Podcasts about hey mike

Mike Poznansky was still in college when he started working at Red Bull's college marketing division. Since then, he realized the need for agencies that understand students and deliver at the scale and quality necessary to keep up with large consumer brands. That's why Mike founded Neato and now works alongside the world's best brands to design and run creative marketing programs that bring new value to both brands and students. He's here to talk about pre-qualifying leads so you can separate the good ones from the ones who are just fishing. 3 Golden Nuggets Separate the fishers from the rest. Sometimes clients come in and say “give us ideas” and you may have to if you're a beginner and want to earn their respect. But there will come a point when you need to consider how much work that entails and come up with other options. Mike recommends telling potential clients the agency will interview the target audience and put together a scope. This research involves a payment to make sure that it's at least worth their while. It's a way to separate the fishers from the ones who will actually pay for your services. Involve the client in the process. The times of coming up with an entire concept and presenting that to the client are over. It's better to involve the clients in the process. This way, you can understand their reasoning when they reject something and have a better chance at getting them to believe in your vision. You also have better insight on important things not reflected on a brief. Have real human conversations. This goes for both your audience and your clients. Take the time to regularly speak with your audience to really understand what they need. Also, talk to the people on the brand side, on the client-side. Try to figure out what they're challenged with, because it could be something that they haven't even considered. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How to Qualify Leads and Stop Wasting Time on the Wrong Ones Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to another great show. The smart agency masterclass. I have a really good episode today coming up with Mike, who's built a really amazing agency and we'll get into that in a second. Now, before we jump in, I want you guys to take a screenshot of the show. And then I want you to post on Instagram and tag us so then we can give you a shout-out for being a loyal listener. So let's go ahead and jump into the episode. Hey Mike, welcome to the show. Mike: [00:00:33] Hey! Thanks for having me, Jason. Jason: [00:00:35] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Mike: [00:00:39] Yeah, my name is Mike Poznansky. I'm the founder and managing director over at Neato. We're a full-service marketing agency that helps brands connect with young audiences with a focus on gen Z and college students. Jason: [00:00:51] Awesome. And so how did you get started in doing this and how did you connect to that particular niche? Mike: [00:00:59] Yeah, I actually was pre-law. When I was in college, I had the, I had every intention of going to law school. I was thinking about being a sports agent or maybe working in intelligence. And through a strange set of circumstances, I connected with Red Bull. My passion work was in the action sports world and a company I was working with partnered with Red Bull on an event. And the employees over at Red Bull said, we have a job for college students that we think would be perfect for you. So, I was a senior, I became a student brand manager for Red Bull. At the time, I wasn't a big fan of marketing. I just saw it to be as something that was too disruptive or annoying, you know, kind of pestering. And through my work with Red Bull, even as a student, I discovered that it could be something that actually doesn't take away from your experience, but adds value to your day or to your life. And I ended up continuing with Red Bull and working for them full time. I spent, uh, over a decade there and eventually was running their college marketing program for North America. While I was at Red Bull, we were one of the first brands to invest in marketing to college students. We had a, a really large program that was very scaled. It was a well-oiled machine. So a couple of things happened that inspired me to get in the agency space. One, we started saying, how could we utilize this program to not only build the brand, but build the business? We had over 300 really capable well-connected students across the country. So we started experimenting with ways we could utilize them. And some of the programs we add to drive traffic into retail or pull product off the shelf or support our business in the on-premise. We were really blown away by the results. And then as we scaled, we needed some external help. And just, I realized that there weren't any agencies out there who were focused on the space that understood our business and that had high standards of quality. So just realized there was this void that I set out to fill with Neato. Jason: [00:02:56] Yeah, I see that so much where people are looking for something and they have no agency experience. And there was just like, let me just go into it, let me just create it. And a lot of times you don't take that bad baggage with you from some of the bigger agencies. What has it been like over the years of growing it and scaling it? You know, when it comes to your team or like, have you moved upmarket with your audience? Because agencies are always going through different cycles. Mike: [00:03:25] Yeah. Yeah, it's tricky because I think we started solely focused on college marketing and it's a very core part of what we do today. But one of the challenges we found with college marketing, in particular, was that it's very tactical. So a lot of the briefs you would get, there's an existing strategy. There may be even an existing campaign and they're just looking for someone to really execute. And it may be something that you don't think necessarily works for the brand, or even worse, works for the audience. And one of the big differentiators for us is saying the needs of young people and the needs of brand's ambition don't need to be mutually exclusive. So we believe young people are happy, happy being marketed to as long as it adds value to their lives. So sometimes when we get these really tactical briefs, we feel like they weren't a great fit for the audience. Or they weren't a good fit for the brand. And we found ourselves in a tricky position. And, of course, then you would naturally say, well, share your point of view and that works. But if you, if you have a tactical brief, and sometimes if you're working with some of the folks at that stage who are just there to execute the program. They aren't the one setting the strategy. And they're not the ones who may necessarily be part of those discussions and all that. So for us, I'd say the biggest challenge has been working ourselves, I guess, as you say, kind of upstream a little bit to be a more part of those strategic discussions. And to change some of the perceptions of what college marketing or youth marketing or field marketing could look like. Jason: [00:05:00] So what are some things that you've done that you've seen work to fix that? Because I saw that a lot and I think a lot of agencies do, where they get this tactical thing in and they need to really move upstream to really talk about strategy. You know, I remember we were working, um, I can't say the name of the brand. But I can say it's a large beverage company in Atlanta with a red logo. And, uh, so we were doing a campaign for a young urban market. Well, the guy that was making all the decisions was a fat white guy. Old white guy. And he was like, I don't get the campaign. And we're like, we know you're not going to get the campaign. Like you're not even, you're not, you're so far removed from even relating to them. So what are some strategies that have worked for you in order to going from tactical to more strategic? Mike: [00:05:51] Yeah. For us, it's tricky because if someone comes to you with this baked brief and strategy, and they aren't even hiring you to be a strategic partner, you're not really in a position to credibly say, we don't believe in this or this won't work. I mean, most likely, the outcome of that would be you just won't get the business, right? They find someone else who's onboard, especially if it's a new relationship and you don't have that existing credibility. So what has helped us in the past? First of all, saying… look, we have a ton of experience in this space, but I'll call BS on anyone who says I am a, I am an expert in youth culture. I'm an expert on young people. Because the more you do it, the more you realize it's always evolving. So the first thing we'll always do is we'll talk to the audience. Have conversations with young people about the category, about the initiative, about maybe even the strategy and the campaign. And then I'm not sitting there in a position going up to anyone on the client-side and just saying, look, this doesn't work. We don't like it. We're saying, hey, you know, we talked to a bunch of young people about what you're setting out to do and here are some of the things we learned along the way. So it's much more credible and it's puts you in a position to be a little bit more of a, of a partner. And someone who's collaborating with them than someone who just has a big ego and a strong point of view that's different from theirs. So everything we do is really driven by insights and we fundamentally believe that that's a critical part of our process. Jason: [00:07:24] Yeah. And I also see it as a lot of times, I would walk away from business that if they were just so driven by that. I would actually take it a step further. You know, I interviewed, um, one of the Harmon brothers who does all the funny viral videos or ads on the internet. And they only take on the ones that they actually believe in the product. So they've done like Squatty Potty. And I was like, you believe in that? They're like we do, right? Like we saw the science, and tested it out. I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. But they were like, we only do work of products that we know we believe in that we actually can go do and prove, and actually have results. And I think that's a big departure from a lot of agencies out there that just say, oh, you got a check? Oh, you need to find someone? I remember many times where we would actually walk away from an RFP and be like, look, this is not our process, we're not going to do it that way. And them coming back and being like, why would this one company, this small company pull out versus, you know, Tribal and DDP and Grey? And all these big agencies are giving us free work. It would make them think in order to, I really get to the next level. Mike: [00:08:38] Right. Yeah. It could be a little bit more provocative, right? But if it's grounded in truth, I think it works. And it's something we've, I would say, wrestled with a little bit is just how honest and straightforward you are and the initial part of that conversation, right? Because you have a strong point of view, but it's tricky because you have this incentive. Look, you want to work with them and not just because they're going to pay you. But for us, we could say this is a powerful brand. Like they have some really cool resources and assets, and we think they could bring a lot of value to young people's lives. We think they could have a really positive impact. So for us, it's just saying, you know what, let's go through a little bit of a journey and figure out if they can and are willing to get there. Jason: [00:09:25] Yup. Now, do you do that through a small paid engagement or are you doing that on your own dime? Mike: [00:09:32] That was the first thing that came to my mind, right? Because that's hard work and it's a lot of work. I mean, even if you want to find people, interview them, synthesize those insights, share them. Ideally, we'll do that and we're getting paid. Usually, what happens? This happened recently with an organic foods brand. We came in, they came to us and they said, listen, we want to market to students. Here's what we're trying to do. Give us ideas, best ideas win and win the program. And, you know, give us the best ideas and you'll become our agency partner. And I said, listen, I could pull a bunch of stuff out of a hat, but I haven't talked to young people about organic foods. I haven't talked to them about your brand. I've been having a ton of conversations with them lately, but not about this subject. So what I would propose is that we go and do that and then we'll put together a scope and we'll get paid to make sure that it's at least worth our while. And it, it helps the client too, because we could say at the end of this all at the very least you will have these insights and you'll have something you could work with, whether it's something you do on your own or something you do with another partner. So ideally we're, we're getting paid. Earlier on, when someone was coming up with us, uh, to us with a tactical brief, we had to do it for free because we didn't earn their trust and respect yet. Jason: [00:10:44] Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to a couple agencies a little while ago and literally, I was like, if you're just starting out, you're going to have to do the grunt work. You're going to have to take it on the chin and do some of the free work. But once you start getting a little bit momentum, then you can actually be more selective and say, no, I'm not going to take it on the chin. We're going to do it this way. Then I'd always tell people, like, treat it this way and say, look, you're going to pay us to develop you a really good strategy. Here's three outcomes. You'll love the plan and you'll go execute it yourself, which you were just talking about. You'll love the plan you want to work with us, which is the most common. Or third, you don't like the plan. I'll give you your money back. So you really have nothing to lose. And then it literally takes them from like, are they really a qualified prospect or are they really just effing you up, right? Like just trying to get free work. And I found that by doing that, that separates the fishers or the, uh, the people just fishing from the real buyers. Because I look at it too like, I think it was Dean Jackson that said, uh, you know, 50% of the people will never buy from you, but the other 50% will. But you have to figure out when. Like, there's a small percentage that will buy right now, which are like 15%. And then the other 35 is like maybe 90 to two years down the road. And you have to kind of figure that out. So like I'm trying to eliminate the non-buyers right away. I love that you get, you're getting paid for it too. Mike: [00:12:14] Yeah. And I think one of the things that's helped us in that process too, is that I'm not a big fan of, um, you send us a brief, we go away for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever it is. We come back and do this whole dog and pony show with a bunch of ideas. And then in that process, we learn that there's a bunch of other things that have happened since then. Or a bunch of things that were maybe missing from the brief or there's other decision-makers in or departments who weren't a part of writing the brief. So what we like to do is co-create with our clients and have a bit of a collaborative process and creative development. Because in real-time you're getting that input and that feedback. And like I said, it just, it's, it's impossible for them to capture all that on paper. In that process, you could see what they're really up for, right? Because we'll have a client that will come to us say we want big ideas “we want huge disruptive ideas.” And we… this happened to us very early on and they came to us and they said, these ideas are too big. Well, you wanted big ideas. That's what you asked for, right? So I think bringing them along in that process, in the creative development process, and turning it into a conversation instead of everybody working in silos could help you feel that out too. Jason: [00:13:27] Well, they don't want big ideas. They want results, the smart ones. And so I totally agree that you have to do it with them. Yeah. The, the time of what is it like Bewitched? Was it? The show Bewitched, when Darren would pitch the work for Larry, which was his boss, right? Like those days are over, like literally if you're not building with them, because then they have more skin in the game. And you can ask them, be like, what do you think if we did X, Y, and Z? And if they say no, I think it's a dumb idea. You find out why is it a dumb idea for in their head, especially if you believe in this. And then you get them to a point where they're like, oh yeah, I like that idea. So then when you present the ideas, they were all there. Like they feel like it was all theirs. And then they're like, man, I really feel like we're connecting. We're like, well yeah. Like we just did this, this engagement together. And then, you know, we found that they're 20 times more likely to engage with you if they have a good engagement or the first, rather than just going, oh, let me give you a bunch of ideas. Like, oh, I hated that. We got away from that very quick. Mike: [00:14:32] Yeah, it's full of assumptions, right? I mean, you just, it's a tricky process. And then sometimes you could spend a week or two going down a path. And if you would just learn this one thing, that path may not be viable for them. Or it may be a trigger point for someone who is the decision-maker there because of a bad experience that you just, you don't know those things. Yeah. And on results, I agree with you. I mean, one of the things we like to do, especially with the people who are paying for it, or running the departments that are part of this program or experience or process. Is just say, okay, let's pretend it's December or it's the middle of the year. We're all sitting in a room and we're looking back on this program and we're celebrating. What would we be celebrating? What do we really want to get out of this? Because sometimes you'll find that people will bake in all these goals and KPIs and objectives that don't align with the needs and wants of decision-makers. Jason: [00:15:25] Yeah. I always looked at when a client comes to you, like if you think of kind of the past, the present, the future, when they come to you, it's because they're stuck. And then, right? That's in the past, they're stuck, they've tried a bunch of things. Then in the present you think about, well, they have a problem. And the future is, they just don't know what they need to do. And so we have to do, as agencies is we really have to kind of look and go, how can we switch their state? Like get them to a resourceful state rather than a stuck state, right? The past. And then in the present, we really need to pinpoint what is the real issue. Like we need to be urgency detectives. Because the clients like they, sometimes they don't know and they, they're like, they don't really know the problem. And so really we need to identify what's the actual issue. We need to kind of paint that picture. Then, in the future, it's just. Let's just shrink the scope and let's just make it really simple for them to understand. And when we do all that, now we can take that prospect to, you know, someone actually believing us. Rather than just saying here's all these big ideas, but that's what we've seen work really, really well. Well, this has all been amazing. Is there anything I did not ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Mike: [00:16:41] Yeah, it's a good question. The only thing I would say is just how you identify those problems. I think has been a little bit of a learning for me and I, you know, I've just getting ahead of it. I've just found that the most effective way to do that is through real human conversations with the people on the, on the brand side, on the client-side, to really figure out what they're challenged with. Because it could be something that they haven't even considered. You know, I think a lot of people can get almost in a little bit of this like automated mindset where they're just they're writing briefs around specific campaigns. Or they have, they have a line item in their budget they're trying to fulfill. And then through conversations with them, you could identify things that they're really struggling with, that you could potentially help on. And maybe it's not a good fit and you could pass it on to someone else or whatever it may be. But I think, I think those real human natural touchpoints are really important to understand what the needs are of your clients and figuring out if there are ways that you could support them in navigating those issues. Jason: [00:17:42] Awesome. What's the website that people can go and check you guys out? Mike: [00:17:47] Yeah. We're at neato.agency, n-e-a-t-o.agency. Jason: [00:17:51] Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. And if you guys enjoyed this episode, I want to make sure you guys subscribe. It's just so you are always notified when we have an episode. And then if you guys want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners, where we get together on an ongoing basis to really work on the business, rather than in the business. And really be able to create that freedom where you can pick and choose and do the things you want to do in your agency, so you can eventually get to a point where you can actually sell it or exit the stuff that you don't like to do anymore. I want to invite all of you to go to digitalagencyelite.com. That is our exclusive mastermind. And until next time have a Swenk day.

Taylor Stein from Minted Moment hits the Club to discuss Top Shot, Collector Score, and the Own The Moment / Bottleneck Boys scandal. Jack pitches a Vegas trip. Trey Kerby and JE Skeets swing by to talk about the NBA Playoffs and our CTS vs. No Dunks pick up game. WillisIsAwesome from the Deposit Kingdom discord and Clay join us at the end to rip packs. ► Follow Taylor Stein on Twitter ➝ https://twitter.com/taylor_stein ► Taylor Stein's Substack ➝ https://mintedmoment.substack.com/

Adam Levitan aka the elastic honeybee from ETR joins the show to deliver some tough convos to Top Shot users about their complaining, debate whether everyone is collecting or just trying to make money, break down his upcoming tennis match vs. MBL, and reveal himself to be a Zed horse racing thought leader. Mike also explains his new site Flowty.io to us and shows us his racket. Andy catches us up on crypto twitter, including Size Chad, fights in Dubai, and the current state of the market. And finally, Club VIP and property brother look-a-like MattyG530 hops on to rip a MGLE pack. ► Follow Levitan on Twitter

Here is the conclusion of the special conversation I had on stage at a Traffic Secrets event with a friend and a student, Nic Fitzgerald. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Hey everybody, welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m so excited, I’m here on stage right now at the Two Comma Club X event with Mr. Nic Fitzgerald onstage. A year ago I gave a podcast to him about how to make it rain and this is section number two. Now those of you who don’t know, in the last 12 months since I did that podcast he’s been making it rain and he’s been changing his life, his family’s lives, but more importantly, other people’s lives as well. And it’s been really cool, so that’s what we’re going to cover today during this episode of the podcast. So welcome back you guys. I’m here on stage with Nic Fitzgerald, so excited. So I made a list of seven things that if I was to sit in a room with him in front of a whole bunch of people I’d be like, “Hey Nic, you’re doing awesome, but here’s some things to look at that I think will help you a lot with what you’re doing.” So number one, when Nic first kind of started into this movement that he’s trying to create, I don’t know when it was, if you created this before or after. When did you create the Star Wars video? Nic: This was, we talked in July, it was September/October. So a few months later. Russell: How many of you guys have seen his Star Wars video? Okay, I’m so glad. For those who are listening, about 10% of the room raised their hand, the other 90% who are friends and followers and fans of Nic have never seen the Star Wars video. His Star Wars video is his origin story and it is one of the best videos I have ever, by far the best video I’ve seen him do, it is insanely good. It comes, do you want to talk about what happened in the video? It’s insanely good. Nic: So I told the story of, I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, so if you didn’t know that, now you do. When I was young my grandma who lived in the same neighborhood as me, she took me to go see Return of the Jedi in the movie theater and I was such a Star Wars nerd, even at a young age, that when I was playing at the neighbors house, and you know, it’s the 80s, so mom and dad are like, “Nic, come home for dinner.” That kind of thing, I would ignore them. I would not come home until they called me “Luke”. No lie. I would make them call me Luke, or I would ignore them. I would not hear them. Russell: Had I known this in high school I would have teased him relentlessly. Nic: So my grandma took me and I remember going and it was so fun because we took the bus, it was just a fun thing. And we went and I just remember walking in and handing my ticket to the ticket person. And then popcorn and just the smells of everything. And again, this is the 80s so walking in the movie theater; I almost lost a shoe in the sticky soda, {sound effects} going on. I just remember how my feet stuck to the floor and all that stuff. And then just being so excited to see my heroes on the big screen and Dark Vader, I just remember watching it. This is such a silly thing to get emotional about, but you know I remember the emperor and Darth Vader dying and all that stuff. It was just like, ah. It was a perfect day. Sorry sound dude. But it was just a perfect day with my grandma who has always been dear to me. So the purpose of that video, I’d put it off for a long time. I knew I needed to tell my own story if I’m going to be helping somebody else tell theirs. And I put it off for a long time, because working through things, I was afraid that if it sucked, if the story was terrible, if the visuals were crappy, that was a reflection on me and my skills. I had worked on a bazillion Hallmark Christmas movies, you know how they put out like 17 trillion Christmas movies every year, if one of those sucks, no offense, they’re not riveting television. Russell: They all suck. Nic: That wasn’t a reflection on me, I was just doing the lighting or the camera work. I didn’t write the story, it wasn’t my story. But this was me, so I put it off for a long time because I knew if I didn’t execute how I envisioned it, that it would reflect poorly on me, and it would be like I was a fraud. So the purpose of the video, there were three purposes. One to tell a story and get people to connect with me on a personal level. As I told that story here, how many of you remembered your feet sticking to the floor of a movie theater? How many of you, when I talk about the smell of popcorn and that sound, you felt and heard and smelled that. So it was one thing, I wanted people to connect with me and just see that I was just like you. Then I wanted to show that I could make a pretty picture. So I had that and I used my family members as the actors. And then I went and talked about how…and then I wanted to use it to build credibility. I’ve worked on 13 feature films and two television series and shot news for the NBC affiliate and worked in tons of commercials. So I’ve learned from master story tellers and now I want to help other people find and tell their story. And then I showed clips of stories that I tell throughout the years. So that was, I just remember specifically when I finally went and made it live, I made a list of about 20 people, my Dream 100 I guess you could say. I just wanted to send them and be like, “Hey, I made this video. I would love for you to watch it.” And Russell’s on that list. So I sent that out and made it live and then it was just kind of funny, it didn’t go viral, I got like 5000 views in a day, and it was like “whoa!” kind of thing. But it was just one of those things that I knew I needed to tell my story and if I wanted to have any credibility as a story teller, not as a videographer, but as a story teller, being able to help people connect, and connect hearts and build relationships with their audience, I had to knock it out of the park. So that was my attempt at doing that. Russell: And the video’s amazing, for the 10% of the room who saw it, it is amazing. Now my point here for Nic, but also for everyone here, I wrote down, is tell your story too much. Only 10% of the room has ever seen that video or ever heard it. How many of you guys have heard my potato gun story more than a dozen times? Almost the entire room, for those that are listening. Tell your story to the point where you are so sick and tired of telling the story and hearing it, that you just want to kill yourself, and then tell it again. And then tell it again. And then tell it again, because it is amazing. The video is amazing, the story is amazing. How many of you guys feel more connected to him after hearing that story right now? It’s amazing. Tell t he story too much. All of us are going to be like, “I don’t want to hear the story. I don’t want to tell the story again.” You should be telling that story over and over and over again. That video should be showing it. At least once a week you should be following everyone, retargeting ads of that video. That video should be, everyone should see it. You’ve got 5,000 views which is amazing, you should get 5,000 views a day, consistently telling that story, telling that story. Because you’re right, it’s beautiful, it’s amazing and people see that and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I need that for my business. I need to be able to tell my story the way he told that story, because the connection is flawless.” And I think my biggest thing for you right now, is tell your story more. Tell that thing. You’re telling good stories, but that story, that’s like your linchpin, that’s the thing that if you can tell that, it’s going to keep people connected to you for forever. Anyone who’s seen that video, you have a different level of connection. It’s amazing, it’s shot beautifully. You see his kids looking at the movies, with lights flashing, it’s beautiful. So telling your story more, that’d be the biggest thing. It’s just like, all the time telling that story over and over and over again. That’s number one. Alright, number two, this one’s not so much for you as much for most of everybody else in here, but number two is that energy matters a lot. I’m not talking about, I’m tired during the day. I’m talking about when you are live, or you are talking in front of people, your energy matters a lot. I was hanging out with Dana Derricks, how many of you guys know Dana, our resident goat farmer? By the way, he’s asked every time I mention his name is please not send him anymore goats. He’s gotten like 2 or 3 goats in the last month from all of our friends and family members here in the community. Please stop sending him goats. He loves them but he doesn’t want any more. Anyway, what’s interesting, I was talking to Dana, and he’s like, “Do you know the biggest thing I’ve learned from you?” and I’m like, “No. what?” and I thought it was going to be like dream 100 and things like that. No, the biggest thing that Dana learned from me, he told me, was that energy matters a lot. He’s like, “When I hang out with you, you’re kind of like blah, but when you get on stage you’re like, baaahh!” and I started telling him, the reason why is when I first started this career, in fact, I have my brother right now pulling all the video clips of me from like 12 or 13 years ago, when I had a shaved head and I was awkward like, “Hi, my name is Russell Brunson.” And we’re trying to make this montage of me over 15 years of doing this and how awkward and weird I was, and how it took 8-10 years until I was normal and started growing my hair out. But I’m trying to show that whole montage, but if you look at it like, I was going through that process and the biggest thing I learned is that if I talked to people like this, when you’re on video you sound like this. The very first, I think I’d have an idea and then I’d just do stupid things. So I saw an infomercial, so I’m like I should do an infomercial. So I hired this company to make an infomercial and next thing I know two weeks later I’m in Florida and there’s this host on this show and he’s like the cheesiest cheese ball ever. I’m so embarrassed. He asked me a question and I’m like, “Well, um, you know, duh, duh…” and he’s like, “Whoa, cut, cut, cut.” He’s like, “Dude, holy crap. You have no energy.” I’m like, “No, I feel really good. I have a lot of energy right now.” He’s like, “No, no you don’t understand. When you’re on tv, you have to talk like this to sound normal. If you just talk normal, you sound like you’re asleep.” I’m like, “I don’t know.” So we did this whole infomercial and he’s like all over the top and I’m just like, trying to go a little bit higher and it was awkward. I went back and watched it later, and he sounded completely normal and I looked like I was dead on the road. It was weird. Brandon Fischer, I don’t know if he’s still in the audience, but we did…Brandon’s back here. So four years ago when Clickfunnels first came out we made these videos that when you first signed up we gave away a free t-shirt. How many of you guys remember seeing those videos? I made those videos and then they lasted for like four years, and then we just reshot them last week because it’s like, “Oh wow, the demo video when we’re showing CLickfunnels does not look like Clickfunnels anymore. It’s completely changed in four years.” So Todd’s like, “You have to make a new video.” I’m like, “I don’t want to make a video.’ So finally we made the new videos, recorded them and got them up there and we posted them online, and before we posted them on, I went and watched the old ones, and I watched the old ones and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is just four years ago, I am so depressing. How did anybody watch this video?” It was bad, right Brandon. It was like painfully bad. I was like, “oh my gosh.” That was just four years ago. Imagine six years ago, or ten years. It was really, really bad. And when I notice the more energy you have, the more energy everyone else has. It seems weird at first, but always stretch more than you feel comfortable, and it seems normal, and then you’ll feel better with it and better with it. But what’s interesting about humans is we are attracted to energy. I used to hate people talking energy talk, because I thought it was like the nerdy woo-woo crap. But it’s so weird and real actually. I notice this in all aspects of my life. When I come home at night, usually I am beat up and tired and worn out. I get up early in the morning, and then I work super hard, I get home and I get out of the car and I come to the door and before I open the door, I’m always like, Okay if I come in like, ugh, my whole family is going to be depressed with me.” They’ll all lower to my energy level. So I sit there and I get into state and I’m like, okay, whew. I open the door and I’m like, “What’s up guys!! I’m home!” and all the sudden my kids are like, “Oh dad’s home!” and they start running in, it’s this huge thing, it’s crazy, and then the tone is set, everyone’s energy is high and the rest of the night’s amazing. When I come in the office, I walk in and realize I’m the leader of this office and if I come in like, “Hey guys, what’s up? Hey Nic, what’s up?” Then everyone’s going to be like {sound effect}. So I’m like, okay when I come in I have to come in here, otherwise everyone is going to be down on a normal level. I have to bring people up. So we walk in the office now and I’m like, “What’s up everybody, how’s it going?” and I’m excited and they’re like, “Oh.” And everyone’s energy rises and the whole company grows together. So l love when Dave walks through the door, have you guys ever noticed this? When Dave walks through the door, I’m at a 10, Dave’s like at a 32 and it’s just like, he wakes up and comes over to my  house at 4:30 in the morning to lift weights. I sleep in an hour later, and I come in at 5:45 or something, and I walk in and I’m just like, “I want to die.” And I walk in and he’s like, “Hey how’s it going?.” I’m like, “Really good man. You’ve been here for an hour.” And all the sudden I’m like, oh my gosh I feel better. Instantly raised up. It’s kind of like tuning forks. Have you noticed this? If you get two tuning forks at different things and you wack one, and you wack the other one, and you bring them close together, what will happen is the waves will increase and they end up going at the exact same level. So energy matters. The higher your energy, the higher everyone else around you will be, on video, on audio, on face…everything, energy matters a lot. So that’s number two, when you’re making videos, thinking about that. Alright number three, okay this, you were like 90% there and I watched the whole thing and I was so excited and then you missed the last piece and I was like, “Oh it was so good.” So a year after that Facebook message came, you did a Facebook live one year later to the day, and he told that story on Facebook live. And I was like, “Oh my gosh this is amazing.” And he told that story, and he was talking about it, and I was emotional, going through the whole thing again. This is so cool, this is so cool. And he told the story about the podcast, and this podcast was an hour long, and the thing and his life changed and all this stuff… And I know that me and a whole bunch of you guys, a whole bunch of entrepreneurs listened to this story and they’re at bated breath, “This is amazing, this is amazing.” And he gets to the very end, “Alright guys, see you tomorrow.” Boom, clicks off. And I was like, “Aaahhh!” How can you leave me in that state?  I need something, I need something. So the note here is I said, make offers for everything. Think about this, at the end when you ended, and everyone’s thinking, I want to hear that episode, where is that? How would it be? Now imagine you take the opportunity at the very end that says, “How many of you guys would like to hear that episode where Russell actually made me a personal podcast? And how many of you guys would actually like if I gave you my commentary about what  I learned and why it was actually important to me? All you gotta do right now is post down below and write ‘I’m in.’ and I’ll add you to my messenger list and I’ll send you that podcast along with the recording where I actually told you what this meant to me.” Boom, now all those people listening are now on his list. Or they can even go opt in somewhere. But all you did was tell the story and everything and we were all sitting with bated breath and I was just like, at the end make the offer. You guys want the stuff I talked about, you want the thing? You want the thing? And then you send them somewhere and now you captured them and consider them longer term and you can do more things with them. It was like, hook, story, dude where’s my offer? Give me something. But it was awesome. How many of you guys felt that way when you listened to that thing and you’re just like, “I don’t even know where to find that episode. Russell’s got eight thousand episodes everywhere, I don’t even know where to look for it.” You could have been like, here’s the link. Just the link….if you guys can’t figure out how to make an offer, go listen to a whole bunch of stuff, find something amazing and be like, “oh my gosh you guys, I was listening to this Tim Ferris podcast, he did like 800 episodes, every one is like 18 hours long, they’re really hard to listen to, but I found this one from 3 ½-4 years ago where he taught this concept and it was insane. It was amazing; I learned this and this. How many of you want to know what that is? Okay, I have the link, if you message me down below I’ll send you the link to exactly where to find that episode.” Everyone will give it to you.  You’ll be like, “But it’s free on the internet Russell.” It doesn’t matter. You know where it’s at and they don’t. They will give you their contact information in exchange for you giving them a direct link to the link. Back before I had anything to give away for opt ins, guess what I used to do. I used to go to YouTube and I would find cool videos from famous people. One of my favorite ones we did was I went and typed in YouTube, “Robert Kiyosaki” because he was one of my big mentors at the time. And there was all these amazing Robert Kiyosaki videos on YouTube for free. Tons of them. Hour long training from Robert Kiyosaki. Four hour long event from Robert Kiyosaki. All this stuff for free listed in YouTube. So I made a little Clickfunnels membership site, I got all the free videos and put them inside a members area and just like, “Tab one, Robert Kiyosaki talking about investing, Robert Kiyosaki talking about stocks, Robert Kiyosaki talking….”  And I just put all the videos in there and made a squeeze page like, “Hey, who wants a whole bunch of free, my favorite Robert Kiyosaki videos?” and I made a little landing page, people opt in, I give them access to the membership site, and then I went and targeted Robert Kiyosaki’s audience and built a huge list off his people. Dream 100. Imagine with Dream 100 instead of doing just one campaign to all the people, if each person in your dream 100 you made a customized membership site with the free content right now, be like, “Hey, you’ve listened to a lot of Grant Cardone, he’s got four podcasts, 5000 episodes, there’s only four that are actually really, really good. Do you guys want to know what they are? Opt in here, I’ll give you the four best episodes of all. I currated all these for you to give you the four best.” And target Grant’s audience with that, now you got all his buyers coming into your world. Is that alright, is that good. Alright number four ties along with this. Number four, start building a list ASAP. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do a call to action to get a list anywhere, have I? After today’s session you’re …..just build a list. If you got nothing from this event at all, every time you do a hook and story, put them somewhere to build a list, because that’s the longevity. Because that’s where if Zuckerberg snaps his finger and you lose all your fans and followings and friends, and all the sudden you’re trying to build over somewhere else, it won’t matter because you’ll have those people somewhere external and now you can message them and bring them back into whatever world you need them to be at. But that’s how you build stability in business. It’s also how you sell this time, you want to sell it the next time and the next time, the list is the key. Funnel Hacking Live, the first Funnel Hacking Live it was a lot of work and we sold out 600 people in the room, and we kept growing the list and growing the list, the next year we did 1200. Then we did 1500, last year was 3000, this year we’re going to be at 5000. We’re building up the list and building up pressure and excitement and then when you release it, it gives you the ability to blow things up really, really fast.  Okay, that was number four. Okay number five, I wrote down integration marketing, adding to other’s offers to build a buyer list. So this is a little sneaky tactic we used to back in the day when I didn’t have my own list, but I had a couple of skills and talents which you do happen to have, which is nice. If you have no skills this won’t work, but if you have skills you’re lucky. So Frank Kern used to do this as well. Frank is sneaky. He used to do this all the time and I saw him doing it and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, he’s brilliant.” So Frank did a one hour presentation somewhere and he called it Mind Control, it wasn’t Mass Control, but it was something like about how to control the minds of your prospects through manipulation and something sneaky. And the title alone was amazing. It was a one hour presentation he gave somewhere. And he put it on these DVDs and what he did, he went to like Dan Kennedy and he’s like, “Hey Dan, you have all of your buyer and you send them this newsletter every single month,” at the time they had 13000 active members, these were their best buyers. He’s like, “This DVD I sell for like a thousand bucks. Do you want to give it to all your people for free?” And Dan’s like, “sure.” And all the sudden the next month, Franks got his best CD with his best stuff in the mailbox of the 13000 best customers, every single person that Dan Kennedy’s been collecting for the last 15 years. So think about this. With your skill set, look at the other people in the market, all the dream 100 who are doing things and how do you create something you can plug into their offers, and every single time one of those people sell a product, your face is popping up as well. It’s called integration marketing, my first mentor Mark Joyner wrote a book called Integration Marketing, it’s a really fast read. You can read it in an hour, but it will get your mind set thinking about it. How can I integrate with what other people are always doing? Because I can go and make a sell, and make another sell, but I was like, when we launched Clickfunnels I was like, “How can I figure out other people’s sales processes that are already happening and somehow inject myself into all these other sales processes?” That way every single time Steven Larsen sells something or someone else sells something, or all these people are selling something, it always somehow gets flown back to me. I want every product, every course, everything happening in the internet marketing world to somehow have people saying my name. That’s my goal. How many of you guy have been to other people’s events and I’m not there and they say my name? It makes me so happy. I get the instagrams from some of you guys, “Hey so and so just said your name.” I’m like, that’s so good. How have I done that? I spent a lot of my life integrating into everybody’s offers. Initially when I first got started, every single person who had a product, I was an interview in everyone’s product. I was like, looking at people launching a product, specific product launches coming, I’d contact them. Product launch is coming up, “Hey man, is there any way I could do a cool thing for your people? I could create this and give it to you and you could plug it into your product?” and everyone’s like, ‘Sure, that’d be awesome.” And all the sudden, boom, they get 5000 new buyers came in and every single one of them got my thing. They’re hearing my name, hearing my voice and it’s just constant integration. I think about how I met Joe Vitale, I talked about that earlier with the greatest showman. He was in an interview in a course I bought from Mark Joyner, I listened to it, fell in love with Joe Vitale, bought his stuff, given him tons of money over the years, a whole bunch of good stuff because he was integrated in that. So looking at other ways to integrate, the skill set that you already have into other people’s marketing channels because then you’re leveraging anytime any of these partners make a sell, you’re getting customers coming through that flow as well. Cool? Nic: Yeah. Russell: That was number five. Number six, I call this one rainmaker projects, because we talked about rainmaker during the first podcast interview. So rainmaker projects are, and again when I first started my career I did tons of these, where it’s like, I was really good at one piece. For you, you’re really good at video and story telling. And I look out here and be like, okay who is someone else here that is awesome? So and so is really good at making a product on Facebook ads. “You’re really good at Facebook ads, so I’ll do the video for this course, you do the Facebook, you do the actual ads for us.” And then, you’re awesome at doing the traffic and you bring in four or five people, like this little avenger team, and you create a cobranded product together and you launch it and everyone makes a bunch of money, split all the money, 50/50/50/50, that makes more than 100,but you know what I’m talking about, everyone splits the money, everyone splits the customer list and all the sudden you’ve all pulled your efforts, your energy, your talents together and everyone leaves with some cash, and you also leave with the customer list, and that’s when you start growing really, really rapidly. When I started I didn’t have a customer list, I had a very small one. But I had a couple of skill sets so that’s why I did tons of these things. That’s like, if you guys know any of my old friends like Mike Filsaime, Gary Ambrose, I could list off all the old partners we had back in the day, and that’s what we did all the time, these little rainmaker projects. We didn’t call them that back in the day, but that’s what it was. It was just like, we all knew what our skill sets were, and it’s like, let’s come together, let’s make a project. This isn’t going to be how we change the world, it’s not going to be something we’re going to scale and grow, but it’s like, it’s going to be a project, we put it together, we launch it, make some money, get some customers, get our name out in the market, and then we step away from it and then we all go back to our own businesses. It’s not like, that’s why it’s funny because a lot of times people are scared of these. Like, “Well, how do we set up the business structure? Who’s going to be the owner? Who’s the boss?” No, none of that. This is an in and out project where all the rainmakers come together and you create something amazing for a short period of time, you split the money and you go back home with the money and the customers. But it gave you a bump in status, a big bump in customer lists, a big bump in cash and then all those things kind of rise and if you do enough of those your status keeps growing and growing and growing, and it’s a really fast easy way to continue to grow. How many of you guys want to do a rainmaker project with Nic right now? Alright, very, very cool. Alright, and then I got one last, this is number seven. This kind of ties back to dream 100. The last thing I talked about was, and again this is kind of for everyone in the group, is the levels of the dream 100. I remember when I first started this process, I first got the concept and I didn’t know it was the dream 100 back then, but I was looking at all the different people that would have been on my dream 100 list. It was Mark Joyner, Joe Vitale, all these people that for me were top tier. Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, and I was like, oh, and I started trying to figure out how to get in those spots. And the more I tried, it was so hard to get through the gatekeeper, it was impossible to get through all these gatekeepers, these people. I was like, “Man don’t people care about me. I’m just a young guy trying to figure this stuff out and they won’t even respond to my calls or my emails. I can’t even get through, I thought these people really cared.” Now to be on the flip side of that, I didn’t realize what life is actually like for that, for people like that. For me, I understand that now at a whole other level. We’ve got a million and a half people on our subscriber list. We have 68000 customers, we’ve got coaching programs, got family, got friends. We have to put up barriers to protect yourself or it’s impossible. I felt, I can’t even tell you how bad I feel having Brent this morning, “Can you tell everyone to not do pictures with me.” It’s not that I don’t want to, but do you want me to tell you what actually happens typically? This is why we have to put barriers around ourselves. Here’s my phone, I’ll be in a room, like Funnel Hacking Live and there will be 3000 people in the room, and I’m walking through and someone’s like, “Real quick, real quick, can I get a picture?” I’m like, “I gotta go.” And they’re like, “It’ll take one second.” And I’m like, ahh, “Okay, fine, quick.” And they’re like, “Hold on.” And they get their phone out and they’re like, “Uh, uh, okay, uh, alright got it. Crap it’s flipped around. Okay, actually can you hold this, my arms not long enough can you hold it? Actually, hey you come here real quick, can you hold this so we can get a picture? Okay ready, one two three cheese.” And they grab the camera and they’re off. And for them it took one second. And that person leaves, and guess what’s behind them? A line of like 500 people. And then for the next like 8 hours, the first Funnel Hacking Live, was anyone here at the first Funnel Hacking Live? I spent 3 ½ hours up front doing pictures with everybody and I almost died afterwards. I’m like, I can’t…but I didn’t know how to say no, it was super, super hard. So I realize now, to protect your sanity, people up there have all sorts of gatekeepers and it’s hard. So the way you get through is not being more annoying, and trying to get through people. The way you get to them is by understanding the levels of that. So I tried a whole bunch of times, and I couldn’t get in so I was like, “Crap, screw those guys. They don’t like me anyway, they must be jerks, I’m sure they’re just avoiding me and I’m on a blacklist….” All the thoughts that go through your head. And at that time, I started looking around me. I started looking around and I was like, “hey, there’s some really cool people here.” And that’s when I met, I remember Mike Filsaime, Mike Filsaime at the time had just created a product he launched and he had like a list of, I don’t know, maybe 3 or 4 thousand people. And I remember I created my first product, Zipbrander, and I was all scared and I’m like ,”Hey Mike, I created this thing Zipbrander.” And he messaged back, “Dude that’s the coolest thing in the world.” A couple of things, Mike didn’t have a gatekeeper, it was just him. He got my email, he saw it, and he was like, “This is actually cool.” I’m like, “Cool, do you want to promote it?” and he’s like, “Yes, I would love to promote it.” I’m like, oh my gosh. I had never made a sale online at this point, by the way, other than a couple of little things that fell apart. I never actually made a sale of my own product. Zipbrander was my very first, my own product that I ever created. So Mike was that cool, he sent an email to his list, his 5000 person list, they came over, I had this little pop up that came to the site and bounced around, back in the day. I had 270 people opt in to my list from Mike’s email to it, and I think we made like 8 or 10 sales, which wasn’t a lot, but 67 that’s $670, they gave me half, I made $350 on an email and gained 300 people on my list. I’m like, oh my gosh this is amazing. And I asked Mike, “Who are the other people you hang out with? I don’t know very many people.” And he’s like, “Oh dude, you gotta meet this guy, he’s awesome.” And he brought me to someone else, and I’m like, “Oh this is cool. “ and Mike’s like, “Dude, I promoted Zipbrander, it was awesome, you should promote it.” And then he’s like, “Oh cool.” And he promoted Zipbrander. I’m like, oh my gosh, I got another 30-40 people on my list and there were a couple more sales. And then I asked him, “Who do you know?” and there was someone else, and we stared doing this thing and all the sudden there were 8 or 10 of us who were all at this level and we all started masterminding, networking, figuring things out, cross promote each other and what happened, what’s interesting is that all of our little brands that were small at the time started growing, and they started growing, and they started growing. All the sudden we were at the next tier. And when we got to the next tier all the sudden all these new people started being aware of us and started answering our calls and doing things, and Mike’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I met this guy who used to be untouchable.” And he brought him in and brought them in and all the sudden we’re at the next level. And we started growing again and growing again. And the next thing we know, four years later I get a phone call from Tony Robbins assistant, they’re like, “Hey I’m sitting in a room and I got Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, all these guys are sitting in a room with Tony Robbins and he thinks that you guys are the biggest internet nerds in the world, he’s obsessed with it and he wants to know if he can meet you in Salt Lake in like an hour.” What? Tony Robbins? I’ve emailed him 8000 times, he’s never responded even once, I thought he hated me. Not that he hated me, it’s that he had so many gatekeepers, he had no idea who I was. But eventually you start getting value and you collectively as a level of the dream 100 becomes more and more powerful. Eventually people notice you because you become the bigger people. And each tier gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So my biggest advice for you and for everybody is understanding that. Yes, it’s good to have these huge dreams and big people, but start looking around. There are so many partnerships to be had just inside this room. How many deals have you done with people in this room so far? Nic: Quite a few. Russell: More than one, right. Nic: Yeah, more than one. Russell: Start looking around you guys. Don’t always look up, up, up and try to get this thing. Look around and realize collectively, man, start doing the crossings because that’s how everyone starts growing together and there will be a time where I’ll be coming to you guys begging, “Can you please look at my stuff you guys, I have this thing called Clickfunnels. You may have heard of it. Can you please help me promote it?” And that’s what’s going to happen, okay. So the level of the dream 100 is the last thing, just don’t discount that. Because so many people are like swinging for the fence and just hoping for this homerun like I was, and it’s funny because I remember eventually people would respond to me, that I was trying for before, and they’d contact me. And I was like, oh my gosh. I realized, I thought this person hated me, I thought I was on a black list. I was assuming they were getting these emails and like, “oh, I hate this. Russell’s a scammer.” In my head right. They never saw any of them. Until they saw me, and they reached out to me and the whole dynamic shifted. So realizing that, kind of looking around and start building your dream 100 list, even within this room, within the communities that you’re in, because there’s power in that. And as you grow collectively, as a group, everyone will grow together, and that’s the magic. So that was number seven. So to recap the seven really quick. Number one, tell your story way too much, to the point where you’re so annoyed and so sick and tired of hearing it that everybody comes to you, and then keep telling it even some more. Number two, in everything you’re doing, energy matters a lot. To the point, even above what you think you’re comfortable with and do that all the time. Number three, make offers for everything. Hook, story, don’t leave them hanging, give them an offer because they’ll go and they will feel more completed afterwards. Number four, start building a list, it ties back to the first thing. Make an offer, get them to build your list, start growing your list because your list is your actual business. Number five, integration marketing. Look for other people’s marketing channels and how you can weave what you do into those channels, so you can get free traffic from all the people who are doing stuff. Number five, create rainmaker projects, find really cool things and bring four or five people together and make something amazing. Share the cash, share the customer list, elevate your status, elevate your brand, and it’s really fun to do because you get to know a whole bunch of people. And Number seven, understanding the levels of the dream 100. Find the people at your level and start growing with them together collectively as you do that, and in a year, two years, three years, five years Tony Robbins will be calling you, asking you to make his video and it will be amazing. Does that sound good? Awesome.

Dr. Potter's background and current roleSleep's effects on the brainREM sleep for motor learningLucid dreamingPTSD, trauma, TBI, and sleepCreatine supplementation, sleep, and healthOther supplement science and recommendationsBe careful when choosing your supplementsWhere to find Dr. Greg Potter:Resilient Nutrition Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Resilient NutritionInstagram | Twitter | LinkedinGreg Potter PhDThe Flex Diet Podcast is brought to you by the Flex Diet Certification. Go to flexdiet.com for 8 interventions on nutrition and recovery. Join the waitlist, which puts you on the daily newsletter, and you’ll be the first to be notified when the certification opens again.TranscriptSpeaker 1 (00:00:01):Hey, welcome back to the flex diet podcast today. I've got a great interview with Dr. Greg Potter, and we talked all about resiliency, a lot of stuff on sleep, like certain things about the best dose of melatonin. Rather, there are other supplements that can help with sleep such as [inaudible] and even range across the board into some pathologies like PTSD or traumatic brain injury. My ran my crazy kiteboarding supplement routine past him in case I get dropped on my head out of the sky and just really fascinating interview. I think you'll really enjoy this. So Dr. Greg Potter is an expert on circadian rhythms and how they interact with nutrition and sleep. He was formerly a content director over at human OS, their good friend, Dr. Dan party. And now Greg is helping with some nutrition consulting and has his own nutrition company, a resilient nutrition.Speaker 1 (00:01:13):When we talk about that also, I talked briefly about his background. He worked at the university of, of Leeds and his background is actually in exercise physiology, which is awesome. So the beginning part, it takes a little little while for us to get into it, but kind of wide ranging topics here, the overall arching theme related to resilience and the role of sleep. So enjoy this podcast, coming up with the Dr. Greg Potter as always. This is brought to you by the flux diet certification, go to flux diet.com F L E X, D I E t.com. And the certification we'll be opening up again in early January, 2021. So go to the notifications list at the top to get on the waitlist. I'll put you on the list where you'll get access before everybody else, and I'll probably have another cool bonus for you there and flex diet.com. Sign up there, get on the newsletter and enjoy this podcast from Dr. Greg Potter.Speaker 2 (00:02:32):Hey, what's goingSpeaker 1 (00:02:32):On? And it's Dr. Maxine Alison here on the flex diet podcast, and we are back talking about resilience and many other topics today with Dr. Greg Potter. Welcome to the show doctor.Speaker 2 (00:02:46):Hey Mike, thanks very much for having me.Speaker 1 (00:02:49):Thank you. And you're hanging out in London right now, so hopefully everything is going okay for you.Speaker 2 (00:02:57):Christmas is approaching, so I've got no complaints and there's lots of tasty food around suits me. Absolutely fine.Speaker 1 (00:03:05):Yeah, that's always good. So how for listeners who may be under a rock or not familiar with you, give us a, just a little bit more info on your background and then how you got interested in the topic of resilience.Speaker 2 (00:03:21):I think most of this is probably not familiar with me and my background is largely in exercise science. So I studied exercise science for my undergrad and my master's degree. And in between those, I also worked briefly in professional rugby at the rugby football union. And as I was going through that process, I recognized the biological rhythms and sleep are very important and went on to do a PhD at the university of Leeds, which focused on the intersection between biological rhythms, sleep nutrition and metabolic health. But I did those degrees because I've always been fascinated by how lifestyle in general affects our performance and also our long-term health. And since then I've been involved in a few different projects, but right now I am chief science officer and co-founder of the company based in the UK named resilient nutrition. And in that role, I spend most of my time working on product formulation, but I also work with some athletes athletes who represents our brand. So they're primarily ultra endurance athletes. And I really enjoy that side of the job too, because coaching is something that I've done for about 13 years now.Speaker 1 (00:04:44):Nice. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. What made you go into exercise science? That's what I did my PhD in so great topic. Of course,Speaker 2 (00:04:56):I think it came down to teenage insecurity. Let's be honest. I was playing rugby when I was 12 and hurt my back. And that was right around the time I became interested in girls too. And off the back of that injury, I started going to the gym, became increasingly interested in nutrition, spent far too long, reading things like men's health, but slowly found better sources of information. And when I was going through what a cool GCSE and A-level was over here. So my education around the ages of 15 to 18, I was a lot of my free time reading, elite FTS, and several other related websites, and also became interested in science in general. And I had a place at university to study English literature and recognize that if I were spending all of my free time, finding out about performance, nutrition and strength, training and related topics, then I was probably on the wrong trajectory.Speaker 1 (00:06:04):Got it. And how did you get interested in sleep? Because you've published areas in the sleep and obviously have more formal education in there. It sounds like it was more of the intersection and coming at it from a performance angle.Speaker 2 (00:06:20):It wasn't really, I think I first became interested when I heard a couple of people speak about sleep on some podcasts, probably around 2010 or so. And then off the back of that, I started reading some books and I just found the whole thing. Fascinating. And to this day, it's a subject that the more that I find out about it, the more intriguing it becomes because there are so many unsolved mysteries within the field of sleep research. And I think that that field is in its infancy too, which is true, the exercise science research while too. But I think that sleep is such a fundamental human behavior and it's not quite such a nice subject niche subject is excise science that it's surprising that the research into it has only been going on for a relatively short period of time.Speaker 1 (00:07:20):Yeah, I've always been, I'm not very, I'd say up-to-date on a lot of the sleep research, but to me it's always been fascinating that at a base level, I believe the human body is survival orientated. And the fact that will literally entirely shut down, which I know is an oversimplification, but we have to take a good third of our day to be not really cognizant of what's going on potentially at a risk of being eaten by a lion or something similar would give us the data that there has to be super important reasons for sleep. But yet if you ask a very, which I would ask you this question, like why, why is it that we sleep? I mean, it's, we have some data, but it still seems like a lot of it is a big mystery and the unknown.Speaker 2 (00:08:14):Yeah. And this is something that people go back and forth about a lot. And I don't think that there's a unified theory of why we sleep, but that said, I think that there are plenty of things that we can point to that show the importance of sleep and some of the functions that it fulfilled. And I think that it's probable, but it has some different functions in some different species. If you look across species, then no one thing seems to strongly predict how much sleep a species needs. But there are a few factors that do relate to that, including things like the type of thought they can seem to whether that carnivorous or I'm never saw, however, social dynamics, how complex their nervous systems are. And then of course there are some things that are common to species. So I think that sleep is a period of adaptive inactivity.Speaker 2 (00:09:15):So it optimizes when we're active and for how long, and one of the functions, or probably fulfills is energy conservation, but that's probably a very small function, but I think a lot of the functions of sleep relate to its effects on the brain. And there are various relevant theories, but one of them relates to the activity in our signups seas. And as we're awake during the day, exploring our environments, the strength in inverted commas of various signups is in our brains increases. And when we sleep, it's a period in which that is a selective downregulation of the strength of some of those signups, so that we only hold onto the most pertinent information. And then there are some other factors at play too, like physical restoration and so on. And I think that it doesn't make sense to think about sleep without contrasting it with wakefulness. And fundamentally, I think that sleep is the price that we pay for wasteful behavior and it's therefore really to prevent malfunction during week. But the fact that sleep deprivation has been used as a form of torture in many countries, eons tells us a lot.Speaker 1 (00:10:39):Yeah. I always think of what happens when you do the opposite, right? So what happens with loss of function? Do you get and where two different functions drop off once someone is more on the sleep deprived scale and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think some of the processes you talked about with different synopses is that a lot of the learning more or less takes place during sleep. So we have kind of the stimulation, different synopsis kind of get marked with different chemical messengers during the day. And then at night, it's kind of like this housecleaning effect where, Ooh, we need to get rid of this guy. Ooh, this is a good one. We did a lot of stuff over here. Let's just make sure this is nice and robust and Oop don't need this one anymore. And then when we kind of impair that process of sleep, no matter how high quality of work we did or what we did during the day, we see sort of a diminished result from that because we're kind of skipping over at very best diminishing that process during sleep.Speaker 2 (00:11:43):I think there are a couple of things you mentioned there that it worth picking up on one is this idea of housekeeping and in the last seven years or so, there's been a lot of in the glymphatic system, which is a bit like the brain's waste disposal system. And during sleep, we have these large slow waves during the deepest stage of sleep. And those seem to influence cerebral blood flow and thereby the flow of fluid through the glymphatic system. And during this stage of sleep, the spaces in the system open up and that flow of fluid helps wash the debris. That's accumulated with metabolic activity during wakefulness out of those spaces, clearing out toxic waste that could otherwise be detrimental. So that's one thing. And then you're also touching on the roles of sleep and learning and memory in relation to signups at homeostasis. One thing that does seem apparent is that sleep does free space, your real estate, if you like to learn new things.Speaker 2 (00:12:50):So even a brief nap during the middle of the day will help with subsequent learning for instance, but then sleep is also important to things like the consolidation of memories and arrange of information too, in different stages of sleep, probably differentially important to this. So for example, during stage two non REM sleep and the deepest stage of sleep that is transfer of information from the short-term limited storage Depot in the hippocampus to regions of the neocortex, which are more like a long-term volt for information. And then during REM sleep that stage in which we dream a skeletal muscles are mostly paralyzed, not essential muscles like respiratory muscles and cardiac muscle, but because of that, our brains have free rein to explore different motor patterns, for instance, without risk of us acting those out. And so that stage of sleep is probably very important to things like motor learning, but it's probably important to creativity and evolution of intelligence too. And that there is that free space in which to try out different things and creates a virtual model of the world. If you'd like to try and better understand how we interact within it.Speaker 1 (00:14:09):Yeah. That's one thing I tried for a while, but I eventually gave up on it because the practice was, it was kind of a pain, but is my thought was okay if I can learn to, you know, wake up during my dreams and control my dreams, could I practice new motor patterns like kiteboarding doing jumps or heavier deadlifts, and then go back to sleep the rest of the night and reconsolidate those patterns. But in essence, I could do it without any fear response or worry of damage, quote, unquote to the system. But I wonder would that even if it did work, which I honestly gave up after about eight weeks, cause it was a monster pain in the, my life I always wonder what did even transfer to real life because it, it is so different, but any thoughts on that? Yeah.Speaker 2 (00:15:10):A few thoughts. So one is the REM sleep, that particular stage of sleep in which we do most of our dreaming, not all of our dreaming does seem to be important to most of learning in general, but what you're touching on is lucid dreaming, right? And that is when we're conscious during our dreams. And during those dreams, we often have some control over the contents of the dreams too, although that's probably not an essential parts of lucid dreaming per se. And about half of people will experience at least one lucid dream over the course of their lifespan that they remember, but it does seem that it's somewhat trainable. And in recent years there's been a resurgence of interest into dreams and into whether lucid dreaming training has some potential therapeutic applications. And there's been some fascinating research published very recently by people like Jason Ellis showing for instance, that you can take adults who have insomnia and some related psychiatric issues, anxiety, and depression, and you can put them through a short term intensive lucid dreaming training program lasting only a couple of weeks and quite dramatically improve their insomnia severity as well as some of the anxiety and depression symptomatology, which is fascinating.Speaker 2 (00:16:34):And the strategies that people use are probably some of those that you tried Mike, but they include things like keeping a dream diary. And then within those dream diaries, by identifying unusual elements within dreams, and then you're using a technique named autosuggestion in which you take that element. And if you recognize it within a dream, you use that as a trigger to cue lucid dreaming. But then there are some other strategies that people will try out too. So some people for instance, will use an alarm to wake themselves up during certain stages of dreaming, which they think that they might be particularly likely to be lucid dreaming at that time. There also reality checks that people will do over the course of the day. So colon one is just to look at your hand and ask yourself whether you are awake and in daily life, or if you are in fact dreaming and people in that particular study, I think set a timer on their phone every hour to remind themselves to do that.Speaker 2 (00:17:38):And the point is that those people could increase their frequency of lucid dreaming, and it does have some other potential applications too. So for example, it might be helpful in PTSD. One of the problems that arises in PTSD is that people experienced nightmares that relate to stressful experiences. And what will happen is that that nightmares will be so distressing that they will spontaneously awake from them. And if we return to the idea of rapid eye movement, sleep, being a safe place in which to explore previous experiences and try and make sense of the world, then it's as if their mind is like a broken record. They keep waking up from this particular stage in the record, and they never quite managed to process it and get to the end of the track. But if they can lose a dream, then they can take control over their dreams.Speaker 2 (00:18:32):They can reduce some of that negativity within the dream and thereby, potentially have some positive effects on their symptoms and their daytime function. But going to your particular example, Mike, and whether it's possible to practice motor skills during lucid dreaming in a way that facilitates you improve those mode skills and the rest of your life. I don't know if that's been studied it hasn't to my knowledge, but it is something which is definitely why the, of exploration. And I think that it makes some mechanistic sense and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was proven to be beneficial.Speaker 1 (00:19:11):Yeah. Cause if anyone's ever had a lucid dream when you're doing it, or even just dreams in general, I mean, you are absolutely convinced that it's real when it's going on. Which to me is fascinating. And then I don't know if there's any research on this too. You talked about someone looking at their hands. So one of the cues I tried to use was looking at clocks or watches, so I'd wear a watch. And so I tried to train myself every 15 minutes when I was awake to look at the watch and ask myself, am I dreaming or awake? Or what time is it? And I noticed that in dreams, again, this could just be me that you can't really get a sense of time. Like even looking. I remember having a lucid dream looking at the clock and I couldn't figure out what time it was. And then I was like, Oh, I'm dreaming.Speaker 2 (00:20:09):And, and that is a common experience. There's a complete distortion of time. And I think people often wake up from their dreams feelings if they've been stuck in that dream for days. And the bouts of dreaming might've actually lasted several minutes,Speaker 1 (00:20:25):Is that related to areas of the brain that basically are helping with our perception of time, right. That gets into, you know, different flow States and how you may have a dilation or a compression of time. And, you know, at the end of the day, time is basically kind of a, I don't want to say a neural construct, but it's not as static as what we think it is. It's more of a, I guess almost a perception per se,Speaker 2 (00:20:56):I don't know is the short answer, but that certainly makes sense. So it wouldn't surprise me whatsoever if that was the case.Speaker 1 (00:21:04):Yeah. That's something I've been interested into related to the PTSD. I just read some of the research on it and I've been kind of fascinated for several years now about how someone can have a very, you know, traumatic type experience. And there's also a post-traumatic growth that can potentially happen from it. There's also PTSD that can happen. And sometimes there's not that much of a change and there's some preliminary research that I think you touched on that quality of sleep after an event may predispose one person to one direction or the other. But the theory is if you had a traumatic event and your sleep is disrupted for the next two nights, you can't enter that REM stage are missing out on some of that processing that as you mentioned, the record just gets kind of stuck there, where if you can get high quality sleep, maybe post one, two nights, I'm not sure the duration that you can then process that information and kind of reach the completion in the end. And then you may end up with a more positive result than a quote unquote negative result from a similar traumatic event.Speaker 2 (00:22:23):Yeah. And I don't know much about PTSD, but I've heard that too. And that makes complete sense to me in the context of how thief influences responses to a variety of stresses. So in the case of vaccines, for example, if you take a salient example, then if people sleep well around the time of the inoculation, then that antibody titers are likely to become much higher in response to the vaccination. If they sleep well, pre vaccinations, Leif is somewhat predictive of those responses. So different stressor in this case, a psychological one, I'm sure that sleep would influence how we respond to that. And we also know something about sleep being predictive of some other related problems, such as traumatic brain injury. If somebody has a concussion that will likely disrupt their sleep, but in turn, how they sleep in the following nights will influence the time course of their symptoms and their recovery from the trauma.Speaker 1 (00:23:27):Interesting. So the theory there being, if you get kind of locked in the head, if you get better sleep for the next couple of nights, your symptomology would be a little bit better.Speaker 2 (00:23:38):Yeah. I think people would probably be less likely to experience some of the negative consequences that come TBI. So that, that might be anxiety, for example, will low mood.Speaker 1 (00:23:52):No, that's fascinating. I just finished up creating a course for the Kerrigan Institute and they do clinical neuroscience. So I worked with them and looking at the ketogenic diet and traumatic brain injury. And so on my little again, this is what I do for myself, my checklist of stuff. If I'm out kiteboarding and get dropped 20, 30 feet out of the sky on my head and have kind of a bad injury, I have ketone esters in my bag to put myself in a state of ketosis. I'll use a CBD with a small amount of THC beforehand, just like an over-the-counter supplement high dose creatine, high dose fish oil. And then on the list I have is I would probably just not ride any more that day to risk any more injury and then just go to bed as soon as possible. Does that sound somewhat sane or is that just batshit crazy?Speaker 2 (00:24:50):Well, I think, I think that will sound very seen to me again, I'm no expert in this stuff, but certainly in terms of brain energy metabolism, the exogenous ketone supplementation makes sense the importance of EPA and DHA to formation of the brain during early life and the possible effects of those and that ratio to some Amiga. And Amiga six fats that also makes sense creates an it's particularly interesting to me because of its potential effects on sleep, which I think probably massively underappreciated because it's an under studied subject. But when people think about things that affect their sleep, they often immediately think of nicotine, alcohol and caffeine. And the most relevant of these is caffeine. Caffeine is an antagonist that all of the adenosine receptors and the longer that you've been awake, the greater the accumulation of adenosine in the extracellular fluid in the brain, which then acts on its receptors to promote sleepiness.Speaker 2 (00:25:59):So caffeine blocks this interaction there by reducing that sleepiness signal. If you think about creates a hydrate there, when people supplement with creatine, they boost their phosphate creates installs and they do so in their brain to the degree to which creates in supplementation, supplementation does that. And humans is likely lower than how much it does that in rodents. For example, however, it probably still does that. And as a result of that, that free adenosine can be more readily recycled to ATP offsetting the accumulation of that sleepiness a signal. And there was a fascinating paper published three years ago by Marcus Boruch, who I think is no longer in research by belief has a paper coming out on next year, showing something similar. And what he showed was that when you add, create some on a hydrates, the chow of rats for I think four or five weeks, you quite dramatically affect their sleep architecture.Speaker 2 (00:26:56):So specifically their sleep is shortened. They spend less time in the deepest stage of sleep. The intensity of the deepest stages of sleep is lower and then their rebounds sleep in response to sleep deprivation is also lower. So it creates, and it's clearly very strongly affecting sleep homeostasis. And what is fascinating to me about creating is that if creating shortened sleep and I'm almost certain it does in humans too. And I think the markets for Apple show you this in the paper next year, then you'd expect it to have negative consequences on the basis of all the literature on sleep restriction is the deprivation, right? However, if you look at all the research on creating one, a hybrid supplementation, then it's good across the board. Think about its effects on athletic performance. It boosts adaptations to strengthen power training. It might also do so for cardio respiratory fitness too.Speaker 2 (00:27:51):It improves Thermo regulation. During exercise has positive effects on brain function, particularly during sleep deprivation. There've been interesting studies on rugby skills, for example, but also on cognition. It can have some positive effects on mood and people have treatment resistant depression when used as an adjunct therapy, at least. And it also has some favorable effects on cardio metabolic health T. So CLICO regulation for instance, and homocysteine. So if it's affecting sleep, then it doesn't come with the attendant negative effects of less sleep. So if there's ever a situation in which he can't get enough sleep, there's one supplement you go for should be creatine monohydrate. And we don't know what the optimal dose is or anything like that. But I suspect that it's higher than the dose that you would use for exercise performance. So if you think about creatine people commonly either have a loading phase in which they might consume five grams, four times a day or something, or they take three to five gramsSpeaker 1 (00:28:54):Every day, maybeSpeaker 2 (00:28:57):During TBI, something more like theSpeaker 1 (00:28:59):Loading phase isSpeaker 2 (00:29:01):Closer to optimal. We don't know, but if you go for one of those high doses, you want to split up your intake just because it does have quite strong osmotic properties. So if you consume lots of it at once, then you probably draw a bunch of fluid into your GI tract and cause some bloating and other related problems too. But Mike Long story short, I think you're doing things in a really smart way. And there are potentially a couple of other things that might be helpful. I'll defer to your expertise here, but other things such as Citicoline potentially on the Aerie, they have some neuroprotective properties. So they might be useful.Speaker 1 (00:29:38):Yeah. I'm a huge fan of CDP Coleen. It's I've used it for quite a while. And even just a couple of supplements, I helped formulate it. I recommended it and now it's becoming pretty popular again. I mean the patent still exists on it and the company does enforce the patent. So it does tend to be a pricier ingredient. So what I've seen in some of the new ones, at least in the U S is it's being touted as the next kind of greatest supplement. And there's a lot of very positive research on it. And Renshaw was one of the main researchers and then they just chronically underdose it? Cause they're too cheap to put a legit like dose the product. So it's like, yeah, you got part of it. Right. But didn't quite in quite yet.Speaker 2 (00:30:24):It's, it's frustrating. There were so many nootropics on the market or purported nootropics, at least that contained a hundred milligrams of Citicoline. Whereas if you look at the research, then in healthy adults, slightly lower doses seem to be beneficial in some context. So there's a study of adolescents and a study of healthy women, both of which use 250 milligrams, but in the context of brain injury and vascular dementia and some other neurodegenerative problems, higher doses seem to be preferable. It's like maybe half a gram to a grammar Placer to the sweet spot.Speaker 1 (00:31:02):Yeah. No, that's fascinating. That's super interesting about creating too, because I'm very similar to you. I've I've just recommended it as a general health supplement for probably four or five years now, which two athletic populations, not really shocking, but when people ask you like, Oh, what's, you know, kind of your top supplement recommendations, like, eh, some protein, maybe a good multivitamin fish oil. And I'm like Korea team. They're always like crazy. And what are you talking about? I'm like, there's just every time we turn around, there's more benefits associated with it. And I can add, you know, some very interesting sleep stuff thanks to you to that list. And we have like so much data, just show that there's very little to almost no downsides. You know, even in, I talked to Dr. Tommy wood and he was describing an elderly population where I think they were using 10 or 20 grams a day and you just saw a little bit of GI upset and a few people Tarnopolsky did a study with 20 grams a day looking at, I don't remember if it was Parkinson's or ALS, but extremely well tolerated for like many, many months, you know?Speaker 1 (00:32:15):So there's almost like a node downside to it. So even if it doesn't have the next latest, greatest potential for whatever yeah. We know it's pretty about as safe as you're going to find anything too.Speaker 2 (00:32:30):Yeah. And I think that, that those of 30 grams or so has been studied out to three years plus. Yeah. So no safety crimes whatsoever, but if your sleep is very shallow and you've been taking creatine for a long time, then hopefully light bulb, might've just gone.Speaker 1 (00:32:51):So in that case, what would you, what would you do? I have an idea, but would you opt to dose then to try to change the sleep architecture?Speaker 2 (00:33:03):It depends what the person wants. So if the person's sleep as a result of taking creates and supplementation is slightly shorter and slightly less steep, so maybe they're marginally more prone to waking up during the night, but there's no obvious negative outcome that relates to that. So they don't feel like their daytime functions and pad, they don't feel fatigued. They don't feel like they have difficulty concentrating and that performing well in the gym and that cardio-metabolic health seems to be good. Then I wouldn't worry about it. If however, you are somebody who has anxiety because of the fact that you don't feel your sleep is very well consolidated and you've been taking creatine then doing away with it for a period of time while reducing your caffeine intake or eliminating it entirely will likely positively affect your sleep architecture. So at least that would put your mind at rest.Speaker 1 (00:34:04):Could you go the other direction and do a higher dose to see if it kind of changes, sleep the other direction then? So there's like a directionality associated with it.Speaker 2 (00:34:17):What I think would happen is the creates supplementation. So if the person has been using creatine for a long period of time, it probably more or less saturated that brain phosphate creates instincts. So going to higher dose wouldn't top up those stores anymore, if full and they therefore wouldn't experience any additional benefits or effects on mass leap in response to that higher dose, for somebody who is using it acutely, they can probably saturate those stores faster with higher doses. There is also a related metabolite named [inaudible] acid, which is probably better boosting brain phosphate creates in the stores. And it has actually been compared head to head with creating insights and context. It's used to feed animals and make them gain weight faster. And it's very anabolic at lower doses than creatine, but it does come with some potential side effects that creates and doesn't really, so for example, it might boost homocysteine. I'd be fascinated though, to see a study comparing guanos Dino seeds and creating for their effects on brain phospho creates in stores and sleep architecture. But the research on GAA is relatively scam right now.Speaker 1 (00:35:35):Yeah. I remember looking that years ago. I think it was my buddy, Dave BARR pointed it out to me and I've just kind of followed it and it'll kind of, you know, in esoteric bodybuilding forums and stuff here and there, you'll see it kind of pop up as the latest, greatest thing. And I don't know, every time I check into it, similar to you, like there might be something there, cause it does hint that there's some potential, but I remember being a little bit kind of shied away by some of the potential downsides and just not that much data that I could find at least in humans. Unless you've seen a lot of data in humans,Speaker 2 (00:36:12):There've been a few studies that have come out recently, mostly by the Serbian guy and his lab, which very intriguing, but that haven't been enough studies that I'd be comfortable to take it. And I certainly wouldn't recommend taking it. I suspect that it's relatively benign, but if you're somebody who already has a health profile that would contraindicate it, then I certainly wouldn't touch it. Of course. And my guess is that it's probably not more efficacious than creating enhancing adaptations to exercise, but its affects on creating stores in the brain are interesting and it wouldn't surprise me if they do boost those possible creates in stores more than creatine monohydrate alone.Speaker 1 (00:37:00):Very cool. Do you think some of the other intermediate may be beneficial? I remember talking to, you know, Dr. Roger Harris about beta Elene years ago and he was saying there's, you know, newer data coming out on that. And there's a couple of pieces of data. Now since then have shown it, you know, may have similar benefits kind of to create a novel it's obviously operating on a different effect. So it kind of any of those bioenergetic intermediate that we've kind of classically used for exercise physiology may hold potential for brain metabolism. AlsoSpeaker 2 (00:37:41):The short answer is, I don't know, and I haven't seen that research on beets or alanine specifically, I'm guessing that it relates to its actions as a buffer.Speaker 1 (00:37:53):Yeah. Buffer intermediate. Yeah. Similar, similar mechanisms as muscle, just well as best we understand it.Speaker 2 (00:38:01):Sure. Yeah. But in, in terms of other products that have historically been used in the context of sport science and whether they have applications to brain health, I think ketone esters are up there. Of course. And there certainly are plenty of overlapping areas that relate to both brain health and to exercise performance. So for example, agents that improve blood flow are often conducive to vascular function in the periphery and in the brain take cocoa flavanols if you get a high quality cocoa product. And there are few of those, I think in the UK there's Acticoat cocoa powder, which is made by Barry Callow bough and in the States, I know that Mars has a very pure extract. I believe it's called cocoa via if you consume 500 milligrams, 2000 milligrams of those on a regular basis, then you'll like the enhance your endothelial function and possibly also improve angiogenesis.Speaker 2 (00:39:13):And specifically in certain parts of the brain that are important to things like memory. So hippocampus for instance, and there've been studies of elderly adults showing that when they consume high dose flavonols for a period of several weeks, they experience improvements to various aspects of cognitive function, improving memory. And similarly, the have been studies looking at exercise performance and Coco showing that it might have some small beneficial effects on endurance exercise performance and vascular function during set exercise. And the same is likely true of beet tree beetroot too, which of course relates to its effects on nitric oxide, metabolism and thereby blood flow. One thing that I find very interesting is how these different things interact because typically and completely understandably, these things are studied in isolation, right? When they're studied together, you might expect them to have additive effects, but that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. And Louise buck wrote a very thoughtful essay on that few years ago. And it's really difficult thing to study, but obviously in reality, most people who are supplementing with one of these agents are taking others too. And right now we just don't understand how those different things affect one another. Do they synergize? Do they cancel each other out? We don't really know.Speaker 1 (00:40:41):Yeah, no, that's a great point because in the supplement world, everything is advertised as synergistic effects, right? So for the listeners who already know this, you know, one plus one would normally equal to, well, if it's a synergistic effect, one plus one is four or five or seven, it's crazy. You know, you need to take them together and are 17 individual products all in one. And man, you look in the literature and there's, there's not a ton of literature on combinations really from what I've seen. Hadn't if you even see an additive effect, that's pretty cool. I, I can't even think of one like legit study. I would say that there was a dramatic synergistic effect.Speaker 2 (00:41:29):I think the only example that comes to mind is the combination of Corinne and [inaudible]Speaker 1 (00:41:35):Okay. Yeah, I would, yeah. I would give you that one. Yeah. Yeah.Speaker 2 (00:41:38):Cause the, the bioavailability of most forms of curcumin are so poor. Right? And if you take piperine, which is a polyphenol in black pepper and cumin at the same time then because of its effects on various enzymes that are involved in liver metabolism, you can dramatically improve the uptake of curcumin. Although in recent years there have been new forms of Kakuma and developed that seem to be much more bioavailable. One of them is named [inaudible] and one of them is named hydro Kirk Theracurmin is probably the best study of them. It just contains very, very small particles of curcumin and an interestingly because of that seems to probably permeate the blood-brain barrier and might going back to your kite surfing concussion example, Theracurmin is probably one of those agents that would benefit you in that context. And one thing that acumen seems to consistently do is boost BDNF and something that you want to support.Speaker 2 (00:42:43):That there's been a Metro analysis showing that in recent years and something that he wants for obviously in the context of brain injury is neurogenesis. And while BDNF expression is only a proxy of that, it's certainly an encouraging one. And based on the limited number of studies today, human does seem to boost brain health in general, at least in people who have impaired baseline brain health. And that's an important distinction because there are many instances in which something that helps people who are in the States of chronic disease or impaired function, the compound might not benefit people who are otherwise healthy. And I think this is very much true of nootropics. If you're undergoing some sort of duress, which reduces your function below baseline, that's when nootropics really come into their own. So take the context of sleep loss. Creatine seems to enhance cognition during sleep loss. If you take somebody as well, rested creates and doesn't really seem to affect their cognition. And that's probably true of many of these things that you've discussed.Speaker 1 (00:43:51):Yeah, no, that's a great point because our brains are wired to think linearly. So like the old example I use at the assets all the time is just zinc. It's like, yeah, if you were very deficient in zinc and you take it, you could see your testosterone go up. But if you're sufficient in zinc taking more, your testosterone is not going to go up anymore, which we could argue testosterone going up or down is debatable in terms of performance, depends on where you land on the scale, but within physiologic range. And if you keep taking more and more zinc, now you're going to start having issues with copper depletion and other things going on. But the standard media line, especially with supplement sales is, Oh, look at this study done in, you know, hypogonadal rats that were depleted on zinc and we gave him zinc and it went up like 400%. This is amazing.Speaker 2 (00:44:47):I think, I think we've all fallen for those at some point.Speaker 1 (00:44:50):Yeah. And I mean, I remember taking ZMA back in the day and having crazy dreams from it and I've tried it again. And do you think it's the, the zinc, the magnesium, or I think it's actually the B6 for some reason or is it just, we've all been anchored with the Ronal thought of, Oh, whenever you take CMA, you just get crazy dreams. So that just kind of happens.Speaker 2 (00:45:20):Yeah. It's so interesting that you use that example because I remember buying a fitness magazine when I was a teen and it came with a free sample of Zetta may when it was all the, which was probably around the time of BALCO scandal. And I of course expected to have crazy dreams. And I did have the most vivid dreams that night when I took it. And if you look at the research on it, however, then the Zetta Mae combination hasn't really been well studied, certainly not in the context of sleep. Right? If you look at the research on zinc supplementation and sleep health, then it doesn't seem to do much some of the cross-sectional research points towards some weak effect on sleep. But the actual intervention trials in which people are supplemented with zinc, don't tend to show much B vitamins. Likewise, theoretically, they can be important things like supporting melatonin synthesis, which you might expect to have some bearing on sleep, but they don't seem to do much high doses of one of them might increase the salience of dreams, but that's been shown by one study.Speaker 2 (00:46:31):And then magnesium is the most interesting of them. Magnesium is not in the same category as creating for me, but if they're a supplements that I regularly recommend taking the magnesium is one of them. If you look at the, you look at us adults than something like 68%, don't get enough magnesium on a regular basis. And the nice thing about magnesium is that if you take too much of it, it will probably just cause you some GI distress, which is it. It's not the end of the world. But when you take people who have poor cardio metabolic health, then magnesium can actually quite potently improve some of those aspects of health, blood pressure, regulation, glucose regulation, so on. So I think magnesium taken as big as glycinate or three and eight. If you want, the brain benefits can be helpful. There's only one study to my knowledge on magnesium three and eight and sleep showing that it might some positive effects in an elderly population, but there are reasons to think that magnesium could enhance sleep.Speaker 2 (00:47:36):It does seem to have some general relaxation effects. If you look at brain ion balance, it has a clear circadian rhythm and the concentration of magnesium in some brain cells is substantially higher during the sleep period. Hmm. So taking it late in the day probably makes sense because you might better support that process. And some of those restorative processes that take place during sleep, but compared to some of the other sleep supplements that are out there, I'm not sure that it's a particularly strong sleep aid with that said not many sleep AIDS seem to be that helpful for many people, none of them have very strong effects on things like sleep duration or sleep latency or sleep consolidation of the different supplements that have been studied, the best evidences for melatonin. You look at Metro analyses on melatonin. Then when people take it, they tend to fall asleep faster and have slightly higher sleep efficiency, which is just the proportion of time that someone's in bed.Speaker 2 (00:48:41):They're actually asleep and they might feel subjectively like their sleep quality is slightly higher too. And the right dose for most people is probably somewhere between 300 micrograms and five milligrams, depending on what you're after in the context of jet lag, it's probably around one milligram. If you want the potential effects of melatonin on oxidative stress and cardio-metabolic health. So it might have some blood pressure lowering effects and some glucose lowering effects too. And people with metabolic syndrome, then the higher dose might be preferable, maybe five milligrams. And there's also a time release version. The patient version of that is named Circadin, but there's also an over-the-counter form named micro active two to three milligrams of that might be better at helping people sleep through the night and maintaining sleep. And then there are a couple of other supplements, which I think are helpful in some instances, one of which is pea, which is an analog of an endo-cannabinoid Palmer toil, Espanola MIDE.Speaker 2 (00:49:51):There's a very bioavailable form that was made recently showing that, and this particular form seems to help sleep and people have neuropathic pain. So specifically there was a study of patients with carpal tunnel tunnel syndrome showing that when they supplement 600 milligrams of it twice a day, they reduce their pain and thereby improve their sleep. And then some other agents that have some anxiety, agentic and anxiety, lytic effects such as our theming might be helpful and ashwaganda healthy. And in the right doses, probably something like 200 to 400 milligrams. And the best studies on ashwaganda generally supplement 300 milligrams of KSM 66, twice a day. So I think those are some of the sleep supplements that are more helpful for most people, but it always depends on the context. And I think that people often look at sleep supplements. They think, Oh, that's something that will help my sleep.Speaker 2 (00:50:49):And it might help some people with their sleep depending on the source of their sleep issues. But for someone else, the supplements support, their sleep will be completely different. So just as an example of this, there's a sleep disorder named restless leg syndrome, which used to be thought to be idiopathic. So people thought that it didn't influence risk of health outcomes later on, but we now know that it's strongly influences risk of disorders and diseases such as Parkinson's dementia with Lewy bodies. And interestingly, for many RLS patients, it seems to be a disorder of iron metabolism in the brain. And when they supplement with iron, they can dramatically improve their restless leg syndrome. But if you are, I might take high dose iron, then we would be very unlikely to experience any improvements to our sleep.Speaker 1 (00:51:43):Hmm. Potentially risk high oxidation at some point since we're both male.Speaker 2 (00:51:47):Absolutely. Yeah. We probably want to go and give blood straight afterwards.Speaker 1 (00:51:50):Yeah. Well that's super cool. That's super fascinating. Do, what are your thoughts on a phenom Butte as a sleep supplement? Cause I know that's been on the FDA at least in the U S kind of the gray area for many years now. And I'd have to look up again to see what the status was. I heard it's kind of on the naughty list now again, but who knows?Speaker 2 (00:52:15):Yeah, I believe it is. And I haven't looked at it since 2018, but I remember briefly looking at the literature then, and it wasn't at all convincing that it was a helpful sleep aid. And like you say, I believe it's now regulated. It's certainly regulated over here in the European union. We are still part of the next few weeks. So I wouldn't recommend it. And another consideration here is the veracity of product claims. The supplement industry is so poorly regulated, but if you buy something, especially by something which has a bit gray market, then the likelihood of you buying something that contains what it claims to might not be that high. There was a study published within the last couple of years on melatonin supplements, showing the amounts of melatonin in them varied from less than a hundred percent to more than 400% of the product label claim.Speaker 2 (00:53:13):Some of them also contain things like serotonin, which is part of the same pathway in the brain. So you need to be careful when sourcing your supplements. And fortunately there are a third party testing company. So one of them is consumer lab that do go out, take products off the shelves and check them for the presence of banned substances and other contaminants too. So you're not part of the membership site of consumer lab and you're interested in sourcing good supplements. Then that is one route that you might want to explore. But just as a general tip, thorn and life, extension supplements always seem to fare very well on their site. And I say that as somebody who is co-founder of a food product company, but for that, for the products that we don't make ourselves by generally default to life extension, because they always seem to contain what they claim to. And they also have a very large product range.Speaker 1 (00:54:21):Yeah. The whole, there's only like a handful of supplements. I recommend, you know, thorn is one of them just because trying to stay up to date on that is very difficult. And even, you know, places like with I've toured, you know, Charlotte's web who makes CBD and other products. And that was a couple of years ago. That was great. You know, I signed an NDA, I got to see all the facilities spend two days with them. It was great. Everything about it is awesome. They have traceability, but the end of the day, I'm not there every day, no matter what the place or the manufacturer is. And you get into, especially smaller companies I get really nervous about because they just don't have a lot to lose. You know, if you're generally a bigger company and you've been around for quite a while. Yeah. If something goes wrong or your testing doesn't look so good on consumer labs and you don't fix it, you have a lot of business to lose. If you're some fly by night company that starts up and sells, God knows whatever in a capsule. And we find out it's just bad or non-existent, or potentially toxic or heavy metal Laden, whatever. We'll just file bankruptcy, disappear to some Island in the Caymans. Good luck. Trying to find usSpeaker 2 (00:55:38):Bowel Chestnut bowel Chestnut. What is that? Oh, that's probably a British thing. Just, just ignore me.Speaker 1 (00:55:47):Oh, you just said follow Chestnut. Is that right?Speaker 2 (00:55:49):No, I know that that old Chestnut, Oh, people have been doing that stuff forever.Speaker 1 (00:55:58):Unfortunately. Yes. So he has to tell us more about the supplements that you're helped co-founded right now and working with them.Speaker 2 (00:56:08):Sure. So the website is resilient, nutrition.com and we launched it earlier this year, off the back of some work that we did helping two guys get ready to row the Atlantic last year. So w one of the things that I do is help prepare people for certain athletic events and help them also with health and performance in general. And I was helping my friend Allie, get max Thorpe and Dave Spellman ready, helping them specifically with their nutrition and also their sleep. And as you can imagine, when you've got two guys who are over a hundred kilos who are going to be rowing for several weeks on end, they need a lot of calories. And they spent most of their time growing into our shifts two hours on two hours off. So we estimated that they'd be burning more than 10,000 calories a day, at least initially.Speaker 2 (00:57:05):And they therefore needed easy to digest energy, dense nutrition that would support that performance, but also be usable in those conditions. They don't have a fridge or anything on board, so it has to be stable. And what we did is we started playing around with different versions of nut butters, and we came up with a suite of them, for the guys and they used them during the event, love them. We ourselves use them in different contexts, too, including things like knowledge work, but also some other athletic events. And while we take no credit for this, they did really well. They broke the world record at the start of this year. And so we thought was there a way that we can scale this? And we since then spent time refining the formulations. And now there are four versions of our first product, which is named long range fuel, and the versions are better suited at different times of day.Speaker 2 (00:58:06):That is so-called energized version that contains caffeine and Elfie and IIN. And going back to that discussion about things that have been studied together, caffeine and Althea painting is one of those rack combinations that seems to have some additive effects on cognition. And that's, well-suited being taken at the start of the day before knowledge work and also to support wakefulness if you have to be up during the night. So if you're a night shift worker, for instance, then we have bomb versions, which contain the dose of ashwaganda, which is that's generally been used in research. So they contain 600 milligrams of KSM 66 ashwaganda per pouch, which is 100 grams. And ashwaganda is so-called at that gen that helps people better cope with stress. It tends to reduce people's subjective feelings of stress, but also some related stress hormones. But interestingly, when people regularly take it, they tend to boost their cardiorespiratory fitness.Speaker 2 (00:59:09):There was a matter analysis published recently, looking at the effects of ashwaganda in take on VO two max showing that it does have a small effect on improving VO two max. And there've been a couple of studies too, looking at ashwaganda intake and adaptations to strengthen power exercise, showing that when people take it every day for several weeks, they gain muscle mass and strength slightly faster, LinkedIn CME ashwaganda. So it's not only good for brain health, but it also seems to support exercise performance. And then both of those energizing conversions are available. And so called rebuild versions, which just contain added whey protein, isolate, and L leucine. And that makes them a particularly good meal replacement. We add the L leucine because it's the one amino acid that seems to independently quite strongly trigger the synthesis of new proteins and skeletal muscle. But it also seems to have some appetite regulation enhancing effects.Speaker 2 (01:00:15):And in some contexts, it can be useful for some other aspects of metabolic health too. And that all nut butters that are all based on tree, nuts, not peanuts or anything like that. So they contain things like almonds and hazelnuts. And obviously I'm very biased, but they're really, really tasty too. So that's long range fuel. And right now I'm working on formulating our next products, which will hopefully launch early next year, which I'm really looking forward to. And it's also a project that we, we try and give back whether it's not just about trying to sell products, but we, for example, give 1% of our sales to a charity that works with governments and communities and tropical countries to protect their rainforests. And given my background, I also try and create useful educational content. So I recently wrote a free ebook about nutrition, which people can download from the website and we'll have lots of more content coming out too in the coming months. So that's resilient nutrition in a four minute nutshellSpeaker 1 (01:01:23):Nutshell. I like it. Very good nutshell. Not a Chestnut or whatever, any hints on the, on the new product or is it top secret, top secret, right. Okay. I had to ask, you know,Speaker 2 (01:01:41):Unfortunately, but hopefully at some point next year we might be over in the U S and if that's the base, then I'll have to get some over to you to try.Speaker 1 (01:01:49):Yeah. That was my other question. Do you ship a worldwide or is it just mainly in the UK right now?Speaker 2 (01:01:55):Right now, it's in the UK in the next few weeks. It will be in Europe too. So we'll be on Amazon over here shortly. And then hopefully next year, we'll transition to North America too. And then ultimately we'd love to be in the Asia Pacific region. So 2021 fingers crossed in North America, but right now it's, it's just over the side of the pond. Cool.Speaker 1 (01:02:20):Awesome. Well, thank you very much. I know we talked about sort of a subset of resilience related to sleep and other supplements and things that are useful, which I think is always beneficial for a lot of people. So where can people, what's the best way for them to find out more about you and about resilient, nutrition,Speaker 2 (01:02:41):Resilient, nutrition, it's resilient, nutrition.com. And we're also on Instagram at resilient nuts. And I have my own social media, which is at Greg Potter PhD, which sounds ridiculously self-indulgent. But at Greg Potter was taken, I don't post there that much, but I'm going to probably start posting more regularly in a few reach out to me on there and send me a message. Then at some point I will get back to you.Speaker 1 (01:03:09):Awesome. Yeah, I know. That's always, sometimes you get interesting emails from people it's like, why do you have to put doctor on everything? It's like, well, sometimes the normal name was taken and it's just the easiest way to get the next normal semi looking name.Speaker 2 (01:03:27):I actually, I hate being called doctor. Just if it feels wrong, I always say, I'm not a real doctor. I'm just a PhD.Speaker 1 (01:03:35):Yeah. I had that one. So when I checked into a hotel, my assistant made the booking. It was a couple of years ago and she goes, Oh, and how was your stay? Oh, Dr. Nelson. I said, Oh, it was good. She's like, Oh, what kind of doctor are you? I said, well, actually I did a PhD in exercise physiology. She goes, Oh, you don't cut people open. I'm like, no, I'm not, not a surgeon. She's like, Oh, well have a good stay there. Mr. Nelson,Speaker 2 (01:04:04):Did you take any muscle biopsies during your PhD?Speaker 1 (01:04:07):No, I didn't. We, our lab was weird that we were an exercise physical lab, but to get to do any bloods, we had to go to the what's called the clinical research center and to get IRB approval process was completely separate. And then because of the way the budgets were set up, the GCRC charged us, literally an arm and a leg just for us to walk into their building. So we did everything unfortunately possible to avoid that, just due to the sheer cost of it. We did do some stuff over there. We did some stuff with like nitroglycerin and some other stuff related to flow me to dilation and to seal function for doing it as a chemical in part of the studies. But unfortunately, no, that's one of those weird things I always wanted to do. Or in some, I dunno, weird way have done to me, but I haven't. It's a masochistic way. Yeah. Yeah. Yourself.Speaker 2 (01:05:10):Although my undergraduate thesis was looking at the association between quadriceps muscle isoform composition and sprinting jump performance and untrained young men looking at, yeah, we were looking at where the fast Twitch fibers associate with performance, but that's, that's the closest I've come and I've, I've never, I've never been stabbed in the leg in the interest of science.Speaker 1 (01:05:36):I know. I, my good buddy, Dr. Andy Galpin, I'm sure. He's like, well, we can do it here. Unfortunately all their studies due to the recent COVID stuff are all, all on hold. So I talked to me their data. I said, well, what are you actually really doing? It's like, well, not really a lot, because you can do virtual biopsies like, Oh yeah, that would be pretty hard. So, yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for all your time today. I really appreciate it.Speaker 2 (01:06:07):Thanks, Mike.Speaker 1 (01:06:09):Thank you so much for listening to the podcast greatly. Appreciate it. Big, thanks to Dr. Greg Potter for coming on and sharing all of his knowledge with all of us today. Super insightful and again, a lot of good practical knowledge that you can take forward if you were in the UK, make sure to check out his nutrition company, resilient nutrition, even if you're not in the UK, still check out all the great information that he's put out over many years. I always enjoy listening to him on other podcasts and reading his work. So this show is brought to you by the flux diet certification, learn eight different interventions on how to get better body composition and performance without wrecking your health via nutrition and recovery interventions certification goes through the top eight related to protein fats, carbohydrates, ketogenic diets, fasting, neat exercise, sleep, and more.Speaker 1 (01:07:15):Each module has a big picture. We'll be talking about the overall concept of the flex diet, which is a mashup between metabolic flexibility and flexible dieting. And then each one has about an hour technical primer. So everything you wanted to know about protein metabolism, how does it work? What is the role of branch chain amino acids? The leucine terms you may have heard Uber geeks throw around like muscle protein, synthetic response all broken down into a language. You can understand everything is fully referenced. And then each intervention has five very specific action items. So as a coach, you know what to do with clients, and this is all in a complete system where I show you how to use each one, where to start and how to know what action item is going to be best for each client at that time.Speaker 1 (01:08:13):So it allows you a complete, but it's done in a very flexible approach. And we also have a ton of expert interviews everything from Dr. Dan party, Dr. Stu Phillips talking about protein metabolism from McMaster, Dr. Jose Antonio talking about protein overfeeding. And what happens when you feed people too much protein, Dr. Eric Helms discussing flexible dieting, Dr. Hunter Waldmann talking about changes in metabolic flexibility and insulin dynamics and many other expert interviews there also. So that's all in the flux diet. It will open up again January of 2021. I would love for you to be a part of it and get onto the wait list right now, go over to flux diet.com F L E X, D I E t.com. That'll put you onto the daily newsletter and you will be the first people notified. So thank you again for listening to the podcast greatly appreciate it. Always feel free to leave any comments, feedback, or reviews for us in your favorite podcast player. Thank you so much.Speaker 2 (01:09:35):Cool. Cool. Sounds good. And how are you, how are things your end how's how's business being given the context?Speaker 1 (01:09:42):You know, it's actually been pretty good. I mean, in all honesty, like income wise this year was better than last year. Although I've worked probably twice as much just cause I haven't been traveling really at all. So since we got back from Costa Rica in March, like everything just got like the whole year just got wiped out in terms of presentations and even academic stuff. So I'm like, well, whatever, we drove out to visit some of my wife's family in July when kiteboarding and hood river. And then we did a five, six weeks trip, just drove down to Texas, did some kiteboarding down there and October, November. And yeah, I got freaked out because all my clients are mostly online trainers. So I'm like if their gym closes, why are they going to pay me to do their training? So in like April and June, I just said yes to every online product thingy known demand because everyone in their brother's like, Oh, you need someone to do online stuff.Speaker 1 (01:10:40):Who's that, Hey, you we've done this before. And eh, you know, some of them were okay. Some of them were just when they actually released it's I sold three, you know, so somewhere just a complete disaster, maybe they'll sell more next year or whatever. So it's, you know, overall it's been good, just interesting with all the variability in the, you know, projects that we started, you signed the contract, everything's good. You get 40% done. And then they're like, I dunno, we just can't do this. Like, you know, some something happened family wise or you don't know and then just cancel it. So that goes away and yeah. So it's been interesting to say the least, but it's, it's been okay. Which is good.Speaker 2 (01:11:25):It's cardboard and a great love of yours. I can see your board there in the background. Yeah.Speaker 1 (01:11:29):Well, it's my surfboard. I'm like, have you ever watched the show Seinfeld where he had the Cannondale bike in the back? So I'm like secretly wondering if like Slingshot a lover, watch my videos and be like, Oh, there's a Slingshot surfboard in the back. So yeah, I've done it backwards. I'm actually trying to teach myself how to surf using a kite first and then go back the other way. Which I don't know everyone else, like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. I'm like probably, but it's like, I can, I'm okay with the kite and yes, I'm using that to hide like every flaw with the board, but the amou

“Hey Mike, any advice on becoming an online coach?” “How can I start my own fitness business?” As an entrepreneur and creator of several successful businesses in the fitness space, I’m often asked how people can break into the industry themselves. I can understand the enthusiasm. Lots of people who go through a life-changing fitness journey end up wanting to help others make similar changes in their own lives. That was certainly the case for me. While I’ve built my own thriving online coaching program, I came at it from a different angle--I already had a niche carved out for myself in the fitness world that I could use as a platform to build from. Not everyone has the books, blog, or podcast to launch a new coaching business, so to help people just starting out, I thought I’d talk to an expert. In this episode, I chat with Jonathan Goodman, who created the first-ever (and only!) certification for online fitness trainers, the Online Trainer Academy. This is a program specifically for online coaches, teaching them how to earn more money and better serve their clients. Jonathan has also written several books on the topic, and is a host on the Online Trainer Show, a podcast chock-full of insights and advice for fitness professionals looking to build an online career. In our conversation, Jonathan breaks down . . . How to identify points of leverage Why books and courses are more valuable than masterminds and mentors How to find good people to learn from The power of marketing and branding How to build and use momentum Why you don’t need as many clients as you think So, if you want to learn how to start your own online coaching business or how to take your current business to the next level, definitely give this podcast a listen! 30:28 - What is the difference between maximizers and satisficers? 36:00 - Why is marketing so important? 42:16 - How do you build momentum once you start a business? 1:09:19 - Would you recommend training for free at the beginning to get a better following? 1:22:49 - Where can people find you and your work? Mentioned on The Show: Online Trainer Certification: https://www.theptdc.com/online-trainer-academy-certification The Online Trainer Show: https://www.theptdc.com/online-trainer-show-podcast Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://legionathletics.com/coaching/ --- Want free workout and meal plans? Download my science-based diet and training templates for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/text-sign-up/

Collaborate To Accelerate James Taylor interviews Mia Liljeberg and they talked about how to Collaborate To Accelerate In today's episode Mia Liljeberg talks about how to Collaborate To Accelerate. Mia Liljeberg is a trusted adviser and speaker but could be best described as a change catalyst. Based in Sweden, she travels the world helping leaders and their organizations to upgrade to the next level through small calibrations. To date, Mia has visited over 100 countries, worked in 20 countries, and lived in 10 of those on 5 continents. As a TEDx speaker and Certified professional facilitator, she gives her customers unique experiences. Her 20 years of managing change in different industries and countries have given her the tools and insights to ignite, accelerate, and guide her customers with great results. What we cover: Moving from a competition to a collaboration mindset Going from consumer to contributor Results from surveying 8,000 speakers Resources: Mia Liljeberg Website Mia LinkedIn Please SUBSCRIBE ►http://bit.ly/JTme-ytsub ♥️ Your Support Appreciated! If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on YouTube, iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show. SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW Apple: http://bit.ly/TSL-apple Libsyn: http://bit.ly/TSL-libsyn Spotify: http://bit.ly/TSL-spotify Android: http://bit.ly/TSL-android Stitcher: http://bit.ly/TSL-stitcher CTA link: https://speakersu.com/the-speakers-life/ FOLLOW ME: Website: https://speakersu.com LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/JTme-linkedin Instagram: http://bit.ly/JTme-ig Twitter: http://bit.ly/JTme-twitter Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/IS-fbgroup Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/collaborate-to-accelerate-sl075/ James Taylor Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode. Hey there, it's James Taylor and I'm delighted today to be joined by Mia Liljeberg. Mia is a trusted advisor and speaker but could be best described as a Change Catalyst. Based in Sweden. She travels the world helping leaders and their organizations to upgrade to the next level through small calibrations. Today, Mia has visited over 100 countries works In 20 countries and lived in 10 of those on five continents. As a TEDx speaker and Certified Professional facilitator, she gives her customers unique experiences. Her 20 years of managing change in different industries and countries have given her the tools and insights to ignite, accelerate, and guide her customers with great results. And it's my great pleasure to have Mia join us today. So welcome, Mia. Thank you. So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now. Mia Liljeberg Currently, I'm on around the world trip for 18 weeks. I'm currently in Lima, Peru, after been to Europe, Asia and Oceania. Wow. So now we have four weeks left before we are heading back to Sweden. James Taylor So you I think you you traveled to New Zealand as well for the global speaker summits you'd been there. So you're making a big trip as part as part of the speaking or is it a mixture of speaking vacationing or how's it working for you? Mia Liljeberg Yeah, that makes I go for the mix. So it's both mix. So speaking facilitation, writing on the next book, And a lot of vacation as well. So how did you get started as a James Taylor speaker? Where did it all begin for you? Mia Liljeberg I started off as a consultant management consultant helping a lot of large companies with change. And then I wrote a book five years ago about communicating with the images, how it really can cross makes it so much easier to cross cultural boundaries and language boundaries. So that's how I got into speaking. So before I was just a consultant, doing facilitation workshop, advising, and then I got into the whole speaking business. James Taylor And when you started making that transition from the consulting world, who were those early mentors, and who do you find it Who are some of your mentors today that could have helped you? Mia Liljeberg Five years ago, I didn't have any mentors. So it was very tough. And then 2014 we started the National Speakers Association in Sweden, and that's when it was then that's when the whole world opened up for me with the mentors both in Sweden and all around the world. James Taylor And whether any particular names there was was there any any speakers that kind of took you under their wing? Or was it more than the fact that there were speakers that you you'd seen on stage? And you can you thought, actually, that's kind of where I want to, I want to get to I want to get there with my my speaker business. I want to get there in terms of that level of craft and speaking. Mia Liljeberg Yeah. So it's like, five years ago, when I started, it was like, I saw this huge gap between me and everyone else. And then when we start the association, and we start connected, like, you saw that they were all like you. So I mean, for the Karen, who is the initiator of the Swedish speaker Association. I mean, he and his twin brother to her and those are the ones who, who came up with the idea about what do you think about collaborating instead of competing is like, haven't thought about that? So that was a big mind shift, August 2014. James Taylor And then you're originally an engineer before you got into Nigeria. You're an engineer by trade, I understand. So with without any skills, you able to have tried to move across from the world of, of engineering into the world of speaking. Mia Liljeberg Yes, as I've been working as in five different continents with a lot of both logistics and management projects. I mean, the whole planning the management and the thing about working internationally about dealing with different cultures and communicating across barriers, that has been really, really helpful. And also like, I love to travel. So it's like, I love to, to see new cultures meet new people and, and I think that's part of my strange brain. I, I wasn't on the TV show for the smallest in Sweden. And my husband's done with that one. And that's, that's part of my engineering brain is like, I see so many connections, I see the patterns and I see when there is a pattern and I can connect patterns where people can't see patterns, but I also see With a patent is missing. And that is so valuable within change management to really see you don't have to do lot of big changes. You just have to find the small things to calibrate. And that's when you get exponential growth. James Taylor So I'm interested, you're traveling, you're in Peru and in Lima today as well. Because we have so many attendees on this. Previous we've had 6000 attendees on this summit and for all 120 countries. Are there any other any countries on your hit list? Any countries Maybe someone's watching this just now they're a speaker, and there's maybe country or country you haven't yet spoken and you haven't traveled to? The maybe if you were to mention just now you might have someone here saying Actually, I'm basically I could I can help bring you over. Mia Liljeberg And that is so fun, because as I've been to over 100 countries, and I've worked in so many countries like Canada. I still haven't been to Canada. It's like, how come I haven't into Canada. James Taylor And one of the things that I noticed that you've done which I thought was really Interesting you'd like a survey together, you'd serve it over 8000 speakers, specifically about collaboration? What What did you learn from that? Well, first of all, what what was it the thinking behind creating that, that that survey in the first place? What was your your purpose in doing that? And what were some of the key results that you found from that, Mia Liljeberg as I mentioned about how we started the Swedish Association to do the mind shift going from speakers or competing to speakers could collaborate, to share the pie. And that is, as I mentioned, I was speaking at the global speaker summit in Auckland, New Zealand in February, and I was the Swedish representative there. That was my topic was really about collaboration because that is what I've seen from being a member and also being one of the founding board members of an association is really that people join an association and they want the referrals. So okay. I'm a member with With my referrals, but it doesn't work that way, you know that? Will not. So it's like, but there's like, there should be a method, there should be a pattern. What is it? And that's when that's when I thought, well, the best way I think I have grasped a pattern, a method. But why don't I just ask everyone else. So that's when I went out with a survey to all the speaker associations in the world that are connected to the global speaker Federation to make sure that we got the views from everyone. And they really confirmed all that I thought from the beginning. So there are 8000 preferred speakers around the world that are members of associations. And out of those, not everyone. That's how it is. But the ones who answered us gave really good input, for example, that just by being a member and being able to collaborate, they've gained a lot of value, like some made over 50,000 you US dollar just from collaboration. And that is that is quite interesting considering that we think that speaking business is quite alone some business that you are not collaborating, you're competing. But if you're really collaborating, you're really helping each other. And so OSI seed is, it's a, I see this mount, as I see in pictures, I see it as a mountain, the mountain of value of collaboration. So it's like, at the bottom, everyone, like being everyone who's listening to this, to this summit is the consumer. Anyone who becomes a member of an association is the consumer. They are there to get information. And that's the easy pass away. But that's not how you really get the real value out of it. You get a lot of value. From this summit, you get tons of value. But in order to get even more value, and get the things that people say and people say, Oh, we I want the reverse. I want the referrals, how I get the referrals. Well then the next step is connecting, you have to take this first step out first active step. And that is about Connecting, Connecting with other speakers being open and interested in other speakers being being generally interested in other people. And that is a good step. But there's a lot of people who have connected with me and that I have connected with, but I wouldn't refer them. That is not good enough. Because the next thing is, we have so many connections, but what we really want is the contributors, the people who are really contributing, because when you're contributing, you get visibility, and you get credibility. And that's how you become top of mind. For other speakers to really refer you because there's so many speakers out there. It's a tough market. James Taylor Yeah, it reminds me a little bit I remember when having company Chemistry and we're actually twice Swedish, just like Spotify, for example, there was a funny stage before Spotify, where we had Napster and a lot of peer to peer things going on. Yeah. And if any, if anyone ever used any of those things to be able to illegally to get music, so imagine and one of the things you always had you had the, you had the kind of the exact terminology you had the people that would put things up when they were the ones that were very active to contribute. And then you had this other group and they were actually called the leeches if I think you remember that was a term that with leeches, so they never contributed anything. It was always about taking something from it as well. And I thought it was an interesting, interesting, I mean, you you told me this, this idea of going from really going from being a consumer of it to actually getting from collaboration. And it feels that this is one of those industries where, for historical reasons or whatever reasons. There's a lot of lone wolves in this in this in this business and maybe because of how it's you know, it's started maybe that that's, Mia Liljeberg I definitely James Taylor see a trend changing especially the younger speakers coming up who I'm thinking people wonder like Frederick I've collaborated with Frederick on things, Gil Peter sale, you know from Russia as well as now in Singapore. And all that content is all about collaboration, how can we help, you know grow the pie? How can we collaborate on each with each other as well? What example Have you seen recently of a really interesting ways that speakers have collaborated with each other to create something new and novel that's very interesting and adds value in the market? Mia Liljeberg I mean, I would say like, what are you putting on now with international speaker summit? That is fabulous way to collaborate, and also what the Gil and Frederick Heron was doing when they did, she had keynote. So I mean, to be able to invite other speakers you have to lose in your fare. Your state presence. And I think that that's the core of it, like the speakers who are confident in themselves are the ones that are willing to let go of that fear and to trust other people. So I mean, I've seen so many different ways of I mean, it's I mean, you have collaboration where people are collaborating and going to towards a common target market. That is really good way to see that okay, we can complement each other, we can make a bigger offer. And then you have the ones where people are standing in for each other when they are, if they're sick, or if they are and a transportation issues you have where we are really contributing to each other to really make each other better on stage. That is also one I mean, that there's so many different dimensions. So it's like when people get into To this speaking business, they, they believe that okay, I want I want to get my, I want to get it for referrals I want to get on stage, I want to get the high fees, but it's like, that is just the quantitative measurements that you are looking for. Yeah, behind that one. That's the top of the iceberg. underneath. It's all of these different connections that you can see that well, when I spoke and connected to that person over there. That one, I was invited. I did a guest blog post on that one. Someone saw that one and they they thought I should be on stage there when I was on stage there that I mean, it's a snowball. Yeah, I mean, when I'm, when I'm trying to track back how I got, how I got the referrals. It always started with a smooth, smooth, smooth connection and contribution. And someone saw it. James Taylor I think one of the ways I think about collaboration is I'm a obviously this summit is you said is a perfect is an example of collaboration. This is kind of what we're doing. I'm collaborating with Lots of other speakers have been creating something that wouldn't have existed without all of us coming together. You know, it's I could not I could not create a summit with just me because it would be boring. So, you know, I have to bring all these great minds together and, and it doesn't. I feel that we're all able to learn from each show. And I think the other ways I've seen that in the speaking world worked very well. And sometimes it's talked about and sometimes it's, I think it's quite under the surface is mastermind, you know, I, I know a number I'm involved in to masterminds, and with others with other kind of speakers and groups, and one of those masterminds. We all speak some actually two of us speak on the same, pretty much the same topic. And the other ones to speak on a different topic. But the thing that all links us together, is we sat down, there's eight of us and we sat down and said we could essentially be eight years worth of keynotes for a conference, let's say a marketing conference because we all that's one of the things we all share in common. As we will come from different marketing backgrounds in one way or the other, so we just kind of sat down together. And we're like really diverse from different parts of the world. But we but we, we share we come together and different things. And also, it's not just referring work, okay, that's, you know, I do it this year, then sometimes I'll refer someone in the group. But I find the really interesting thing is then when you say, what can we create the hasn't even existed before together. So I know, I know, the seven strengths that I have in his weaknesses I have, and in one of my other members of my mastermind, she's an amazing workshop person. She is like, the best workshops I've ever seen. And that's not probably one of my key strengths. So we've we've started working on things like how can we collaborate, you know, because she's so good at that site, I'm, I'm a little bit better, especially some of the online things as well. And that's, I find that really creative because you can and you don't have to be saying well, I can only have that type of thing. Relationship with That person you can, you can do it internationally. And I've seen this happen, especially for the music industry again, we used to call them swaps. So you would you would bring a foreign artists in to your country. And you would do a tour together essentially you would do maybe six shows or 10 shows together. I've just a good friend of mine, his great guitar Swedish guitarist, kudos for Kenyans who work with Oscar Peterson. And so I would, you know, my peers, I bring him to work with a British artist, and he would go on tour and together around the UK and a really nice tour, and then offered organize a tour in Sweden, and then that as we go over there, and you can have so many of those different relationships, and it always is quite a good way to enter into a market because that speak in that place has real strength in that market has the connections already, but you have your strengths and where you are. So you can kind of do those those swaps as well. Mia Liljeberg Yeah, because what it comes down to is that there is already trust in that market from that person. Yes, it's like you get so so what's next I'm starting to realize that in order to collaborate efficiently, there needs to be a lot of trust. I mean, the trust, and that's why I'm talking about that there's a lot of consumers, that's where how everybody's starting consuming because there's so much to consume. But then you have to start to do the connections, and one study the connections, you can start to contribute. And when you start to contribute to each other, that is like a saying that I can help you polish on those skills. And you can help me polish on these these skills. We're not competing, we're just making each other better, stronger in all markets, or we could go together to a market so he's like, just contributing can be contribution can be done in so many different ways, especially just this fine tuning, calibrating the scales, so we become better on stage or in our whole business management. Because some people don't need referrals. I mean, some people just need to be able To say no to the low paid gigs, sharpen the skills to raise the fee to get less gigs. So it's all about making those movements. And James Taylor I guess one of the slight dangers of collaborations is they can, at times it can feel quite tactical. So you can have lots of different things kind of going on. And they're not necessarily particularly joined up or there's not an overarching strategy. You're not doing them in a, in a quiet, thoughtful way. And so is there any suggestions, any kind of guys to how, how to make that create a plan around that collaboration? And I think maybe more from a strategic level rather than just individual tactical relationships. Mia Liljeberg Yeah. And, of course, I mean, because I mean, we are humans and we are connecting to each other. So it's like we are connecting hands we are doing it but as you say, we do it without a plan. But if we have a plan for our speaking business, that is how we can start to collaborate with a purpose. Which means that when I go back to this value mountain, it's like consuming we are consuming but let's face it, as long as you are consuming, you're not contributing. So, it is it is a waste of money it is a waste of money and time, a lot of times because if it if it hinders you from contributing, well you will stay a consumer. So, it's more about connecting make thoughtful connection and honest connections with people but also contribute really be How can I contribute because I made a lot of speakers saying, Well, I don't have anything to contribute because my niche is so so special. So yeah, but thing is, you always have something to contribute. You can share your mistakes you can share to spare, share your mistakes, nobody has to do it like, like what I did, with my altitude sickness, never fly in from sea level to LA pass Bolivia. That is a very bad idea. Yeah, that I'm sharing to spam. But also it's like, what if, like, our business is so diverse? It's like, What? What are you really, really good at, but maybe someone is really good at Facebook ads and can share that one, although they have a topic that is very, very niche, or someone is very good at proposals, or someone is very good at just stage presence, like, we have those little hacks that we can really give away. But it's all about wanting to give away to really believe in collaboration and not believe in the competition. James Taylor And I think that I mean, if anyone's watching this just now I think that's the masterminds that could be really powerful or in speakers associations are the same as well, when you can, and I know in a lot of Speakers Association, they'll have kind of subgroups within the speaker's associations are focused on particular areas. And I think they could be incredibly powerful because We all have these different skills. I think sometimes that the hardest thing is to is to recognize the skills that you have, you mentioned that they like to recognize those skills that you have that you can contribute to the group and to other people. Because it, it feels so natural to you to do this, it feels natural to these Facebook ads, like okay, that's fine. Here's the natural to create, like a great trainers guide leaders guide for a workshop with me that would be like, Okay, how does that how does that work? You know? So So I think it's, as you can start to get into this world of collaboration. It's like having a mirror there people reflecting back to you saying, actually, I don't think you can decide I think it's like Frederick is brilliant at this, being that mirror and reflecting back to people saying, okay, you think this is the thing that you can actually but it's, it's actually this thing, that's where your that's where your genius that's where your your great contribution can go as well. And I'm guessing that's one of the benefits of being a member of our speakers Association because you have that ability to have that connection with The people that can reflect. And it's, it's difficult sometimes when you're in the world outside of that, if you're just in speaking to friends and family members, and they're going, what is it? You do? Like, how did what do you do again? Mia Liljeberg Yeah, they don't share the challenges and experiences. No. But it's like, would you say that it's like, doing those Facebook ads, it's like it can feel so natural to you. And it's like, and that's exactly what Frederick is about with his inner theme. And that is exactly why you speaker is so good on stage because like, because it's so natural to you. But that is what makes you unique. So it's like, what is unique to us? We don't see it. And that's what people don't think that oh, I don't have anything to contribute. It's like, but seriously, you're you're the best on this topic. It's like you can really give give me your nugget, can I pick your brain can you just share, share, to spare share to care. James Taylor So in your journey as a speaker as you made this, this move And then what you were doing in a consultancy, and then you know, becoming a speaker that you are doing traveling the world as a speaker? Was there a key insight moment, an aha moment a time when you went, Oh, okay. This is the direction I want to go with my speaking or this is who I want to serve with my speaking. Can you maybe talk to an aha moment like that? Mia Liljeberg When the first aha moment was the, the, when we founded this Swedish speaker Association? Because I really remember when I, when I went to, to that meeting at at TI or south, and I was like, talking to my friend Leanna. Another speaker in the car is like, what is going to happen? We're going to be 30 speakers over a week. And it's like, what is the what? And then afterwards was just pure love? It's like, wow, yeah, yeah, we so it was it was this mind shift. And as you say, that is probably what a lot of speakers outside associations cannot see. But once you're in an association, you can see that is the mind shift. But still still within associations. There's a lot of consumers And that is fine, because I mean, they pay their membership fees, and they get a ton of value. But if you really want to climb the mountain, can the mountain value, then you have to start to connect. And as you say, with the most amount, most of mine is a beautiful, deep connection, James Taylor I think, you know, one of the hacks I have, I've learned this in other other industries, other professions, and one of the things I was really keen to do early on in my speaking just as someone that were just kind of getting started was to find those those mentors, and yeah, because it's one of the quickest ways to transfer knowledge and to learn and also to provide value. And yeah, and I'm, I don't know, you're probably the same, really fortunate to have mentors that can support you. And it's, it's not like a it's like a where you're just consuming stuff with it with a mental relationship you're creating, how can I How can I be contributing to this this relationship as well, it's a bit is is a two and it's a real I, someone said to me the other day, he said, You should always have two mentors, you should have a mentor that's older than you to who has wisdom and a mentor this younger than you to basically be kicking up the backside to say, okay, you know, I've got this older generation that's coming up, they're coming up fast. Yes, they stay on top, stay on, stay on it. Mia Liljeberg Yeah, that's beautiful. Because, like you're saying, with mentors, in order to have a mentor. You have to really be able to ask for a mentor. You really have to be able to ask for advice. And that is I think, what can go against people when they are so in their mask and role of speaker because I am a speaker I am the confident the expert is like, but you're also a person who is on your journey to grow the business. So it's like to really be honest and vulnerable to to be available for feedback. Yeah, I mean, we have a in Sweden we have something that we call colleague listening wishes. Anyone can anyone ask? A member can invite the other members to watch them while they speak. And also ask for feedback. And say, I would like to have feedback. And you can be very specific, specific on it, like, I have just tried this new thing. So could you just give a feedback on that. And like, it's, it's beautiful. Because it's like, if you get really honest feedback from the person is like, and as with feedback, you can, you can take it as you want. And as there is no format for the feedback, it's very honest. And some people can go into length about really, really detailed feedback. I saw this and it's like, when you connect with this one, and you could really, you can really open the loop here and you could really prolong that one. And here, you really get the audience attention, but you will too fast is like that type of feedback you normally get when you hire a speaker coach, but you can never get it from the client. Because the client will always look at the content and the experience more more than the process and Then, and they craft something that is a really good way to grow as a speaker. James Taylor Yeah, I sometimes when when when I'm writing keynotes and working on keynotes, I, I'm almost writing them on three different levels, I'm breaking them. First of all, for the general the widest audience knows to one levels, I need to understand anyone that's maybe they're just starting an organization and have no knowledge of this topic that they're going to get. And I'm going to connect with them. And then I write to someone who is who really gets understands this maybe a senior leader in an organization. So it needs to work at that level. And then I also write it for my mic. Almost my colleagues and the speaker Well, yeah, because I know that if I if I'm going to put this on, I send my stuff by some videos which way you should film your things. I've, I send my videos to my speaker friends, and they'll come back with like real detailed notes and things. So I know if I'm going to do this, it's going to be it's going to be it has to work on all those three levels. Because if I just if I just couldn't go purely for the craft Then I feel like cuz sometimes like the, the emotional part to it and like the board, but then but at the same time, if I just go right to the broadest level and just purely speak to that, then Mia Liljeberg then you're not challenging yourself. You James Taylor don't challenge yourself and also you're not challenging the audience as well. Yeah. And it's like speaking down. I don't want to be speaking down to the audience. I'm treating trying to treat everyone in the audience. Like they're smart people that you know that they're in that room, they're in that room to learn and that's kind of part of my part, my job. What about you're on the road just now you're traveling from one country to the other? What is in your speaker bag, what is in that bag that you carry with you to all of your speaking engagements, cables, a lot of cables. Mia Liljeberg A lot of cables. What else? As I as I'm a facilitator, as well. I always bring a lot of things like a whiteboard markers and large prostitutes and tissue belts. I have the Hey Mike. Hey, Mick. Yeah, microphones? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And selfie sticks. Yeah, that is in the small bag. But as I say, as I'm a workshop facilitate I have quite a huge workshop back. James Taylor You have to Morel. And then what about you mentioned like the haymakers that's one type of app. Is there any other apps or online tools or mobile apps, for example, that you find really useful for yourself as a speaker? Mia Liljeberg Well, yeah, that's that would be the CRM system to always have a CRM system, and I use Evernote a lot. James Taylor And what do you use for you? What do you use for your CRM system? Mia Liljeberg Currently, I'm using agile, agile CRM. James Taylor And then what about a book if you were to recommend one book to our audience? What would that book be? Mia Liljeberg This might sound a bit funny because it's a very old book, but it was one of the last one I read. It says Friedman's book about humor in speaking. And now I can't remember the name of it. James Taylor I'll find the link for and we've had Scott here is yes, I'm gonna find a link for that as well. And we're gonna, because I Mia Liljeberg met, I met Scott. We talked about it at the global speakers on it, and then I read it directly after it was like, and it was it was good. And then I offered I saw how old it was. But it is good. You see what James Taylor I think that's what every author wants to be able to read classic this read, you know, years and years in advance as well. Yeah. And I want to kind of give you a final and ultimate question here. Let's imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, I'm gonna let you choose any city in the world to wake up in. You have all the skills that you've acquired over the years, but you know, no one no one knows you. So you have to restart your speaking career. What would you do? How would you restart? Mia Liljeberg It would be too easy if there was a city with an association in it because then I would just to go to the association to stop make connection but otherwise it would probably be just to stop Connecting networking. Yeah, I would just start networking as I as I've been living in so many countries. I mean, I've been doing this several times, going to a new country, new cities like, okay, I don't know anyone here. I'm here to do my job. Okay. Yeah. And you get it. So it's, yeah. And it's so different from city to city country to countries like, yeah, in some countries, people are very open and you can talk to each other just when you're crossing the street. And in some countries, people don't talk to each other. So then you have to be James Taylor a bit more active. Any any kind of final things. Maybe there's was it was a one of your favorite ways to collaborate that you discussed in that in that guy that we're going to have a link to, Mia Liljeberg I would say, it's all about the mind shift to really go from competing to collaborating to really, really open up because it is about opening up and Trusting other people. And so I mean, once you start do that and start to give to give, because it will be quite obvious if you're just giving to get that is not really getting in exponential growth. But as soon as you start to give to give, there will be even if I said that collaborate with a purpose, this funny thing that happened is that, even if you're collaborating with purpose, things will come to you that you could never imagine. And you would never be able to see them before. But it's like, that's the snowball effect. It's, you're in for a surprise. James Taylor And if people want to connect with you, maybe they maybe they have an idea for a project to collaborate on. Or maybe there's, they want to invite you to meet with someone that's watching or listening to this in Canada just now. They want to bring you over to how we bring into Canada. where's the best place for them to go to to connect with you, and there will be in my whole year on LinkedIn. There's only three of us. So I'm the Swedish mealybug or at my homepage, me at my homepage. nillable calm Or just to connect with email at me@mealybug.com help me I feel pleasure speaking to you today I hope you get well soon because I know you've had these big variations in terms of where you've been traveling to as well. And I look forward to getting a chance to meet in person as well. Mia Liljeberg Yeah, great. Same to you. Thank you. James Taylor Today's episode was sponsored by speakers you the online community for speakers and if you're serious about your speaking career then you can join us because you membership program. I'll speak as you members receive private one on one coaching with me hundreds of hours of training content access to a global community to help them launch and build a profitable business around their speaking message and expertise. So just head over to SpeakersU.com to learn more. #speakersU #speakerslife

The Number 1 Reason You Hear "I'm Not Interested"   Of course salespeople like to hear positive responses from their prospects but it's not always the case. Sometimes prospects say, “I'm not interested.” Why do you hear that? Is there something wrong with your pitch? Listen to this episode and understand what prospects are thinking when they say they're not interested.    Donald has worked with hundreds of sales reps,has coached a variety of individuals, trained organizations, and he's been on countless sales phone calls. All those experiences have taught him many things.  Donald's latest lesson came from seeing Disney's, The Princess and the Frog.    The story of Tiana and the Frog In the story, Tiana lives in Louisiana and has a dream of creating an amazing restaurant with her dad. She wants to do something with her life and have a purpose. Eventually, however, she gets turned into a frog. The prince in the story also gets turned into a frog. Together, they begin their quest to find the witch that turned them into frogs so they can be turned back to humans. Along the way, they come across an alligator who's good at playing the trumpet, and the frog prince asks the alligator for help. The alligator tells them about a witch doctor that can help but the frogs don't know how to get there. When Tiana asks the alligator to take them, he refuses and goes back to playing the trumpet.  The frog prince realizes they messed up their pitch and so he tries again. He goes back to the alligator and asks him about his challenges. To this, the alligator replies that it's hard to play trumpet in front of people because they just run away. Upon hearing this, the frog prince then redirects his pitch. He asks the alligator to come with them in the hopes of being turned into a human as well. This time, he decides to join them! The frog prince was able to reframe the offer so the alligator could see the benefit to himself.   In relation to sales  That story speaks to the platinum rule in sales - to treat others the way they would like to be treated and to tell them things that they want to hear. The focus should always be about the prospect or client with the goal of giving them what they want and need.    Tiana asked for good will but didn't offer any benefit. The prince got results because he focused on what the alligator  desired. The same is true when prospecting for a sale. When he saw the movie, Donald realized there were times as an account executive that he'd reached out to a prospect and led with Me, My, and I. He'd talked about his company and what they'd been doing. Nothing in his pitch was about the buyer. He eventually learned to flip it around and prioritized what they needed and wanted the most. That made all the difference.   Figuring out what they want One of the easiest ways to figure out what a customer wants is to search for their job title on LinkedIn. You can also go to indeed.com. Try searching for what their responsibilities are. For example, if you see your prospect is a marketing director, search for that job title on LinkedIn. You'll see that their job is to get traffic to their site, to bring inbound leads, bring in prospects that their sales reps can talk to, and eventually buy their product.    If you call them and talk to them about your company, they'll only listen to the first 10 seconds of your call before you hear, “I'm not interested.” As a sales rep, your job is to reach out to them with a point of reference. Connect with them via LinkedIn using the omnichannel approach. When you've done that, then you're ready to make the call.    “Hey Mike, we connected on LinkedIn last week....”   Position yourself as a person with whom they're already acquainted. You've already moved through the threat barrier on LinkedIn, so now you can present them a solution they want.  For the previous marketing director example, you could say, “I was looking at what you're doing. If there's a way I could show you how to get 10-15% more leads coming into your website, would you be open to hearing what we can do for you?” Provide a story loop to get his attention first before you ask your qualifying questions. Then you can set up that next appointment.    The old way of doing a pitch where you present your company, and all the great things you've accomplished, doesn't work anymore. Now we figure out what the clients need and present a solution that benefits them.    Client-centered, not sales rep-centered Your goal is to focus on what the buyer wants, use your questioning skills, and make them the center of the sales process. There is no deception when you are trying to grab their attention to solve their problem. If you're not going into a deeper discussion, then you won't get a close. Bring value to deepen the conversation. Provide what the prospect needs.    If you're trying to grab a prospect's attention to solve a problem, there's no deception in that. #SalesTruth “The Number 1 Reason You Hear "I'm Not Interested"” episode resources If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, sync all your data, manage custom fields, and get powerful reporting on your sales. Try Crmble now for free at www.crmble.com/tse. This course is also brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It's a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can go and visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Episode 002: Electric Boogaloo Our first topic is what everyday activity would you happily quit cold turkey, provided it wasn’t unhygienic nor detrimental to your health. Basically, Joe tried to be smarter than he actually is with this topic and it backfired spectacularly. Our second topic is movie theater closures in our current COVID-19 environment. Hey Mike, what part of no hot button issues do you not understand? Asshole... Our third topic is toy nostalgia. Join us as Art waxes nostalgic for his Cabbage Patch Dolls and Strawberry Shortcake play set. Our final topic is your funny low points. Watch as Chris brings to the table a heartfelt topic that brings to light such issues as infidelity and being rejected by terminal cancer patients. Oh, the “lighthearted” hilarity! Come listen to the podcast that’s receiving rave reviews on the Apple Store. And not just from our wives either!

How To Get Video Testimonials From Clients and Audience Members James Taylor interviews Jill Schiefelbein and they talk about exactly How To Get Video Testimonials From Clients and Audience Members. In today's episode Jill Schiefelbein talks about Exactly How To Get Video Testimonials From Clients and Audience Members. What we cover: Why you should join a Speakers Association How to ask for video testimonials Keynote speakers vs breakout speakers Please SUBSCRIBE ►http://bit.ly/JTme-ytsub ♥️ Your Support Appreciated! If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on YouTube, iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show. SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW Apple: http://bit.ly/TSL-apple Libsyn: http://bit.ly/TSL-libsyn Spotify: http://bit.ly/TSL-spotify Android: http://bit.ly/TSL-android Stitcher: http://bit.ly/TSL-stitcher CTA link: https://speakersu.com/the-speakers-life/ FOLLOW ME: Website: https://speakersu.com LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/JTme-linkedin Instagram: http://bit.ly/JTme-ig Twitter: http://bit.ly/JTme-twitter Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/IS-fbgroup Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/sl068-public-speaking-career-tip-how-to-get-video-testimonials-from-clients-and-audience-members/ James Taylor   Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode.   Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Jill Schiefelbein. Jill is an award winning entrepreneur, dynamic keynote speaker best selling author and recovering academic before venturing into entrepreneurship. She taught Business Communication at Arizona State University for 11 years. Today, her business the dynamic communicator helps organization's navigate the digital communication space to track customers, increase sales and retain clients. Her latest book is called dynamic communication 27 strategies to grow, lead and manage your business. And she was also the co chair of the next influence conference which the National Speakers associations premiere event for professional speakers. my great pleasure to have Jayla join us today. So welcome, Jill.   Jill Schiefelbein   Thank you so much for having James. I'm excited to share.   James Taylor   Fantastic. So tell us what's what's going on in your world just now.   Jill Schiefelbein  There's a lot going on in my world, but a lot of what's been going on lately has actually been doing with virtual training, different virtual offerings, different, you know, annual programs, but they're dealing with, you know, a quarterly training program that now supplements things that I'm doing in person at conferences, so speaking not just on the stage, but to the screen as well. So how   James Taylor   does that that's quite a different medium in terms of being able to speak you know, you're so used to be on the stage of the biggest stage or your body movements that can be quite different as well, when you're in this little box, how do you have to change your communication style?   Jill Schiefelbein  You know, you do a lot. And what happens is most of the time, I find that speakers who are amazing onstage if they assume that they're just going to meet amazing in an online environment they tank, and it's because navigating the virtual communication space is very different than presenting on a stage. And it's not just about the eloquence in the execution, right? Yes, of course, those things are important. But one of the biggest problems that a lot of speakers have when going into the virtual space is that they're not eyeballs looking back at them. There's not body language that they can read, there's not energy that they can feed off of. And in essence, you have to manufacture all of that for yourself or find ways in the virtual environment to actually create that level of interaction and feedback that you seek in the face to face environments.   James Taylor   So what was if someone may the speakers out there that who primarily their their speaking and and or training To live audiences, if they want to get their toe in the water of learning how to use the media and also having to create their own online courses or online training, but just want to start getting getting used to what that medium could be and how they have to maybe present in a slightly different way, what's a good way for them to start   Jill Schiefelbein  the very first way is do your presentation alone in a room looking at a computer screen and record it via audio, just audio, and listen back to it. And if you're bored in certain parts, then you can expect your audience to be doubly bored in those parts. And it's really important not just to have you know, your energy coming through the enthusiasm, the para language, the ups and the downs of your voice. All of those things are important. But just understanding how people are listening through technology, by listening to yourself in those recordings is important because when you're listening to yourself, listen from the learner perspective that you're trying to actually learn information. So that's number one. Number two is test the platforms if you're doing doing it for a client, if you're doing in a corporation or an organization, and you're not the one choosing the software, you need to actually take time to practice in it and learn what tools you have available, for whatever reason, and it's infuriating to me on one hand, and on the other hand, it's great because I get way more business because the average webinar is kind of, at best. Yeah. And the average webinar is I'm going to speak and there's maybe going to be some PowerPoint slides, and we're going to have some q&a. And that's the norm. Well, if that's the norm, then what I do is way above that, so it's really easy to impress, but why would you as a speaker, why is anyone for that matter? Why would you want to settle for the norm? Figure out what tools are at your disposal and what tools for engagement and interactivity within the webinar or within the Virtual Training are open to you to use and then practice with those tools, get a test audience and practice   James Taylor   now. How did you get mentioned to you, you came from the world of academia and first at Arizona State University but where did The speaking the keynote speaking professional speaking site Have you begin? How did you all get started?   Jill Schiefelbein   Very funny story. It actually began when I was young when I was in high school in a small town in Kansas. My parents had told me at an early age, if I ever wanted to leave Kansas, I had to get what was called a full ride scholarship. And the nerd that I was I went and looked up what that meant in the library. And then everything I did from that day on was geared towards getting a full ride scholarship somewhere, which is how I ended up at Arizona State. And in doing so, I had the great fortune to be elected to some pretty visible leadership positions for community service and for like Student Government type leadership, and I traveled not only around the state of Kansas, but actually around the country, speaking to other students, and then adult organizations, about community service and about leadership and about engagement and I didn't realize it then. But that's when I fell in love with the power of words because, I mean, you're imagining this as a teenager, I'm standing here, I'm talking and then people are doing things. That's power. And I didn't know what it meant at the time. But when I went to college, my goal was to be and I still laugh and this is no joke. 18 year old Jill, I'm going to be a motivational speaker and Leadership Conference facilitator in Spanish speaking third world countries for you.   James Taylor   Well, you you had it done you were you there. That was I think, I think what I think when I was 18, I was just thinking about what nightclubs to go to so, so you were like, way ahead of way ahead of me.   Jill Schiefelbein  It was that focus that I went to ASU and they actually had very good communication department. So that's what I started to study. But as it turns out, two things happen. Number one, four years of high school Spanish that I got a pluses in you know, or A's and a pluses in Kansas does not even equal one real world year of Spanish in Arizona. So okay, so I wasn't as good at that is I thought I was and then number two, I took an organizational theory course. fell in love with the business side of communication. So when I went to grad school, that's what I focused in. That's what I taught. And then really turned it into Oh, so I can teach this. That's great. I fell in love with teaching, but I can also teach it through a corporate environment, which is quite impactful. And that's really where the business idea came about.   James Taylor   Now, there's lots of, obviously academics that try and make the move from lecture leaner than a traditional lecturing academic style, moving on to being more of keynote speakers on the stage. And some of them are successful at it, but a lot of them aren't quite as good because it's a definite different style going on there as well. I'm wondering for you, when you were making that transition, whether any mentors that you had around you that you could, you could get feedback on your speaking and you could get feedback on your keynote, your presentations, you know,   Jill Schiefelbein   I really didn't seek any of that. And maybe that's because I thought I was good enough to go as it was, for whatever reason my ego carried me through or it was just because I was so focused on like the business In the side and understanding all the business aspects that I didn't focus on the other, and I think that's really more of the truth. So I joined. Immediately I joined the Chamber of Commerce and I went into small business like group coaching programs. And I went in and just saw out any information that was available to me along business ownership around growing a business and went that way. So it was really through a collective effort of being active in my local Chamber of Commerce, which was at Gilbert, Arizona at the time, that I learned a lot and made many mistakes along the way. But that was my first step. My second step then once I decided that speaking, was going to be a big part of the business, not just coaching and training was I joined the National Speakers Association, which you mentioned earlier. I'm the volunteer co chair of their biggest event this coming summer. And that community really just it changed everything the community as a whole and then meeting certain people who then not really intentionally took me under their wing, but I could come to with questions question It was   James Taylor   a really powerful organization, have it have a good fortune we met recently in the winter conference. And my understanding is that, that that, that sharing that openness and wanting to share with with your, your tribe with your, your, your peers that kind of came about from the, from the founder from calvet, you know, the founder of the NSA and he was very strong, ready to start saying, you know, we, it's about growing a bigger pie. It's about giving back to your community. Once you once you're kind of on there, and you're starting to learn and you're starting to develop in your speaking career. You have to share and you have to help the people are coming up coming behind you as well. And I'm wondering as you were kind of going in that because one of the things I noticed was this really cool subgroups of of NSA, which I knew nothing about. So, my friend, mutual friend, Erin, Gargan, you know, she said Oh, he This is really cool group. It's called the the, the power woman of NSA and which I'd never heard. She was talking took me about this. And then I spoke to another friend of mine, Denise Jacobs. And she said, Well, actually there's even a sub sub group. There's the, the tall woman of NSA, which I think was at the influence influence conference as well. So, I mean, it's a big organization. So I'm imagining for you kind of just coming into how do you feel as a newbie member just kind of coming into the NSA, when there's obviously some very, very experienced speakers in that group.   Jill Schiefelbein  You know, it's really interesting. There's some very experienced speakers, but there's also a lot of very experienced speakers who have done maybe, let's say, keynoting for their business the entire time and are looking to learn the Virtual Training who are looking to learn these other skills. And so what's fascinating to me is when I hired someone, actually one this person at an auction who's one of the most arguably successful business consultants in the world, and we're sitting there during the day I hired him for and I needed a break and he said, but you know, do you mind if I ask you a question? And I was just like, Whoa, this person who I think is a mentor, who is I hired to work with me who whatever, asked me a question about some digital communication expertise that I have that he doesn't. And it was just a very clear moment for me that no matter where you're at, you will have something to learn, and you will have something to give. And it's just biding your time and waiting until it's the right time to input on either one of those things. And for me, it's been I've learned so much from so many different people, the spirit of Cabot, the spirit of giving, like, Listen, we don't need to compete with each other for gigs, there's a huge market out there. So let's all just be better together, which increases our fees, which increases our value, which is increases the credibility. It's just a win win win situation. And that mentality has really gotten me to devote a lot of a lot of time to serve the organization, but it's finding whatever communities within a bigger organization really fit you in it and like Aaron mentioned, you know, there's other communities to and I'm a part of a couple of other communities within NSA and it's finding your big tribe like the people that get it right like yes, they get what it's like to be in the green room and have the stress with the AV before you're going on or not know if you did well enough or you're traveling and you're a road warrior, not all people can empathize with that so it's nice to have that community and then it's nicer to even dig down deeper and find that circle of people that you just really connect with.   James Taylor   So I noticed that one of the things that you've talked and talked about before which is an area that regardless of where you are, as a speaker is pretty powerful to learn about which is idea of using video, especially when it comes to the testimonials so we've already probably all got you know those kind of written testimonials you get from clients or people that attend your events. But I know a lot of speakers myself included, I do a lot of video. I'm kind of a little bit rather than like okay, getting video at the end of my talk, someone comes up to me and says I really enjoyed this thing and and and I always think Good to myself, I should got video I should have, you know, but I'm never quite sure the best way of doing it. So what advice would you give to someone to ensuring that they getting video from those people that are coming up and having conversations with them maybe at the end or during the break? Or maybe after they've actually given their talk?   Jill Schiefelbein  Yeah, video, I mean, videos just keep we if you've been around marketing for the past, you know, month to year to five years, you know, that video is where it's at. and it converts better than almost anything else right now. But it's video done well. And so when it comes to asking for testimonials, number one, it's pretty awkward to do it yourself. This is where having a staff member and assistant would volunteer or maybe a meeting planner, you know, maybe an intern that they have, they're asking them and of course arranging it in advance that say, Hey, I would really like to capture footage so you make it a partnership effort, right? Especially if you don't have your own staff. Is there someone they can spare make it a partnership so that you give them three different questions that say can you describe the presentation that you just heard by James What's one thing that sticks out most in your mind? See, notice that you're not asking for Did you like James, what would you write this presentation or anything that quite frankly, doesn't matter? What matters is whether they liked you or not that they were actually able to learn something from what you said. Now, our egos want the five star reviews. But what really matters to me when I talk, I don't care if people write me a one star or a five star if they learned something that they can make their life better with. And so when you take your ego out of that equation, and really just focus on what what did you learn, and ask questions around that it's a little different. So you can ask for example, what did you learn from this presentation? What's your favorite takeaway? What's one thing that you can really imagine putting into action right away? And then I love the one words, can you describe James's presentation in one word, because what's great for that is imagine putting 20 of those together, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, times 20. Right, and you have a great, great piece of video that you can use as Mark You can put it at the beginning of your demo reel. And then if you really want to make meaning cleaner, happy, add one or two questions in there about the event as a whole. And then give that to them as a gift in your post editing. You want to make an impression on a meeting planner, give them that gift afterwards.   James Taylor   Those are Grameen those are really fantastic and actionable things. That I mean, anyone that's watching this just now can kind of go into that. I'm wondering, I know a lot in some of the written testimonials, like one of the best testimonials you can get is when a client is able to say, we put into practice what Jill said and it increased our revenues by x or improved retention by y. How can you use video to get those because often you won't necessarily have that, that feedback until a little bit later on. Or maybe they'll write to you or you'll reach out to them say, Hey, how are you getting on with that? And they'll they'll email back Oh, getting with a sales rep by this amount. How can you then ask that potential client or that previous client to give you something in return? Video form.   Jill Schiefelbein  You know what's really interesting about that is if you got video of them initially right, and then you were following up with them after the fact, then you just add that as a text layer annotation on top of the video, right? So it's still coming from the person, you have the right to say it. You can, of course, ask them if they're willing to record a video interview testimonial, but that's hard. Like that's really, really difficult. But what you can do is if you can mutually come with them and do an interview, much like we're doing now, right, where you actually interview them about how your stuff is working in their context. Of course, that's not how you frame it. Right? Like, so let's say your topic is leadership. Right? So James, I would like to, you know, interview you about strategies for high impact leaders. Right, and then you ask them questions that you know, they learned from you, and you're getting that stuff back in the interview, and then it serves two purposes, right. It's a testimony to your work, but it's also great value that you can add to your community.   James Taylor   That's great. That's a really useful thing. I think people are really Pay attention to that, because that's something you can start using straightaway as well. So let's kind of switch a little bit more to you. I mean, you're built up this this career as a speaker. I'm wondering when it comes to let's talk about the craft part first. And whether when you were starting to develop was there was a particular lightbulb moment for you as a speaker where you can thought, Okay, this is what this is how I need to be thinking about the crafting of my keynotes, or is this something you maybe heard from another speaker and you went, Oh, okay, I understand now I need to really implement this in in how I design my keynotes and present my keynotes.   Jill Schiefelbein So when I think of myself as a speaker, I do I would say more breakouts than keynotes what may be different about me than others and some people are following this models. I don't care what type of speak speech I'm doing. It's the same price like I have a half day right and I have a full day rate you get me there and I will rock anything out of the park. Whether you want me to do a keynote and a breakout, or a keynote and three breakouts. I don't really care if it's 100 They are full day. It's one rate on there and I deliver that value. I end up doing a lot more breakouts and keynotes and I'm okay with that. Because I do not feel that my strength is in the huge, eloquent storytelling.   James Taylor   There's differences. Someone who hasn't made me this was new to speaking. And they've heard keynote, they haven't really heard that breakout. What's the difference between those two types of ways of speaking,   Jill Schiefelbein  a keynote is typically mainstage. You're in front of being higher conference and your keynote delivers one key note, right, like one key idea, one key experience for the attendees, whereas a breakout, maybe the workshops, right that people go into, they break out into different rooms afterward. And depending on the conference, I mean, I've had breakouts that have been 1000 people which are bigger than a lot of conferences, keynotes are right, it just depends at the conference. But you typically in a breakout or a workshop, you expect a lot more content and you expect a little more entertainment out of a keynote. And that's that's general now this is evolving. There are no hard and fast rules. And when people ask me to do a keynote, I am very clear like, I am a content. Heavy speaker. I think I add humor. I think I add stories. But I am not going to entertain and your audience isn't going to be rolling, laughing. They won't walk away, like inspire necessarily either. But they will walk away with things that they can put into action immediately that will make tangible results in their business. And if that's what you're looking for, I'm very clear on the value that I bring. And I have those conversations with people. That's not everyone's style, right? But that's where I know I can shine. The other thing is for me, once I embraced that I didn't have to follow any certain keynote format that I could create my own and it worked for me. It was so much better, because you try to model after what people have done that successful right? But I am never going to be a comedian. As much as I like to think my humor is great. It's kind of sarcastic and dry and not ever One always gets it. So I just need to own what I'm good at. So if I go up, and I set the audience's expectation, and that's the second thing I've learned is not to fall into anyone else's mold be my own. But then to set the audience expectations, expectations for listening, that the beginning of a keynote, I say, you know, today, I am here to make sure that you walk away with a single idea that is going to change how you fundamentally communicate with your customers in a way that will get them to refer you more business, or in a way that will have them using your product more frequently, or whatever the end goal may be that the meeting planner, and I agree on, if I am crystal clear with that at the beginning, and I'll accept back and say, well, in fact, I hope I leave you with many more than one. But all I'm asking you for is this. If you sit with me for the next 30 minutes and you walk away with one thing that you promised to implement, I can guarantee you that this will be an incredibly valuable use of your time, right. So you set the stage for what you want them to do. Because if they're just sitting there trying to scratch down notes, they're not going to implement anything. But the whole time that they can listen to me and know one thing that they're going to take away, then that's going to be more valuable for them in the end. And what's great as a speaker is, then once they implement that, and it's successful, they're going to realize, Wow, we need to follow up with her, maybe bring her in to talk about some of those other things because that one we focused on really wrong. And   James Taylor   I think it's an interesting thing about you know, because we talk about these different types, keynotes breakout, what I've seen is the keynote ones bringing many more the elements of what you would think of as a breakout. I think what I'm good friend of mine is a great speaker on similar topic, I speak on creativity and she speaks on creativity as well. And she is an amazing she comes from the world of training. So initially, she you know, you would have thought that she would the natural place vertigo would be a bit more of a breakout speaker but she said Actually, no, because I because I have big ideas but the same time the way I'm going to deliver them is very actionable thing. I want to be very interactive with the audience. And if you're like that The good news is that's the way that events are going. Because, you know, I think, vast majority that even the keynotes I do now I when I'm asking like what kind of blend you want between entertainment, you know, and the kind of content heavy and all we want lots of interaction, we want to and that was never traditionally the way for for keynote. And so I think if you are that person that you really like to do more of the kind of almost a little bit more of the training the you think about more than the kind of breakout style. That's not assuming that that's not going to work for keynotes because it seems to be that's where the that's where the direction of movement is kind of going for a lot of keynotes, obviously, you still get the celebrity stars and, and all those kind of people and you still get those incredibly inspiring people that you just come away with that one idea and it's a really powerful idea. But maybe that's not necessarily the the majority I would say well what's now being asked to as a keynote speaker now   Jill Schiefelbein  Yeah, I think the beauty of it is is now that we are expected So many different types of speakers and speeches and outcomes. meeting planners are looking for diversity in their attendees experiences, right? I mean, if you had motivational speaker after motivational speaker after motivational speaker, it's like, I'm motivated already Now give me something to do with it. I, I can only sit there and be like, Yay for so long and, and I'm not making fun of those speakers or speeches whatsoever because they all serve a purpose that I am not capable of serving in an audience like we all blend together. But I think the real thing is, is if I had advice to anyone, whether you want to be the traditional keynote, the motivational, inspirational, the content, heavy, whatever it is, really, really get clear on your area of expertise and obsess over it. I know too many people starting out and I did this starting out. Hey, Gil, we trust you with this. Can you also speak on leadership? No, I'm not a leadership expert. Now. Am I an expert in how leaders can communicate for this type of result? Yes. But instead I would say sure I can speak on leadership and then try to spend all this time crap. To talk around something where, you know what I can't quote studies, statistics research, I can't quote a lot of things. You know, and I can't say it from my personal experience. So really focus in on that area and just own it as much as you can and know when it's best to say, you know what, no, I can't speak on that. Here's what I could speak on in that realm. Or I can refer you to someone who can.   James Taylor   And that last bit the referring I mean, that seems to be the largest part of a lot of people speakers have their business comes into them as being referred either by someone that attended the event or by buying other speakers. Well, so I guess that then gives you an opportunity if I mean, I get asked to speak a lot about innovation. I'm not really an innovation speaker. I speak about creativity, but I know amazing innovation speakers, I usually can say if you want more of an innovation, this is the person here to to kind of go with as well. And I'm guessing then by having that, I mean quite defined as to what you speak about and putting out to your fellow speakers what you speak about as well. There's there's more options for for kind of reform. referrals as well, which kind of brings me to the, the business side. So you've, you've built up this business. I mean, there's so much opportunity out there especially you mentioned the, you know that they kind of break out say every conference you go to, they'll have maybe they'll have opening and closing keynote, maybe the keynote by the CEO. And then you'll have 20 plus maybe breakout sessions. There's lots of opportunity. How do you decide what to pursue? How do you kind of like put some way of if you're just getting into that world of speaking, you say, I want to be that kind of speaker to speak and the more they can a breakout session? How do you start to narrow down the target clients? Do you want to speak focuses? It's gonna sofa whelming?   Jill Schiefelbein  It is. I mean, the question is, who can you serve? Best? Right, who can you serve best? One of the things that I rallied against when I started my business, because I came from the academic space, because I didn't want to work in that space, because I left it right. But in reality, because I was in it. My unique perspectives of being in it were very different than anyone who would come in from it not having experienced it like, Well, yeah, that may work, but they don't understand what it's like here. Well, no, I actually do understand what it's like, there I lived it. And so a lot of times we escape one job or profession and run away from it, when in essence, that could actually be the best audience that we serve. So don't count that out immediately. Don't make the mistake I did I actually do more, not more now than I used to that because that's an obvious statement. But I do, I would say maybe 15 to 20% of my business every year comes from higher ed in some way, shape, or form. Wow. And that's, to me, that's really interesting. And it's now it's manifested in different ways. Because once you get I was online education and helping faculty be more innovative, and then it turned into talking to administrators about how to retain people like me who have left and it became fascinating now it's not like I have this huge market in this. I don't advertise it. That's All word of mouth but it was a case in point that that's where my network was built up already. So why did I not first look in my existing network? And it's because I was trying to run away from it so unless you really hate the space that you're in before you start don't make the same mistake I did you know look internally first your existing connections   James Taylor   that's great advice. What about in your you're heading out to your next speaking engagement what is in your speaker bag? What is in that bag of things you never leave the office or home without to take with you to your next speaking engagement? Well,   Jill Schiefelbein  you know, my laptop the adapters for projectors, power cords, all of that stuff. And for me, it's two different things. And I actually have show and tell because show and tell is fun. I love live streaming on the live stream hosts for Entrepreneur Magazine, in the US and globally. And I you know, that's one of the fun things I get to do in my random world of events, but I always look for opportunity for video. If I'm going to look for opportunities for video, I don't want to have acid, I want it to actually be decent quality. It doesn't mean the production value has to be high. But there are two things and video aside from the content, obviously, that are important. People will forgive poor lighting, they will not forgive poor audio. Yeah. And so you really need to focus on the audio, then make sure the lighting is good. And then of course, rock the content, right. But if your content is amazing, and your audio is crap, people are not going to listen. So you really need to focus on it. So I travel with two things. This handheld mic. It's an iRig HD, and it's actually for iPhone, it goes straight into the lightning port out of there. It's amazing. So if I'm going to do interviews, that's my favorite one because it transitions back and forth really nicely. I mean, I've done interviews with this on top of Time Square where the giant ball is right before New Year's when it's really windy. And this worked beautifully, no audio issues whatsoever. The other one that I do if I'm doing either just one person interviews or I want to do commentary This is the best investment I ever made. And at first you're like $200 for a mic, why would you spend that sit best? The sun Sennheiser and it's a clip on lavalier mic again for iPhone, it goes right to the lightning port. If anyone wants to see my whole list of tools, if you go to bi t.ly forward slash my video tools, you can actually see a whole list with pictures and links and a video of me describing each and every tool that I bring. And then I also bring a mini tripod with me everywhere because there is no excuse for holding up and doing video like this. And unless it's one of those split second I have to do this now and capture at moments or it will never exist again. If you have 30 seconds to spare. You have time to set up a tripod and make it stable and I'm talking a mini one that fits in your pocket.   James Taylor   I'm just lost Mike you've got where that can be really powerful for is. I've made a mistake in early videoing of me on stage and then you can put a fixed camera at the back you know little camcorder or something and the video looks absolutely Fine, but it's using the audio from that camera, which is the opposite end of the room and I'm like, oh, how can I How can I get the audio for where I'm actually that and I started going to take my iPhone and and stick it close the front of the stage and all these kind of things and that wasn't very good. So that's then you can just put that on, on your, on your lapel, whatever. And just put that into your into your pocket it can be recording that really good audio which you can sync up with the with the video   Jill Schiefelbein  it could and if you are a person who just heard all that and it's like, well that's a lot of work and I don't have the money to hire someone because I'm early on in this game. What you can do is invest in this. I'm just full of cool tools is called the Hey Mike. It is the world's first Bluetooth mic. And you open it up and it's this little clip on thing right here and you can also make it with a magnet. It's really cool. And it clips on and I think it has a range of like 50 feets you could actually have your phone back. It has an app so you have to record through the app. But then you have the audio and video synced in one So you have no editing to do afterwards. And this is also on the link I gave him bi t.ly slash my videos.   James Taylor   Very cool. And I actually think on this summit we're going to have Julie Holmes is one of our speakers who is the founders event. She is a speaker. And I think she would you know, scratch your own itch sometimes when you create a product and and she was one of the CO creators of that product, I believe as well. And I haven't got it myself. I've heard amazing things from those speakers about it.   Jill Schiefelbein   Yeah, for me, and I mean, unbridled review here, if I'm just going to be in an enclosed environment or in a place where I can reach with my lavalier mic, the quality will be so much superior with the lavalier mic, and even though there's a cord attached, but if you're in a place where you need audio from a distance, there is no better alternative out there.   James Taylor   And what about other online resources or mobile apps or tools? Are there any that you find very useful for yourself as a speaker   Jill Schiefelbein Oh, for for quick video editing. If I want to do some very quick video editing in a form that could be used for Instagram or social media I use in shot it's ap IN sH o t, I really like it. It's simple. It's easy to use, it's very cheap. And it just makes editing things simple because sometimes you may be in a place or I may be in an event where I shoot a video, or maybe I uploaded, uploaded, Facebook Live, then I take that video and I can parse out whatever chunk I want and then put it into Instagram, do it all on my phone. And it makes it incredibly easy. It's good for when you're at the airports or on the shuttles or anything like that.   James Taylor   I've seen a lot of those Instagram videos, they show videos, I was wondering what people were using to be able to because they're really really good. I like that look as well. What about a book if you do recommend one book, it could be on speaking or it could be on on communication more broadly as well. What would that book be?   Jill Schiefelbein  In all seriousness, one of the best books I've read that helped change the game for me was by Alan Weiss, and it's called million dollar proposals. And he also has a book million dollar consulting if you want to get in this space, but million dollar proposals was so huge for me because I would no longer quote just as keynote, or just, you know, a one byte tip, I will always give a proposal that has multiple options, unless they are very clear, like, Hey, this is all we need you for it, right? So that will be it. But it really taught me how to frame proposals, how to look at them, and how to get way more money out of a single engagement. And it's worked. It's it's really worked. So if you're serious about doing this, and you want to find ways to extend your expertise from beyond the stage, you gotta get it.   James Taylor   That's a great recommendation. I think. I think I've read his consulting his consulting Bible, which is a fantastic book, and I know that he's be the guest speaker as well. So a final question for you. Let's imagine you had to start again, you woke up tomorrow morning, you've suddenly lost you don't have any context. No one knows you as a speaker, you know, no one, you have to restart. What would you do? How would you restart things?   Jill Schiefelbein  Number one, I would not stress about my brand at all, because a lot of people when they start like oh, I need a good business name and a slogan and all that No, no. You need a good product, and you need to hit the ground and get it out there. So free speech is free speech is free speech, whatever it is, but targeted right? Be smart about the audience's that you pick. Don't focus so much about the country more, if you will, of what's going on around your business, focus on your craft and your expertise. The rest of it, you can figure out or you can hire someone, once you figure it out the expertise, get clear on that. Number two is really get focused in on who you want to serve. And don't waste time doing social media blasts and random posts and everything if you're not clear on who you want to serve. Doing that makes us feel like we're doing something but it's really not strategic at all. It's really not. And if you get focused in on who you want to serve, you're going to be better off targeting and spending time calling them writing them reaching out to them on social now there's a way to use it right? Not just standard posts, but get really clear on that early on. And then number three is really know that there's not one right way to do this business. I guess there are legal things you have to do. But they're like, oh, you're a speaker and you don't have a book? Well, I know seven figure speakers who don't have a book, don't care to have a book. And that's never part of their game plan. I also know speakers who can't get booked who have 20 books. So it's really not about that it's really about what's going to work for you. But if you start with your expertise first and your craft, the rest will follow. Wonderful. I'm   James Taylor   interested to how does it feel we were together the the winter conference was a great conference, and Sylvie did used to and Ben will put that together. But I could see at the end, the sheer exhaustion or their faces are at the end. So I'm wondering for someone that has to being a speaker, so you used to speak on them, but then when going from the other side and actually putting on a big event and it's the biggest event probably in the speaker calendar, the professional speakers calendar. How is it How are you approaching it, how you feeling about It   Jill Schiefelbein  it's overwhelming. I mean, the sheer amount of work and volunteer hours that go into it, it's insane. But I know that for me in 2013, when I attended my first one of these events is influence. as cliche as it sounds, it's 100% true, it literally changed my life, I would not be in the position I'm in, I want to be living in New York City, having my own studio in midtown Manhattan, like, this would not be my life, if it weren't for the people I've met along the way, and what I've learned at that organization, so if you're just getting into this, come, it is worth the investment. You'll spend about $3,000, after travel hotel and the registration, but if you if you're a person who actually follows through and takes action on things, which I hope you are, if you are that person, you will make that back within your first month after attending influence. I mean, and if you don't make it back in the year, at least 10 to 20 fold, then you're I mean, in my opinion, you're not implementing enough because it's it's it's just so overwhelmingly amazing and then you meet cool people And what   James Taylor   if someone is listening to this just now watching this and there may be a speaker and the they're getting asked Oh, we're looking for the speakers I think Joshi be a great speaker, what's the best way for them to connect with you find out more about the kind of programs that you offer.   Jill Schiefelbein Oh, well, thanks for that. I'm everyone on social at dynamic Jill My last name is a pain in the butt. So just dynamic Jill to keep it simple, but you can also visit my website at the dynamic communicator.com and I'm Jill at the dynamic communicator.com and I'd be happy to answer any questions.   James Taylor   Well Joe, thank you so much for coming on today. I'm I'm definitely gonna be filming my testimonial videos totally definitely. Now after speaking to us thank you for for sharing that and I wish you all the best in creating influence is going to be an amazing event. I know so many of my friends are going to go so. So I wish you all the best for that event.   Jill Schiefelbein  Thank you so much for having me, James. I'm happy to be a part of your event here.   James Taylor  Today's episode was sponsored by speakers you the online community for speakers and if you're serious about your speaking career then you can join us because you membership program. I'll speak as you members receive private one on one coaching with me hundreds of hours of training content access to a global community to help them launch and build a profitable business around their speaking message and expertise. So just head over to SpeakersU.com to learn more. Website: The Dynamic Communicator More of Jill Schiefelbein Learn More About SpeakersU

Dome Life with Paul and Mitch Episode 220 – Hey Mike, The Earth is Flat! http://domelifepodcast.com AND LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE via SpeakPipe TO BE PLAYED ON THE AIR! Or call 702-706-FLAT (3528) GET YOUR “NOT REAL. WE CHECKED.” T-shirts here: https://paulontheplane.com/gear Men’s and women’s versions – all colors and sizes available! Websites and Social Media Links: https://paulontheplane.com Or http://potp.net Community Calendar https://paulontheplane.com/calendar Weekly Headlines https://paulontheplane.com/headlines Paul’s Website Article Series https://paulontheplane.com/oneforall Nate’s Website Article Series https://paulontheplane.com/newhorizons Nate’s podcast: https://paulontheplane.com/lifematters MEET UP IN A BOX -- https://paulontheplane.com/meetupinabox Other Important Links http://FakingSpace.net https://youtube.com/paulontheplane https://facebook.com/justpaulontheplane https:/twitter.com/itsflatfolks Mitchell from Australia’s channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoQF34yGg5i8LPdGpK5ezGw mitchellfromaustralia@gmail.com Dome Life on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dome-life-with-paul-on-the-plane Dome Life on SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/domelife Dome Life on Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/paul-on-the-plane/dome-life-with-paul-on-the-plane Dome Life on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/3qVzPhdmVIOCwJ1vjc0tDX Dome Life on Google Play https://bit.ly/2xHgZ1e Dome Life on Podbean https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/yvbp4-8cf46/Dome-Life-Podcast Show Notes/Links Black Swan RISING - observing the sea beyond the physical geometric horizon and its implications (Dr John D) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yF5uT80qHQ Non-Consent (Solutions Empowerment) https://www.solutionsempowerment.com/nonconsent Flat Earth Sun & Moon Clock App https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iohmfinvpc Woke Town Podcast https://podtail.com/en/podcast/woketown/ Roxanne and Robin’s Podcast https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/roxanne-and-robin-podcast/roxanne-robin-podcast

Now, George, we wanted to focus on probably the single most valuable way to increase sales right now, which is an awesome tool that you told me about a week ago that we're going to be implementing here in the coming weeks, as soon as we relaunch revenue. I can't think have a more effective way to increase sales right now than to use this tool. So I'm going to bring it up for folks, but it's called the Bonjoro.com I'm going to bring up the site, like George, take people through. Do you want to share your screen? Do you have something you can share? Do you want me to share my screen now?You can go ahead and share your screen, but yeah, let me, let me talk about Bonjoro right now for everybody. Use Bonjoro.com. Understand now, and Google predicted this three years ago, I was at a conference and I spoke at Google with a Google rep, and they said they predicted by 2020 that 86% of all content consumed would be on video, and we've seen that. We've seen Tiktok, we've seen Instagram now it's probably more like 97.9% in the current state of the world. But video kind of fast forwards relationships on a whole different level. So use Bonjoro.com is a tool that I use every single day, every company I work at. And so basically what it allows you to do is to create a customized video message for every single customer that comes in that you can trigger how you want.So example, in my world, in my information products world, when you opt in for a free mini course. I get notified on my phone, I record a video. It says, Hey, Mike, so stoked that you just joined this new mini course. I'm excited. Below is the link to get started. If you need anything, hit reply my team and I'll get out, and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. It's mindofgeorge.comAnd then when somebody buys a course or they joined my mastermind, they get another prompt. I record a video. Hey Mike, welcome to the mastermind. I'm so stoked to have you proud of you for making this commitment. Just like I sat on the phone. The first step is that you've got to create a membership account, so go ahead, click below and do it. And these videos are recorded in a native app on your phone, and they're sent directly to people's emails. So it comes as an email, but it's a video and it has a gift, and they can click to a landing page.And that landing page is hosted by Bonjoro. It's a video of you, and then you can make a template and put a button below it, and you use Zapier to make these things. So when I go into companies. We talk about customer retention. So I'll give you an example. A CBD company I work with sells a subscription for CBD pills. And they were averaging like a three and a half, four months retention. And I was like, I bet you we can fix this without changing anything. Just adding these touch points. So when somebody bought the product, we had the CEO send a Bonjoro video. When the order was being packed in the box, we had the employees that were packing the box say, Hey Mike, we're super stoked. We included a little bonus in here for you, but make sure you start taking this like as soon as you get it once a day, set it by your bedside to make sure you get a habit and you can really feel the full benefits of it.And then, once it was shipped, we sent them another one. We're like, Hey, don't let the UPS drivers steal your box. It's been known to happen. Our products are that good, but I want to make sure you get it. Here's a video of what your box looks like getting loaded on the truck, and so before the product even ships out of the company, they have three personalized video messages that come from the team that don't take more than three or four seconds before it even gets there.And email rate open rates through the roof, social media consumption through the roof. And those customers were basically sending responses like, how could I believe, I'm never canceling, actually, I forgot something. Can you throw something else in the box for me? And we're like, sure. Shopify, boom, order added. And we ended up getting an increased consumption by like double when we went across the board and we do this. And so, when you think about it right now, and I mean, right now, everybody wants to feel safe, certain insecure, but words on a screen. Don't do it, an email message doesn't do it.But when you have the ability to reach out and touch people and literally be like, Hey Mike, thank you. Like Mike, I'm so proud of you. Like, Mike, how can I help you in 6 seconds or 12 seconds? It changes the game and nobody's doing it. And we, we've done this with billion dollar companies and we'll put employees on it, or we'll put CEOs on it.And it is the number one way to go deep in your relationships with your customers. And it can't be replicated. It's almost impossible. Like we've been waiting for tools like this for years, and I've been using this for maybe 18 months now. And it's kinda been like in my secret arsenal of like, ah, nobody needs to know. And I'm like, all right, everybody gets to know now. But it, really is impeccable. And when we do this, and, and there's accounts that I manage where we'll send a thousand Bonjoro a week and we get an average response rate of 90%. Response rate opens are like 98, 99 clicks or 98, 99 but we're getting like response rates.And so we'll ask a question, right? So where do you get your best customer insights? Well, you ask and it's free marketing, right? Like, Hey, like I'm super stoked to have it. Actually, if you hit reply like, what was the biggest thing you were looking to gain from this product? And they're like, Oh, well, I haven't been sleeping in weeks and I figured this was the best way. And I'm like, okay, copy, paste next ad the next piece of content. And you can do so much well deepening that relationship with the customer and in video, you know, in the world that we're in right now,it's not going anywhere. The number one app in the app store, zoom, not Tiktok. And everybody's connecting on video and doing it.And so it's a kind of really sure fire away to insert yourself now in a medium that people are consuming more of it and use it to deepen your relationships. And so, you know, you can do personalized ones, which I prefer, but you can also have prerecorded ones. And then you can use the go to use Bonjoro ,you'll see this, they actually have an amazing ebook, that tells you all the power of video marketing, all the creative ways to do this. So to reduce churn. You can set it. So if a customer has been in for 21 days with your product, it sends you a task and you send a video to check in to see if they need to reorder.You can do it to thank people. You can do it on reorders, on rebills, on the end of trials, physical, digital, and they teach you how to use it all. And then you can even record them on your computer or your phone. But you can create drafts. So you can have, let's say, if you're doing a thousand orders a day, you can't really send a thousand video messages. And so one of the things we'll do is we did ran through all of our customers, like we pulled a hundred thousand customers and we're like, what are the top names? And we figured out they were about 16 of them. And so we recorded 16 videos with each one of the names and so on. Sarah bike, John, Sarah, Kimberley, things like that.. And we did that stuff a few times and the responses there, and then a few times we're just really honest and we're like, Hey, you know, we get 1500 orders a day, but it's really important, you know, that we're really here. This is really a video for me and the CEO. And if you respond, I will personally respond, but I can't say each of your names in the video and we'll use those.And so a task is created, well, a VA or an employee. Task send,and with Bonjoro you can send them individually, or let's say you have 50 new orders, you can check all the boxes and create a roll up and then send one video message to all 50 of them and it goes individually. And so it really is probably bang for buck and time.The most effective way to go deep with your customers and probably increased the backend two, three times. So if you're in a position where every sale counts right now, let's just go with something difficult, like a restaurant. Let's say that you're a restaurant and you're doing takeout and delivery.And you've been getting people's email addresses or phone numbers when they've placed previous orders, whatever it may be..You can send them. If every order counts right now, you can just pull up their email address, send them a video. Hey John, I just want you to thank you for coming to taco deli. Thanks for coming into the restaurant. I just want to let you know that we're doing takeout right now. We'd love to cook dinner for your family tonight. Let me know. You know what, we can, what we can order for you or give us a call. Here's the number, whatever it may be.If you have consulting clients that are canceling, send them every single one of them a video. Hey, uh, John, I've got a great tip for you. We just, you know, whatever, XYZ. I hope you're doing well and thinking about, you know, looking forward to being on, on next month, you know, meeting together, whatever. If you're on a sales call, this is how you break through. All of the noise that is everywhere right now because no one has seen this before.No one has gotten a personalized video from you where you took 15 seconds to send them directly, a one-to-one video. And the moment you do that, you are different than everybody else in the industry. And I guarantee you that if you are selling a product. And if you have someone who's been a lead, this gets a little bit technical, but all of the people who came to, we use SameCart for our shopping cart. Yep. All of the people who came to SameCart for revenue this last few days and filled out the checkout form, but didn't submit and complete the order. They just got to that last point. Where they filled out their name and email address, maybe even the credit card, but they just hesitated and they didn't press the submit button. That information, even though they didn't hit submit, gets saved in the Samecart, and we can pull a report of all of those people. There's about 30 of them, and those people get pushed into my.Bonjoro account, and I can then go back and instantly send a little personalized email. Hey Julie, just a notice that you were checking out revenue. We'd love to have you here in the mastermind group. If you have any questions, feel free to, you know, shoot me an email or send me a text, whatever it may be.I guarantee you that when we start doing that, we're going to convert probably a third or more of those people into actual customers and at a thousand dollars a customer or $600 affiliate commission for you guys, that's huge. If you send 10 of those videos a day to 10 leads, you're going to get at least one sale, if not two or three sales a day just from that personalized effort.So for me, this is the single most powerful tool in the world right now. If you need to make sales, if you need to generate revenue or if you need to drum up new business, if you, you need to do a prospecting thing. And again, a lot of us have huge email databases, but we don't have cell phone numbers of all of these people. I just usually get first name and email address. Doesn't matter. That's all I need. I need their email address. And usually their first name is in it. I can send a video to that person and we can just start a one-on-one dialogue. So. This is unbelievably important. And here's another little twist. If you guys are getting the opportunity here, put in a chat like, this is awesome. I'm getting this, and here's something else to think about. If you go in and you spend the next two to three weeks mastering Bonjoro, you could turn this into a service for other businesses and help implement them the service in their business as a consultant.Like, Hey, John, how would you like to double your sales right now? Or how would you like to decrease your cancellations by 50%? Give me a call. I'll show you how to do this. Hey, here's what I do. I. Specialize in helping companies go really deep with their interactions. We are seeing this from a conversion rate perspective. This from a save a sale perspective, would that be useful to you if we could help add another $30,000 a month in sales. Great. Then you charge them a thousand dollars for $2,000 to get set up on Bonjoro. You become the expert of the platform. You do the setup for them. You go through the strategies with them, which are all in the free ebook.They get here all mapped out for free, and this could be literally. A whole new business for you that is born out of this crisis. And so when I keep saying crisis creates opportunity, this is what I'm talking about, and I guarantee you, if you just send those personal videos, which is demonstrating what you're talking about, it's going to grab their attention.They're going to call you back, especially if they need customers right now, or if they're losing customers right now. And if you just say, make them an irresistible offer. I don't know what it would be, but I'll go do it to you half price now, after your first 30 days. Let's look at the results. If it does what I think it'll do for you or, and set an expectation, you can pay me the other half then, or whatever it may be. So. It can be its own little business. Mike and I love it. And I'll actually, if everybody wants to see, if you guys want to see me send one, I'll pull it up on my phone and I'll show you on the screen right now. Just leave yes in the comments. But Mike, what you nailed is that every business that I've seen around here. Like, and , we isolated ourselves up here. So there's restaurants. And they're all open, but I go in, I'm like, Hey, have you done this? If you've done this, like, you should try this. We can try everything here. Like you can take lists back. Yeah, you can go in like a restaurant cause everything's doing delivery, right. So you can like do a video bank. Hey, here's your Uber driver. By the way, Hey, introduce yourself. This is who's showing up at your front door and it's so quick and so easy and agile. You could do it at any moment or you can do it fresh. It's a way to indoc or go deep with people. So I guess I'm going to screen share right now. So let me show you. So I'll show you guys how this works. And so like on our website for my podcast, mindofgeorge.com, we just have a couple entry points and I'm basically make templates. And so in Bonjoro, you can make templates and let me pull up my airplay here. There we go. All right, so you're going to see a picture of me as a little kid on the background of my phone.There we go. Okay, so that's me when I was four with no front teeth, so everybody can get that. Okay. And so when I click on Bonjoro, this is my task list that opens. And so I use this to nurture my mastermind members. So I sent my mastermind members a video every morning, Hey, checking in, how you doing today? And then you'll see we have a free, opt-in called TEM mini course. And then we have a paid course called the lighthouse method course.And you'll see that we kind of go through this. So I'll grab somebody, we'll describe Brandy at random so I can assign it to an employer. I can dismiss it, but I'm gonna hit record. And then it tells me Brandy and her email and why she's here. And so I'll literally just do this right now. Hey, Brandy, super stoked to have you. And I did pick your name cause I know you. So I hope you're staying well in Canada up there and you're treating all those doctors in your business well, but as always, it's always a pleasure to see you. Welcome to the mini course. You know I did launch that lighthouse method course that you, I think you got, and if you didn't, the links below, but I want to say thank you. If you need anything, hit reply. I love you. And you're also on a webinar with Mike Dillard right now, which I feel like I should tell you in full disclosure. So. Say hi to everybody. Have a beautiful day, and when you hit reply to this, I'll let you know. I'll see you later. Talk to you soon. I record it. I grab a template. And I hit send and I'm done. And so I have 10 premade templates in here on like why, what I do, where I send them, and they're really just links. And then when you come over here, you can see the results. And so when I do send one, it changes the logos next to their names. So I can see Sophia. Sophia opened it, clicked it, and watched it, and then it changes the little logos next to their names.And so then TJ down here. He got it, he opened it, he played it and he liked it. And then it tells you when they respond, what the results are and then you can reply right in the app and play in the app. And so it's really, really that simple. And 25 seconds, 30 seconds kind of changes the way that you do business.And the Brandy is going to get mad at me cause she keeps telling me she's going to buy later, but I'll just share it publicly now. But it really, really is a deep opportunity when you think about it. Don't think about it just from a marketing standpoint either. So think about it from a customer journey journey standpoint. In the beginning, you're welcome a man. You get them or you're going deep with them. But then like, let's say that restaurant. That one restaurant, I helped the restaurant here and I was like, Hey, do me a favor. Just make like three prepackaged meals that you can literally deliver to somebody's door, and then they can cook them.And he's like, well, how do I teach them how to cook them? I'm like, get their email and send them a Bonjoro teaching them the steps behind the scene or send them here and you can really take this anywhere that you go. I mean, my favorite thing, and Mike, you know, I'm going to do this all day. Every time I'm sending one of these for a sale, I have my three year old next to me and I have him say, Hey, in their name.And so I use my three year old to be like, Hey, Branson's a say Hey Brandy. And he's like, hi, Brandy. I'm like, now you have to. You see that I put my kid on here for you. And so Corrina, what do they see on their end? That's an amazing question. So what happens is Bonjoro sends an email, and they send either an HTML or a text based email.So when the email comes, you can choose to either show a screen grab of your face or a gift. of like your faces. And so when they open their email, you have a template with your message. So mine says, Hey, you know, I'm addicted to hearing myself talk, but I promise I kept this video under 60 seconds, so you're going to want to open it. That's what my default messages. And Mike tell you, I talk a lot. So when they open it, they see that and they see the video, they click on it. And it goes to a page on Bonjoro where you can control the background. So I just have a lighthouse in the background, my logo, and it's literally the video of me talking a reply box and a button.And so then you can even do things like follow up strategy. So I have mine set up that if they don't open it for two days, I have another one that goes out, says, I'm so sorry I offended you. Please watch my video. And they're like, no, you didn't. I'm like, no, I'm just kidding. But I have a followup strategy as well.And so what they see on their end is it just comes to their inbox like you would expect any other inbox to be. You can control the subject line, you can control the text, and then the, the content of the email is just a screen grab or a GIF of your face. And then they click it to watch the video and you can link them out to places.So they'll have a button that you can change the word on the bio and you can send them to a Facebook group to their login.Like when you onboard new members, we send them to their login page. When you download our event recordings, we send you to that page and then they have a reply button so you can encourage them to reply and do anything like that. And so that's exactly what it is.So if you want to get ahead of the competition and  sky rocket your sales. Go to this link to sign up: https://drops.georgebryant.co/Q3KDB7Take advantage of this super awesome tool and add a wow factor to your business.

Sponge and Russ are back for Round 2 of WiRED! The two 'Tre-Fo-ians' start with life and perseverance before discussing more Tiger King and a couple of fat sisters in Kentucky. Before Russ ends it with a blasphemous quote from a bad quarterback, Mufasa Pride calls out any and all comers in a head to head beer pong battle. Hey Mike and Blue.... Mufasa Pride is coming for the hardware! #stayWiREDdifferent

   I’ve mentioned several times over the span of this podcast that I make my living as an artist. Mostly, I etch on black granite gravestones, but I haven’t talked much about the fact that I dabble in several other artistic mediums. My entire life - as far back as I can remember - has revolved around some form of creativity and for the most part, it’s a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, nothing’s all pros and no cons. When people make the comment, I wish I was creative, I want to ask, “Really? Because it ain’t all pretty landscapes, standing ovations, and sipping from your tea glass with one pinkie out.” So while I won’t lie and tell you I’d change a thing, because I love being the creative type, I have to admit that there are plenty of drawbacks to being an artist as well and those are what I want tell you about in this episode.    I’m Michael Blackston and this is what covers the canvas of my Funny Messy Life.   _________________________      Most artists I know realized they had the skill to create early in life. It was the same way with me and I was one of about four or five kids in my grade who everybody knew could draw. It didn’t take long after the first instances of public artistry that some of the frustrations started to rear their ugly heads. First, a kid who is just learning to find their artistic groove wants to draw or paint what he or she wants to draw or paint. The concept of selling my work hadn’t crossed my mind in fifth grade. All I knew was that I had a deep, intense desire to draw The Incredible Hulk over and over again. And it was alright when Kenny Parker started watching over my should and asked what I was drawing. It was kind of cool to have an audience who admired my work. It was not alright when Kenny Parker started making suggestions.    “You know what you oughta do?”    I didn’t answer him because I did know what I oughta do - exactly what I wanted to do. But Kenny Parker answered his own question.    “You oughta give him machine guns.”    I think that this might have been the first time in my artistic life that I realized people are stupid. The Hulk didn’t use machine guns because he had muscles and he destroyed everything with his fists. I knew it, Kenny Parker knew it, and everybody else in fifth grade knew it. Bruce Banner never warned his enemies by showing them a couple of M-16s. He told them not to overly irk him and that if they did, indeed, spark his ire, the enemy in question would find no fun sport in his resulting aggression. I guessed I’d have to remind Kenny Parker of that.    “Hulk don’t need guns.”    “Yeah, but it’d be cool. Draw him some guns.”    “No, Kenny. Leave me alone.”    “What’s that on his chest?”    “It’s pectoral muscles, Kenny.”    “It looks like he’s got boobs.”    “It’s not boobs. It’s muscles.”    “Hey Mike, you know what you should do? Draw him a Hulkmobile.”    “No. It’s my drawing.”    “Fine. Mrs. Ayers, Michael’s drawing boobs!”    I had to explain to my teacher that I wasn’t drawing naked people. I hadn’t learned how to draw pectoral muscles well yet, so yes - Hulk’s chest looked a bit like the naked chest of an 80 year old woman and I was asked not to draw anybody - Hulks or old women alike - with their shirts off. Incidentally, later on Kenny Parker was caught drawing naked people on the bathroom stall and they looked suspiciously like the Hulk. So that experience was also the first time I encountered censorship and plagiarism.    I’ve never met an artist who hasn’t had to deal with someone telling them what they ought to do, but that’s not the only common thing.    I frequently have to do layouts in pencil for customers to approve before rendering their final piece and since that happens a lot while I’m on the road, I have to find a cozy booth in a restaurant so I can work over a glass of ice tea or a cup of coffee. Without fail, I’ll get the obligatory compliment about the work from a stranger who has built up the courage to ask if they can see what I’m doing, immediately followed by something along the lines of, My granddaughter can draw like that. The need for people to tell me all about their lives without you having asked them is uncanny, which is why I thought, when I asked listeners of this podcast to contact me and tell me their own stories so I could put them in an episode, people would jump at the chance. Crickets. Crickets is what I got. Anyway, the stranger is never done. They’ve opened a door and I’m too polite to ask them to leave me alone. I get to smile and nod and encourage their granddaughter, or nephew, or cousin Bertha who makes macaroni art, to keep up the good work. My granddaughter draws the cutest little naked superheroes. You know at first, the men looked like they had boobs, but now she can draw muscles. I try to giove her advice, but she doesn’t seem to like it very much.    Go figure. At least from my experience, she’s on the right track.    I find it interesting that there is a universal comment non-artists will make to explain just how far the distance is in the gap between you and them when it comes to creating an image on the surface of something. They always watch me for a little bit and before long, they can’t help themselves. Maybe you’ve said it, too.    I can’t even draw a stick man.    It happens every time.    Sometimes they tell me they can’t even draw a stick man, BUT their aunt Hilda’s gardener’s stepson can draw anything he sees.    On occasion, someone will actually seek advice to tell their loved one who aspires to be an artist.    I’ll usually tell them to learn how to draw pectoral muscles because otherwise, people will just think you’re drawing boobs.    You learn a lot about people and realistic expectations if you’re an artist and let others see your work. I used to get excited when random onlookers would ask questions like, Do you do private commissions? or How much do you charge for something like that?    The learning curve was a quick one because I’ve come to realize that when most people ask you stuff like that, they’re usually doing one of three things:   Just trying to make conversation Genuinely think for approximately 2.63 seconds that they might be interested in buying art from you, but they also like buying stuff from other people, like As Seen On TV stuff off the shelf at Walmart, Stuff they actually see on TV and can’t live without, beer, cigarettes, and chia pets. All stuff that will seem more important later in the day than a piece of your artwork. Or they’re a fellow artist who can’t figure out what to charge for their own work and want you to tell them.           That’s what business cards are for. I simply tell them that every piece ids different and I charge according to what’s needed to be done. I then hand them a card with my number on it and tell them that when the timer comes to call me and we’ll discuss it. But they’ll never call. They’ll lay the card in the junk catcher compartment of their car and won’t see it again until they need to fetch something with a stiff edge to pick out the piece of meat that got stuck in their teeth. Come to think of it, that’s a waste of my good business cards, so from now on, I’ll print out the ones I hand to those people at home on an old roll of paper towels that fell in the dish water, then dried out, but I never had the guts to use.    Of course if you hang around the art community long, you’ll run into a varied array of artist personalities. There’s the insecure artist who could hold gallery shows, but thinks their art is crap. There’s the artist whose art is crap, but thinks it’s great and holds gallery shows, the artist who flits from style to style and medium to medium depending on what’s selling best at the moment at the craft shows, the snooty artist who uses words like passe and kitsch about other people’s art. And there are plenty of artists who create because it’s what drives the beat of their heart. I like to think that’s who I am, although I suspect I’ve been a touch of all the others at some point. I try to respect any style of art that’s rendered as long as it’s done to create something that moves either the artist themselves or the viewer.    I’ve camped out in the area of the visual arts this whole time, but I’m one of those people who uses the artsy side of my brain completely and apparently never developed the other side. I can do basic math and figure out some things based on formulas I memorized, but throw a letter in with numbers and I’ll run screaming from the room and go find a pretty picture to paint. I sing, I act, I write, I paint, I draw, I direct (which is an art all by itself), and I’m a good public speaker. That’s enough to occupy my time with something for the rest of my life and I’ll be happy if it earns me a dollar or a smile. Either way, I’m happy.    And by the way, if you see one of my business cards floating around in a gas station toilet, how about boiling it and handing to the next person who asks if you know a good artist. Maybe they have something stuck in their teeth.     Until next time, I’m Michael Blackston. Thanks for joining me for an artsy fartsy look into my Funny Messy Life.

Now that Mashaun and Elvis have the house, everyone is asking, "When are ya'll going to have a baby;" which is frustrating to Mashaun...so they discuss it. The hosts also play another round of nine questions and Ashli expounds on her love affair with Michael B. Jordan! (Hey Mike, hope you're listening)

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Miracle CDJR Podcast! This week we talk with Mike Olari, the Commercial Fleet Manager of both Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram and Miracle Ford. In this episode, Mike shares a little bit about his origins in California and how he ended up in Tennessee, his love for Sports and what Miracle can offer large businesses in terms of Commercial Fleet pricing and service. This is a great episode that you do not want to miss! Enjoy! Transcript John Haggard: 00:02 Welcome to the Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram podcast, where each week you’ll learn the best ways to purchase lease service and maintain, accessorize and sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible, when you’re ready to do it. I’m your host John Haggard, and throughout each month, right here, we will have different team members join us from Miracle to bring you tips that you can use. And you’ll also see a transcript of each podcast for quick reference. On this podcast, we’re talking with Michael Olari. He’s the Commercial Fleet Manager at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Hey Mike, welcome to the podcast. Mike Olari: 00:36 Hey John, how are you doing? John Haggard: 00:37 Doing well. Glad to have you along with us. You know, people always want to know who’s behind the scenes. Let’s find out a little bit about Mike before we get into your role as commercial fleet manager at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. So did you grow up here in Nashville area? Right? Where are you from? Mike Olari: 00:53 I did not. I’m actually born and raised in California. John Haggard: 00:56 California. California. So how long have you been in this area? Mike Olari: 01:01 I’ve been here almost five years. John Haggard: 01:04 All right. So what got you to Nashville? Mike Olari: 01:07 Well, my parents actually moved out here almost 15 years ago and decided it was time to go. John Haggard: 01:14 All right. Wanted to be closer to family? So where did you go to high school in California? Mike Olari: 01:19 Went to high school at Alto Loma high school. John Haggard: 01:22 All right, so that Alto Loma California as well then? Mike Olari: 01:25 Yes sir. John Haggard: 01:26 All right. All right. And so when you’re not working, what do you like to do on your time off? Mike Olari: 01:31 I’m a big sports fanatic. I love to watch football, baseball, everything. John Haggard: 01:37 Gotcha, Gotcha. So you go to games, watch primarily. Are you one of those that has like eight games up on your television set where you can look at all eight of them? Mike Olari: 01:45 Do I have to answer that one? John Haggard: 01:49 Ha, I hear you. So what other hobbies do you have when you’re not doing sports? Mike Olari: 01:53 I like to go out and just hang out with friends and I actually do like to do my yard work and kind of keeps me level-headed. John Haggard: 02:01 Gotcha. Absolutely. So how did you get started in the car and fleet business, Mike? Mike Olari: 02:07 Well, I got started in the car business about six and a half years agom=, out in California. A buddy of mine called and said he needed some help. I told him I’d never been a salesman before. He said, give me six months. If you don’t like it, we’ll part ways. We’re still friends now. Six and a half years later, I’m still doing it. I enjoy what I do. John Haggard: 02:24 Well, so now before you got in automotive, what did you do before? Mike Olari: 02:28 I did construction for almost 20 years. I’m electrical for 15 to 16 years of that. Enjoyed what I did, loved it. Just had some health issues come about, which ended up putting me out of that business. John Haggard: 02:47 Understand. And so then what brought you to Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram? Mike Olari: 02:51 Well, I actually came out here to visit my mom one time, and drove by, and I’d been wanting to get out here. Mike Olari: 02:58 So I in and talked to one of the sales reps that was here and found out how many cars they’ve sold and how many, you know, salesman they had. It was pretty much what I had out in California at the time, so I made a jump. John Haggard: 03:11 There you go. So as the commercial fleet manager, what does your day typically look like? Mike Olari: 03:17 As you know, I am over the Ram store, but I am also over the Ford store as well. So I do a lot of running back and forth, have bids that I’ve got to get out almost daily now. And you know, if I get a phone call, hey, we’ve got a customer over here that’s looking at a van, I run back over and, and help that customer out and you know, do the best I can to, to make sure everybody is helped quickly. John Haggard: 03:45 All right. So now how long have you had a fleet department at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram? Mike Olari: 03:51 We’ve had a fleet department here for right at about a year and a half. John Haggard: 03:56 Okay, so relatively new. Mike Olari: 03:58 Yes. John Haggard: 03:59 And then so what, what was the decision, tell me about how that came about where obviously you’re sitting around a table I guess one day talking with people and they say, you know what, we need to do a fleet department here. How did that come about? Mike Olari: 04:11 Well, they had, they had already kind of been working on it. In a sense already. And I just brought up the fact that there is a lot of, you know, a lot of businesses out here, and I watched a friend of mine out in California build his up out there. I know there’s plenty of people that we can help out here in this area and that’s what I like to do. Mike Olari: 04:33 So that’s why we ended up doing it. As soon as we started talking about it, built the back end of the building on, they went gung ho, we got business link and we been blowing and going ever since. John Haggard: 04:44 All right. Then you said you also handle Miracle Ford as well as for their fleet department and how long has that been going on? Mike Olari: 04:52 But two to three months. They’ve done fleet before in the past, but never really had anybody to take the grasp and just run with it. So right now that’s what’s going on. John Haggard: 05:02 So you’re doing both stores… Are you getting any sleep? Mike Olari: 05:06 It doesn’t feel like it. No. John Haggard: 05:09 Ha, I hear you. Now, what are some of the companies that you work with, those who have are doing fleet management with you? Mike Olari: 05:15 One of the biggest ones. We have Servpro. We’ve got them, we’ve got people, US Pest is another huge one, Assure Heating and Air. There’s quite a few that we actually work with, but the two big ones that we do are a Servpro and US Pest. Those are the ones that they do purchase a lot of vehicles. John Haggard: 05:36 You know, today people are sensitive about pricing. They say, Hey Mike I could use 10, 20, 30 vehicles. You know, how can somebody get a good deal with a commercial fleet today? Mike Olari: 05:48 In that aspect that they’ve got that many vehicles that they’re looking at. What I do is I go through and I set them up with a Fan number at Ram or a Fin number at Ford. What that is, it’s a fleet number that they get from the manufacturers and whatever they get off on, on the vehicles, that’s what they get. So it’s already a set in stone number. Say it’s $5,000 per vehicle that they get off. That’s what they get. John Haggard: 06:15 And that comes directly from the manufacturers, is that right? Mike Olari: 06:19 Yes sir. John Haggard: 06:20 Got It. All right. And would you say it’s better in a fleet situation to purchase or to lease? Mike Olari: 06:26 Most of the time it’s better for them to purchase. There are some times that the lease will work out better for them because there’s a program called track lease, and what that is, is it’ll give them the ability to set their own residual at the beginning and at the end of it, when it’s sent to auction, if they owe less than what it got at auction, they actually get money back. If it gets less than what they owe, then they got to pay. At that point. You got to make your decision on if that’s good for your company, but it is 100% tax write off. So that’s the way things are starting to go is to that track lease. John Haggard: 07:04 What about trade in’s on fleets at the end of that term, do you take those vehicles you mentioned earlier or do you take them all to auction? How does that work? Mike Olari: 07:13 Well a lot a lot of them will keep their old vehicles because they’re still running. So they say, no, I’m just going to write you a check. I’m not trading nothing in. And that’s mostly what I’ve been dealing with. Do they trade them in? Yes. most of the time they are going to be the auction vehicles. Cause you’ve got 250, 300,000 miles on a vehicle. John Haggard: 07:36 Is there any one question that customers ask you, Mike? A lot to clear up confusion on what they thought or understood or do understand or they’ve heard about? Maybe they’ve never done a fleet purchase, but just a typical question or two that most people will ask you. Mike Olari: 07:52 Well, most of the questions I get asked is what’s the difference between commercial and fleet? You kind of run those two departments. You say, I, you know we’ve got a commercial fleet department. Well, the commercial side is, it’s going to be your heavy trucks. Your 350s, 450s, 550s is 3500s it’s 4500s 5500s now with the fleet, what a lot of people think is, well, I’ve got a full fleet of five. Well, if you have less than a fleet of 15 there’s some manufacturers that go, well that’s not a fleet of five is not a fleet unless you buy them all in one year, and that’s what a lot of people don’t understand it as. They go, I have five in my fleet, I should get a number. Well, it’s hard for me to say no, I can’t give you that number, but I kind of have to at a point in time, they got to understand that there’s, you have to have a certain amount of vehicles to be a fleet account. John Haggard: 08:49 All right. To qualify as what you’re seeing there, Mike Olari: 08:51 Yes sir. John Haggard: 08:52 Got You. Now everybody of course looking for discounts if they buy in volume. It’s kind of like, you know, the more I buy the better price I should get. Tell me about discounts on parts and service with fleets. Mike Olari: 09:04 Well, we have, we have a program that goes through Ram that what they do is they have a thing called business link. And what business link does is that gives you 5% off of your parks and 5% off your labor, your service, but it gives you an extra added bonus with, you get the next available bay when you do bring your vehicle in. John Haggard: 09:26 What about pickup and delivery service for fleets? Mike Olari: 09:29 I will do that, and again, if they are signed up for business link, I will actually take a vehicle to them, let them use it and I will bring it back and then take my art, take our vehicle back. So we do have a program that that sets that up. Makes it a lot easier on the customer. Now if it’s just an oil change, normally they sit and wait, and that’s fine. They’re fine with that. But if it’s something that we got to have the truck for, you know, a day or two to fix something on it or we have parts that we’ve got to order, I will put them in in a vehicle to where their business is not down. John Haggard: 10:03 So for Miracle Ford, is it pretty much the same in terms of the discounts and the way that’s done? Just like Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Mike Olari: 10:12 They do have a similar program. Yes, they do. John Haggard: 10:16 Hey, just a curious question. When you think about the Miracle family, is there anything that’s there I guess or something that’s unusual or something that’s like, here’s something that’s really neat about Miracle? If most folks maybe don’t know about, unless they come here. Mike Olari: 10:32 Being that I’ve worked here as long as I have on the Ram side, I’ve worked under the Galvin’s for quite a while in my head and they do care about their community. They have shown that to me and if something needs to be fixed, they do everything in their power to fix it. They’re a family owned business and to me, they run it like that. John Haggard: 10:54 And so what is it that just makes you get up out of bed every day that says, you know what, I love this business. I want to go, I want to go do this. What is it that gets you going? Mike Olari: 11:03 Knowing that I’m going to be able to help somebody out if, whether it’s a new business or a business has been there for 50 years. What gets me out of bed is I do love my job. You know, helping out people that that’s the biggest thing. John Haggard: 11:16 So what’s the one thing about Mike Olari? What is the, what is the one thing that people would be very surprised if they knew about you? Mike Olari: 11:24 I guess I could say the one thing is, is came real close to going professional baseball. A lot of people don’t know that. John Haggard: 11:31 Really. Okay. So tell us a little bit about that. That’s interesting. You said real close. So obviously you were very good to get up to the point to even be considered. Mike Olari: 11:40 I was, I was a decent pitcher. I don’t, I don’t pat myself on the back, but you know, I pitch between 96 and 98 and had seven pitches. So my pitching coach taught me very well. John Haggard: 11:55 What about your prediction for the Tennessee Titans this season? Mike Olari: 12:01 Oh, well, the way they looked last Sunday, if they keep that up. They’re gonna, they’re gonna go far John Haggard: 12:07 And you think they can make it, you think you can make it at least to the playoffs? I mean, what, what do you see out there? What do you see the positives and the negatives on what you’ve seen so far? Mike Olari: 12:15 I do think they can make it to the playoffs this year. Long as they can keep the quarterback healthy and keep him in the game and his head in the game, I think they will do very well and they will at least make it to the playoffs. John Haggard: 12:31 All right. You heard it folks. That’s the prediction for Michael Olari. Now he’s the commercial fleet manager at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Also at Miracle Ford. Join us again right here for other topics on the podcast. Throughout each month. Our goal here is to help you purchase lease service and maintain, accessorize and sell your vehicle, or if it’s fleet that you need to do as well for the highest resale value possible. When you’re ready. John Haggard: 12:55 By the way, Mike, is there any one tip you would give those who own a fleet now that they’ve gotten from you? How do they get that highest resale value possible? Any quick tips that you would say, hey look, you know, when it comes time, if you’ll keep these things in mind, your vehicle will be worth more money. Mike Olari: 13:12 Well, the biggest thing I tell people is, you know, take care of your vehicle like you take care of yourself. Give it a tune up, do all the oil changes, everything it needs to have. Just keep it, keep it, keep it up and you’ll get a higher resale value. John Haggard: 13:27 All right. Just treat it like you treat yourself. I think that’s pretty good advice. That’s Mike Olari, everybody. Once again, the commercial fleet manager at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Gallatin and also Miracle Ford. I’m your host John Haggard. We’ll see you next time.

Julie Holmes is an inventor, founder, entrepreneur and corporate survivor. Her favorite question is “What if?” What if you could transform your frustration into time savings and money making? It might sound crazy but that's exactly what she's been doing for organizations over the last 25 years. An award-winning speaker, Julie has designed and launched solutions from million dollar software solutions to tiny Bluetooth microphones. But, her creative expertise isn't limited to products. She has helped organizations like Expedia, Oracle and FedEx leverage incremental innovation thinking to improve their teams, leaders, and sales processes. Julie shows audiences how to find their inner inventor, embrace their entrepreneur and spot the big opportunities in even the smallest innovations. B.S. in Speech Moving from corporate job to professional speaker Paid to speak Speaking coach Alan Stevens Speaking business coach Jane Atkinson US vs UK speaking styles American...but in a good way West Coast vs East Coast speakers Your speaker positoning Physical products Time for money Creating residual income streams HeyMic Prototyping Donna St Louis Centering your speaking SpeakersU Automation and Process CRM Rory Vaden   Tools: Zoho One, Docsend, Microsoft Powerpoint Books: The Four Steps To The Epiphany by Steve Blank https://www.julieholmes.com/ http://loveheymic.com/   Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors. Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted today to welcome on to the show, Julie Holmes. Julie Holmes is an inventor, a founder and entrepreneur and a corporate survivor. Her favorite question is What if? What if you could transform your frustration into time savings and money making? It may sound crazy, but that's exactly what she's been doing for organizations for over 25 years. And award winning speaker Julie has designed and launch solutions for million dollar software solutions to tiny, tiny Bluetooth microphones we're going to learn about, but her creative expertise isn't limited to products. She has helped organizations like Expedia, Oracle and FedEx, leverage incremental innovation, thinking to improve their teams, leaders and sales processes. Julie shows audiences how to find their inner inventor, embrace it entrepreneur and spot the big opportunities and even the smallest innovations. And it's my great pleasure to welcome Julie on the show today. So welcome, Julie. Hello. It's so good to be here. Thank you much. So I know you're just about to get ready. You're giving a big presentation to a lot of speakers in the US as well. How do you feels speaking to speakers as opposed to you're going to be speaking mostly to corporations all the time in associations? What does it feel like when you have to go and speak to speakers? To know what I really love it? I do. I love speaking to meeting planners and the speakers I love speaking to people in my industry. Because all the sudden all the things that I do behind the scenes, I get to go look, look at all this cool stuff you can do behind the scenes. And I can't really take that out to my corporate clients, because they're like, what I don't why I don't understand what you're doing. So I love it. They're my people. But so take us back a little bit. How did you get into the strange world of speaking? Do you know what it's um, my background and speaking goes way back, I actually have brace yourself of BS in speech, you can get that I have a bachelor science and speech. Yeah. So I have a bachelor's and a master's in communication. And I used to teach public speaking and influence and other communication courses at a university. And, and then I went into corporate. And because I had that background, all the time that I was in corporate as whether I was a consultant or in product management or in director of marketing or whether I was director strategy, whatever it was, I was always called upon to speak. So I was forever doing keynotes and thought leadership presentations on behalf of our products and putting together demos and all kinds of stuff. And about three and a half years ago now. I decided I wanted to kind of venture farther afield from corporate, which often happens. And so after 20 plus years, I kind of was like, Okay, let's do something different. And you sit down and you go, What skills do I have? What do I know? Turns out, I know, I just speaking, as it turns out, and going on. So I was really excited about the opportunity to start taking some of my own products to market. So that was the other side of it. So speaking allowed me to do that. Tell me about that transition, because I know there's a lot of people watching listening to this just now who are in the same position that you were in and working in the corporate world, maybe maybe they enjoy the job, but just maybe don't think it's getting the best of them. And they want to move on to speaking. I've ever had it we had a guest on before surely. Now, Shelly Davis, we had a speaker from the US who spoke about she had a three year plan to how to move out of her corporate gig into being a full time. So can you tell me about what was? I mean, how much time did you give yourself to make that transition? Was it you just woke up one day said that's it will handle my notice? Or did you give yourself a few months or a year? or What did that look like? I did a bit of a hybrid. So I started to research it as a profession. In fact, I didn't even know it was a profession until about probably about six or seven years ago, when we hosted a conference for our users, I worked for a software company at the time. And we hired a professional speaker and I was like, wait a minute, that's a job. Like, whoa, hold on, we're paying her to talk, I could do that. I know that stuff. So that was kind of my epiphany. And so I started to really research it. My first stop was I was in the States at the time, my first thought was NSA, the National Speakers Association, joined the Arizona chapter where I was living, I started attending some kind of boot camp trainings and understanding what the businesses speaking looked like. But I hadn't actually kind of started to go out and really sell myself as a speaker or anything like that. And then I had intended for there to be a nice long transition. But as it turned out, we as a family decided to move to the UK, and just that the stars all aligned. And I was like this is great. This let's let's just do it. I didn't cut cold turkey. So I actually made an arrangement with my current company then to hire me as a consultant part time for probably worked for them for about a year. So for about a year, I was kind of half and half. But I was a consultant. So I had a lot of flexibility in my schedule and things like that. And then I also made sure that we have plenty of savings, because I knew that we got starting any business requires you to have a plan, whatever that plan is, for some people, it's a transition plan. For me it was a savings plan where we have money set aside specifically for it. And that was kind of the that was the approach we took. And those those early days. Were the kind of speakers that you looked up the new personally, you can have looked up to or you you you looked at from a file I said, that's the kind of speaking business that I want to there's so many different flavors of speaking business. Whoo, those kind of guiding stones for you? Well, I definitely looked at a variety of speakers, because there's some that I like for the way that they look at the business of speaking I'm quite I'm quite business centric, to me speaking is like the icing on that cake. So I if I can't do the business, right, I don't get to speak. So I have to, I don't spend as much time I think is some other speakers might do kind of focusing on who delivers beautifully. And, you know, how can I match their style? or How can I learn what they know about delivery? I think delivery is important. But I think that managing a business that's profitable is more important. Because no matter how good you are on stage, if you can't run a business, then that's no good. One of my very first connections into the speaking world was Alan Stephens in the PSA. And he was really instrumental, I actually took him on as a coach early on. And he was really instrumental in kind of helping me to see the land, you know, and kind of understand the landscape of professional speaking. And Jayne Atkinson was an important part of the early part of my journey. And, you know, while not a speaker herself, what Jane doesn't know about the speaking business might not be worth knowing. So that was kind of a big a big kick for me was to kind of get those, you know, get those perspectives and learn from them. I mean, those are two great coaches to have. I mean, Alan, in terms of also very good at craft understanding craft, Jane, very, very good at the business side, I remember when I, I started speaking and Jane, wonderful book, the wealthy speaker, she had, I think she's maybe just put out audio, but there's there was an audio version. And I remember my wife and I driving to some speaking gigs I was doing just devouring this audio book or you know, a version of our book. And it's just every time, we just have to stop it every few minutes, because there was just so many fantastic nuggets of information that we had to kind of digest it gradually over time. So there's there's a great coaches to have. And so you mentioned you made this transition, you moved to the UK? What What did you notice were the differences and the similarities between the speakers and the speaking businesses? And there's two different places because obviously, we speak a similar language, but not exactly the same, but quite different terms of culturally, the the industry's in those places. Yeah, it is. It is quite different in my opinion. I mean, fundamentally, it's the same profession. But in terms of style. It is vastly different. I mean, let's face it, Americans are out there, we're busy, artistic, we're big voices and finger hair and whatever else. And the British are very reserved, and they, you know, tend to not kind of go over the top like we might as Americans, there's probably a great happy medium between are a mid Mid Atlantic speaker. Exactly, yeah. And so that was probably one of the biggest things. I think, you know, I remember getting a comment on an evaluation once, but I thought just summed it up perfectly where somebody wrote American, but in a good way. And I was like, I put them on my website for a long time. I can't remember if it's still there or not. But I put it on my website for a long time when I was living in the UK because I thought, all right, that sums it up, right? You know, I am, I am a big girl stage speaker, meaning that you know, big boys, big personality, big hand gestures, you know, I'm not quite east coast. But but that is my style on stage. And you man, East Coast. So explain what you mean, when you say that, oh, so East Coast Americans, you get into New York, right? You get into your New York people, you know, your New York people, they're loud, they got a lot of hand gestures, you know, they talk with their hands alive. So, and it's one of the things I find most endearing about them. I'm always like, this is like a full experience conversation. This is not just me listening, I am experiencing this person. So so that is probably one of the big differences is just in delivery style and what that style looks like. The other big difference is it comes into kind of topics that approach. It's one of the things that I used to tell all the Americans that would come over religion is an important part of America important part of a lot of Americans lives. And because that's generally true in the States, I think a lot of Americans take that religion with them, and they bring that religion with them onto stage. But that is definitely not the most welcome. perspective when you're International. So the farther away from America, are they, the less people want to hear about your religious preferences and beliefs? They're like, you know what, that's a personal that's a personal choice, and good for you and just keep it to yourself. Yeah. dinner parties in the UK, you know, you don't talk about politics, sex and religion, you know, there's just the do tend not to go there. Although although is sex, it is just innuendo. So that's true. Totally admire. So you see, there's obviously the difference in tone different stuff. I mean, I, I really liked because, you know, I think a lot of that American style of speaking comes from the church comes from the evangelical side of the church. And and there's there's something in terms of using colon response that I really like I find is by understanding where maybe British some audiences Don't let me finish a little bit too much. As well, as you kind of have to temper that. What about the businesses, the business itself? I hear a lot of European speakers say, almost look to America, with that's where, you know, if you can make today you can make it anywhere, the new york new york thing, that that's where the speakers get the best money is where all the gigs are. Is that true? I think that it's a it's a bit true and false. I think that from the business perspective, and this is just one person's opinion, I found Europe to be much more relationship based from a business perspective, it's more about who you know, it's much more referral based. So you know, yes, I would get into general inquiries on my website, things like that, the much more often, it's much more about, oh, hey, I introduced you to so and so they're, you know, they're going to call you or let me introduce you to this person or that type of thing. So that network was really important in the UK, and in Europe. So I say, Europe, and I do mean the UK as well, my husband's British, he does get concerned when I reference the UK is being part of your and the everything about the business, I would say that fees are generally in the UK, specifically fees are lower, full stop, like absolutely lower than they are in the States, for the most part, the market in the states is bigger, it just just by sheer volume and quantity, it's bigger. So I think what ends up happening is there's this maybe unrealistic perspective that just because there's more gigs, there's more things happening all the time, more meetings, more speakers, more all of this, that it means that you can build a better business here. I don't know that that's true. Because again, you're in a bigger pond, it's you know, the larger the body of water, the harder it is to find other fish, you know, and it's harder to find opportunities and gigs, you know, they're just, you have to know where to look. And the competition is extreme, I would say in the US as well, you know, regardless of what your topic here is, they will be 10 top notch speakers out there that, you know, they're looking for as well. So how do you even if we just think geographically, we just look at the US? What are some of the things that you do you're going into your in your career? How do you stand apart from all those other speakers that maybe you've been considered alongside you? Well, there's one of the big things is to really sit down and figure out what it is that makes you unique as a speaker, not about your delivery, necessarily, although that could be it. There's, I used to talk about when I spoke at the PSA national one year, I spoke about, you know what it is that makes you unique, your five E's. And but basically, one of them is, you know, what is your experience that you deliver. And it's everything about your topic, and who you are, and your background and all of that type of stuff. For me, it's the fact that I'm an inventor. So what is the things that you know, if you were to sit down and make a list of adjectives or facts about yourself, you know, just list them all out? How many can other people claim. So that helps you to really find what your unique angle is, you know, for you How many people have worked in the music industry, and how many have you know, launched amazing music brands, not very many people. So that would be great differentiator for you clearly it is right. And the creative prowess that comes with that. For me, it's the fact that I have 20 years in corporate and I'm an inventor, not other speakers can say that I named my unique place, this is the key thing about the that you're going to talk about positioning there is having proof points to underpin that positioning. So you can't just say, let's say if it was someone that was speaking, same thing as UNT for I'm an inventor as well, if you haven't invented anything. So you have and I want to move into next is I only know a relatively small number of speakers have done this well, that have not just their speaking business, this, you know, model is often me they are there they're speaking. And then you maybe have there, maybe it's a training part, what they do, or coaching or advisory, and then there's their books, maybe online courses that can have since be around those things. And maybe there's consulting. But there's there's other thing, physical products that and there's a small number of speakers out there who have been able to launch products can successfully in multiple products successfully into the market as well. So this is something that you've done. And so I'd love to know, first of all, what where do you see physical product sitting in your overall business? as a speaker? What was the function of the role of it for you, and just take us through I know you're working on you know, you just worked on the hate you Hey, Mike, there's a microphone, speakers, take us through what that process actually looks like of taking something from inside your head to a physical thing and and how that once again, supports your brand. That's positioning. Yeah, it's um, so when it comes to product and and I do, by the way, I fully believe that things like electronic e courses, and online training, and even books, those are all products, they're great, they're all product. What I find really interesting, and a great challenge is almost your non speaking products. So there are all kinds of products, and I'll make some resources available to your listeners so that they can kind of look at some examples of products. But I do have a big interest in non speaking related products. And there's a couple of reasons why I think they're really valuable, particularly in our industry, speakers, as a rule our time for money. You know, we are in essence trading our time on stage, or our time coaching or our time training, whatever it is we're doing, we're trading our time for money. Now there comes a point where you don't want to do that anymore. Because you don't want to give up that time. You don't want to be on the road, you know, so you have to find, where's your next place that you're going to land? Or how are you going to build a business that can survive that transition. So of course, you can start to do more things online, that's still time for money, you're just not traveling as much. And really, in order to get out of that equation, in order to extract yourself from that equation, you have to have something else to offer the market besides just you. And that is product. Now it could be product because you yourself have become a brand name, which is great, right? There are certainly examples of that, you know, people that have become famous and now they have products that are famous because of them. I mean, that's every celebrity who's ever launched a product. That's great. I don't know that most of us will ever attain that level of notoriety, or willing to put in the time and the hours and the heartache and the struggles that come with creating a brand name for ourselves like that. So I tend to just do things that are more product based. So the products that you're referring to, Hey, Mike was actually a product that I had created before I ever left corporate, I never intended to take it to market. It was a product I created just to solve a problem I was experiencing. So I was the Director of Product Marketing for a software company. And I was forever giving presentations. And I needed sales and my marketing team to be able to take the messages and the phrasing that I was using, why would speak and put that into our marketing. So I needed them to be able to understand the value propositions to repeat them in a more compelling way and to be able to reuse that content. So I wanted to record my presentations. But that was really hard. Because we were going to pay for a full on video crew. And I was usually presenting to hundreds if not thousands of people. So what was the solution for that? So I wanted to video with my phone. But it was terrible audio when I did that. And audio was actually the most important thing that we needed. So I started hacking together a couple different existing products and kind of splicing things together and some super glue and duct tape. And basically, I made myself a Bluetooth microphone, a Bluetooth lapel microphone that I could click on to my shirt when I was speaking and then I could connect it to my phone in the back of the room. And I use that for years, years. And then I was speaking at an event with a person named Steve Clark with a buddy of mine, Steve Clarke. And, and I said I was going to record the event for for the attendees. So they could have a copy of it. And he said, Oh, the acoustics and sound in this room are terrible. never gotten a good recording in this room. And I said no, it's okay. I've got got my phone, I brought a tripod, and I've got my microphone. And he was like, I'm sorry, what do you have? And I showed him the microphone. And he's like, Oh, my God, look at one of these. Where can I get one? And I was like, I don't know, I guess I could make you one. He was like what? And so a week later, just a week, a week later, we shook hands agreed to take the microphone to market manufacturer take it to market. 90 days later, it launched 90 days later, that is a phenomenal amount of time. So easy. So and this is obviously a physical thing. There are electronic components is technology. There's branding, the packaging. So where do you even begin? Is this something like those first ones in 90 days? Did you make them you were in the UK at this point? Did you make them in the UK? Or were you able to get them immediately Southern manufacturing in in low cost countries? Well, yes, we did both. So we actually had a partner in the UK. So that was of all the lessons I learned its partner with somebody who knows what they're doing. If you don't, we clearly did not as the case turns out, I had never manufactured anything, I had never created a physical product before. So I my background is in software, enterprise software. So you know, not a big physical product space. Well, I have a background in sales and marketing. And Steve has a background in sales. Neither one of us are electrical engineers. So we really partnered with, again, a connection that somebody new in the UK, because that's how a lot of business gets done there. We partnered with a connection, and it was a company in Essex, and they have 30 people that work for them in China that actually do what we needed, which was they help product entrepreneurs, source, manufacturing facilities, and they do everything all the communication with China is done through our partner. And they're still a partner today. So in that way, they take it all that back and forth, that usually is kind of going on and, and and we we have a product, we're involved in a separate product, which is also partly manufactured in China. And and I know the challenges that can have when your products being made dices dances miles away from you, as well. So they wait. And when it came to things like quality, quality control, how do you ensure that things I know you're everything you do is always going to be high quality. I've seen some of your, your kits that you send out the clients, your information packs, and they're all beautifully done really high quality. So how do you ensure that your quality is is good, where you're not making in your home country? Well, we did a ton of prototypes. So before we actually said, Yeah, we'll take you know, thousands of these things. We did tons of prototypes. And I you know, used to be this kind of laugh between me and Steve and my family, right? I'd be like, hold on, let me get the box of prototypes out. And like every one of them was numbered and labeled and, and it was every piece of us had an impact on the quality. So we had the casing and we had the microchip, like we had made it all the way through this is what we want it to look like this is how it's going to clip this is what it's going to do all that kind of stuff. And then when they went and it worked beautifully. So then when they said great, we'll put all that together and a new prototype for you. They sent it to us and all of a sudden the microchip changed. And the sound was terrible. I mean cutting out and it was I was gutted, I just want to open it up and and. And so it ended up with we only had the one prototype, I given it to Steve to take to the states because he was meeting with some American speakers and I wanted to get some early adopters and influencers in the States. And it ended up with Steve at a restaurant at like six o'clock in the morning with a tiny eyeglass screwdriver that he'd had to go and purchase from a local drugstore disassembling our tiny little microphone and Steve blind as a bat, right can't see anything without his glasses bleary eyed in the morning, right? He's got his glasses on, we can hardly see. He's disassembling the microphone. And I'm like, I need you to take a picture of the microchip that's inside that microphone, because that's the micro that's the microchip that works. And it was just this, you know, was it was an adventure, like every day was an adventure. And when you again that those prototyping, you get in that first feedback from users, I from speakers, what kind of things would be saying what were the things you've you said, Oh, you know, we need to we need to work on that we need to develop money to make that better. Well, one of them a great example. And this is why there's a lot of value in taking product, progress to the market. So our case for Hey, money is a little black zipper case. But we had shared some pictures on Facebook, of the early prototypes of the case. So this was done in the UK. So we had the case. And we went to our partner in the UK. And we were there as he was. So they were live silk screening them in front of us. So he gotten us a dozen cases, and he was silk screening them. And it was amazing to watch our logo and product information mean, there's some moments during the process where you're like, Oh my gosh, it's real. It's totally real. Um, and so we had showed these pictures. And our plan had been to put two microphones in this case, and everybody was like, that's a really big case. I don't think I want to put that in my bag. Like, I'm not sure I want that bigger case. And I was like, Oh my gosh, the gazes do big change. So we were constantly kind of trying things out and putting sample videos out and asking for feedback and asking for use cases. And even then, you know, we've been we've been shocked and surprised at what the use cases have been framed like. So they weren't what we thought they would be, which is often the case products take on a life of their own. Which markets did you end up finding maybe outside of speakers that actually have really taken to the product? Well, video bloggers would be one. But the array of video bloggers is substantial. Horse trainers and physical therapists and people that want to make videos for YouTube for all kinds of reasons. But mostly they're in a position where they can't be next to a microphone so they're out in the wild somewhere doing something. One of our favorite customers is always sharing videos online and they are the stand up paddleboarding Association and the stand up paddleboarding Association. They take the mic and they clip it to a paddle. And then she does paddle interviews. So she takes your paddle all over it. And it's they're hysterical. I encourage you to go look at them. She's doing interviews all the time and all these paddleboarding what you just described there but getting that feedback, putting things up getting feedback, and changing the packaging GU that's, I guess what we would call incremental innovation, lots of small steps, making things better better. So this kind of ties in because you this is a topic you actually speak on you speak on incremental innovation, as well. So that brings us back. So you go launch this product out into the market. Now I know a lot of not just early adopters, now we're getting more speakers are the markets people are buying it. Where does this is this really just is a product ending up just a is the play really is just as a way of creating some residual income alongside your speaking business or is actually isn't really part of your business. What's the What role does it serve now. So my business model overall, is that my target is that by within the next 12 to 24 months, product sales for all of my products, not just Hey, Mike, but all the products that I create and launch, the product sales for all of those will pay all of our bills as a family. So residual income, for sure, is the primary thing. Now as a bonus, it is also part of the stories that I tell when I speak. So it's a story generator, and residual income. It's also proof point for what I do as a speaker, you know, I talked about innovation, I talked about inventing makes sense then that I need to have examples for that. I going back it goes back to that when you said you your positioning your positioning yourself not just a speaker to market but someone that really understands you're an inventor as well, so that every time you tell that story is adding a stronger and stronger kind of proof points, as well. And one thing I have to ask about Mike, I'm always intrigued by this is, I think as a guy speakers, we have it super easy, because we usually have like this microphone holder called a tie. But we just clip it the thing I've seen how that you can either clip it there, but when you're working some of the women's speakers. And I know this for you know, speakers have had to have the clip on packs for your head. You got your headset mic, you've got all these different things that can have going on. You haven't attached yourself. And Was that something you thought about in terms of where they're actually going to attach? Absolutely. I thought about it, we actually have the Hey, Mike has two back so one is a cliff. And then the other one is a magnet. So I can magnet it appear magnet over here, here here or so I can bag that anywhere. Just say that magnetic magnet magnet ties it somewhere on my shirt. Yeah. So we did I did think of that in the design. Turns out it's not really used as much as I would have thought that's the other thing about product. Boy, you just things that you are like, we have got to have this everybody's going to want this is the critical feature. And then you just find out nobody's ever once used it. Yeah. Hey, Mike has a has a plugin to listen on headphones. So if you wanted to listen back, you know, to a video on your headphones right after you record it you could not remember is that the danger of feature creep? Sometimes it can it comes into. So you're, you're now you're now you're back in the US, you're now building your speaking business back in the US to the product to just can take on a life of their own as well. How does it feel being back in the US and building us speaking business? Do you feel that your this is a relaunch? Or do you feel like you're launching for the first time you're speaking? What Where's your head out with it? Well, I think it's it's probably more of a relaunch, because my branding and my marketing are all pretty solid. So it's not as if you know, like I was when I started in the UK, I wasn't really sure what my brand would be I wasn't, you know, I didn't have all my collateral created. I didn't have all of those kind of pieces and parts and even messaging to a certain point. So I initially started speaking almost exclusively about sales. And it was a good year and a half or two years before I had a conversation with a friend of mine who you might know Donna St. Louis, who is also a global speaker. And I remember, you know, at that moment going, I just you know what, I like sales, but just doesn't really kind of get me up in the morning. She's like, why are you talking about innovation? I've already launched him like, I was always talking. She was like, why are you talking about innovation? And I was like, Yeah, I could do that. But really, that's quite, that's quite common, I see that we're, initially when people start with their speaking Korea that come from a particular industry, they have a particular skill set. And that's the first thing that they go to. And actually, that makes a lot of sense to do that. Because you understand the pain points of your of your clients, because you've lived that you've been in that world. So I would say that's actually a good thing to do. But then after a while, you discovered maybe that's not the thing that you really want to spend the next 10 years building. So you say, so you've made that you're now making that transition into the innovation as well. And once you've got all those proof points at the same time, and I'm guessing you can it's not that you've given over, given off the sales, you're speaking to the sales groups, that it's just you're adding a new product line to what you're doing. Yeah, so it was always I was always talking about improving sales, which is really what innovation is, innovation is just about, it's about improvement always. And even the things that I was saying to sales, I could just as easily called them innovation as sales. So I have a program that's called Little Big Bangs for sales. And it's largely the same content I always delivered. It's just now it's under the banner of innovation for sales, as opposed to sales being innovative. So it's just kind of a different entry point into it. I think the way that I would describe it to especially new speakers coming in is that you start your first year to on a pendulum. So you know, you're kind of constantly trying out new things. And then what ends happening over time is that you kind of center, and then you go, that's where all the pieces have come together. And it's everything from who you know what audiences like the way that you deliver what audiences resonate with your message, what audiences can afford to pay you the fee that you want to earn, who, you know, the collateral, everything, all of that starts to come together. So that you start to feel like you yourself are a cohesive package, that you are able to bring yourself onto the stage. I'm not a super serious person, you know, I'm not going to get up and make people cry during the keynote. And, and it's important that I know that so that I can brand myself properly. And I wouldn't want an audience to have a different expectation of me. So everything about my collateral, my packaging, my marketing, my website, all of that has to come together and the message has to come together to truly represent who I am so that when customers buy me, and they buy the services that I offer, they know exactly what they're getting. And when I arrived, they think that was exactly what I was expecting. And you mentioned those early mentors you had with Alan Stevens with Jane Atkinson as well, you also speak as you member now as well. What are some of the values of the things you find really useful? Being a speaker as you member? Well, definitely for me, it's about process. You know, this is not, you know, my goal is not to spend 24 by seven, you know, doing business building. You know, I like to systemized and automate as much as possible my CRM thing of beauty. CRM is an automation is absolutely one of those things that really works well, if you have an incremental innovation mindset. Because if you're constantly just building and building and making things better and more refined, yes, and that's, so to me, system icing is always what I'm looking for, you know, a slightly better turn of phrase, a slightly better process, a way to get out of me doing everything. So that's always a big a big challenge and a big priority. For me, my time is limited. Every hour that I spend doing something that is not directly related to me selling myself and being on stage and delivering. That's time, that's time that's money out of my pocket. So if there's other things that people can do besides me, that's what I need to focus on. So there's a another great speaker that I really admire, is worried Aiden, I don't know if you know, worried, worried AJ, fantastic, brilliant. And, you know, one of worries, talks, one of his books is actually you know, about this idea of, of do things today that will make more time for you tomorrow. So you're really about investing your time. And so I'm a huge fan of investing my time like that. That's a big part of my business processes. Wherever I can learn processes. That's what I'm after. You know, I do really well, it is kind of learning craft. And I do think that's important to invest in learning craft. But again, if I can't get my business running and keep it running smoothly and profitably, good margin, doesn't matter how good I am on stage. And there's great books all around there in terms of things like, you know, the E myth revisited. Michael Gerber talks about building systems, I'm always in working with our team building standard operating procedures and, and then ways of doing things, then we basically test like you do with your products, then we find the stuff that works. And then we share that with the speakers, you members. And the things that don't work so well. You get killed off and put down to to experience as well. So talk will be talking about tools here, products. Are there any tools that you find particularly useful in the in what you do as a speaker. I have a ton of fans tools. Right now I have my CRM, which has proved to be really, really valuable to me, because it's actually very broad. So I use Zoho one. So it's really specific user one and Zoho one is a, you pay one fee per employee of your company. The reason that's important is most of us are solo printers. So while I have people that work with me, they're all contractors, and they're not officially employees of my company. So and I get them licenses, but I'm not required to buy license for all of them. So for $30 a month, I have access to about 20 or 30 different sets of functionality. The CRM is only one of them. So with Zoho one, I replaced Dropbox, I use it for my email marketing. I use it for my social media scheduling. I use it for my election signatures for contracts and agreements. I use it for my sales IQ, and it has the capability of doing chatbots. I mean, this thing is massive, all the things that it can do all for $30 a month. So I'm a big fan of streamlining because juggling lots of tools is always problematic. Another one that I really like, is a tool called dachshund. So dachshund is a document sharing platform. But it's largely it's very intelligence based, which means that every time I create a proposal, for example, to speak or whatever it is that I'm doing speaking, every time I create a proposal, I send that proposal out using a DOCSIS link. And that docs and link then tells me I get an email as soon as they open it. I can look at that and see how much time they spent on every page of the proposal. I can require an email so that when they access that proposal, I can see specifically who was looking at it, and when then that provides me with a lot of intelligence about what are they most interested in, and who's looking at it. And I can see even things like, I use the same tool to do things like after event reports. So I do beautiful after event summaries that I give back to the event organizer. And there's all kinds of reasons why. But when I do that, now they have a reason to meet with me to go over the event, because I'm giving them something I'm giving them this great product that they can share on the company about the success of the event. But I can also include things like next steps on there. And I've had instances where I've thought a conversation has kind of gone quiet, or I've thought a deal was lost. And two months later, they're opening that same document again. Yeah. And I wouldn't have any way to know that if I didn't have a tool that delivered that. And I think that's because a lot of decisions, especially associations that being made by committee is when it comes to speakers. So you're able to see who the committee members are who's sharing who's seeing it, I use this I do as a slightly similar thing, or but I use video I do. I used to call bom bom by filming a quick video. And it goes out to the process contacted me initially, after I had a discussion with him. And I get it, I see it getting shared with all the other committee members. And like you I just had one this morning, I just saw where I thought an event and kind of it was like going away, it's been a long time hadn't confirmed. And suddenly you start getting notifications and single they're opening and so they must now's probably a good time to to reach out to have that that conversation. That's a great one. So doc send I'm going to put there and any others, any others that you find really useful. Okay, this one's going to be like a bit of a shocker being most valuable tool in my business. I'm in every single day, extensively his PowerPoint. I know people are like, oh, PowerPoint, oh, we hate slides and presentations. I do use PowerPoint for presentations. That's true. But what I actually use PowerPoint for more is all of my collateral is done in PowerPoint. So unless it's collateral that I'm truly sending, you know, like if I'm doing big graphics for like a show stand or something like that, all of my collateral is done in PowerPoint, and I'm just going to you, I'll make examples of these available. But like everything that I do is done in PowerPoint. So all my Word documents, you know, things that are in letter size, everything all done in PowerPoint, really well, I didn't I've never used it for that I've only ever used of presentations. But now you've you've you've turned me attached to using PowerPoint for something a little bit more? Well, the thing is, is that there are a ton of tools out there. But the truth is, is that as speakers like how many tools can you really master you know, and the more you kind of go off and master Adobe Photoshop, or you go and master in design your master something, you know your brains on me. So, you know. So at a certain point, you're taking time away from mastering that I am a master of PowerPoint, in large part because I use it all the time for all kinds of things. So I've used it to do if I can give you a good example, I have one laying around my desk. But like I have voting cards that I use, I design those in PowerPoint, and then I just turned them into print graphics. So you know, that is probably the most valuable tool because it's a tool I always have. I always feel comfortable with editing it. It's got just enough flexibility, but not too much. So it's it's been a massive improvement to my business. But you said yourself, James, I am a nerd when it comes to the quality of my brand. And my collateral. I love good collateral. And yeah, all great, we're going to put all those here as well, all those links, what about if you do recommend one book to listeners, one that you think they should read it and but growing this speaking business could be on the speaking industry, or it could be a book is completely unrelated to speaking, but it's just a good one to read in terms of business. You know, I think one of the best books I've ever read is, it's actually not about speaking at all. But it's called the four steps to the epiphany. And it's really about understanding markets, and finding market potential. It's really about products. But I just remember reading it and thinking, My gosh, this is the slap in the face that I've needed my whole life that said, stop building it. But you know, we always assume that it's like Sim City, you know, we put down a hospital in Sin City, and everybody just starts driving there, you know, and it's not the case. So I always find it fascinating now to go, Okay, I shouldn't build anything that I can't prove there's a need for or prove that there's value for Yeah, that's true of my speeches. That's true. My programs, that's true of my products that I launch. So to me, that was a big, kind of that was an epiphany, four steps to the epiphany. Fantastic. We'll put that link down here as well. And I think you also mentioned that you had something that that listeners can can get from you, you had a document, I think that we're going to put a link here to as well. And that's all related to the the product side, what we've kind of been covering a little bit about on this on this interview as well. Yep, yep, I'm happy to make those resources available. Fantastic. We'll put a link to take you on to Julie's site. And a final question for you. I want you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, and you have to start from scratch. So you've got all the skills, all the knowledge you've acquired over the years, but no one knows you, you know, no one, what would you do? How would you restart things? That's a great question. I would I would join the NSA or the PSA. I would I would find a community. Because in that community, you now start to get exponential reach. So, you know, in terms of getting your name out there, it's really hard to do it on your own. I think you know, you're just one voice talking about you. I think it's really important to have a network of people that understand you know what you're doing and can help you to find your market and reach it faster. Fantastic. Great advice. Good, good advice. If people want to connect with you to learn more about what you're doing, where's the best place to go and do that and if they want to learn more about Hey, Mike, this is strictly for speakers. Where should they go for that? So my website of course is Julie homes.com. Just like Sherlock Holmes but the Julie version of that and for Hey Mike It's lovely. Hey Mike lovheymic.com love Hey Mike calm so you can learn more about hey Mike there to connect with me and learn more about what I'm doing LinkedIn is a great place. So you can get ahold of me on LinkedIn or any of my social media channels and here's another tip for everybody if you ever use link shortening, so all my social media channels can be found by going to Julie homes dot VIP forward slash LinkedIn forward slash Instagram forward slash Twitter forward slash YouTube, all of those so just Julie homes dot VIP forward slash, insert the social media platform and you'll be directed to my profile. Fantastic. Well, Julie, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your insights. I think what you've done not just know speaking side, but also building these products out is a really smart thing to do. And I know you're really passionate about inventing and inspiring other people to to invent things as well. So I wish you all the best with your speaking and thanks for being a speaker, as you remember, and looking forward to sharing a stage together soon. All right, I'll see you soon, James. This episode of the Speakers Life is sponsored by Espeakers. The innovative platform that connects speakers will event organizers and associations. Espeakers provides cutting edge tools that will elevate your online presence. streamline your speaking business and maximize your exposure in the Speaking industry with over 15 years in the business 10,000 speakers in their community and over 20,000 events managed annually each Espeakers is the preferred choice for top speakers. You can create your own profile on a Espeakers today by going to speakersu.com/Espeakers.

Welcome to our third episode of a weekly podcast that we are doing here at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram! In this episode, we talk with the Owner Loyalty Manager of Miracle CDJR, Mike Woodruff. Mike is a Tennessee native, and has lived in Gallatin since 1987. In this episode, Mike talks about our VIP program, and our new service initiative, the Miracle Express Train. He also discusses the pro’s and con’s of purchasing a vehicle online in the digital world that we live in, and revisits the benefits of leasing as we spoke about in Episode 2. Enjoy! Transcript John Haggard: 00:02 Welcome to the Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram podcast, where each week we hope you will be able to learn the best ways to purchase, maintain and accessorize your new or preowned vehicle and how to sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible, when you’re ready to do so. I’m your host John Haggard and throughout each month, right here we’re going to have different team members join us from Miracle to bring you tips that you can use. And by the way, we will also post a transcript of each podcast so that you can easily refer to it for information. Maybe something you heard on the podcast and you want to just go pick up that line, what was said, it will be right there for you right at your fingertips. On the podcast today we’re talking about different ways to own or lease a vehicle and how the process has changed over the last several years. And on today’s podcast we have Mike Woodruff, he’s the Owner Loyalty Manager at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Hey Mike, welcome to the podcast. Mike Woodruff: 00:59 How are you John, my friend? New Speaker: 01:00 I am doing well. Hey, you know, before we get started, folks like to know a little bit about you and just anybody who is on the podcast. Hey, who is this guy and how did he get started? How did they get in the car business? Where is he from? That type of thing. So give us a little bit of background about you, Mike. Mike Woodruff: 01:14 Well, actually I’ve lived in the community since 1987. My previous career was in healthcare management and actually retired from that some years ago. And then later, I was looking for something to do at the suggestion of my wife. Ha, Yeah. And I knew some people at the dealership, and I’d spoken with a couple of people there and they suggested maybe working for the dealership. I had never done anything like that before. And I thought, well, that’ll be different. I thought it would something I would probably do for a couple of years. And, seven years later, here I am. John Haggard: 01:54 Seven years later, you’re still there. So when you were doing healthcare, when you said a manager, what were you doing? Mike Woodruff: 02:00 I was in health care management. I was managing clinical areas of one of the local hospitals and later went into practice management with group of physicians. John Haggard: 02:09 Gotcha, Gotcha. So, you knew some people down at Miracle and that’s how you wound up actually going to work for them. Mike Woodruff: 02:17 Exactly. John Haggard: 02:18 Gotcha. So you say you are you from Gallatin? Mike Woodruff: 02:21 I’m originally from Donaldson right outside of Nashville of course and been up here since 1987. John Haggard: 02:29 Gotcha. Now somebody said in the notes here that I’m reading that you have, I think it’s nine grandchildren. Mike Woodruff: 02:34 I have nine grandchildren I sure do. Nine beautiful grandchildren and four children. And that keeps me busy during my off hours. John Haggard: 02:42 I was going to say, what do you do on your off hours? Do you have any, ha! Well, Mike, I understand you are the Owner Loyalty Manager for Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, and the title would seem obvious, but take us behind the scenes. What does that really mean? And really, what does it mean for customers? Mike Woodruff: 03:02 Well, it means not only that they purchased a vehicle, they’ve also become a member of the Miracle Family. That’s very, very important to us. They’ll be a part of our new customer service initiative that we call the Miracle Express Train through the Chrysler Corporation in conjunction with JD Power and Associates. So that’s something that we’re very proud to be working on right now. And that train is on a fast track to excellence. We want to be one of the premier examples of great customer service in the community and that’s whether it’s sales, service or parts. John Haggard: 03:47 All right. And when you say the express train, tell us a little bit more about that. What all’s involved? Mike Woodruff: 03:54 It’s a dealership wide program where we focus intently on customer service and what we can do to improve the different aspects of customer service, be it sales or service or parts. How we interact with the customer, how we follow up with a customer, and just that communication is key to maintaining the relationship that was begun when the customer purchased a vehicle from us. And we think that’s key to customer service and our success. John Haggard: 04:34 Yeah. A lot of lack of communication all over these days. That’s for sure. Just anywhere that you go. And are you responsible for training people on how to do that or do you handle all of that? How does that work? Mike Woodruff: 04:46 I do the training as well. Yes John Haggard: 04:48 You do. Okay. So you are trainers. Well, and do you also sell and lease vehicles yourself? Mike Woodruff: 04:59 In my spare time do that as well. I have a loyal base of customers that I continue to service and communicate with. But, yeah, I wear different hats, but it keeps me busy. It keeps me active, and I love it. John Haggard: 05:13 All right. Now on selling and leasing, what changes have you seen in the marketplace? I guess the way people go about making a decision to buy or lease a vehicle, say compared to a few years ago, has anything changed or is it pretty much the same? Mike Woodruff: 05:28 Well, I think the two biggest changes, John are, of course the Internet and the emergence of digital technologies that really have surfaced in the past two to three years. That’s been phenomenal. There are so many options that you can purchase with your vehicle now. And digital technology has driven a lot of the decision making. There are some people who really like a lot of technology and there are some people that still like the simple basics, but we can offer anything and everything. John Haggard: 06:11 All right. Now, as you see a lot of advertisements out there, speaking of I guess technology or different ways of doing things, there’ll be companies out there who tell people, “hey, you know, you can bypass the dealer and just buy online”. You’ve got these companies like Carvana and Cars Direct, Car Gurus, Vroom, is that really true or is there any advantage or what’s a pro and a con about buying a vehicle off the internet? Mike Woodruff: 06:38 Well, I think it does have a place in the industry, but it’s really a small niche market. Most people still like to see and touch any item. But before making a purchase, even minor items, you know, a small TV or article of clothing you want to try it on, you want to feel it, you want to actually see it in person. So buying a vehicle solely on internet photos and a little bit of information can be an uncomfortable experience for most people. And there are some times issues with, if you want to trade in a vehicle, some of those sites will accept trading and some will not, but they’re going to value your vehicle without having seen it. And many times, once we are able to put our hands on your trade and we’re able to look at it, that can result in more money for your trade John Haggard: 07:39 Alright, you know, sometimes those types of ads will also imply, “look, you can cut out the middleman or the middle woman by buying online” and with the inference that you get a better deal buying online cause you don’t have someone in between just you and the technology so to speak. Is that true? Mike Woodruff: 07:59 No, it really isn’t. You may save a small amount of money, and we’re talking about maybe two to $300. You’re going to lose a large amount of support and attention to detail after the sale. And, and that’s the critical portion. You know, there are pros and cons to buying off the Internet. The pros are you do have a larger selection and have convenient access because you can just sit at your computer and go from one dealership to another,, or one site to another. And it can be a great starting point to begin your research. But the cons are, you really don’t get a proper assessment for your trade in and you don’t get that personal attention during the sales process. And more importantly, afterwards you don’t get a proper delivery of the vehicle and training on all the different functions. John Haggard: 08:57 I know that, because I have a car and I didn’t realize, with what I drive that you could pop the key out of the electronic key. I didn’t know that for years, so when I was always handing my key off to a guy who parked my car and I’m trying to take it off the key chain and do all this and that. So I guess little things like that. Mike Woodruff: 09:15 Sure John Haggard: 09:15 Have you ever had anybody do that to you? Say, Hey, I didn’t know this thing came apart like this. Nice and easy. Mike Woodruff: 09:20 Ha! It happened to myself a couple of times John. John Haggard: 09:23 I gotcha. You know, a lot of people think that, or probably most people that car dealers will say anything to get somebody to come into the showroom. So if you were gonna tell people about Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in terms of why they should really deal with the Miracle Auto Group and not somebody else down the street, what would you say? Mike Woodruff: 09:44 Simple. I don’t want to just sell you a vehicle. We want to sell the experience and the dealership. Because it’s not just selling you a vehicle today. It’s developing that relationship where we can sell you a vehicle three or four years down the road where you’re comfortable, and selling one of your family members or friends or people that you go to church or work with. That’s the important part. You know, Gallatin is growing, but it’s still a fairly small community. And it’s very important to us to maintain those relationships that we begin with the sale of a car. It’s not just a one and done process for us. John Haggard: 10:29 Well I guess that makes sense because you want referrals and most of the time research shows if someone is referred in, there’s what a 40 to 60% chance they’ll buy from the person they’ve been told about, versus somebody who just walks in. And of course if they want to trade in three years, you’d like to have that customer back. So I guess that certainly makes some sense. So when you’re not working all the time, Mike, cause it sounds like you are on and off the job a little bit. What do you do in your spare time? What do you, what do you really like to do? Mike Woodruff: 10:59 Okay. Well, of course, I like to spend time with my grandchildren. In fact, I’m going to take a couple of them fishing this week. So, the weather has kind of held off, so I think we’re going to be able to do that this week and, spending time with my wife and just enjoying life. I mean, I’m unfortunately too old to play competitive sports at this point, but my brain still thinks I can, ha! John Haggard: 11:33 Ha! A lot of wisdom up there for all that age, right Mike? There you go. Well listen, thanks for joining us today. Mike Woodruff, the owner loyalty manager for Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Hey, by the way, before we go, is there anything I did not ask you that you would want people to know, or maybe there’s a question that people ask all the time that we didn’t cover today? Mike Woodruff: 11:56 Nothing I can think of off hand. John, I thank you. We’ve pretty well covered that aspect of the dealership. I do want to mention, we just briefly skimmed over leasing there, but in a previous podcast Mark Ledford, who is our general sales manager, went into a lot more depth about leasing. And we talked today a little bit about the technology and how fast it’s moving. And that’s one of the prime reasons that people may want to think about leasing. Because if they’re the type of people who like the latest in safety features and technology, leasing is certainly the way to go, and should be strongly considered. John Haggard: 12:36 Okay. So what’s the difference there? Just so that we all understand, if you lease? Mike Woodruff: 12:41 At the end of three years, you have options. And that’s one of my favorite words. I mean, it’s always nice to have options. You can turn the car in. You can go ahead and turn around and lease another three years on a three year newer vehicle. Or you can just simply throw us the keys and walk away. But you do have options, particularly for younger people whose life situations sometimes change a little more quickly. It’s nice to have that option three years down the road to do something different with your vehicle rather than to be tied into five, six or seven years on a car payment. John Haggard: 13:19 Got You. That’s the difference. All right, I get that. Mike Woodruff, everybody again, the Owner Loyalty Manager for Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. We invite you to join us again right here for other topics on the podcast throughout each month. And our goal is to show you the best ways to purchase, maintain and accessorize your new or preowned vehicle, or lease, and how to sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible when you’re ready. And don’t forget, we’ve also posted a transcript of each podcast right here on the website so that you can easily refer to it for information that you would like to have at your fingertips. I’m your host John Haggard and we’ll see ya next time.

When I heard about a water brand called Liquid Death that comes in tallboys, reminiscent of beer cans, that behaves like a death metal band, that boosts insane (and insanely great) copy and imagery, and on top of it is 100% mountain water from the Austrian alps, I had to reach out to Co-Founder and CEO Mike Cessario to make some sense of it all, to the extent that is possible. By now I assume you have visited the Liquid Death web site and you got a taste of what you are in for. This is a story about a Creative who comes from the advertising and branding world, who spent his career creating brand stories for greats like Netflix and Gary Vee, and found that it was time to create his own story, his own brand. And it had to be authentic, good for the planet and crazy as hell. If you want your head blown (I do have to use some Liquid Death lingo here) and hear about how his idea was crafted, why people go crazy over it and how his waters help kill plastic bottles along the way, all while poking major fun at marketing, and, yes, branding, as a whole, give this episode a listen. If you like what you hear you can grab some Liquid Death waters on Amazon or you can jump back onto the Liquid Death web site and join their Country Club, but you will have to sell them your soul first. True story. ____Full Transcript: Fabian Geyrhalter: Welcome to Hitting The Mark. In our last episode, I talked with creative extraordinaire Michael Lastoria, who after selling his New York based agency to beauty powerhouse Shiseido in 2017, is now co founder of the counterculture pizza chain &pizza. A pizza joint that was named one of the world's 50 most innovative companies the second time in a row by Fast Company. Today we continue that mini series of advertising creatives turned into entrepreneurs using their background to flip the commodity type offerings into sought after cult brands. My guest today is Mike Cessario who founded Liquid Death, the first irreverent bottled water brand that can compete with the cool factor of unhealthy brands from beer to energy drinks. Inspired by the death metal and punk rock culture, Liquid Death takes an extreme approach to marketing in stark contrast to aspirational health and wellness brands. Prior to starting Liquid Death, Mike was an advertising creative director who worked on viral campaigns for clients like Organic Valley and Netflix. Some of his viral hits include Organic Valley's Save the Bros, which if you have not seen it, please head over to youtube right after this podcast and check it out for a good laugh. And he also did teasers for House of Cards, Narcos and the show you have all been binge watching over the past weeks, Stranger Things. Welcome to Hitting The Mark, Mike. M Cessario: Hey, how's it going? F Geyrhalter: Yeah, thanks for making it. So we chatted a little bit before. We're both graduates of Art Center College of Design. I know people in pretty much all of the agencies you worked at. We're both based in LA, yet I learned about you and your water company via the Los Angeles Business Journal, which is a strange way to connect. But when I read about Liquid Death, I knew it would make for a killer episode. See, it's so horribly easy to pull puns over puns with a death-themed brand, mainly because you'd think that those brands are all destined to die before birth. But tell us how you turned into kind of the arrogant bastard brand of water. It's a strange path to take. When did the idea come about? M Cessario: So it's interesting that you bring up arrogant bastard. I think one thing that I've always noticed is craft beer kind of gets to break almost all the rules of branding. And at the same time, it's one of the categories that people are insanely passionate about. Like people who like their craft beers, love their craft beers. You can find craft beers called Skull Crusher IPA or Arrogant Bastard Ale, because they know that there's a huge market for their audience that's at least 21 years old. So they don't have to really like pun-intended, water things down just to kind of please everyone. So there's always just this cool factor with craft beer that I felt was just kind of unmatched with everything else. And then that was sort of the inspiration for kind of the brand and packaging of Liquid Death. I grew up playing in punk rock and heavy metal bands outside of Philadelphia. And that scene is actually where I really got into health, believe it or not. And I think that's a thing that most of mainstream culture has not really seen or realized that in that world of heavy metal and punk rock and all that stuff, there's a lot of people who care a lot about health. We like to say there are probably more vegans at a heavily heavy metal show than a Taylor Swift show. Inside the world of metal and hardcore, there was this little subset called straight edge where they were very vocal about no drinking, no drugs. That's not exactly the market that we built this for. But it's just one example of how a lot of this culture does care about health and has so for 30 years. But you kind of look at the fact that the world is all moving towards healthier. Every new brand is all about health. All the unhealthy stuff soda has been in basically I think like a 13-year decline in sales. Beer has been in a decline of sales. There's all this data showing that GenZ and millennials no longer think it's cool to be drunk. They actually consider it pathetic and embarrassing. So all this stuff is kind of moving towards drinking less alcohol, being healthier, willing to spend a little more for healthier options, people being a little bit more aware of sustainability. It's getting broader and broader. But if you look at the health food industry, they only market their products in one tone of voice. They're kind of just going for what I think is like the cliche health food customer, and I think they're making big generalizations around what healthy people are into. Like, "Oh, you know, it's about yoga and it's about aspirational. So we're going to just show really good looking fitness models in our ads because that's why people are going to want to drink our product and be healthy because they want to look like this impossible person." And we just think that's kind of bullshit. And in reality, you look at what people are really into. Most people wouldn't know that the Walking Dead is, I think the number two or number three most popular show for women, a show about flesh-eating zombies. But you would never hear a healthy brand say, "Oh, our target is women. Let's do a whole campaign about zombies." It would never happen, even though there's proof that this is something that entertains this group of people and that they're into. So I think that's kind of what we're doing is sort of never taking ourselves too seriously. I think that's the biggest filter for our brand. If anything we do, I think we want people to realize like, "Oh okay, these guys don't actually think water is super tough." We're kind of making fun of 40 years of bad marketing. You know, it's like, and it still hasn't changed. It's like these big brands are still thinking about branding and marketing not much differently than they were thinking about it in the 1960s. And I kind of feel like the bar for branding and marketing is so low for how entertaining it has to be, how authentic it has to be, that people can do all this bad stuff and it seems like, "Oh, this is actually pretty good compared to this other really shitty thing that's out there." But if you really held it to the standard of entertainment, I know you have a book on how to make a brand. For us, I look at it like trying to make a book about how to make a great brand is almost like trying to make a book about how to make a hit TV show. It's like there's so much that goes into it that you almost can't reduce it to a formula, even though there's a lot of people to try. And because a lot of times the people, maybe they're not coming from the marketing background, you've got to figure out all these other things to run and operate the business. You don't have time to spend weeks and hours and days trying to get the nuance of brand and what's going to resonate with people. So I think that's ultimately at the core of our brand is we want to blur the lines between a brand and an entertainment company, and we want to hold everything we do up to the same standards as what you would hold a television show to or a movie. Because at the end of the day when you're putting stuff in people's social media feeds, you're not just competing against other water brands or other ads, you're competing against YouTube influencers that are making explosive, amazing engaging videos. You're competing against movie trailers. I think the bar is much higher to actually make people care about what you're doing than most brands can imagine really. F Geyrhalter: Totally. There was so much in what you just said and I'm kind of trying to rewind on some of those thoughts. One of the things that you said about not taking yourself too seriously, that is just this repeating threat that I see going on with all of, or a lot of my podcast guests where it's basically like I have a podcast about branding, but everyone talks about being the anti brand. And I think that's what's so interesting in today's age is that no, there is no formula. And even in my book I only basically talk about that your background story is bigger than your product, and that it's all about belief and cost and transparency and solidarity. And that is all exactly the formula that you took, just that you know it intrinsically because you came from the world of marketing and branding and advertising. But you do it in such an authentic way, and authenticity is such an overused word, especially by all the wrong marketers. But I mean that idea of not giving a shit and just being yourself and doing your thing and being out there to give value and entertainment to your tribe, I mean that's really what makes a brand. You mentioned the problem with all of these health and wellness, especially retail brands are looking at talking the same talk. A couple of episodes ago I had one of the early and main investors of Beyond Meat on this podcast. And they realized the same thing, that it's like, "No, our Veggie Burger should not be in the Veggie Vegan stamped compartment. This is a burger that real guys can flip on their grill." This is not about you having to be stamped into a certain kind of micro niche. But let's talk about that micro niche a little bit because I think it was fascinating when I read about Liquid Death. First, I was like appalled because it's totally not my lifestyle. And I'm like, "Oh my God, there're heads flying around and there's blood. And why is this water from Austria? That's where I'm from, this is totally not cool. I need to get this guy on." And then the more I read about it and the more I heard you talk about this street edge punk rock lifestyle, which I was totally not aware of, I'm a huge music buff, but I had no idea and it's actually a lifestyle that you already talked about a little bit. And people like band members of Metallica, Fugate, of Bad Religion and even J Mascis of Dinosaur Junior who I'm a big fan of, they're all part of this kind of like sub, sub, sub group. And I believe so much in that idea that if you go with a group that you understand really, really well, which you do, because it's the lifestyle that you come from, it sounds like. And you dive into that, that you can create a product that authentically will resonate with your audience. But how did the audience change over the past year or two years? Because you've been around for like a year or two years as a brand. And how do you ensure that that brand stays weird and out there and connecting with that particular lifestyle without feeling fake despite its success? M Cessario: That's a good question. I think that's a thing that most marketers or brands get wrong. Because I think as you know, like on the creative side, we think more emotionally and culturally. Whereas on the business side people then tend to think much more rationally and logically. What isn't necessarily a rational thing is if you can market and be very authentic to a very, very small audience, that does not mean that only that small audience is going to care. With Liquid Death, pretty much the filter that I've put every decision of the brand through is, "Would slayer think this is cool?" And even though that seems like a very, very narrow appeal, we have this huge halo effect of that. And we have a woman from the UK who is like, "I hate metal but I love this thing." That made me start thinking, okay, how do I quantify that? What is it? Why is it that I'm making like severed heads and blood flying, it's called Liquid Death, I'm being very authentic to heavy metal, but why are old ladies and people who have no care about metal in this world really resonating with it? And I think what I've come up with is, like you said, the word authenticity is kind of overused and people don't really know what it means or how to employ it effectively. But I think everyone knows that people are moving away from big food and big drink, and in favor of small and local and craft. That's just like a big thing, the shift that's been happening over the last decade and you're starting to see all the big brands kind of trying to appropriate this small hand-crafted look that people are willing to pay for and are more attracted to than they're like big mass produced kind of brands. So when McDonald's is now making things called artisan sandwiches that look like farmer's market kind of design, you kind of know that that old way of seeming small, from a look and feel standpoint, isn't really effective anymore. You can go to a grocery store now and find a bag of beef jerky that you don't know. Like, "Is this from a farmer's market or is this some massive corporate brand?" You don't really know anymore because the lines have been so blurred from that look and feel point of view. So my belief is that in 2019 when you have two to three seconds of someone looking at your product to make an opinion on it, the only way you can instantly communicate to someone, this is small, this is not big and corporate, is by doing and saying things that big brands would never do. You can't really just do it anymore from like, "Oh, I'm going to make it look like it's from a farmer's market and people are going to see it and say, 'Oh, that's small.'" No, because that's everywhere now. So now the bar has got even higher for how do you instantly signify that this isn't a massive, massive brand? I think that's really what people are connecting with. When people see a can of water that looks like beer, that's called Liquid Death with a skull on it, instantly they're like, "This is not coke, this is not Pepsi. There's real human beings behind this brand that maybe I'd want to have a beer with." So I think that's been, in terms of like an audience, how it's spread. It's like I just keep it very, very true to that small core and the halo just kind of keeps growing well beyond that because they respond to the authenticity and the uniqueness of this. It's something they've never really seen before in this kind of consumer packaged goods space. F Geyrhalter: And to play devil's advocate, it is extremely difficult, especially with the coolest looking microbrews to know that they are not part of the big conglomerates. Because they are changing hands day in, day out. It seems like it's a little silicon valley where it's constantly... the things are just being bought and being sold and being bid on. And I don't know if the cool craft beer with the skull on, if it's actually owned by one of the three big ones. And quite frankly, I will not know in two years from now if you actually sit in an island and you sold your soul to Coca-Cola and Liquid Thirst is now on the Coke. Because if there's money in the game, then they're going to put their skin in the game. It doesn't even matter what's on the bottle and what's on the can. So I think that is actually really important to defend the territory and to make sure people understand that. Because I as a consumer, I don't even know that anymore. That idea that just because there's a skull on it, it can't be owned by one of the big guys, I think it's changing. Because in the end money is what it's all about. M Cessario: Well I think that's why it's even beyond the skull. The fact that a brand is called Liquid Death, when someone tries to think about... Okay, maybe I can imagine a skull making its way through a corporate board room into a real product, but nobody believes that Liquid Death has made its way through a corporate board room into a real product. Now you're right, if it gets to a certain point where Liquid Death just becomes huge thing, of course all the big guys are going to be looking to cash in or make it a part of it. But I think one thing I've realized with Liquid Death since the beginning is we're always up against the fact that people think this isn't going to be the real deal. Right? So when I first came up with the idea, all right, I want to make a water brand that looks like beer because I want the healthiest thing you could possibly drink, which is water and most people don't drink enough of it. It's become this like utilitarian thing where it's like, "Okay, I drink water if I'm at the gym. Maybe I drink it in my cubicle sometimes." But it would never be common for someone to be like, "Oh, what do you drink when you go to the bar?" "Oh I drink bottled water." No it doesn't happen. Or, "What do you drink at a party?" "Oh I drink bottled water." It's become a utilitarian thing and it hasn't from a brand and occasion standpoint been accepted in this wide range of other usage occasions like soda is, or like beer is, or like alcohol is. So I think what we're really hoping to do is to change when people drink this thing, and like we know in bars, most people you're in bars to kind of meet people or interact with people. So there's data showing that the reason people walk around with a Guinness versus a Pabst Blue Ribbon versus some other kind of beer, they're trying to signal something about themselves in a social environment. They want something that's a conversation starter, they want to talk to people. And Liquid Death has been doing really well in bars and things like that because it's a complete conversation piece. People see this. Like, "What is that? Wait, that's water? What do you mean that's water?" It just kind of creates a conversation and people are attracted to that. But I think the Coca-Cola's of the world, it's going to take a lot for them to ever take that risk because they're just not built to understand or build really emerging brands. They are built to sustain brands that are already doing like half a billion dollars a year or a billion dollars a year. They can't make a decision without this old process of focus groups and testing. So when you start running Liquid Death through that old system of a focus group, it's never going to make it through. You ask people, "Oh, what do you think of this Liquid Death?" They'll be like, "Oh, this is stupid. Oh, this is dumb." And then it's not going to make it through because it's not actually allowing the market to really test it. So I think we would have a long road ahead of us in terms of massive, massive success before Coca Cola would probably ever take the leap. And at that point it's one of those things where we'd have to make the tough decision of do you have someone like this that helps basically spread it to more people? But with a brand like Liquid Death, it's pretty much all brand. So if they didn't truly get what made the brand special and didn't give creative control or power to kind of keep the brand what it is and they try to like "water it down", that could be the end of the brand like that. And it's happened before. It happened to Snapple. Do you remember the old Snapple ads? The original ones with the lady from Long Island? Yeah, it was shot with not great cameras, but it felt really authentic, like it was a real Long Island type person. And it became the fastest growing beverage brand ever, got bought by think Quaker for like three or four billion dollars. And then soon as it went to Quaker, they put that kind of great little brand through the corporate kind of system and they said, "Okay, this woman, she's not aspirational enough. Now that we're going to be a big brand, we need to get someone a little more aspirational because your small things aren't going to work anymore on the big scale. And you know what? We've got to shoot it with better cameras because your stuff, it just doesn't feel very professional. And they changed it all. They lost over $1 billion or $2 billion in market share in less than two years. So it's like that stuff happens and you just have to, you have to be aware of what you're getting into. F Geyrhalter: Yeah, no, totally. And I think what will most probably happen, and that's going to be a really great thing for you to see is when suddenly at a bar, there's another water in a beer can, right? That's what's going to happen. It's going to be that Coca-Cola's moving in and saying, "Well that makes sense. Kids want to drink beer in bars. And so now there's this guy doing these waters, so let's just do the same thing and have a cool brand for kids." And they have huge distribution, they've got huge power, but like you said, building that authentic brand that's near impossible for them. And I see them fail over and over and over again. And that's why what you're doing is so extremely genius because you realize that you can actually come in really, really strong and be unreasonably bold and altogether unreasonable, because you can, you have to, right? And a question for me is, how did you know that your audience... So here's the punk rockers going to the show and they're going to see that tallboy can of water. How did he know that they would not call BS on heavy metal-looking beer cans that sell us $2 water? I mean, since this easily could have gone two ways, right? And in your own words, you call marketing and branding BS on your site. How was that fine line of humor, sarcasm, and then yet the deep connection created? I mean, you must've been at least a little bit nervous at some point. M Cessario: To be honest, I never really was nervous about it because I think at the heart of... At least my understanding and the reason that I gravitated towards punk rock and metal and that world was the ability to kind of, for lack of a better word, fuck with people and kind of infiltrate something where it's not supposed to be. Punk rock wasn't punk rock really when the only people who sold it were 20 people in a room. It was like when Iggy Pop got on a mass stage and you're seeing this psycho losing his mind on stage and doing things that nobody's ever seen before and was selling it to the suburbs. Then there's this big outrage of like, "What is this music? This is the devil's music. This is bad." And that kind of tension of disrupting kind of like longstanding norms that tend to be very restricted. I think that is at the heart of what I think punk rock and counter culture really is. And I think I knew that Liquid Death, making it into an actual product, which is not easy, you know? F Geyrhalter: Oh yeah. M Cessario: There's not many... I feel like if you have a disruptive or unacceptable idea, what you're supposed to do is just make a band and then your product is selling albums. That's how you get your disruptive idea into the world. It's like, "Oh, you want to be crazy? Okay, make a band, make an album, sell that." Because anybody can really do that. You can find a recording studio fairly easily. You can record stuff. There's home recording equipment, you can put your idea out there. But if you want to make a disruptive idea in that same tone of voice into a consumer packaged good and you've got to figure out how are you going to get people to give you all the money it takes to make it, how are you going to actually figure out production in Austria to make this thing, then how are you going to actually sell it? Deal with the Amazon backend system of shipping people product and taxes. That requires a kind of thinking and resource that a lot of people with these disruptive punk-rock, fuck-you ideas don't always have access to. I think that that's sort of what I was trying to do, is like how do we get a brand through this gauntlet of bringing a packaged good brand to life that totally feels like it does not belong in this world? And I just knew that people would relate to that. It was like wow! Regardless of like... I think the other important thing was making it very clear that the sarcasm was very heavy, that we were not taking ourselves seriously. We weren't actually trying to brand water as heavy, what we're more trying to do is make fun of all the extreme youth marketing of energy drinks. At the end of the day, an energy drink is what, 95% water, some bubbles and like a little bit of sugar and caffeine. It's like all the same stuff that's in my grandma's breakfast tea. But you can call it Monster and put it in a can with a claw mark on it. And then they market it to kids and like, "Hey, it's all about action sports and extreme." They're not being sarcastic about it. They're being very serious of like, "This is going to appeal to the kids because it's extreme and that's what kids love." And we're kind of making fun of that. It's like, "Okay, we're going to beat you at your own game." If all marketing is essentially kind of like storytelling theatrics really around a product, we're going to take ours to the next level and be very clear that this is theatrics, it's professional wrestling. It's entertainment and people respect entertainment. Like you said, we always look at, we want to give value to people. If we're putting something in your Facebook feed, we want it to make you laugh. We want it to do something besides just say, "Hey, buy this." And I think entertainment is the easiest way to kind of paint the picture of what that is. It's like, okay, like we should be making people laugh to make this the funniest thing that they've seen all day every time we put something out there. F Geyrhalter: And on that note, on your site, you say, and I excuse the language, I'm just a messenger here. You say most products in the health and wellness space are all marketed with aspirational fitness models and airbrushed celebrities. Fuck that. Why should unhealthy products be the only brands with a permission to be loud, fun and weird? Besides our marketing and branding is bullshit. So we're going to take ours less seriously and have more fun with it. So yet, as we already discussed, branding is everything to Liquid Death. And that's where the sarcasm kind of fits in. It is the lifeline of the death brand. It's really the foundation of the entire brand. What does, after everything that you already shared with us, what does branding mean to you? Because branding has a horrible, horrible kind of like taste in your mouth, right? It feels fabricated, it feels big, it feels unreal, it doesn't feel authentic, yet in my eyes, branding today is a totally different word. It should actually be rebranded, that word because it's just so different now. I think it is about a lot of the things that you talk about, which you can apply your thinking quite frankly, to any brand. From a tech brand to a retail brand, to a health care brand, because the foundational elements of authenticity, of transparency, of understanding your niche audience and diving full in and creating a tribe, all of these things that can be applied to anything. So what does branding mean to you today? M Cessario: I think you make a really good point that branding needs to be rebranded, especially now because what brand meant when the practice was coined in like the 50s and 60s. Branding was more about when there was what? Three television channels and a couple billboards here and there. You had to have a consistency and brand just so that people would remember you. Because maybe they saw your commercial once on channel two and then they didn't come in contact with your brand again for another week maybe because there was one billboard they passed by. And you had to have the brand link the two things together so people knew, "Oh it's this brand. Oh it's this brand." But that's not the case anymore. With social media, I don't even know what the number is, like how many advertising messages we're exposed to a day. Like thousands and thousands…Branding is something totally different, and I always go back to using examples from the entertainment industry, like using television shows and movies. If you had to say, "What is Steven Spielberg's brand?" It becomes a lot more complicated. You don't want to reduce him to just a brand. It's like it's a vision. It's a type of story. It's a place in the world. It's a point of view of a human being that's behind something. The days of trying to just bullshit people in terms of like, okay, I want my brand to be something that is not at all what I am is I think harder and harder to pull off now. Your brand has to be the people who are behind it, and I think you know as much as like Steven Spielberg, you know he makes Steven Spielberg movies. If Steven Spielberg just tried to make, I don't know, like a soap opera TV show, it's like he can probably do it but it's not going to have the world-wide acclaim that him being him actually has. So I think for me branding is just about making it very clear who the people are behind the brand that you're giving your money to. And I think that's really what it is for us. It's like at the end of the day there might be four other can waters on the shelf next to us and one is Aquafina can water, which they already announced they're going to try to test next year. Super boring looking can, right? Aquafina. There might be a couple of other ones. At the end of the day, what we're hoping is that all the content we put out there, the messaging we put out there, what we do for people, how we talk, how we sound, what we communicate about ourselves, ultimately when there's four brands there, someone is like, "This is all water. I don't really believe that any of these waters are significantly better from a taste perspective than any of the others. So I kind of see it as a level playing field. I want to give my $1.85 to Liquid Death because I want to give my money to those guys more than I want to give it to this faceless kind of water over here or this one that's kind of trying something that I don't really get right here." M Cessario: I think that's ultimately we want to do, is we want to connect with people where they're like, "I want to support this company and these people. And it goes well beyond just the functional benefits of what the actual product is." Because in almost every product category, the differences between brands are basically trivial. If you had to have people blind taste test Monster versus RockStar versus Red Bull, most people probably couldn't even pick out the difference. At the end of the day, people would rather give their money to Red bull based on the things they do, versus some people they want to give their money to Monster or whatever. F Geyrhalter: Yeah. My wife and I in a spare moment of uninspiration we did a blind water taste test. And I think we had maybe like 12 waters from Evian to, the Trader Joes brand, to every single water. And in the end the one that won was like one of those in-store, private label, super cheap water brands, right? So, well let's talk a little bit more about the people behind the brand. Obviously, with you it's yourself, but there's also a lot of investment that came in. I think you gained investments totaling 2.3 million, if I'm correct, maybe it's more by now. But that alone is pretty astonishing, but it's even more remarkable when I look at the names of who actually invested in Liquid Death, from Michael Dubin of Dollar Shave Club fame to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to Gary Vee, who I, as a side note, refrained to talk to over the course of a 10 and a half hour flight to London despite him sitting, well mainly sleeping right next to me. And I'm very proud that I was able to not talk to him. But these are some serious heavyweights and they understand the power of story and virality. What made them invest in you? What was the reason that Gary Vee said, "Hey Mike, I get it. I'll invest in a water company called Liquid Death with heads being chopped off people and blood everywhere in its commercial. That makes a lot of sense to me. It'll be a hit"? And I know you worked for his company, but what was the decision of some of these people where they said, "No, this is exactly why I believe in it." M Cessario: I mean, part of it is me, which the fact that I worked for Gary and he knew me. He just was like, "I'm a fan of you, Mike, and I believe in this." But I think Gary for instance, he is one that has no emotion about what success means. I think he preaches that all the time. It's like don't let emotion get in the way of like, "Oh well this maybe offends me or this doesn't seem right because there is a really good chance that this would be a really, really good business." And I think Gary is also hyper aware that social media is the internet now. I think he even has a poster on the wall in the agency that says social media is just a slang term for the current state of the internet. F Geyrhalter: That's great. Yeah. M Cessario: Yeah. That's where people get all their news now. It's where they get their entertainment. It's where they learn about what's going on, and he just knows what it takes to succeed in this environment of internet culture. I mean, nothing is censored anymore, right? Kids now, they don't care about normal movie-star celebrities, it's about YouTube celebrities. These YouTubers, they're not censored, they can kind of do whatever they want. They don't have to fit certain formats or things like that. So the culture of entertainment and what's on social media is in a place now where it's going to take a certain level of entertainment to actually succeed in that world and compete against these new forms of media and entertainment. I think that's what he totally gets. Like he knew instantly that, oh, this is a brand that will absolutely be a hit on social media, which is at the crux of almost everything that we do as a culture now. So he just instantly got that. And then of course the fact that, and I think this goes along with most people, they've never seen weird, irreverent, crazy being used to actually do something really positive, which is getting more people to drink more water more often. And I think the pairing of those two things, I mean, that's really what our brand DNA is that if we were just Liquid Death and crazy and heads flying, and we were an energy drink, it would almost be expected. It'd be like, "Oh yeah, that makes sense." But the fact that it's all that and it's water, and it's promoting an alternative to single use plastic because cans are infinitely recyclable, and basically one of the most sustainable beverage containers by almost every measure. Plastic is a huge problem right now that everybody... it's becoming like the new tobacco really. So it's kind of like sustainability and health paired with just irreverence and weird and contemporary art and internet culture. That's I think what people respond to. They can kind of justify that, "Yes, I know this is crazy and it's viral, but what it's doing is actually really positive and we haven't really seen that before." F Geyrhalter: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's a kernel of truth in your brand that is super, super important. Once you actually start seeing the bigger picture and how it actually is a very positive thing that you're doing, it's fantastic. And let's talk about this for a second because I'm from Austria as I mentioned, your water is also from Austria. Let's talk about how that fits into the story. Because how should we as consumers feel about water being shipped from Fiji and Iceland or Austria, because as you mentioned, you're actually a rather environmentally conscious brand, right? Like you're counting on many vegans in your target audience and you use the cans instead of plastic, which as you mentioned with plastic pollution, that's a huge issue. How do you feel about shipping water from across the pond? M Cessario: The reason that we're bottling and sourcing in Austria is because when I first... it's starting to change a little bit now, but when I first was looking to produce the brand, there is not a single co-packer or bottler in North America who can put non-carbonated springwater in cans. It doesn't exist. F Geyrhalter: Oh wow. M Cessario: Crazy. Because basically the kind of equipment you need for canning when the product doesn't have carbonation and doesn't have a preservative in it is very different than 99.9% of canned products which either have carbonation or preservative. So most of these canning facilities, they weren't equipped to do this, and if you want to use spring water and not just use factory tap water, which most people don't realize, Smartwater, Aquafina, Dasani, Essentia, Lifewater, they're all just purified municipal water from the factory. F Geyrhalter: Right. It's mind blowing, right? Yeah. M Cessario: Yeah. So we kind of knew that as a premium brand, because cans are more expensive than plastic because it's metal, that's also the reason that cans are actually profitable to recycle because the recycled aluminum actually has good value to it that the recycling company can sell and make a profit on based on what it costs to recycle it. Plastic is not. Because recycled plastic is such low quality, they can't really sell it or make a profit on what it cost them to do. They used to sell it to China, but then now China are saying, "We don't want to buy your recycled garbage anymore." So what happens a lot of the time is plastic comes in to a recycling facility and rather than spending the money to grind it down and recycle it, they just have to send it to the landfill because they're not going to go out of business recycling something that's not profitable. So aluminum actually because of the high material value actually helps subsidize the recycling of cheap materials like plastic and glass, where the final recycled product almost has no value to resell. So that's become a long winded way of saying that the way that we got to Austria was we just kind of realized that if we wanted to do spring water and put it in cans, a, any source, if you bottle at the source, that's pretty much what you want to do because the expense of trying to truck tanker trucks of water from a source far away to some canner doesn't really make sense. So most springwater brands are bottled at the source. Any springwater source in the US, they definitely didn't have any canning capabilities. So we found this place in Austria, outside Salzburg and we flew out there, we met them. They own four of their own private mineral waters springs. They had all the canning capabilities. I've been to Apple's offices in Culver City and these bottlers' offices in Austria were nicer than Apple's offices. F Geyrhalter: So you had to say something nice about Austria. I was fishing for compliments. I'm like, well, because Austria has the best damn spring water in the world, but you're like, "Nope, they're the only ones who could pull it off." M Cessario: Yeah, I mean Austria is the most beautiful place I've ever been to. F Geyrhalter: All right. There we go. All right. You're allowed back on the podcast. M Cessario: So yeah, I mean it was kind of just a random... I just kept making phone calls to bottlers and they kept saying, "Oh yeah, no, we don't do that. Oh yeah, no, we don't do that. It can't be done." Had professionals from the industry doing research for us out there too. "Hey, no one can do it." So finally I found this place in Austria. I flew out there and met them. They could do it. We really liked them. Yeah, Austria is kind of cool too because it's like most people haven't had an Austrian water necessarily, and it's kind of a fun kind of interesting thing that could work with the brand. So yeah, let's do that. But we're actually going to be moving all of our water canning and production starting next month to British Columbia in Canada. So we don't have to ship water overseas. It's a much shorter journey. F Geyrhalter: That's awesome. Congrats. That's a big move and I love to hear that. I think it works really, really well what you're trying to do. But back to those curve balls, I mean, you would have never thought that bottling water in a freaking can would be one of those big curve balls in your entrepreneurial journey where you're like, "What? That can't happen. I have to go to Austria." I mean, those are the things that people don't think about when they start a business. It's like, "Well that seems like it makes a lot of sense. Let's do that." We have to slowly wrap up, but a big question that I'd like to ask everyone on my show is if you could describe your brand in one word, and I call it your brand DNA, what could that word be? I know it's not death. Don't tell me it's death. It's not death. M Cessario: No, it's murder. F Geyrhalter: There you go. Exactly. M Cessario: It's funny. We've been working with some friends of ours, like we're actually kind of partnering because now that the business is growing and I can't run the business and actually execute and do all the marketing at the same time, we're now working with a creative agency partner run by a friend of mine named Matt Heath. They're called Party Land, and we've kind of been working with them on that same exact thing where they're like, "Hey, if we had to distill the brand down to one word, what would it be?" We had a little talk about it, and right now where we're landing with it is mischief. That I think is really the DNA of the brand, is pushing the buttons and getting into things you're not supposed to get into but all rooted in kind of this fun, and doing stuff that's subversive. Trying to always avoid doing the traditional approach to something. Rather than, okay, if we want to be at this music festival, the music festival wants to charge you a sponsorship fee of $80,000. You pay them that money and now you have the right to sell them water that they're going to sell at the festival. Right? That's how every other brand has to do it. We're going to look at, okay, how do we like crow bar open the back door to get in there and have a presence? Do we actually go to the headlining band who we think would be into the product and they're really stoked on it and we get it to them and then they request that it's like in the green room and then all the other artists have access to. That's more mischief. How do you subvert? How do you go around just like the pay to play or the traditional way that most brands like Coca-Cola or these other brands have to do because they just don't have the fandom of a brand like ours that would actually have people go out of their way for you or let you in the back door or whatever. F Geyrhalter: Well, mischief is such a great ownable word too, right? And you can totally live up to it. In a way, it's a watered down version of punk rock, which I think works really well. All right, I have so many more questions, but we got to wrap it up. Listeners who fell in love with Liquid Death just now, is Amazon the place to go to, to get their taste of Liquid Death or should they sign up to your newsletter? Which by the way is one of my favorite pieces of your brand because for my listeners, the newsletter sign-up fine print, you know, that little thing that is underneath the big button saying sign me up. Instead of the GDPR blurb, which everyone freaked out about. "Oh my God, we have to be compliant." It actually says by selecting start selling my soul, which is the button to click to sign up. I agree I want to receive important info and offers from Liquid Death since they will own my soul for eternity. So I guess you can do that. You can start selling my soul on the website, hit that button. Or where else can they find your product right now? M Cessario: Yeah. So you can buy it on Amazon or you can buy it direct from our website at liquiddeath.com. In terms of selling your soul, I think that's an interesting... It's been one of our most popular things now, it's basically on our website. You can legally sell us your soul. There's an actual legal document that we had a real lawyer draft up. It'll automatically populate your name and everything in there, you click to sign it like a DocuSign digital thing. And that is the only way that you can join the Liquid Death Country Club, is by selling your soul. And then once you're a Country Club member on our website, you'll get a free VIP case added to your first order, if you're a country club member. F Geyrhalter: And since this is a legal document, do you also outline what you will be doing with the soul of your tribe members? M Cessario: No, it basically says we can do whatever we want with it. F Geyrhalter: That's pretty good. There's got to be a whole new podcast about what you have done with the soul once the deceased start appearing in your office. Well, Mike, this was a blast. I really appreciate taking the time out of a busy schedule at a time when your young brand is really taking off. So thank you so much for having been on the show. M Cessario: Yeah. I know. Thanks for having me. It was fun. F Geyrhalter: Absolutely. And thanks to you for listening, for subscribing, for rating, and for reviewing this podcast. This podcast is brought to you by FINIEN, a brand consultancy creating strategic, verbal and visual brand clarity. You can learn more about FINIEN and download free white papers to support your own brand launch or rebranding efforts at finien.com. The Hitting The Mark theme music was written and produced by Happiness Won. I will see you next time when we once again will be hitting the mark.

Hi! I'm back in the US now. I spent two weeks in China, clearing out my apartment. I sold a few things, gave away and threw away a lot of things, and sent some things home by slow boat. It was a busy two weeks, filled with visiting friends and students, and figuring out what to do with my things. I thought that I had one year to prepare to move, but when I found out that I wasn't being rehired (they kept the younger teachers, not me) I had to go to China from the US and clear my apartment quickly. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was good to see my friends and students again! I got back from China about ten days ago, had a few days to rest, then went with my mother and brother to a family wedding in another state. My niece (my sister's daughter) got married. We spent a lot of time with family during the weekend and then came back. We had a great time. I hadn't seen my sister for over a year. Yesterday my brother left to go to his home in Georgia. He took his two cats with him. Now there are only three cats at my mother's house. I am teaching online now, with PalFish and Language Master. These are both Chinese apps. I specialize in giving mock IELTS exams. Now, here's a podcast episode from a few years ago. I hope you find it useful. ----------- LnR 090 (Casual Language) Say and Hey (Replay) 1. Say, could I borrow your pen? 2. Say, could you turn the volume down a bit? 3. Say, I've got a question for you. 4. Say, can you stop by the store and get a dozen eggs on your way home? 5. Say, why is she so upset? 6. Hey, how are you? 7. Hey Mike, I haven't seen you in ages! 8. Hey, what are you doing? 9. Hey, watch out! 10. Hey, get off my lawn!  

Hey Mike, I still didn’t put a description for this episode.

In this episode, Stan and Mike talk to Steve Moses about the decisions we make as concealed carriers.  The three talk about everything from carrying a firearm, to the decisions we make while carrying, including complex decisions regarding self defense.   The full transcription of this podcast is below.  Speaker 1: 00:01 Welcome to the Inside CCW Safe Podcast, with founders Stan Campbell and Mike Darter. If you're forced to fight the battle for your life, CCW Safe will fight the battle for your future. Mike: 00:11 Alright, welcome back to the Inside CCW Safe Podcast, I'm Mike Darter in Oklahoma City. Stan: 00:26 Stan Campbell, I'm in Los Angeles today and the weather is fair, Michael. Mike: 00:31 It's fair? Stan: 00:33 It's fair. Mike: 00:34 It's still cold here, man. Think we're gonna get snow here this weekend maybe. Or ice [crosstalk 00:00:39] somethin' somethin' somethin'. Mike: 00:40 How's mama Mona doin'? Stan: 00:43 You know, we haven't talked about mama Mona in a while. Mike: 00:44 I know! Stan: 00:46 She's still in the Dallas area, metro area. She relocated and she's doin' well, you know. I put that app on her phone so that I can keep track of where she is, so, you know it's really helpful especially if she ever has any emergencies and such, but she laughs, she gets tickled when I just call her out of the blue and say, "Oh, so you washin' your car now?", "Oh, so you at the Subway? Better be havin' something healthy!", so she loves the fact that I can follow her around and stalk her, so yeah. It's fun, but it's safe. If you guys have not seen the app, it's 360, right Mike? Mike: 01:27 Yeah, Life360. Stan: 01:28 Yeah, Life360 is a great app if you wanna really keep track of your family members and they can hit a panic-type button and let everybody know where they are, so it's awesome. I love it. Mike: 01:44 Yeah, it's what I use with the girls in the past. So I have officially made a proposal to stay in, to add a mama Mona moment to our podcast where we call mama Mona, we present her with either situational awareness things or questions from our members. Mike: 02:16 That's in the works, man. We're gonna have [inaudible 00:02:19] for mama Mona moments. Stan: 02:21 Yeah, she's so sweet, but she really hasn't still just common sense. Mike: 02:26 Oh man, yeah, she's got the common sense. Stan: 02:29 She really does, I mean a lot of these questions and not all of them from members, some of them are from customers and some of them can get really outrageous just with the scenarios and we gonna allow mama Mona to answer the questions, "What if I see a baby with an AK47 pointing it at a grandmother?" Mike: 02:46 "What if somebody chasin' me, tryin' to beat me with a dead squirrel?" Stan: 02:51 Yes. We'll let mama Mona answer those. Mike: 02:55 Well speaking of common sense, we have Steve Moses is on today, from Texas. Steve: 03:01 Hey guys. Mike: 03:01 And Steve's got some awesome articles recently. How you doin' Steve? Steve: 03:06 Oh, I'm doin' well. I'm doin' well. It's good to be back talkin' to you guys. Mike: 03:10 How's the weather in Texas? East Texas? Steve: 03:13 Nasty. Mike: 03:14 Is it? Steve: 03:15 Nasty. Cold, damp, wet, you know, so, it's kind of a almost a sub-tropic environment here. It's very beautiful and everything, but the humidity is pretty high and when these cold fronts that come through Oklahoma and [inaudible 00:03:29] you guys get down here, we're not frigid, we're just miserable. Mike: 03:34 Yeah, that's what it is here. Steve: 03:38 Just miserable. Mike: 03:40 So what are we talking about today Stan? Stan: 03:43 Well today, I decided to ... we're having Steve Moses, he submitted a piece of writing that we were gonna look at as a article, but I thought that be so much better as a topic of discussion for the podcast, especially on the cuffs of having David Darter here, you don't know [crosstalk 00:04:06] last week we had Dave Darter talking about different things that comes up during customer service and question and stuff that we get a lot Steve. So we were kinda answering some of those scenario type questions and when I saw your submission I said, "Oh no. That's perfect for our topic of discussion today." Stan: 04:31 Steve if you can kinda introduce what that is and why you even chose that topic. Steve: 04:41 The title of the article I wrote was Boring Article, Serious Subject. It is kinda come to my mind where I've seen people carrying handguns in areas and locations where they probably shouldn't. Citing that old Maxim, "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6." I kinda got, "I really don't want to put myself in to a position where I am a D judged by 12 and perhaps I might lose my rights to possess a concealed handgun. Or worse, end up in prison." This is something that I've seen quite frequently and while I'm very much a believer that we should be armed to the extent that we can, it needs to be done lawfully and it needs to be done with some common sense. Steve: 05:41 There are areas where it's basic, like in Texas, where concealed carry is banned, but by the same token, it's a criminal trespass issue primarily if you are accosted or that is discovered and then you're asked to vacate the premises and you do not do so. The penalty for that I don't consider to be something significant, we can always go back and leave. We can choose not to go to those kind of places. But on occasion there are places where all of us, I don't care who you are, need to go where being able to have a concealed handgun on your person is a bad idea, perhaps for a variety of reasons. Mike: 06:31 And you know, we talked about that a little bit on the podcast, the last podcast with David, but there's also one other thing that I think we, everybody really needs to be honest with themselves about and this is Pat McNamara actually put it on his Instagram one day. Just because you have a gun does not mean you are armed. [crosstalk 00:06:58] And I think everybody needs to be, I mean including me, I mean everybody needs to be realistic and honest with themselves on if you're, just because you have a firearm does not mean you're armed. Steve: 07:17 That's right. Stan: 07:20 I love how he put that because you can take that in a couple of different ways because you can talk about mindset, that being relevant to mindset, that being relevant to your physical abilities to even defend your weapon or pull it out without somebody taking it from you, or the fact that you don't train at all. Mike: 07:40 Right. Stan: 07:41 There are so many different ways you can look at that so. Qaeda is on it there. Thanks for bringing that up Mike. Hey before we get too far, also 'cause I know Steve is gonna keep talking, I wanted to remind everybody Steve talked about that. As far as CCW Safe members, please understand this is a reminder. I think I did it last week, but I'm a do it again. As far as no gun zones, you will be outside of the scope of coverage if you are in a place where it is a felony or misdemeanor in itself to possess a firearm on the premises, okay. You will also be out of coverage if you challenge someone on private property, you know what I mean as a business owner or representative and you refuse to leave that property, standing up for second amendment rights, but deciding to take on that misdemeanor charge or trespassing. Those are the areas that you will not be covered. Stan: 08:49 Now, if you are walking out after someone told you to leave and Isis comes in or Al-Qaeda, and you save the day we will cover you. If you're on the premises where you accidentally bypass a sign or they didn't have one up, and they didn't tell you to leave and someone comes in and robs the place and such, then you will be covered for that incident, defending yourself or another. I had to get that in because everybody calls in on that and they really want to know. Not to say, I know it seems like it happens a lot nationally, and we're not gonna say it not on the rise, but it doesn't happen as much and there's nothing wrong with people calling and having concerns about, "will you cover me if?", please understand that like Mike said, be armed. In those three areas, training, have your mindset right, and the physical ability to sustain that fight and protect your weapon. Go ahead Steve. Steve: 10:00 Those are all excellent points. Those are very good points. One of the other things that occurred to me when I was thinking about writing this article is that in many instances there's places where it's just a bad idea to have your handgun on your person. If you're someone who's gonna go to a Superbowl party or go out to a bar and basically "Okay I don't have my handgun on my person while I'm actually in that place, but on the way back to wherever I came from, I do have my handgun on my place and I'm under the influence of alcohol," and if you're stopped that is a serious incident in and of itself and if you're forced to use any kind of force in order to defend yourself and it's later determined that "wow. You were under the influence of alcohol," that can be a big problem. To that end, I just thought we really need to exercise some good judgment when we go about our life. Life is not without risk. Every time we drive to a grocery store or we get on an airplane or anything else, there's always the risk that something can happen, but it many instances we can to some effect mitigate that risk by having good judgment, making good decisions, and following through. Steve: 11:33 One of the things that I do know that a lot of concealed carriers do, actually I should say concealed carriers, I'll just say people do is they store their handguns in their vehicles. I believe there I read, let me see there, I think it was the guardian said, I can't recall the year, might have been like 2015 or so, that between 300,000 and 600,000 firearms reported as stolen. As people now have the right to carry guns on their person, what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot more guns in vehicles. Steve: 12:16 People go to a place they go, "Well, I can't carry my gun in there. I'm just gonna stick it under here, under the car seat in the console, in the glove compartment and leave it. Then they're somewhat horrified when they come back and they see typically a window broken out, snatch and grab took place, and now that gun is missing. Stan: 12:40 Yeah. That's terrible. Steve: 12:43 It is bad. It is bad. Mike: 12:46 That's one thing I looked at early on when we first started CCW Safe was different. At one time we had a little video on there, kinda some different products but, yeah you think about people just putting it in between the seat and the column or whatever. If you get in a wreck, that thing could be a flying object through that car. Stan: 13:14 Projectile. Mike: 13:15 I've gotten to where I've gotten the console vault in both my trucks now. Steve I don't know if you've heard of Gold Star Holsters? Stan: 13:28 No I have not. Mike: 13:29 They have a really cool deal that they sent one out. I'm actually ordering one for my P365, but they have a under the steering wheel where column now holstered that is actually like a Kydex holster. It's pretty cool. Those are the two that I would strongly recommend, vault or whatever for the console vaults and then this one is really cool. Actually I have, they sent me one for a Glock 19, Steve, I'm gonna send it down. Actually when you come up next week I'll get it to you. Stan: 14:09 Okay. That sounds good, why don't you take a look at it. I'll take a look it at it. Mike: 14:12 Yeah it's awesome. It's awesome. So is that what you, what do you use, Steve? Steve: 14:18 Well actually when I'm in my car I keep my handgun on my person. I keep it in a holster. If something happens, I know where that handgun is going to be. I don't feel like "Okay. Oh where's that handgun?" So I'm trying to find it under bad circumstances. To that end, I keep my handgun on my person. I typically carry appendix which is very easy to drive with. If you get a good holster and you actually put the bottom of the seatbelt over the holster, blouse your shirt over it and then if for some reason you're forced to use your handgun while you're still in your car, it's there. Steve: 15:05 However, when I go to leave my car I want that handgun completely out of sight. There's some really inexpensive options for doing this. I mean some of them start at less than $30. They're just super lock boxes. They're made of metal. They're padded. They have a three digit combination lock and they come with a cable that allows you to loop the cable around the frame of your automobile seat so that you can then store the handgun in there, lock it, and put it underneath your car seat. Some of these are relatively inexpensive under $30. They go up in price and probably robustness. Probably the more robust they are, the more they're going to defy any attempt to open 'em. Steve: 16:05 For the most part, people that break into and enter into cars, burglarize cars, they're moving pretty fast. They don't have the tools it would take to free that storage safe from it. I don't wanna say you can't break in to it, but it's gonna be pretty difficult. Most of you know, burglars don't carry around a set of bolt cutters, those are hard to explain in the event that you run into a police officer, especially if you have a background. But something just as small as that can go a long ways towards securing a handgun inside of a vehicle. Steve: 16:46 Yeah, that's awesome. Mike: 16:48 I've had those that have the cable that wrap around like seat post lock into it ... Yep, yep. Steve: 16:56 Yes sir. One of the things I might add is that it requires discipline in order to always do this. Having good intentions and then failing to following through, that's not gonna get you what you want. It may take a little bit of time in order to get that handgun safely out of the holster or however you carry it. Basically, something I've really encouraged all of our listeners to do is to make sure that you have taken some formal training from a qualified instructor so you know how to get handguns in and back into the holster safely. Stan: 17:37 That's right. Steve: 17:38 You have to do it the same way every single time. It needs to be done so that trigger finger is straight, you're concentrating on what you're doing, you're not multi-tasking. And when you withdraw that handgun and you insert that handgun back into the holster, you don't wanna be muzzling any of your own body parts. Stan: 17:57 That's right. You know we had a member just recently send a email, I think I shared it with you Steve, in which he listened to you the last time you were on the podcast and he signed up for one of your classes 'cause I think he was just within 30 miles of you. Steve: 18:15 That's correct. Stan: 18:16 It got just like Steve said and I'll have him again share a list of qualified instructors, firearms instructors, that he would use or that he has gone to their classes and actually verified that they are legit or significant in the industry. Make sure we'll share that stuff with you, as well. Stan: 18:41 But like Steve said, it's absolutely important to get that training. I train police officer 15 years and even they don't have as much time as they should on protecting their firearm, getting it in and out of the holster, establishing that "muscle memory" and preparing for someone that is intentional about hurting you. That doesn't happen to often in your lifetime, but a traumatic attack when someone that is really, they have that thing, either some liquid courage I call alcohol, or some type of drug that takes them to a place where they're not thinking sensibly or they're just have decided that you are the target and they're gonna execute an attack ... It doesn't happen often, but when it does you have to be ready to go beyond just verbal commands. Something you might have to be prepared to do, especially for a surprise attack or ambush type situation, you have to be prepared to respond to these things. Stan: 20:00 Seek out a lot of training on the range. Go ahead and invest into a training firearm, I'm talkin' maybe a little rubber gun or something like that that's similar to what you carry and then you and your buddies get together in a safe manner just wrestle around. Get out the house and put it some time where somebody's trying to get your weapon so you can figure out what am I gonna do? Stan: 20:29 In case and point, I was really hard on the officers. If there's any listening, they really, you'll vouch for this. I was hard on the officers and I would literally, this is no joke, some of the other instructors look at me like I was crazy, but I would slap them so hard when I get on their gun and they wouldn't knock my hand off of it. Just something as simple as that. So I would hit 'em and give them some physical encouragement so that they know that this is serious. There's a couple of training recruits that I made cry, boys and girls. I made 'em cry, but it's so that you train in a sterile environment and as much as you can try to make it so that this is real. Stan: 21:14 You need to practice the fight for your life so that you know when you actually do, you can handle a three minute fight or protect your weapon, or even while you on the ground, try to figure out how would I pull it out of my holster if someone is on top of me. How do I adjust my body? These are really really important things that we spend really not enough time. You still need to spend a lot of time on the range and in target shooting, but no one spends time trying to figure out, what would actually happen if? What would I do? Same thing with the training weapon, I keep saying training weapon because I don't want nobody accidentally shooting their friend. What would I do if I just parked somewhere in my garage and someone opened up my door and came inside my drivers side door and pinned me to my passenger side door where I couldn't get my firearm out and I still got my seatbelt on. These are those things that don't happen often, but when they do, if you have a plan you got a better chance of surviving attack like that. Steve: 22:18 That's actually awesome, awesome advice. I'm glad you said that. That's something that should probably be discussed in a future article or podcast. Having the experience and the skills and the ability what Stan is referring to, not only does it better prepare you for such an incident, it also puts you in a position where if you have those skills and you know how you would probably properly respond, it makes one less likely to prematurely go to the handgun when they think "Wow, this person is about to unleash some violence on me. My only response is gonna be I go to my handgun, and then it turns out I was wrong. There was video I did it prematurely. Now I'm facing a brandishment issue." Stan: 23:14 Oh we've had several of those. Really, these people, they were lucky Steve, that we had the resources to handle their mistake. You guys gotta be careful out there because those mistakes cost 10,000 to start with and then it goes up from there. If you dip too far away from us and go outside of coverage, then you're on your own and that sucks. We want to do everything in our power to take care of you and that's why we give you guys these articles and podcasts and different things so you can learn from the mistakes of others. Learn from the challenges of others. Don't make you that guy because that guy, it hurts when somebody says "Will the defendant please stand." Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody. Stan: 24:09 Be mindful of those things and before Steve steps back in, I passed up a few things that they said something significant, he and Mike. I'm one when I'm in the car I like to carry on hip as well, but I too, I carry secondary weapons. I have a real nice seven, eight inch, I think it's an eight inch knife that my door, right inside my drivers side door, I have an additional one over on my passenger side and some other thing I hold up in different areas of my car so that if I do get pushed down somewhere and Michael calls it, what did you say? I ball up into a fetal position? I'm a pretty tough guy but, if I get caught slippin', I know that if I got pushed into a fetal position, which is not my go to position, but if I got pushed into a fetal position because someone got the jump on me at the gas station or whatever, I fall into a position and a space where there's another weapon that I'm gonna do some major damage so that I can get to my gun. So those are things you guys to think about- Steve: 25:29 That's awesome. Stan: 25:29 Plus, Steve talked about carrying a gun in places where you cannot, or not carrying because you know you can't carry a firearm. But don't forget those who are CCW Safe members, we cover you for any legal weapon. If you can't carry a firearm and you have another legal weapon or weapon of opportunity or even physical force to defend the life of yourself or another, we got you covered. That's one of the reasons why when Mike and I designed these models and the police union model, we made sure that we said "Okay. We need to cover these guys like we had coverage when we were in the police department." There were times we couldn't use, like at the state fair, there's so many people that you wouldn't dare pull your gun out and start shooting in that direction where there's a suspect, plus 50 people behind 'em depending on your distance. Stan: 26:27 There's other things that we have to have or weapons of opportunity have been used to take a life on the police department with like flashlights and such. A lot of officers had to feel people flashlights. These two of the things that we would if there was cement screw you had to pick up and defend your life, we got you. We got you covered. Anyway, that's what I kinda wanted to talk about coverage. The people, they really like to know how deep that goes, Steve. So go ahead and continue sir. Steve: 26:56 Excellent. Well one of the things I kinda wanted to touch on is that the inexpensive safes that I'm referring to. While they should secure a firearm in most instances, they're not quick access. If you want something that's quick access and also secure, then you're probably looking at additional funds and I have zero issue with that. One of the things that I do kinda like about these more inexpensive lock boxes with the cable is that if you are staying in a place other than your home, let's say for instance it's a travel trailer, it's a hotel room, and you want to be able to secure our handgun from reasonable efforts to have it stolen or to keep children from accessing it, this same lock box can be used to secure the handgun, loop the cable around the doorframe. I'm sure that listeners can find other ways to do that, but that also affords you another means of keeping that handgun secure when it's not on your person. Steve: 28:13 Something that's really important is whether you store a handgun in a vehicle or not. I try to avoid stickers and decals that say things such as "I don't call 911", "Driver only carries $20 worth of ammunition", I try to keep those kinda decals off my vehicle because I think that's just kind of a advertisement that says burglarize me first. I think that's probably a good way to go and also it just makes common sense. Don't leave other items out there that either have decals on your vehicle, but you have like uh you left your cell phone out there. You left the obvious charging cord for maybe a garment or a TomTom or a purse. Or anything that looks like it might hold something of value because it doesn't take any time at all for an experienced criminal to break into your car, grab that particular item, and they're gone. I mean, car alarms are such that we hear 'em going off all the time and what happens when we hear a car alarm going off in a parking lot most of the time? We ignore it. Stan: 29:32 We disregard it, yeah. Steve: 29:33 Somebody was looking for their vehicle. The thing is, anything you can kinda do to keep your vehicle sort of under the radar, be kind of the gray man if you will, I think that helps. The other thing too is think about where you're gonna park your car. Think about it in advance. Are there locations where your car is more likely to be broken into than others? Give that some thought. The closer I can get to a store entrance when I park, that's a good thing. I like parking under lights. I just try to take all those things into consideration that is just not a good idea to put your handgun in a position where others can get it. The numbers, a matter of fact, I believe it was in Memphis that I think the number is over a thousand handguns possibly, or firearms are stolen from vehicles every year. Stan: 30:35 Oh my god. Steve: 30:35 That is, people are losing a lot of guns. In some instances from what I understand, people are leaving handguns in cars and the cars are unlocked. Stan: 30:48 That's right. Steve: 30:48 Just take all this in to consideration. These gun safes are not that expensive and a little bit of foresight can really save you a lot of trouble later. Stan: 30:59 That's right. Mike: 31:00 Hey Steve, can those boxes also the safes, the small safes, can those also be used to transport on planes? Do you know what the policy of that by chance? Steve: 31:15 I'm gonna say that the small ones probably can. I probably need to verify that. I believe that I read that that is the case. But that's also a very, very good way to secure a hand gun, I think the main thing is TSA need to be able to access it. And I'm not sure exactly how that would work with the three digit combinations. By the same token, when I fly I use a three digit combination padlock. I know TSA can access those, but I'm not sure if that's the case on this. We probably just need to check that out before answering. Stan: 31:54 Yeah, make sure you check the rules and regulations associated with each airline that you fly 'cause all of them a little bit different. Also, to piggyback what Steve was just making reference to, I've said this in other podcasts as well, have a plan when you leave your house. There's two things that you shouldn't do at night. Plan to do them during the day. That is to get gas and go to the ATM so that you have a better chance of not being targeted. Stan: 32:26 The other thing, even if you have these boxes and stuff like that, I always say you stopping at the mall, you stop somewhere, if it's a planned stop, stop about two blocks away. Pull over to the side, put your gun in your box, put your purses in your trunk so that people don't see you do these things when you pull up to the mall, and different stuff like that because the greatest point of vulnerability is when you're trying to concentrate on how to store your firearm. Now you've got your head down and doin' different things like that. When you get to the store, you should be ready just to pop out, look around, like Steve said, find a great spot to park, look around make sure there's no strange looking people out, or people out of place. Then get out and go in to the store, making sure your stuff is locked up and there's nothing visible to be stolen. Thanks Steve for all that. Steve: 33:26 Excellent point. Excellent, excellent point. Stan: 33:28 Well Steve I have a million of 'em. Thank you. Steve: 33:40 I don't doubt. And anyway, a big part of it is kinda look at the overall picture. Life in many ways in kind of a strategy. It's like okay, my ultimate plan here is I want to be as trained as I can. I want my practice to have been current. I want to be familiar with the laws regarding the use of force, regardless of where I am. When I'm out in the public, to the extent that I can, I want to be armed. When I can't do that, I want my guns secured. I want to minimize the time that I'm at at-risk locations. Sometimes I realize that cannot be avoided. But, the main thing is just kinda try to use common sense and then in addition to common sense, this is one of the things I really try to drive home with my students, is then you've got to use discipline. When you're tired, or it's raining, or you're cold, or you wanna get something done, saying "You know what? I'm just not gonna do what I know is smart this time," I think that's a slippery slope that you're going down to. Steve: 34:53 I just really encourage all the listeners, I would encourage this to anybody, is just use good judgment, but then always, always, always, follow through if you can. Stan: 35:05 That's right. Michael you're up. Mike: 35:11 I'm just listening, man. Stan: 35:16 Listen, you know you got a million things to say. Steve: 35:20 Stan, I have something to say. Stan: 35:22 Uh oh. Steve: 35:24 This is going back to the comment you made about the use of a defensive knife. Stan: 35:30 Yes, sir. Steve: 35:31 I absolutely subscribe to that. I keep a knife on my person any time I'm not in the hospital doin' somethin' related to being a nose guy. I keep a knife on my person. The ability to use that as a force multiplier, especially for females who in many ways a lot of them are assaulted way different than males are. A lot of times with females, and this is maybe even true for smaller males, is that the other person is more prone to just using physical force in order to force their will and get what they want, as opposed to the threat of using a handgun in order to accomplish that. Having that knife on your person, close access, and having it in a position where I can access it or it can be accessed relatively quickly, and knowing how to use it when you're in an entangled situation, man those are awesome skills. If you have that ability in order to do that and you have nothing in your hands more than a really robust stainless steel ink pen, you're well armed. Stan: 37:01 Absolutely. Steve: 37:01 You can do a lot of damage with that ink pen in terms of putting the other person in a situation where they're forced to break contact or they can't continue doing whatever it was when they were attempting to injure you, sexually assault you, or kill you for that matter. Stan: 37:22 That's right. Hey Mike what is the name of the ... The name just escapes me. What's the name of the bracelet that you and I wear? Mike: 37:35 Oh, the underarm, I mean the Leatherman Tread? Stan: 37:36 Yes, that's right. The Leatherman Tread, if you don't know what that is, pick one up because it's a very, very cool looking piece and it has a lot of tools and stuff on it, but I wear it a lot because it too, I've learned how to adjust it to make it a impromptu weapon. It's one of my favorite ones to wear on the planes. I open it open and drop it down to almost cover my knuckles if I had to deal with something like that. There's a different way you can carry it with the tools that you can use as almost a cutting type device to defend yourself if somebody got you wrapped up and they tryin' to go for your gun and you take it and you just kinda rip a portion of skin across the top of their forehead and make 'em bleed into their eye. Poke and do anything you need to do. You really have to have the mindset to say, "if you're going for my gun, I am going to bite pieces of your cheek out. I'm gonna pull your eyeball out." You gotta be ready to do all those things. Stan: 38:45 When I talked about the training and the academy, I'm really not playing about that. One of those individuals who could not get me off of his gun, five years later, he answered a call here in Oklahoma City in which he was attacked. It was a robbery call and they said the guy only had a knife so he got out, he wasn't prepared. The guy ended up physically attacking him, taking his gun from him, standing over top of the officer, and shooting at him while he was on the ground. While he twisted and turned, only the hand of God saved that officer from being injured 'cause that guy was right above him and he wasn't shot. The bottom line to the story is it's very serious. You are carrying around a tool of death and destruction and you need to act like it. You need to be able to protect it. Think about these different things. Pick up the pens, the things that can be used as impromptu weapons to protect yourself in the secondary. Steve: 40:09 You know Stan, there was actually a tactical pen that I saw at the shot show this year called the Impromptu. Stan: 40:17 Really? Pull that out. Steve: 40:19 Yes, it's made by Gerber. It's actually a decent writing instrument. It actually is one of the click pens so it's not one of the ones you have to take it in two pieces and everything. Something like that in your hand, especially if you know how to use it and your target is forehead and eyes, that's a pretty awesome tool for doing that. If you don't have anything else, especially recommend this to people that are having to walk to their cars at nighttime after dark. Just simply having that pen in your hand and an understanding of few very, very basic moves can go a long ways towards making sure that you're less likely to be injured or worse. Stan: 41:14 I love that. I think I'm a get that one. I just saw a picture of it on the internet. Mike: 41:19 Yeah, I pulled it up. I pulled it up too while [crosstalk 00:41:22] Stan: 41:22 Impromptu technical pen. Steve: 41:24 Yes, sir. Stan: 41:25 I like those. Steve: 41:25 Yeah, you're timing is awesome. Stan: 41:28 Yeah I actually keep something similar to that on my visor, but I like that one. I'm a get that. Stan: 41:37 Oh, thank you sir. Yeah, you know what you're right. That's one of those things, what can I carry on the airplane? Stan: 41:42 You guys, it's really important to do all these things and to prepare. Always remember, Steve talked about it before in one of his last podcast about training with jiu jitsu and some type of martial arts and keeping yourself physically ready to defend yourself. No matter how old you get, you have to figure it out for your body type and what you do to be able to defend yourself. Don't just walk around and grow old into a victim. Get yourself ready and do what you can to survive. Just really important to seek out these instructors. Physical martial arts type training should go side by side with firearms training. It's a close cousin and it too will save your life. You have to do these things. Mike: 42:38 Yeah and I would just tell people too, look back over some of our articles, especially from Steve. In the podcast we had Steve on not too long ago, we talked one about gear. But also Bob O'Connor, his series. If you just search Bob O'Connor you'll pull up some of his articles as well. You have one on the principles of concealed carry and one being mindset. So we definitely have things on our side that can kind of point you in the right direction. Ultimately it's going to come down to you as a concealed carrier, taking it upon yourself to do some of these things that we're recommending because I do strongly believe everything we've said here today, I totally believe in. When I saw that post by Mac it was like, it's so true that just because- Stan: 43:46 [crosstalk 00:43:46] Mac's social media, he'd be great to follow because- Mike: 43:50 Yeah, he would. Stan: 43:50 We're talking about a hero in training. I don't know anybody that goes as hard as Mac. Mike: 43:57 I think it is ... let me look it up right quick. TMA on Instagram, he does a lot of stuff on Instagram and it is TMACSINC. That's Pat McNamara. He's got some really good drills and for law enforcement he's got some great shooting drills with sandbags and doing things along with the shooting. I haven't seen much of those on there lately. He had a lot of those in the past. Stan: 44:42 Yeah he's mixing up, but you definitely need to follow him. He's the real deal and you talk about extreme training, you just take what he does and kinda dumb it down for your body type and level. You can really, really increase your abilities just by getting a lot of that stuff done. It's really hard to not train static, but it really is important to raise your heart rate because if somebody surprise attacks you, everything is gonna shut down and your body is gonna prepare for trauma. So your body prepares for war, but in doing so there's things happening in your body that you're not gonna be able to control, so you gotta try to recreate that or get it as close as you can to that and see how you respond when you shoot a firearm at that time. Those are really, really important to do so find people. Stan: 45:41 You know Pat and you know of course Vicars and all the rest of our guys. Jeff Gonzalez and Spalding and some of the others that we subscribe to and that are associated with CCW Safe as well. Just find these trainers and put in the work. Put in the work so that when you get attacked, you don't have to. Mike: 46:02 And speaking of, we're actually having Larry on next week, I believe. Stan: 46:07 That's right. [crosstalk 00:46:09] Mike: 46:10 I'll reach out to Pat too and probably get him on. Stan: 46:13 That would be awesome. Mike: 46:15 He's got a really good deal talking about personal protection detail, controlling your own personal protection detail. And he's got some really good- Stan: 46:30 Be your own body guard. Mike: 46:31 Short videos on those. What was that? Steve: 46:38 I think you said being your own body guard. Stan: 46:40 Yeah, be your own body guard. But it derives from the sentinel, correct Mike? Mike: 46:46 Yeah, he has a book called the Sentinel that I would say if you haven't read that, get it. You can get it on Amazon. I think you can get a digital format, it's just a short read. It's a very short read, but it's just on being your own sentinel for you and your family. Developing personal protection details, plans, and it's just a great blueprint for your own personal safety plans. Stan: 47:20 Absolutely. Mike: 47:22 Lets talk about, are there any other social media that you follow, Steve, that you would recommend for people? Steve: 47:36 I'll tell you what, I like Greg Ellifritz. A lot of the information he puts out I find very sound. There's another instructor that actually did a interview with him and submitted an article, named Cecil Burch. Cecil Burch, he has a company called Immediate Action Combatives and he is very much dialed into just the short range, a realistic approach to dealing with a situation in where your near contact distance or contact distance in such a manner that regardless of your age and almost your physical condition, you can do things that lessen the chances that you're going to be taken out of the fight immediately. Basically, you can pick your skills and use them as a speed bump in order to gain some time and then turn the odds back into your favor. So I follow him, anything by Craig Douglas. Another guy named Paul Sharp. These guys, they blog, they post on Facebook and I pretty much read everything that they do very carefully. Tom Gibbons, y'all have heard me talk about him multiple times. With range master, he has a monthly newsletter. Always got some good articles in that. Another person that I follow is Carl Wren KR training. He is a retired college professor, grand master IPSC shooter and a basically a full time trainer. Just very, very, very bright. Very articulate. Very analytical. I just kinda listen to what these guys have to say and they're not all guys. Steve: 49:36 Melody is someone whenever she posts something, she especially kind of tuned in to the perhaps a female perspective on self defense. She's a relatively small female and what she has done and can do, she's very- Mike: 49:53 Who's that? Steve: 49:54 In to Melody Lauer. Mike: 50:00 Lauer? Steve: 50:02 Lauer. LAUER I believe. Mike: 50:05 And then what was Cecil Burch's training program called? Steve: 50:11 Immediate Action Combatives. Mike: 50:15 Okay. Steve: 50:15 Yeah, very, very, very articulate. Very articulate, I mean everything he says is very insightful and it's doable. There's no cool ninja commando stuff in his program. It's largely based upon common sense. He's got outstanding martial arts background in addition to his firearms background. He's a ... Golly, he's a ... I'm not sure how many stripes he has, but he's a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu under Megaton. And so- Mike: 50:52 Where is he at? Missouri? Steve: 50:54 Out of Phoenix, Arizona. Mike: 50:57 Oh Phoenix, okay. Steve: 50:59 Phoenix, Arizona. Matter of fact, he's not too far from Ernest Langdon. He and Ernest are acquainted. I try to read that stuff all the time. I'd rather kinda learn a lot of that material through their experience as opposed to my experience, 'cause you know what, a lot of experience I've gained is a kind of specific to me and some of it has been kind a painful acquiring so, I'd rather, I like to read that kinda stuff and say "oh wow, this guy found himself in that situation. This is how he dealt with it, or this is how he or she believed they could have dealt with it better. Okay." I filed that away in my mental Rolodex which means that okay, I've seen this. This is something that I can use to benefit myself if I find myself in what appears to be a like scenario. Mike: 51:52 You know that's some good stuff. I was pulling a lot of these up as you were talking about 'em. This is something that we should start doing, Stan. Start recommending some of these, some of the people that we follow, and some of the other companies that we're dealing with now. Stan: 52:16 Yeah, I love that. Steve: 52:17 There's a lot of good instructors out there and one of the things that I've noticed a trend towards is that we're seeing more of the, how should I say this, works for practical self defense scenarios. When I first started training which was in 1993, the premise was that the guy was always gonna have a revolver held at belly level and he's gonna be wearing a ski mask. Okay so that's how we always trained and everything that we ever shot was a guy like that. And then we got in to the whole tactical side of that, which was cool. Tactical carbines, shotguns, team tactics, high risk entry, vehicle defense, did a bunch of that. And that was cool too. But, I always kind of saw myself when I did this, I think I'm kind of like a grownup kid here. I'm having a great time and I'm sure some of these skills could be useful to me at some point, but I'm not sure exactly when. Steve: 53:24 Now we're seeing a trend where we have so much video out there, John Corriea has done a wonderful job of a, and hopefully I pronounced his name correctly, of getting out a lot of video on situations where people had to defend themselves against perhaps a beat down, a stabbing, a robbing, a kidnapping. Now we can kinda see what's happening in these real life situations. And so our training now has become more specific to dealing with those kind of situations which I think this is probably one of the best times ever for a concealed carrier to be investing in training. Stan: 54:07 That's right. Steve: 54:14 [crosstalk 00:54:14] There's a lot of good stuff out there, a lot of good stuff out there. Sorry I interrupted. Mike: 54:18 That's all right. Just Stan wanted to, you had sent a text saying you wanted to cover, you wanted to address some email or something? Stan: 54:26 Yeah, just real quick. Mike and I, we always suggest you guys call in and give us some feedback on the podcast and all the stuff that we're doing to help you become your own risk manager. So real quick, want to give a shout out to a few people starting off with Clip Beasley, he's a supportive one, his quote was "Today I unlocked my phone and the start of your podcast, it began playing." He was really excited, he listened to it. He says he really appreciates the things that we're doing and it's very positive, our association. He kinda gave us a big shout out for what we doing with the podcast and said kudos. Then we have Michael W. From North Carolina. He's a former law enforcement officer. He retired from North Carolina state LEO and he says that "I gained a lot of insight from your messages. I recently switched from," I'm not gonna name the company, "and have gained more from CCW Safe in a month than I did from them in almost two years. Please continue to podcast." Stan: 55:43 And then finally, from J Ralsh in Virginia, it's a pretty long one, I'm not gonna read all of it, but he said, "Gentlemen, I want to let you know I'm enjoying the new podcast. Informative, interesting, and continue drill down the critical factors of self defense. Same goes for the articles, videos, and online training you provide." He had a story where, following listening to the podcast, he actually had a incident, a road rage incident and a guy jumped out who had, getting in front of him. He jumped out and started coming back toward his car. He had positioned himself tactically already and he put it in reverse and backed away. And then he did 20 feet first and then kept coming 20 more feet until the guy got frustrated and got back in his car. He said, then is quote states, "I want to let you know your hard work and dedication has paid off. Education is key for CCW Safe carriers and most don't have nearly enough as they should. Keep up the good work and thank you for what you do for the community." Stan: 56:45 So I want to let you guys know we appreciate that. Keep sending in your stories. We love to hear that you know you're using your head to avoid these incidents. You're planning ahead so not to be in these situations and you're not launching yourself into deadly force situations when you have the power to remove yourself. So thanks a lot for those who are listening and having successful outcomes and not changing their lives with a deadly force incident. Mike: 57:16 Yeah, that's awesome to hear. We love hearing those stories because it's just awesome to hear that people are, they're getting something out of the articles, out of the podcast, so forth. So yeah, keep those coming in. Mike: 57:32 All right, well we're right at about an hour. Anybody have anything to add? Steve: 57:38 I tell you what, I thought this was a good topic. I know it is not real sexy in terms of, okay you just need to be able to secure your gun and everything, but think it's really important and I hope this is of some benefit to our listeners. Mike: 57:59 And I think it's something, it's just not, it's something that a lot of people don't think about and a lot of people may not want to think about it, but like you said, it is very important. You have to think about all these things we've talked about today. Mike: 58:19 Steve, thanks for coming on again. I'm sure we'll, well I'll see you next, I'll see you Monday, right? Steve: 58:25 Yes, sir. Mike: 58:27 And Stan, I will see you next week. Stan: 58:31 Yes, sir. [crosstalk 00:58:34] Mike: 58:35 All right. You guys take care. Steve: 58:35 Okay guys. Be safe out there. Stan: 58:35 Thank you. Mike: 58:35 Bye, take care.

hahahaha Mike called me out for that last description. Oops. Oh well. Whatever, man, I don't care about anything. Hey Mike, I'll pay you for Bryan's bachelor party when I feel like it.   Also, I gave up on the Roman numerals. Yeah I know it's XXV, but it's better to pull the plug now instead of the inconvenience of approximately 3 seconds it will take me too look up future, more complicated ones.   Today's episode we give ya the inside scoop on Dark Phoenix and Detective Pikachu. Oh yeah, we review How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and Fighting With My Family. Then chat about the egregious things that happened at the Oscars, and the snubs involved. SMH HOW COULD BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY BE CONSIDERED AT ALL!?

Listen to part two of my private coaching session with Nic Fitzgerald. The lessons I shared with him here are the same ones I would share with you if we could meet face to face. On today’s episode Russell continues his chat with Nick Fitzgerald and gives him a list of seven things he can do to help his business grow. Here are some of the awesome things to look forward to in this episode: What a few things that Nick got close to doing totally right, but missed a few key elements. How Nick can collaborate with others in the Two Comma Club X to be able to grow his customer list. And how Russell went from being a nobody, to having Tony Robbins call him to ask for help and how Nick can use that advice to advance his own business. So listen here to find out what the 7 things are that Nick and anyone else can do to grow a business. ---Transcript--- Hey everybody, welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m so excited, I’m here on stage right now at the Two Comma Club X event with Mr. Nick Fitzgerald onstage. A year ago I gave a podcast to him about how to make it rain and this is section number two. Now those of you who don’t know, in the last 12 months since I did that podcast he’s been making it rain and he’s been changing his life, his family’s lives, but more importantly, other people’s lives as well. And it’s been really cool, so that’s what we’re going to cover today during this episode of the podcast. So welcome back you guys. I’m here on stage with Nick Fitzgerald, so excited. So I made a list of seven things that if I was to sit in a room with him in front of a whole bunch of people I’d be like, “Hey Nick, you’re doing awesome, but here’s some things to look at that I think will help you a lot with what you’re doing.” So number one, when Nick first kind of started into this movement that he’s trying to create, I don’t know when it was, if you created this before or after. When did you create the Star Wars video? Nick: This was, we talked in July, it was September/October. So a few months later. Russell: How many of you guys have seen his Star Wars video? Okay, I’m so glad. For those who are listening, about 10% of the room raised their hand, the other 90% who are friends and followers and fans of Nick have never seen the Star Wars video. His Star Wars video is his origin story and it is one of the best videos I have ever, by far the best video I’ve seen him do, it is insanely good. It comes, do you want to talk about what happened in the video? It’s insanely good. Nick: So I told the story of, I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, so if you didn’t know that, now you do. When I was young my grandma who lived in the same neighborhood as me, she took me to go see Return of the Jedi in the movie theater and I was such a Star Wars nerd, even at a young age, that when I was playing at the neighbors house, and you know, it’s the 80s, so mom and dad are like, “Nick, come home for dinner.” That kind of thing, I would ignore them. I would not come home until they called me “Luke”. No lie. I would make them call me Luke, or I would ignore them. I would not hear them. Russell: Had I known this in high school I would have teased him relentlessly. Nick: So my grandma took me and I remember going and it was so fun because we took the bus, it was just a fun thing. And we went and I just remember walking in and handing my ticket to the ticket person. And then popcorn and just the smells of everything. And again, this is the 80s so walking in the movie theater; I almost lost a shoe in the sticky soda, {sound effects} going on. I just remember how my feet stuck to the floor and all that stuff. And then just being so excited to see my heroes on the big screen and Dark Vader, I just remember watching it. This is such a silly thing to get emotional about, but you know I remember the emperor and Darth Vader dying and all that stuff. It was just like, ah. It was a perfect day. Sorry sound dude. But it was just a perfect day with my grandma who has always been dear to me. So the purpose of that video, I’d put it off for a long time. I knew I needed to tell my own story if I’m going to be helping somebody else tell theirs. And I put it off for a long time, because working through things, I was afraid that if it sucked, if the story was terrible, if the visuals were crappy, that was a reflection on me and my skills. I had worked on a bazillion Hallmark Christmas movies, you know how they put out like 17 trillion Christmas movies every year, if one of those sucks, no offense, they’re not riveting television. Russell: They all suck. Nick: That wasn’t a reflection on me, I was just doing the lighting or the camera work. I didn’t write the story, it wasn’t my story. But this was me, so I put it off for a long time because I knew if I didn’t execute how I envisioned it, that it would reflect poorly on me, and it would be like I was a fraud. So the purpose of the video, there were three purposes. One to tell a story and get people to connect with me on a personal level. As I told that story here, how many of you remembered your feet sticking to the floor of a movie theater? How many of you, when I talk about the smell of popcorn and that sound, you felt and heard and smelled that. So it was one thing, I wanted people to connect with me and just see that I was just like you. Then I wanted to show that I could make a pretty picture. So I had that and I used my family members as the actors. And then I went and talked about how…and then I wanted to use it to build credibility. I’ve worked on 13 feature films and two television series and shot news for the NBC affiliate and worked in tons of commercials. So I’ve learned from master story tellers and now I want to help other people find and tell their story. And then I showed clips of stories that I tell throughout the years. So that was, I just remember specifically when I finally went and made it live, I made a list of about 20 people, my Dream 100 I guess you could say. I just wanted to send them and be like, “Hey, I made this video. I would love for you to watch it.” And Russell’s on that list. So I sent that out and made it live and then it was just kind of funny, it didn’t go viral, I got like 5000 views in a day, and it was like “whoa!” kind of thing. But it was just one of those things that I knew I needed to tell my story and if I wanted to have any credibility as a story teller, not as a videographer, but as a story teller, being able to help people connect, and connect hearts and build relationships with their audience, I had to knock it out of the park. So that was my attempt at doing that. Russell: And the video’s amazing, for the 10% of the room who saw it, it is amazing. Now my point here for Nick, but also for everyone here, I wrote down, is tell your story too much. Only 10% of the room has ever seen that video or ever heard it. How many of you guys have heard my potato gun story more than a dozen times? Almost the entire room, for those that are listening. Tell your story to the point where you are so sick and tired of telling the story and hearing it, that you just want to kill yourself, and then tell it again. And then tell it again. And then tell it again, because it is amazing. The video is amazing, the story is amazing. How many of you guys feel more connected to him after hearing that story right now? It’s amazing. Tell t he story too much. All of us are going to be like, “I don’t want to hear the story. I don’t want to tell the story again.” You should be telling that story over and over and over again. That video should be showing it. At least once a week you should be following everyone, retargeting ads of that video. That video should be, everyone should see it. You’ve got 5,000 views which is amazing, you should get 5,000 views a day, consistently telling that story, telling that story. Because you’re right, it’s beautiful, it’s amazing and people see that and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I need that for my business. I need to be able to tell my story the way he told that story, because the connection is flawless.” And I think my biggest thing for you right now, is tell your story more. Tell that thing. You’re telling good stories, but that story, that’s like your linchpin, that’s the thing that if you can tell that, it’s going to keep people connected to you for forever. Anyone who’s seen that video, you have a different level of connection. It’s amazing, it’s shot beautifully. You see his kids looking at the movies, with lights flashing, it’s beautiful. So telling your story more, that’d be the biggest thing. It’s just like, all the time telling that story over and over and over again. That’s number one. Alright, number two, this one’s not so much for you as much for most of everybody else in here, but number two is that energy matters a lot. I’m not talking about, I’m tired during the day. I’m talking about when you are live, or you are talking in front of people, your energy matters a lot. I was hanging out with Dana Derricks, how many of you guys know Dana, our resident goat farmer? By the way, he’s asked every time I mention his name is please not send him anymore goats. He’s gotten like 2 or 3 goats in the last month from all of our friends and family members here in the community. Please stop sending him goats. He loves them but he doesn’t want any more. Anyway, what’s interesting, I was talking to Dana, and he’s like, “Do you know the biggest thing I’ve learned from you?” and I’m like, “No. what?” and I thought it was going to be like dream 100 and things like that. No, the biggest thing that Dana learned from me, he told me, was that energy matters a lot. He’s like, “When I hang out with you, you’re kind of like blah, but when you get on stage you’re like, baaahh!” and I started telling him, the reason why is when I first started this career, in fact, I have my brother right now pulling all the video clips of me from like 12 or 13 years ago, when I had a shaved head and I was awkward like, “Hi, my name is Russell Brunson.” And we’re trying to make this montage of me over 15 years of doing this and how awkward and weird I was, and how it took 8-10 years until I was normal and started growing my hair out. But I’m trying to show that whole montage, but if you look at it like, I was going through that process and the biggest thing I learned is that if I talked to people like this, when you’re on video you sound like this. The very first, I think I’d have an idea and then I’d just do stupid things. So I saw an infomercial, so I’m like I should do an infomercial. So I hired this company to make an infomercial and next thing I know two weeks later I’m in Florida and there’s this host on this show and he’s like the cheesiest cheese ball ever. I’m so embarrassed. He asked me a question and I’m like, “Well, um, you know, duh, duh…” and he’s like, “Whoa, cut, cut, cut.” He’s like, “Dude, holy crap. You have no energy.” I’m like, “No, I feel really good. I have a lot of energy right now.” He’s like, “No, no you don’t understand. When you’re on tv, you have to talk like this to sound normal. If you just talk normal, you sound like you’re asleep.” I’m like, “I don’t know.” So we did this whole infomercial and he’s like all over the top and I’m just like, trying to go a little bit higher and it was awkward. I went back and watched it later, and he sounded completely normal and I looked like I was dead on the road. It was weird. Brandon Fischer, I don’t know if he’s still in the audience, but we did…Brandon’s back here. So four years ago when Clickfunnels first came out we made these videos that when you first signed up we gave away a free t-shirt. How many of you guys remember seeing those videos? I made those videos and then they lasted for like four years, and then we just reshot them last week because it’s like, “Oh wow, the demo video when we’re showing CLickfunnels does not look like Clickfunnels anymore. It’s completely changed in four years.” So Todd’s like, “You have to make a new video.” I’m like, “I don’t want to make a video.’ So finally we made the new videos, recorded them and got them up there and we posted them online, and before we posted them on, I went and watched the old ones, and I watched the old ones and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is just four years ago, I am so depressing. How did anybody watch this video?” It was bad, right Brandon. It was like painfully bad. I was like, “oh my gosh.” That was just four years ago. Imagine six years ago, or ten years. It was really, really bad. And when I notice the more energy you have, the more energy everyone else has. It seems weird at first, but always stretch more than you feel comfortable, and it seems normal, and then you’ll feel better with it and better with it. But what’s interesting about humans is we are attracted to energy. I used to hate people talking energy talk, because I thought it was like the nerdy woo-woo crap. But it’s so weird and real actually. I notice this in all aspects of my life. When I come home at night, usually I am beat up and tired and worn out. I get up early in the morning, and then I work super hard, I get home and I get out of the car and I come to the door and before I open the door, I’m always like, Okay if I come in like, ugh, my whole family is going to be depressed with me.” They’ll all lower to my energy level. So I sit there and I get into state and I’m like, okay, whew. I open the door and I’m like, “What’s up guys!! I’m home!” and all the sudden my kids are like, “Oh dad’s home!” and they start running in, it’s this huge thing, it’s crazy, and then the tone is set, everyone’s energy is high and the rest of the night’s amazing. When I come in the office, I walk in and realize I’m the leader of this office and if I come in like, “Hey guys, what’s up? Hey Nick, what’s up?” Then everyone’s going to be like {sound effect}. So I’m like, okay when I come in I have to come in here, otherwise everyone is going to be down on a normal level. I have to bring people up. So we walk in the office now and I’m like, “What’s up everybody, how’s it going?” and I’m excited and they’re like, “Oh.” And everyone’s energy rises and the whole company grows together. So l love when Dave walks through the door, have you guys ever noticed this? When Dave walks through the door, I’m at a 10, Dave’s like at a 32 and it’s just like, he wakes up and comes over to my  house at 4:30 in the morning to lift weights. I sleep in an hour later, and I come in at 5:45 or something, and I walk in and I’m just like, “I want to die.” And I walk in and he’s like, “Hey how’s it going?.” I’m like, “Really good man. You’ve been here for an hour.” And all the sudden I’m like, oh my gosh I feel better. Instantly raised up. It’s kind of like tuning forks. Have you noticed this? If you get two tuning forks at different things and you wack one, and you wack the other one, and you bring them close together, what will happen is the waves will increase and they end up going at the exact same level. So energy matters. The higher your energy, the higher everyone else around you will be, on video, on audio, on face…everything, energy matters a lot. So that’s number two, when you’re making videos, thinking about that. Alright number three, okay this, you were like 90% there and I watched the whole thing and I was so excited and then you missed the last piece and I was like, “Oh it was so good.” So a year after that Facebook message came, you did a Facebook live one year later to the day, and he told that story on Facebook live. And I was like, “Oh my gosh this is amazing.” And he told that story, and he was talking about it, and I was emotional, going through the whole thing again. This is so cool, this is so cool. And he told the story about the podcast, and this podcast was an hour long, and the thing and his life changed and all this stuff… And I know that me and a whole bunch of you guys, a whole bunch of entrepreneurs listened to this story and they’re at bated breath, “This is amazing, this is amazing.” And he gets to the very end, “Alright guys, see you tomorrow.” Boom, clicks off. And I was like, “Aaahhh!” How can you leave me in that state?  I need something, I need something. So the note here is I said, make offers for everything. Think about this, at the end when you ended, and everyone’s thinking, I want to hear that episode, where is that? How would it be? Now imagine you take the opportunity at the very end that says, “How many of you guys would like to hear that episode where Russell actually made me a personal podcast? And how many of you guys would actually like if I gave you my commentary about what  I learned and why it was actually important to me? All you gotta do right now is post down below and write ‘I’m in.’ and I’ll add you to my messenger list and I’ll send you that podcast along with the recording where I actually told you what this meant to me.” Boom, now all those people listening are now on his list. Or they can even go opt in somewhere. But all you did was tell the story and everything and we were all sitting with bated breath and I was just like, at the end make the offer. You guys want the stuff I talked about, you want the thing? You want the thing? And then you send them somewhere and now you captured them and consider them longer term and you can do more things with them. It was like, hook, story, dude where’s my offer? Give me something. But it was awesome. How many of you guys felt that way when you listened to that thing and you’re just like, “I don’t even know where to find that episode. Russell’s got eight thousand episodes everywhere, I don’t even know where to look for it.” You could have been like, here’s the link. Just the link….if you guys can’t figure out how to make an offer, go listen to a whole bunch of stuff, find something amazing and be like, “oh my gosh you guys, I was listening to this Tim Ferris podcast, he did like 800 episodes, every one is like 18 hours long, they’re really hard to listen to, but I found this one from 3 ½-4 years ago where he taught this concept and it was insane. It was amazing; I learned this and this. How many of you want to know what that is? Okay, I have the link, if you message me down below I’ll send you the link to exactly where to find that episode.” Everyone will give it to you. You’ll be like, “But it’s free on the internet Russell.” It doesn’t matter. You know where it’s at and they don’t. They will give you their contact information in exchange for you giving them a direct link to the link. Back before I had anything to give away for opt ins, guess what I used to do. I used to go to YouTube and I would find cool videos from famous people. One of my favorite ones we did was I went and typed in YouTube, “Robert Kiyosaki” because he was one of my big mentors at the time. And there was all these amazing Robert Kiyosaki videos on YouTube for free. Tons of them. Hour long training from Robert Kiyosaki. Four hour long event from Robert Kiyosaki. All this stuff for free listed in YouTube. So I made a little Clickfunnels membership site, I got all the free videos and put them inside a members area and just like, “Tab one, Robert Kiyosaki talking about investing, Robert kiyosaki talking about stocks, Robert Kiyosaki talking….” And I just put all the videos in there and made a squeeze page like, “Hey, who wants a whole bunch of free, my favorite Robert Kiyosaki videos?” and I made a little landing page, people opt in, I give them access to the membership site, and then I went and targeted Robert Kiyosaki’s audience and built a huge list off his people. Dream 100. Imagine with Dream 100 instead of doing just one campaign to all the people, if each person in your dream 100 you made a customized membership site with the free content right now, be like, “Hey, you’ve listened to a lot of Grant Cardone, he’s got four podcasts, 5000 episodes, there’s only four that are actually really, really good. Do you guys wan tto know what they are? Opt in here, I’ll give you the four best episodes of all. I currated all these for you to give you the four best.” And target Grant’s audience with that, now you got all his buyers coming into your world. Is that alright, is that good. Alright number four ties along with this. Number four, start building a list ASAP. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do a call to action to get a list anywhere, have I? After today’s session you’re …..just build a list. If you got nothing from this event at all, every time you do a hook and story, put them somewhere to build a list, because that’s the longevity. Because that’s where if Zuckerberg snaps his finger and you lose all your fans and followings and friends, and all the sudden you’re trying to build over somewhere else, it won’t matter because you’ll have those people somewhere external and now you can message them and bring them back into whatever world you need them to be at. But that’s how you build stability in business. It’s also how you sell this time, you want to sell it the next time and the next time, the list is the key. Funnel Hacking Live, the first Funnel Hacking Live it was a lot of work and we sold out 600 people in the room, and we kept growing the list and growing the list, the next year we did 1200. Then we did 1500, last year was 3000, this year we’re going to be at 5000. We’re building up the list and building up pressure and excitement and then when you release it, it gives you the ability to blow things up really, really fast.  Okay, that was number four. Okay number five, I wrote down integration marketing, adding to other’s offers to build a buyer list. So this is a little sneaky tactic we used to back in the day when I didn’t have my own list, but I had a couple of skills and talents which you do happen to have, which is nice. If you have no skills this won’t work, but if you have skills you’re lucky. So Frank Kern used to do this as well. Frank is sneaky. He used to do this all the time and I saw him doing it and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, he’s brilliant.” So Frank did a one hour presentation somewhere and he called it Mind Control, it wasn’t Mass Control, but it was something like about how to control the minds of your prospects through manipulation and something sneaky. And the title alone was amazing. It was a one hour presentation he gave somewhere. And he put it on these DVDs and what he did, he went to like Dan Kennedy and he’s like, “Hey Dan, you have all of your buyer and you send them this newsletter every single month,” at the time they had 13000 active members, these were their best buyers. He’s like, “This DVD I sell for like a thousand bucks. Do you want to give it to all your people for free?” And Dan’s like, “sure.” And all the sudden the next month, Franks got his best CD with his best stuff in the mailbox of the 13000 best customers, every single person that Dan Kennedy’s been collecting for the last 15 years. So think about this. With your skill set, look at the other people in the market, all the dream 100 who are doing things and how do you create something you can plug into their offers, and every single time one of those people sell a product, your face is popping up as well. It’s called integration marketing, my first mentor Mark Joyner wrote a book called Integration Marketing, it’s a really fast read. You can read it in an hour, but it will get your mind set thinking about it. How can I integrate with what other people are always doing? Because I can go and make a sell, and make another sell, but I was like, when we launched Clickfunnels I was like, “How can I figure out other people’s sales processes that are already happening and somehow inject myself into all these other sales processes?” That way every single time Steven Larsen sells something or someone else sells something, or all these people are selling something, it always somehow gets flown back to me. I want every product, every course, everything happening in the internet marketing world to somehow have people saying my name. That’s my goal. How many of you guy have been to other people’s events and I’m not there and they say my name? It makes me so happy. I get the instagrams from some of you guys, “Hey so and so just said your name.” I’m like, that’s so good. How have I done that? I spent a lot of my life integrating into everybody’s offers. Initially when I first got started, every single person who had a product, I was an interview in everyone’s product. I was like, looking at people launching a product, specific product launches coming, I’d contact them. Product launch is coming up, “Hey man, is there any way I could do a cool thing for your people? I could create this and give it to you and you could plug it into your product?” and everyone’s like, ‘Sure, that’d be awesome.” And all the sudden, boom, they get 5000 new buyers came in and every single one of them got my thing. They’re hearing my name, hearing my voice and it’s just constant integration. I think about how I met Joe Vitale, I talked about that earlier with the greatest showman. He was in an interview in a course I bought from Mark Joyner, I listened to it, fell in love with Joe Vitale, bought his stuff, given him tons of money over the years, a whole bunch of good stuff because he was integrated in that. So looking at other ways to integrate, the skill set that you already have into other people’s marketing channels because then you’re leveraging anytime any of these partners make a sell, you’re getting customers coming through that flow as well. Cool? Nick: Yeah. Russell: That was number five. Number six, I call this one rainmaker projects, because we talked about rainmaker during the first podcast interview. So rainmaker projects are, and again when I first started my career I did tons of these, where it’s like, I was really good at one piece. For you, you’re really good at video and story telling. And I look out here and be like, okay who is someone else here that is awesome? So and so is really good at making a product on Facebook ads. “You’re really good at Facebook ads, so I’ll do the video for this course, you do the Facebook, you do the actual ads for us.” And then, you’re awesome at doing the traffic and you bring in four or five people, like this little avenger team, and you create a cobranded product together and you launch it and everyone makes a bunch of money, split all the money, 50/50/50/50, that makes more than 100,but you know what I’m talking about, everyone splits the money, everyone splits the customer list and all the sudden you’ve all pulled your efforts, your energy, your talents together and everyone leaves with some cash, and you also leave with the customer list, and that’s when you start growing really, really rapidly. When I started I didn’t have a customer list, I had a very small one. But I had a couple of skill sets so that’s why I did tons of these things. That’s like, if you guys know any of my old friends like Mike Filsaime, Gary Ambrose, I could list off all the old partners we had back in the day, and that’s what we did all the time, these little rainmaker projects. We didn’t call them that back in the day, but that’s what it was. It was just like, we all knew what our skill sets were, and it’s like, let’s come together, let’s make a project. This isn’t going to be how we change the world, it’s not going to be something we’re going to scale and grow, but it’s like, it’s going to be a project, we put it together, we launch it, make some money, get some customers, get our name out in the market, and then we step away from it and then we all go back to our own businesses. It’s not like, that’s why it’s funny because a lot of times people are scared of these. Like, “Well, how do we set up the business structure? Who’s going to be the owner? Who’s the boss?” No, none of that. This is an in and out project where all the rainmakers come together and you create something amazing for a short period of time, you split the money and you go back home with the money and the customers. But it gave you a bump in status, a big bump in customer lists, a big bump in cash and then all those things kind of rise and if you do enough of those your status keeps growing and growing and growing, and it’s a really fast easy way to continue to grow. How many of you guys want to do a rainmaker project with Nick right now? Alright, very, very cool. Alright, and then I got one last, this is number seven. This kind of ties back to dream 100. The last thing I talked about was, and again this is kind of for everyone in the group, is the levels of the dream 100. I remember when I first started this process, I first got the concept and I didn’t know it was the dream 100 back then, but I was looking at all the different people that would have been on my dream 100 list. It was Mark Joyner, Joe Vitale, all these people that for me were top tier. Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, and I was like, oh, and I started trying to figure out how to get in those spots. And the more I tried, it was so hard to get through the gatekeeper, it was impossible to get through all these gatekeepers, these people. I was like, “Man don’t people care about me. I’m just a young guy trying to figure this stuff out and they won’t even respond to my calls or my emails. I can’t even get through, I thought these people really cared.” Now to be on the flip side of that, I didn’t realize what life is actually like for that, for people like that. For me, I understand that now at a whole other level. We’ve got a million and a half people on our subscriber list. We have 68000 customers, we’ve got coaching programs, got family, got friends. We have to put up barriers to protect yourself or it’s impossible. I felt, I can’t even tell you how bad I feel having Brent this morning, “Can you tell everyone to not do pictures with me.” It’s not that I don’t want to, but do you want me to tell you what actually happens typically? This is why we have to put barriers around ourselves. Here’s my phone, I’ll be in a room, like Funnel Hacking Live and there will be 3000 people in the room, and I’m walking through and someone’s like, “Real quick, real quick, can I get a picture?” I’m like, “I gotta go.” And they’re like, “It’ll take one second.” And I’m like, ahh, “Okay, fine, quick.” And they’re like, “Hold on.” And they get their phone out and they’re like, “Uh, uh, okay, uh, alright got it. Crap it’s flipped around. Okay, actually can you hold this, my arms not long enough can you hold it? Actually, hey you come here real quick, can you hold this so we can get a picture? Okay ready, one two three cheese.” And they grab the camera and they’re off. And for them it took one second. And that person leaves, and guess what’s behind them? A line of like 500 people. And then for the next like 8 hours, the first Funnel Hacking Live, was anyone here at the first Funnel Hacking Live? I spent 3 ½ hours up front doing pictures with everybody and I almost died afterwards. I’m like, I can’t…but I didn’t know how to say no, it was super, super hard. So I realize now, to protect your sanity, people up there have all sorts of gatekeepers and it’s hard. So the way you get through is not being more annoying, and trying to get through people. The way you get to them is by understanding the levels of that. So I tried a whole bunch of times, and I couldn’t get in so I was like, “Crap, screw those guys. They don’t like me anyway, they must be jerks, I’m sure they’re just avoiding me and I’m on a blacklist….” All the thoughts that go through your head. And at that time, I started looking around me. I started looking around and I was like, “hey, there’s some really cool people here.” And that’s when I met, I remember Mike Filsaime, Mike Filsaime at the time had just created a product he launched and he had like a list of, I don’t know, maybe 3 or 4 thousand people. And I remember I created my first product, Zipbrander, and I was all scared and I’m like ,”Hey Mike, I created this thing Zipbrander.” And he messaged back, “Dude that’s the coolest thing in the world.” A couple of things, Mike didn’t have a gatekeeper, it was just him. He got my email, he saw it, and he was like, “This is actually cool.” I’m like, “Cool, do you want to promote it?” and he’s like, “Yes, I would love to promote it.” I’m like, oh my gosh. I had never made a sale online at this point, by the way, other than a couple of little things that fell apart. I never actually made a sale of my own product. Zipbrander was my very first, my own product that I ever created. So Mike was that cool, he sent an email to his list, his 5000 person list, they came over, I had this little pop up that came to the site and bounced around, back in the day. I had 270 people opt in to my list from Mike’s email to it, and I think we made like 8 or 10 sales, which wasn’t a lot, but 67 that’s $670, they gave me half, I made $350 on an email and gained 300 people on my list. I’m like, oh my gosh this is amazing. And I asked Mike, “Who are the other people you hang out with? I don’t know very many people.” And he’s like, “Oh dude, you gotta meet this guy, he’s awesome.” And he brought me to someone else, and I’m like, “Oh this is cool. “ and Mike’s like, “Dude, I promoted Zipbrander, it was awesome, you should promote it.” And then he’s like, “Oh cool.” And he promoted Zipbrander. I’m like, oh my gosh, I got another 30-40 people on my list and there were a couple more sales. And then I asked him, “Who do you know?” and there was someone else, and we stared doing this thing and all the sudden there were 8 or 10 of us who were all at this level and we all started masterminding, networking, figuring things out, cross promote each other and what happened, what’s interesting is that all of our little brands that were small at the time started growing, and they started growing, and they started growing. All the sudden we were at the next tier. And when we got to the next tier all the sudden all these new people started being aware of us and started answering our calls and doing things, and Mike’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I met this guy who used to be untouchable.” And he brought him in and brought them in and all the sudden we’re at the next level. And we started growing again and growing again. And the next thing we know, four years later I get a phone call from Tony Robbins assistant, they’re like, “Hey I’m sitting in a room and I got Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, all these guys are sitting in a room with Tony Robbins and he thinks that you guys are the biggest internet nerds in the world, he’s obsessed with it and he wants to know if he can meet you in Salt Lake in like an hour.” What? Tony Robbins? I’ve emailed him 8000 times, he’s never responded even once, I thought he hated me. Not that he hated me, it’s that he had so many gatekeepers, he had no idea who I was. But eventually you start getting value and you collectively as a level of the dream 100 becomes more and more powerful. Eventually people notice you because you become the bigger people. And each tier gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So my biggest advice for you and for everybody is understanding that. Yes, it’s good to have these huge dreams and big people, but start looking around. There are so many partnerships to be had just inside this room. How many deals have you done with people in this room so far? Nick: Quite a few. Russell: More than one, right. Nick: Yeah, more than one. Russell: Start looking around you guys. Don’t always look up, up, up and try to get this thing. Look around and realize collectively, man, start doing the crossings because that’s how everyone starts growing together and there will be a time where I’ll be coming to you guys begging, “Can you please look at my stuff you guys, I have this thing called CLickfunnels. You may have heard of it. Can you please help me promote it?” And that’s what’s going to happen, okay. So the level of the dream 100 is the last thing, just don’t discount that. Because so many people are like swinging for the fence and just hoping for this homerun like I was, and it’s funny because I remember eventually people would respond to me, that I was trying for before, and they’d contact me. And I was like, oh my gosh. I realized, I thought this person hated me, I thought I was on a black list. I was assuming they were getting these emails and like, “oh, I hate this. Russell’s a scammer.” In my head right. They never saw any of them. Until they saw me, and they reached out to me and the whole dynamic shifted. So realizing that, kind of looking around and start building your dream 100 list, even within this room, within the communities that you’re in, because there’s power in that. And as you grow collectively, as a group, everyone will grow together, and that’s the magic. So that was number seven. So to recap the seven really quick. Number one, tell your story way too much, to the point where you’re so annoyed and so sick and tired of hearing it that everybody comes to you, and then keep telling it even some more. Number two, in everything you’re doing, energy matters a lot. To the point, even above what you think you’re comfortable with and do that all the time. Number three, make offers for everything. Hook, story, don’t leave them hanging, give them an offer because they’ll go and they will feel more completed afterwards. Number four, start building a list, it ties back to the first thing. Make an offer, get them to build your list, start growing your list because your list is your actual business. Number five, integration marketing. Look for other people’s marketing channels and how you can weave what you do into those channels, so you can get free traffic from all the people who are doing stuff. Number five, create rainmaker projects, find really cool things and bring four or five people together and make something amazing. Share the cash, share the customer list, elevate your status, elevate your brand, and it’s really fun to do because you get to know a whole bunch of people. And Number seven, understanding the levels of the dream 100. Find the people at your level and start growing with them together collectively as you do that, and in a year, two years, three years, five years Tony Robbins will be calling you, asking you to make his video and it will be amazing. Does that sound good? Awesome.

Does RESPECT exist in today’s marking and advertising world? Listen as world-leading branding expert and author, Bruce Turkel, discusses with host Mike Domitrz how respect plays a role in the media and advertising world today. * You are invited to join our community and conversations about each episode on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast and join us on Twitter @CenterRespect or visit our website at http://www.MutuallyAmazingPodcast.com**   SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE TRANSCRIPTION   BIO:  Bruce Turkel. Useful, Valuable, Enjoyable. Whether creating brands, books, or explaining brand strategy on national TV, Bruce’s energetic creativity makes brands more valuable. He’s created campaigns for AMEX, Miami, Discovery, Hasbro, Bacardi, and more. Simply put, Bruce is a brand builder, keynote speaker, TV personality, and author. Bruce appears regularly on MSNBC, CNN, and CCTV. He’s been inFast Company, The New York Times,andForbesand has authored five books on branding and creativity.   Bruce has helped create some of the world’s most compelling brands, including Hasbro, Nike, American Express, Charles Schwab, Citicorp, Discovery Networks, Bacardi, Sol Melia Hotels, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, HBO Latin America, Canyon Ranch, Miami, and many more. He is a keynote speaker, author, musician, artist, and runner who tours extensively.   Perhaps you’ve seen Bruce on TV.He is a frequent guest expert on the national news and appears regularly on FOX Business, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, CCTV (Chinese Television) and NPR.   Perhaps you’ve read about Bruce.He has been featured inThe New York Times, Fast Company, Communication Arts, AdWeek, andSpeakermagazines.   Perhaps you’ve heard Bruce speak.He has spoken at MIT, Harvard, TEDx, and hundreds of corporate and industry conferences around the world. In 2017 the National Speakers Association inducted Bruce into their Speaker Hall of Fame.   Perhaps you’ve read one of Bruce’s five books.His most recent book,All About Themwas chosen as one ofForbes Magazine’sbest business books of 2016.   Perhaps you’ve heard Bruce playing his harmonica.Bruce fronts the popular Miami R&B band Blackstar.   Perhaps you’ve seen Bruce’s artwork.Bruce is an incessant doodler and is famous for his caricatures of the local and national business leaders he’s worked with.   Perhaps you passed Bruce in your last marathon.He is a dedicated — but slow — runner. Meet Bruce Turkel.He is about to share some of his simple yet proven powerful brand building techniques with you.   LINK: http://www.BruceTurkel.com   Books: All About Them, Bruce Turkel Orbiting The Giant Hairball, Gordon MacKenzie Designing Your Life, Burnett & Evans READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPTION of the EPISODE HERE (or download the pdf): **IMPORTANT: This podcast episode was transcribed by a 3rd party service and so errors can occur throughout the following pages: Mike:                       Welcome to the Respect podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz from MikeSpeaks.com, where we help organizations of all sizes, educational institutions, and the US military create a culture of respect. And respect is exactly what we discuss on this show, so let's get started. Mike:                       This week. We've got a very special guest also a friend of mine's, I love having friends on the show. That is Bruce Turkel. He's a brand builder, keynote speaker, TV commentator and author. If you watch any business news on cable, you've probably seen him, whether it was MSNBC, or CNNI, or Fox News in the past, you've seen this guy. I've gotten to know him and I realized he sees things others of us just don't see, and that's one of the cool things about getting to talk with Bruce. So Bruce, thank you for joining us. Bruce:                     Thanks for inviting me, Mike. You're right. It's fun to do this with friends. Mike:                       Absolutely. And you and I are going to get into a decision you've made recently and publicly, via blog. It's really powerful. Before we get into that, I want to talk about how you view respect in its role in advertising and marketing. For everybody watching and/or listening. Bruce is a guru in the marketing branding world. That's what he's known for. He's worked with some of the largest brands in the world. How do you feel that respect plays a role? Bruce:                     You know, there's two ways to look at marketing, branding. I think there's two ways to look at a lot of things. There's the positive way and there's the negative way. And you hear people talk about the negative way that advertisers and marketers try to convince people to buy things they don't want, don't need, and can't afford. And that's certainly the negative way of doing it. Or you can say the positive way, which is that advertising, marketing. Branding is the engine of the economy. It's what keeps people interested. It's what keeps people involved. It's what keeps people engaged. Bruce:                     If you're running a business, it's what allows you to actually provide the products and services that you provide, because people are interested in them. If in fact, you are consumer, it allows you to find out what's out there, what's available. It also subsidizes a lot of media that we take advantage of, whether it's radio or television, or online, or any of the things that we don't pay for. Bruce:                     Part of the reason we don't pay for that content is because of advertising and marketing/ So I, of course, prefer to look at the positive side of. That being said, then respect becomes very important, because if you're going to do this from a positive point of view, then in fact you have to be careful not to be selling people things they don't want, don't need, and can't afford. But instead, to be demonstrating to people why your client's products and services, or why your products and services actually will make your customer's life better. Bruce:                     That's what the respect is about. Now, you're providing something of value. I tell people that when I speak, when I write, when I commentate on television or when I create marketing campaigns, I want the stuff I do to be useful. I want it to be valuable. And I want it to be enjoyable. Mike:                       What- Bruce:                     In order to accomplish those things. It has to be respectful as well. Mike:                       What percentage of advertisers that you see out there, companies selling, do you feel fall into that negative stereotype that brand has such harmful viewpoint of advertising marketing that people get. You know, the old stereotype which could be unfair, that used car salesman stereotype. How many people do you feel that are out there? What percentage that is manipulative? That it's not based on respect, that it's based on emotional and psychological manipulation, just to sell? Bruce:                     Well, as soon as you use the word percentage, then you're asking for metrics that I don't actually have. I don't know what percentage. I do know that often the pieces we remember, the pieces that put a bad taste in our mouth tend to be those. I mean you used as an example, the used car salesman. Now you're thinking of the sleazy guy, the polyester jacket, the sleeves rolled up. And the guy who's just trying to get you into a car and get your money. But again, think about the other side, you have to get your kids to school. You've got to get to work. You want something safe. He wants them to reliable. A used car salesman who knows what they're doing, and is intent on providing service is not like that at all, but what do we remember? Bruce:                     We remember the negative stereotype. And there's plenty of it. Believe me, I am not making excuses for the industry or for the negative practitioners. I'm simply saying that what a lot of us do in my opinion, actually makes the world a better place. Mike:                       Oh, I agree. And that's why I said that whether it be an unfair reputation of that used car salesman, because we buy used. So I'm not somebody that runs from a used car salesman at all. If you find the right person, they're wonderful and they do take care of you very quickly. But it is, you're right, it's that negative impression people have about- Bruce:                     That's right. Mike:                       ... marketing. Because the media environment is so confrontational right now. Do you think that respect is passe? Bruce:                     Passe? No, not at all. I think respect is less and less prevalent. I think what's happened is there's an old political saying, "There's no margin in the middle." And I think what you find is a lot of the practitioners will avoid names for the sake of whoever's listening and might have an opinion different than mine. But a lot of the practitioners are using the bassist most, brutal forms of communication because they're always easier, cheaper to use, and they always hit hard. I mean, getting hit with a bat is a pretty low level communication received, right? If I want to convince you of something, I could try to convince you. I can quote the masters, I can give you good information. I can hit you with a bat and say, if you don't believe me, I'm going to hit you again. Bruce:                     It works. It just doesn't work well and it's a brutal backward facing way of getting your point across. And I think that's what we're seeing now. We're seeing that so many of these backward thinking strategies are working that people are utilizing them. So no, I don't think respect is passe at all. I think that respect right now is taking a backseat in many instances to things that maybe work a little quicker and a little stronger but don't ultimately work better. Mike:                       So there's a documentary out now, at the time we're recording this on Mr. Rogers, called "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" And this discussion is actually prevalent to that, because he talks about when TV came forward and really hit its mainstream, how it was the lowest forms of comedy the TV was turning to. The pie in the face, the violence, the cheap violence. And he was so offended that why would such a wonderful tool, why would be a wonderful medium be used at the lowest common denominator spread these messages? Mike:                       And that sort of what you're saying right now is that there's so much of that lowest level being used, that it's overwhelming. So the question became in the documentary is, can there be a place? How do you get back to that place where respect can be at the forefront where you can think at a higher intellectual level in the advertising? What do you think it would take for market advertising to have that paradigm shift, to go to a place that's really built on respect, dignity for the consumer, for people watching? Bruce:                     I think what happens is over time, technologies and use of new technologies adapt and they adapt progressively and get better and better. So when movie cameras were first created, the silent movies, all they did was record plays because plays. Because plays where the way, theater was the way you presented a story. And it never dawned on anybody that you could do something different. So what do they do? They set up the camera, they set up the tripod, and they filmed the play. Then someone said, wait a second, we don't have to keep this camera in one position. We can actually take it outdoors. Bruce:                     We don't have to make believe we're on a wagon going into the wild west, we can actually go out and film it and they went out and changed the way they did that. When television took over from movies, took over from radio rather, what did they do? They took the same radio characters, the Amos, and Andy's, and the Lucy Balls, and all of those who were on radio and they simply put them on television, because it never dawned on anybody that you could create a new paradigm, a new visual language with this new technology that you had. Bruce:                     And what we're seeing now because of where the Internet has gone, is that people are saying, "Okay, I have this new technology. I can go on a Facebook. I can go on a Linkedin and I can change people's opinions, and I ... " Same thing that marketing and advertising has always tried to do. And what did they do? They use the old tools and techniques. But over time, what happens is those things fall by the wayside as people start to see different ways of utilizing the tools. Bruce:                     Now remember, there's an old saying in marketing, "Does marketing take its cues from popular culture, or does popular culture take its cues from marketing?" Meaning, if you see somebody wearing an outfit on television that you like, do you go out and buy it? You took your cue from popular culture or are the people who were putting out popular culture walking on the streets and saying, "Oh, I like what that guy's got on, and then moving it into popular culture." Bruce:                     And my answer is, it doesn't really matter. As I see it, it's a back and forth. It's a constant give and take. So if what's going on in popular culture is of a lesser respectful nature, less of a regard for people's individual rights, people's individual space, however you choose to define it. Then you're going to see that reflected in popular culture and then of course the popular culture. And, I'm sorry, the actual culture builds on popular culture and vice versa. As you see respect returning to the mainstream, you will also see it happen more and more in marketing materials. It's a constantly moving, constantly self-perpetuating, self-feeding process. Mike:                       And what do you think it's going to take for respect to come to the forefront in either one, so that that cycle you mentioned, you know, if it comes to the forefront in society, then marketing will follow? Or if marketing leads, what do you think it's going to take for that to happen? Bruce:                     Leadership. People standing up and saying, this is the way things go. I mean, if you think about respect, if you think about respectful behavior throughout history, you can find certain benchmarks in history based on people, based on leadership. And whether its religious leadership, or political leadership, or business leadership, or technology leadership, or medical leadership, irrelevant. You can find that different fence posts, signposts rather, where respect, concern for the other became the way you get things done. Bruce:                     Conversely, you can also find times in history where the opposite was true and you can see where those trains were driven to completely mixed my metaphors. And if you think about the statues in a park, you never see a statue with a group of people pointing in a direction. In fact, the only statue I can think of with a group of people, is the flag raising in Iwo Jima where all the GIs, the marines rather, are putting the flag up. Bruce:                     Every other statute is one person, tends to be male, but that's because of the way history was written. Right? But one person on a horse with the sword pointing, because it's these leaders that show us the right way. PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:11:04] Bruce:                     It's these leaders that show us the right way to proceed, the right way to move forward, and the right way to behave. Unfortunately, it's also leaders who drag us backwards and show us that the other works as well. Mike:                       Yeah, my wife was driving by a billboard this weekend and stopped and took a picture because the billboard, and I'm paraphrasing, was a simple statement, but powerful. Something along the lines of, who I love should not be able to get me fired. That was the whole billboard, and you thought, "Wow, that's an important discussion," and obviously, in the line of work I do, we believe strongly in that, respect and dignity for all, but you don't see a lot of billboards like that, and if you do, it tends to be, as far as from a moral or civil comment, it tends to be of a religious organization. Bruce:                     Well remember that for a billboard to be there, someone had to pay for it. Mike:                       Right. Bruce:                     In order for it to be paid for, it has to be an institutional viewpoint. You're not going to pay for it. A billboard costs between 3, 10, 20, $30,000.00 a month. You have those good feelings, that who you love should not get you fired, but are you willing to reach into your bank account and buy that sign? You're probably not, so most opinions that you see in popular marketing tend to be institutional, businesses, governments, associations, religious institutions and so on and so forth, because they're able to put their money where their mouth is. They're able to go out to their constituents and say, "We're going to promote this viewpoint." Bruce:                     What's changed in today's society is social media. Social media has completely democratized communication, and completely democratized information, and completely democratized the individual's ability to go out and make a message, so one person can go out and say something on social media, that we never could do before. This broadcast that you and I are doing is a perfect example. Neither one of us is investing the kind of money that billboards would cost to get our opinions out there, and so what you are going to see is more and more popular speech become more and more widely disseminated. Of course when that happens, you're talking about non-sophisticated marketers, who don't understand how to use marketing tools yet, and they're out there screaming into the chasm, and hoping they hear something back, other than their echo, and what gets somebody to scream back the quickest? Being provocative, saying something that will clearly upset somebody else, that's how you get the back and forth, if you don't know how to utilize creativity, if you don't know how to utilize psychological tools and techniques to get people to pay attention. As this social media gets us more and more democratized, what you're going to see is more and more low level marketing until the populace learns how to use the tools. Mike:                       How do you, or who do you feel is a good example of somebody that is leading from a moral conviction and getting messaging out there? I can think of one. For the past decade it was the Dove campaign, and the Dove campaign had the women in underwear, and saying all shapes and sizes, that everybody is of value, that we should be able to love your body. Actually I know, Stacey, one of the original women in that campaign, is a friend, a fellow speaker, an NSA member. They were leading the way at that time. Who do you see leading the way right now? Who are some top brands that you've seen? Saying, "Hey Mike, they're taking on social issues," and in doing so maybe taking risk, but it's in alignment with what they believe institutionally. Bruce:                     Well, it's not only through marketing. It's also through corporate behavior, so for example we saw what happened when Starbucks had that issue, I believe it was in Philadelphia, where two African American patrons were waiting for a friend, didn't purchase anything. The manager called the cops, and that became a big issue, and we find that offensive on a very basic level, which is that didn't happen to the White patrons, it happened to the Black patrons, therefore we're all offended. It was offensive on even a greater level to Starbucks' authentic truth, which is they provide what they call the third space, the place you and I can go and have a meeting, and use a bathroom, and have a cup of coffee and chat, and air-conditioning and lights, the Wifi and all of that. Bruce:                     In response, Starbucks could have very easily said, Howard Schultz could have said, "It's one store. It happened once. It was in Philadelphia. We have," I don't know how many stores they have, "We have 28,000 stores around the world, come on, give us a break," but he didn't do that. Instead, what he said was, "This is unacceptable." He didn't blame the manager. He said, "We have not done our jobs making sure that everybody in our universe understands the way we treat our patrons, and therefore we are going to commit ourselves to providing a respectful environment." They closed all their stores for half a day. They did training to all of their employees. They are committed to continuing training. They've already hired 10,000 veterans. They're committed to hiring another 10,000. They're committed to hiring another 10,000 inner-city, Black, Hispanic, and other minority workers. They are committing to keeping their bathrooms open for people who don't have access to bathrooms. They are doing it on every level. It's not simply, "Look at our advertising," although the advertising reflects exactly what they're talking about, and they're not making jokes about Black coffee, you know, which they could, right, because that's the quick way to get that message out. Bruce:                     Instead, they're saying, "This is who we are. This is what matters to us, and this is what we're going to do about it." Why? One guy, it was Howard Schultz, who came back from being, he had moved from CEO to Founder, to Chairman of the Board, to whatever, but he came back and said, "No, no, no. It's not going to work this way. Here's how we're going to do it." One guy on a horse with a sword. Mike:                       Your book's all about this. Your latest book title is, All About Them, which is what we're talking about right now. They made it about their alignment of their customer, and their client, and their demographic, not about just getting out there and defending themselves, that would be all about me, right? That's not even who I am, that's one fluke like you're describing. Mike:                       When we talk about All About Them, why do you think we fall into the trap of whether you're a speaker, an expert, a big, large institution, organization of making it about ourselves, right? Look at me, look at my product. Why do we fall into that, and how can we be more aware and present to making it about them? What are steps that we can take to make sure we're making it about them every day? Bruce:                     Well there's three reasons why we do it. The first one is just personal insecurity. "Look at me. Look what I've done, because I need to build myself up. I need to feel good about myself." That's for a different show, and people with different expertise, but the other two reasons that we do it, reason number one is because in the old days, pre Internet, if you didn't blow your own horn, if you didn't tell people who you were and what you did, who was going to tell them? There was no way for anyone to find out about you. Bruce:                     If I was interested in having Mike Domitrz to come and speak at my event, how could I find out about you, other than calling you and saying, "Hey Mike, would you send me a video tape? Would you send me a brochure?" You needed to go, "Look at me. Look at me. Look at me," but today, before I call you on the phone, I know everything I want to know about you. The key is that I want to know because some people go to your website, go to YouTube, look things up. Go to Google, what we call the belt and suspender people, right, they wear both because they want every detail. Other people don't care that much. They don't bother, but you being out there yelling, "Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me," is a fool's errand because that information is available. We used to say, "Imagine if we each had a magical device that knew everything." Siri, Cortana, Google, Alexa, Echo know everything, so being out there and yelling, "Look at me," there really is no benefit to it. That's reason number two. Bruce:                     Reason number three should be the simplest one of all, no one taught you this. Nobody said, "When you're marketing, when you're branding, when you're building your business, stop talking about yourself." You know about it when you go on a date. You could be that guy on the date who says, "Yeah, I did this, then I did this, then I did this, then I did this," but you understand that if you do that, the conversation's not going to go very far, but when we talk about our businesses, nobody said to us, "Look, here's the way you do it." Bruce:                     Look at the best advertisers. Look at how they promote themselves. What you will see is, they never talk about themselves. Apple does not tell you why their computers are better. They don't talk to you about speeds and seeds. They don't talk to you about technological advances. What are they saying right now? Behind the Mac, and they show a picture of a person with a laptop. Oh, I don't want to print this so I'll open it, and they show the person behind the computer. On the billboard I saw yesterday, they guy's like this. Now you don't know what he's looking at. You don't know what this means. It could mean, "Oh my God, I just declared bankruptcy." It could be, "Oh my God, look at my new granddaughter." You have no idea, but you have been in that position before, and so they're not talking about their equipment. They're talking about you and I. They're talking about the experience of being behind the Mac. Bruce:                     When they had their campaign thing different, they didn't say, "Think different because we have an M17 megahertz processor." They talked about the people who have thought different in history. Joan of Arc, Leonardo Di Vinci, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and so on and so forth, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and why you can be like them. Why Apple empowers you to do this. We see these messages all around us. We see the best companies, the best marketers, do it. We just have never been told, "That's how you do it." Now you've been told. Mike:                       Right. Bruce:                     That's why I wrote the book, by the way. Mike:                       Well I love that, and so pick up the book and we can all learn that. That becomes really important to talk about. How does someone help people find, like you said, you can do anything to find anything you want about people, so are you referring to the fact that you need to be serving up content, you need to be serving up valuable information? If you're going to put yourself out there, put it out there in a way that you're serving, that you're providing helpful information so that when they are searching, and they run into you, they see somebody who aligns with what they're looking for, is that what you're referencing there, versus look at me? Bruce:                     Of course. Mike:                       No, no, let me just ... Hey I've got some info., helpful information here. Bruce:                     That's right and information is only one way to look at it. It can also be entertainment. It can also be explanation. It can also be editing. I mean, for example, some of the most popular sites on the net are travel sites because when I travel somewhere, I don't know where to go, so I look for people I trust. The reason I think that Anthony Bourdain was so successful was we could relate to him. We felt his pain. We felt his normal-ness. He was one of us. [inaudible 00:21:41] what we should do. He became our editors. We went to Paris, or we went to Peking, we could see what did Anthony Bourdain suggest we do, so editing is a great thing you can provide for people. "Hey, here's what I know a lot about. Let me help you have a better experience." Travel, food, music, electronics ... PART 2 OF 3 ENDS [00:22:04] Mike:                       Food, music, electronics, software. Whatever it is you know about, providing that level of, let me help you. I use an algorithm in the book, CC 2 CC. The first CC stands for company centric, the number two stands for to, and the second CC stands for consumer centric. How do you take what you know, company centric, and how do you transfer it to your consumer? And more importantly to your potential consumer. And that's what we're talking about. Put the content out there, that there's things I want to read, because either I'm interested in the information or I find it amusing. Or I find it thought provoking, or I find it provocative. Or I find it helpful. Again, I don't know what your interests are, and you don't know what my interests are. Mike:                       But if your an expert in something, you know what it is you can provide. And you have to demonstrate to people that by interacting with you, with your materials, their lives will be better. Bruce:                     And so, is the mistake that some people are making today, in thinking when they put out an video, or they put an article, they put something out in the world, is they're thinking, what do I need to say to get attention? Versus, what is the best way I can entertain, serve those who would enjoy this the most. Bruce:                     Right instead of just saying, look at me, versus how can I be of service or of entertainment? Is that what you're referring to there? That idea that, "Hey, I'm going to do this video, because then I'll be the one everyone's talking about". Versus, "I'm going to do this video because nobody's saying this right now, and we need to have this conversation". Mike:                       So I love the word serve. Because if you say serve, that includes inform, entertain, excite, edit, whatever because it all fits under the umbrella. Yeah, you don't want to be the little kid at the pool, on the diving board going, "Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me". And at that point there's only two things he could do to make it worth my while. He could either do a perfectly executed double back flip. Or he can jump up in the air, and belly flop and make me laugh. There's nothing else that kid's going to do that's going to make up for him interrupting me. Mike:                       Think about old school marketing, the look at me, as the foot that someone sticks out in the isle of the airplane or the movies that you trip over. It interrupts your day to day. It makes you pay attention, but it's not necessarily a good thing. And the provocative statements tend to do that. Whereas the person who says, "Oh, you're going to Des Moines, well let me tell you some great places to eat". I've never been to Des Moines before, I'm interested, I want to hear that. That will make my life better. "And when you go to this restaurant, you know what, the maître d's name is Christina, tell her I sent you and she'll take really good care of you". Wow, now I get to travel like a local, that's awesome. Very different than the person tripping you and saying, "Hey here's some coupons, when you go there you can save money on stuff". Bruce:                     Yeah. Mike:                       One's respecting your time. One's respecting your intelligence. And today's show's obviously all of our shows are all about respect. For you Bruce, who instilled respect in you the most? Through your growing up? Through your development? Through the business years? Bruce:                     There were I think probably three or four people who did it. The first two were my parents. My parents were real sticklers for this. My dad's belief was, you do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do. I remember when my friend Alan got $5 for a B and $10 for an A. And I came home, and said, "Hey, Alan just got" ... Alan wasn't that smart I don't think he got that much money, but. "Alan just got 25 bucks for his report card Dad, and looking at you owe me 70 bucks". My father looked at me like I had three heads, and he said, "What are you talking about?"I said, "You know, Alan gets $5 for a B and $10 for an A". And he said, "You're supposed to get A's, that's your job, my job is to clothe you, feed you, house you, teach you about the world. Your job is to be the best you can be. Now I'm not saying that you might not get a D occasionally, or a C and that's so terrible, but your job is to do well". There was no reason why. There was no explanation right. It was the right thing to do. And I saw my dad do that in business. And I saw my dad do that in all his social activism. Bruce:                     My parents did the first anti-segregation sit in's in the South in Miami in 1959. My parents did amazing things. My mother was just as upright, but also added an intellectual component. Where she wouldn't just say it's the right thing to do. She would give me five books that I had to go read. That explained throughout history, why these things mattered. Bruce:                     And then, when I was in the orchestra. My orchestra leader, and crazy enough, my band leader, because I was a musician in school. Both of the two of them, really instilled this idea, that music is this ideal that you strive for. And the reason you strive for it is because you have to respect everyone who's come before. The composers, the musicians, the audiences. And if you get up, and you don't do a good job, you're not only disrespecting yourself. But you're disrespecting this entire tradition of music. And you're disrespecting the people who are listening to you. They didn't say you had to be perfect. Hey we were Junior High School musicians, we weren't that good. But the point was, you're doing the best you can do, because you respect yourself. And you respect the people that you are producing this music for. And you respect everyone who's come before you and who's laid the path. So we stand on the shoulders of giants. And that's how we become giants ourselves. And I think that is a clear indication or why respect matters. Mike:                       I love that. And you spoke of your mom giving you books to read. And I know you're a big reader, obviously your book is one that we'll have a link to for everybody, All About Them. You also told me about two other books that you're a big fan of. And that is, Orbiting the Giant, I believe it is Hairball by Gordon Mackenzie. Bruce:                     Orbiting the Giant Hairball, yup. Mike:                       Yep. And Designing Your Life by Burnett and Evans. Can you explain what about these two books you love? Bruce:                     Well let me, you brought up three points. So first of all, my mother and books. I had brunch with my mother yesterday, I left with two books. I need to read The Undoing Project and The Sense of an Ending, so my mother still does that to this day. Mike:                       That's awesome. Bruce:                     Designing Your Life is sitting right on my desk. It's not because I thought you [inaudible 00:28:10]. I have notes on every single page. Designing Your Life is a great book. It simply talks about, what is it you want out of life? It was a class at Stanford that has no become the most popular class at the university. And every student is required to take it. And they make you do something that I thought was fascinating. They make you write just a 30 minute, one pager, it's easy to do. A business plan. Here's where I think my business is going. Here's what I think I want to accomplish, on and on and on. A couple of pages later, they ask you to write a life plan. Here's what I want to accomplish in my life. Here's who I want to be. And then they say, okay now put the two of them together. And you find a sense of congruity between the two. Does the business plan help you achieve what you want to do in life? Does the life plan help you decide what you want to do in business. Amazingly enough, I have never thought of that before. And my guess is, the people listening are going, "I never thought of that either". So that's why I like that book. Bruce:                     Orbiting the Giant Hairball, which is back there on my bookshelf, is a book written by the guy who was the creative director for Hallmark Cards. And he's the one who took Hallmark Cards from just having the plain, sappy greeting cards, to all those little wacky cards. And cards that talk to different groups, and different people and different interested. And the entire book is about moving forward towards being the ultimate manifestation of who you are. And why you matter. While bureaucracy, entropy, all the other forces try to drag you back. Accept even though those are big words, by the title of the book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball, you can tell that he doesn't take it seriously. And so he's talking all the time about Why you matter. Why Earth matters. Why music matters. Why you need to express who you are. And it's just really an inspirational and a wonderful, wonderful book. Mike:                       I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your brilliance with us, Bruce. I know you and I just recently got to spend a little time together. And being around you, your energy, your spirit, your brilliance is always awesome. So thank you. Bruce:                     Wow. Thank you. Mike:                       Absolutely. And for everyone listening, remember you can join us on Facebook at our discussion group. So it's The Respect Podcast Discussion Group and really dive into your favorite parts that were shared today by Bruce. Insights maybe to check those books out. But let us know what you loved. That's on the Facebook discussion group for The Respect Podcast. Mike:                       Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Respect Podcast. Which was sponsored by The Date Safe Project at datesafeproject.org. And remember you can always find me at mikespeaks.com. PART 3 OF 3 ENDS [00:30:55]  

For those of you that don't already know Mike Jackness, he runs an ecommerce business approaching 10m a year in revenue, and is the co-host of the EcomCrew Podcast. On the Podcast Mike shares his direct experience with listeners to help them grow their ecommerce businesses. If you've tuned in to our Podcast regularly, you've heard Mark and I talk about how multiple revenue streams increase the overall value of your business (by de-risking it). So…if you want a more valuable business why not expand it to include email? But email marketing is dead right? All junk mail and spam. If that's true why does Mike get an open rate of 30% on his emails…and generate over 52% of his revenue for ColorIt from email? Because it works…and he does it in a “helpful”, customer friendly way. On today's Quiet Light Podcast Mike shares his process with email marketing using Klaviyo, and talks about how their Facebook synchronization feature enhances his customer reach and overall return on investment. The Facebook ads produce a whopping 1500% return on investment! You can learn about Klaviyo through their online training feature, and listen in to the EcomCrew Podcast and pick up additional tips and strategies. Mike and Dave also offer specific training such as importing from China, Launching on Amazon and finding your product niche. Episode Highlights: Using Klaviyo email marketing software to produce over 50% of revenues Add on the Facebook Synchronization piece and boost your ROI (1500% in Mike's case) Email marketing should be “helpful”. Treat the customers the way you want to be treated. The “trifecta” as a marketer includes an email address, a facebook messenger list and have the customer pixel'd. Google, Yahoo, AOL etc. look for a high open rate. Remove customers who don't open emails after 13 weeks. There are no “secret 10 step plans” that work for every model. Know your business variables and apply them to increase your success. EcomCrew Podcast has produced over 150 Podcasts. And yes..the best episode is #88. Knowing the value of your business and planning for an exit – is the smart thing to do. Transcription: Mark: Oh welcome back from Italy. Joe: Thanks man, it's good to be back. Mark: Ah is it really? Joe: Yeah that's a good question, I don't know. Mark: Well welcome back all the same. I'm sure everybody's glad to hear you instead of me for a change. Joe: I'm a little tanner and a little fuzzy. I haven't shaved in a couple weeks. Mark: Yeah. Joe: Haven't trimmed it a couple of weeks I should say. Mark: Haven't trimmed … are you missing the espresso and the- Joe: Oh man café, ginseng, the views of the ocean. We were at the coast for most of the times as you now we're in Rome as well but up in the north and coast of Italy is absolutely gorgeous. Mark: Hey I got a business idea for you. I think you and I need to start a podcast about traveling to Italy and of course, you would have to go onsite for that. Joe: I think it's a great idea. Let's do it. Mark: All right you guys we're going to shut down Quiet Light Brokerage and move on to a new business, new venture; a podcast about Italy but stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, we do actually have something related to Quiet Light Brokerage and that is … and to buying and selling online businesses; you talked to a mutual friend of ours, somebody who's been a friend of Quiet Light Brokerage for a while Michael Jackness. Joe: Mr. Mike Jackness from EcomCrew. Mike and I go back to him at e-commerce shield presentation he did on email marketing and a Klaviyo on what he does within his ColorIt Company, the adult coloring book company. And you would think email marketing is dead but this guy generates 52% of his revenue from email marketing. Has like a 30% open rate and just nails it, hammers it down and produces a ton of revenue that way and does Facebook synchronization. He talks about it all, on his Facebook synchronization that's part of Klaviyo, don't want to get too technical but he gets a 1500% return on investment. You and I have talked about this all the time, diversification of revenue streams does what to a business other than add more revenue; it's more valuable, right? Mark: It absolutely reduces the risk, increases stability, yeah. Joe: That's right. So we talked about that. We talked about the ability to expand beyond your typical just one source of revenue e-commerce business whether it be your Shopify store or your Amazon FBA site using tools like Klaviyo and Facebook Messenger, things of that nature. And then we talked a little bit about EcomCrew what they do there. EcomCrew is yes a podcast Mike and Dave have been doing it for almost three years now and they just simply help people. They've got a … my favorite subject is the under the hood section where they actually talk to an e-commerce owner about the problems within their business and try to help them right there right on the podcast sharing a lot of detailed information for people to help themselves. Mark: That is pretty cool. He has a ton of knowledge absolutely. The podcast they have is fantastic. I think the topic itself is really fantastic especially as people are trying to build up more integrated marketing systems. You know this idea of having their email coincide with a live Facebook audience and the marketing that you're doing there. Really really kind of advanced stuff but really good stuff and those numbers are staggering; 1500% ROI on Facebook. Joe: Yeah, huge. Mark: Incredible. Joe: Huge and he started small. He started testing little things just like everyone else. It's not like he had all this knowledge, he figured it out along the way. And just to put some numbers behind Mike and his expertise he's hoping that 2018 will be the year when his business overall hits the 10 million dollar revenue mark. So he's not a small player, he's doing a great job. Somebody that is now traveling around the world doing presentations and speaking on E-commerce Group Podcast subject and on email marketing and e-commerce in general, so definitely somebody worth listening to. Mark: You know one thing I do want to say before we jump into the episode, when people are listening to these numbers and hearing things like 1500% ROI, 10 million dollars breaking this year, I think it can be really intimidating for some people that are maybe at the beginning stages to hear this and to see all the opportunity and see so many advanced stuff these people are doing. We did an episode with Dan from Science of Skill who pulled about two million dollars of revenue from an email list of about 11 or 12,000 people. We've talked to Bjork Ostrom from Food Blogger Pro who is completely dominating that world. And I think the one thing just to keep in mind if you're hearing these episodes and seeing what some of these people are doing don't be overwhelmed by it and understand something that you alluded to Joe; he's done this over time. Focus on this continual improvement every day, small little group improvements and you can work yourself up. These guys didn't jump up to this in one month they did this over time. Joe: Yeah and on the podcast EcomCrew, he'll talk to and work with people that are doing 50,000 dollars a year in revenue and that's what they do under the hood and they help that. He'll also do it for folks that are doing half a million in revenue or five million in revenue but you know at all stages there's different tools and resources that can be used to help people grow their business. And bottom line is Mike's just a really nice guy. He's an expert in the arena. He's sharing the information. He's not afraid of competition. He says if I share information about my business and competition comes up and bites me in the heels it's because I didn't do a good enough job in promoting my own products. Mark: That's awesome. All right let's get to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Mike Jackness on the line with me. Hey Mike how's it going? Mike: Good man, it's good to be here. It's good to see you, I wish it was in person but it's … at least we're actually … we're in the same room. Joe: I agree. Good to see you as well and I know you've been traveling the world, good to be back in San Diego I hear right? Mike: It is man, like I can live anywhere in the world I want. At least we could at the time when we moved here I was like we had a virtual business but it's we're kind of anchored down here now but I want to be here and I feel sad whenever I had to go somewhere because it's San Diego, it's a pretty awesome spot. Joe: Well you got good problems. You're kind of a big shot now; you're travelling the world [crosstalk 00:06:51.0] all over the place. For those folks listening that don't know you why don't you, as you know we don't do formal introductions here at Quiet Light. Why don't you share a little bit of background on yourself? So what your history is, what you're doing now so that they understand who we're talking to today. Mike: Yeah no problem it's always [inaudible 00:07:07.3] to talk about yourself but I'll give it a shot. I've been doing this online marketing stuff for … this dates me for about 15 years. I actually quit my job back in 2004 and I've been doing this stuff ever since. Like some I retired in between a couple businesses that we were doing for a couple years and RVed around the country and got bored of being retired so we got sucked back into the business again and it was an e-commerce this time and we started doing that a few years ago. It's been almost five years now and are on the road to build an eight figure business this year. We'll get to crack eight figures this year or next year and along the way we've been documenting all that on EcomCrew. So it's been a much different environment than what I was doing before which was affiliate marketing where everybody was really guarded; you never talked about anything you did because everyone was kind of a competitor and going after the same traffic. But in e-commerce, it's like this multi-trillion dollar industry and you're never going to be the one selling all the things in your niche. And one of the things that we do is coloring for adults and I always say like I'm never going to select all the gel pens in the world. So talking about what we do and being open about it I think has been cool and yeah it might create some competitors but if they can catch me I feel like it's my fault. It's kind of been my philosophy plus I'm just more secure about everything I do now that I'm a little bit older. And I look at the things that come out of it positively, which is getting to meet people like you which would never happen if it wasn't for EcomCrew and speaking and all these things. So and for the most part like 99% of what we do; helping other people doesn't adversely affect us and for the one [inaudible 00:08:41.9] that does you know so be it whatever. Joe: Well you just touched on it what you do believe and I'm … for people listening EcomCrew is just that. It's what we do at Quiet Light, it's helping other people. Help them first then things come back to you. And I've seen you do presentations on the adult coloring books and the email marketing behind it. I've listened to the EcomCrew podcast; I worked with Dave as you know as well. So I want to talk about both but let's just answer the simple question first about email marketing; you know I'm an old school direct marketer, I've been self-employed since 1997 believe it or not. Mike: Nice. Joe: It was radio direct marketing back then and then the next evolution at that point was email right? As old isn't email marketing dead, are you making any money with it? Mike: Yeah and it's a trick question right, or it's a blue question, it's a softball question. You know when I first got into doing email marketing for e-commerce I felt the same way and I had drug my feet forever and it's probably one of my bigger regrets in this business for a couple reasons. Number one, I think its human nature to approach stuff in life and in business the way that you think about it yourself. So for me, I flipping hate email. It's my biggest nemesis. I cannot get to Inbox 0 no matter how hard I try. It … I'm unsubscribing for more things than I'm subscribing to just to try to get email under control and I just viscerally have this negative hatred in reaction towards email. So you know I didn't want to get into emailing people because I … you know how I am I like to treat others like I like to be treated. So for me, that was the conflict more than anything. It's like I'm going to start emailing people and I wouldn't want to even receive these emails myself. So that was the basis for the whole thing to start with so I was slow at doing it. But listening to other people talk and going to other you know a lot of these conferences and you still hear email as a prevalent thing and it's important; you should be doing email etcetera etcetera. So eventually I started dipping my toes into it and what I realize now many years later first of all email is 52% of our revenue. I was just looking before doing this podcast; it's 52% of our revenue for ColorIt. So it's a massive amount of our business. But our open rates- Joe: That's 52% of nearly an eight figure business. Mike: So just to … yeah [inaudible 00:11:07.1] that's just on ColorIt.com so we also sell on Amazon and Amazon is two thirds of our business so … but it's two thirds of a million dollar business because ColorIt.com does about a million dollars a year. And as a business overall ColorIt is bigger than that because you add in the Amazon component. But yeah what we do on ColorIt.com like when it's our own website and we control all of our own destiny; email marketing is a mass sort of part of that and it has a massive halo effect that you can't directly determine. But it has a massive halo effect on our Amazon business as well. Because people are reading these emails and they eventually go buy on Amazon. We have a lot of data on this but you can't … it's not empirical, you can't tell definitively like exactly what's going on there. But I mean totally you can look at the numbers and say okay by doing these things over here that it's affecting the stuff over here. So it definitely makes a big difference. Joe: Yeah for sure and then we're going to talk about open rates there in the email before I interrupt. Mike: Yeah. So our open rates are close to 30% so they hover somewhere 28 to 32% depending on what stage we are on scrubbing or list. So one of the things that we work really hard on is email deliverability; making sure things end up in the primary inbox, not in spam; that we are providing value to people so they want to open our emails. So that's been a really big angle for us so we kind of use the 80-20 rule here where at least 80% of our emails are helpful and they're not hitchy in any way of what we're trying to sell you something. And it's really more like 90-10. The vast majority of what we send out is helpful tips and tricks or things you want to know. So for instance in the coloring space; how to blend your shade with colored pencils, how to blend with markers or something like that, how to sharpen your pencils. Here's a time lapse video of how to draw this particular drawing and here's a free copy of it. Here's some stuff from our community other people submitted you might want to like it out as well. We're doing a giveaway this month or fan of the month contest. All these types of things that add value and every now and then once every six weeks or so or eight weeks we're releasing a new product and that will be a part of the sequence. Or maybe there's a Mother's Day sale or the month it's going to be come up soon it'd be a 4th of July sale. But very few of our emails are in that realm and most of them are in here are some helpful tips and tricks. So let's apply that to something besides coloring let's like it like tactical.com, your emails will be 10 things to bring on your next hiking adventure, how to prepare for an emergency, things to put in your bug out bag, what to do when the lights go out; whatever the types of things that we're doing in tactical world. Things that are like truly helpful for people especially I mean right now we're getting into hurricane season so we're going to be releasing a lot of content about that. And you know the fact of the matter is that most people just aren't prepared. Like a hurricane comes or an earthquake, a tornado comes whatever and you have no food and water or a flashlight that are is or all dead whatever it might be. It's actually quite helpful to people to bring us the forefront of their mind even if you just think about it for a second you can actually help save someone's life in this case. So these are the types of things we'll provide and every now in that cycle he check out on your products this might help you as well. So the vast majority we do is trying to train people to want to open our emails, to kind of like … you know and humans are very habit forming creatures. It only takes a few times of doing something to make it a habit. So we try to make this a habit for them and that's our approach. Joe: Yeah it seems to have worked with your open rate which is pretty phenomenal. Let's back up a step, what email software are you using; what do you prefer? Mike: So we're using Klaviyo for almost everything at least in the e-commerce space. You know Klaviyo is just heads and tails above everything else when it comes to e-commerce. It has a direct integration with Shopify, you can build segments within Klaviyo, people that have done particular things and then generate emails based off of that. And probably the feature that it has that's most valuable is the ability to then take those segments and synchronize those segments with a Facebook audience and then you can … it can currently run Facebook Ads to that group of people which is highly effective. And the thing that really got me going with this was actually a really funny story because I had just got done presenting at E-commerce Fuel; I think you might have actually been there. I was talking about email marketing and I was like- Joe: That was Savannah? Mike: Yeah. I think it was in Savannah. And I was like gloating about email marketing and all these cool things that we're doing and at the time that I was really … all I really focused on was mostly email marketing. And what I had said there was at the time our open rates where between 20 and 25% which is still double industry average and we've since improved that. But I was really proud of that fact and someone came up to me after the show. A good friend of mine, Kevin Stucco and he was like well what about the 75% of people that aren't opening your email? And I was just like … it was an instant like aha moment. It kind of knocked me down a peg because I was like all … kind of like in that gloating mindset but it was actually a really good point. Even … you know I was looking at it from one perspective of we're double or more than double the industry average on open rates on email. But what he made me think about was what about all these people that aren't opening email. And one of the things that Klaviyo at the same time was coming out with was that synchronization feature. So we started getting really heavy into Facebook Ads. And what you can do is if for instance there's like someone … let's say your average order frequency is 80 days so what we do as a win back sequence at 90 days we offer them a coupon; the comeback as an email. Well, why not run an ad to them, a Facebook Ad at the same time and Klaviyo makes that really easy. So yeah there's going to be basically three things that can happen; either they're going to open your email, they're going to see your Facebook Ad, or they'll do both. Some people going to see both of your email and your Facebook Ad. But either way, throwing the Facebook stuff into it is a much more effective approach. So it's been really successful for us and now we have these Facebook Ads that run 100 or 1500 to 2000% return on Ad Spend. Joe: Wow. Mike: But the most effective ads that we run are- Joe: It's incredible. Mike: Yeah. Because if you think about it I mean it's a super small audience, we're putting a really small budget together and these are like highly primed people. These are someone that's already bought from us. They kind of maybe forgot about us, you send and ad to them 10% off of course they're much more likely to convert than someone that's called traffic. It's way … this is what people forget about in e-commerce; it's way easier to sell someone something the second time than the first time. But the problem is that we all get our high off of getting new customers so that's what we always focus on is those angles. But what really brings the profitability to e-commerce is nurturing the existing customer. Joe: Lifetime value of a customer. Mike: Yeah. Joe: Repeat customer acquisition all that good stuff. So Klaviyo is the software of choice. Your emails separate yourself out from the mass emails that we get just by being as helpful as possible. So you don't wind up in the unsubscribe section and then combine and sync with Facebook which is great to go back out to those folks. On the emails themselves, how many are you sending on a day or week or things of that nature, and do you have any concerns about people opting out and do you make it easy enough for them to unsubscribe? Mike: Yeah. So we were sending millions of emails a month now literally; the number is actually crazy. We were just looking at our Klaviyo account the other day and it shows you the number of emails you've sent out. And in this particular account we're looking at it was actually just yesterday and it was 200,000 emails we had sent out and we were just like four days into the billing cycle. And I was like uh-oh like oh excuse me something might be wrong with … I think they were sending like … maybe people are getting two emails of the same thing or something. We kind of dug into it for a few minutes and realized just like the actual frequency, the number of emails we're sending is like in the millions a month now and it's actually accurate. And that's what we want to be happening it's just that we didn't quite have our … even have our heads around it. Joe: At the millions a month, how many is one individual getting? Mike: It really depends. It depends on how they came in to our system and what part of the sequences that they're in. There are some situations where someone might get an email from us literally every single day. So if they are coming in to one of this new lead magnet flows that we have which is basically I call this this the trifecta; this might be like a little bit of a version of what we're talking about today because we're talking about email but just as a real quick side note the trifecta to me as a marketer is getting them on a Facebook Messenger list, getting them Pixeled so I can also have their Pixel data, and getting their email address. So to me like- Joe: What's the Pixel part? Mike: So the Pixel part is just it when someone visits your website that's a piece of code that you have on your website that the Facebook Pixel or the Google Pixel and by having this script on your website you now know that someone has visited you and you know that they visit a particular pages or that they took particular actions. You don't know individually who they are like I don't know that Joe Valley visited my website today but I … you are in a bucket that I can say like I want to know all the people that did X, Y, and Z and you'll be in the bucket and I can then advertise to you in a particular way by being in that bucket. So what we do for Facebook campaigns or most of our campaigns is this whole … again the provide value first angle. So we'll offer people something for free whether it's free downloadable content, free drawings, a lead magnet whatever might be or offer them a free plus shipping off or maybe … so we start with these really compelling low friction offers and then send them to a Facebook Messenger flow. Which is basically are you definitely interested in this; yes or no. If they say yes we give them a link to a page and when they get to that page they're now Pixeled. So we have them on our Facebook Messenger list I can market to them that way. I have them Pixeled so I can remarket to them that way. And then that landing page will have a spot to give us their email address and I can market to them that way. And when they come through one of these flows for free downloads let's say we don't just give them all the free downloads in one day. We give them an email every single day for 30 to 45 days. It's actually a very long sequence where … so it's a 20 free download program or promotion I would say. And so we're giving them a download every other day and in between that we're giving them some other value. So and we tell them we're going to send you 20 free downloads, you're going to get one every other day. We don't tell them they are going to get another email every other day in between but they still open those as well. Joe: Yeah. Mike: And those other emails are still value, it's the how to blend or shade kind of emails or things like that, here are some stuff from our community and in it dispersed within there is here's a coupon for the book that you were just downloading these drawings from and things like that. So in that circumstance, their getting emailed incredibly frequently but the baseline minimum that people are getting email from our company is six times a month. That's the absolute minimum, someone, what would get. Joe: And that's fine. I've seen people … I've seen your presentation and I've heard people say man that's a lot of emails but if they don't want then they opt out. Mike: Yeah so- Joe: And your open rates- Mike: Exactly let me let me hit on that just real quick because it's a really important point. Again treating people like I'd like to be treated; I don't … if I don't want the email like I want to be able to number one at least [inaudible 00:22:39.8] easily unsubscribe so we make that easy for people. And I want them to be able to easily unsubscribe. What people … the shady email marketers don't get is you're actually hurting yourself more by trying to jam it down their throat because you want the open rates to be high. And Google and Hotmail and Yahoo all the different email platforms look at your stats of your open rates just like Google is looking at click to rates in inorganic search. And if your open rates are high, way higher than average; they're gonna say though this is content that people probably want we're going to put this in the main inbox. If you dip below a certain point you'll end up in the in the promotions tab, if you dip below even a certain point from that you'll end up in spam. And there's like no way to get yourself out of there. So we want to keep our open rates as high as possible probably for our own best interest right? So it's- Joe: Yeah. Mike: We make it easy to unsubscribe and if you don't open one of our emails for 13 weeks we unsubscribe you for yourself. So we figure after 13 weeks you know which is going to be probably something that range of 20 emails that we've sent out if you haven't opened one of those emails in that longer a time period you're probably just done with us and we'll just stop emailing you. And in that way … that's one of the reasons why our open rates continue to be as high as they are and we keep on adding our net gain every month is way higher than our unsubscribes or people we're removing. We've got something like 60,000 active emails on ColorIt where you know some people might look at that list and they would say it's 200,000 or something because we're not constantly scrubbing it. Our emails are active; these are 60,000 people that are actively open … we have 60,000 people that have opened at least one of our emails in the last quarter which is a much better stat in my mind than looking at the total number of people we've ever signed up. Joe: I totally agree. We're constantly asking that question in our client interviews and trying to drill down into the relative usefulness of those total emails. Yeah for those that are listening can you touch on, I mean it's probably overwhelming for both buyers and sellers that are listening in terms of if they've never done email marketing if they don't know how to do any Facebook marketing. I want to ask a question; let me first touch on the fact that for those that are not doing these now, for those that are getting revenue from one channel your business is going to be 20 to 30% less valuable than one from multiple channels and you also … and that's because of the risk. You're at a greater risk of a catastrophe if you're 100% Amazon business or 100% email marketing business, or 100% Facebook. You want to spread out and do all of them and have more sort of legs on the stool to balance out the business. Buyers will love that. They'll pay more for it. Mike: Yeah. Joe: And figure how to do it so what kind of training would you recommend for anybody looking to learn Klaviyo, anybody learning Facebook marketing? Mike: I mean we obviously do ourselves some I mean that's a kind of a loaded question but- Joe: It's funny, wasn't actually for people listening it wasn't a loaded question because I didn't know that. I know that you're doing … I know I've listened to EcomCrew you know I know Dave well, I know you well know and I love your Under the Hood sessions and I didn't really hear that you're actually doing the training sessions on Klaviyo and email marketing so let's … on Facebook so let's move to that. Let's talk- Mike: So we have a new thing called the EcomCrew Premium and what we were doing is like releasing a course every couple of months and charging 500 to 1,000 dollars per course depending on what the course was on. We did one on importing from China. Then we did another one on how to launch products on Amazon the white hat way without doing any black hat tactics. And as we kept on releasing courses we were getting emails of people just like this is getting expensive. It's like our core fans are like they're just buying everything we do, it was getting expensive and I also felt like starting to feel like a kind of a used car salesman in some respect because you're just constantly trying to sell them something different every couple of months. So we just said you know what like … because you know how Dave and I are like and we just we're not like that so- Joe: [inaudible 00:26:36.0] Mike: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Joe: [inaudible 00:26:38.4] Mike: Okay well that makes more sense though he is Canadian so like by default he's just like already 40% nicer. Joe: It's it. Mike: Yes so we came up with this subscription model which is you just pay once a month, then you get access to everything that we've already done; everything that we're going to do in the future. And it includes webinars twice a month and the training we're about to release depending on this podcast will be released. The next one we're doing is on Facebook Messenger and we actually have a webinar later today as recording this on that topic as well. So we give those webinars to our EcomCrew Premium members as well. So we're constantly talking about this stuff and whatever's going on more current. The Klaviyo we don't actually have a course on yet I mean that was something that I learned on my own. I'm not really sure if there's one out there. We are going to be doing one on that but as a part of our subscription model, you also get access to us to ask questions so you can just email questions if you're having a hard time with Klaviyo as if for instance we would just help you with that as well. It's any type of e-commerce stuff we would help with. But Klaviyo is simple and it's complicated at the same time. Like I can understand why it would be overwhelming. I'm kind of a tech guy so I naturally kind of gravitate towards the stuff and figure it out. When I realize when it's complicated is when we hire a new employee and I had to explain to them how to do it and I see their eyes kind of glaze over. It's like I'm trying to explain the difference between a segment and a list or a flow and a campaign or how to synchronize something to Facebook and they're just like … you've been kind of giving that look and I … and then I understand that some things come harder to certain people. It'd be the same look I would give somebody if you asked me to do rock climbing or something. I'd be like yeah that's not going to happen. I'm not going to be able to do that. So yeah I don't know besides just Klaviyo's own website for that like what the best way to go about that is. Joe: So yeah you sell a very visual product you know with ColorIt and the tactical gear stuff you know common sense makes sense, between your connections with the EcomCrew and the Under the Hood Segments what's the strangest … I don't want to say, I don't want to call somebody's product or service strange but the thing that you would think would not necessarily work via email marketing that or Facebook that they get a shot and actually made a difference in their business. Mike: Yeah I mean let me start by saying give you like a whole another kind of answer to this real quick. What I always say when I when I speak at events or do these podcasts, whenever wherever I'm talking about and this comes up, one of the things that drives me crazy I mean you're in the same industry I'm in there is a lot of people out there that are like follow my secret 10 step plan, do these exact things and sprinkle this special dust in your business and you'll be a millionaire overnight. Those ads are on our Facebook feed like nonstop. We also go to events where some of these people speak and it drives me nuts. So I'm always cautious and tell people look like you have to use … you know your business better than anyone else and there's like all these variables that kind of go into it. You have a different margin than I might have or maybe there's a Facebook audience site that directly matches up with what you're doing. Maybe you have the ability to get user generated content really easily or you can make a lead magnet or a free plus shipping offer. If you have a lot of repeat business opportunity maybe you don't like I mean … so I try to talk about all these different types of businesses that we've been involved in and how we've approached it. And the thing that's cool about us now is we have four brands. We're doing things in coloring and hot and cold therapy we have a baby brand and we have a tactical brand. I'm gonna start talking a lot more about like our different approach for each brand but what your … the question you're asking is and I think that the answer to it really is that every business is unique. You have to follow maybe a basic outline of what people … like I'm doing with email marketing, here is like the different approaches we've taken with our different niches but you know it's hard to just say like do these exact 10 things. I mean there's a couple of things you want to do by default with email. You want to definitely have like an abandoned card sequence; that applies to everybody. You want to have a win back campaign; that applies to everybody. But what doesn't apply to everybody is 20 free downloadable coloring pages. That doesn't make sense for anybody else except for us. Joe: Right. Mike: Or like here's how to prepare for an emergency that probably doesn't apply to most businesses. You have to think out of the box and more importantly than anything is try a bunch of different concepts and don't be afraid to fail. This is where I think people get hung up like the human nature which I'm different in this regard for whatever reason. I'm wired differently. I just don't care about embarrassing myself or doing something that doesn't work. So you know I'll try 10 or 20 different things until I find the one that resonates and gives some traction where you know somebody else might try something once or twice and just give up. You have to keep on trying different concepts until you find the one that really seems to resonate and then with something in the world of Facebook when you find the thing that resonates or in email marketing it really seems to work. You'll get stats that are completely different than what you've done to that point. I mean 10 times better, 20 times better and you'll kind of hit that thing that kind of … that really works and I'm hoping that kind of answers the question. I mean I'm always reluctant to talk about other people's business specifically that we've run into at EcomCrew because I'm always pretty protective of the things that they're doing. Joe: Yeah. Mike: I never want to break anyone's confidence but I think that that is probably the best approach. And one last thing that I'll mention is when we got started in e-commerce with treadmill.com and I always talk about this. So it's like that's the most different thing that we've done compared to the other things that we're doing now. The approach there would be way different than selling something like a coloring book because you're only going to sell someone one treadmill. You've got no chance at a second sale. In fact, you just hope that they don't return it because it turns out to be like the most expensive clothes rack they ever bought right? Joe: Exactly. That's right. Mike: So I mean you have to take a different approach with that. And it's a much longer term sale cycle that you're not going to spontaneously sell somebody a 2,000 dollar treadmill. This is sort of like well long thought out, multi-year struggle with weight or whatever it might be that drives them to buying this treadmill, much different way to approach it so you've got to take a different approach there than selling somebody a sort of coloring pens or something. Because like yeah you can put an ad up, they're 30 bucks. Someone won't think twice about buying that and it can be a very spontaneous purchase versus the other way around. So you got the like … it's kind of like what you do, I mean people … like it's a very long sell cycle when you are trying to get someone to sell their business or purchase a business. That doesn't spontaneously just happen. So you're having to take a different approach with your email and your marketing than someone else that's actually selling widgets that are something that people just want to buy like that so- Joe: And it's interesting; it's the exact same approach you take in email marketing which is help as many people as you can. Be [inaudible 00:33:45.2] as you can and it generally is it's the right way to do it number one. But it generally works. You build relationships with either customers or clients like you sell from whatnot that they come around and work well. Mike: [inaudible 00:33:57.3] that works pretty well in life too by the way. Joe: That is [inaudible 00:34:00.6] life lessons from Mike Jackness. Mike: Yeah. Joe: We're running short on time but I want to talk about just EcomCrew briefly. I want people to now how to listen in because if you're in the e-commerce world you got to listen to Mike and Dave on EcomCrew because all they do is help people. Talk about that for just a minute; when did you start it, how do they download, listen to it, that kind of thing. Mike: We started it I guess it's been three years ago, three or four years ago. It's kind of hard to … I lose track of time. And we're out at Episode 150 something on the podcast as of recording this. My favorite episode we ever did was Episode 88 though, which was the Joe Valley EcomCrew podcast so- Joe: [inaudible 00:34:37.6] we talked today. Mike: I did. I just I was just looking on this great. But it's been a weekly podcast and we've now gone to twice a week. So twice a week we are talking about e-commerce stuff because between Dave and I we have plenty of things to talk about. We might even go to three times a week I just don't know if I have the time to do it. But as you're growing a business with the speed that we are there's plenty of talk about and I love talking about it because it produces a lot of cool stuff. I mean like I said it helps me meet people like you know but it also … it's really embarrassing to have to get on a podcast and start like you were … because I talk about my goals and the things that we're like looking to do. When you have to get on the podcast and say like I didn't get this done it's like there's nothing better than peer review and peer pressure. So I keep on pushing it till I get stuff done. So it's been very helpful for me as well. So yeah there's the podcast component so on iTunes E-C-O-M-C-R-E-W but we also have a blog which Dave does almost all of that content, EcomCrew.com all of that stuff is free. We even have actually a free … three free courses under the My Ecom Career Area none of that requires giving us a penny. It's just kind of us giving back. And you know I hope our long term strategy just like you is if we help people in they get an affinity towards the things that we're telling them and teaching that eventually they would want to become a premium member. But even if they don't like you were pretty financially secure and happy with what we're doing and all the other stuff is free. So definitely come check us out. Joe: It's awesome. Thanks Mike. I appreciate it. Anybody listening I would highly highly recommend you go to EcomCrew and check it out, download, listen to the podcast; definitely Episode number 88. Mike: Best episode ever. Joe: Ever. Mike: It actually was one of our best or highly rated episodes. And people are always interested in buying and selling their business. I mean it's something you should always be thinking about it's just I think people often wait too long to be thinking about these things and- Joe: Nine times out of 10. Mike: Yeah. Joe: Planning in advance should be probably number five. Mark doesn't like it but plan in advance you're going to understand the valuations and you do things like we talked about today which is [inaudible 00:36:41.1] email marketing and you'll [inaudible 00:36:43.6] business and get high value profit so [inaudible 00:36:46.6]. I appreciate your time today Mike I know you're a busy guy. Mike: No problem, thanks. Links: Ecomcrew.com EcomCrew Premium Episode 88 Klaviyo.com Klaviyo Facebook Snyc

Listen about people constantly screaming Hey Mike! at Mike, more strip club stories, and which bagels should be in a dozen (mostly everythings). Recorded on 3/3/18 @The Bro's Nest 2: Electric Boogaloo WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! shotsforlikes@yahoo.com shotsforlikespodcast.libsyn.com facebook.com/shotsforlikespodcast/ instagram.com/shotsforlikespodcast/ mobile.twitter.com/shotsforlikes

How showing us consume our own products is driving revenue. On today’s episode Russell talks about how doing Funnel Fridays has helped show people how to consume Funnel Scripts and has ended up helping tremendously with sales. He also tells a funny story about a product launch with an unexpected problem. Here are some cool things to listen for in this episode: How Funnel Fridays have helped sell Funnel Scripts. Why it’s important for your customers to become engaged with your company. And find out the details of a funny story involving Anik Singal and a product launch. So listen below to find out why you should be watching Funnel Fridays and why you should be doing something similar with your own business. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell. I hope you guys are doing amazing. Welcome to Marketing In Your Car. Alright my friends, I’m on the way to the office for a quick one hour session. It was 4th of July yesterday, we had an amazing time blowing up more fireworks than most people should probably ever buy. Someone told me that that’s the closest thing to lighting money on fire, but I tell you what, it was worth it. We had a great time, we survived. All of my 50+ family members, almost all of them left now. There’s a moment when things just slowed down, so I’m heading to the office to bust out a quick few projects real quick. Then I’m back to playing with the fam. But as I was heading out I wanted to share with you guys something that’s really, really cool. Amazingly cool. Something that I think all of you guys should, really should be doing in your business. It was something we kind of stumbled upon. Let me tell you the back story. So here’s the epiphany bridge for those that pay attention. I always talk about my webinar model, where it’s like, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday promote the webinar. Thursday do the webinar. Friday, Saturday, Sunday follow up and keep that process, right? What about all the unconverted leads, people that don’t buy, what should you do with them? So that’s kind of what this concept stems from. People didn’t buy the webinar for whatever reason. Sometimes they come around and buy later and things like that. But how do we get them so that they’re buying all the time? So that was kind of the initial question and I heard John Lee Dumas talk about how he does these webinars on Friday, he just talks all day Friday. Talks for 2 or 3 hours and just pitches all those unconverted leads on this thing and makes a hundred grand every single time. And I was like, or you know, I don’t know. Maybe it was 50 grand or 10 grand. I don’t know, but that’s what he was doing every Friday for a while and I was like, that’s kind of cool. So we bought the domain funnelfridays.com and got a sweet logo made and I was like, “Every Friday I’m going to do some Funnel Friday thing.” And that was kind of the idea and then it sat there for like 8 months. Logo design and everything, it just didn’t do anything. And then one day Jim Edwards called me on the phone and was like, “Hey we sold a lot of Funnel Scripts, we should keep selling Funnel Scripts, because right now nobody’s buying it. What’s the best way to sell more?” and I was like, I don’t know and we were kind of trying to think through things. And then I was like, “We’re thinking about doing this thing Funnel Friday where I was just going to build funnels and let people watch me. Do you want to be on that show and then you can do the script part of it and just I don’t know? It’d be kind of fun.” And he’s like, “Yes, let’s do this. Let’s set a date.” Which was a good thing we did, because the day was like 6 weeks later, but we put it on a Friday. We were like, “We’re going to do this Friday Funnels.” Yeah Friday Funnels. I get the domain messed up. Anyway, 6 weeks later, finally I show up that day and it’s like the day before and it’s like, “Oh crap, we’re doing this tomorrow.” “What should we do.” I’m like, “Let’s build a funnel. I’m going to build it in Clickfunnels, you’ll write the script in Funnel Scripts, you’ll give it to me and we’ll plug it all in, and we’ll show people us building a funnel.” And he’s like, “How long is it going to be?” And I was like, “I don’t know. It’d probably be cool if we made it like we had some kind of limits on it. So it wasn’t just Russell building a funnel for 3 hours, because as cool as that would be for me and the two people that would like to watch me build funnels for 3 hours a day. Oh man, I think I just got walkie-talkie’d by the construction lady with the sign. Hope there’s not a cop on the back end of that. Anyway, sorry. There’s construction, I’m just driving too fast through it. So anyway, I was like, “I think it’d be better if we had constraints, because constraints make things interesting.” When there’s no constraints on it and you’re just doing something, it’s not as interesting. So I was like, “Let’s do a 30 minute timer and let’s try to build a funnel. So that was kind of the concept. So we went the first time and we started building a funnel and I did it in 30 minutes. Anyway, I got one of the 6 pages in the funnel done and it was really, really hard. The next week we did another one and I got a little bit closer. And the third week, I think we’ve done…….I can’t remember if it’s 3 or 4 weeks now. I think we’re on 4, I think this is our 4th week. We’ve had people send packages of what they want us to build. And we’ve done Facebook Live ahead of time and opening up packages and letting people vote on which product they wanted to see on Funnel Fridays. Just a whole bunch of fun things around that concept and every Friday we’re like, “Hey we’re building a funnel, come hang out with us live.” And people would show up, and it’s pretty cool. Now a couple of little tweaks. W’re doing ours on Google Hangouts. If you go to the page you’ll see it there and all the back shows are there as well. So it’s happening on Google Hangout, and we drive our email list to promote to that. So there’s traffic coming from that. And now that we’re kind of building our YouTube subscribers, there’s a little traffic coming from that. And the other things is Facebook Live and Periscope. For some reason, I don’t know why, but I’m grateful for it. Facebook Live is amazing right now. I did a Facebook Live yesterday and within 24 hours we had over a million people reached, it’s crazy. I think that they’re really rewarding people right now, because they want people on Facebook Live because they are trying to beat out Periscope and the other ones. Anyway, there’s a little hint. Strike while the iron’s hot, because that window won’t be there forever. I remember with Google Hangouts for a while it was the same thing. You do a Google Hangout on any topic and you’d be ranked on page one of Google the next day. So that window, that ship kind of sailed and disappeared, but that’s how they were trying to get people to do hangouts back then. Same thing, they’re trying to do with Facebook Live. So they promote things. So what we do is, I’m doing it live on Google Hangouts, then Steven on my team, he’s got Periscope and Facebook Live recording on my phone, so he’s recording behind the scenes of us doing it. So we’re recording that, a piece of it. What’s crazy is that Facebook Live version goes crazy viral. Part of it’s because we’re on for about an hour. 30 minutes of me building, but there’s build up time and post time and talking and having fun and banter. So it’s about an hour. So because of that there’s so much interaction that happens during that hour that Facebook boosts it high. Anyway, it’s crazy. So we do it, basically, Google Hangouts is showing us using the product, Facebook Live and Periscope show behind the scenes of us doing it. And we kind of promote all those things like crazy. And when all is said and done, after Friday’s show is done, we’re getting half a million + people to see it on Friday, between the reach and emails and everything like that. It’s just crazy. So we’ve done it for 4 weeks now. Is that what I said? 4 weeks, 1,2,3,4. And I have no idea if it’s sales were good or bad. We’re doing it because it’s fun and hopefully people will like it. Luckily every single week it’s been more people showing up. So there’s some cool stuff there. But after Friday’s last show, Jim was like, because Jim and I are partners on Funnel Scripts, so he gets half the money on everything it makes. And he was just, he said something like, “Man, I’m glad I hitched myself to you and to the Clickfunnels bandwagon.” Or whatever. And I was like, “Oh yeah. How are sales doing? I haven’t even looked yet.” And he said something like, “Mama’s really happy.” And I was like, “Really? How are we doing? I have no idea. We haven’t promoted it, been in a webinar. There’s an auto webinar page there and we talk about it during these shows.” So I went back to look at the stats, and that product alone had sold over $117,000 worth in the last 30 days. Primarily, I mean we drive a little bit of Facebook ads and stuff, but primarily from this live show. And it’s crazy. I don’t even know how much Clickfunnels sells, or Funnel University or the things we talk about, but that one specific, $117,000 came from us not selling, just consuming the product and showing people how we consume the product. Is that crazy? So my big moral, I hope you guys are seeing this trend in the back side of my marketing, because we’re doing it a lot. We’re trying to show behind the scenes of everything. As you know we’re doing a reality show, filming behind the scenes of behind the scenes. The more I’m trying to get people engaged in the process of what we do and not just the end product of what we do, but engaging people in the process, the better it’s been. How do we let them experience us consuming our products? Because we’re the hyper users so far. I’m consuming this product and I’m obsessed with it and I’m showing you how excited I am. And I’m actually consuming it on a regular basis and they get to peer through the screen, look over my shoulder and watch that process. It gets them wanting to consume, it gets them wanting to use it. So instead, for us not selling anything, just showing people how we consume our own products, that one product alone $117,000. My guess between Clickfunnels and some other stuff we’re probably a quarter of a million dollars or more and we haven’t sold anything yet. We’re just showing us consume things. So I want all you guys thinking about that. What is it in your business that you do? Most of your customers probably see the end result. The product that you are handing them or the software tool your handing them or whatever. They don’t get to see the process. So how can you show them the process? How can you use something like a weekly show where you consume your products and show you actually using them? Anyway, it’s doing some amazing things for us and that’s why I’m excited. I wanted to share that with you guys. So if you want to see the process we’re doing, go to funnelfridays.com to kind of watch the process and be engaged with it. But then feel free to model it, funnel hack it, whatever you want to call it in your own market because it’s working like crazy. Bring them in behind the scenes you guys. I started saying this a couple of months ago and I’m going to keep saying it, the more we open up the back end of what we’re doing, the more people will become engaged in the process. At the mastermind meeting I mentioned that this whole concept. We’re talking about building our culture and how do we open things up and I talked about how when your customers are experiencing, are part of the process of your creations or the things you are making, the big takeaway is that now it’s not like, “Oh this is Russell’s company.” They look at it differently like, “This is our company. This is part of what we are. This is our movement.” It’s making them engaged. I remember thinking about this. This is probably 8 or 9 years ago. One of my buddies, Anik Singal and I had both, I hope he hears this it’ll be kind of funny, had an idea for a product and both of us, we called ours Affiliate Inferno and he called his Affiliate Manager something, and both of them are the same concept like, how to build an affiliate program to drive traffic. The greatest way to drive traffic in the world is building an affiliate program. So we both had this idea and I think we both knew we were going to create something but we didn’t know when, and I remember, Stu McClarin was my partner on the project and we had had a call that day. Me and Stu picked a day. We’re going to do our pre-launch here and our launch here and had everything mapped out. And that same day Anik Singal called me and was like, “Hey man, I’m launching my thing, here’s my day and my thing.” And it was the exact same day as mine. I was like, “Oh dude, we honestly have the exact same dates for the exact same product and we’re competing for the same affiliates.” I was like, “I don’t know what to do. I can’t move mine. It’s in process.” He’s like, “I can’t move mine either.” And I’m like, “Well, this sucks.”  I was like, “Alright, well good luck.” And he’s like, “Good luck to you too.” And we were both competing for primarily similar products, but going after the same partners to help us promote it. So I didn’t know what to do I was just like, this is going to suck. So what I did, I called a couple of my friends up. I didn’t get…..it’d be fun to actually look back in the books now and see how much our launch did vs Anik’s and just see who ended up getting more or less. I mean, I don’t know. He had a lot of people on his side,  I had a lot of people on my side. Everyone kind of took sides and did it. The one interesting thing, I remember I called a bunch of my friends. Mike Filsaime was one of them for example, I was like, “Hey Mike, this is what happened. What would you do?” So Mike went and consulted me through what he would do if he was me in this situation, which was awesome. I got consulting from him and I was like, oh cool. But what was cool is because he was consulting me and he was the one coaching me through this process, when it came to who was he going to promote, he promoted me. I believe it was because he felt part of the process of my product and not Anik’s. He had this piece of that role out, and because he felt ownership in that, he participated in it. So the lesson I’m trying to share with you guys is if your customers feel ownership in the creative process you’re going through as you create your products and services and you’re doing things, they are going to be way more likely to purchase those things in the future. They are going to be more likely to view you and your company not as your company vs. their…customer vs. whatever it’s going to be their company with you, which is cool. Anyway, I hope that gave you guys some value. It’s some of the ninja cool stuff I’m thinking about a lot recently and having a ton of success with it. I think it’s exciting. So that’s it. I’m at the office; I’m going to go get some stuff done. Have an amazing day you guys and I’ll talk to you all again very soon, bye.

Hey guys for this week’s “Five Minute Thursday” I wanted to highlight a few takeaways from our interview with Jason Mackenzie, founder of the The Book of Open. Empowerment through Vulnerability For most men, we associate vulnerability with weakness.  To be honest, even hearing the word “vulnerable” my first thought is “unwanted exposure to weakness.”  However, vulnerability is a strength.  Vulnerability is empowerment through authenticity, which is being true to one’s self.  I have been working with men/fathers for the past three years, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that if men are going to be “vulnerable” with each other, it has to be in an atmosphere or situation where it “cool thing.”  I can tell you from experience that men will check out when you start talking about sensitive stuff like “let’s share our feelings.”  Men simply don’t respond to that when in the presence of another man.  In fact, it’s even hard for us to do this with our wives for the most part. However, men are good at one thing…problem solving.  We love to problem solve.  We feel empowered when we share our wisdom and give advice.  To be honest, being vulnerable is sharing a struggle or an obstacle and simply asking for input.  The way to kick start a “cool atmosphere” of vulnerability is to ask for advice from a friend.  Here’s an example that will really hit this home…If you are sitting across that table with a friend and he says: “Hey Mike, I am struggling in my marriage and I need to share my feelings with you about it.”  OR “Hey Mike…man…so check this out, Jen and I are having some tough times lately.  There is a ton of tension between Jen and me.  I can’t really figure out how to get things back in the groove.  Have you and Becky been through this?  If so, how can you help me out man?” Which one of those sounds better and would be received better?  It’s the same dilemma and situation…just teed up better. Abundance versus Scarcity Jason hit upon a great topic that is powerful for all of us and that is having the right mentality.  Our brains are wired up to default to fear and keep us from danger.  This part of our brain is the amygdala and it has been a part of our hardwired DNA since the beginning.  This is the part of our brain where we hear the voice of fear and consequences.  It’s the same part of your brain that will talk you out of risks and tells you are not good enough.  It’s not our fault; it’s just part of our hardwiring.  It takes a trained and disciplined mind to look at our lives with abundance vs. scarcity.  Successful people don’t think about what they are going to lose by taking a calculated risk.  Successful people consider what they will lose if they don’t take a calculated risk and move forward.  So, the next time that fear voice starts to bend your ear, remember the words of wisdom from Jason Mackenzie on this subject.  It’s all about perspective and reframing. No One Relates to Perfection I grew up in the 80’s and I was a die-hard WWF professional wrestling fan.  Hulk Hogan, Rick Flair, Jimmy Superfly, and so-on were my heroes.  The most hated guys in that sport at that time was “Mr. Perfect and Mr. Wonderful.”  Want to know why?  It’s because no one can relate to inflated egos and perfection. People relate to real-life authenticity and transparency.  Our greatest human need is the need for community and relationships.  It’s impossible for us to relate to others that view themselves as superhuman or “perfect.”  The big lesson here is there is connection and empowerment through being authentic, vulnerable, and transparent.  People relate to us better in that mindset and we are more willing to accept ourselves. Guys, thanks for checking out this week’s “Five Minute Thursday.”  See you next week and have an awesome weekend!

In this live Q&A I answer questions about my upcoming supplements, how to recover from workout injuries, the "choice" between being really strong and being really lean, and more! If you want to get in on the next one and ask me questions, sign up here: https://legionathletics.com/qa/ QUESTIONS FROM THIS Q&A: When cutting do you cycle or take a break from supplements eg. Forge and Phoenix? If so, when and for how long? Tell us more about GENESIS, your new green supplement. Can't wait for it! Deload VS. Week off? When will Stacked be released? Hey brother, been on your book for about a year. Best results ever... BUT, with shoulders, side raises, I feel I work my traps more than my shoulders, Tips? Read your book and you recommend taking 1.2g of protein/lb during cutting. I find it hard to stick to that? Any recommendation? I'm curious, which professional athlete do you admire most and why? Will fat gain during a bulk be more evenly redistributed? Or will stubborn areas gain fat first? Do you feel that muscle growth is compromised by a down regulated metabolism, meaning a post cut situation? What do you think about consuming caffeine/creatine at the same time post-workout? What’s your process for testing 1RM on the primary lifts – how often, as part of regular workouts or separately, basic methods, etc? Thoughts on incorporating Yoga in parallel with BLS bulking program? If so, what do you suggest? Any tips on growing a blog (I know you grew yours rapidly) and what are your favorite writing tools and tips? Are you going to get back to doing regular podcasts every week? I am starting the Bigger Leaner Stronger program VERY soon. My workout partner is my wife, and she has different goals than me while in the gym. She is trying to lose weight while I am trying to gain muscle. How can we still be workout buddies with different goals? Excited for the new Star Wars movie? Based on your Instagram I bet your son is! (43:10) What would you say is the best way to deal with weight variation? Considering the variations that can occur because of your scale, and all of the other factors that can vary weight, how can we make sure we're making progress? I struggle with finding a happy balance between my strength goals and physique goals. How do you find the balance? Are there any machines you would recommend to increase bench press? Are you going to start engaging your son in any type of exercise/sports? On improving a specific body part, what do you think on working this muscle 2 or 3 times a week together with other muscles? What do you think of the "gallon of milk a day" routine? I heard this helps with getting bigger. My shoulder hurts quite a bit from stretching so much when I try to get into the squat position you recommend. I haven't been to the gym for about a month now, I was sick with the flu. I'm planning to head back to the gym but don't know how to go about it. Should I go back to my old routine or just take things slow. I'm following your book and training program which are both really great! The problem I'm having is that I'm always tired, like out of energy. Is there anything I might be doing wrong? Whole wheat bagels: Good or bad bulking food? I've got an angry rotator cuff and it causes challenges for progression with heavy weight, any recommendations other than laying off? I'm having pain in my forearms when doing heavy barbell curls, to the point that I can't do the exercise anymore and they hurt for the rest of the week. Ever experienced something like that and any tips on what to do? I wont be able to work out at the gym for 2 weeks or more. Advice/stuff I can/should do at home to compensate until I can get back in the gym? Hey Mike, I'm 16 and starting your Bigger Leaner Stronger program. Is there any risks associated with my age or aspects of the workout I should be doing differently than suggested? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscl