want to do with it, read, then it's like you might live with regret yeah, you know, or like it sounds like everybody else's yeah right  28:29 at the end of the day maybe even they're all gonna sound somewhat the same, anyway, you know, but it's like at least you know you had fun with it. You felt like your authentic self and you and you played yeah yeah, you know.  28:43 - Anne (Host) So, being a singer, which I, that was the other part of the medium that I didn't really talk to you about, but I mean, I can actually hear just your talking voice, although I've never heard you sing. Except I did, I did go, you know, I did my homework, I did my, I did my YouTube. You have a gorgeous voice.  28:58 Oh, thank you, but I can hear that.  29:00 I can hear that in your voice as you speak to me, and it's so funny because I think that no one should have to try, right.  29:10 I think that no one should have to try right to create a voice that somebody thinks they want to hear. Because when we're connecting right and I actually listened to quite a different number of songs that you did in different styles, and one was from your potty show, and so you had such a range there and what was so cool is that you were just undoubtedly yourself and just like in all aspects of yourself, and that was just so cool because it was connecting and that was what I was looking for as a human being. I was looking for that, that connection in the voice and while you were on stage and while you were communicating to me, and I feel like it's the same exact thing. It's the same exact thing for voiceover, right. It's all about like your voice is beautiful, no matter what you're you know what I mean, no matter what you're doing, you don't have to try and so just connect with me, and that's really what I'm looking for as a human being, and I think that's what most casting directors are looking for.  30:04 And they tell me over and over again, that's really what they're looking for. Is connection, not necessarily the sound.  30:11 - Stacia (Guest) I think we get caught up in the sound. The sound or I flubbed on this, or I you know this or that, whatever it is, and it's like I. I don't want to be listening and I am because it's so hard when you're doing this yourself.  30:28 - Anne (Host) It is hard not to listen.  30:30 - Stacia (Guest) You have to take off the director hat while you're the actor, and then you have to take off the engineering.  30:39 - Anne (Host) You know you have to compartmentalize, because if you don't, and you don't because you'll, and then when you come back, Because if you don't and you don't because you'll, and then when you come back and you're the engineer slash director and you listen back and you're like, oh, as an actor, I really loved that last take, that's weird. I don't like listening to it, like I don't. I don't have that feeling brought this up because it's hard. It's hard for us to separate the ears, right. It's like you have to develop an ear, right, you have to develop an ear as an actor, you have to develop an ear as an audio engineer and you have to be able to separate them.  31:13 And it's funny because I've always maintained back, when I was really, you know, moving on this in this career, I was in a place where they were doing construction outside my home and I had, when I was in my studio, I had my headphones on. I had to keep them on because I had to make sure that there was none of that sound coming in, and so I had my headphones on a lot of time. And if, if you get good at it, I always say the headphones are just amplifying your voice, and so if you can not listen to your voice and just you know what I mean, like you can record with your headphones on. I mean, right, you got to do it when you're live directed anyways. So I'm always saying people are saying, oh, I don't wear my headphones because I try to listen to myself.  31:53 I'm like I could listen to myself with my headphones off. Do you know what I mean? But you've got to be able to compartmentalize, and I love that you said that, because that is a skill and it's a skill that I think takes a little bit of time for for people to to really really get to be able to to say, okay, this is my, this is my actor ears. Yeah, versus what do I sound like?  32:16 - Stacia (Guest) right, it's that constant like don't listen what you sound like and it's. It's also like there's because there is that judgment that comes in you and that when you are wearing cans, if you aren't telling your self limiter I talk about this a lot and we'll talk about it when when we work together with everyone, but if you aren't challenging them and saying I don't need you here right now, it's very powerful to send them away, to send that voice to me. For some reason, it's right here.  32:48 - Anne (Host) It's just very like right, that's like the magic secret Stacia, I mean I love that it works for me. So, I want to say that we are going to be having you as a VO Boss workshop guest director, so, and and we are going to be talking character creation. So will we be discussing, talk a little bit about what we're going to be talking character creation. So will we be discussing, talk a little bit about what we're going to be doing in that class.  33:08 - Stacia (Guest) What I would love to do is see where everyone's at, what they want to play with, and, of course, do that, but also, I think, for everyone, I would love to share the self limiter and what I, what I do to get rid of that sort of you know, it's a, it's a protection right. That's what that voice is doing. It's trying to help you, but it's not helpful. I love that.  33:34 - Anne (Host) Oh my gosh, that's like secret sauce.  33:36 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) Yeah, yeah, I think so.  33:38 - Anne (Host) I know how hard that I mean. It's just, it's so hard. I mean, and you do have to, you have to be able to, you have to be able to separate it, you have to wrangle that?  33:46 - Stacia (Guest) Yeah, because that that voice that's trying to protect you inevitably is is keeping you safe. It's keeping you safe, it's doing its job and you don't. You do not want anyone keeping you safe when you're in your booth. Yeah, it is not a place for safety.  34:04 - Anne (Host) It is a place to play.  34:06 - Stacia (Guest) If you're playing safe and you're in a dramatic role for a video game and you're, you know you're about to I don't know shoot up some monsters, or you're afraid for your life or it, or you're, you know, some silly little kid like you got to be a little kid, you got to be playful and you know, or you got to be scared of those monsters or whatever's on that page. It is not a place for you to be protected or be playing it safe.  34:33 - Anne (Host) Yeah, yeah, I love that. Did I just get on a soapbox? I think I did. I think that, no, I love that and and all right. So, from a different perspective right, I mean a different perspective, it the way that it hit me, but I love that. You teach that because I am.  34:47 You know, I've had health issues, right, I had cancer, and before I was diagnosed, I was like so worried about what I was sounding like and what. You know how the audition went and did. Should I have done it this way? Should I have you know? And then all of a sudden, it was like whoa, like what was I? Like that just didn't seem important anymore. I shouldn't be.  35:09 Why was I so worried about what I sounded like when, in fact, I just, you know, I'm fighting this disease right now, and so it gave me such a license to permit myself to be free. Yeah, just not worry and not have that self-judgmental voice on me all the time. It was an amazing thing that happened to me and unfortunately I mean well, I mean fortunately I'm here and everything's good, you know. So nobody, nobody, has to worry about it. But in reality, it was one of the best things that could have happened for my performance, for my actor, my actor self, was to say what the hell was I so damn worried about? What was I? What was I trying to be? You know what? Just screw it Like, isn't it incredible?  35:47 - Stacia (Guest) how? So empowering? So it's like grief is off. Grief is awful and we all, as humans, live through it and the way that it can have some magical elements and empowerment in it is really incredible. Talking about that and how you're like I don't care, Like I don't. Why am I going to concentrate on what I sound like? That was not a priority.  36:16 - Anne (Host) No, Well, what I sounded like is not a priority anymore.  36:19 - Stacia (Guest) No, no no, it was amazing, because it's like a reminder of who you are, who your soul is Like. You want to connect with people and that's what you do. I love it.  36:29 - Anne (Host) Oh, my God, I'm so excited, so excited for you to join us. So, bosses, make sure that you check out the show notes and I'll have a link to the VO. Boss, or just go right to the VO Boss website.  36:41 - Stacia (Guest) Is it down here? Is it? Should I point to things?  36:45 - Anne (Host) I'll be putting it in the post. So it's on VeoBosscom. You guys check out the events and sign up for Stacia, because it's going to be an amazing class. And, stacia, I just want to say thank you, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining us.  36:59 - Stacia (Guest) It was a pleasure.  37:00 - Anne (Host) Yeah, it's been wonderful Really getting really getting to know you even better. I'm so excited.  37:05 - Stacia (Guest) Back at you. You're an incredible interviewer. It's really what a joy.  37:10 - Anne (Host) Thank you Well thank you, I appreciate it. Well, look, bosses. I'm going to give a shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses, like Stacia and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Bosses have an amazing week and we'll see you at Stacia's class right. Yay, in August. I'll be there and we'll be with you next week with another episode. Thanks, so much.  37:33 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a Boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

When timeless advertising principles meet today's AI-saturated landscape, something surprising happens: the old rules still work.Especially when we're talking about the father of advertising himself, David Ogilvy. In this episode, we dive into his iconic book, Ogilvy on Advertising, with special guest Eric Williamson, CMO at CallMiner.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from Ogilvy's approach: why specificity beats slogans, how research powers emotional storytelling, and why writing for humans is the real differentiator.About our guest, Eric WilliamsonAs CallMiner's Chief Marketing Officer, Eric oversees all global marketing functions from brand and events to demand generation. Eric's marketing team works very closely with channel and sales to drive pipeline and CallMiner's explosive growth. Eric has over 20 years of experience in both technology and consumer products marketing from both the vendor and agency side. Before joining CallMiner, Eric was VP Brand & Digital Marketing at Acquia — an open DXP platform built around Drupal — where he led brand, creative services, webops, editorial, and demand generation. Prior to Acquia, Eric was on the agency side of marketing working as SVP Digital & Social at MullenLowe, and before that as VP Digital Strategy at The Martin Agency. During his career Eric has worked with a variety of B2C and B2B brands including Google, Microsoft, Intel, GEICO, Walmart, P&G, Pizza Hut, Acura, Royal Caribbean, and Hyatt. He earned his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University, and an MBA from The University of Texas at Dallas.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ogilvy on Advertising:Start with the line, not the logo. Great B2B brands don't start with visuals, they start with voice. The sharpest creative begins on the page, not the mood board. “Copy first, research first, copy second, then worry about the visuals,” Eric says. In other words: write the line that earns attention before you pick the font.Write for humans. Most B2B copy dies in a sea of jargon. What buyers actually want is to feel seen. “It's really easy to fall into a place for a technology company to talk about your tech, talk about your features… and there's nothing emotional about that,” Eric says. The fix is to start by writing for humans. Emotion isn't a nice-to-have, it's your edge.Don't guess, ask. You don't need personas when you have real people. The best insights come from your customers, not your whiteboard. Eric says, “Just go talk to them…Why do they keep staying with you? What sort of thing that they worry about at night does this help solve for them?” The answers aren't in your funnel. They're in the field.Quote“ Write for humans because, ultimately, that's who you're selling to, that's who you're trying to influence. It's really understanding their emotions. What are their fears, what are their desires? Even in the B2B world, it's easy to forget that.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Eric Williamson, Chief Marketing Officer at CallMiner[00:58] Why Ogilvy On Advertising?[02:49] The Role of CMO at CallMiner[03:38] Origins of Ogilvy On Advertising[06:56] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Ogilvy on Advertising[21:29] Ogilvy's Predictions[37:23] CallMiner's Marketing Strategies[41:57] AI as a Solution[44:20] Advice for Marketing Leaders[45:38] Final Thoughts & TakeawaysLinksConnect with Eric on LinkedInLearn more about CallMinerAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Jimmy Morrison co-wrote and directed the award-winning documentary The Housing Bubble with NY Times bestselling author Tom Woods. The film still holds the attendance record at the Anthem Film Festival after over 300 people spilled into the hallway at the premiere. Jimmy drove over 35,000 miles shooting interviews with people that predicted the crash like Ron Paul, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, Doug Casey, Jim Grant, and David Stockman.All told, Morrison has three documentaries on our spiralling debt crisis which keeps getting monumentally bigger: The Housing Bubble (2019); The Fall of 2008 (2025) and The Bigger Bubble (2026). "Some call it the Everything Bubble. Each [financial] buble keeps getting bigger," Morrison tells DIG LIFE DEEP! host JOHN AIDAN BYRNE, in this interview. We trace the surge in global financial and US debt encompassing mind-bending US student debt, credit card debt, unfunded liabilities and more. Global debt is thought to be hovering around $300 trillion or even much more. How did it come to this? We explore this horrendous debt accumulation and the rise of central banking with filmmaker MORRISON. Morrison's work on Dennis Quaid's Grid Down won a Storyteller Award at DOC LA. Although he was responsible for the motion graphics, his primary role was as a script doctor. Jimmy produced and ran a camera for the mockumentary Rocksteppy, starring Jake Dilley and McManus Woodend, best known for his recurring role as the GEICO caveman. The film features Jeff Dowd: the Coen Brothers original inspiration for “The Dude,” as well as cameos from Oscar-winning directors David Lynch and Peter Farrelly. David Lynch had picked Jimmy and Jake's music video Aperture for a grant. It also screened at the Minneapolis St. Paul Film Festival. His next film will tell the story of Luka Garza's journey to the NBA.Jimmy worked closely with Gary Johnson from 2010-2011 on his Republican Presidential campaign.Website: letusdisagree.com

In this episode of the Drop In CEO podcast Errol Allen shares insights on helping C-Suite leaders and organizations enhance their process efficiency, reduce costs, and achieve better business outcomes. Errol delves into the importance of process documentation, the role of CEOs in leading these initiatives, and the benefits of thorough documentation for training and internal operations. Highlighted is a case study where Errol helped a company streamline operations, resulting in improved morale, better performance, and increased company value. Tune in to learn how to overcome resistance in process documentation and when to consider automation for optimal efficiency. Episode Highlights: 02:15 Errol's Personal and Professional Journey 10:27 The Importance of Process Documentation 21:22 Navigating Resistance and Achieving Buy-In Errol Allen is a process improvement and systems expert who helps organizations align people, processes, and technology for better efficiency and ROI. With a hands-on approach shaped by roles at companies like ADT, GEICO, and The Houston Post, Errol launched his consulting business in 2011 to pursue his passion for smart systems and stellar service. He facilitates cross-functional process improvements across industries like property management, logistics, and manufacturing. A Houston native and natural storyteller, Errol’s insights have been featured in the Houston Business Journal, Customer Experience Magazine (UK), and more. His favorite saying? “I’m just having fun!” Connect with Errol Allen: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/errolallen/ Company Website: http://www.errolallenconsulting.com For more information about my services or if you just want to connect and have a chat, reach out at: https://dropinceo.com/contact/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Javy Lopez is a major part of Braves history as the catcher on our 1995 World Series Championship team and he'll be involved in the All-Star festivities at the Capital One All-Star Village as well as with the All-Star Celebrity Softball Game Presented by Geico at Georgia Tech. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most personal injury attorneys waste thousands every month on marketing that does not create authority or real clients.In this episode of the Garlic Marketing Show, Ian Garlic sits down with Chris Dreyer, CEO of Rankings.io, to reveal how law firms can transform their marketing strategies in today's AI-driven world.Chris explains how to fix the biggest mistakes law firms make, how SEO is evolving, and how firms can build a brand that outlasts Google Ads.He also shares powerful lessons law firms can learn from Geico and State Farm, and how smart branding wins the best clients.

Welcome back to America's #1 Daily Podcast,  featuring America's #1 Real Estate Coaches and Top EXP Realty Sponsors in the World, Tim and Julie Harris. Ready to become an EXP Realty Agent and join Tim and Julie Harris?  Visit: https://whylibertas.com/harris or text Tim directly at 512-758-0206. ******************* 2025's Real Estate Rollercoaster: Dodge the Career-Killers with THIS Mastermind!

This week, Jason is joined by financial expert, entrepreneur, and known to many as Mrs. Dow Jones, Haley Sacks! Upon entering the professional world, Haley took note of the content gap in the personal finance sector and decided to combine her interest in finances and her background in entertainment to make finance cool. Since then, Sacks has been helping a new generation of earners get fluent in finance. In short, she is making dollars make sense with a side of humor and pop culture to her millions of followers on social media. Haley has been featured in finance publications such as Bloomberg, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNBC, Forbes, MarketWatch, Entrepreneur, Barron's, Yahoo Finance, and more. Haley shares her journey from becoming a page for David Letterman to transitioning into finance, including her biggest financial mistake, side hustles, and her role as a creative social producer for Lorne Michaels. She discusses writing scripts for Fuse while working on Mrs. Dow Jones, creating her budgeting template Money Book 2.0, and outlining four essential financial steps everyone should take. Haley offers advice for parents, shares her approach to paying off debt, reframing a budget, and the importance of global exposure. She also reflects on her best and worst investments, provides credit card tips, and stresses the need for a personal money system, arguing that getting rich should be a simple process. With insights into the economy and the goal of working less, she emphasizes why money needs to be a constant conversation in our lives. Haley reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can't afford to miss! Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guest: Haley Sacks & https://www.mrsdowjones.com/ Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Trading Secrets Steals & Deals! AquaTru: AquaTru purifiers use a 4-stage reverse osmosis purification process, and their countertop purifiers work with NO installation or plumbing and removes 15x more contaminants than ordinary pitcher filters. For 20% off and 30-day Money-Back Guarantee on any AquaTru purifier, go to AquaTru.com and use promo code “TRADINGSECRETS” UpWork: Hiring shouldn't be a hassle or a drain on your budget. Upwork is your one-stop shop to find, hire, and pay top freelance talent—saving you time and keeping costs in check—all in one place. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free Quince: Vacation season is nearly upon us. This year, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve with Quince's high-quality travel essentials at fair prices. Go to Quince.com/tradingsecrets for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order. GEICO: Invest in your future by protecting your car, home, pet, RV, and more with GEICO. Get a quote today at https://on.gei.co/41ppSLv

This week, Jason is joined by a Bachelor fan favorite and one of his great personal friends, Kelley Flanagan! Kelley last joined us on Trading Secrets at the end of 2022 when we dived into her time on The Bachelor, her career as an attorney, and plans for her life as a content creator. Professionally, her content creation career has fully taken off as she shares fashion and lifestyle content with her 1 million plus followers. Personally, she has experienced some of life's hardest moments as she continues to fight her battle with Lyme disease, going through a public breakup, and more recently the loss of her father.  In this episode, Kelley opens up about why she stepped away from podcasts for a few years, the joy she's found in her life, and the personal, financial, and professional impact of moving for a relationship. She discusses how her goals were put on hold during her last relationship, the safety nets she kept, and her new golden rules for dating. Kelley also reflects on her parents' marriage, why she's not stressing about having kids at 33, her thoughts on The Bachelor fanbase, and the truth always coming out. From her Chanel bag journey to the work ethic instilled by her dad, Kelley shares why she doesn't have a five-year plan, whether she'd return to reality TV, and what she would have done differently in regards to the show. Kelley reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can't afford to miss! Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guest: Kelley Flanagan Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Trading Secrets Steals & Deals! Hims: Hims is changing men's healthcare by providing you with access to affordable sexual health treatments from the comfort of your couch. Just answer a series of questions on their site and a medical provider will determine the right treatment option. If prescribed, your medication ships directly to you, for free. Start your free online visit today at Hims.com/TRADINGSECRETS Quince: Vacation season is nearly upon us. This year, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve with Quince's high-quality travel essentials at fair prices. Go to Quince.com/tradingsecrets for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order. GEICO: Invest in your future by protecting your car, home, pet, RV, and more with GEICO. Get a quote today at https://on.gei.co/41ppSLv

This week, Jason is joined by entrepreneur, investor, podcaster, and through leader in the self-improvement and wellness space, Mimi Bouchard! Mimi is the founder and CEO of the hugely popular Activations app, a groundbreaking luxury motivational audio platform that has revolutionized meditation. Founded just two years ago, the app has quietly garnered tens of thousands of subscribers, generated millions in annual revenue, and changed the way we approach personal growth. Mimi's success story began with a simple practice—listening to visualization audios—which helped her become everything she had ever dreamed of. In this episode, Mimi dives into the importance of not relying solely on motivation, strategies for overcoming fear, the psychology and science behind the Activations app, and the transformative power of reprogramming your Reticular Activating System (RAS). She also shares how a voice memo to herself sparked the creation of the app, how to step into your future self, and why embracing the “woo-woo” nature of her practice is essential. Additionally, Mimi discusses how ChatGPT can help you visualize your ideal day, the cost of building her app, and her most valuable learning moment as an entrepreneur. She also introduces her new book, Activate Your Future Self: The Secret to Effortlessly Becoming the Happiest, Healthiest, and Wealthiest You. Don't miss out—visit Activations.com/secrets to claim a two-week free trial and a major discount on yearly subscriptions. Mimi unveils all this and so much more in an episode you can't afford to miss!                                              Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guest: Mimi Bouchard Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Trading Secrets Steals & Deals! GEICO:  Invest in your future by protecting your car, home, pet, RV, and more with GEICO. Get a quote today at https://on.gei.co/41ppSLv Boll & Branch: Build the coziest bed imaginable with Boll & Branch, makers of the iconic bedding that will change the way you relax and sleep. Change the way you sleep with Boll & Branch. Get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets at BollAndBranch.com/tradingsecrets  Indeed: When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. There's no need to wait any longer–speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. To get a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility, head over to Indeed.com/SECRETS Tonal: Tonal is the world's smartest workout that effortlessly fits into the busiest lifestyles. And with the latest iteration - Tonal 2 - you can ensure your workout is more tailored and effective than ever. For $200 off your Tonal purchase, go to tonal.com and use promo code TRADINGSECRETS.