Podcasts about joe do

In the second hour with Paul and Joe: - Do you trust Kyle Tucker top be a MVP caliber player? - Reaction to Ohtani's address to the media - 10 Minute Drill (NFL on Christmas, Hall of Fame game for Texans, changes to the NFL)

In the final hour with Paul and Joe: - Do the Texans NEED to pay Collins right now? - Fun facts about Paul, Joe, and Sean - Texans free agents (Keep or Go)

Victoria is joined by guest co-host Joe Ferris, CTO at thoughtbot, and Seif Lotfy, the CTO and Co-Founder of Axiom. Seif discusses the journey, challenges, and strategies behind his data analytics and observability platform. Seif, who has a background in robotics and was a 2008 Sony AIBO robotic soccer world champion, shares that Axiom pivoted from being a Datadog competitor to focusing on logs and event data. The company even built its own logs database to provide a cost-effective solution for large-scale analytics. Seif is driven by his passion for his team and the invaluable feedback from the community, emphasizing that sales validate the effectiveness of a product. The conversation also delves into Axiom's shift in focus towards developers to address their need for better and more affordable observability tools. On the business front, Seif reveals the company's challenges in scaling across multiple domains without compromising its core offerings. He discusses the importance of internal values like moving with urgency and high velocity to guide the company's future. Furthermore, he touches on the challenges and strategies of open-sourcing projects and advises avoiding platforms like Reddit and Hacker News to maintain focus. Axiom (https://axiom.co/) Follow Axiom on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/axiomhq/), X (https://twitter.com/AxiomFM), GitHub (https://github.com/axiomhq), or Discord (https://discord.com/invite/axiom-co). Follow Seif Lotfy on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/seiflotfy/) or X (https://twitter.com/seiflotfy). Visit his website at seif.codes (https://seif.codes/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido, and with me today is Seif Lotfy, CTO and Co-Founder of Axiom, the best home for your event data. Seif, thank you for joining me. SEIF: Hey, everybody. Thanks for having me. This is awesome. I love the name of the podcast, given that I used to compete in robotics. VICTORIA: What? All right, we're going to have to talk about that. And I also want to introduce a guest co-host today. Since we're talking about cloud, and observability, and data, I invited Joe Ferris, thoughtbot CTO and Director of Development of our platform engineering team, Mission Control. Welcome, Joe. How are you? JOE: Good, thanks. Good to be back again. VICTORIA: Okay. I am excited to talk to you all about observability. But I need to go back to Seif's comment on competing with robots. Can you tell me a little bit more about what robots you've built in the past? SEIF: I didn't build robots; I used to program them. Remember the Sony AIBOs, where Sony made these dog robots? And we would make them compete. There was an international competition where we made them play soccer, and they had to be completely autonomous. They only communicate via Bluetooth or via wireless protocols. And you only have the camera as your sensor as well as...a chest sensor throws the ball near you, and then yeah, you make them play football against each other, four versus four with a goalkeeper and everything. Just look it up: RoboCup AIBO. Look it up on YouTube. And I...2008 world champion with the German team. VICTORIA: That sounds incredible. What kind of crowds are you drawing out for a robot soccer match? Is that a lot of people involved with that? SEIF: You would be surprised how big the RoboCup competition is. It's ridiculous. VICTORIA: I want to go. I'm ready. I want to, like, I'll look it up and find out when the next one is. SEIF: No more Sony robots but other robots. Now, there's two-legged robots. So, they make them play as two-legged robots, much slower than four-legged robots, but works. VICTORIA: Wait. So, the robots you were playing soccer with had four legs they were running around on? SEIF: Yeah, they were dogs [laughter]. VICTORIA: That's awesome. SEIF: We all get the same robot. It's just a competition on software, right? On a software level. And some other competitions within the RoboCup actually use...you build your own robot and stuff like that. But this one was...it's called the Standard League, where we all have a robot, and we have to program it. JOE: And the standard robot was a dog. SEIF: Yeah, I think back then...we're talking...it's been a long time. I think it started in 2001 or something. I think the competition started in 2001 or 2002. And I compete from 2006 to 2008. Robots back then were just, you know, simple. VICTORIA: Robots today are way too complicated [laughs]. SEIF: Even AI is more complicated. VICTORIA: That's right. Yeah, everything has gotten a lot more complicated [laughs]. I'm so curious how you went from being a world-champion robot dog soccer player [laughs] programmer [laughs] to where you are today with Axiom. Can you tell me a little bit more about your journey? SEIF: The journey is interesting because it came from open source. I used to do open source on the side a lot–part of the GNOME Project. That's where I met Neil and the rest of my team, Mikkel Kamstrup, the whole crowd, basically. We worked on GNOME. We worked on Ubuntu. Like, most of them were working professionally on it. I was working for another company, but we worked on the same project. We ended up at Xamarin, which was bought by Microsoft. And then we ended up doing Axiom. But we've been around each other professionally since 2009, most of us. It's like a little family. But how we ended up exactly in observability, I think it's just trying to fix pain points in my life. VICTORIA: Yeah, I was reading through the docs on Axiom. And there's an interesting point you make about organizations having to choose between how much data they have and how much they want to spend on it. So, maybe you can tell me a little bit more about that pain point and what you really found in the early stages that you wanted to solve. SEIF: So, the early stages of what we wanted to solve we were mainly dealing with...so, the early, early stage, we were actually trying to be a Datadog competitor, where we were going to be self-hosted. Eventually, we focused on logs because we found out that's what was a big problem for most people, just event data, not just metric but generally event data, so logs, traces, et cetera. We built out our own logs database completely from scratch. And one of the things we stumbled upon was; basically, you have three things when it comes to logging, which is low cost, low latency, and large scale. That's what everybody wants. But you can't get all three of them; you can only get two of them. And we opted...like, we chose large scale and low cost. And when it comes to latency, we say it should be just fast enough, right? And that's where we focused on, and this is how we started building it. And with that, this is how we managed to stand out by just having way lower cost than anybody else in the industry and dealing with large scale. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. And how did you approach making the ingestion pipeline for masses amount of data more efficient? SEIF: Just make it coordination-free as possible, right? And get rid of Kafka because Kafka just, you know, drains your...it's where you throw in money. Like maintaining Kafka...it's like back then Elasticsearch, right? Elasticsearch was the biggest part of your infrastructure that would cost money. Now, it's also Kafka. So, we found a way to have our own internal way of queueing things without having to rely on Kafka. As I said, we wrote everything from scratch to make it work. Like, every now and then, I think that we can spin this out of the company and make it a new product. But now, eyes on the prize, right? JOE: It's interesting to hear that somebody who spent so much time in the open-source community ended up rolling their own solution to so many problems. Do you feel like you had some lessons learned from open source that led you to reject solutions like Kafka, or how did that journey go? SEIF: I don't think I'm rejecting Kafka. The problem is how Kafka is built, right? Kafka is still...you have to set up all these servers. They have to communicate, et cetera, etcetera. They didn't build it in a way where it's stateless, and that's what we're trying to go to. We're trying to make things as stateless as possible. So, Kafka was never built for the cloud-native era. And you can't really rely on SQS or something like that because it won't deal with this high throughput. So, that's why I said, like, we will sacrifice some latency, but at least the cost is low. So, if messages show after half a second or a second, I'm good. It doesn't have to be real-time for me. So, I had to write a couple of these things. But also, it doesn't mean that we reject open source. Like, we actually do like open source. We open-source a couple of libraries. We contribute back to open source, right? We needed a solution back then for that problem, and we couldn't find any. And maybe one day, open source will have, right? JOE: Yeah. I was going to ask if you considered open-sourcing any of your high latency, high throughput solutions. SEIF: Not high latency. You make it sound bad. JOE: [laughs] SEIF: You make it sound bad. It's, like, fast enough, right? I'm not going to compete on milliseconds because, also, I'm competing with ClickHouse. I don't want to compete with ClickHouse. ClickHouse is low latency and large scale, right? But then the cost is, you know, off the charts a bit sometimes. I'm going the other route. Like, you know, it's fast enough. Like, how, you know, if it's under two, three seconds, everybody's happy, right? If the results come within two, three seconds, everybody is happy. If you're going to build a real-time trading system on top of it, I'll strongly advise against that. But if you're building, you know, you're looking at dashboards, you're more in the observability field, yeah, we're good. VICTORIA: Yeah, I'm curious what you found, like, which customer personas that market really resonated with. Like, is there a particular, like, industry type where you're noticing they really want to lower their cost, and they're okay with this just fast enough latency? SEIF: Honestly, with the current recession, everybody is okay with giving up some of the speed to reduce the money because I think it's not linear reduction. It's more exponential reduction at this point, right? You give up a second, and you're saving 30%. You give up two seconds, all of a sudden, you're saving 80%. So, I'd say in the beginning, everybody thought they need everything to be very, very fast. And now they're realizing, you know, with limitations you have around your budget and spending, you're like, okay, I'm okay with the speed. And, again, we're not slow. I'm just saying people realize they don't need everything under a second. They're okay with waiting for two seconds. VICTORIA: That totally resonates with me. And I'm curious if you can add maybe a non-technical or a real-life example of, like, how this impacts the operations of a company or organization, like, if you can give us, like, a business-y example of how this impacts how people work. SEIF: I don't know how, like, how do people work on that? Nothing changed, really. They're still doing the, like...really nothing because...and that aspect is you run a query, and, again, as I said, you're not getting the result in a second. You're just waiting two seconds or three seconds, and it's there. So, nothing really changed. I think people can wait three seconds. And we're still like–when I say this, we're still faster than most others. We're just not as fast as people who are trying to compete on a millisecond level. VICTORIA: Yeah, that's okay. Maybe I'll take it back even, like, a step further, right? Like, our audience is really sometimes just founders who almost have no formal technical training or background. So, when we talk about observability, sometimes people who work in DevOps and operations all understand it and kind of know why it's important [laughs] and what we're talking about. So, maybe you could, like, go back to -- SEIF: Oh, if you're asking about new types of people who've been using it -- VICTORIA: Yeah. Like, if you're going to explain to, like, a non-technical founder, like, why your product is important, or, like, how people in their organization might use it, what would you say? SEIF: Oh, okay, if you put it like that. It's more of if you have data, timestamp data, and you want to run analytics on top of it, so that could be transactions, that could be web vitals, rather than count every time somebody visits, you have a timestamp. So, you can count, like, how many visitors visited the website and what, you know, all these kinds of things. That's where you want to use something like Axiom. That's outside the DevOps space, of course. And in DevOps space, there's so many other things you use Axiom for, but that's outside the DevOps space. And we actually...we implemented as zero-config integration with Vercel that kind of went viral. And we were, for a while, the number one enterprise for self-integration because so many people were using it. So, Vercel users are usually not necessarily writing the most complex backends, but a lot of things are happening on the front-end side of things. And we would be giving them dashboards, automated dashboards about, you know, latencies, and how long a request took, and how long the response took, and the content type, and the status codes, et cetera, et cetera. And there's a huge user base around that. VICTORIA: I like that. And it's something, for me, you know, as a managing director of our platform engineering team, I want to talk more to founders about. It's great that you put this product and this app out into the world. But how do you know that people are actually using it? How do you know that people, like, maybe, are they all quitting after the first day and not coming back to your app? Or maybe, like, the page isn't loading or, like, it's not working as they expected it to. And, like, if you don't have anything observing what users are doing in your app, then it's going to be hard to show that you're getting any traction and know where you need to go in and make corrections and adjust. SEIF: We have two ways of doing this. Right now, internally, we use our own tools to see, like, who is sending us data. We have a deployment that's monitoring production deployment. And we're just, you know, seeing how people are using it, how much data they're sending every day, who stopped sending data, who spiked in sending data sets, et cetera. But we're using Mixpanel, and Dominic, our Head of Product, implemented a couple of key metrics to that for that specifically. So, we know, like, what's the average time until somebody starts going from building its own queries with the builder to writing APL, or how long it takes them from, you know, running two queries to five queries. And, you know, we just start measuring these things now. And it's been going...we've been growing healthy around that. So, we tend to measure user interaction, but also, we tend to measure how much data is being sent. Because let's keep in mind, usually, people go in and check for things if there's a problem. So, if there's no problem, the user won't interact with us much unless there's a notification that kicks off. We also just check, like, how much data is being sent to us the whole time. VICTORIA: That makes sense. Like, you can't just rely on, like, well, if it was broken, they would write a [chuckles], like, a question or something. So, how do you get those metrics and that data around their interactions? So, that's really interesting. So, I wonder if we can go back and talk about, you know, we already mentioned a little bit about, like, the early days of Axiom and how you got started. Was there anything that you found in the early discovery process that was surprising and made you pivot strategy? SEIF: A couple of things. Basically, people don't really care about the tech as much as they care [inaudible 12:51] and the packaging, so that's something that we had to learn. And number two, continuous feedback. Continuous feedback changed the way we worked completely, right? And, you know, after that, we had a Slack channel, then we opened a Discord channel. And, like, this continuous feedback coming in just helps with iterating, helps us with prioritizing, et cetera. And that changed the way we actually developed product. VICTORIA: You use Slack and Discord? SEIF: No. No Slack anymore. We had a community Slack. We had a community [inaudible 13:19] Slack. Now, there's no community Slack. We only have a community Discord. And the community Slack is...sorry, internally, we use Slack, but there's a community Discord for the community. JOE: But how do you keep that staffed? Is it, like, everybody is in the Discord during working hours? Is it somebody's job to watch out for community questions? SEIF: I think everybody gets involved now just...and you can see it. If you go on our Discord, you will just see it. Just everyone just gets involved. I think just people are passionate about what they're doing. At least most people are involved on Discord, right? Because there's, like, Discord the help sections, and people are just asking questions and other people answering. And now, we reached a point where people in the community start answering the questions for other people in the community. So, that's how we see it's starting to become a healthy community, et cetera. But that is one of my favorite things: when I see somebody from the community answering somebody else, that's a highlight for me. Actually, we hired somebody from that community because they were so active. JOE: Yeah, I think one of the biggest signs that a product is healthy is when there's a healthy ecosystem building up around it. SEIF: Yeah, and Discord reminds me of the old days of open sources like IRC, just with memes now. But because all of us come from the old IRC days, being on Discord and chatting around, et cetera, et cetera, just gives us this momentum back, gave us this momentum back, whereas Slack always felt a bit too businessy to me. JOE: Slack is like IRC with emoji. Discord is IRC with memes. SEIF: I would say Slack reminds me somehow of MSN Messenger, right? JOE: I feel like there's a huge slam on MSN Messenger here. SEIF: [laughs] What do you guys use internally, Slack or? I think you're using Slack, right? Or Teams. Don't tell me you're using Teams. JOE: No, we're using Slack. SEIF: Okay, good, because I shit talk. Like, there is this, I'll sh*t talk here–when I start talking about Teams, so...I remember that one thing Google did once, and that failed miserably. JOE: Google still has, like, seven active chat products. SEIF: Like, I think every department or every, like, group of engineers just uses one of them internally. I'm not sure. Never got to that point. But hey, who am I to judge? VICTORIA: I just feel like I end up using all of them, and then I'm just rotating between different tabs all day long. You maybe talked me into using Discord. I feel like I've been resisting it, but you got me with the memes. SEIF: Yeah, it's definitely worth it. It's more entertaining. More noise, but more entertaining. You feel it's alive, whereas Slack is...also because there's no, like, history is forever. So, you always go back, and you're like, oh my God, what the hell is this? VICTORIA: Yeah, I have, like, all of them. I'll do anything. SEIF: They should be using Axiom in the background. Just send data to Axiom; we can keep your chat history. VICTORIA: Yeah, maybe. I'm so curious because, you know, you mentioned something about how you realized that it didn't matter really how cool the tech was if the product packaging wasn't also appealing to people. Because you seem really excited about what you've built. So, I'm curious, so just tell us a little bit more about how you went about trying to, like, promote this thing you built. Or was, like, the continuous feedback really early on, or how did that all kind of come together? SEIF: The continuous feedback helped us with performance, but actually getting people to sign up and pay money it started early on. But with Vercel, it kind of skyrocketed, right? And that's mostly because we went with the whole zero-config approach where it's just literally two clicks. And all of a sudden, Vercel is sending your data to Axiom, and that's it. We will create [inaudible 16:33]. And we worked very closely with Vercel to do this, to make this happen, which was awesome. Like, yeah, hats off to them. They were fantastic. And just two clicks, three clicks away, and all of a sudden, we created Axiom organization for you, the data set for you. And then we're sending it...and the data from Vercel is being forwarded to it. I think that packaging was so simple that it made people try it out quickly. And then, the experience of actually using Axiom was sticky, so they continued using it. And then the price was so low because we give 500 gigs for free, right? You send us 500 gigs a month of logs for free, and we don't care. And you can start off here with one terabyte for 25 bucks. So, people just start signing up. Now, before that, it was five terabytes a month for $99, and then we changed the plan. But yeah, it was cheap enough, so people just start sending us more and more and more data eventually. They weren't thinking...we changed the way people start thinking of “what am I going to send to Axiom” or “what am I going to send to my logs provider or log storage?” To how much more can I send? And I think that's what we wanted to reach. We wanted people to think, how much more can I send? JOE: You mentioned latency and cost. I'm curious about...the other big challenge we've seen with observability platforms, including logs, is cardinality of labels. Was there anything you had to sacrifice upfront in terms of cardinality to manage either cost or volume? SEIF: No, not really. Because the way we designed it was that we should be able to deal with high cardinality from scratch, right? I mean, there's open-source ways of doing, like, if you look at how, like, a column store, if you look at a column store and every dimension is its own column, it's just that becomes, like, you can limit on the amount of columns you're creating, but you should never limit on the amount of different values in a column could be. So, if you're having something like stat tags, right? Let's say hosting, like, hostname should be a column, but then the different hostnames you have, we never limit that. So, the cardinality on a value is something that is unlimited for us, and we don't really see it in cost. It doesn't really hit us on cost. It reflects a bit on compression if you get into technical details of that because, you know, high cardinality means a lot of different data. So, compression is harder, but it's not repetitive. But then if you look at, you know, oh, I want to send a lot of different types of fields, not values with fields, so you have hostname, and latency, and whatnot, et cetera, et cetera, yeah, that's where limitation starts because then they have...it's like you're going to a wide range of...and a wider dimension. But even that, we, yeah, we can deal with thousands at this point. And we realize, like, most people will not need more than three or four. It's like a Postgres table. You don't need more than 3,000 to 4000 columns; else, you know, you're doing a lot. JOE: I think it's actually pretty compelling in terms of cost, though. Like, that's one of the things we've had to be most careful about in terms of containing cost for metrics and logs is, a lot of providers will...they'll either charge you based on the number of unique metric combinations or the performance suffers greatly. Like, we've used a lot of Prometheus-based solutions. And so, when we're working with developers, even though they don't need more than, you know, a few dozen metric combinations most of the time, it's hard for people to think of what they need upfront. It's much easier after you deploy it to be able to query your data and slice it retroactively based on what you're seeing. SEIF: That's the detail. When you say we're using Prometheus, a lot of the metrics tools out there are using, just like Prometheus, are using the Gorilla data structure. And the real data structure was never designed to deal with high cardinality labels. So, basically, to put it in a simple way, every combination of tags you send for metrics is its own file on disk. That's, like, the very simple way of explaining this. And then, when you're trying to search through everything, right? And you have a lot of these combinations. I actually have to get all these files from this conversion back together, you know, and then they're chunked, et cetera. So, it's a problem. Generally, how metrics are doing it...most metrics products are using it, even VictoriaMetrics, et cetera. What they're doing is they're using either the Prometheus TSDB data structure, which is based on Gorilla. Influx was doing the same thing. They pivoted to using more and more like the ones we use, and Honeycomb uses, right? So, we might not be as fast on metrics side as these highly optimized. But then when it comes to high [inaudible 20:49], once we start dealing with high cardinality, we will be faster than those solutions. And that's on a very technical level. JOE: That's pretty cool. I realize we're getting pretty technical here. Maybe it's worth defining cardinality for the audience. SEIF: Defining cardinality to the...I mean, we just did that, right? JOE: What do you think, Victoria? Do you know what cardinality is now? [laughs] VICTORIA: All right. Now I'm like, do I know? I was like, I think I know what it means. Cardinality is, like, let's say you have a piece of data like an event or a transaction. SEIF: It's like the distinct count on a property that gives you the cardinality of a property. VICTORIA: Right. It's like how many pieces of information you have about that one event, basically, yeah. JOE: But with some traditional metrics stores, it's easy to make mistakes. For example, you could have unbounded cardinality by including response time as one of the labels -- SEIF: Tags. JOE: And then it's just going to -- SEIF: Oh, no, no. Let me give you a better one. I put in timestamp at some point in my life. JOE: Yeah, I feel like everybody has done that one. [laughter] SEIF: I've put a system timestamp at some point in my life. There was the actual timestamp, and there was a system timestamp that I would put because I wanted to know when the...because I couldn't control the timestamp, and the only timestamp I had was a system timestamp. I would always add the actual timestamp of when that event actually happened into a metric, and yeah, that did not scale. MID-ROLL AD: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you're tight on time and investment, which is why we've created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product's next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at tbot.io/entrepreneurs. VICTORIA: Yeah. I wonder if you could maybe share, like, a story about when it's gone wrong, and you've suddenly charged a lot of money [laughs] just to get information about what's happening in the system. Any, like, personal experiences with observability that kind of informed what you did with Axiom? SEIF: Oof, I have a very bad one, like, a very, very bad one. I used to work for a company. We had to deploy Elasticsearch on Windows Servers, and it was US-East-1. So, just a combination of Elasticsearch back in 2013, 2014 together with Azure and Windows Server was not a good idea. So, you see where this is going, right? JOE: I see where it's going. SEIF: Eventually, we had, like, we get all these problems because we used Elasticsearch and Kibana as our, you know, observability platform to measure everything around the product we were building. And funny enough, it cost us more than actually maintaining the infrastructure of the product. But not just that, it also kept me up longer because most of the downtimes I would get were not because of the product going down. It's because my Elasticsearch cluster started going down, and there's reasons for that. Because back then, Microsoft Azure thought that it's okay for any VM to lose connection with the rest of the VMs for 30 seconds per day. And then, all of a sudden, you have Elasticsearch with a split-brain problem. And there was a phase where I started getting alerted so much that back then, my partner threatened to leave me. So I bought a...what I think was a shock bracelet or a shock collar via Bluetooth, and I connected it to phone for any notification. And I bought that off Alibaba, by the way. And I would charge it at night, put it on my wrist, and go to sleep. And then, when alert happens, it will fully discharge the battery on me every time. JOE: Okay, I have to admit, I did not see where that was going. SEIF: Yeah, did that for a while; definitely did not save my relationship either. But eventually, that was the point where, you know, we started looking into other observability tools like Datadog, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that's where the actual journey began, where we moved away from Elasticsearch and Kibana to look for something, okay, that we don't have to maintain ourselves and we can use, et cetera. So, it's not about the costs as much; it was just pain. VICTORIA: Yeah, pain is a real pain point, actual physical [chuckles] and emotional pain point [laughter]. What, like, motivates you to keep going with Axiom and to keep, like, the wind in your sails to keep working on it? SEIF: There's a couple of things. I love working with my team. So, honestly, I just wake up, and I compliment my team. I just love working with them. They're a lot of fun to work with. And they challenge me, and I challenge them back. And I upset them a lot. And they can't upset me, but I upset them. But I love working with them, and I love working with that team. And the other thing is getting, like, having this constant feedback from customers just makes you want to do more and, you know, close sales, et cetera. It's interesting, like, how I'm a very technical person, and I'm more interested in sales because sales means your product works, the product, the technical parts, et cetera. Because if technically it's not working, you can't build a product on top of it. And if you're not selling it, then what's the point? You only sell when the product is good, more or less, unless you're Oracle. VICTORIA: I had someone ask me about Oracle recently, actually. They're like, "Are you considering going back to it?" And I'm maybe a little allergic to it from having a federal consulting background [laughs]. But maybe they'll come back around. I don't know. We'll see. SEIF: Did you sell your soul back then? VICTORIA: You know, I feel like I just grew up in a place where that's what everyone did was all. SEIF: It was Oracle, IBM, or HP back in the day. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, basically, when you're working on applications that were built in, like, the '80s, Oracle was, like, this hot, new database technology [laughs] that they just got five years ago. So, that's just, yeah, interesting. SEIF: Although, from a database perspective, they did a lot of the innovations. A lot of first innovations could have come from Oracle. From a technical perspective, they're ridiculous. I'm not sure from a product perspective how good they are. But I know their sales team is so big, so huge. They don't care about the product anymore. They can still sell. VICTORIA: I think, you know, everything in tech is cyclical. So, you know, if they have the right strategy and they're making some interesting changes over there, there's always a chance [laughs]. Certain use cases, I mean, I think that's the interesting point about working in technology is that you know, every company is a tech company. And so, there's just a lot of different types of people, personas, and use cases for different types of products. So, I wonder, you know, you kind of mentioned earlier that, like, everyone is interested in Axiom. But, you know, I don't know, are you narrowing the market? Or, like, how are you trying to kind of focus your messaging and your sales for Axiom? SEIF: I'm trying to focus on developers. So, we're really trying to focus on developers because the experience around observability is crap. It's stupid expensive. Sorry for being straightforward, right? And that's what we're trying to change. And we're targeting developers mainly. We want developers to like us. And we'll find all these different types of developers who are using it, and that's the interesting thing. And because of them, we start adding more and more features, like, you know, we added tracing, and now that enables, like, billions of events pushed through for, you know, again, for almost no money, again, $25 a month for a terabyte of data. And we're doing this with metrics next. And that's just to address the developers who have been giving us feedback and the market demand. I will sum it up, again, like, the experience is crap, and it's stupid expensive. I think that's the [inaudible 28:07] of observability is just that's how I would sum it up. VICTORIA: If you could go back in time and talk to yourself when you were still a developer, now that you're CTO, what advice would you give yourself? JOE: Besides avoiding shock collars. VICTORIA: [laughs] Yes. SEIF: Get people's feedback quickly so you know you're on the right track. I think that's very, very, very, very important. Don't just work in the dark, or don't go too long into stealth mode because, eventually, people catch up. Also, ship when you're 80% ready because 100% is too late. I think it's the same thing here. JOE: Ship often and early. SEIF: Yeah, even if it's not fully ready, it's still feedback. VICTORIA: Ship often and early and talk to people [laughs]. Just, do you feel like, as a developer, did you have the skills you needed to be able to get the most out of those feedback and out of those conversations you were having with people around your product? SEIF: I still don't think I'm good enough. You're just constantly learning, right? I just accepted I'm part of a team, and I have my contributions. But as an individual, I still don't think I know enough. I think there's more I need to learn at this point. VICTORIA: I wonder, what questions do you have for me or Joe? SEIF: How did you start your podcast, and why the name? VICTORIA: Oh, man, I hope I can answer. So, the podcast was started...I think it's, like, we're actually about to be at our 500th Episode. So, I've only been a host for the last year. Maybe Joe even knows more than I do. But what I recall is that one person at thoughtbot thought it would be a great idea to start a podcast, and then they did it. And it seems like the whole company is obsessed with robots. I'm not really sure where that came from. There used to be a tiny robot in the office, is what I remember. And people started using that as, like, the mascot. And then, yeah, that's it, that's the whole thing. SEIF: Was the robot doing anything useful or just being cute? JOE: It was just cute, and it's hard to make a robot cute. SEIF: Was it a real robot, or was it like a -- JOE: No, there was, at one point, a toy robot. The name...I actually forget the origin–origin of the name, but the name Giant Robots comes from our blog. So, we named the podcast the same as the blog: Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots. SEIF: Yes, it's called transformers. VICTORIA: Yeah, I like it. It's, I mean, now I feel like -- SEIF: [laughs] VICTORIA: We got to get more, like, robot dogs involved [laughs] in the podcast. SEIF: Like, I wanted to add one thing when we talked about, you know, what gets me going. And I want to mention that I have a six-month-old son now. He definitely adds a lot of motivation for me to wake up in the morning and work. But he also makes me wake up regardless if I want to or not. VICTORIA: Yeah, you said you had invented an alarm clock that never turns off. Never snoozes [laughs]. SEIF: Yes, absolutely. VICTORIA: I have the same thing, but it's my dog. But he does snooze, actually. He'll just, like, get tired and go back to sleep [laughs]. SEIF: Oh, I have a question. Do dogs have a Tamagotchi phase? Because, like, my son, the first three months was like a Tamagotchi. It was easy to read him. VICTORIA: Oh yeah, uh-huh. SEIF: Noisy but easy. VICTORIA: Yes, yes. SEIF: Now, it's just like, yeah, I don't know, like, the last month he has opinions at six months. I think it's because I raised him in Europe. I should take him back to the Middle East [laughs]. No opinions. VICTORIA: No, dogs totally have, like, a communication style, you know, I pretty much know what he, I mean, I can read his mind, obviously [laughs]. SEIF: Sure, but that's when they grow a bit. But what when they were very...when the dog was very young? VICTORIA: Yeah, they, I mean, they also learn, like, your stuff, too. So, they, like, learn how to get you to do stuff or, like, I know she'll feed me if I'm sitting here [laughs]. SEIF: And how much is one dog year, seven years? VICTORIA: Seven years. SEIF: Seven years? VICTORIA: Yeah, seven years? SEIF: Yeah. So, basically, in one year, like, three months, he's already...in one month, he's, you know, seven months old. He's like, yeah. VICTORIA: Yeah. In a year, they're, like, teenagers. And then, in two years, they're, like, full adults. SEIF: Yeah. So, the first month is basically going through the first six months of a human being. So yeah, you pass...the first two days or three days are the Tamagotchi phase that I'm talking about. VICTORIA: [chuckles] I read this book, and it was, like, to understand dogs, it's like, they're just like humans that are trying to, like, maximize the number of positive experiences that they have. So, like, if you think about that framing around all your interactions about, like, maybe you're trying to get your son to do something, you can be like, okay, how do I, like, I don't know, train him that good things happen when he does the things I want him to do? [laughs] That's kind of maybe manipulative but effective. So, you're not learning baby sign language? You're just, like, going off facial expressions? SEIF: I started. I know how Mama looks like. I know how Dada looks like. I know how more looks like, slowly. And he already does this thing that I know that when he's uncomfortable, he starts opening and closing his hands. And when he's completely uncomfortable and basically that he needs to go sleep, he starts pulling his own hair. VICTORIA: [laughs] I do the same thing [laughs]. SEIF: You pull your own hair when you go to sleep? I don't have that. I don't have hair. VICTORIA: I think I do start, like, touching my head though, yeah [inaudible 33:04]. SEIF: Azure took the last bit of hair I had! Went away with Azure, Elasticsearch, and the shock collar. VICTORIA: [laughs] SEIF: I have none of them left. Absolutely nothing. I should sue Elasticsearch for this shit. VICTORIA: [laughs] Let me know how that goes. Maybe there's more people who could join your lawsuit, you know, with a class action. SEIF: [laughs] Yeah. Well, one thing I wanted to also just highlight is, right now, one of the things that also makes the company move forward is we realized that in a single domain, we proved ourselves very valuable to specific companies, right? So, that was a big, big thing, milestone for us. And now we're trying to move into a handful of domains and see which one of those work out the best for us. Does that make sense? VICTORIA: Yeah. And I'm curious: what are the biggest challenges or hurdles that you associate with that? SEIF: At this point, you don't want just feedback. You want constructive criticism. Like, you want to work with people who will criticize the applic...and you iterate with them based on this criticism, right? They're just not happy about you and trying to create design partners. So, for us, it was very important to have these small design partners who can work with us to actually prove ourselves as valuable in a single domain. Right now, we need to find a way to scale this across several domains. And how do you do that without sacrificing? Like, how do you open into other domains without sacrificing the original domain you came from? So, there's a lot of things [inaudible 34:28]. And we are in the middle of this. Honestly, I Forrest Gumped my way through half of this, right? Like, I didn't know what I was doing. I had ideas. I think it's more of luck at this point. And I had luck. No, we did work. We did work a lot. We did sleepless nights and everything. But I think, in the last three years, we became more mature and started thinking more about product. And as I said, like, our CEO, Neil, and Dominic, our head of product, are putting everything behind being a product-led organization, not just a tech-led organization. VICTORIA: That's super interesting. I love to hear that that's the way you're thinking about it. JOE: I was just curious what other domains you're looking at pushing into if you can say. SEIF: So, we are going to start moving into ETL a bit more. We're trying to see how we can fit in specific ML scenarios. I can't say more about the other, though. JOE: Do you think you'll take the same approaches in terms of value proposition, like, low cost, good enough latency? SEIF: Yes, that's definitely one thing. But there's also...so, this is the values we're bringing to the customer. But also, now, our internal values are different. Now it's more of move with urgency and high velocity, as we said before, right? Think big, work small. The values in terms of values we're going to take to the customers it's the same ones. And maybe we'll add some more, but it's still going to be low-cost and large-scale. And, internally, we're just becoming more, excuse my French, agile. I hate that word so much. Should be good with Scrum. VICTORIA: It's painful, but everyone knows what you're talking about [laughs], you know, like -- SEIF: See, I have opinions here about Scrum. I think Scrum should be only used in terms of iceScrum [inaudible 36:04], or something like that. VICTORIA: Oh no [laughter]. Well, it's a Rugby term, right? Like, that's where it should probably stay. SEIF: I did not know it's a rugby term. VICTORIA: Yeah, so it should stay there, but -- SEIF: Yes [laughs]. VICTORIA: Yeah, I think it's interesting. Yeah, I like the being flexible. I like the just, like, continuous feedback and how you all have set up to, like, talk with your customers. Because you mentioned earlier that, like, you might open source some of your projects. And I'm just curious, like, what goes into that decision for you when you're going to do that? Like, what makes you think this project would be good for open source or when you think, actually, we need to, like, keep it? SEIF: So, we open source libraries, right? We actually do that already. And some other big organizations use our libraries; even our competitors use our libraries, that we do. The whole product itself or at least a big part of the product, like database, I'm not sure we're going to open source that, at least not anytime soon. And if we open source, it's going to be at a point where the value-add it brings is nothing compared to how well our product is, right? So, if we can replace whatever's at the back with...the storage engine we have in the back with something else and the product doesn't get affected, that's when we open source it. VICTORIA: That's interesting. That makes sense to me. But yeah, thank you for clarifying that. I just wanted to make sure to circle back. Since you have this big history in open source, yeah, I'm curious if you see... SEIF: Burning me out? VICTORIA: Burning you out, yeah [laughter]. Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, like, because, you know, we're about to be in October here. Do you have any advice or strategies as a maintainer for not getting burned out during the next couple of weeks besides, like, hide in a cave and without internet access [laughs]? SEIF: Stay away from Reddit and Hacker News. That's my goal for October now because I'm always afraid of getting too attached to an idea, or too motivated, or excited by an idea that I drift away from what I am actually supposed to be doing. VICTORIA: Last question is, is there anything else you would like to promote? SEIF: Yeah, check out our website; I think it's at axiom.co. Check it out. Sign up. And comment on Discord and talk to me. I don't bite, sometimes grumpy, but that's just because of lack of sleep in the morning. But, you know, around midday, I'm good. And if you're ever in Berlin and you want to hang out, I'm more than willing to hang out. VICTORIA: Whoo, that's awesome. Yeah, Berlin is great. I was there a couple of years ago but no plans to go back anytime soon, but maybe I'll keep that in mind. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you could find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. And this podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Joe Ferris and Seif Lotfy.

Patrick offers guidance and shines the light of truth on the LGBTQ and Trans Agenda Laura – My family has disowned me because I refuse to bow to the trans agenda. I found Matt Walsh's “What is a Woman” movie to be really helpful. Mary - My daughter wants to be a boy so she can have a relationship with a girl and not be a lesbian. Joe – Do you recommend books by Thomas Keeting and Peter Kreeft. Patrick says “no” to Keeting and “Yes” to Kreeft. Mary - I organize a woman's house and she dabbles in the Occult. She's very attached to a fortune teller, whom I met. Now, the lady wants me to organize the fortune teller's house. What should I do? Americans Are Becoming Less Accepting of Same-Sex Relationships, Poll Shows Celeste 12-years-old - Did Adam and Eve go to heaven? Patti - I think schools promote trans ideology Raquel - Can you tell me where to look up Catholic understanding of psalms in scripture? Pat - We need to stand firm as parents about the gender of a child and let them make choices as an adult, not as minor.

Today's episode is one of those real life, s**t hits the fan realities. I had planned to work on/ air an episode I recorded with a local Florida farmer, but my kid woke up sick and our plans changed. I decided instead to address a recent apropos question by listener Joe: “Do health coaches get off track?”Yes, man! We get off track, too. Because we're not robots. And because one of two things can happen: something completely unplanned wrecks your well intentioned plans, or there's a downward slow progression of a problem over time. I address both of these scenarios in today's pod and use personal examples to illustrate them both. Plus discuss how to get back on track, which is the most important thing when working to elevate your health.Let me know what you think. AND also what tableside tradition you most value in your life.If you've reviewed on Apple/Spotify/Google Play, THANK YOU. And if you haven't let me know about it and claimed your complimentary signed copy of The Nourishment Mindset, please email me: FavorFat@gmail.com.If you've read the book and not yet taken a moment to review it on Amazon, pretty please do so and you'll be helping spread our metabolic mission of using real, whole foods and the pleasures of the table to help people achieve vitality and reverse chronic lifestyle conditions!And if you haven't yet purchased the book on Amazon or chez moi for a signed copy, please consider doing so today!!!Lastly, if you have a show idea or question, be like listener Joe and send it my way! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit favorfat.substack.com

Patrick answers listener questions about our Blessed Mother, is working in a tobacco field a sin, amd what's the difference between Protestant and Orthodox Christians Ann - When talking with a teen, how do I explain God being loving and merciful with the Old Testament is filled with a lot of killing. Phil - Are people who work in tobacco fields sinning? Was our Blessed Mother Mary a single mom? Edgar (25:15) - What is the difference between Protestants and Orthodox and which ones would sedevacantism fall into? Joe – Do you have a cheat sheet for answering listener questions? Patrick recommends “Envoy for Christ: 25 Years as a Catholic Apologist” and “Pope Fiction: Answers to 30 Myths & Misconceptions About the Papacy” John (41:08) - If someone got her tubes tied and is sorry for it, does she need to do anything more to repent?

Patrick answers listener questions about apostolic tradition, taking the Lord's name in vain, how to find his Sola Scriptura debate, and if praying for people who are still alive will lessen their time in purgatory after they die Michelle – Is there a book on apostolic tradition? Patrick recommends two of his own books: “Scripture and Tradition in the Church” and “Why is That in Tradition?” Sarah - Two sons in military take our Lords name in vain. A priest told one of them it wasn't serious. How do explain to him that it is wrong? Joe - Do you have a recording of your Sola Scriptura debate? Here's a link: https://holyheroes.com/collections/patrick-madrid?page=3 Judy - Why was Jesus unaware of when the end of the world would be? Therese - Do my prayers for people who are living lessen their time in purgatory when they die?

Michael Lee Any plans to shoot for more companies?  Anonymous  Why don't you answer messages?  No questions asked.  Just “likes to posts” Adam:  What are your hobbies?  Mike:  Will you go on a romantic date?  Giant Gonzalez Are you single?  RoeLuv I am a huge fan.  I noticed that there is a curtain intensity when you do scenes with black men.  Is that something you have noticed yourself or am I imagining things?  Bubb Klump: How may I meet you? Worship your feet? Can I have your email?  Does this cost?  Randy What are your thoughts on Hotwife/cuckold lifestyle?  Is this something you could consider having with a partner?  Timothy Do you prefer black men?  Jose  What is your opinion on cream pies?  Sean Do you have an onlyfans? If you don't have one, why not?  Justin What do you like for music?  Sonny Have you ever dated a fan?  Wayne I am coming to vegas, do you offer meetups?  Joe Do you have any kids? If so, how old are they?  Ironman Will you be in Miami Florida?  Anelkafen How much do you smoke a day?  David prasad  Hi Hi Hello You want help? I will help you.  Money or anything  Dragon Are you engaged?  Stormspirit Are you shooting any new content?  Joyce tan  Recently my sexpanther isn't working so I'll just text u here I'm here for business and willing to collaborate with u and trust me to commission fees aren't cheap and we will compensate u handsomely if u would be interested in a custom video with us? Vgo  Would u ever do anal? Sorry if u have answered this question before I just searched it and could fine no answer Floatingeyeball You're amazing, Joclyn! Is there any passage or phrase that you consider yourself "living by"? Saiyan First of all I'm a big fan of yours ma'am Idk how many times I have fantasized you as my stepmom and will continue to do. I'm not expecting you to see this since you'll be flooded with DMs but I'll consider myself very fortunate even if you just see it lol. So my question is  Have you ever tried stepmom roleplay in your dating life as well? If yes then how was it different than on camera? Leshmi Have you ever had your mouth covered by someone before?  https://Instagram.com/msJoclynStone https://twitter.com/JoclynStone __________ Adult Film Star Network - Sexuality Podcasts https://www.adultfilmstarnetwork.com/ Discord Podcast Chat https://discord.gg/5EUDuY8  

Lying next to the River Avon just inside the Cotswolds, Avoncliff Wood is no ordinary wood. The site hosts one of the biggest trials in the UK to find biodegradable alternatives to plastic tree guards. As if that wasn't enough, it's also a living laboratory, revealing how ash dieback will really affect nature. Site manager Joe gives us a special behind the scenes tour to learn more. We also meet volunteer wardens Kay and James, and catch up with TV presenter Alice Beer who lives nearby. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript Voiceover: You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Well, I've changed trains at Bath Spa for what appears to be a very small train which is taking me to Avoncliffe. Now, in fact, the train conductor has told me the platform is so short when I get there only one door is going to open. He came through asking “Is anybody getting off?” and I'm the only one, the only one. Well, I have to tell you, the station here is straight out of a 1930s style Agatha Christie film, that's what it screams to me. Beautiful signs, beautiful flowers, the River Avon just almost next door to the station, a great looking pub and down at the end of the platform one single man who I'm assuming is Joe Middleton with the Woodland Trust, site manager here and the guy who's going to show me around. Joe: So, welcome to Avoncliffe Wood in the Avon Valley just in between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon. We just crossed over the famous Avoncliffe Aqueduct and just followed the River Avon until we hit even Avoncliffe Wood which carpets the side of the valley across this area of the Cotswolds AONB, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, right at the southern end of the Cotswold AONB. Adam: There's very little woodlands right here, so what's going on in this first field? Joe: So, we're just at the edge of our woodland creation. So we bought 20 hectares, about 40 football pitches, of ancient woodland – untouched for generations – and to buffer that, to try and expand carbon storage and fight climate change and the ecological decline we're seeing we actually bought another 10 hectares, another 20 football pitches, worth of agricultural fields essentially and meadows which were very intensively grazed and we've planted that up with over 5,000 trees to try and get the next generation of trees in here. Adam: Wow, okay so shall we go through, have a look? Thank you. Joe: So just next to us as you can hear the birds singing away, there are blackbirds, robins and blackcaps in there. There's one acre, here, just on the right-hand side, which was actually planted up 25 years ago by a neighbour. So, the very small one acre square now 25 years later is teeming with you know 30-40 foot birch trees, willows, hazels and hawthorns, full of cherry blossom and hawthorn blossom, and birds nesting, tweeting, and insects buzzing all around us! It's quite rare these days! So hopefully we think everything we planted up here, all 5,000 trees would look like that in 25 years. A proper young woodland. Adam: And you've clearly, I mean, they're not uniformly planted so there's a big patch in the middle which you've got nothing and they seem to be done in clumps, so why have you done it like that? Joe: Do you want to know what that patch in the middle is? That's a sledging lane. Right well so we carried out community consultation when we first bought the woodland. We asked all the locals, we said look there's this really lovely kind of big expanse of fields all around the wood, we want to buy it, we want it to, you know, fight climate change, we want to try and do our bit for wildlife. And they said whatever you do leave us a sledging lane because when it snows here this hill is perfect for tobogganing down. Adam: laughs you see I thought it was going to be for some really technical reason! You need to do that for a very specific reason, I didn't realise it was gonna be sledges. Joe: There are also wide rides, you know, big areas that people can walk through. We've created a really good path network in here as well in some areas and natural regeneration so there are areas unplanted and there are areas purely for tobogganing fun in the middle of snowy winters. Adam: And why not? It's very important. Now, the thing that we can see in this immediate field is a lot of tree guards and well I'm also standing by a little sign which says biodegradable tree shelter. I always call them tree guards, but this was called tree shelter. Now that is not by coincidence. The tree guards are a huge issue, aren't they? Joe: Yeah, I mean with governments pledging to plant millions if not globally billions of trees to fight climate, you know hold onto carbon, stop floods, we have to be able to do it without using oil-based plastics. For the last 35 years people have just, every tree that's gone in you know, not every one, but most trees that've gone in have been planted with a giant plastic tree guard which doesn't biodegrade, it litters, it causes microplastics, and people… Adam: And are they reusable those plastic guards? Joe: They are to a certain degree, they're not easy to recycle, there are some better recycling schemes now just starting. But actually, probably one in three are reusable. But a lot of places are too far to go and get them, people don't bother they get left and derelict and are expensive to go and collect every single one, especially when you're planting hundreds of thousands. So the biodegradable alternative is the absolute key. Find something that naturally, you know, biodegrades away back into the soil, doesn't harm anything, it doesn't use oil. Adam: Right, I'm just going to go up to… So, this is a biodegradable one? Joe: Exactly. Adam: It looks sort of yellowish and quite canvas-like but it's very it's very firm, it doesn't feel, I mean that feels a sturdy old thing this. Joe: Yeah so, we've got 5,000 trees we put in. We are using some old recycled plastic ones, so we've been given a few, but actually we've got 16 different types of biodegradable alternatives to plastic here. So, they range from cardboard, you know, made from paper or mulch to biodegradable plastics, which the jury is out on at the moment, to actually resins and oils from things like cashew nut shells and pine resin. We've got a train coming past us! Train noise Two and a half years ago, when we planted the 5,000 trees in all these biodegradable guards, we launched something called Big Climate Fightback, a big Woodland Trust campaign to bring people out to help plant trees and do their bit. And actually, we ended up with over 250 people arriving one Saturday – spades in hand – on the trains in all the train stations. And the people in Bath, and Bristol and Bradford-on-Avon must have thought “what on earth is going on?”, with over 250 people arriving with spades on the platforms. And they came in here, they planted trees en masse – school kids, families, local groups. Everyone came here to try and plant trees and with that we, you know, told people about the problem of plastics and we've basically now got one of the biggest sites in the UK for trialling an alternative to plastic – to try and protect these trees so they get to five, seven years to get to a good height where they're no longer susceptible to browsing by deer, by rabbits, by voles, which is the main reason the shelters and guards are here to protect them. Adam: And correct me if I'm wrong but there is a sort of school of thought saying well don't use any guards. I mean it's now sort of established practice that you've got to use a guard otherwise the tree won't survive, but there is this sort of vague thought we never used to use guards in the distant past, so why have we suddenly got obsessed with them? Joe: I mean deer numbers are higher than they've ever been, it's a huge amount of browsing by deer with no natural predators, so it's complicated, that is the simplest answer, but putting up a giant 6-foot fence is probably you know the other solution which is in a lot of cases, depending on size, it can be much more economic, more practical. Very small areas – probably not massive areas, but medium sized – deer fencing is probably the answer, but then you've still got rabbits and voles you've got to fence out. So, doing nothing, over-planting, natural regeneration – we've got an area if you look up to the edge of the woodland we've left the buffer zone of about 20-30 metres around lots of this woodland, all around it, with nothing, we've just fenced it off and we're just going to allow the woodland to expand – every one of those berries and those nuts and seeds that drops into the ground will hopefully just have a, you know, wild natural generation. Like Knepp with a huge rewilding – that hope of what happens there doesn't happen as easily here but can take a long time. Hopefully that will establish woodland itself, but it may take 50 years. At the moment we've got a climate emergency on us and amongst us, so we have to do something now so planting trees is a very good quick solution. Adam: A huge issue because if we are planting for ecological reasons what we don't want to do is every tree comes with its own polluting plastic. I mean that's not the future. So, the answer to that question may well lie in the thousands of experiments you're carrying out in this field we're standing in. Joe: Absolutely. Adam: Right, well I've stopped us walking. We better… I better get my steps in. So, let's carry on. Where are we heading to now? Joe: So, we're gonna go and find our two volunteer wardens in a minute. Adam: So, we've got two volunteers hard at work. I can see just up the hill a bit. Joe: So, this is James and Kay who are both our two volunteer wardens. They've been working now replacing broken, rotted, fallen biodegradable tree guards, replacing the trees as they die as well, and these two have been working hard to help keep an eye on them for the last few years for us. Adam: It's got them hard at work! Joe: They are incredibly hard at work. Hey guys how you doing? Kay and James: Alright? Hi! Hello. Adam: They do have you hard at work! So Kay and James, so first of all before we get to what you're actually doing, why have you been doing it? What's your interest? Why did you volunteer to do all of this? Kay: Well, you've been a volun… a member of the Woodland Trust for about 25 years. James: Well, it's about 35 years now. Kay: Since this is really on our doorstep, this is a perfect opportunity to get really involved with the Woodland Trust. Adam: James, I mean, you've been a Woodland Trust member for a very long time. And, ah the debate around trees has changed enormously. Hasn't it? James: It has, and I am glad that people have suddenly valued trees. I was in the military but, before that, I was out of Kent, out near Canterbury and my uncle was a farmer with orchards and basically from the earliest days I knew about the trees, the names of trees. The pollards at the end of the field as windbreaks, the various wetland trees down in the floodplains around the Romney Marsh area. But I already had a fascination for the massive oaks, the spectacular deciduous trees on the horizon I think made this this countryside look like it does, so British, and so English, with these gorgeous round shapes, compared to a lot of conifers you see in all the European places I've been to. Adam: Okay, talk me through a bit about what you're actually doing here – I mean, you know, hammer in hand I can see. Kay: Hammer in hand, we're replacing some of the tubes that haven't stood up to the wind and the rain. We found that circular rather than rectangular and… Adam: works, circular works… Kay: circular works, because otherwise if it's square they act as a flag, especially cardboard ones. When they get wet, they just disintegrate – as you can see there's lots of bare sticks around here, so yeah, we're going through and replacing them with circular ones. Adam: Fantastic, now I know that the local community were very involved with the Trust, sort of when the Trust took over and sort of designed this site. Tell me a bit about what the local community feel. Kay: That was a great day. We had two schools frog marched in, and yeah, with their teachers and staff and they planted the whole area, which was lovely – they were naming the trees as they were planting them. I know the whole village got involved with planting 5,000 trees over a progressive few weekends and subsequently James and I have been replanting the failures. Adam: And James I mean very clear how engaged you are with this sort of issue but to tell me about the feelings then of the local community and what they what they felt when Woodland Trust first came here and how involved others are apart from you two. James: So, I'm very pleased that people are actually accepting, on the whole, that their backyard has been filled with trees and shrubs which are growing up for their children's lifetime. Kay: We have had some objections to this, but they haven't given their reason why. I assume it's because it's used when we do get snow, which is very rare, it's the sledging field. The Woodland Trust have kindly left a gap for sledging but then they moan that the grass is too long so you can't please everyone all of the time. Adam: But when it was first thought about, and I think it's really interesting isn't it, that you say the community are largely behind this, but I think if others are listening to you now where they may be talking about a woodland on their doorstep created by the Woodland Trust or their own sort of organisation – I wonder what people's first reaction, what were their concerns and hesitancies that you heard about that may have been overcome? Kay: People don't like change do they? And at the moment it's, yeah, it doesn't look picture perfect with the stakes and the guards on, but you've got to envisage what it will look like in 10-15 years' time. You've only got to look at the hedgerow, which is behind us now, and at this time of year which is beginning of May, it's absolutely gorgeous. The blossom's out, the fresh burst of the leaf is so colourful and vibrant, what's not to like about having a wood on your doorstep? And we were very lucky. Adam: Okay, well brilliant, well thank you very much. Look I don't want to disturb you anymore but that's brilliant. Thank you very much. Kay: Thank you! Adam: So, we're gonna head up now to the ancient woodland. Now this is certainly unique in any of the Woodland Trust sites I've been to, because normally the Trust actively encourages people to come in, but this is the only site I've been to where the ancient woodland bit you stop people from coming. Oh, look this is… Joe: This is our nifty little fenced area which… Adam: We're going through the barbed wire so just be careful going… So, explain to me why you've unusually actually kept the public out of the ancient woodland. Joe: Ash dieback really is becoming a huge problem across a lot of woodlands I manage. I manage about 30 woods across the West Country and every one of them has large amounts of ash that really grows really well on these sort of limestone soils and in these hills around the Mendips, the Cotswolds. Gosh there's a huge Buzzard just soaring over the edge of the woodland there. So, ash dieback is killing off essentially all our ash trees. Estimates vary at the moment. You know recently it was about 95% and then people said it was around 60%. So, the latest estimate is that about 60% of our ash trees will die over the next 50 years. How fast they die is the worrying thing but when we bought the wood in 2019 ash dieback was blowing across the landscape. It is a fungal disease. It naturally spreads. It came over from Asia originally in infected stock of nursery trees being planted out. So, no one's been able to plant any ash for the last three years. It's now being reported all the way from the east of Great Britain, all the way to the west, every year, until it's spread and spread and spread now our mature ash trees – whether they're in a hedgerow, along roadsides and country lanes, whether they're in woodlands – ash trees are essentially dying en masse, and this is killing off everything that lives and breathes on those ash trees. Adam: And the reason you're keeping the public out is because the trees are dangerous, are they? They might fall? Joe: Yeah exactly, so where you have a path or road or property you have to maintain, you know, what's reasonably practical safety for people to be able to walk under it. We realise if we were to create a load of paths, allow a load of people into now what is a fantastic ancient woodland, but it has never really had any paths in, it's been undisturbed for generations – over 100 years now – we don't think anyone set foot in it. So, we didn't want to create any paths because we didn't want to fell any trees, so we've kept it shut and all the locals have seemed to have bought into that and are really pleased this is just a woodland for wildlife. They're happy enough to walk around the fields where we've created woodland. Adam: And is it also something of a laboratory to see what happens to ash dieback? If you really don't step in and try and do anything? Joe: Exactly yeah, so, in so many woodlands across Britain because of the large amount of public footpaths, people are having to fell for health and safety reasons, so there's not very many examples where if no one goes in and nothing happens, what happens to that wildlife? Does it also dramatic- dramatically decline, with the trees losing? Or are there some winners? So, are there some decay species? Some fungi species? Some insects, beetles that love decay rotting wood that increase? So we don't really know. So, this site we've turned into a living laboratory, this is a unique case of where we are monitoring the species within the wood, how they react to ash dieback over time. Adam: We're now going into the bit of ancient woodland which the public are locked out of and so we have got this big “keep out, closed due to ash dieback” (sign). Joe: You have exclusive access! Adam: Brilliant, now I gotta say, I mean I've got to take a photo of this because this is a sea of amazing plants. I'm really, I want to be careful where I tread, I don't want to disturb anything. Because I'm completely ignorant, what are these plants? Joe: Can you smell it? Adam: Yeah sure, it's extraordinary! Joe: This is wild garlic. Adam: Is that what it is? Joe: Ramsons are all in flower at the moment and now we can see for literally, well, hundreds of metres is the white snowy tops of these wild garlic flowers that are just coming up across the thick green leaves and when there's no path in sight you have to be careful where you tread. So, luckily wild garlic's quite prolific, so we'll tread carefully, but an undisturbed wood looks like this. It's like a sea, or a carpet of sort of snow. Adam: That is extraordinary, isn't it? Yes it is a sea of snow and that's the advantage of actually having undisturbed places. Is that it, I mean, yeah sea is exactly what it looks like. These sort of white foaming tops to the rolling green waves of vegetation. Quite amazing. Joe: All you can make out are the occasional tracks of foxes, badgers, stoats, weasels, that have gone through it, maybe the odd deer as well. But insects seem to be declining catastrophically. The ideal analogy is, you know, people used to drive around even in the 80s and you get windscreens splattered with bugs and insects. It just doesn't happen anymore and that massive decline of insects, it's unknown the reason, it probably doesn't help with, you know, when people are using lots of pesticide sprays across the countryside, along with climate change, but as all those insects decline so do our birds that feed on them, so are our bat species – so they're not fat enough to basically get through the hibernation and then when they come out of hibernation and the young are born there are just not enough insects so they don't make it through the summer essentially, and they don't have another generation that makes it. So, yeah, bat species are declining at the moment, so that's one of the first things we've noticed, and well ash are declining en masse. There were a lot of these species of ash that we're monitoring that are all dying en masse. Adam: I mean so that, I mean, …you're telling me all these terrible things Joe: Yes, I know. Adam: But I mean that's important it's still amazing landscape still isn't it? Joe: Absolutely. Adam: And that's always been true with woodlands. That decay brings its own new life and decaying trees are very important parts the of the ecosystem, but even given all of those challenges that you talk about are there any, are there any high points, any reasons for optimism? Joe: Well, wild garlic's obviously doing really well in this particular wood! But there will be some species that do, really, there will be some species of butterfly that you know do really successfully with the increased amount of light. But one of the best success stories, the best things you can do to feel positive about it is to go back out into those fields, plant the trees, the next generation, so that if some of these woodlands do suffer for whatever reason then we've got far more woodland habitat. We need to increase our woodland cover from about 13% to 20% fast and then if we get 20% – we've got the shrubs, we've got the tree species, got the rewilding areas – to be able to provide those homes for the species that aren't doing so well. That's the key I think is to plant the next generation, get there quickly. Our woodlands have a fantastic history and have been managed over time. This is just the next phase in the management to basically keep an eye and ensure our guardianship secures for that next generation in the next 50-100 years. Adam: Well I'm going to leave Joe to smelling his wild garlic, because TV presenter and journalist Alice Beer, who I used to work with, I know lives not that far from this woodland. Now I know she's out and about today so I'm going to call her on her mobile to discuss what the countryside around here means to her and her family. Okay, so just Alice first of all we should explain a bit about our history, so everybody… Alice: Oh must we tell everybody? Do you think we should? Adam: I think we should share a little bit. I used to open letters on Watchdog which was a massive massive programme at the time and I can't, do you remember how many people watched it? I can't Alice: Well I don't know I'd come to watchdog from That's Life and That's Life, which was before you were born Adam I'm sure, had 15 million viewers in its heyday and I think Watchdog was around 7 million viewers, which now is completely unheard of, but then you know it was just 7 million people watching it and more importantly 7 million people putting pen to paper. No emails, pen to paper, and thank God Adam Shaw was in the post room! Adam: Yes I was opening the 7 million letters with one or two other people and Alice was much more senior, so we would come to pass those stories onto Alice and of course, you are now, what's your official title? Alice: I suppose I'm actually probably daytime television presenter but I'm far too much of a snob to say that! I kind of dip in and out of various things trying to still help the little guy or pass on information. Adam: You have a regular spot on a very big programme, This Morning? Alice: Well, This Morning, yes, it's every day, it's now two and a half hours, they keep extending it! I am waiting for it to bump up against the Six O'Clock News soon! But This Morning it was, “can you do a piece on brisk walking and the health benefits”, as a result of some survey that came out, so here I am for the second time today brisk walking and broadcasting at the same time which is fantastic! Adam: Very good! Don't trip over! You've got a couple of dogs with you haven't you as well? Alice: I have, I've got Stanley who's my five-year-old schnoodle and his girlfriend Tilly and there are times when they become quite amorous in the long grass but I'm going to try and keep it clean for your sake! Adam: I knew you when we used to work in Shepherd's Bush in London, but you are now a country girl aren't you? Alice: Yeah, wellies welded to my feet! I grew up in suburbia and in North London suburbia and the countryside wasn't really important to me, but my parents took me out, took me and my sister out walking quite a lot. There was always “shall we do the walk through the woods”, “should we do the walk through the bluebell woods” which is slightly longer or “should we go up and round” which involved the hill. So, there was always a consciousness of walking in the countryside as a pleasant thing to do, but as we've got older, the countryside has become more important to me and we have been doing that thing, my partner and I have been doing that thing where we're trying to move out of London and we've settled on this beautiful village, beautiful functional village not far from Malmesbury in Wiltshire, which is where I am now, walking alongside the River Avon. So not too far from Avoncliff and the same body of water sort of flowing past me which is rather nice. Adam: How lovely. I know, I've seen you on This Morning as you're talking about wellbeing, and in terms of actually, with your consumer journalist hat on talking about the gadgets you could buy to help with wellbeing and having lights I think that show, sort of, natural light. I mean, how important do you feel it's been for you and your family during these rather difficult times to have access to nature and the outside? Alice: It's been everything to me. Everything. I've got teenage girls in fact it's their birthday today, their 19th birthday today, so for them probably it spells isolation for them because they didn't grow up in the countryside, or this this particular part of the countryside, so you know this means being away from their friends, but for myself and my husband it's been, it's been really important. For me to leave the house and walk in space because in London everything has felt very close and very claustrophobic and I'm mentally not good at that at all! So, I'm incredibly lucky to be able to breathe and give myself sort of mental and physical space away from other people. I was able to work from here, so I did sixty live broadcasts from, in effect, my back garden during lockdown. Adam: It's really interesting that you talk about your girls sort of feeling a sense of isolation because they came from the city and now are in a very rural area. I often find that it's a curious thing to get one's head round because really the nature debate about sustainability and trying to be better for the world is often very strongly led by young people. Alice: Oh it's theirs, it's completely their campaign! But I'm not sure that they associate it with, I mean, I feel like I'm treading on dangerous territory speaking, you know, putting words into their mouths because they're both very eloquent, quite passionate girls. I feel that I'm not sure that they would stand out in a field and say “we must protect this”. Probably coming from the city, they feel more that they see stuff, they see things going into bins, they see landfill, smoke, pollution. So, they see the big preservation of our world from a city perspective, probably more than standing in a field and thinking “oh this must never have, you know, thousands of houses built on it”, which is what probably makes me panic as much as anything. Adam: Do you get a sense of a change in people's attitudes in the way they behave, I mean, I think people talk about the need for ecological sustainability. I see amongst my friends and family, I have to also be careful about what I'm saying, I see less actually willingness to change personal behaviour than a willingness to say it's important, but they don't do an awful lot. Do you see that real difference? Alice: I'm a huge hypocrite, but I am now suddenly, it was probably about six months ago I was putting something in the bin, and it sounds like a strange Greta Thunberg epiphany, but it slightly was. I was putting some plastic in the bin, and I was trying to clear out a room and I was thinking this is going nowhere! This can't be recycled. This has to go underneath the ground, and this is not going to break down. I had a sort of panic about the fact that well if I was doing this and everyone was doing this and though I sort of have had that epiphany and I am changing my behaviour, and nothing particular triggered that, apart from me clearing out a bedroom and realising I had too much stuff. You know, which is odd, but you know, in terms of the big picture in the world I think it's very hard to make individuals feel responsible when we see big companies not taking responsibility. It's that sort of, well what difference is little me gonna make? And I've sort of had that, well I'm going to make a difference, so I will. I've had that moment and I think we have to all have that moment and I'm just about to fall into the River Avon, which could be interesting! I'm trying to encourage the dogs to have a drink. There you go guys, come on, look Tilly have a drink! Yeah well they're sort of having a drink, but I'm the one that's most likely to go in here. Adam: Well look, Alice, I feel split because I quite like the sound effect of you going in to end this, it'd be a great end wouldn't it! But on the other hand not a great way of re meeting after all these years. Look I will let you get on with your walk but thank you very much, thanks a lot. Alice: Thank you, thank you. Adam: Well, let's leave Alice Beer there and indeed all our friends at Avoncliff Woods. I do hope you enjoyed that and if you want to find a wood near you, you can go to the Woodland Trust website, woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood and you can find a wood that's local to you. So that's woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. I do recommend you do that. Until next time happy wandering! Voiceover: Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. Why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast. Keep it to a maximum of 5 minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special, or send us an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk and we look forward to hearing from you.

Two fighter pilots passed out over Nevada last year. Software saved them both. Joe - Do you believe in soul mates? Rhonda - Where would we be if Jesus had been aborted Tony - I am a Catholic deacon and have teenage kids. I preach about death and my own mortality. Should I do this? Cataract Surgery May Reduce Your Dementia Risk Gino – How did death come into the world? What if man had never sinned and therefor never died, would the planet be overpopulated?

Housekeeping: No Thirsty Thursday this week. We're going to remain flexible so that family can take a priority, but if we can squeeze in a Friday show, we will. Burn and Return will remain uninterrupted. Headlines: Committee votes 7-1 on bill banning Parks and Rec use of glyphosate-based herbicides  Glyphosate herbicide does not cause mortality in bumble bees  Don't fertilize your lawn after November if you live in New York  Sponsor: The Patrons Burns: Dept. of Agriculture finds violations in Cleburne County herbicide spraying investigation  The pesticide ban movement gains momentum    Returns: The Next Big Thing for RNA? Fixing Moldy Food  Farming Software Maker Said to Be Valued at $4 Billion  Mailbag: Nick: Let's talk NiMEC Fertilizer. Joe: Do you yardwork on Thanksgiving? Special Thanks to Our Co-Producers: 6r33k633k Johnny Fescue Benjamin Mossing Trucka Trav Lonegoose Brennen man0matrix Michael Brantley Jesse Bousquet Jr John Wilbanks Outsidefire Barthoda Deadphishy Tifway Lawn Nate Kressly Alex Smith GuardWellDFW Timms Tdougie Fresh William Wood bwerthmann

How To Find A Business Coach Or Mentor with Jordan Montgomery. My discussion with Jordan involved learning about the various types of performance coaches, the styles, how can someone benefit from a coach and why you would need/want one. I enjoyed this honest conversation with Jordan, his ideas and how well he spoke and conveyed his ideas and message. There's a good chance a performance coach could really improve so many things in your life, that it's worth looking into for sure. Thanks for listening! Joe #thejoecostelloshow #montgomerycompanies #performancecoach Jordan Montgomery Owner - Montgomery Companies Website: https://www.montgomerycompanies.com/ Instagram: @jordanmmontgomery Facebook: @montgomerycompanies LinkedIn: @jordanmmontgomery Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Jordan: Hey, Joe, thanks for having me, man. I've been following your work, and I want to say congratulations on all that you've built and continue to build. And it's an honor to have this conversation with you. Thanks. Joe: Hey, Jordan, welcome to the podcast. Man, I'm glad you're here. I'm excited to talk with you. Jordan: Well, Joe: Thanks Jordan: I appreciate Joe: For coming. Jordan: That question and I'll try to be succinct with my answer, but I grew up in southeast Iowa and a little town called Colonia in Kelowna is the smallest Joe: Thank you, man, I appreciate Jordan: One of the smallest Joe: It. 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Jordan: So Joe: So Jordan: I live in Iowa Joe: The stage Jordan: City, Joe: Is Jordan: Iowa, Joe: Yours. Jordan: Actually just outside of Iowa City and a little small town called Tiffin with my wife Ashley and our three daughters. My wife today runs the business. I run my mouth. We have a full scale coaching and consulting firm, Montgomery Companies. We have several coaching partners, and today we serve several thousand coaching clients. Those clients range from professional athletes to entrepreneurs and salespeople. We do work with some executive leaders at some larger firms. And I just have a blast getting to do what I do. And I meet some really interesting people. We get to help people think more deeply about who they are and where they're headed. And ultimately you get to help people live into who they were created to be. And it's a tremendous blessing. So I had a career in the financial services business, allowed me to pivot into this world pretty open about my professional journey. But at the end of the day, I graduated college 2010 and University of Iowa spent the last 11 years really building a skill set that's allowed us to build a business around coaching, consulting and leading people. So that's kind of the short version of my story. Obviously, there's a lot of twists and turns and gods provide a lot of grace. Jordan: Certainly I've been thankful to be around a lot of the right people. But if you're asking me the short version on how I got to where I'm at today, that's the the short version on Jordan Montgomery. Yeah, I think my dad, at the end of the day, my dad was a family man with a business, not a business man with a family. And I wanted to model that. I wanted to be a family man with a business, not a business man with a family. And I think as a driven type, a young man living in America, I kind of fight that every day. I mean, at the other day, like my wife and my kids are my top priority. But if I say they're my top priority, then that needs to show up in my calendar and that needs to be reflected in how I spend my time. And I want to be respected the most by people who know me the best. And that means that I'm a father first. I'm a husband first. I'm leading my family well. And if I lead inside the walls of my home, then I think I can lead in other areas of my life Joe: Cool. Jordan: As well. But Joe: So Jordan: I just didn't want to be Joe: First Jordan: The guy Joe: Of Jordan: That Joe: All, I love the part Jordan: Built Joe: Where you Jordan: Something Joe: Said Jordan: Professionally Joe: That because your father Jordan: But Joe: Was Jordan: Then Joe: Able Jordan: Sacrificed Joe: To make it, Jordan: Or Joe: You Jordan: Compromised Joe: Gravitated Jordan: In really other Joe: Towards Jordan: Important Joe: That Jordan: Areas Joe: Feeling Jordan: Of life. 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Not a lot of people have said that in the past on the show when they when they said, oh, I became an entrepreneur because and it was all of these other reasons. But to actually associate it with your father sitting on the sidelines, watching you play sports and concert or whatever it might be, that was really cool. Jordan: Well, and I'll say this to Joe, because there are some entrepreneurs listening that maybe don't have that flexibility, like maybe you're truly in a situation where you've got a team or your businesses in an industry that requires you to work certain hours or whatever. So that's not a shame or guilt. Anyone who's working really hard to provide, because at the end of the day, entrepreneurs are called to work longer hours is just part of the deal. So if you're in that grind right now, here's what I'd encourage you with, is somebody that's going to change and the reason that you're doing what you're doing right now, the reason that you're working as hard as you're working right now is to have the flexibility and the autonomy. And, you know, I also wasn't there for my dad's early years. Like, I missed you know, I was born when my dad was eight to 10 years into being an entrepreneur. So he earned that flexibility. So let's just not forget that that flexibility is earned. And that looks different for every entrepreneur based on the industry Joe: Yeah, that Jordan: That Joe: Was Jordan: You're Joe: Really Jordan: In Joe: Cool, and I Jordan: And Joe: Came Jordan: This Joe: From Jordan: Stage Joe: An entrepreneurial Jordan: Of Joe: Family as well. Jordan: The business Joe: The Jordan: That Joe: Unfortunate Jordan: You're in. Joe: Thing for Jordan: So Joe: Me is that Jordan: I think Joe: My Jordan: That's Joe: Father Jordan: Important to Joe: Could Jordan: Underscore. Joe: Not attend most of my stuff. So when you said it, it kind of hit home and I hold nothing. He's passed on at this point. But I never held a grudge because he just he worked his butt off and and just to provide and create something great. So it never struck me the other way. It wasn't Jordan: Yeah. Joe: Like I was resentful over it. But I just love the way you framed that whole thing. That was really cool. Jordan: Well, yeah, you know, I just I fell in love with sports at a really early age. I just love competition. I loved competing. I love watching other people compete. I love the atmosphere. I love the energy that goes into a sports competition. I'm still the guy, Joe. Like, I will watch one shining moment at the end of the final four for those who are familiar with that show. I cry every year when I watch that one shining, but that little three minute clip. And I think part of the reason I get emotional about that as you watch young people get emotional over competition. And I just loved the rush of competition. I loved watching people give their all to a very specific activity, blood, sweat and tears. And Joe: Yeah, absolutely, Jordan: So Joe: I totally Jordan: I just fell Joe: Agree Jordan: In love with sports Joe: And Jordan: At a young Joe: I'm Jordan: Age. Joe: Still Jordan: I played Joe: Working Jordan: Sports Joe: Like Jordan: All the way Joe: Crazy, Jordan: Through high school. Joe: But Jordan: I did Joe: It's Jordan: Not compete Joe: Just Jordan: In college. Joe: Because Jordan: And Joe: I Jordan: It's something Joe: Don't Jordan: That's Joe: Say no Jordan: Kind Joe: And Jordan: Of Joe: I Jordan: Interesting Joe: Just keep Jordan: About Joe: Adding Jordan: My story Joe: More and more Jordan: And background. Joe: To my plate. Jordan: A lot of people Joe: So it's Jordan: Ask Joe: My Jordan: Me, well, Joe: Own fault. And Jordan: You must Joe: And, Jordan: Have played professional Joe: You Jordan: Sports Joe: Know, we're empty Jordan: Or at least Joe: Nesters. Jordan: Collegiate sports. Joe: I have no Jordan: You're going Joe: One Jordan: To Joe: To Jordan: Work Joe: Provide Jordan: With these professional Joe: For myself, but Jordan: Athletes Joe: I Jordan: And college Joe: Just can't Jordan: Athletes. Joe: Stop Jordan: And I'm just Joe: The Jordan: Very Joe: Train. Jordan: Open about that. Joe: So Jordan: A lot of what I learned Joe: It is what Jordan: As Joe: It is. Jordan: Applied Joe: So let's Jordan: And most Joe: Before Jordan: Of the athletes Joe: We get Jordan: We're working with, Joe: Into Jordan: We're working with in the areas Joe: All of what Jordan: Of Joe: You offer Jordan: Mindset and Joe: In Jordan: Leadership development. Joe: Montgomery Jordan: So Joe: Companies Jordan: I'm not teaching Joe: And Jordan: A basketball player how to shoot. Joe: Your team Jordan: You Joe: And Jordan: Know, Joe: The Jordan: I'm Joe: Different Jordan: Not helping Joe: Levels Jordan: The Joe: Of coaching Jordan: Football Joe: That you do, Jordan: Player with his footwork, Joe: Talk to me about Jordan: But Joe: You Jordan: We are helping Joe: And Jordan: Him with Joe: Sports. Jordan: Our mental game and Joe: Just Jordan: We're Joe: Because Jordan: Helping Joe: I Jordan: Them Joe: Want Jordan: With the Joe: To Jordan: Six Joe: Know, Jordan: Inches in between Joe: Was Jordan: Their ears Joe: There a correlation Jordan: And we're helping them with how Joe: Of Jordan: They see the world and their self Joe: You Jordan: Awareness Joe: Doing sports Jordan: And Joe: Young Jordan: Their externalisation Joe: Or sports in college Jordan: And optimization. Joe: Or to Jordan: You Joe: Me, Jordan: Know, Joe: You looked Jordan: At the Joe: Like Jordan: End of the Joe: You Jordan: Day, Joe: Were a football Jordan: I think Joe: Player. Jordan: It athletes Joe: I was like, maybe Jordan: In a really Joe: He played Jordan: Unique Joe: For Jordan: World Joe: The Hawkeyes. Jordan: Where they Joe: I Jordan: Give Joe: Don't Jordan: So Joe: Know. Jordan: Much of their time for such a really, really small window of competition. You know, you think a lot like the average NFL athlete will compete for less than two hours, whistle to whistle over the course of a season. But they can be literally all year round and they'll get paid, graded and evaluated for what they do inside of two hours. All year long, but it's kind of a metaphor for it for all of us, right, because the reality is each one of us is practicing for little moments, for small moments. Some of them we can predict, some of them we can't. But you get paid and your best to show you get paid really, really, really well to be prepared Joe: Hmm. Jordan: In small little windows of time. And so I developed the sort of fascination or obsession with helping athletes prepare and be at their best when that small window of opportunity presents itself and, you know, your clutch, your clutch when you can show up and do normal things. In an abnormal times, so like Derek Jeter, Kobe Bryant, you know, they're considered clutch because at the end of the day, they could show up normal. They could just be who they were because they had practiced so much in the most important windows of time. And it's a really interesting metaphor that we can apply to all of life. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's it's a pursuit of excellence, right, and you know, I'm reading a book right now by Tim Grover, The Unforgiving Race to Greatness, and it's called Winning. And, Joe: Yeah, it's Jordan: You know, there's Joe: And Jordan: So much of what Tim Joe: Again, Jordan: Grover preaches Joe: People Jordan: That I Joe: That Jordan: Really love. Joe: Maybe Jordan: I'm Joe: Just Jordan: Not Joe: Watch sports casually Jordan: Maybe not aligned Joe: Don't Jordan: With one Joe: Understand Jordan: Hundred percent of it, Joe: The Jordan: But Joe: Grueling Jordan: Winning has a price, Joe: Effort Jordan: You know, in Joe: In the lifelong Jordan: Pursuing your Joe: Commitment Jordan: Calling has a price Joe: To potentially Jordan: Regardless Joe: Never, Jordan: Of what you do, Joe: Ever Jordan: You know, sports or otherwise. Joe: Getting Jordan: If you're an Joe: That Jordan: Athlete, Joe: Chance Jordan: Great. But Joe: In Jordan: If Joe: The sports Jordan: You're an entrepreneur, Joe: World and Jordan: There's going to Joe: Used Jordan: Be a cost Joe: To have some really good friends Jordan: Associated Joe: On the Buffalo Jordan: With Joe: Bills Jordan: Your calling. Joe: Football team because Jordan: And Joe: I went to college Jordan: I Joe: Out Jordan: Think Joe: There Jordan: Sports is the epitome Joe: And Jordan: Of that. Joe: I was Jordan: But certainly Joe: A musician. Jordan: Entrepreneurship Joe: I was Jordan: Is Joe: In a band. Jordan: Is Joe: They Jordan: Right Joe: Loved Jordan: There Joe: Our band and they used Jordan: With being Joe: To come Jordan: With being Joe: And Jordan: An athlete Joe: Hang Jordan: In Joe: Out. Jordan: Terms Joe: We've got Jordan: Of Joe: The dinner with Jordan: Making Joe: Them and Jordan: Sacrifice. Joe: You would hear the stories. And it's just to live on the edge of not knowing if you're playing or you're sitting each day and who's who's looking for your spot and the work so hard and give up so much from a really young age all the way through. It's unbelievable. You know, and I watch certain friends here in Arizona, believe it or not, Arizona has got a very big hockey base. You know, like fans love hockey. And there's a lot of kids that come here, play hockey, play on the farm team of the coyotes or and we've had friends that had their kids just go through all in hockey. Moms and dads have the worst it's the worst schedule I've ever seen. And to go all the way to the very end and be on the farm team and never get called up. And I can't even imagine that it's just grueling. Jordan: Yeah, well, you know, there's there's a lot that goes into speaking, right, speaking as an art form, and in today's world, attention is currency. So something we think about a lot and the keynote speaking world is you've got Joe: Mm Jordan: To Joe: Hmm. Jordan: Keep people's attention. And if you can't, you're out, you're done. You'll never be the really high demand keynote speaker if you don't know how to keep somebody's attention. So there's multiple ways that we do that. One of the ways that we keep people's attention is through story. It's a story sell facts, tell. When you get really good Joe: Yeah, Jordan: At telling stories, Joe: Yeah, I Jordan: You keep Joe: Agree. Jordan: People's attention. Joe: Ok, Jordan: In Joe: So Jordan: Fact, Joe: Enough about sports. Jordan: If I Joe: I Jordan: Were to Joe: Watched Jordan: Tell you about Joe: The video Jordan: My business, Joe: Of Jordan: If Joe: You Jordan: I were Joe: Working Jordan: To say, well, Joe: With Jordan: You know, Joe, Joe: The Hawkeyes Jordan: These are the five Joe: And Jordan: Things that I do my Joe: I Jordan: Business, or Joe: Was watching as Jordan: If Joe: The Jordan: I said, hey, Joe: Camera Jordan: Joe, Joe: Went around the room, I Jordan: Let Joe: Was Jordan: Me tell Joe: Watching Jordan: You a story. Joe: To see how intently Jordan: The minute I said, I'll Joe: The Jordan: Tell Joe: Players Jordan: You a story, Joe: Were listening Jordan: I would actually Joe: To you. Jordan: Activate Joe: And Jordan: Your brain Joe: Like I was Jordan: At 12 Joe: Watching Jordan: Times Joe: Their eyes Jordan: The Joe: And Jordan: Capacity. Joe: Their expressions Jordan: So Joe: And they Jordan: There's Joe: Were Jordan: A Joe: All Jordan: Lot of neuroscience Joe: Incredibly Jordan: That supports Joe: Focused. Jordan: The fact that Joe: And Jordan: I've got Joe's Joe: I can Jordan: Attention Joe: Only imagine the coach going, hey, Jordan: At 12 Joe: Today we're Jordan: Times Joe: Having Jordan Jordan: The rate. Joe: Mcqueary come in today. He's Jordan: If Joe: Going Jordan: I Joe: To talk Jordan: Decide Joe: To Jordan: To Joe: Us Jordan: Allow Joe: About Jordan: My words Joe: The Jordan: To Joe: Six Jordan: Paint a picture, Joe: Inches Jordan: Draw Joe: Between Jordan: You Joe: Our Jordan: Into Joe: Ears. Jordan: A story Joe: I want you guys Jordan: That Joe: To pay Jordan: Actually Joe: Attention. Jordan: Activates Joe: I want you to Jordan: Your Joe: Be open to Jordan: Senses. Joe: What he says Jordan: So Joe: And whatever. 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Jordan: Think eye Joe: When I Jordan: Contact Joe: Watched Jordan: And tonality Joe: Even Jordan: Is Joe: The speaking Jordan: Is another Joe: Engagements Jordan: Big one, right? There's Joe: At Jordan: A difference Joe: The corporations Jordan: Between communicating Joe: That you've Jordan: And Joe: Done, Jordan: Connecting. People Joe: You Jordan: Want to feel Joe: Have a really Jordan: Like you're Joe: Good flow. Jordan: Speaking to them Joe: You don't Jordan: Like, Joe: Use Jordan: Wow, Joe: All Jordan: This guy's Joe: Of the Jordan: Speaking directly Joe: Weird words Jordan: To me. Joe: That people use Jordan: And Joe: All the time. Jordan: It sounds Joe: Tell Jordan: So Joe: Me Jordan: Simple, Joe: How you do Jordan: But what's Joe: It. Jordan: Common sense is not always kind of practice. If you watch your average keynote speaker, their eyes will kind of drift all throughout the room to look down, look sideways. I think at the speaker, you want to keep constant eye contact. And then the other thing I think about is being really you centered in the message being you centered. So I'm going to use two people's names. I'm going to pick people out in the crowd. I'm going to touch people, maybe even on the shoulder or the arm as I'm speaking. And I'm going to move through the crowd. And so much of communication is nonverbal, right? 90 percent is nonverbal. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. And it's also not what you say. It's what people hear and it's what they remember. Maya Angelou famously said it's not what you say that people remember. It's how you make them feel. And so I try to stay really in tune with how I make people feel. A lot of that is my energy, my body language. It's you focus communication, it's telling stories, and it's the difference between connecting and communicating. So if you're listening and you're thinking about your communication style or maybe you want to develop your craft as a keynote speaker, those are a few things that you could consider. Jordan: And I'll say this to Joe. I'm a long way away from where I want to be. I got a long way to go. So those are things that I think about repetitiously. And I get obsessed with the practice of my craft. And I'm evaluating and observing high level keynote speakers. You know, how do they move? What do they say? What do they not say? You know, their pace, their tonality, the way that they tell stories, their presence. Yeah, those are all things that I'm paying attention to. So I appreciate your kind words. I think communication as an art form is no different than playing an instrument or doing a dance. And for anybody that's in sales, for any entrepreneur, if you're not taking that seriously as you develop and grow your business, that's something to really consider and think about. Because whether you're speaking to an audience of one hundred or a thousand or an audience of five or ten, you're in the human connection business before you're in the construction business or before you're in the marketing business or financial planning business or real estate business. We've got to remember that the human connection is at the center of everything that we do. Well, thank you. It's kind of you to say. I did and I went to school for interdepartmental studies, which is a fancy way to cover recreational management, so I literally wanted to go to school, have a great social experience, and then start a business and the fitness world. Jordan: That was kind of my dream. And so I took some entrepreneurial courses, got a degree in recreation management, fell into finance and in two things were true. I didn't want to have a boss, so I went to work for myself and I wanted to create my own schedule that that was it. I want to call my shots, create my own schedule. But I didn't have any money and I didn't have any experience. And so I fell into financial services because it allowed me to be in business for myself, but not by myself. So I had a great support system. It was kind of like a franchise model, had a lot of success in that world at an early stage, had a big event in my life in twenty fifteen that really have me thinking about my future in a deeper way. And then I decided to pivot into sort of the consulting and coaching world making financial planning, kind of our kind of our core client. And so in a very early stage in a coaching business, financial advisers were some of our first clients by way of my background in the financial planning world. Joe: Yeah, and you do it incredibly well, my friend. So thank you. So let's just backtrack really quickly so that I can get the progression from college into starting this company. So did you go to school for finance? Jordan: I think it's so true Joe: Ok. Jordan: In life and in business, definitely in entrepreneurship, where we're leading people, that more is caught than taught. Joe: Ok. Jordan: And so nobody really taught me how to coach. But I watched other people coach and I watched other people in my industry that do what I'm doing now, do it at a really high level. And again, I paid attention to quality of life. I paid attention to the relationships. I paid attention to the way that they manage their decisions and manage their time. And I thought, you know, I want to do that. I think I can do that. And I actually did it in tandem with my own financial planning. And so I started sort of coaching on the side and I had really been coaching all the while I was in financial planning and some aspect working with clients. But I also started getting asked to speak and do workshops. And so I sort of fell in love with that work, Joe. But the reality is I had a couple of mentors. I had some key people in my life that had done that work in a really high level. One of those people is a guy by the name of Ben Newman. Another guy is John Wright Senior. And they both had Joe: How did Jordan: Big Joe: Coaching Jordan: Coaching Joe: Catch your Jordan: Practices Joe: Eye, or Jordan: Working with Joe: Was it because Jordan: Professional Joe: You were Jordan: Athletes Joe: Just taking Jordan: And Fortune Joe: From Jordan: 500 Joe: Your Jordan: Executive Joe: Love of Jordan: Leaders. Joe: Sports Jordan: And Joe: Being a coach? Right. Jordan: I just Joe: I Jordan: Admired Joe: Mean, just Jordan: The work. Joe: Taking Jordan: I thought, Joe: That, Jordan: You know, Joe: But Jordan: I think Joe: Now Jordan: I Joe: Saying, Jordan: Can Joe: Ok, Jordan: Do that. Joe: Wait, Jordan: I got a lot to learn, Joe: I want Jordan: But Joe: To do a little Jordan: I'll Joe: Bit Jordan: Learn Joe: Of that Jordan: As I Joe: With Jordan: Go. Joe: Sports Jordan: And Joe: People. I want to do that with Jordan: Just Joe: Entrepreneurs. Jordan: Like you or any Joe: I want Jordan: Other Joe: To do Jordan: Entrepreneur, Joe: It with Jordan: You Joe: With Jordan: Kind Joe: Business Jordan: Of dive headfirst Joe: People. Jordan: And just Joe: I mean, Jordan: Hope Joe: What Jordan: It works Joe: Made Jordan: Out. Joe: You Jordan: So Joe: Wake up one day and Jordan: Our Joe: Say, Jordan: Business Joe: Yeah, Jordan: Grew Joe: I Jordan: Rapidly, Joe: Want to do coaching and Jordan: By Joe: I Jordan: God's Joe: Want to Jordan: Grace, Joe: Do it Jordan: Into Joe: In Jordan: The help Joe: This Jordan: Of a lot Joe: Form? Jordan: Of good people. And I woke up one day and I thought, you know what? I could leave my financial planning business based on what we built in the coaching business. And then we started to add more partners and multiply our efforts through other people. And that's when it really starts to get financed, when you can impact the world or you can impact the world around you through the people that work with you. So virtually everybody on our team right now, with the exception of maybe two to three people there in the coaching business, so their coaching partners, so they're leading, they're doing coaching and consulting work, either individual coaching group, coaching, keynote speaking, they're all contracted out. So some of them have five clients, some of them have 30 clients. We have a couple that have just a couple of clients and they're all sort of specialized. So we have some former professional athletes. We have some people that came from the ministry world. So they're actually pastors or they have been pastors. And then we have some people in the world of sales. We have some real estate agents and financial advisers. Some of them are very technical. Somebody might say a more motivational, but all of them are for hire as coaching partners. It's my job to lead them and make sure that they're getting what they need from a content standpoint and also just keeping them connected to to a vision and and keeping them connected to our company. But we're having a ton of fun. I mean, it's it's awesome to be on a team. It's fun to be a part of something that's bigger than just me. And, you know, each one of them is unique in terms of what they bring to the table. Joe: So that's a great segue because you do have a fairly Jordan: You Joe: Sizable Jordan: Know, what's Joe: Team. Jordan: Most important Joe: So Jordan: To us, Joe, Joe: What Jordan: Is that Joe: Do those Jordan: We all Joe: Team Jordan: Have Joe: Members Jordan: Similar Joe: Do Jordan: Values, Joe: For you? Jordan: So I want to give people the freedom and flexibility to be autonomous and how they work with clients. And so I've never told somebody, hey, here's the five step plan. Here's exactly what you have to do. Now, I'll make some general suggestions about the way that we lead people and care for people. But at the end of the day, most of the people that are on our coaching platform have been wildly successful in other arenas. And so they've been leading. They've been coaching. They've been training and developing people. So I think we're aligned in terms of our values. But beyond that, I want them to really operate in their true giftedness. And for some of them, that giftedness is in listening. You know, for some of them, it's in the world of neuroscience. You know, they just really understand how the brain works for others. They're just big on accountability, the kind like the bulldog that's in your face. It's really intense and motivational. So we want people to be who they are. We want them to have strong values, which for us means their faith filled and family oriented. And if they're faith filled, family oriented, others focus. They're usually a good fit for our coaching Joe: Did Jordan: Practice. Joe: They follow Jordan: And then, of course, Joe: A Jordan: There Joe: Certain Jordan: Are some other criteria Joe: Structure Jordan: That we want to Joe: That Jordan: Vet Joe: You Jordan: Out. Joe: Have Jordan: But Joe: Set up Jordan: That's Joe: So Jordan: A that's Joe: That Jordan: A good question. Joe: When someone hires one of those people, they know that if they're getting the quality of the Montgomery companies coach and there's a certain structure formula, something like that? The. Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, I would say that's that's very true of of our team, I think we're well positioned to help just about anybody in any industry with any problem. You know, there's a few that we would say, hey, we're not not licensed to do that. We're not going to dive into that space. But for the most part, if it is in the world of performance sales and driving results, there's somebody on our team that can handle the issue of the opportunity. Yes, so there's really two components to coaching for us and our business model, one is group coaching and one individual coaching, and those are obviously very separate. If I'm working with an individual client and we're talking about the phases of coaching or how I work with a client, first is discovery. So the answers you get are only as good as the questions that you ask. And people don't care how Joe: Cool. Jordan: Much you know Joe: Well, Jordan: Until Joe: I Jordan: They Joe: Just Jordan: Know that you care. Joe: It's important Jordan: And Joe: Because Jordan: To Joe: I Jordan: Us, Joe: When Jordan: It's Joe: I Jordan: A Joe: Went Jordan: Relationship. Joe: And looked at the website, I was like, Jordan: And Joe: This Jordan: So Joe: Is this Jordan: I Joe: Is Jordan: Always Joe: Cool. Jordan: Tell Joe: You Jordan: People, Joe: Have a Jordan: Hey, Joe: Really Jordan: I'm Joe: Cool team Jordan: A coach, Joe: Around Jordan: Which means Joe: You. And Jordan: I'm Joe: I Jordan: Going Joe: Wanted Jordan: To hold Joe: To Jordan: You Joe: Find Jordan: Accountable. Joe: Out if there Jordan: I'm Joe: Was Jordan: Going Joe: A variety Jordan: To share ideas Joe: In Jordan: Where to talk about Joe: What Jordan: Concepts Joe: They Jordan: And strategy, Joe: Coach on Jordan: Just Joe: Which Jordan: Like Joe: You Jordan: Any Joe: Answered Jordan: Coach Joe: That question. They Jordan: Would. Joe: Do. You have people that Jordan: The Joe: Specialize Jordan: Difference Joe: In Jordan: In Joe: All Jordan: Our Joe: Sorts Jordan: Approach, Joe: Of things. Jordan: I Joe: So Jordan: Think, is Joe: It's Jordan: That Joe: Great Jordan: I'm also Joe: That Jordan: A Joe: If Jordan: Strategic Joe: Someone Jordan: Partner. Joe: Loves working with you for all Jordan: And so Joe: The reasons Jordan: If I sign Joe: That Jordan: Up Joe: They Jordan: To work Joe: Love Jordan: With a client, Joe: To work with you, they Jordan: What Joe: Can Jordan: That means Joe: Get Jordan: Is Joe: Basically whatever Jordan: I'm going Joe: They Jordan: To advocate, Joe: Need under one roof, Jordan: I'm going Joe: Which Jordan: To support, Joe: Is cool. It's Jordan: I'm Joe: Not Jordan: Going Joe: Like Jordan: To connect Joe: You do. It's not one Jordan: And Joe: Dimensional Jordan: I'm going to highlight Joe: In any Jordan: And spotlight Joe: Any way, Jordan: Who Joe: Shape Jordan: You Joe: Or form. Jordan: Are and what you do. That means that my network is your network. It means if you want to speak engaged, we're going to help you with that. If you need marketing help or we're going to help you with that. If I need to get you connected to another leader, I'm going to help you with that. If we need help, you track down a client or prospect, I'm going to help you with that. So it's our approach is a little bit different that way. It's it's heavily based around relationship. The relationship has to start with Joe: All right, Jordan: Discovery. Joe: Cool. So let's talk about Jordan: One of my Joe: The Jordan: Other Joe: Coaching Jordan: Beliefs, Joe, is Joe: Part Jordan: That if Joe: Of it, Jordan: I'm working Joe: And Jordan: With a client, Joe: If Jordan: It's always Joe: You can go through Jordan: 100 percent Joe: And tell Jordan: Of the time, Joe: Me the Jordan: Their time, not Joe: Different Jordan: Mine. Joe: Types Jordan: Which Joe: Of Jordan: Means Joe: Services Jordan: I've got to Joe: That Jordan: Deal Joe: You Jordan: With Joe: Have Jordan: The issues, Joe: For the coaching Jordan: The Joe: Piece Jordan: Opportunities Joe: Of. Jordan: And the challenges that are most present for them right away before I try to drive my agenda. So if I show up to the call and I say, hey, Joe, here's three things I want to talk about today. Here's the here's the new approach to closing a sale or here's the new approach to the discovery process or whatever. And I find out that your dog just died or that you just lost the key employee or that your house just burned down. But I'm using really dramatic examples. But anyway, the point, is there something else on your mind? I'm missing it. I'm not know I've failed to connect with you, and candidly, I failed to lead you. So the first question I asked to all of our coaching clients and a coaching meeting, and they would tell you, this is not to say, hey, Joe, how do we create space to discuss and talk about the things that are most pressing, interesting and relevant for you today? I want to start there and then we'll recap and we'll talk about some of the stuff that we've talked about the past. I'm always, you know, forcing accountability. So we're we're bringing things to the forefront. Did you do X, Y and Z to do that or Yapp with that? But we addressed the issues that are most present. And then I'm always trying to share ideas and concepts that I feel like are relevant to them based on the seasonal life there in industry they're in or what they've said that they needed help with. Conversations tend to be fairly organic because, again, it's it's a relationship. And, you know, people open up to us about all kinds of stuff, their marriage, their finances, their friendships, their their problems that go way beyond their professional life. Jordan: So I appreciate the question. I don't know if I if I answered it exactly. But to give you a window into our world and how we work with people, that that's sort of our our process and style. You know, right now we work with such a wide range of people, Joe, so I'm not as concerned about like industry or niche. Here's what I what I'm really concerned with this character traits. So they've got to be values oriented, right? They got to care. They're going to be a decent person. In other words, if they just want to go make all the money in the world, they don't want to leave their family. I'm probably not a good fit. I'm going to challenge them on their values and lead in their family and growing in their faith. And that's part of who I am. But that's not for everybody. But so we're probably not a good fit if that's not part of who they are. And then the second thing that I would tell you is they got to be open minded. They have to be willing to learn. They have to be somebody that enjoys new information and new ways of thinking. A new perspective, fresh perspective. Right. Doesn't mean that I'm always right or my perspective is the right perspective. It just means that they're willing to listen right there. They're willing to hear and then they're willing to be challenged. So they want somebody to ask them the tough questions and share the truth and mix even said it best. You said average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached, great players want the truth. I want people that want the truth. I want people that really want to be challenged. Joe: Great. Jordan: They've Joe: So Jordan: Got Joe: Before Jordan: An open Joe: We Jordan: Mind Joe: Move to Jordan: And they have strong Joe: A Jordan: Values. Joe: Group coaching piece Jordan: And Joe: Of it, Jordan: If they've Joe: Because Jordan: Got those Joe: We just Jordan: Three Joe: Talked Jordan: Things, Joe: About the one on Jordan: They're Joe: One. Jordan: Usually a good fit for Joe: What's Jordan: Our coaching Joe: Your sweet Jordan: Practice. Joe: Spot? Who who are the people that you feel you work best with or can can help the best. Jordan: So the group coaches typically kind of a one hour session, we try to kind of meet people where they're at. So I work with organizations, as do our partners, to figure out, hey, what really do you need? What's the right time frame? What's the right size? I'd love to tell you that we've got, like, this specific program. It's cookie cutter. It's not. But that's by design. We really want to be a partner and meet people where they're at. So sometimes it's a small as is five people. I've got one group right now, 60, which I think is a little too big. What's important to us is that that's it's intimate or as intimate as it can be where people really feel like, you know, them. And and so we call on people. I try to get to know everybody by name and remember little facts about who they are and what's important to them. It's highly interactive. So I'm calling on people throughout the session. Usually I'm delivering 30 minutes of content or 30 minutes of discussion. We challenge challenge on the spot. I have other people challenge each other. I always say this in our group coaching program that where you sit determines what you see and you see something different than everybody else's and different is valuable. And so what that means is your voice matters because whether you're the most experienced person on the call are the least experienced person on the call, you see something that nobody else in the organization sees. And so we need your voice. We need your perspective, because you've got a different perspective than everybody else. So, Johnny, that sits at the front desk, that's the director of First Impressions, has some really valuable Joe: Awesome, Jordan: Perspective Joe: I Jordan: Because Joe: Love Jordan: Johnny Joe: That. OK, cool. Jordan: Sees Joe: So Jordan: Something Joe: The group Jordan: That Sarah, Joe: Coaching, Jordan: The CEO, Joe: What does that entail? Jordan: Doesn't see. And so we really just try to foster conversation, encourage people and empower people to share and speak up and then deliver content that's inclusive and relevant to the group. Yes, so much of our business is virtual, it just kind of always has been and most a lot of our clients aren't local. So they're you know, they're kind of spread out. We have people all over the US. I'm pretty used to Zoom calls and phone calls, and I speak a lot. Right. So keynote speaking is live often, but we still do virtual keynotes as well. So it's a good mixture, I would say, in so many ways covid changed our business. I was always willing to do things virtually, but I think a lot of companies weren't until they realized like, hey, we can do it this way. And so for me, as a person with a young family, it allowed me to stay at home and I didn't have to. I wasn't on a plane twice a week sleeping in a hotel. So so covid in some ways I'd be careful how I say this, because it was a really difficult time for a lot of people for our business. It actually affected my day to day rhythm or quality of life and I think a positive way and allowed me to be more present with my family. So it's a good mix of both. But I would say the pandemic certainly forced it to be more virtual. Joe: The coaching business, covid or not covid, were you doing live coaching up until that point and now a lot of Jordan: Yeah, Joe: It has shifted Jordan: I would say Joe: Onto Jordan: A good Joe: Like Zoom Jordan: Portion Joe: Calls and things Jordan: Of Joe: Like Jordan: Our Joe: That, Jordan: Clients Joe: Or Jordan: Are either Joe: How your Jordan: In Joe: Business Jordan: Sales or entrepreneurs, Joe: Today and what's Jordan: You know, Joe: The Jordan: So Joe: Mixture Jordan: There Joe: Of live Jordan: In fact, Joe: Versus Jordan: I would say it's Joe: Online? Jordan: Probably 80 percent of our business, either business owners or they're in sales and then there's maybe 20 percent that are in the world of executive leadership or sports. So that's kind of a mix of our business. When I say executive leadership, they're a leader in some sort of a corporate setting, but it's starting to change more every day. Like we work. I work right now with a group of physicians. We've got a gal that owns a very successful cosmetology clinic. So her whole thing is cosmetology Joe: Yep. Jordan: And she's been wildly successful and real estate agents and financial advisors and and college athletes and pro athletes. And so it's a it's a it's a wide range of people. Joe: Perfect out of the clients that you have, what is the percentage of general corporations, then entrepreneurs and then sports related? OK. Awesome. OK, we're closing in on the amount of time that I have you for, which is unfortunate because I love talking with you and I love your approach. 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First of all, have 20 years of experience, a team of 20 people there doing tens of millions of dollars revenue, that they're very successful. And so they hire us. They hire me to come in and do coaching work with them. And every one of them has sort of a different set of needs. But one of the things that we always talk about, at least on some level, is our communication style. Right, because they're in sales and they're communicating all day, every day for a living. So I challenge this financial advisor. Usually within the first few meetings, I'll say, hey, I want you to send me your approach language, which is really their what they say to engage a client and conversation. So it's a first time meeting and this is the first five minutes of sort of the introductory meeting. And I can I can feel their energy when I when I challenge them and I say, I want you to send me that communication. Their energy is like at a negative to. Right, they're thinking you're going to bill me X for coaching, I've been doing this for 20 years, like what I don't need is help on the basics of what I say. And, you know, I can just feel that just not really excited about that. Jordan: But I challenge him. I say I think this is a really important part of our work together. It helps me understand who you are and how you're showing up for people. So send that over when you get some time. So they send it over and it's not going to have all the answers. But I'm willing to listen to it repeatedly. Our team listens to it repeatedly. And then we give them an analysis. We give them feedback. The energy level, when we give them feedback, goes from a negative two to a 10. Every single time. Because they do not know what they do not know. And I just had a guy the other day, I said, OK, so when the first two minutes of your communication, you said the word thirty seven times. Did you know that? You know, hey, the way that you show up, did you know that you use me focused conversation? Over and over, you are literally saying I my, me repeatedly. And you were doing it for 20 years and nobody has ever told you that you're doing it, and that's a shame because you would connect with people and a deeper and more meaningful way because you would be able to drive better results. You would have more purposeful conversation if you could just make that one small tweak. Jordan: You know, we could end the conversation at the cozy relationship right there, and the time that we had spent together would have been massively impactful. Again, not because I have all the answers, but because I'm willing to listen, give real feedback and press in on blind spots that we all have. And the last thing I'll say is people need to be encouraged. You know, people will go farther than they think they can when someone else thinks they can, period. And I don't care for the most successful person, the least successful person, the most experienced, the least experienced. I'm working with a guy the other day, Fortune 500, executive leader, big time leader of people. They had a record breaking year at the firm. Unbelievable year. This guy is in charge of literally hundreds of direct reports. And I asked him in a conversation, I just said, hey, how many people told you over this past fiscal year? So you just wrapped up the year. How many people told you? Good job. And he says, well, like, what do you mean? I said, you know what I mean? Like e-mails, texts, phone calls. Like how many people reached out to you said, hey, good job, great you. And he said, Zira. Zero people had picked up the phone and sent a text instead of an email, so the point is this job that I've worked with, this guy named John. Jordan: So the point is this, John, that you need to be encouraged. You need somebody to point out what you're doing. Well. You need somebody to touch your heart and remind you of who God made you to be and all of the natural God given giftedness that's inside of you. And I just want to share with you it's an honor to be able to do that for you and with you. But let me let me help you see what I see. Let's look back at the last 12 months. Here's what you've achieved. In that moment, I think I think when you step into somebody's life in that way, you're a lid lifter and you do it authentically and you help them see more and you help them see before. Man, I think you're in a position of strength relationally. And I think that person at that moment realizes that that relationship means more than they ever realized. So there's a lot that we can say about coaching. But I think, Joe, when you touch somebody's heart, when you appreciate people for who they are, when you point out their God given gift A. and when you deliver the truth and love and you point out the blindspots, you can be a world class coach and it has nothing to do with what you know, it's all about. Jordan: You show up and serve people. Well, that's just my answer. I don't know if it's the right answer by anybody else's standard, but in my world, it's the way that I try to live each and every day with the people that we serve. I love it. Yeah, so here's what I'd say, we do a lot of work through social media, so Instagram is probably where I'm most active. I'm Jordan and Montgomery on Instagram, so I would love it. If you want to get in touch to send a direct message, I'll communicate back with you. I would love to connect Montgomery Companies dot com is on our website. I'm also active on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and if anybody reaches out, I will gladly respond. If you got a question, if you're wrestling with an issue, an opportunity I'd love to talk to it with and be of service to anybody listening. And Joe, I want to say thank you for having me on your show. It's an honor. It's always an honor to share your great with the questions that, yes, it's very clear that you showed up prepared and you also had great energy. And so I just want to say thank you for your time and attention. Thanks for who you are and for what you're putting out into the world. It's making a difference. I. Right back at you, brother.

Results Coaching Model with Brian Lovegrove Brian Lovegrove has been on his journey of personal growth and professional development since the age of 17. Inspired by Tony Robbins, he has created not only a catalyst but a unique approach and process to helping others, like you, achieve their goals. He believes in providing & building upon the knowledge most coaches provide by practicing these lessons and building a HABIT! Using his "5 Keys of Success" in his coaching, he is a firm believer that if these keys are used, failure is all but eliminated. In this episode, we learn about all the tactics Brian uses and has honed over the years of being a coach and we did into a few of these methods during our conversation. As always, thanks so much for listening! Joe Brian Lovegrove Leadership Developer and Results Coach Website: https://brianlovegrovecoaching.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brianslovegrove LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianlovegrove/ Live Masterclass: https://www.becomeunstoppable.info 5 Keys to Success Podcast: https://5-keys-of-success.simplecast.com/ Unleash Your Fear eBook: https://www.unleashyourfear.com/freebook Email: lovegrove@lovegroveltd.com Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Hi Brian, welcome to the podcast. I'm looking forward to having you on so many things I have to ask you, because you hit a core thing here with training, personal development courses, all of these things that I read about. And it's going to be interesting to find out your answers to these burning questions I asked. Brian: All right, Joe, I'm looking forward to it. Let's get rocking and rolling here. Joe: Awesome. OK, so you have to bear with me, because I literally do this with every single person on my podcast, is that I think it's important for my audience, who I believe is mostly entrepreneurs, whether they're currently doing their thing or they want to do their thing or they're struggling, doing their thing or whatever it might be. I think it's important for them to know the back story of the person that is on, because it's important to understand the development of where you came from and how you got to where you are today. And I think a lot of those things that you talk about actually people listening, going, oh, yeah, I've been there. I did that. I remember that. So I always leave this open to saying you can go back as far as you want, because if something in elementary school created who you are today, I want the audience to know about it so you can start wherever you want. Brian: Well, people ask me how I got introduced to personal development in the first place, and I actually go back to junior high. My dad was a commercial real estate broker and I grew up in Montana. And any time we would leave town, we would go on a long trip. And so he would pull out these tapes from work. And this was, of course, back before the iPods. The noise canceling headphones in that great, wonderful device that many of us grew up with, the Sony Walkman, Joe: Near Brian: Whatever Joe: And dear to my Brian: He Joe: Heart. Brian: Put into that. Yes. Yes. And so I got stuck listening to whatever was in the tape deck. And so I got introduced to guys like Earl Nightingale, Jim Roan and my favorite Zig Ziglar. And listening to those guys, Dennis Wailea, on and on and on and on, they taught me what it was to be an entrepreneur. And I remember Ziggs saying, treat every job as if you were the owner of the business and those HAQQ series that I listened to through junior high and high school shaped me in my choices in college. I actually got a degree in professional sales because of a I was originally going for a management degree my first year. My sister was two years ahead of me and she told me after my freshman year and says, you know what, Brian, you might want to consider changing majors because the people that I know that are graduating with management degrees are struggling to find jobs. And I went back and that that prompted me to ask a really good deep question at all. I don't know, 18. I asked myself, what career, what major, what level of information do I need to get while you're at college that would regardless of what happens to the industry, because I knew, you know, it's going to be out here in the marketplace for over 50 years. What degree do I need to go get that will? Regardless of what's going to happen, the ups and downs of the industry, whether we end up in another recession, we end up in another depression, that I would always have an opportunity to have a job if I wanted one. Brian: And that always brought me back to the sales aspect that Zig always mentioned, because, again, he did a lot of his sales around the Depression area and that that aspect of life where it's like how do you survive? How do you keep going in those areas? And it's really the salespeople that make the world go round. And so that's what led me to a sales degree. The other decision that I made when I was 17 was I got introduced to a guy named Tony Robbins and I bought his first tape series. Imagine a freshman in college spending probably a month of his earnings on a tape series. And I bought Tony's unlimited power. I still have the tapes are used today, actually gone and bought a second set because I wore out one of those tapes so that because I listened to it so much and I followed Tony ever since, I actually helped promote and put on his seminars for one of his franchises. And along the way, I've always been doing personal development, personal growth, and, you know, a lot I loved it. I just ate it up. But one of the big challenges that I ran into, I turned 40. Brian: It was like, why am I not far enough along? I've been doing this for 20 years. Why am I just here? Because at the time I was struggling to pay the bills. I was struggling to get by. My wife was working. We had two small kids. And I thought by the time I turned 40, I would have been much farther along by now. And so in this process, I realized it wasn't until much later that learning is not enough to make lasting change. I was actively learning. I was seeking the puzzle pieces, the pieces of information that was missing in my life. And I figured once I learned that then life would be easy and I'd be making all this money. But that never happened because I never did. The one thing that I learned all the way back in the beginning from XG is you have to do it until you get good enough at it, till it becomes your new normal. And only then, once you've applied and implement those strategies in your life, will they actually work for you. And you've got to do it long enough to get good enough at it and then continue to stick with it to where you can actually allow the compounding effect to, you know, you slowly creep and then you kind of turn that corner and it goes straight up. And it took me 50 years to hit that. Joe: So I'm going to go back real quick because I want to know what triggered you to buy that Tony Robbins course. You know, I know you were listening to this stuff in the car with your father on the Walkman or whatever else you were doing it. I mean, a kid at 17 doesn't do that. So what triggered it? Brian: Well, I had read the book, his book had come out and I had read the book and I really loved he had such a different style and he was talking about different things and he was talking about the things in the mind and he was talking about he and the different aspects there. And a lot of that was like, oh, my gosh, this stuff makes so much sense. And I was applying some of those strategies and I was seeing specific results. And I was like, and that's really what made me buy in. In fact, that's probably one of the few programs that I really started implementing strategy on. One of the big strategies you talked about was marketing Meeri, and it was one that I specifically used as I got into my initial first jobs and sales career. But I used on a consistent basis to help me actually get as far as long as I did. Joe: Ok, I'm still going to ask the question, because I'm not sure if you answered it yet. Why would a 17 year old buy the book like 17 year olds don't don't get into this stuff. So and I think it's important to figure out what triggered it for you. Brian: Well, again, I think it has to do with that was the next step, I the company that was putting those out was Nightingale Conant Joe: Yeah. Brian: And my dad would get those and I probably was home. I don't remember where I was when I got it. I might have gone home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. And I grabbed the magazine I love looking at because again, I've been doing this for a number of years now. And I was like, what? What's the new stuff they got? You know, Wayne Dyer was there and you know, you know who who are who's the new people? And there was this new one from this guy named Tony Robbins. And I don't know, I guess it just resonated with me. And I think it was seventy five bucks. And it was like and to be honest with you, I really can't say what prompted me to go. I want that. Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: But I think it was more of the sales pitch in the description of what it promised me. Joe: Got it. Brian: More than anything, that's what I would say it was based upon the results that were promised, based upon the description of the tape series. Joe: Ok, so you've been around that sort of thing for a long time, right? And if correct me if I'm wrong at any point, because I want to make sure this is super clear to the listeners, is that from what I get of what we're going to go still back, I still have other stuff to do, but I want to kind of set the stage of your expertise or what you believe is, is how you can help people. As you said, you can buy all the courses and attend all the conferences and do all of this stuff. You've said it here. You set it on your website. The enthusiasm kind of goes away when life gets in the way. Right. It's basically that simple. You come back from the high of of being at a conference or are listening to something and then life literally just gets in the way and you don't get the things done that you promised yourself that you would. So my understanding is that you are basically this coach that is going to keep you on track. Whether life gets in the way or not, you're basically going to be this person that is going to bring people along through all of this and keep them accountable to what they promise themselves that they would do and make sure that they do all of the things that are needed without shelving anything because life got in the way. Is that fair? Brian: Right, it is because, again, you know, Tony is great if you've ever been to one of his big events, you P.W. he he can talk nine thousand people into walking across twelve hundred degree recalls in a day. Joe: Yeah. Brian: By the end of day one, he's got you walking across Coles. But again, how do you can't maintain that energy and that excitement and the momentum of that event for weeks, months, years to get to where you want to go? And Tony has admitted that this is an area that he struggles with, is how do I get people to keep going? Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: Which is one of the reasons why he has his coaching program that you can go and pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a coach for a year, and it's one of the reasons why he actually created the pyramids, Madonna's training group, to train people like me to be coaches that help people implement his strategies. And that's really what it comes down to, is how do you take the strategies that, you know, you need to be doing and implement them? One of the biggest challenges in society today is we don't teach people discipline for the most part. There's a few places that that happens. But outside of that, it's not encouraged. In fact, it's almost especially in today's society, you're not responsible, you know, being responsible for yourself, being accountable. That goes out the window. And yet that's how you are going to be successful. That's how you're going to get to where you want to go. Unfortunately, society is teaching people to be cheap and to live in mediocrity. That is not how you're going to get to where you want to go, because I'm assuming that most people here are entrepreneurs. Joe: Mm Brian: They're Joe: Hmm. Brian: Entrepreneurs for a reason because they are sick and tired of working for somebody else's dreams. And so they want to pursue their own dreams or they think they can do it better. And so they're out there trying to do it on their own. But there's a myth that goes with that is the fact that they have to do it on their own, they have to try to figure it out all by themselves. And some of my best clients are the people that have gone to school to learn how to do what they want to do, a chiropractor or a massage therapist, the tradesperson, they know how to either pound nails Turner Ranch, adjust somebody's back, but they don't necessarily know how to do this thing called run a business. And so there's certain aspects that come into play because my my ideal market is that small business owner, entrepreneur and professional who's out there wanting to make a difference in their world, in their communities and their lives to make a bigger impact. But they're struggling to do that because they're trying to deal with all of the distractions and all the stuff that's coming at us. And it's like, how do I get a hold of that? How do I how do I focus on those things that truly matter that are going to move the needle for me and my business? And that's really where I come alongside them. Brian: And I say that specifically because I can't take the journey for you, but I'm happy to take the journey with you. And see, that's where the big challenge is, is a lot of people feel like they go to the seminar, which is, OK, here's how you go climb a mountain. Here's the equipment you're going to need and what happens to the trainer. They get all loaded up. They load them up and they say, go have fun. And they go walking down the path. And the river that they were told was a small creek is now this raging river, the bridge that they were supposed to be able to go across was washed out. And it's not like, what the heck am I supposed to do now? They weren't prepared for what they're going to experience or they didn't get enough information. That's one of the things that I always felt in the training classes and seminars I went to. I always felt like there was a piece of information missing. And there's only so much that somebody can teach you. You actually have to go experience it for yourself in order to develop those nuances that are really going to make a difference for you. Joe: Yeah, and I think that there are very, very, very few people in the world that can and you hit it on the head, the discipline that they will actually take, what they've learned, whether it's in a chorus, it's at a seminar or whatever, and actually implement it and be accountable to themselves. I think that's a really, really small pool of people. And so Brian: It is. Joe: Because the Olympics just happened, if we even made an analogy of like you went to class to become a gymnast and you said in a week long seminar to learn all of the different moves and tricks and flips and things, and then you just don't go and show up and start doing that. You have a coach that's watching you Brian: Right. Joe: And and helping you understand all of those things and the mechanics of it. So to me, that's what you're that's really where you help, is that you are there to, like I said earlier, to to to to push them, keep them on track, assist them with when they Brian: The. Joe: Hit roadblocks. You're by their side throughout the whole process. Right. Brian: Right, and I think so many times we have this misunderstanding because we've been taught that learning is going and sitting in class. And that's not necessarily true, but unfortunately, the self development industry has taken this model of let's bring them in, sit them down, overwhelm them with information, make them feel like they're drinking from a firehose so they feel like we've given them a tremendous amount of value and then send them on their way. And so the more people we can pack into that room, the better we make more money that way. Yeah, we actually end up doing a disservice to the customer, to the client, because at the end there is no support. And so how do you make sure somebody has what they need in order to actually achieve the results they want? And that is challenging along the way. And we've created several ways for people to do that because, again, money gets in the way. I mean, if you have enough money, you can find somebody that's going to come alongside and help you get to where you want to go. Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: But we actually started one hundred bucks a month. We've got programs where you can get that at least some help along the way to get you to where you want to go. And we grow from there. But it comes down to this process of how do we get you to take the actions you know you need to take? How do we get you to move forward consistently? And it's just like the example you used is great. The one that I love to use is the example of going to get into shape. You don't go to the gym for three days straight and be done. That doesn't cut Joe: It's. Brian: It. You know, usually you go once for a few hours and you're like, oh my God, you wake Joe: Yeah. Brian: Up the next day and you can't move. And so it's like, why would you expect you to be able to do that in the other areas of your life? Joe: Yeah, I go to the gym five days a week and I still am like, why don't I look better? So you're really in a great position to do this, because how many years did you spend in that whole seminar course kind of world? And I know you're still involved in some of it, but you helped run Brian: Well, Joe: Some Brian: I Joe: Of these. Brian: Yeah, I help promote Joe: Yep. Brian: To put them on the grand scheme of things, I didn't do that a lot. I was probably with them for maybe about a year before the franchise partnership broke up and therefore the franchise collapsed. But it was a great opportunity and I learned a lot going through that process. Back in starting in 2003, I joined Toastmasters and worked myself up over the number of years to become a semi-professional speaker when I wrote my first book and got kind of started in that. But I never really got traction and got that off the ground in this process. One of the things that happened was I shifted from Toastmasters into a leadership role in nonprofit organizations, specifically to the Boy Scouts. But one of the things I saw was because, again, I was focusing on the teaching aspect because I love watching that light bulb go off. But what I didn't realize was because I didn't see it in my life at the moment, at the time yet was that, again, teaching them was good. But coaching them is better because, again, it's about growth and it's part of my all the exercises and things I've done. I mean, I have done it easily. Quarter of a million dollars on personal development. I have bookcases and bookcases of books and tape series that are, you know, this is the pretty self I have, you know, boxes on wooden shelves and storage units full of books and stuff that I've consumed. And it's actually one of my coaching partners mentioned to me and from one of the coaching programs I was in, he says she said, Brian, you have a vault of ideas and strategies to help somebody to move forward. Brian: And so when they need it, you can provide it for them. And so really, it's about getting people to move. It's not about trying to teach you something new. It's about how can I get you to move forward and understanding how to motivate somebody to move. And he talks about the pleasure and pain principles. We move away from pain a lot easier than we do towards pleasure. But many times we only use pleasure as the incentive for us to do something. And a lot of times I'm working with some basic activities with somebody. One of the things that you can see it here in the video, if you're watching it, is my incredible results, 928 Challenge Journal, which is basically spending about 20 minutes each evening documenting what happened today, well, as planning tomorrow. And the first challenge that people come up with is doing it every day. So far, nobody has done ninety one days straight. There's a few that have come close. But on average, it takes people a good month to get into the habit of consistently writing in their journal. And so, again, it's about understanding what it takes to get people to move in the direction they have said they want to go and using those two buttons and pushing them at the right point to get things to to happen. And again, once we start getting that ball rolling and we start developing momentum, that's when it gets fun. Joe: So we are in the age of so many, like self education, know so many programs and classes and courses and all of this stuff on the Internet, right. You can find it everywhere. So and you might even admit to this yourself, because based on what you just said about having a shelf full of tapes and all of this stuff, what would you say to the there are people out there that are professional seminar attendees right there, their professional course. So, Brian: We call them seminar junkies. Joe: Ok, so Brian: Yeah, Joe: We Brian: I've been there. Joe: Ok, so this is good because you're coming from the understanding that Brian: Oh, yeah. Joe: One more seminar, a one more class or one more course is not going to make the difference. It's that you have to start implementing what you've already learned and actually admit to yourself that you haven't done the work or this is the work you need to do and actually come up with a plan. Right. It's just like we hear it a million times. It's just so hard for people to understand, myself included. I'm not I'm not preaching from a soapbox here that, you know, you have to have a roadmap. Right. Because if you wanted to get hop in your car today and drive somewhere, you need to know where you're going. Right. You would get lost. Brian: Yes. Joe: It's no different Brian: Yes. Joe: With our life. Right. So what would you say to those people that are listening to that do continue to just think that that next breakthrough is around the corner by buying yet another course are going to some sort of seminar or conference? Brian: Put down the Kool-Aid because you have drunk the Kool-Aid, Joe: Right. Brian: What they're actually doing is they're pursuing the feeling, the positive feelings they get when they go to the seminar. They're enjoying that high and over time that wears off and they want to change the way they feel. They get frustrated and they go, oh, I want to feel better. Their subconscious then says, OK, well, how do we make ourselves feel? How we do that? Let's go to another seminar. I talk about this in the master class. That is, we get stuck on this learning loop and we go and we learn some information. We get all excited and we go try it and we fail. And usually when we fail once or twice, we quit. It gets hard. It gets uncomfortable. And we don't like to stay there. We don't like we don't we want to don't want to go through that process of learning how to do it and do it long enough to get good enough at it that we actually get to the other side of. OK, I got this. You know, it's like learning to ride a bike. You're going to fall and the only way to get better is to have somebody let go in and you fall down. You got to go through that process. You've got to learn to you have to make the mistakes. You have to, quote, fail, because, again, it depends on how you define the word failure, because at the end of the day, we get to choose what things mean. My definition of failure is different than most people's. My definition of failure is you only fail when you quit or give up. Joe: Hmm, agreed. Brian: Or you don't even try. Joe: Yeah, so it's almost better that if someone had that itch, they should stop for a moment and say, OK, let's do this, let's just try something completely different that we've never done before. Let's actually hire a coach and spend the same amount of money that we would have spent on a course. But we have a coach with us by our side for however many months or a year or whatever, however long that is. That same amount of money could be spread out to have someone keep you accountable and help you to come up with a plan and stay on track and implement all the ideas. Right. Brian: Absolutely. Joe: It would be worth a try for anybody who's one of these. You could Digicom junkies to seminar junkies. Brian: Yeah, the seminar junkies, Joe: Yeah, Brian: Yes. Joe: Right. So it would be a change? Brian: What's Joe: Of course Brian: The Joe: It would Brian: Right Joe: Be. Brian: If what's your outcome? What do you want? Why are you going to that seminar? And there were several times where people said, well, what are you what do you expect from this? What do you want to learn from this? And people are sitting there throwing out answers. And I would be sitting in the background going, I really don't know. I don't I don't have an answer for that. Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: And that was kind of the clue is like, wait a minute, why am I here? Because I want to learn. That's not good enough. I want you to know I started getting specifics is I want to learn how to do such and such and such, and I want to be able to, you know, be successful at doing that. And, you know, whether that was real estate investing or personal development becoming a coach, a lot of those things was, OK, how do you do it? Because, again, we're learning about doing and we learn through doing much more powerfully. There's a difference between head understanding and gut level understanding. And so, first off, a coach, if you haven't had a coach before. I'll share a good story with you, because this is how I got introduced to coaching was I actually bought the up sell of a seminar program that actually included six monthly coaching sessions with one of the coaches that's kind of designed to help you do it. And my experience was I actually got more done in those six months than I had in the previous five years. I did more stuff. I made more progress. And as I went back and analyzed the even deeper, I did more the week before that phone call that I had the previous three weeks combined because I knew I was going to have to get on the phone with him. And again, we're leveraging fear and that pain to our advantage. That's one of the reasons why I wrote my last book on Leisure Fear. One of the strategies that I teach is how to make your friend and how you make sure your friend, as you turn fear around, it's pulling you forward instead of holding you back. Brian: And one of the ways that we do that, as we make it more painful to stay where you are than where you want to go and having to get on the phone call with me or on the Zoom call with me. And we sit in there and says, OK, Joe, you said last week you were going to accomplish these three things. How how far did you get on number one, how far did you get on number two? How far did you get on number three? Now, I don't beat you up if you don't get them done. What I'm doing is I'm wanting to get under neath it and understand the root cause of what's holding you back, because when I when we're able to do that, you see hole that was fear of criticism. That's what prevented me from making those sales calls. I needed to make up for the fear of rejection or whatever it was. And we talk about that. And then we because again, we get to choose what things mean. And so what does it mean to make a cold call? Most people hate cold calls. What if you could turn things around to where you loved cold calls? Because, again, you get to choose what things mean. You can love cold calls. And so, again, it's basically going in there and playing in the mind and shifting away the what the beliefs are, because that's what it comes down to it. That's what our life is all about, is how we feel and what we believe. And when we understand that we do everything in life to change the way we feel. It's really interesting on where things go from there. Joe: Yeah, and I think either I think I read something from your website, I believe, but something you said, I think that's where it was, but it was something about the moment we actually tell the world what it is that we want to do. We're accountable for it. Right then we everyone that that was in earshot of that or reads it somewhere on our website that we're now responsible to do it. And that's why so many people don't actually put that out there, because then they're like, oh, crap, I actually have to do that now. I said it. Brian: Right, Joe: I told Brian: Yeah. Joe: Everyone I was going to do this. Brian: But you're right, it comes down to we are afraid to put ourselves out there Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: Because we're afraid of being criticized now, we do have different types of people in our lives. We have people that I refer to as Krabs, and they're usually in your left hand. For those people who haven't heard the story, I'm sure you have. Is it if you put a crab in a five gallon bucket without a lid on it, it'll crawl out right Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: Easily. But if you put two crabs into that five gallon bucket without a lid, they won't crawl out. The more actually, the more crabs that are in there, the less likelihood that the crab is going to get away, because as that crab, they're programming mental instinct programming that we have within us is that to stay part of the group to follow the herd. Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: And if somebody is trying to climb out, they're going away. And so the rest of the group will pull them back down. And if he continues to do that time and time again, they will actually kill him. Joe: Oh, I didn't know that part of the story. Brian: Yes, well, the same thing is true with other people in our lives. We have people that are on the same level that we are or below us and we're wanting to grow. Now, that doesn't mean that they have negative intentions. They're actually doing it for a positive reason because, one, they don't want you to leave them, but they also don't want to see you get hurt. This is where our family comes in. Parents say, oh, you just sit still, Johnny, because you're not ready for that yet, or they don't want you to go pursue this thing that they perceive as scary, risky, and you're likely to get hurt. And so they're going to try to talk you out of going in, pursuing your great dream. But then there's other people that, again, they're just going to knock you down, they're going to pull you down. And if you've ever listened to Lester Brown, he talks about that and his family, he'd show up for Thanksgiving. And his brother goes, Hey, Les, how's that seminar speaking gig going? And it was almost I'm getting there. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. But we also have people that want to support us and help us. And so it's who are you going to listen to and who are you going to spend time with? And so but it's also important to be in that group of people. Brian: Your support people are in your right hand, your crabs are in your left hand. It's important to know who the person you're across the table with and who you're talking with on the phone. Is this person a crab or is this a supporter and then interact with them appropriately? Because if you're talking with a crab, you stay in the shallow end. You don't talk about your dreams. You talk about the weather, you talk about sports, you talk about whatever that is dull and boring at the time and not really enlightening to us, but allows us to maintain the relationship because there's times in our life when, yes, we can eliminate some of those crabs because other times they're related to us and we can't get rid of them. And so what do you do? So in part of it is, one, you reduce the amount of time, and then two, you understand who you're having the conversation with and understand they're coming to you with a positive intent. They're trying to keep you safe. They're trying to they want you to be happy and they want you to stay well and they don't want you to get hurt. But the same thing is true with our subconscious, which is why our biggest enemy is right up here Joe: Yep. Brian: Is the robot that runs the show 80 to 90 percent of the time. And that's where I spend a lot of time, is helping people reprogram the robot, their subconscious, because unfortunately, it was a program with a lot of crappy code and trying to reprogram it is not as easy as copy, delete and then copy and paste. It's not that easy. It's like the biggest, ugliest ball of spaghetti you've ever seen and trying to figure out where that thing goes. And it's a mess. It's just a mess in there. And but we do have the ability to go in there and change it. And the more we actively pursue that and focus on that and pursue growth, the faster we can get to where we want to go. Joe: So we're going to talk about the services you offer, but you touched upon something that in a previous episode that I had put out, I got a lot of comments about it. And so I want to talk about it as it relates to you personally. And then we can talk about how you use it with your clients. But you spoke about journaling. And the more and more I hear, either I have guest on or I hear people talk about it, the more and more I feel like it's almost got the same benefits as when people talk about meditating, how you can quiet the mind. It was all this fufu stuff many years ago and now it's becoming more the norm. Right? It's something that you need that quiet time. So tell me more about what you think journaling does for people and the importance of journaling Brian: Ok, well, Joe: And Brian: Actually. Joe: Whether or not you actually do it nightly or daily or I'd be Brian: Yes, Joe: Interested to know. Brian: Yes, the the if you can see it there, it says, a life worth living as a life worth recording. And so, Tony, he's inspired me to consistently journal. I have journals from my first in fact, in my latest move, I was going through a lot of them. And I came across the journal that I had right after college. And I was actually really interested to go back and see the progress of my first sales job that I bombed out. I lasted like three months. My experience was the story I was telling myself was different than the story that I was reading. And so, one, it's a great way to document your journey in life. But the way that I teach people to journal No. One is it leverages the power of evaluated experience because you stop and think about it. You probably have heard that experience is the best teacher. Yes and no, because unless we learn the lessons from that experience, then it was pointless. If we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, we keep doing the same thing and expect different results. We're not learning. We're not growing. And so journaling is a great way for you to document your journey, but also to stop and evaluate what happened today. What did I get done? Because many times we get to the end of the week, we get to the end of the month. Man, I feel like I didn't get anything done. And you can go back to the daily journal process and go, oh, yeah, well, I did that and I did that and I did that and I did that. Brian: But it also allows you to say, OK, what am I actually getting done? And is what I'm getting done, moving me in the direction I want to go? Because, again, we've talked about the journey that we're on. We have a goal we want to achieve. And in order to get there, we like you said, we have to have a plan. Many people don't put together the plan. In fact, many go study programs. And I listen to rarely was there any planning process involved. And so I actually stepped somebody through this. Exactly. And the incredible results on what they challenge is Ugo's. We set our big yearly goal and we break that down into what are we going to accomplish in the next ninety one days and then we break that down. This is OK. What's going to be month one? What's going to be month two? What's going to be month three? And then we break that down. OK, what's going to be week one of month one. What's going to be in week two. Week three, week four. Because again, the only way to get to complete the ninety one day journey is to each day make forward progress. And how do you make sure you're making forward progress if you never look at the map and compare your results, what you're getting to see if you're moving in the right direction. Brian: It's like a airplane taking off from New York to L.A. without a GPS system, without a method for them to course. Correct. You know, there's a reason why there's a compass in the airplane. There's a reason why there's a GPS in there that's consistently every moment checking in and saying, am I on track? Am I on track and making those little minor adjustments along the way? Because if you actually look at a slight wiggle from L.A. to New York, because there's turbulence up there, there's wind currents up there, lots of different things depending on which way you're flying. Are you flying with the jet stream or against the jet stream? All of these things are impacting that flight. The same thing is true in our life. How do we make sure we are on target? And journalese is one of the ways to do that. But we also encourage people. The way that the journal is set up is to do that evaluation experience where you document what you got done, you documents your lessons along the way, and you also document the changes that you want to make, the adjustments that are going to make tomorrow a better day. How can I be better tomorrow? And then you plan tomorrow. One of the biggest challenges we have is making sure we get the right stuff done. How do you make sure you make time to get those important but not urgent activities into your schedule? Because if you do not intentionally plan them and schedule them into your calendar, rarely, very rarely are they going to actually happen, which means you're never going to really make the progress you want to make, because stop and think about it, your goals require a lot of time and energy doing those things that are important but not urgent, which is another reason why having the accountability is a big factor in that. Brian: It's like, OK, it's it's not urgent, but oh, my coach is going to be asking about it. What do we just do? We created the needed urgency. Give you a perfect example. I had one of my clients. She wanted to raise her rates and so she'd been talking about it for months. And so we were working on the programming in her head so that she felt like she was worthy of that price increase, putting it off and putting it off. And this is OK, put and says, OK, what's the plan? And so we specifically detailed walk through the plan. OK, I need to put a sign up on the door and I need to send out a notification of my. People and I got an email and, you know, here's an opportunity for people to come in and sign up for a plan where they can lock in the current pricing. And I says, OK, when I come see you next week, I want to see the sign on the door. When you think you put the sign on the door right after that call, Joe: Ten minutes Brian: 15 Joe: Before Brian: Minutes Joe: You showed Brian: Before Joe: Up. Brian: I 15 minutes before I walked in the door. Exactly. And it wouldn't have happened if I had not pushed her to make that commitment. As a mom, what are we going to do? Are we just going to keep going down this road? Because that's one of things that we do, is we look at it, says, OK, what happens if you don't change? If you keep doing the same thing you're doing today over and over again, you're going to get the same results. Are you happy with that? Are you satisfied with it? If you're not, then what are you going to do differently tomorrow? That's going to change. The trajectory that you're going internally is a big piece of that is to help make sure that you are documenting your journey and you're evaluating the experiences that you're getting and making sure that they're taking you in the direction you want to go and if it's not making those adjustments along the way. Joe: Is the majority of the time it happens is at night, just before you go to bed sort of thing. Brian: One of the things that we designed the system to be very flexible. There's actually a place for people to write in their schedule and there's no numbers on it because I've got clients. It's wake up at five o'clock in the morning and then there's guys like me who don't start their day until seven, but I'm usually up till midnight. So, again, it just comes down to fitting it into your system. And that's actually one of the things we do within the group coaching calls is we're saying, how do I take this system that Brian has created and apply it to my life? How does this fit into my life? And we teach people how to do that. And I've got one client who does restoration work. So he's very much like a firefighter. The phone rings and it's like the alarm bell going off. He's got to go fix somebody's problem. So how does he schedule his day? And so we came up with a system on how to use the system because what happens if the alarm doesn't go off? What are you going to do? So we had a plan, a system and a Plan B system Joe: Mm Brian: For Joe: Hmm. Brian: It. We recommend the Evening Times for a couple of reasons. Number one, when you're planning tomorrow, you don't have to remember it. Actually, you get a better night's sleep. Joe: I get it off your brain. Brian: Right, and so your brain, is it trying to remember all the things you've got to do tomorrow? We also encourage now I have some people completed at their end of their workday. So at four thirty, when they go home at 5:00, I've got one woman who does it at three thirty before she go pick up her kid at school at 4:00 and she's basically document what did I get done? And she's also there's still some things potentially that she's going to do because we incorporate not just your business, but your life in the journal. And so it's like, OK, what am I going to be doing for all 16 hours? And I'm awake and relax and let go because so many times we struggle with constantly running. And there's a reason why there's a pad of paper and a pen on my bedside is because there's a lot of times I wake up in this ideas and I got to sit there and I get to write it down because I will not remember when I wake up in the morning. And so it just comes down. We try to get the system to fit the person, not the person to fit the system Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: Like so many of them do. But at the end of the day, it comes down to what works for you. We recommend in the evening because of the benefits there. There are some people that do it first thing in the morning. If that's the case, as long as you're doing the system, great. Joe: I just hear about it all the time, and I said I was going to start it after the last episode, that someone who was heavily into it, I even publicly said, all right, I got to start doing it and I still haven't done it. Brian: Well, let's have a conversation about that, Joe, because, again, at the end of the day, it's what is it going to take to get you to move? Joe: Yeah. Brian: And that's actually something that because, again, I've got numerous stories that I can tell you about people that because one of the one of the most common mistakes that people make when they're doing the journal is the fact that they only do it Monday through Friday. They don't do it Saturday, Sunday, because, again, like the woman who does it at the end of the workday, my question to them is, OK, that's good. But what are you going to do, come on Saturday, Sunday when you're not going to the office? What are you going to do then? And so we create a plan on how and then we got to you got to figure out how to make it work. And so I actually challenged several of the people to do it, says, OK, if you don't in. The other thing is, is not getting the journal done. The night before it was OK. If you don't do the journal the night before, you have to spend two minutes on a cold shower in the morning. I don't know about you, but yes, they talk about cold showers being this great, wonderful thing. But I don't want that in the morning. No, thank you. And so, again, we move away from paying much better than the the perceived pleasure. OK, and so it's creating the pain. So it was like, OK, you don't do the journal, not before you're going to take a cold shower or I mean, really what I would do is I give them a choice. I says you can either a take the cold shower or B, you have to text me that says I didn't do my journal last night. Which one do you think people chose? And I said, OK, those are your two choices. You have to choose the greater pain. Which one do you think they chose as the greater pain? Joe: I would think having the texture would be more of the pain. Brian: Yes, Joe: Yeah. Brian: Because that is admitting Joe: Yeah, Brian: That they failed, Joe: Yeah. Brian: Which just goes to show you the level of programming we have around failure. And so, again, it's using fear and pain to move you in the direction you want to go. Joe: All right, a lot to unpack there. So we only have a little bit of time left and I want to honor your time. So let's do this first. Let's talk about I have for services written down that you offer. And you might have added one. You might have taken one away. But I have your one on one coaching. I have the ninety one day challenge. I have the mastermind and then I have your weekly accountability coaching. And so can you just briefly give us an explanation of those. And if I missed one at it and if you're not doing one of them, take it away. Brian: Ok, well, as a coach, I need I don't know where you are, so I don't know which service to offer you or which one is the right fit for you, Joe: Mm hmm. Brian: You or your listener. And so I really start with what I refer to as a discovery session where we sit down and talk about where you are and where you want to go. And then based upon that conversation, we determine how to best help you. Now, where do people usually start? But most people start with the incredible results, starting with their challenge, because it is the one skill that helps people take the action they know they need to be taking that will help them reach their goals. And they see tremendous immediate results, positive results and benefits from participating in the program. And it's one that it's only one hundred and ninety seven dollars if somebody wanted to participate in it. But you got to come through me and do that discovery session in order to determine whether or not that's the good right fit for you. The other thing that is like rocket boosters on the on any one day challenge is the weekly accountability coaching calls and the incredible results. And what a challenge. We do a group coaching call where we are sitting down and we are we're talking how to help use the system, how to get the system to work and fit into your life, and how to help you consistently take action on it. But we also help you with your plan on accomplishing your ninety one day goal. So if your goal is to get 50 new clients, this is OK. What are you doing this week that's going to make you more clients? And we're talking about those different activities in those different ideas and strategies. Brian: So the problem is, is there's anywhere from five to 15 people on that call, depending on how many people are actually in the group at one time. And so it comes down to how do you get enough of my time to where we can truly focus on that programming piece that we've talked about, which is such a big, ugly mess that gets in the way all the time. That is where that one on one time comes in to, where we actually spend 30 minutes specifically talking. We it's a very specifically designed program, says, OK, here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I got done. Here's what I learned. And here's the changes I'm going to make so we can review that in eight to ten minutes pretty quickly. And then we spend the next twenty minutes digging into what got in the way. What's the challenge and struggle you're dealing with right now? That's either the bitch that you're in, the roadblock you're facing, or what's holding you back from moving forward. And that right there is tremendously powerful and makes the ninety one day challenge much more successful. And people who are participating in both their results that they get in and I know they challenge is heads and shoulders above the people that are just in the program by itself. Joe: Yep, and I have to ask this, because I'm sure if I was listening to this, it would be driving me nuts the entire time. It's like, why ninety one days? It's not 60, 30, 90, 120. Brian: It's seven times 13 is 91, seven days for 13 weeks. Joe: Steamworks got it. Brian: So because, again, one quarter is three months, which is four point three weeks, and so it's to get a full 13 weeks is ninety one days. Joe: Perfect. So we covered that and the Brian: Ok, Joe: Weekly accountability and then Brian: Right. Joe: The one on one coaching is. Brian: The one on one coaching I refer to I refer to as my general coaching, and that's where somebody is really wanting to grow and make changes. And a lot of times people will start off there. And again, they're wanting to do a lot of growth and unpacking and deal with the programming issues that are going on. And they're wanting to make some significant changes. Those are one hour sessions and those are usually each week as well where we're digging in and we're trying to figure out again, we're making some serious shifts in there. And then a lot of times it's like, OK, we got them straightened out and we got them on a path. We've created the plan. We've got the momentum going now and it's starting to move forward. And a lot of those people will roll into the accountability coaching so that they have the regular check ins that are getting done what they want to get done, but they don't need to necessarily. OK, let's dive in deep in there and start digging around. Those are wonderful sections. I love doing them, but they take a lot of energy on both myself as well as the person because we're going deep. Know, one of the things that you probably have learned by now listen to this is I don't like to play in the shallow end. I like to dive deep and I like to go under the covers. And if people aren't, that's the other thing is if you've got to be comfortable in playing in the deep end and there's a lot of times when my role as a coach is not to tell somebody what to do, I almost never do that because who's an expert on Joe and Joe's business, Joe is right. So my role is to ask you the questions that is going to help you come up with the answers and solutions to the problems that you're faced with that external perspective and to help you come up with the solution that is within yourself and that the mastermind is more Joe: That's Brian: At the upper Joe: Ok. Brian: Level Joe: Ok. Brian: And that right now is closed. So people are not available into that. And usually what happens is we start people off in the 90s when they challenge and there's those people are rolling up into that mastermind as they complete the 91 day challenge. Joe: Scott. Brian: But we start people off with where they are and what they can afford of what they need to do. And so we have programs that start, like I said, at one hundred dollars a month, up to twenty five to five thousand dollars a month, depending upon which program you're involved with. And there are other things that I do. I have mentioned Tony Robbins, but I have not mentioned John Maxwell, most certified coach, trainer and speaker of the John Maxwell team, which means for those people who are not familiar with John Maxwell, he's a world renowned leadership expert. And that was one of the big challenges that I saw was there was a lack of quality leadership in our world today. And because my target market is that small business owner, entrepreneur and professional, they have never really had much experience with leadership training. But again, I'm not a leadership trainer. I'm a leadership developer. And so we have leadership programs using John's world class material that over a period of 90 days, we teach you the strategies and you practice them for ninety one days so that you develop those skill sets along the way. And so, again, it depends upon where you are and what you need and what tool is necessary to help you fix the problem that you're up against. Because again, I use Stephen Covey, I use Joe Mitali. I will pick from anybody I need to and I will claim that everything that I share didn't originate with me. Brian: I'm standing on the shoulders of the giants that went before me as far as you know, all the way back to the Greeks, Aristotle and and some of those, because they had it first. They they mentioned it. And again, everybody since then is really just repackaging it from there. And if somebody wants to do a DIY version of it, pick a great book. Napoleon Hill's was probably the the godfather of personal development or at least modern person development with they can grow rich. And one of my mentors actually went and read the book and studied it over and over and over again. You probably have heard the suggestion that you should go read a book a week or so, go read 50 bucks a year. Right. I challenge you. That's not the right strategy if you're wanting to grow. It's a great way to learn information. But if you're wanting to make changes in your life. Yeah, one great book and read it 50 times, study it, do the exercises at the end of the chapter, implement the strategies. Another great one is Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. That that book still to date. That's one book I try to read at least once a year. And I'm usually listening to it because I'm taking advantage of the windshield time that I have. And it seems like there's always something more in there. Brian: That book is so deep and there's so many different levels that you can get into it as you grow. There's another level. There's another level. There's another level, which is how I spend a lot of my time. Yes, I have three different coaches and I'm constantly consuming more and more material. But there are there's about ten different books that I try to spend time reading consistently because they're the road maps, they're the foundational skills. And it's going to take for me to get to where I want to go. And it's only through consistently coming back to it. You don't become a master blackbelt by learning how to do the form and doing it perfectly. One time I believe it was Berklee that said, I don't fear the man that knows ten thousand ticks. I fear the man that is practiced one kick ten thousand times in the story that got you the story and the rest of the story was the example of that was he says will show me. And and basically what it was is because that person had practice that kicks so well. It doesn't matter if even if you know it's coming, you can't block it, you can't stop it. He has mastered how to do it regardless of what you do to counteract that. The only way to not get kicked is to not get into the fight. Joe: So. We're over a little bit, we have a few more minutes. Brian: Oh, yeah, I'm good. Joe: Ok, cool. So I want to ask you about because you mentioned since we're on the subject of books and you mentioned Joe Vitale and you were you are part of a book called The Abundance Factor. Brian: Yep. Joe: Can you tell me a little bit about that and how that came about and. Brian: Well, I was on the short list as Joe was looking to write his next compilation book, and I had been following him, been a fan of him, read a number of his books. I still practice one of one of the big things that sticks for me from Joe is the story of Hopital Pono. If you have not read the book Zero Factor, I highly recommend it. It's a very fascinating book. The mantra that that book teaches is something that actually helps me go to sleep at night because my brain has a hard time shutting down. And by saying that for phrase mantra helps my it's kind of a signal to my brain to stop thinking and go from into my head and into my body. And so it's really helpful there. And so I was on the short list of authors that Joe asked to help participate in that book. It's called The Abundance Factor. I knew the group of people that were pulling together. And so my chapter is called The Unpleasant Truth, because, again, there's a lot of people out there teaching because we're talking about the mindset of abundance, which is something that a lot of people struggle with. But it's hard for people to actually do it and practice it consistently. And that's really what my chapter was about. It was about taking the actions that the book is encouraging you to take. And so that's what my chapter is in that book. April of the year that it came out, we did hit the Amazon bestseller list with that book at the time. And it's been a great book. And I use it more of a as a calling card and as an introduction to myself when I'm meeting new people. Joe: And then you mentioned earlier about a book that you wrote that I did not actually see in my notes. So can you tell me about that? Right. Was Brian: Ok, Joe: There. Brian: I've written three books. Joe: Ok. Brian: The first book is called Ready, Set Succeed, which is a self published book. Again, it was another compilation with a series of different authors. And I've got several boxes of those still today that, again, I use them as is handouts. And it's, again, about taking action because again, that's what I saw people struggle with and implementation because again, at the end of the day, it's ready, set, succeed, go. You've got to get moving. And so we were all writing the chapter based upon that. It was a self published book. The only way that you can get that is to go through me to get that I'm aware of. And I actually did have a client come to me through that book for one of the other offers. They got it. They called me up and that chapter resonated with them. And it was an opportunity for me to help them out. Then we wrote The Abundance Factor, and then after that we wrote a book called Unleash Your Fear. And that book is available right now. You can go to unleash your fear dot com and get a copy of that. Right now, at this point in time, it is about a 40 page e-book. You can get a copy were actually read it to you for in about an hour. Brian: But that's one of our projects for the rest of this year, is to work on rewriting that book and expanding it to where it's around a hundred pages and we turn it into a physical book and using that as a methodology to share that message. Because as we've gone back and we've we've shared that message, we teach in a very powerful concept in that book about the relationship that people have with fear, because right now most people have a lousy relationship with fear. But fear is just a tool that's used by our subconscious. And our subconscious causes us problems because it's designed not to make us happy. It's not designed to make us successful. It's designed to make us survive. Problem is, when we do go out there, when we want to grow, when we want to succeed and we want more, it sees that as not surviving. That's risky. There's pain out there if we pursue those things. So how do we how do we change that? How do we work on that? That's what I've understood from the people that have read the book, that a lot of people enjoyed it and you can actually still get it for free for a little bit longer. Brian: We're in the process of getting that changed. You can go to unleash your fear Dotcom and get a copy of that book there. And once we get the expanded version, we will still be using that. You are all along the way. And so in this process, we've got a lot of great tools that are available to you. And we've talked about a lot. Joe, you're actually one of the longer podcasts that I've gone on and we've talked about a lot of different things. But one thing we haven't talked about is one of the foundations that I used for my coaching, which I refer to as the Five Keys of Success. And that's actually a podcast that I do called the Five Keys of Success podcast. And you can go out there to wherever you get your podcasts and Google five Keys successor Brian Lovegrove, and you'll be able to find it. And I talk about those five keys, because at the end of the day, because, again, I've been doing personal development for decades now. And so I boiled down all of that stuff to what is the true fundamental foundational skills and tools you need. And I came up with those five keys. You want to know what those five keys Joe: I Brian: Are? Joe: Do, I have actually you were not going to get off this podcast without talking about it, so I have them here. I still have other stuff. That's why I like that. Yes. So please, I totally want to these this is like one of the things that really triggered it. When I wanted to have you on as a guest, I'm like, man, I want to know what those are. Brian: Well, the five keys of success, the first key is clarity, and I refer to it as get clear because without clarity, you're lost, you're wandering around in a fog. If you don't have a destination, you're never going to be able to get there. And if you don't know where you are, how do you know how you're going to go from where you are to where you want to go? And we talked about the plan. If you are not clear on the plan on how to achieve your goal, you're not going to get there now. But there's some also challenges with that piece because, again, a lot of people may not necessarily know how to get to that point, but do you know how to get started? Because that's the key. Do you know what the next step is? How many people get bogged down with steps? Nine hundred and eighty seven through steps. Twelve hundred and eighty four. Well, what steps do you want? I'm on step five. What step six. I don't know. Focus on step six, seven, eight, nine. OK, focus on what's in front of you and these other steps you will figure out by the time you get to that point. The second key is commitment because without commitment we cave in to the fear. We don't have the motivation, the energy and the power to keep going when things get. And the analogy that I love to use is the story about Cortez. When he landed in The New World, he burned his boats. His men woke up the next morning and they went in. He addresses many gentlemen. There is no way home that we do not create for ourselves. And so his small band took on and conquered much larger nations and groups of people in South America because they were committed to making it happen because it was either do or die. Joe: I'm a big fan of burning the boats, by the way. Brian: Absolutely, that's one of the podcasts that we did, is, OK, how do you burn the boats? Joe: Yeah. Brian: And we kind of walk through that exercise and that's that can be a whole coaching process. My story around that was I used to weigh two hundred and sixty pounds and I went on a diet and I lost thirty five pounds in the first month and a half. It was a radical diet. And one of the things that I did on the back deck in the fire pit is I burn my fat jeans and I actually have a picture of you. It's it's at night. You can all you can really see the flames. You can barely make out the jeans as part of the picture. But I vividly remember that process. And I promised myself I would never buy that size pair of clothes ever again. Now, have I been able to keep off all the weight that I lost? No. But when my pants get tight, that option is not there. Joe: Yeah. Brian: It's like, OK, we got to do something, we got to turn this around because we are not buying a bigger sized pair of pants. And so, again, that's where that burning the boats actually comes in, which leads us to step three, which is get crankin or get busy taking action. Money talks about taking massive action. And, you know, how many times have I you know, I've tried everything. Really? How many times have you tried? What have you tried? A hundred things.

My conversation today is with Josh Carey, co-founder of PodMAX.co, an event that happens about every 6 weeks where business people and/or entrepreneurs are matched up with podcast hosts where they do 3 interviews in one day while also attending an event where there is networking, education and keynote speakers. Josh explains in this interview how this event that they hold quite frequently, is like speed dating for podcast guests and hosts alike. It's an efficient way for hosts to get 3 interviews in the can in one day and for business people and/or enterpreneurs,to get out there and promote themselves, their businesses and tell their story 3 times in one day on 3 different podcasts. This is an interesting interview with Josh as he shares his own journey to exposing himself and his talents and now helping others to do the same. As always, thanks for listening! Joe Get 30% off at The Healthy Place by using code "costello" Josh Carey Co-founder - PodMAX.co Website: https://podmax.co Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onairbrands/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onairbrandsLIVE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/onairbrands/ Email: josh@podmax.co Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Hey, Josh, welcome to the show. I'm very excited to have you. Josh: Likewise, Joe. Pleasure to be here. Thanks. Joe: Yeah, so this obviously as a podcast or this hits home for me, having someone unlike you that has this this business, if you will, called Pod Max. Right. I guess it's it's also an event. Right. So I need you're going to help me understand Josh: Yeah, Joe: It. Josh: I shall. Joe: I've watched a bunch of different videos and I watched the testimonial video, but I still want clarification. I think you hit it on the head when you said it's like speed dating for podcasters. And that was Josh: Hmm. Joe: That totally was a very clear thing for me. At least brought me to a point where I said, oh, this is really sort of different, but this is what I do with all my guests. So you'll have to you'll have to suffer through this part. Josh: I shall suffer. Joe: We because my audience is mainly entrepreneurs and it's it's me trying to help educate Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Them as much as possible. I always like them to know the back story of my guests. I want to know Josh: Hmm. Joe: Where you came from, where you came from as far back as you want to go, because it doesn't Josh: Mm Joe: It Josh: Hmm. Joe: Doesn't matter to me. It's exciting to figure out the how you develop to who you are today and how you are doing what you're doing today and what was all in between to make this happen. And then from there, we'll get into the depths of tiebacks. Josh: I love it. I shall take you down that journey, then Joe: Perfect. Josh: We'll start we'll start with Current Day. Today, I'm known as the Hidden Entrepreneur, and that's because I spent 40 plus years of my life hiding. I literally showed up in every situation, hiding all of my true talent and ability. Everything that I was really capable of doing remained hidden because I was so desperate to seek the approval of others. Now, what really sucked about this is behind closed doors. I knew darn well what I was capable of doing. So this created a lot of anger, frustration, resentment, jealousy, all that stuff. And the bigger thing is that not only did I want to seek your approval, I was scared so much by the fact that if I were to come forward with something quite good, right. Impressive, even in any regard, you might feel so insecure about your accomplishments and talent and scale, what you may or may not be doing. Right, because we're all just a mirror and a reflection of each other that what it might make you a little upset by what you're seeing and then you might retaliate against me in some form. And I knew my whole life that I just didn't feel strong enough to stick up and stand up for myself. Josh: So all of that made for this recipe of living life that way cut to today. I'm the proud father of two adoring children. I have an eight year old daughter, a six year old son who are my absolute everything. I love playing the role of father. I love being their dad. And early on in their young lives, I realize that I see what's happening here. I'm the child in this circle and I'm the one who has work to do. So I said, guys, keep doing what you're doing. I get it. I can't continue to be this miserable kind of person and have them watch me that way their whole lives. It wouldn't end well. And fast forwarding to, you know, seeing an empty nester. Now, if I was 20 years down the road and they just grew up with that type of father, they'd naturally become that type of person. And in that scenario, there'd be nothing I can do and I wouldn't be able to live with myself. So I said, that's all I need to say. Right. I'm Joe: Yeah. Josh: Going to make them prouder. I'm going to make me proud or I'm going to do what needs to happen. And I started just taking inventory, replacing some of my bad non serving habits with slightly better ones and slowly but surely seeing the positive result in effect of that. And here we are. I just keep stacking those on each other and I've come a long way and still have a long way to go. But I'm very happy and proud with where I am today. Joe: And so what did you do in your past life, let's say that you're now doing what you do. I mean, what was your what was all these things you were doing while you're hiding from the world? Josh: So I got in in eighth grade, I got bit by the acting bug, right? I found that in there was a school audition taking place and I felt like I should audition to see what this was about. And I did. And it was a a drug awareness program, whatever it was. And I got a cast as the comic relief of all things. So I was bumbling around on stage and hundreds of my right, hundreds of my classmates were laughing at me from what I was doing on stage. Now, I knew that they were in fact laughing at me. Right. They weren't laughing with me, but I was I was OK with that because I was getting the attention I was so desperately seeking. So I thought, wow, I will continue to seek out this attention, hopefully thinking this is what I need to fill this emotional void. Right. This external approval is exactly what I need now. Doesn't work that way. It took me a few decades to realize that, but I set out on a path to become an actor and said, I'm going to dedicate my life to this because if I could just get this daily, my life sucked. So I pursued that dream. I wound up spending 15 years in New York as a working actor and filmmaker. Great credits, wonderful era of my life. But again, it didn't really, you know, fill the void. You know, when the curtain comes down, I'm still miserable and alone in the corner, often crying and trying to figure out where my life went so wrong. Josh: So I did that for a while. I had some, you know, day jobs to pay the bills. I taught myself webdesign to keep myself busy when the Internet started rising up in the nineties. And slowly but surely, I just became somewhat of an entrepreneur, not realizing at the time that that's what it was. But I was just trying to make ends meet while I was pursuing my passion. And then I found myself running my own digital marketing agency where I was building websites for an industry and all this stuff. Ten years later, this industry became just like any other toxic relationship we might find ourselves in personally. But this was my business and the industry taking full responsibility. It was on me because I was showing up that way, which is why I was attracting those very people. So I knew that something needed to change. This correlated with the time where me and my children had the talk, where I was the child, and I said, I get it. I know it has to be done. This relationship with the industry and my my work here, it can't continue. It's part of the problem. Let me rip the Band-Aid off. I said I don't know what's next, but I'm going to seek something. I'm going to figure it out. And just like if you're in a bad relationship, you don't necessarily wait until you have another relationship. Josh: You get out and figure it out. And that's what I did. I got out. I said, let me take a few months. Let me take some time, figure out what I want to do, where I want to go and be true to myself for one of the first times in my life. And I said podcasting. I think I felt that I would be good at it and I would enjoy it. And it would create opportunity and I would connect with people because, God, that's all I ever wanted in my life. I said, well, if I do it honestly and authentically, I might finally attract the right kind of people instead of attracting the miserable and getting what I don't want because you focus on it. So I created a brand called The Hidden Entrepreneur and then became that became the podcast. And I started interviewing people. And slowly but surely I started feeling good about it and getting a good response. And it just kept building the confidence. And I was told I was half decent and I certainly started feeling that way, still replacing a lot of my bad habits with better ones, trying to live wonderfully for my children. It all came together. And now here we are. I'm doing some some some really interesting things in the podcast space because of those moments that that got me here. Joe: Right. And that's what's important. That's why I wanted to ask, because, you know, as much as everyone can say, their life went on a certain path and certain things did not go right Josh: Uh. Joe: Or whatever, they all build the person you are today. And so I think probably whatever you're doing with Pod Max now, you're leaning on some of your marketing and, you know, Josh: Exactly. Joe: Your and all the stuff that you did earlier in Josh: All Joe: Your entrepreneurial Josh: Of it. Joe: Life. Right. So it's like you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's this. This is all created to help to create who you are now, to make this next portion of your life excel even more. Josh: Sometimes in the moment, we don't and can't recognize that a lot of acts in retrospect that the game is being able in real time when there's a little bit of a glitch or a detour that you're forced to take or something that's happening that you didn't quite see coming wasn't as you planned. You have to realize, wow, this is probably going to work out for the best. And as you're seeing everything I've spelled out, even my acting and film days to this very moment, I pull a lot from those days how to how to communicate, how to perform, how to create, how to talk on the mic, how to write. All of that is acting and film. And then, like you said, the marketing from the digital marketing, knowing what you don't want on a grand scale to know exactly what you do want. It's all relevant and quite perfect. Joe: Yeah, and it's funny, and you gave it away already, but I was going to ask you where you from? And I was like, he's got to be from New York. I can recognize and I'm from New York. So he's like, he's got to be from New York. And then you said it. You're like. Josh: What did I say, oh, that I spent time there Joe: Yeah, Josh: In New York. Joe: Yeah, and so did I and I and my background is I went to school for music and I Josh: Yeah. Joe: And I landed in New York. I lived two hours north of the city where I grew up. But then I landed Josh: Mayor. Joe: In New York as to be my big time career break Josh: As Joe: In. Josh: A drummer, Joe: Yeah, Josh: Yeah. Joe: Right. And so and at the same time, we all have to go find jobs. And then and then you sort of get steered off a path because you start making money and going, OK, how much do I want to suffer living in this one bedroom apartment and eating mac and cheese every night where Josh: True. Joe: It's just whatever, whatever developed over that time. But we had the same sort of path. So it's Josh: Yeah. Joe: Interesting to hear your story. Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Ok, so you started podcasting and you have a podcast called The Hidden Entrepreneur. How did you make the jump from that to come to being the coach? When I heard you say you're actually a co-founder of God Macs. So where did this idea come from? How did we get to where we are today with that? Josh: In twenty eighteen is when I created The Hidden Entrepreneur Show, and it's still running strong today, over 200 episodes and I in the summer of 2019, I had the opportunity to record episodes of my show at an event. And one of the one of the people that I was interviewing didn't know him prior to this event was Eric Cabral, who's now my co founding partner in Pod Max. I interviewed him for my show and we hit it off and we connected. And after the interview, he said, you know, we're both from Jersey. I have. Which is where I live Joe: Mm Josh: Now. Joe: Hmm. Josh: He said, I have a I have a studio in in Jersey. Once you come out and check it out one day and, you know, we'll see we'll see what's possible. And I said, OK. And then it turns out I never left. Now, what I like to point out is that what what I did just, you know, basically, yes. By design, but subconsciously during that first interview where he was on my show when we didn't know each other prior, was I was already leaning into my full potential, which was quite different from what I did the first 40 plus years of my life, where I spoke about I showed up really small, didn't want to rock the boat, didn't want to make you feel insecure. So I just took a back seat. But then in twenty eighteen, I started figuring out how can I come to the table with the ability that again, I've always known darn well I'm more than capable of doing. And really I believe we're all in that same boat. We all know what we are capable of doing. We just adjust and alter that for so many reasons inappropriately, so more often than not. So I said, I'm going to just start coming out, you know, strongly with what I'm capable of and miraculously, quote unquote, I started attracting the very people who understood that, who liked it, who appreciated it, respected it. Ironically, all the things I wanted my whole life, Joe: Mm Josh: Just Joe: Hmm. Josh: Somebody to appreciate me. How can anybody appreciate when you're being, you know, a weak man, Joe: Yeah. Josh: Which I was. So I thought that if I were to come out powerfully doing what I'm capable of, everybody is going to retaliate against me. And oh, no, I don't even see those people. I only see people like you, like Eric, like people who are like, wow, you know, like attracts like, of Joe: Mm Josh: Course. Joe: Hmm. Josh: So that's that's the amazing thing. So all that to say, I was already able to do what I was doing to get in front of somebody like Eric, for him to recognize something within me because I had already appeared that way. So you have to sort of do the work first instead of like me hoping that somebody can see a glimmer of potential in me and then anoint me capable and relevant to the masses. You know, that doesn't happen. Joe: Right. Josh: So it only happens when you are first putting it out there to attract the good back. So Eric and I started talking and hanging out and we had a very similar vibe and connection, a lot of similar goals. He also came from the podcast space. He has and had his own show. And we just started talking about this idea Pod Max, which started in person in twenty nineteen. It started as a live in person event. We had the studio in North Jersey where we figured we do this one day kind of hybrid event where it's part conference, part workshop and part podcast recordings. So we set up makeshift like a dozen different studios like like little mini areas where hosts can record with guests. And we invited about a dozen show hosts in, sold tickets to the event to high level entrepreneurs and thought leaders who wanted to get their message out by recording on shows we would match them. Thus the speed dating for the podcast industry. And over the course of that day, each hour they would rotate into a new studio area and record as a guest on a different show. And in between those recordings, we would provide a catered lunch, we would provide networking, we would provide training and education, and we would provide a high level keynote. So we had the conference, the workshop feel the retreat and the podcast recordings. We did that a few times and then twenty twenty happened. So we're like, OK, well this is crazy because we're a live events company. What happens now? We had no idea, so he said, can this work virtually? There was only one way to find out. We took that agenda, that format. We sort of reworked what needed to be worked into a virtual format. And since May of 20, 20, which was our first pod, Max Virtual, we've never looked back. We're about to do our 14th 14th virtual event in August. And it's you know, it's one of those things that we we couldn't have seen that coming. Right. We wouldn't Joe: Yep, Josh: Have even looked virtual. Joe: Correct. Josh: So so now it's an eight hour event, which people who don't really know our style will say eight hours virtual. That's crazy. But we hear all the time that it flies by because we've sort of been able to really hone in on making all of those minutes per hour the best they can be. Joe: Right. Josh: And then the entrepreneurs get to record still on multiple shows. We have a keynote. We have training and education. So we know prior to the event we work with the thought leaders to help them further identify, practice and fine tune their message. So when they get to the recording, they feel confident and ready to go. Joe: It's so cool, so how many of these do you do? Josh: We do them about every six weeks. Joe: Wow, and how Josh: Yeah. Joe: Did you figure out the logistics, like I attended a couple virtual conferences and logistically it's very cool because you you don't really miss anything because a lot of stuff is is recorded to playback later and you're not wasting a lot of time on a showroom floor. You're going exactly what you want Josh: Exactly. Joe: Without having to walk around it. But how did you guys figure that out? Josh: Well, it came from the live, and then we we sort of transferred that virtually and we fill the eight hours, it's single track, right, to everybody's in the room going to the same places, Joe: Ok, Josh: Doing the same things. Joe: Ok, Josh: Yeah, Joe: And Josh: It. Joe: What's the number of attendees that you've gotten up to? Josh: We get about 50. Joe: That's amazing. Josh: Now. Joe: It's really cool, and I wasn't sure when so when when we talked about this being sort of like the speed dating for podcasting, there's a lot of podcasters out there who either are looking for gas or they want to be guest on podcast. And Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: I think they need to understand how iPod, Max, differs from those services that are out there, whether it's someone you get this connection with someone and they start feeding you gas or Josh: Yeah. Joe: You get this connection with someone and they keep putting you on different podcasts. Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: I think the important thing is that as a podcast for myself, I get I Josh: All Joe: Haven't Josh: The Joe: Been Josh: Time. Joe: On a podcast, which is kind of funny, but I haven't. Josh: Wow. Joe: But I get a lot of requests either from an agency that that Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Said, hey, we want to work with you with really great guests or just people that find my podcasts and reach out and say, hey, I think you would really like this person. And I have to sort of filter through Josh: Yeah. Joe: What I think fits my audience. I'm not going to accept everyone because Josh: That's right. Joe: It's not fair to the listeners. Josh: Mm Joe: It's Josh: Hmm. Joe: A selfish endeavor for me. And you kind of hit upon it yourself. It makes it allows me to connect with people like you. It allows me to learn so much. But at the same time, I need to make sure that I'm servicing my audience and educating them on what they came here in the first place to see. Josh: That's right. Joe: So when you do iPod, Max, how do you do this matchmaking? How do you figure out that this guest is going to go and sit with this person and do recording and it fits the mold of their podcast or they're the right person? How does that all happen? Josh: Well, we've been lucky enough to do it for a while, and we have a lot turned out to be a core group of show hosts, like the vast majority of the show hosts return over and over again. Joe: Ok. Josh: Why? There's a lot of winwin. There's a lot of benefit. It's really cool for them to get to record three episodes in one day Joe: Mm hmm. Josh: In three different hours, which is a great thing. They also get to network with a lot of high level entrepreneurs and the other show hosts. They get to be right in the room with. We bring three now virtually we bring three keynotes in at a very high level of keynote. So they get to leverage that relationship off. Often they'll reach out to the keynote and then welcome them on their show. So it's just a really great vibe. There's a lot of a lot of personal growth and development built in to the day that you almost don't see coming until you're on the back end of it and you're like, oh, my gosh, it's just amazing. So they keep returning and through that then they become like family, right? Joe: Mm Josh: Like Joe: Hmm. Josh: At every event, the chats, everybody's just excited to see each other again. And it's sort of like old home week. So to answer your question, we've gotten to really know a good core group of the show hosts, knowing who they are, what their businesses are, what their shows are, what their goals are. And with that, we can then do our job. That takes a lot of the matching difficulty out because we know exactly who's coming through that they'd be perfectly matched for and because of the reputation where we've done such a good job prepping the entrepreneurs and attracting the right level of entrepreneurs and training them. Well, we hear all the time from the hosts that they don't even they don't even worry who they're going to be matched with. Joe: Right. Josh: You know, the week prior, you get you know, you get all the contact and bio information, but they're like, I don't even need to worry because I know whoever comes through, whoever you match me time and time again is going to be a home run. So then we we ask the entrepreneur coming through to fill out a somewhat detailed, extensive profile so we get to know them so we can properly match them. Then we just take the two sides and we have a few team members who are specifically dedicated to the matchmaking process because it's you know, it's got to be done right, takes a little bit of time, but we do it and then everybody seems to be happy on the other side of it. Joe: That's really cool, so when I saw on the website there was a apply to be a host, Josh: Mm hmm. Mm Joe: Correct? Josh: Hmm. Mm hmm. Joe: Is that the is that where the people that are going to do these interviews go to become part of TotEx? Josh: Correct, Joe: Ok. Josh: We're always, always open to meeting new potential show hosts for our event. Basically, you fill that out and the most important thing is we have to make sure because we we can't anticipate prior who's going to come through the event. But generally, our show hosts fill a category that can be broad enough in nature where it's an entrepreneur, it's a business show, it's about success, struggles, failures, life stories, growth mindset, that whole concept. A lot of categories fit into that. So as long as you're as long as you could, as long as you welcome guests that fit that, we could most likely start the conversation. And then we have a few other criteria just to make sure that you're relevant to to our whole brand and audience. Joe: So that was you actually hit upon one of my questions, which was what is the variety of hopes that you have at Cognex? Like, I would just give you an example off the top of my head. Would you Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Ever have a. And it sounds like no, the answer is no based on what you just gave me, but that you at this moment there, it's more about entrepreneurial stuff. It's about success. It's about business. It's about things like that's not like you have one of these host who has a cooking podcast. Josh: It's so funny because Joe: Ok. Josh: To know well, yesterday, in fact, it's very strange you said cooking because yesterday a show we received an application from a potential new show host and it was, in fact, a cooking podcast. Joe: Unbelievable. Josh: That's the most yeah, it's the most amazing thing. But I think that to his credit, I think that there was an entrepreneurial spin. Like it's like he says like like I'll welcome chefs and cooks and entrepreneurs. I don't know. So Joe: Restaurant Josh: So there was Joe: Owners Josh: I mean. Joe: Were Josh: Yeah, Joe: Given Josh: Now Joe: A. Josh: Now something like that is going to be a little too niche for us because we can't fulfill. Right. Joe: Yeah. Josh: We don't get that kind of people, Joe: Now. Josh: But we are we do have the in the near future, we're going to start niching these out like pod max invest. Right. Joe: Oh, Josh: And then Joe: Cool. Josh: Every show is about investing in real estate and whatever. And then the people who come through or their pod max health and wellness. And then every show is that and then the audience supports that. But right now it's the first thing. It's entrepreneurial, it's business, it's growth, it's success. It's a life story. It's struggles, wins, failures, which we find a lot of people, even if they fit a specific niche, we help them extract. Let's get your life story out. And that's in. That's how we work with them prior to the event, to really fit a bigger a bigger audience here. Joe: Yeah, it's funny because my life partner, Joellen, and I have a YouTube channel that kind of morphed, we started it when covid hit and it sort of morphed over the year to now be really concentrated on travel. Our goal is to eventually have that the you know, Josh: A Joe: We're Josh: Travel log. Joe: Not young, so we're trying to inspire people of our age to go out and just do whatever you want to do and what's what's your excuse? Right. So we were talking about how some of these YouTube channels are lucky because they are they deal with things that are very current. So these guys that have these Krypto YouTube channels, they can't get out videos fast enough because that things Josh: Mm. Joe: Are changing so quickly. So it'd be interesting if you have a crypto pod, Max, someday and Josh: That's Joe: You could Josh: Right. Joe: Have like 12 crypto experts or I mean host Josh: Yeah. Joe: Having these people on because it's this new frontier. It's just crazy. But it's true that the things that are current, it's easy for those people. That's not so easy for people like us who are just in the trenches every day. Josh: Yes. Joe: But we're in New Jersey. Did you hold this just because. My own curiosity, because I live there as well. Josh: Trenton. Joe: Trenton OK, OK. I lived in Montclair, Upper Montclair, Josh: Oh. Joe: West Orange, even Newark, Josh: Of course, Joe: Even Newark Josh: One Joe: As Josh: Fifth Joe: It when it was starting Josh: Well. Joe: To grow. So. Yeah. Josh: 153 B, I went to Montclair State for a year. Joe: Oh, Josh: Yeah, Joe: That's so cool. Josh: You Joe: Yeah, Josh: Were by Joe: So, Josh: The campus, I imagine. Joe: Yeah, I was I was right there Josh: Yeah. Joe: Trumpet's the jazz club. You remember Josh: Yes, Joe: That? Yes. Josh: Of course, Joe: Ok, Josh: So funny Joe: I know. Josh: Jersey taqiyya. Joe: That's right. So talk to me about the people. So you have the application online for the host and you're obviously looking for those all the time to expand Josh: Mm Joe: Because Josh: Hmm. Joe: What is it? Each each host gets three interviews during that eight hour day. Josh: That's right. Joe: Ok, and then the people that want to attend Pod Max are potentially people that want to be guests be matched up with one or Josh: That's Joe: Two Josh: Right. Joe: Or any of Josh: Mm Joe: Those Josh: Hmm. Joe: Hosts. Josh: Three Joe: Three, three, three. Josh: Up to three Joe: Right, Josh: Up. Joe: Right. And then on the website I saw there was a button to buy. Is it is it to purchase a ticket for the next five max in August? Josh: That is correct. Joe: Ok. Josh: So the revenue and the and the tickets are from the entrepreneur side who want to be guests on the shows, Joe: Got Josh: They Joe: It. Josh: Come in, we train them, we work with them, we put them and match them on the show. So they record. We then, you know, they're in the room for the keynotes and the networking and everybody's happy. Joe: So explain to me, when you say we train them, what does that mean? Josh: We have so we when we first started virtual, we didn't have any sort of built in training, we just saw people coming to the event and the day the event happened and that was that. Then we had some people coming to us that said, you know what, I want to attend because they saw this as a great way to basically click a button, buy a ticket, and they'll be a guest on three shows. Right. How how else can that happen so quickly? And so guarantee that you're going to record in the course of a day and it's done now. You got three under your belt Joe: Mm hmm. Josh: More. We started getting people who in their own right were successful business people, six, seven, eight figure business people at everything from the C Suite on down. But they're coming to us saying, I've never been on a show before, but I want to or I've been on some. But I'm not that good. I need more confidence. I need more need more skill. And we thought, oh, my gosh, we're attracting a wide variety of successful business people who are now trying to break into podcasts, guesting. So we said, well, let's hold a prevent training where prior to the event, which is what we do now, we hold a 90 minute session with all the attendees prior to the event where we work with them in small groups. So they get one on one attention with Eric and me where we really get them going with their story, their message. We we listen to it, we prompt them, we give them feedback. We have them do it again. We give them notes. We say you're missing the bigger point. This is actually your sound bite. This is your message. This is what I'm hearing. And we just poke and prod until they're ready to go. And then they take the week prior to the event to get comfortable and practice and rehearse. And we do that kind of training. Joe: Well, that's very cool, and I think what I found as a as a host is I run into those people when they've written a book Josh: Mm Joe: And now Josh: Hmm. Joe: They want to promote the book. And Josh: Ok. Joe: They know that a really good way to promote the book is to get on as many podcasts as you can to get the message out Josh: Ok. Joe: That they've never been on one. So Josh: There you go. Joe: There you can see that they're a little awkward in having to talk to a camera and you know what I mean? So I find that that's that's a that's a big spot for me. When I get someone contacts me about, hey, we want to have so-and-so on. He's just written this great book and it's going to be released on Amazon in a month. And we'd like to get some sales. And Josh: Uh. Joe: And then you get that person and you can tell that they're just sort of wet behind Josh: Now. Joe: The ears in regards to being a guest. Josh: Yeah. Joe: So. Josh: Right, whether it's a host or a guest, you know, you said you have guests, but certainly, you know, as a host, it's not often as easy as it looks, right. Just because somebody is in front of a camera and has a mic, once you start doing it and then you put and then you're like, OK, this is a podcast. There's a lot of moving parts that you didn't anticipate. You have no clue what to do. And then there's so many things that you don't even know what you don't know until it's too late. And you're like, wait, what am I missing here? Same thing on the guest side. Everybody thinks like, no, I just talk to me, ask me some questions, I'll answer them. No way. Because there's two parts here. There's the technical and then the technique. Right. The technical is all this stuff, how you're framed, how you look, the lighting, the earphones, the microphone. Right. All very deliberate. And then there's the technique. What are your stories? How long are you answering? What's your energy and persona like? What are your sound bytes? Joe: Please, Josh: And we teach Joe: Please Josh: All that. Joe: Tell me that when you do some of this training with these new guests that you actually talk about equipment. Josh: Oh, my gosh, you have to, Joe: It's Josh: Of Joe: Just Josh: Course. Yeah, Joe: A. Josh: Thank you for observing that, because we don't want them showing up to the event because they're representing us and our brand. And it's all right. The next events that are better, they are they'll look good to the hosts and vice versa. Right. So we always require great professional level of host because we want a great host to represent the guests. And that's what makes it so well. So hosts nine times out of ten will already have, especially if they're working with us, they're professional. This is part of their business model and they're in it for the long run. They have a growth mindset. They get it. They're up and running guests. So you're right. Even like the ones that you would expect, like C suite level or quote unquote known famous company executives and employees, it's like they not ever you could assume, but they don't know. Joe: Yeah, Josh: A lot of them just don't know. So, Joe: That's. Josh: Yeah, we we do talk about that. Like you can't use your computer. Might stop with the window behind you, stop with that terrible green screen because half of your face is, you know, see through and it just doesn't work. Yeah. Joe: Yeah, I think the most brutal thing for me is when they have my voice coming out of their speaker and it keeps it keeps wiping out what right instead of it coming in headphones or in ears like I have, it just keeps Josh: Yeah, Joe: Hammering Josh: Uh. Joe: Over whatever when we're talking because it's the feet, it's the loop coming back through the mic. It's just Josh: Yeah, Joe: Brutal. Josh: Yeah, and even the angle, you got the perfect angle, you know, that that's, you know, are you too high, too low? It's it's all right. The technical and the technique, we cover it all. Joe: That's very cool. Well, that's that Josh: Thanks. Joe: Makes me so happy the more we can do that with guess, Josh: At. Joe: The better it will be. Josh: We're doing our part. Joe: So when is Permax? In August. Josh: August twenty seventh, we always have it on a Friday, it started that way and then we continued that way because one of the reasons it makes so much sense now to have it on a Friday, especially virtual, you spend eight hours from 9:00 to 5:00 Eastern again. Believe me, it will fly by. That's my promise. That's the way we make it happen. It's going to fly by no matter if you're a guest or a host. But you've still spent eight hours in the room absorbing everything and recording everything. So we just thought it was it was quite perfect to almost accidentally do it on a Friday, but then keep it it because let's take the weekend to sort of decompress and let it all process. Joe: Sure. Let me ask you the more of a personal question in regards to Josh: Sure. Joe: You with the hidden entrepreneur and you as a host and then as a guest, are you busy being a guest on other podcasts? And are you when you are a guest or are you talking about your show and what you've done as an entrepreneur? Are you talking more about, let's say, Pod Max and what you're doing with that? Josh: So I'm I'm a guest here and now in real time, Joe: Yeah. Josh: So you're so you're asking Joe: Do Josh: When Joe: You do a lot Josh: I'm Joe: Of these? Josh: Out. Joe: Do you do Josh: Oh yeah. Joe: You are you a guest? A lot on Josh: Yes, Joe: A lot of. Josh: Yeah, you ask a good question, though, what we what I do and really what we teach and promote is it's less about what you do and more about who you are, because that's what I think people are going to be attracted to. So I've spent time really honing in on and perfecting and continuing to perfect my story, my messaging, my communication, my positioning. A it's what I do on the business side. Right. So you sort of have to show that you can do what you're claiming to teach. Right. Which I think a lot of people Joe: Right, Josh: Don't Joe: What Josh: Do. Joe: You're asking others to do, right? Josh: Right. So if I can sort of show an example through me and be somewhat good at it, you're going to have more confidence coming along with what product or service I have. So it's in my best interest for a variety of reasons also because I still have some of that. I want the external validation right now. I don't need it, but it always feels good just as confirmation that you're doing something people value. Right. How else do you get that? But the feedback. So by doing something like this, it gives me feedback, my personal feedback and others. So I continue to hone and craft my story and message because it's what I teach and it'll help get my brand and message and story and business out there. Further, I, I talk about where I came from and my struggles, upbringing, and like we touched upon here, how I spent all the time hiding and all of those years led to creating what became the hidden entrepreneur, which then helped lead me into a career deep in the podcast space. But really it's about communication because you can apply it anywhere. You can apply it to your social media videos, to your emails, you know, to your sales calls, to all these stories and messaging still become relevant. So it's all encompassing. Joe: So for the entrepreneurs, again, that would be listening to my show, when you decided to do your podcast called The Hidden Entrepreneur. What was your main reasoning behind that? Josh: Great question, the reason out of the gate was I felt like I needed something to do right. I left that 10 year career running my own digital marketing agency, and I said, OK, what do I want to do with myself now? I didn't have all the answers. This is the important part. I didn't have all the answers. I just got the next answer, which I felt it clearly podcasting. And I said, I'm going to try it. I'm going to do it. I want to do it. I'm motivated to do it. And I think I'd be good at it. Meaning I think that I'll stick with it. And I think that this can really turn into something. I think that I can create this show and then around that show, parlay that into some sort of product or service in some regard that will put me on a path to success that I can live with and support myself with. That's really all I knew. And I knew that the show would give me confidence, right. Just by doing it and showing up each day, I knew that it would give me connection to each individual person. And lo and behold, it's it's it's literally has given me life. Joe: And the guests that you have on that show are entrepreneurs of all walks of life, but are Josh: Correct. Joe: So it's not that you are talking specifically to entrepreneurs who, like yourself, broke out of a shell and decided to do something. Josh: No, Joe: It's just Josh: No. Joe: It's just the name of it. It's something that speaks Josh: Correct? Joe: To your heart because that's Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: How you felt for a long time. And now it's just sort of like my show where we have great guests who are running their own businesses that have gone through the struggles are going through the struggles, have Josh: There Joe: Survived Josh: You go. Joe: 20, 20, all of those things. Josh: Absolutely, yes. Joe: Ok, cool, so then when let me ask you this question that when you are a guest, because I think all of this helps not only all the entrepreneurs that are listening, Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: That I don't have a podcast that don't go on podcasts that don't listen to whatever it might be, Josh: Right. Joe: Which is hard for you and I to understand, because, like, I was at the gym and I constantly having a podcast in my years. But when you are a guest, how do you figure out what your story is? Because you are this you led this life like I did, Josh: The. Joe: Right, with all of these things. And that's sort of like this is a selfish question, because I'm asking because Josh: Sure. Joe: If I was to be a guest on a podcast, Josh: Mm Joe: I'm Josh: Hmm. Joe: Not sure what Joe Costello would show up for that, because I don't there's so much that has happened. But it's not like I like I had Shaun Spawner on my show who summited all of the summits, like the they Josh: Right, Joe: Call Josh: Right, Joe: It the Josh: Right, Joe: I forget Josh: Right. Joe: What it's called anyhow. But he was amazing. He went to Everest, he went to the North Pole, South Pole, did all the summits. And so he has a story to tell and he has a short film that they did. There's people who come on and they have books. And so they've written a book on something very special. And Josh: Yeah, yeah. Joe: What's the story that you tell when you are on a show as a guest? Josh: The past forty six minutes will answer that. But in all seriousness, I I have over time you develop a library of stories that you have at the ready that encompass you and who you are, what you stand for, how you want to stand, why you want to stand for that, how you want to be perceived and positioned in your in your world. So I have a variety of stories that come about that I could explore based on the conversation I'm having. But they all wind up having an overarching theme, a core message, a core value, core stance that I deliver based on the hidden entrepeneur and where I've been and who I am and where I'm going. So you could learn about me so you can relate to me. So maybe you can like me enough to say, I want to I want to get to know this person more, see what else he does, Joe: Mm Josh: See Joe: Hmm. Josh: What he's about, and then we can explore each other's worlds together. So that takes a little bit of time to do, but that's sort of what we do. So if you're asking which I think you're asking, like, how would somebody like you who doesn't yet go on shows, where do you begin? Is that sort of what you're asking? Joe: Yeah, Josh: Like Joe: I mean, I Josh: Maybe Joe: Think. Josh: Right now? Everybody has a story where you you had a a life affirming or confirming incident that we can all write like I don't think I did necessarily, but I have enough of a story to make it interesting, relatable, compelling write. These are all things that are learnable skills, but they do start somewhere. Joe: All right. Josh: So you I read your website. So I know generally about you wanting growing up. You wanted to be a drummer, Joe: Mm hmm. Josh: Right, for the Stones or with the Stones. And so so broadly speaking, even if you started there with like a dream lost, never fulfilled yet, you know, where was the struggle there? I could spend five minutes and really dig into how painful did that get? What were some of the the turn how close did you get if if at all? What were some of those moments when you were behind closed doors in your own head? And then where are you today and how did it all go? Right. How did it all lead? OK, that could be a very compelling story that people can relate to. Of course, not everybody wanted to be a drummer for the Stones, but we all have our own version of that. So that's all you're tapping into, making it intriguing, making it compelling. And everybody has fascinating stories that they can put pieces together with and share them with the people who want to hear it. Joe: Yeah, that's great, I it's just that you think about it and you go and I think a lot of people feel this way, right? They're like, Josh: Nothing happened, right? Joe: My my story is not that interesting. Why should I tell it? And I don't necessarily feel that way. I've gone through a lot of iterations Josh: Right. Joe: And I have a lot of experience. And besides podcasting and our YouTube channel, you know, I run a seven figure booking agency here in Phoenix and Scottsdale. So I'm a successful entrepreneur. But again, this is the selfish thing for me is like I Josh: Yeah. Joe: Like meeting people like you and learning these kinds of things and sharing them before you. And I can help one entrepreneur out there with our show or what Josh: Yeah. Joe: You do with Cognex. That's a great thing, right? If it's just about and that's what I loved about this interview with you, is that you were very vulnerable and the way you spoke about yourself and it and it's refreshing to have someone to do that and not come and go. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I ran I did this and I was running these huge corporations. And then I had all this money and I figured I didn't need any more money. So I decided to start a fight or whatever. I mean, it's just it's nice to hear that you and I went sort of through the same kind of thing Josh: Mm Joe: And Josh: Hmm. Joe: It was refreshing to hear. So I appreciate you doing that. I wanted to say thank you earlier when you were doing it, but the momentum was going. But it was very, very cool that Josh: Great. Joe: You were that real about all of that stuff. So thank you. Josh: You're very welcome. Joe. Joe: So what is the cost for the August next? Josh: We have three ticket levels that you could you could explore on the site generally there between under a thousand, up to two thousand. Joe: Ok, and. Josh: Depending on how you want the experience to go. Joe: Got it and all of that up there, they click on that button and they'll have those choices there. Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Is there a deadline? Josh: Yes, one week prior to the event, tickets, clothes, whatever, whenever you're hearing this, if it's one week prior to the very next event, tickets, clothes, because that's when we have to do the match ups and get all the information out to the attendees. Joe: What's the date and August again? Josh: August 27. Joe: Twenty seven. OK, is there anything else that I missed that you wanted to touch upon? Josh: No, you've Joe: Wow, Josh: Been thoroughly thorough. Joe: That's beautiful. OK, great. So the links that you got work for you in order for people to either contact you in regards to the hidden entrepreneur, contact you in regards to Pod Max, what's the website, you URL, all of that stuff so we can make sure and then I'll have it all in the notes anyhow. But if anybody's listening, I want to I want Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Them to hear it. Josh: That's great. Well, the business side is Pod Max Dot CEO, and then on the personal side, which will lead you to all kinds of forks in the road that you could explore. It's Josh Carey Dotcom. Joe: Perfect. OK, well, this is been great, man, I really appreciate it. I was excited to hear about Max. I will also check out The Hidden Entrepreneur. I appreciate you coming on here and sharing this with the audience. And hopefully we'll get a bunch of people that will attend and maybe some new host and guest will come out of all of this. But I appreciate your time today, and it's very, very nice to meet you and very interesting to hear what's going on with Max. Josh: Likewise, I appreciate it greatly. Thanks so much. Joe: Thank you, man. I'll talk to you soon.

I had the opportunity to sit down with celebrity cosmetic dentist, Dr. Bill Dorfman. We chatted about how he came up in the world from childhood to creating one of the most famous dentist practices in Studio City, CA. On top of the practice he created, he also started Discus Dental with a dear friend of his, which was a global leader in professional tooth whitening products with brands such as Zoom®!, BriteSmile®, and NiteWhite® and they eventually sold the company to Royal Philips Electronics for millions. Dr. Bill has appeared on Larry King Live, Oprah, The Doctors and was the only dentist to appear on ABC's Extreme Makeover. Now with his extremely successful career, he has turned some of his focus towards philanthropy and the LEAP Foundation for high school and college students. You're going to see this side of Dr. Bill and his passion towards entrepreneurship, success, giving back and his foundation. As always, thanks so much for listening to the podcast and I would so appreciate a rating of 5 starts and a review. It would really mean the world to me. Much love, Joe Dr. Bill Dorfman Celebrity Cosmetic Dentist, Partner of Discus Dental, Inventor of Zoom! and Founder of the LEAP Foundation Author of: Billion Dollar Smile: A Complete Guide to Your Extreme Smile Makeover Website: https://www.billdorfmandds.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbilldorfman/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrBillDorfman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbilldorfman/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrBillDorfman Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Ok, my guest today is Dr. Bill Dorfman. Dr. Bill, welcome.   Dr. Bill: Thank you. How are you?   Joe: Great. So it's a pleasure to have you here with a lot of the guests that I have on, I really like to give the audience an idea of who you are and not just jump in to where we are today. So if can you give us some background of your time line, how you decided to get into dentistry where you grew up, just kind of bring us up to today is is slow, slower, as fast as you want to.   Dr. Bill: Sure, I am a native of California, I grew up in Granada Hills as a little kid, I happen to have an accident where I knocked out my baby teeth. We had a great family dentist. And at some point I just thought this would be a cool thing to do and help people the way he helped me. And so at the age of about three, I said, I'm going to be a dentist. And it just never wavered. I was a weird kid. I mean, how many kids want to be a dentist? Right. But I've always been weird and I've always kind of marched to the beat of a different drum. I never felt like I fit into any, like, group or peg. I just kind of always did my own thing. I was like the Switzerland of a kid. I was friends with everybody, but not really part of anything, you know, like I swam. But I wasn't always with the swimmers and I played football, but I wasn't with the football players and student government. But, like, I just was kind of a free spirited kid that didn't really I didn't really, like, do what most normal kids do. I don't know. It was funny. I had this conversation with my parents recently and I said, you know.   Dr. Bill: How was I as a kid, like was I easy to raise, hard to raise, and they're like, you are perfect like you. And, you know, and I honestly don't ever remember I never argued with my parents. I never got into trouble. I was a weird kid. I just I always just kind of did what I was supposed to do. I guess it was in my mind, like the path of least resistance. I didn't smoke. I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs. Like I mean, I always kind of just did what I was supposed to do and I was happy go lucky guy. And, you know, I went to school and it's funny because I was always voted most likely to succeed in kindergarten, in grade school and junior high and high. And I was like, why do people always say that? I don't know. It was just a weird thing, even in dental school and. You know, we grew up really poor. I mean, I was one of five kids, I started working when I was five years old. I had a job. I worked in in the in the yard for neighbors. I would go pick weeds. And then when I was old enough to push a lawnmower, I would pull weeds and do the lawn mower.   Dr. Bill: And then when I got a little bit older, I got a job working at Ralph's, which is a grocery store. And then I worked as a janitor. My mother was a nursery school teacher. And so I would go to school and I would work as a janitor and clean the schools. And, you know, my parents, I would say we were rich, rich, rich in love, poor monetary things. And maybe that was good, you know? I mean, I literally supported myself. I mean, outside of buying food, all my clothes, everything I wanted, I just I bought you know, it's funny because I have three daughters and I almost feel like when they got into college, I got into college, too, because I was so active in helping them write their entrance stuff and did it. But my parents had no idea. You know, one day I got a letter, I'm like, Hey, Mom, Dad, I'm going to UCLA. They're like, Oh, that's great, sweetie. Then they'll clue, you know? I mean, it was just that's just how it was. I was the independent kid. I just did my own thing. I remember. Graduating UCLA, I got a call from the dean's office and I was awarded the outstanding senior award, which is kind of a big deal, right?   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: So I call my folks and my mom, dad, I get on the phone, they're both on the phone. I'm like, you won't believe this. I said, well, I just got a call from the dean's office and I'm going to be the outstanding senior at UCLA graduating class. My mother says, What's not to believe? A lot. They picked me, there's ten thousand students,   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: She goes, darling, do you really think there's somebody better?   Joe: That's awesome.   Dr. Bill: I'm like, Mom, you're like totally missing. My parents had no idea. And it was actually kind of funny, you know, and, you know, so, you know, I kind of went through and I graduate UCLA. I finished that, you know, going to UCLA. And then I got in a dental school. My first choice is dental, which was a great school. It was a three year program. And as I was entering my senior year, I realized, you know, I've never seen the world or anything. Actually, I had never even really been on an airplane. And it's like I need to open up this practice and be tethered to a specific area. Like I didn't want to do that. So I did some research and I found a program in Switzerland that was the only clinic literally in the world that wasn't a third world country where an American dentist could work legally. Problem is, there were four hundred applicants and only one position, and I was bound and determined to get that. So I had every professor in my dental school write me a letter of recommendation. And they were amazing letters, you know. I know. I wrote them all I   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: Mean,   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: Basically, I would say, can you write me a letter and they do I know I have to   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Write another letter and then say I'll write it if your personal lives. So I did that and I soon realized that was getting me nowhere. So then I started calling the director of the clinic back in nineteen eighty three. This was not easy. We didn't have cell phones. You know, I, you know, I couldn't make long distance phone calls from my dental school, you know, what am I getting like keep putting quarters like a lot of your millennialist. Don't you know that you actually used to have to put money in a pay   Joe: Exactly,   Dr. Bill: Phone. Right.   Joe: I was there.   Dr. Bill: Right. So there is and you can use a credit card and none of this. So I would have to time it at home. And and even then, it wasn't easy. A lot of times you couldn't get through. It didn't work at the bank. I start calling him and calling him and I tell kids and we'll talk about my leave program a little later on, there will be life defining moments in your life. Sometimes you plan on, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they just happen. And this was one that I really didn't plan, but it was so fortuitous that it happened. And I'm on the phone with the director. His name was Mr. Schreyer. And I said as I realized I was getting nowhere with these phone calls. Can I take you to lunch? Because I had heard somewhere that, like, you should take people to lunch   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: And the crazy thing is and he said it, he goes, But you're in San Francisco and I'm in Switzerland, I'm like, no problem, I'll fly there. Which is even crazier because I was broke like I had no money. I couldn't even afford, like the 30 cents to go on the bus every day of school. That's how broke I was. I would walk like two miles. And so he said yes. And I figured out a way to borrow money. And I went to Switzerland   Joe: Wait, but don't   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Go past   Dr. Bill: I.   Joe: This point. Wait, I want to know what you told your parents when you said I'm going to Switzerland to take the head of the department at the dental school. Out to lunch. I want to know what your parents said to that.   Dr. Bill: They thought it was a great idea.   Joe: That's incredible.   Dr. Bill: Good luck. You know,   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: I mean,   Joe: Awesome.   Dr. Bill: They had no clue. So anyhow, I did it. There was a girl that I had been friends with my whole life that, you know, I had kind of hoped that I would marry one day. That never happened. But we're still best friends. But I took her with me and I figured if I got stuck on words, she was very talkative and she could help me out. But the two of us took him to lunch and he hired me.   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Incredible.   Dr. Bill: It literally changed my life. I mean, I got an opportunity to live in Europe. For two years, I learned how to ski trip about salesmanship of the scandal to I'm completely fluent in French. I   Joe: Wow.   Dr. Bill: And I was really not gifted in languages in school. I mean, and I still I have a godson in Switzerland. I mean and I still have very close friends there. So it was a great, great, great experience for me. And it really gave me an opportunity to see the world. I came back to L.A. I really became enamored with cosmetic dentistry as opposed to just general dentistry. And so I did something that we also teach Italy. It's called Kopi Genius. I realized that the last thing Beverly Hills needed was another cosmetic dentist. So I found the five most successful cosmetic dentists and I called all of them and I said, Can I come in Chattanooga? Shadowing wasn't even a thing back then like they were what do what   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: I'm like now coming to watch you. And I did. And, you know, there weren't a lot of students at the time doing this, but they all five of them said the same thing to me. You're really different. I think what they were saying in a nice way is you're weird, but they're really different, you know, because students would come in and watch me do dentistry. And that's not what I did. What I did was I went in, I wanted to see how they brought the patients in the intake forms, what they said to the patients, how they brought them back to the treatment rooms, how they presented the treatment, and then how they performed the treatment, and then how they took the patient out of the room, how they collected money. I wanted to get paid and I didn't know how to collect money from people working in dental school. They teach you how to drill teeth. And in the clinic in Switzerland, I didn't have to deal with money. I just did the work. So I wanted to learn how a business ran and all that. And I sat there like a sponge in these offices. And my goal was to make an office better than theirs, to take the best of the best from all of these these guys and make a better dental office.   Dr. Bill: And within two years I did it. You know, I had the busiest and probably still have the busiest dental office in all of Beverly Hills because I copy Genius and that's what I did on Instagram and Instagram became popular. I didn't just do it. I hired a whole team. I'm only going to in the world with a million followers on Instagram. You know, I didn't just do it. One of the things I teach, at least when you go go big and that's what I do, if I'm going to do something, I commit and I do it. So, you know, I started this dental practice soon after that, I started a company called Discus Dental where I invented Zoom. And we grew that company from zero to one point three dollars billion in sales. And I did it by hiring a great team. My best friend, Robert Heyman, was my business partner and he was a genius. And his father was Fred Hammond, who created Beverly Hills Giorgio Cosmetics, two seven, three of all Fred.   Joe: Well.   Dr. Bill: So Robert grew up in that industry. So he knew marketing and manufacturing and advertising. I knew dentistry and advertising. And together we built the largest tooth whitening company in the world. Zoom became Q to became the number one to fly new product in the world. And then we sold that company to Phillips back in 2010. And since then, I've been the featured dentist on ABC's Extreme Makeover, CBS of Doctors New York Times, best selling author, 20 Lifetime Achievement Award. Three Children, two ex-wives. This Thrill Ride.   Joe: Incredible. So I have to ask you, and this is for the entrepreneurs in the audience, because the question that would come to my mind is you're fresh back in the states from Switzerland and you decide that you're going to plant roots and probably one of the most expensive real estate areas in the world. How do you start up a dental office in the heart of Beverly Hills?   Dr. Bill: So I basically didn't put all my eggs in one basket, I grew up in Granada Hills, the difference between Granada Hills and Beverly Hills is astronomical. The only commonality is the word Ilze. Right. But I didn't know where I would usually drive more. I had the advantage holes of all the people I grew up with living there and coming to me. But I loved the allure of Beverly Hills. So I worked as an associate in two different dental offices. So it didn't cost me anything. I was a hired gun. I would go in and work and bring in patients. And I soon realized that I loved cosmetic dentistry. I love the mentality of people in a business area like centricity and, you know, and not so much kind of like family dentistry. And so I pretty much closed down the office and Granada Hills worked in in Century City. And the plan was I was working with an older fellow to buy him out. Well, as soon as we started getting closer and closer to the buyout date, I think my enthusiasm became infectious. And he decided he didn't want to quit anymore.   Joe: Oh.   Dr. Bill: And he was very sweet. And he said, you know, Bill, he said, you can do this by yourself. He said, you don't need to buy my practice. I'm going to stay here, open up your own practice. You have enough pay. I had more patients than he did   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: After   Joe: Wow.   Dr. Bill: Just two years. And so I did. It was really fortuitous that the dentist right next door to us moved out of the building. And so there was a completely furnished dental suite. I didn't have to do any build out at all. All of the plumbing, the gas, the soft, everything was there. So I was really lucky. I moved into that suite is on the 11th floor, my building, and the only thing I needed was all the dental equipment, the chairs and the   Joe: Mm   Dr. Bill: Lights   Joe: Hmm.   Dr. Bill: And this and then another stroke of luck. There was a dentist in our building who was four or five flights above me who passed away. And there was a fully furnished dental office up there of all this equipment. And the building didn't know what to do with it. And it was a mess. It was a mess. So I went up there and and I had it evaluated and assessed. I was going to try and take out a loan or something. And the appraisal came in at close to seventy five thousand dollars for all that. I had three thousand dollars in the bank at the time. I mean, that's it. And so I, I went and I spoke to the owner of our building and I said, listen, I've been up on in that suite and it's it's a mess. I mean, and it was it was really disgusting and dirty. And I said, I will empty the suite. I will take all of the equipment, I will clean everything up and get it ready for you to read. And I'll give you three thousand dollars cash. And he said, fine.   Joe: Wow, that's   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Chris.   Dr. Bill: I still I still have a lot of those instruments, and I this is 40 years I've been practicing. I have all the surgical like four extractions and I have all that stuff still in my office with that doctor's name engraved in it. But that was how I really opened up my office. I had no budget. I had no ad budget. Like, I couldn't advertise, but I realized something. And as an entrepreneur, I would say you need to sit back, look at your situation and really think outside the box. And this is what I did. I thought, OK, I'm in Century City. There is a five block radius of buildings around my office with 20000 thousand people coming to work every day. Right.   Joe: Hmm.   Dr. Bill: We know on average that 50 percent of those people don't have a regular dentist. OK, so that's you know, what was I'm sorry. It was fifty thousand people in that area. So that's twenty five thousand people don't have a regular dentist that work for me. Of those, twenty five thousand eighty percent of them work in companies with dental insurance so they don't even have to pay anything. They just need to come in and because I'm so close, they can walk over, they wouldn't have to drive. So what I did is I hired five kids from Beverly Hills High School, which is right next door to my dental office. And I made up these flyers for I think I paid three hundred bucks and I had them put a flyer in every single office in Century City. Now, this was way before 9/11, so there was no restrictions   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: You could go. And so basically by doing that, the flyer gave people a great first time offering to my office. If they had dental insurance, it was free. And I got something like 80 patients the very first month. And if we continue to do that and so we were basically getting patients in two ways, internal and external. Internal was taking the patients that came in, giving them the greatest dental experience we could and asking them to refer friends and then externally going out and putting out more and more and more flyers and bringing in patients. The next month I got something like one hundred new patients. And honestly, since then I have probably had no less than 90 new patients a month my entire career. And there were I mean, and the average dentist gets like 20. But I have never not been busy even during the pandemic. We've been busy. I'm busier now than I've been in years because I always say I invented Zoom when people think I the video conference, what it was. But people are sitting on Zoom looking at their smile,   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Going, I'm not really happy with that. I'm doing more cosmetic dentistry right now than I've ever done in my life. It's it's a   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: Boom.   Joe: Crazy. And when you said when you started your practice you were going to concentrate on cosmetic surgery, so were all of these new patients coming in just for cosmetic stuff, not for cleanings, or were you doing   Dr. Bill: Well,   Joe: That also?   Dr. Bill: First of all, it wasn't cosmetic surgery, it was cosmetic dentistry,   Joe: Ok.   Dr. Bill: But as a cosmetic dentist, yeah, we do regular dentistry too and do   Joe: At.   Dr. Bill: Fillings and crowns and cleanings and everything else that you need to do to maintain your oral care. But the focus of my of my practice, the thing that really differentiates me from most dentists is the fact that I do, you know, cosmetic dentistry. And I have a very high profile clientele for that.   Joe: Yep, so that's my next question, you get right into it perfectly. How did you get   Dr. Bill: Ok.   Joe: Like with any entrepreneur? Obviously, if you provide a really great service, you're going to get talked about right. And automatically you're going to get known. And like for my business, I have an entertainment booking agency here in Scottsdale and Phoenix. Somebody writes to me, calls me. They have an answer. Within an hour or so, I'm known for my response time. And then the product I deliver is a very high product with you. How did you get that first step into a clientele that you now have?   Dr. Bill: So there's a few things. First of all, you said something, you said you automatically get no wrong. You don't automatically   Joe: No,   Dr. Bill: Get   Joe: You   Dr. Bill: No.   Joe: Do it yourself, you write.   Dr. Bill: You know, it takes work,   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: You know, I was really fortunate early on in my career, there's a woman that I went to high school with as very close. But if you came in and needed a lot of dental work and said, hey, do you want to barter what I got, even though the barter was   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: I was so naive when it came to business. And then I said, well, what do you do? She goes, I'm a publicist. I'm like, I don't need one of those. She goes, Yeah, you do. I'm like, I don't even know what one was. So I don't leap of faith. I thought, OK, fine, we'll barter and we'll do it. She was genius. I mean, she got me in magazines, journals. She got me listed as the best dentist in L.A. in L.A. magazine, which was huge that, you know, she she was friends with the editor. She got the whole editorial staff to come in and be my patient. They loved their experience. And so they ranted and raved about my practice. And those things started building up my practice. And, you know, I can get more into the whole PR thing, but that was really a big mindshift for me. I never thought as a dentist I would have like a publicist. I mean, and the crazy thing is today I'm probably the best known dentist in the world. Go figure.   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Right. But a lot of things happen. And, you know, I always tell kids when they come to leak, if there's only two concepts that you walk away from from this whole program, these are the two that I think are most important. Number one, don't wait for opportunities in life. Make them, you know, I mean, if I meet another millennial who's sitting there waiting for the universe to do something, I want to scream and pull my hair out. Like the universe doesn't care about you at all. You need to care about you. And number two, when you get an opportunity in life, don't take it. M. it. There's a big difference   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: When ABC put me on Extreme Makeover dentistry, great TV, not so good. You know, if I watch the first two episodes of that show, I literally stunk like they should have fired me. But at least I was smart enough to know how bad I was. So instead of waiting to get fired, I was proactive. I took acting classes, hosting classes, teleprompter in class. I hired the woman who worked with all the kids on American Idol to sit down with me and teach me how to do what we're doing right now. To interview, to talk. I mean, this was not natural for me. It wasn't at all. But, you know, if you practice and you practice and you practice, you get better at things. And there's a big misconception. We always think practice makes what?   Joe: Perfect.   Dr. Bill: Ron.   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: Practice makes permanent.   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: So with your practicing in, you're not getting the results you want, don't keep doing that, get a mentor, get a coach, hire somebody and learn how to do it right, because you need to practice it the right way. Right. To make it perfect. And   Joe: So.   Dr. Bill: So there was a lot of learning for me. But, you know, at the end of the day, it paid off.   Joe: Then would your grandmother say you look thin? Is that what she said? She looks.   Dr. Bill: The first time I was on TV, I said, Grandpa, this is a woman who never said anything bad to anybody. I said, Gramps, did you see me on TV? She goes, Of course I did. I said, What do you think? She says? You look very   Joe: If   Dr. Bill: Skinny.   Joe: It's.   Dr. Bill: I'm like, But what do you think about what I did? She goes, I'm telling you, you were skinny.   Joe: I want to talk a lot about Lee, because even though you said, like, the universe doesn't care, I I also believe and I'm a big Dave Meltzer fan and he's sort of my mentor at this point that we get in our own way. And so there is abundance out there. And if we get out of the way and we just know what we want and we ask for it and we act accordingly, things come. So this connection with you means a lot to me because of Lee. Before we get to that, do you want to talk a little bit about your own podcast? Just because the lead part of it for me is huge and I really want to concentrate on that until our time runs out, so.   Dr. Bill: Well, I mean, the know the way that my podcast ties in the league is, Leape is a motivational leadership program for high school and college students that we do every summer. And it's always been at UCLA Live. Obviously, last year it was virtual. This year, I think we'll have probably one hundred students live and maybe ten thousand virtual.   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: But   Joe: My gosh.   Dr. Bill: It's been amazing. And if any of your listeners have kids or no kids, fifteen to twenty five will be July 18th to the twenty fourth. They could get more information at w w w dot leap foundation dot com. We've had amazing speakers Paula Abdul, Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Kathy Bates, Michael Strahan, Usher, Apollo Ohno, Jason Alexander. I mean, I could go on and on and on. And these people come, they speak to these kids and they they give them their pearls. They give them their words of wisdom to help these kids become successful. And it's it's an amazing program. And, you know, I was always fearful that people would look at is like one and done like we have them for a week. But by putting out content continuously, we're able to stay in touch with the kids and we have the students stay in touch with each other. And so because I've been able to interview all these amazing people, I started this podcast. It's called Meet the Mentor. And every week I. I interview another person. A big part of Leape is mentorship. The program culminates on Friday with a mentor workshop where I bring in doctors and lawyers and firefighters and writers and actors and actresses, you name it, and the kids get an opportunity to sit and talk to these people one on one and ask them about their careers. And it's so valuable. And it's it's literally the highlight of the week for these students. So I continue that throughout the year by doing this. Meet the Mentor podcast. How is it done? Crazy. I mean, we're number one in Yemen. We're number two in Iceland, number three in Finland. And I think I'm ninety fourth in the category of forty seven thousand of these podcast in the US. And it's it's it's been phenomenal. And the purpose is twofold. One, to keep students engaged and keep, you know, exposing them to different mentors and to to expose parents and friends and family to lead. And hopefully they'll send their kids to the program.   Joe: So how did this come about? What was the light bulb that went off for you to say? This really speaks to me. I mean, I can imagine you are with all the things that you've done, your super busy, and then then all of a sudden have this light bulb go off and say, this is how this is. I want to give back and this is how I want to do it.   Dr. Bill: You know, I've always been very philanthropic and it's funny because I had this common theme in my life where every time I've committed to do something purely for philanthropy, it's ended up becoming incredibly successful for me on a monetary basis with literally no hidden agenda. And I can give you an example after example after example. The first one being discussed, you know, I was working at at the sports club L.A., which is now an equinox. And a woman came up to me named Cynthia Hearn, who I didn't know and said, would you like to help raise money for children's cancer research? Well, I wasn't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but how can you say no to that? Right.   Joe: Absolutely.   Dr. Bill: So I said, sure. You know, she said, you are a dentist. I said, yes. And she goes, and you're single, right? I'm like, Yeah, but this is weird. She goes, Well, we're doing a bachelor auction and   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: We need 10 bachelors that we can auction off to a thousand women for this charity,   Joe: Oh.   Dr. Bill: To be honest with you. That was stupid and humiliating. But out of that, I met Robert Hamit Robert Heyman with the other bats are standing in line beside me. By the way, Robert was over last night. We had dinner. We became instant. Best friends were brothers.   Joe: A   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Simple.   Dr. Bill: Robert and I started discus dental and we literally brewed that company zero to one point three billion dollars. And along the way we've raised over forty five million dollars for children's charities. I mean, a lot of really cool things. But I was exposed to lead through another program that was very much like it was a precursor to lead. And that program was a program for students where they brought mentors in and they asked me to come as a mentor. And unfortunately, the founder of that program passed away. And when you did, I thought, you know, I can make this a nonprofit and keep it going so that that's how I actually got introduced to Lee.   Joe: Wow, that's really interesting. So when did this start? By the way?   Dr. Bill: So LEEP has been going this summer would have been our 13th, so the fourth theme fleet will come up this summer, but I've been doing the program prior to leave for probably 10 to 15 years before I started.   Joe: That's incredible. And when they go out to you said it's on the UCLA campus and where are they staying in dorms, if they.   Dr. Bill: Right, so students come from all over the world. We get kids from Australia, from New Zealand, from Europe and Asia and Africa, you name it, it's like a mini UN. It's really fun. And we get about five hundred kids. They all live in the dorms and we put on, you know, I think the best program of its type in the world. And a lot of the success of the program is the community. I mean, I get amazing speakers and they don't charge us. I mean, you couldn't afford to pay, you know, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Wahlberg. I think we'll get Katy Perry this year. I mean, I we couldn't pay, but when I when I talk to him about the program and they see how much passion we put into this, they say, I'll do it, doc, I'll do it. And now with Zoom, it makes everything so much easier because they don't even have to show up prior to the pandemic. If I had told kids. Oh yeah. Mark Wahlberg told Zoom in maybe like and   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Now it's like it doesn't it's like live or Zoom. They're happy to see him.   Joe: That's incredible. It's just really the reason this speaks to me is because I feel like in the world that we're in and I'm I just turned fifty nine in February. So next year is a big year for me. And I think about all the time and I don't want to say it was wasted or regret or anything, but I think about that we end up trying to repair ourselves as adults on things that might not have happened. You had your life a little different. You knew exactly what you wanted to do. You followed your path that you're wired differently, your DNA, and you were able to just literally do all of these things. And I'm sure you've had your struggles. So I'm not I'm not painting this picture of, you know, none of that. But it would be so nice to get to these young minds early and explain that the world literally is your oyster. And you need to follow your. And sometimes I don't know. Right. So you say follow your heart. Sometimes they're confused about it. But I love the fact that you're getting to these young minds earlier and you're helping them to understand things sooner. And that's why this program speaks to me so much. I think it's incredible.   Dr. Bill: Well, I'll tell you what I have found empirically to be one of the most important factors in all of this. When I sit back and I say, you know, what am I most thankful for, you know, from my parents now, they never bought me a car. They never gave me money. But you know what? They did give me confidence. And confidence is currency, if you are a parent, the greatest, greatest gift that you can give your kids is confidence. And the very first thing we do, at least when a kid walks in that door and I open the program, I say to them, hey, when you woke up this morning, whether you think you did this or not, you put a number on your forehead once the lowest 10, Zayat said. How many of you did not put a 10 on your head? They raised their hand. I said, Who picked the number? You did have to take a test. No, did have to do anything. No, I said wipe it off and put a 10 on that. I said, from now on, I want you to walk like a ten top like a 10, act like a ten. But most importantly, surround yourself with other kids who are tense because you're trying to be a 10 and everybody around you use it to guess what, you become a two. So we give the kids these pop soccer   Joe: It's also.   Dr. Bill: Support on their phone ten. And you might hear something super crazy. Joe, we sold discus dental on ten, ten,   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: Ten   Joe: Well.   Dr. Bill: At 10 a.m. to Philipps.   Joe: That's crazy.   Dr. Bill: I think about October 10th, 2010, at nine a.m., the merger documents came on like this is you can't write this stuff. I'm waiting till exactly ten o'clock so that when I go to sleep in 2011, I could tell the kids what a perfect ten day looks like. And we I signed that paper and, you know. It was an emotional moment for me. I always knew as against. I'd be comfortable, I had no idea. That I had the ability. To make the kind of money I made when we sold my company, that was like funny money to me, I didn't even think something like that could happen. I didn't grow up that way, you know? And, you know, and I thank my lucky stars every day for for meeting Robert Haymond, for participating in that charity auction, for, I mean, all the things that led up to that. Because I wouldn't I mean, you should see where I'm sitting right now. I'm I'm on the 30th floor of this beautiful condominium in in Century City. I wake up every morning the happiest guy I know. And so, so grateful for everything. It's it's really it's really been amazing.   Joe: Well, you know what? Good for you. Well deserved. I can just tell by I do a little bit of research up front for these. I want them to be somewhat spontaneous. But I when I went and looked at what I felt, I wanted to figure out more about who you are. I can tell I can tell from just how you look at the kids that are part of the program. I watched one of your talks to them, and I can tell it really it's super important to you and and your generous and loving and giving back. And it just it's very, very cool. And I appreciate you.   Dr. Bill: Well, I think my my my mantra is. Learn so you can earn and then return. And I feel if you can really accomplish those three things, you'll have a lot of happiness and and self satisfaction in life. So that's really what I focus on.   Joe: I agree. Well, I literally could talk with you forever. This is amazing. I'm honored that you came on my podcast. What is the best way for someone to get my guests in touch with you in regards to what do you prefer? And also, the lead program has   Dr. Bill: Yeah,   Joe: The best.   Dr. Bill: I mean, believe it or not, I'm the only person I know with probably a million followers who actually answered all of their demands. So Instagram, I don't do tick tock or even Facebook, but if you really want to reach me, it's super easy. It's Dr. Bill Dorfman, D.R Bilel Dorfmann on Instagram. I promise. I answer one hundred percent of my DBMS. If if you're interested in the program, please go to Sleep Foundation dot com. You can sign your kids up right now. And yeah, I think that's.   Joe: Well, thank you so much, I appreciate it. I look forward to to seeing more about what happens with LEEP, and I definitely want to stay in contact with you. And I wish you all the best.   Dr. Bill: Well, thank you.

IN STUDIO:  Kid, Kleen, Zaldor and Endo. PHONE: Cousing Joe. We are just keeping this idiot ball rolling in this episode where we give a call to The Kid's cousin and promote his movies on Amazon. We bust open the Endo and Kid quote file and Zaldor tells us about the times he's encountered some of the big names in Podcasting. We wrap with a quick call to Ho Ho and ask The Kid if he wants to get pegged.  Its a hard no. Listen in and go Fucking Deep.  TIMELINE  1:00 Planet Zaldor  2:00 Consistency with drinking beer  3:00 Who was Joe Rogan's first Austin Guest? 4:00 Podcast convention - Seeing Adam Curry  5:00 GDS is the free speech rock n roll   6:00 Slutchomper can suck it   7:00 Drinking some Java Latte  8:00 My Cousin the movie maker  9:00 Writing the third “Unwelcoming House”  10:00 Enjoying the single dad videographer life  11:00 Joe - Do you get movie extras  12:00 The next iconic horror movie mask  13:00 Sinister kinda of guy  14:00 Wrap-up with the Cous  15:00 8 Billion people  16:00 The one year mark of holy shit 17:00 The Quote file  18:00 Coughing my dick out  19:00 Sucky Slat   20:00 Can you suck a dick as a unicorn  21:00 Farts with straws  22:00 MMA stuff with Kleen  23:00 I'm way too sober to do the Ozzy trick  24:00 There's wrong… then Wrong  25:00 Hey Ho Ho!  26:00 A record setter of shows  27:00 Six or Four  28:00 Don't be a pussy  29:00 Final Words - Man up Go Deep.

On this episode of Quiet Light, we speak with Jon Elder, who had a seven-figure exit and now guides others on their startup journeys. We discuss the start of his Amazon career; his new business, Black Label Advisor; and how he guides his clients to success.   Topics:  Why he got into an Amazon business. How his conservative spending affected his start. What he negotiated in the sale of his business. Who his current business helps. How his methods have changed since he started. Why you should consistently innovate. Creating experiences for customers. Who his typical client is.   Resources: Black Label Advisor Jon@blacklabeladvisor.com Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com   Transcription: Mark: Starting an online business and an Amazon business, that can be tough, right? There are a lot of mental challenges in that and especially those first couple of years; there are a lot of decisions you have to make in order to be successful. You have to think about how much inventory should I be buying in that first year, how much should I be investing, how many new products should I be launching, all while not seeing a lot of cash in your pocket, because any money that you bring in, you're typically reinvesting in that business to be able to help it grow. And so, there are a lot of challenges through those first few years and I think a lot of people get drowned down mentally during that time because there are just so many decisions to try and make as you're growing a business. Joe, you had Jon on the podcast to talk about that. He went through this. He went through a successful exit, and now he's training people on that startup process. How to start up an Amazon business, how to build brands and make those decisions a bit more clearly, have the right mindset as well going through this to make sure that you have some resiliency through that process. Joe: Yeah, Jon reminds me of us and what our website says which is a bunch of entrepreneurs with a bunch of crazy, been there, done that experience. That was a terrible quote from our own website. I should have had it up and read it. Mark: It's something like that. Joe: It's something like that; a bunch of people that have done something. Mark: We're just a bunch of guys and Amanda. Joe: And Amanda, she runs the show. Jon, he had a mid-seven figure exit and it was a substantial and life-changing one that will probably change a generation or two of his family. And he did it through building an Amazon business the right way with multiple brands in one Seller Account. Not that that's the only right way. There are many ways to do it. But he's sharing his direct experience. He's not the typical guru if you will. And I shouldn't say that because we have many friends who would be considered gurus that are actually really good at what they do. But he's been there, he's done it, and now he's going, okay, look, I can help people. I truly, truly can help people. And he set up a system and a process to help people understand how to identify the right product, not just from maximizing value and return on dollars but upon doing that, you're going to be happy and satisfied with working with you and your cash flow; how long the launch process really takes, how often you should launch. He never used any launch services or anything like that. There are a lot of steps that he's set up and he goes through and he's working with people one on one. And I thought it would be beneficial to have him on the podcast because he does have a crazy amount of done there and done that experience. Joe: Hey, folks, Joe Valley here from the Quiet Light Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Today we've got somebody that had an incredible exit, one in the mid-seven figure range. Jon Elder ran an Amazon business with multiple brands. Jon, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Jon: Yeah, thanks for having me, Joe. Joe: That was a short but powerful introduction if I do say so myself. We don't read fancy intros here. Jon, can you give the audience listening a little bit of background on yourself so they understand who you are and why you're here? Jon: Yeah, of course. My story is kind of similar to a lot of people in the sense of I wanted to get more out of life and there is always an entrepreneurial spirit in me. And so, 2014 is when I started on Amazon and I was also working on a corker construction job and I honestly thought I was going to be in that type of career the rest of my life. I went to college for Construction Management and so it's a pretty high profile, very successful career. But the scaling of salaries is driving me a little crazy and so I wasn't okay with just getting the 5%, switching companies maybe down the line. So, I got into the Amazon world because I thought it was a really great opportunity. At the same time, I'm really conservative so I didn't go in with a large amount of capital. I started with roughly $5,000 and I got my feet wet in the golfing category. Some of that is due to just my general interest in sports and it was a product that there weren't a lot of competitors in that category. It was something I was interested in and something that I thought I could innovate a little bit in that category and become the leader. And within a year I actually did become the leader. I became the number one seller for that specific product. Joe: And you have a job the whole time, Jon, or did you quit? Jon: Yeah, actually I worked full time until 2016. Joe: Excellent. Okay, that's good to hear. Jon: Yeah. Joe: That's what I like to hear. It's a less risky path for people. Jon: Yeah, I'm married, I have a son and so their needs actually come first. I had to make sure that I wasn't putting my family in a bad financial position. So, yeah, I definitely worked with factories in eight. I spent a lot of hours. My wife was very sacrificial, allowing me to spend all that extra time. We used to have conversations about this that we're building a business in the future and there's some sacrifice that has to be made for that. And that's just part of life. Anyone who says that it's easy and it doesn't take that much time is a complete lie. It's a lot of work and very, very stressful but it definitely paid off. Joe: Yeah, you've got five brands over that time period as well, not that just one? Jon: Right and part of that story is just pursuing products that I had an interest in. And not all the brands were successful. Some of the brands were definitely not successful but thankfully the vast majority of my brands took off and became leaders in their respective categories. Joe: Okay, so just to review and just to understand fully who you are, what you've done, because we're going to talk about some of the nitty-gritty here. But in the last year that you sold the business, you did about six and a half million in revenue. You ran the business side by side with being a new dad and a full-time job for a couple of years before you exited. You had five brands and ultimately you sold for mid-seven figures. We're not going to give away the detail here, but an amount that is a life-changing figure that would have taken you 20 years in your construction business to earn probably maybe even more, right? Jon: Oh, yeah. Joe: Over the over the five years or so that you were running the Amazon business, I always love asking this question and it's a tough one because you haven't done the math yet but did you take and make more money as you were running the business; take more cash out of the business for you and your family during that five-year period, or did you get more when you sold the business? Jon: Oh, I definitely got more when I saw the business. One of the driving factors behind the success of my business was the vast majority of the money; any profits that we got were reinvested. That helped us launch products faster. It helped us launch new variations faster and so that allowed us to grow the business very, very quickly. Joe: You must have taken something out for yourself, though, I would assume. Jon: Oh, yeah, definitely. Joe: Just enough to live off of, was your wife working? Jon: No, my wife is a stay-at-home mom. In 2016 when I went full time with Amazon, the goal was to pay myself a salary that mimics my salary at my job and then as the business grew to continue to scale that up from there. And of course, at Christmas time because of the sales and the profits there, doing things like small bonuses and things like that. Yeah, the money that I paid myself definitely increased over time. In the first two years, I paid myself very little just because I was obsessed with growing the business. And honestly, from the very beginning of starting the business, I had a number in mind for my exit someday. A lot of people will say they have vision boards mine was a very specific number. It was in the multiple seven figures and everything I did in the business was geared towards that end goal. And so that's everything from having all my brands under one seller account, all my bookkeeping, just keeping everything clean, strong tax records. Joe: Preaching to the choir, I love that. I love all of it. That's great. It's a clean and easy deal. Did that enable you; was your buyer and SBA buyer or were they a cash buyer? Jon: He was an SBA buyer and the package deal for that was kind of interesting. Roughly 75% was upfront cash and then the rest was split between the seller note over five years and then an earn-out in perpetuity. And so that actually wasn't originally in the contract and with my lawyer at my side, we negotiated that to be perpetuity so I'll get the money eventually. Joe: Wow, that's fantastic. That part of it was probably outside the SBA guidelines though, yes? Jon: That's completely outside the contract. Joe: Good, good, good. Understood. Okay, so you learned an awful lot, you had five brands, some were successes, some were failures along the way, and you're now helping other people as well. What are some of the basic tips that you would give somebody if they're just starting out? So this podcast, even though you had a multiple seven-figure exit, even though you've operated five brands, you're really focused on helping people that are just starting out more than anything else. What are some of the basic things that somebody should look for if they're, let's say, either starting out or if they're buying a small Amazon business, that might be a couple of hundred thousand dollars in total value? Jon: So it sounds cliché but follow your passion. That's something that I tell my clients and friends and family who are interested in starting an Amazon business. Do something that you're generally interested in. And it doesn't have to be your ultimate passion. For example, golfing was never the ultimate sport. It was just a general interest in it. But go into something that you have some sort of interest in because at some point you will have hurdles and you will have issues with your business. So, for example, you might have to spend a couple of hours on a Friday night talking with one of your factories about resolving quality issues on a previous purchase order. You got to be invested in that product and if it's not a product that you're interested in, for example, I would never go into women's makeup because I have zero interest in it. I just don't know if I would be totally in it once I hit those bumps in the road. Joe: Yeah, and I've heard people say just the opposite, except for that part of the bumps in the road. So you could be product agnostic, but it helps, it's not an absolute requirement, it helps, as you're saying, to have some passion about the product. If you're going to end up on a call at 11 o'clock on a Friday night with a manufacturer on the other side of the world to work out some kinks in the detail, if you're not passionate about it, if you're not interested, if you hate it, you'd probably think about doing something else. Jon: Yeah, and I think along this subject too it's even deeper than that. I mean, so often, you're going to have other competitors for your product. There is so much innovation and improvement in your product that takes place over time. Personally, I wouldn't want to be looking at makeup and spending hours and hours and hours trying to get a better formula because I just don't care about it. One of my other product lines was an outdoor kid's product. The mission behind that brand was actually to encourage kids to rediscover the great outdoors. So many kids are on tech now and they spend hours and hours inside on the Switch and on iPads that; and this is how I parent as a dad, too is I encourage my son to go spend hours outside. Joe: How old is your son? Jon: He's five. Joe: Okay, wait until they're teenagers. It gets even worse, man. It gets even worse. They're playing with friends all the time it's just online I tell you. So, yeah, have some passion about what you do. There's no question about it. You started with 5,000 bucks. Are you helping people that haven't even picked a product yet or those that have a product idea and has sourced it and are really just trying to figure out how to how to get some traffic on? Jon: Yeah, obviously it depends. Some of my clients definitely have product ideas and they're already innovating and they want to go into a category where it's going to be truly unique and different. And then others are still in the brainstorming stage. My job is to just advise and help them along the journey all the way through sourcing and getting on to Amazon and launching. But there is so much that goes into the product research phase, and that's what I tell people, is just expect to spend hours and hours researching and researching because this is your money you're talking about. And some people take out loans. This is real stuff. You need to be 100% sure that you're in it for the long haul with your product. So, it comes down to researching the estimated revenues for that product. The thing that made me the most successful was innovating products that had some negative reviews. So I would harness all those reviews and fix all the problems. Joe: How do you do that with the manufacturer on the other side of the world? Jon: It's pretty incredible. I actually never visited any of my factories. I had four factories and it was all through phone calls, Skype, and emails. Joe: And it worked, not a problem. So are you working with a product innovation firm that's doing industrial design work for you or are you just sketching it out yourself and asking for innovations from the manufacturer? Jon: No, actually, the innovations were things that; again, because I was in product categories that I had a deep interest in, I was able to innovate myself. Joe: And do you then just put a drawing in front of that manufacturer and say can you do this? Jon: Exactly. Yeah, sketches are really useful, and then something that blew me away was how intellectual or sophisticated the Chinese factories were. They actually had 3D modeling engineering guys in-house. And I worked with some big boys. The factory for the golfing product that I sold, they actually supplied some products for the PGA Tour. One of the keys to my success was working with factories that were not starting out their journey as a factory. These were very established factories that sold products to Walmart and brick and mortar companies. Joe: Yeah. For those listening one of the additional options is Gembah, www.Gembah.com. We had Zach on the podcast here. It's a product innovation company, its industrial designers that can do that. If you're not good at drawing and innovating, they can do that work for you so that you present a more professional look to the manufacturer. Okay, so advise number one, spend a lot of time on deciding what product and product categories you're going to go into because this is where you're going to be spending all of your money in the future years, yes? Jon: 100%, and all your time. Joe: All right, let's just say we picked a great product. What's next? I mean, is it simple photography, put the listing up, look at basic stuff in terms of recommendations from Amazon? Are you using a launch service like Viral Launch or are you using some other launch service or a combination of different things? Jon: Yeah, for launching, I can get into that in a second. So, the next step that worked really well for me was doing a ton of screening with the factories. And then what I would do is I would do three final samples and we're dealing with weeks and weeks of communications here. Like this is a long process to make sure that my factory is the best of the best. So I would test the factories over email and I would ask oddball questions. I would also come across as the VP of Logistics or the VP of Product Innovation. So I would definitely present myself as an image of a large corporation. They never thought that I was a mom and pop shop in the States. But getting three samples from three strong factories was really successful for me. Joe: Three samples from each or one sample from each? Jon: Sorry, one sample from each factory. And then I would stress-test those products, use them, inspect them, see how they feel in my hand. I would do all those types of things. I ask friends and family what they thought of the products. That was a very common process. And then I ended up after taking in all that data, deciding on my final factory. Joe: This may be a basic question, but I assume you're paying for the sample and paying to have it shipped, right? They're not sending free samples and free shipping. Jon: Correct. Joe: So you're going to spend several hundred to a thousand dollars in just reviewing product samples I would assume, depending upon product cost of course? Jon: I would say a couple of hundred. Joe: Expected, and that's an incredible investment that you have to make, right? You can't just look at some stuff and get one sample and off you go. Jon: Yeah, so it's common to see that everywhere right now. It's like you can skip all those steps and you don't need to worry about that. There is some time and money upfront that is going to save your butt long term. 100%. Joe: So then if you've got the product samples; let's say you want to innovate on all three, let's say they're pretty close but you want a thicker grip on a handle or something like that, are you asking the manufacturers all three just to see how they respond and react and work with you in terms of innovation? Jon: 100% and part of that is also testing how flexible they are as a factory and how easy they are to work with. Joe: Okay. Jon: If they put up a big fight and complain about things, that's going to be a red flag for me. In the factories that I ended up working with, the answer was always yes. Their response was yes, we can do that. Yes, we want your business. Yes, yes, yes. Those are the guys that I ended up working with. The ones who caused issues for me and said, no, we can't do that, that's going to cost $5,000, I just got rid of those guys off the bat. Joe: All right, so what's next? You've tested three manufacturers. You chose a product, you innovated the product, and you're at the point where you've got the final decision on what you're going to invest your money in. What's next after that? Jon: So at that point, you have your final sample, and hopefully you have that in hand, typically production, depending on how many units. My test unit order was always 250 units, sometimes 500 units. So what I would do is while production is happening, whether that's two weeks or four weeks, I would have my final sample sent to a professional photography firm. In the very beginning, I actually took pictures myself and had a designer kind of edit my pictures and pump up the colors a little bit. But later down the road, when I was launching product after product, I'd send the products to a professional photography firm and have them do the enhanced brand content just to tie in the branding for my product. Because in the beginning, I sold a lot of random products, and then as time went on and I got more educated on it, I realized I need to be establishing my brand. I need people to come to Amazon for that specific golfing product. I want them to see my name and think quality and fantastic customer service. That's what I wanted them to remember about me. And so part of that is beautiful packaging, part of that is beautiful enhanced brand content. I had videos as my seventh picture on the listing. Joe: I was just going to ask that. How many of your listings had videos on them, all of them? Jon: The two largest brands had videos and that was kind of like a cost decision because the videos that I went with were extremely high production videos. And not everyone has to do fancy videos. The reason why we justified that was those brands were very, very large. We're talking big revenue numbers so it was something that I felt was needed. Joe: You didn't do that out of the gate on that first golfing product I assume, right? Plus, it was 2014. It probably wasn't an option for you. Jon: No. I don't remember the year that they allowed videos on the listing. I think it was maybe starting to happen in 2017-ish but yeah, in the very beginning you were locked out of everything. You had a paragraph for your description; you had bullet points, and then seven pictures. That was it. Joe: Yeah. Okay, so now you've ordered products, you ordered 250 units, spent a couple of hundred bucks on samples, you got another final sample you sent off to a photographer. It doesn't sound like you've got a whole lot of money left if you're starting out with five grand. I guess it depends on how much product cost is. Jon: That initial investment can range drastically. My first product in the golfing category, I sourced it for a dollar a unit. Joe: Well, that makes a difference, that it explains it right there. Jon: Yeah, exactly, it makes a huge difference. And I did that on purpose just because I'm so financially conservative that I wanted to learn the logistics process of Amazon and if I did screw something up along the way, whether that was customs or something at Amazon, I wanted that capital invested a tad small. Joe: And if you were in a competitive space that would have meant the barriers to entry in terms of cost are pretty low. A year later you said you wound up with the top listing, but did you start to see competitors come in pretty rapidly after that? Jon: Oh, yeah, 100%. And I think what drives that is people see a new seller take over that category and then they see all the revenue go to me and then they think, oh shoot, I'm going to mimic him and I'm going to come in and take some of the revenue. And that's part of life is you have to; and when I mentioned innovation, you have to be constantly innovating your products. So I ended up adding a special device to my golfing product that actually had a patent for it. No one else could do that but that was kind of like an additional tweak I did for the products that made my listing unique and different from all the other listings. That's just the harsh reality of Amazon is once you become a category leader, you will have a lot of other people come in and mimic you. Joe: And the way to fight that is to innovate. Jon: Innovate, be the best, and when you think your pictures are good just get even better pictures. Joe: Yeah, I hear you. All right, so now we've got the product. You've ordered it. You are starting to have your photos done. What's next? I had mentioned launches and systems and things of that nature, where are you helping your clients and advising them to go from there? Jon: I'm different in the world of Amazon because most of my products; actually all the products were done organically and so my strategy is a little slower than other sellers. Joe: Let's define what you mean there organically. Jon: So for example, never using services like Viral Launch or other services where you're paying discounted rates or using websites to launch your products. Joe: You simply put the listings up on Amazon use Amazon Sponsored Ads and off you went? Jon: It's a little more than that. Joe: It always is. I'd like to simplify things and dumb it down but I know it's a lot more complicated than that, yeah. But no launch services, nothing like that? Jon: Right and so what was really beneficial was really actually humorous autoresponder emails. So we use a service called Feedback that was really, really successful. Alongside that doing a little bit of a giveaway through the early reviewer program and then just pumping PPC, to be honest with you. And so typically we do like slightly reduced cost for the products to be priced a little lower; nothing too drastic because that can mess up your Lightning Deals down the road. So we would reduce it a little bit and just funnel a ton of money into PPC. And then we had an autoresponder series on average two to three emails. Joe: So explain the autoresponder part because you don't have control of the customer. This is after they buy the product? I'm confused on the autoresponder part. Jon: This is right after someone buys the product. So one email goes out three days after they receive the product and then another one goes out seven days and another one goes out 14 days. And those are all tweets specifically to be kind of funny. So many people open up emails and to be honest with you, most people don't open their emails very often. So having a really funny title for the email and then the actual body of the email being short and sweet and using a joke or something about the product was really, really helpful. Joe: I got you. So, you're not breaking even upfront, I assume, because you're spending a lot of money on Pay-Per-Click. Jon: No, I'm definitely in the red when I first started. Pretty much all my product launches started in the red. Joe: How long are they in the red for? Jon: Probably a minimum of six months because I'm doing it organically. Joe: So, how many products are you launching in the first year; two or are you going after more? Jon: The first year was two products actually. Joe: So, if somebody is coming to you with a little bit bigger of a budget and let's say they've got 20 grand and they're really needing your guidance to get launched and they've got an idea of the product. Are we still looking at losing money or breaking even for the first six months, eventually breaking and making a little bit? Jon: That is so dependent on the category that you're in. If you go into a category where you're competing with guys that have 500 reviews or a thousand reviews; let's say the top 10 sellers have a thousand reviews, it's going to take some time and you're going to have to burn through some cash. And the reason why is PPC gets more expensive every single day. That's just the reality of it. And everyone is competing for those keywords. And so, for example, with my products, I always outbid my competitors for the top search volume keywords, and the reason why is that that drove incredible sales to my listing. And PPC was actually the highest cost in terms of expenses for my business. Joe: Do you know what it was overall as a percentage of your revenue? Jon: Oh, man. Joe: I'm typically seeing anywhere between 10 and 20%. Jon: Yeah, I want to say was more like 25%. Joe: Okay. Jon: If we're dealing with the PPC costs alone my CPA would just look at me and be like, man, you guys are spending a lot of money on PPC. But that's just the reality of the business. Joe: But your CPA still has a day job? You get to do whatever the hell you want at this point in your life, right? Jon: Yes sir. Joe: Then who is right, you or the CPA? I think you were. Jon: Those expenses look kind of scary, but when you're looking at the percentage of revenue, it becomes a little less scary. Joe: Yeah. Now do all; I know the answer to this, but not all product launches are going to take six months to start to get traction and breakeven, did you have any in your five-year stretch where you would see some just home runs out of the gate or get some profitability within the first one to two months? Jon: The kid's product took off very fast and that was a very organic launch. And the reason why was there were maybe two or three sellers for that product and they had an inferior quality problem. So if you go look at the reviews, the actual liner of the material for the toy would just deteriorate like within a month under the sun. And so we innovated and we got the best liner possible, got UV-resistant liner and improved the product drastically and that took off with beautiful pictures. We actually hired some models; some family members actually took pictures with the product and just focused on quality for that product. People bought it and I realized, wow, this is like; it showed up in the reviews, your product is as lasting a long, long time. And that became very successful, very quick. Joe: And it was all from looking at other listings and the negative reviews that those had and innovating and improving the product? Jon: Correct. Joe: Yeah, pretty cool. How hard is it, though, to find a category where there are only two or three sellers? It seems like an impossible task these days, is it not? Jon: So Amazon is definitely; there's a lot more competition now. I think the secret's out about FBA. Joe: It might be, yeah. Jon: It's definitely harder now. I think that most categories are going to have far more than two to three sellers and so what I always recommend is even if there's seven sellers, you can break into those market segments as long as you're not dealing with sellers that have like a thousand reviews. If seven of them have 75 reviews or maybe 200 reviews, that's something that you can definitely go into and compete with. But there is always going to be a hole in the market. There's always going to be a chance to innovate and do something and spend the time to make the best product possible that lots of other people aren't going to do. And one example was actually the leather goods category that I was in. It was specifically for men. We drilled down all the way into the product packaging. A lot of people don't do that. They would get their leather goods products and they'd open it up from the box and it's in a polybag, right? That's not an experience. Joe: Right. Jon: So our idea was let's make it an experience for this person to open it up and sell everything down to the custom packaging for the box down to a branded tissue with branded tape. So whenever the person opened this product up, they knew that they were receiving a high end, high-quality product that was different from everyone else. So that's just like; it sounds kind of silly, but no one spends time with packaging and what does it feel like when you open up that product at home? Joe: It's because it's not sexy. They spend time on marketing and topline revenues and talk about it with their friends because it's sexy. But packaging and good bookkeeping and good branding and good photos and videos and the profit is actually what puts you in the best position possible, which is doing whatever you want at this point in your life. Jon: Yeah, definitely. What's interesting about that is the customers would actually talk about all the nitty-gritty details that I spent time on. That would come up as content and some of those reviews would be the top-rated reviews. Someone left a review on one of the leather goods products and it was this detailed long review with pictures and they went out of their way to be like, I've never opened a product from Amazon and the packaging was just stunning. So I was like, yes, it worked. And so other customers who are on Amazon obviously see the top-rated reviews and see that type of content and it definitely helps and it soon became a leader in that category. Joe: Cool. Jon, we're a little short on time, but I wanted to ask you, what are some of the biggest challenges you think folks are going to face? Jon: I think the biggest challenge is definitely just not getting swept up in sexy products. I've seen this online so much, just this huge push for going into supplements, for example. I tell my clients, do not do supplements. Don't go into that category. Don't do it. Don't do products that go on people's skin. Don't go into products where you're ingesting things. I'm always recommending kind of simpler products that are very, very low risk. And don't go into knives; things where people can get injured. So, just focusing on a product that you're interested in and it's low risk. And that's always tough because you see the revenues that other sexy products are bringing in and people get swept up in that. Joe: This is one of the first times I wish I just hadn't asked that question because I sold; my own company was a digestive wellness supplement company. I've got a good friend that's selling his makeup business for like 40 million dollars. We have, as a company supplement companies that are under contract for anywhere from two to 20 million dollars. And I think when they're when they're done right, they're done right. Jon: Exactly, and I would never want to give the impression that it's not possible. It's just my conservative nature kind of stays away from those types of product lines. And you have to be you definitely have to be a more sophisticated seller to… Joe: These guys are. These guys are all very, very smart, very good at what they do, have SOPs that'll pass on to the owners of the business, as did mine. And it's competitive, right? It's that they are low barriers to entry cost-wise. Jon: Extremely, you have to have big capital and that's one of the barriers for sure. Joe: Yeah. Well, I think it is a nice; it's a low barrier to entry to buy into the product category, but then you've got to rank and that's where the additional capital and expertise goes. It's very, very challenging. All right, so how do people reach out to you? I see its www.BlackLabelAdvisor.com, but ideally, let's talk about who your typical client would be and how they reach out to you. Jon: Yeah. So the easiest way to reach out is to go to my website, www.BlackLabelAdvisor.com or you can email me Jon@BlackLabelAdvisor.com. My passion is to help other people replicate my story. So many people I talk to you are they'll see my story and they'll say, oh my gosh, that's a dream, you know? And I used to think it was a dream too. And when I closed on the sale of the business, it was a dream come true to see the money come through. It was an unbelievable feeling that you just never think it's ever going to happen. I have recommendations and systems and third party companies I highly recommend. Along the way, I made mistakes myself and my passion is to help people avoid those mistakes and grow their business faster just because of all the experience I have and just help them along the journey with the end goal of selling someday. Joe: Yeah, I like it, folks. Jon is not somebody who can't so he teaches. He actually did it. He built an Amazon business with five brands, sold for a multiple seven figures, and now he's helping them. And that's what we do at Quiet Light, we help first. We want to help you succeed. Strangely enough, it actually helps us in the long run too, right? Somebody listening in the audience hire somebody like John who has real-life experience to give real-life advice to help them succeed in their online business. That person will come around at Quiet Light someday as well. So with that look around, who can you help? Help out your neighbor, help your friend that's in the online space and keep helping, it'll come back around too in time. Jon: Definitely. Joe: Jon, I appreciate your time. BlackLabelAdvisor.com folks, reach out and connect with Jon if you need some help to help get your Amazon business off the ground. Jon: Awesome. Thanks, Joe.

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss recent items in the news, including the passing of Tav Sparks; author, therapist, co-director of Grof Transpersonal Training, and creator of "Movie Yoga," and scientist Jordi Riba; one of the early pioneers of ayahuasca research and one of the first ever to bring it into the lab.  They discuss the ayahuasca episode of the new Netflix docuseries "Unwell," and 2 articles from Marijuana Moment: psychedelic activists in Oakland creating a guideline for plant medicine healing ceremonies and the new initiative to allow for legal use in controlled settings, and 4 state attorney generals and 50 current and former law enforcement officials sending a letter to Congress endorsing a federal marijuana legalization bill after a recent poll showed that 62% of likely voters support it. As Joe says, "It's about time... 20 years ago." And lastly, they discuss Bright Minds Biosciences' recent tweet claiming that the future is in what they're working on: modifying molecules in psilocybin to reduce trip times from 4-6 hours to 60-90 minutes. While this could be huge for people who can't safely partake in longer trips, and more specifically for sufferers of cluster headaches, they wonder about intention: is this for the betterment of mankind or just for profit and headlines? Isn't sitting with the trip part of the healing? Isn't integration afterward even more important? Is this a new tool/solution, or a band-aid? Is it all of the above?  This leads to Kyle sharing that a friend of his recently committed suicide, and the reminder that we all need to practice self-care- it's never been more important than it is now in our current disconnected, online, fearful, COVID lives- even the smallest effects of what's going on can take a big psychological toll. Remember to take care of yourselves, folks.  Notable Quotes “We just need more and more drugs, but we have to be able to see through this marketing junk so we know how to appropriately contextualize it, and not just fall prey to ‘Oh cool, this is the right drug. This is the best drug, it has the most research behind it.’ Subtext: this just had the most pharma dollars behind it.” -Joe “Do we really need these fast solutions? I think, on one hand, yes, because some people are definitely going to kill themselves tomorrow. At least 22+ veterans are going to kill themselves tomorrow, which is horrible- and today, and yesterday and every day until we have some sort of good intervention, or the numbers go [down]. It’s really tough. But also, no. Are we just slapping a band-aid on and saying, ‘cool, go get sick again’?” -Joe “When I think about these quick, band-aid-like substances, like, ‘Oh yes, you can just do your healing.’ Well, this is where the integration comes in. Do you have that support network? Are you living a life that feels like it’s in balance with how you want to live? Are you surrounded by good people? Are you surrounded by that community? Are you taking care of yourself?” -Kyle “Scary shit, but as a species, we’ll get through it. Individual tragedies don’t usually slow down the machine of human progress. And we’re going to see a continually exciting series of events, I think, for the next 70 years. So I don’t think, you and I, in our lifetime, Kyle, are going to get bored. We might be horrified at times, we might be amazed at times, but we’re going to see slow progress.” -Joe Links Tav Sparks' bio and obituary Jordi Riba's obituary 60 Minutes: Researchers experimenting with psychedelics to treat addiction, depression and anxiety The dark side of wellness: behind a Netflix series on a murky industry Daniel Moler's Mothervine Advocates Unveil Guide For Psychedelic Healing Ceremonies They Hope To Legalize In Oakland Top State Cops Tell Congress To Legalize Marijuana As New Poll Shows Strong Voter Support Bright Minds Biosciences's tweet brightmindsbio.com Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

On this episode of Quiet Light, we talk to Steven Pope about how to handle any problem you're having with Amazon. Steven is the founder of My Amazon Guy, a full-service Amazon agency, currently assisting 80 clients. They seek to help their clients and others with all of the possible Amazon travails businesses face. Topics: How and why Steven started his agency. Dealing with Amazon account suspensions. Best ways to rank organically on Amazon. The outlook for American-made products. The number one action item in advertising. A major success story for Steven's agency. How to hone in on what changes will make a difference. Transcription: Mark: Joe, one of the things that you do with Quiet Light is you have a pretty wide network of people that you're now talking to. And I know you recently talked to Steven Pope. He is an agency owner. He helps Amazon business owners solve problems. I know that it's like crazy generic for me to say that but when it comes to owning an Amazon business, there's a lot of different problems you can have; everything from suspended accounts to; I mean, you name it. And I know you guys talked a little bit about the services he offers. But not just the services he offers, you talked about some of the problems that people face and how he goes about solving them. Joe: Yeah, there's something; look, we generally don't have people on pitching their products and services, simple as that. And so when I got this email introduction to Steve and set up a 15-minute call to grill him a little bit on who he is and what he does, the first thing I did was ask for five rapid-fire questions about what to do on Amazon if this happens and he answered them all and it was great. And then he said I've got 300 videos on YouTube that does the same thing. I give it all away for free and if people want to hire me as their agency, then I'm here for that as well. So I just dug into those videos and I love it. I think that you should hear him talk folks. You should listen to some of the things that he suggests and he gives it away for free in this podcast as well. I ask him the questions. I drill deeper when there needs to be a follow-up question. But then he also and it should be in the show notes, he also has a YouTube channel. It's My Amazon Guy on YouTube where he's helping people solve problems. One example is a woman and this is; and I talked about a little bit, single SKU, 100% of her revenue is coming from a single SKU on Amazon and oops she got suspended. Mark: Oh. Joe: Right. And for a week and a half or so, she cannot solve the problem and so she's losing five or six thousand dollars a week in revenue. And Steven has a process for that. It's not rocket science. It's three separate sentences that help get your account unsuspended quicker… Mark: What are those three sentences? Joe: He goes over them in the podcast. I can't recall. I recorded it yesterday Mark. You know how my memory is come on. Mark: I was hoping to tease it so you actually listen to the episode. Joe: Yeah, okay. So you actually have to listen to the episode. Mark: There we go. Joe: Why don't we just go to that? So that's our teaser, go to it… Mark: We are really not pros of this already. Joe: Not at all. If you have anybody else like this that's an expert in the space that gives it all away, regardless of the fact that they also have clients that pay for the service, introduce them to us, because I think this type of information is fantastic. Because everybody hears yeah I hired an agency and my customer acquisition went through the roof. We hear it as well. But this person was referred to us. I grilled him. I know who referred most of his clients to him and I have great respect for that person and they've been on the podcast as well. So give it a listen. Hopefully, it's going to help everyone that has even if it's just 10% of your revenue on Amazon, it's worth a listen and worth getting over to that YouTube channel to get educated as well. Joe: Hey, folks, Joe Valley here again with the Quiet Light Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Today I've got the pope with me this morning I had the was that was last week's podcast and today I've got the pope. You probably get that a lot, don't you? I'm sorry. Steven: The Popemobile jokes when I was a television reporter days, yeah, I remember them. Joe: My full name is Joe Valley when I was in college the Peanuts folks; the Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and all that, it was a big Valley girl craze back then. And there was actually a Christmas or birthday card that said something about Joe Valley Beagle for sure. That's my only connection with something semi-famous. You've got a big one to the pope. Anyway, we're here to talk about Amazon. Your business is The Amazon Guy and you're going to share absolutely every possible secret you know about… Steven: Every single one of them. Joe: Every one of them. It's going to take a while, folks. Steven: Yeah, everyone who's listening to this will be a millionaire just by simply listening. Joe: No action taken whatsoever. Okay, well, let's over promise and deliver right now. We just did. All right enough of the jibber-jabber. Let's talk about you. Give us for the audience a little bit of background in yourself; who are you, what's your business, how did you start, and all that kind of stuff. Steven: You bet. So my name is Steven Pope. I'm the founder of My Amazon Guy. We are an 18 person digital agency at the Atlanta, Georgia area. One-stop-shop. All things Amazon. Everything from search engine optimization, to PPC, design, and logistics all in one place. My background, I started my agency after a side hustle in consulting Amazon for several years and one day I lost my job. And very much like the private labelers that are listening to this who are running their current day job and they're looking for something else to change their lifestyle or whatever else, this one forced me to change. So within 48 hours of getting laid off and I was working for a lighting company, I decided to start an agency and the rest is history. We just help people grow sales. Joe: And you're also living it as well because you have a brand that you apply your own services to and share that information on your own podcast as well, right? Steven: I do. So I own a brand called Momstir and it's M-O-M-S-T-I-R. And it's a brand where we sell funny wine glasses with funny sayings on them and very much a side hustle brand to try and figure out and keep my skills sharp. So a lot of agencies try and build out their like, hey, let me go network, let me go show up and shake Jeff Bezos' hand and plaster a photo on my website. We just get crapped on. We just go into accounts. We don't leave our house. We don't go to conferences, complete referral-based business. And I think that's the right way to run an agency. We just go solve problems left and right and grow sales every day and go in and get our hands dirty. Joe: And you folks know my position here. You know that I get e-mails and calls all the time from agencies and I have the privilege of working with clients and seeing if they have agencies or not. When Steven and I connected, I just went with some rapid-fire questions to see if this guy had any idea what he was talking about and it turns out he actually does. So I want to duplicate some of that here on this podcast for you. E-commerce business owners that are 90% Amazon or 20% Amazon and want to be 90% Amazon. But let's first start with the fact that you do have 80 clients now, active Amazon business owners that you and your team of 18 work with, right? Steven: We do. Everything from air purifiers to tweezers and everything in between. Joe: All right. Let's talk about Amazon Suspensions. You mentioned in our pre-call that you had a woman call you and her account has been suspended for several days or something like that. Tell that story briefly but how you go about getting something reinstated? Steven: You bet. So there's a difference between suspension and listing yank. So suspension your account is down, you can't even log in or get your money out. Listing reinstatement and this is where you have a product that's been yanked from the catalog. Each has their own problem and their own solution. Amazon is a siloed organization and so it can be a very daunting and confusing process for sellers, no matter what the problem is. We could be talking about anything that goes wrong at Amazon. It's literally impossible to have a single point of contact at Amazon so like me as an agency, we don't even have a single point of contact. We got one guy that we talked with on a monthly basis and talked about advertising with and outside of that, we're doing the same thing sellers are doing; brute force, sellers support, ticketing, emails, you name it. The difference is that because we've seen the trends between the accounts, we're able to see what works currently. And I say that because what I talk about today may not work 90 days from now and that's because the platform is shifting at such a rapid pace. It's entering its maturity phase. We've seen Amazon change all the rules constantly on a whim, which is why you shouldn't be 90%  Amazon sales. You probably need to diversify if you want my opinion. But let's talk about this, so I got a call today from a single mom and her listing was yanked. This account, $30,000 a month in sales, one product, and all she could do… Joe: Bad idea, first of all, but go on. Steven: So she was in tears talking to me today. And I share this with genuine care and knowing that this is her livelihood and Amazon took her livelihood away. And it wasn't even for an egregious thing. It wasn't like she broke a rule. One day the algorithm crawled her catalog, looked at a bullet point, and said, this looks like something we don't like, yank. And so she did all the right things. She fixed it. She made the changes to the ballpoints. She contacted the support team. She got on the phone with what's called the captive team in America. She sent listing evaluations, e-mails. She did all of the right things and can't get the listing reinstated. And so for seven days, her business has been down. And if it doesn't get fixed, she can't afford what she needs to do to live or run a business or run her household. Joe: So that's something you're confident you can fix based on the phone call you had with her? Steven: 100%. Joe: How long will it take? Steven: That's the part I can't guarantee. If an issue like a listing yank is down we have a near 100% reinstatement rate, but what we don't have is a timing reinstatement guarantee. For some accounts, we'll get in there and we'll fix things within 48 hours and other times it takes 30 days. And it has nothing to do with the talent that we have or the process. It's just that Amazon's system sometimes just is absolutely breaking and they don't have; they use the 80:20 rule to an extreme. If they can get rid of 80% of the bad actors with 20% of the effort knowing they're going to screw over 20% good actors, they're okay with that. Joe: Lots of actors these days, I guess. Steven: And because of that, even if you're doing all the right things, you will eventually run into this problem. Your listings will get yanked. You'll get suspended. Whatever it might be, you will face a challenge that economically damages you and you have to act quick and you have to be concise. And whatever you do, don't submit 10 tickets. Don't do that. Your appeals need to be concise. You need to be giving them exactly explicit what they ask for and make it easy on them to help you. Joe: Do you have any language on your site that tells people exactly what to do? Steven: We do. Yeah. We have a page. I'll give it to you for you to put in the show notes, which is basically a plan of action to do when you run into a situation like this and in high-level summary, you do three things; admit the problem, how did you solve the problem, and what are you going to do to prevent the problem from reoccurring? And those could be two to three sentences a piece. If you do that and you format it, just like I mentioned, you have a greater chance of success. Joe: You don't think that they should write 17, 59 paragraphs for that seller account to Representative Reeve? Steven: No. Joe: No, I'm kidding. Of course. Steven: Nor do I think you should mention that you've been on Amazon for 15 years and you're a half a million-dollar business. They don't care. Joe: They don't care, yeah. Steven: The person reading this is looking for reasons to not approve your requests. They're not looking for reasons to approve it. So give them exactly what the request with no fluff and then you'll have a higher chance of getting approved. Joe: Okay, so I'm just going to say to those folks that have a hero SKU like that, knock it off, takes some of the money, launch a new listing, and spread out your risk so that you're not in a situation like that. What's the best way to rank organically? You're launching a new product, what's the best way to rank on Amazon, how do you get from page nowhere to the top of Page 1? Steven: So two types of situations we could be in; situation one is you're launching a brand new product and situation number two, you've had a product on Amazon and you're trying to take it to the next level. I'm going to talk about the product launch first because there's what's called a honeymoon period in the first 14 days of having an item on Amazon. You want to maximize traffic to the listing and maximize sales during that honeymoon period because it will leapfrog the listing rankings in a very rapid succession. If you can show Amazon that you're for real, you're the real deal, this is your first product in the account and you got a hundred sales in the first two weeks, they're going to pay attention to that. In the past, people would use programs like viral launch or some sort of giveaway to make this happen. Those programs no longer are as effective as they once were so you can't just solely rely upon that. What I recommend you do is; I'm assuming you've got a budget for the product you're doing a launch for so I'm assuming you spent two or three grand on the product. I would set aside $2,000 for Google and Facebook ads in the first 14 days. Spend it. No guarantee you're going to get sales out of it. No guarantee that you're gonna get a good ACOS. That's not the point. You're trying to train the algorithm that the product is important and that you personally can bring traffic to the Amazon platform. They will reward you accordingly. From there, it's almost 90% Amazon PPC in the first couple of months. And then from there, you can start relying more on SEO. For the other products that have already been there, the longer you've been there and the lower the run rate you've had, the harder it's going to be for you to start gaining. So there's a bunch of core key practices that we could discuss; back end search terms, make sure you've got 250 characters that are unique, have no commas, no duplicate words, make sure you got misspellings in there, and include a couple of Spanish keywords, front end, you got titles, bullets, images, A plus content, all of those need to be maximized. If you don't have every one of those fields maximized you're going to be losing out on keyword rankings you could have gained otherwise. So everything you do on Amazon to grow sales can be boiled down to two things, driving traffic and improving the conversion rate. SEO is almost primarily a traffic generation strategy. However, if you rank four words you don't convert on, you will stop ranking for those words. So if you're selling an apple slicer product and you want a rank for foot rubs or foot lotion or whatever; it's the first thing that came to my mind, it's not going to work. I guess I need a foot rub right now. Joe: I guess so. Steven: But in any case, there's so many different things that help with ranking on Amazon, and the one that I would say is your quick five-second hack today for those that are looking for like, okay, that's cool, I understand I need to optimize but what can I do right now? Go into your A-plus content and make sure every single photo is maximized with a hundred characters per A plus content photo. So if you've got 20 photos, that's 20 times a hundred characters of keywords you're probably missing out on right now. And throw one of those to be Spanish, put misspellings under one of them. Amazon claims that they don't index the A-plus content. I believe they're big fat liars and I can prove it. I've put Spanish behind one photo, I didn't put it anywhere else and guess what? We indexed for it. Joe: How important are product demonstration videos in this conversion aspect? So ranking is one thing that's important but if you're not converting, what's the point? And eventually, their algorithms are going to say people are looking, but they're not buying so we're going to de-rank you I assume. How important are videos in that conversion process? Steven: Minimum. Joe: Really? Let's talk about that. Steven: So I'm coming from a background in television where I thought video was king, right? Content is king. But video on Amazon, I'm utterly surprised by how few people are actually watching the videos. And so, in my opinion, instead of spending $5,000 on some professional photoshoot, grab your cell phone and just talk on camera about the top product features for 60 seconds and call it a day and put it on your listing. Now, if you're running a corporation that's not going to resonate with your management staff. They're going to throw a conniption fit. Obviously, that's not going to work. But if you're a side hustling brand and you don't have a video today, fix it. Go out and get one. Shoot it on your cell phone. Put on the target demographic, whoever you want to buy it. It will help. But of all the things that we could talk about on today's podcast, video will be at the bottom of the pile and it's because nobody clicks it. Joe: Let's talk about American made then because we've got a situation in the world where we're in trade wars with everyone else. How important is; and I know you don't have a crystal ball that I see on your desk. Apparently, you need a foot rub. You're thinking about that while looking at me on video. Again, I don't know why people help me out here. But crystal ball American made products, given the trade wars that we are in. Is it going to be something it's going to be important on Amazon in the future? Steven: I consider myself a thought leader in the Amazon space, and that's why I'm going out and getting on my podcast. I want to talk about where I think Amazon is going. I personally believe manufacturing is coming back to the United States. Is it here today for B2C products? No, it's not. I think it will be soon. All of the symptoms are there. If you're looking at the symptoms there at present; you talked about the trade wars with China, tariffs increasing currency exchange wars, and all that good stuff. COVID is a second reason the entire supply chain and the entire world broke down. Globalization takes a hit when international events happen. So nationalism and hyper localization are likely to occur under these circumstances. In addition to that, the user base who may blame COVID on China is going to start actively looking for American made products. This is going to help you with margin issues where you're selling a product for sometimes 40, 50% more in cost. They're willing to bear that market just because of principle. And the question is, how do you manufacturer in the States and do so profitably? I do not know the answer to that question. Joe: I was going to ask that and maybe you know, the answer to this one, how do you find those manufacturers in the States? They can go to Alibaba and eventually get to the manufacturer in China and there are some services; we've had folks on, Zach from Gembah can help you with finding manufacturers but how do you find them in the States? Steven: I have tried to solve this problem for the last three years. I joined what's called the Georgia Manufacturing Alliance. So I'm in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I toured several different manufacturing facilities. And what I learned is that for the most part, the United States is a B2B manufacturing country and most businesses are focused on B2B products. So, for example, a facility I went to, they made toilet seats for airplanes and it's a special process to do that. Joe: Sure. Steven: They have to fire-resistant, right? Couldn't you can't buy that overseas because there's lives on the line. B2C products like gifts or day to day households; anything that's not topical or consumable, because obviously most of those are made in the states currently. Joe: Exactly. Steven: But home goods, if you will, it is absolutely cheaper to go overseas right now for that. There are brands like American Giants who hires 100% from end to end American made, American laborer and they are doing well. They're selling the Mercedes Benz version of a hoodie right now and they've proven it works, but it doesn't work on every vertical or every catalog, every type of item today. I think technology is going to be the last category that this will work for. But I do see the symptoms and I think if you were an investor today looking for how do I get ahead in five years from now; not today, but in five years from now, I would definitely set yourself up for American made manufacturing and an American made company run by Americans selling to Americans. Joe: Okay. Crystal ball. I love it. Let's talk about that person who has the American made products or an overseas product and they sell on Amazon, what's the secrets to sponsored ads? What can you tell folks that are listening that you do that they should be doing to help them lower their ACOS and increase their conversions? Steven: If there's one area that you need to hire out for if you don't have the expertise while selling on Amazon, this is the one. And it's because advertising is changing at such a rapid pace. If you haven't been watching two webinars a week or spending two hours a day on your ads you're behind currently. In the last two weeks alone, display advertising, the cat is out of the bag. That's what I would have given you two weeks ago but because segmentation approaches and every avenue available to advertise your product and generate traffic right now everybody is jumping on. Everybody's looking for that edge and so you have to be very quick. You're going to have to rotate your funds around. There are three types of ads today on Amazon, sponsored products, sponsored headline ads or sponsored grants, and finally, display. Every single month we have seen a new form of segmentation come out under one of those three core areas. Three months ago it was custom brand images. Display came out even more recently than that. The one that's coming out on 10% of accounts right now is retargeting; hitting people off of Amazon who have already viewed your products or who have already purchased your products. So those are two different things and then there's a third one that's coming out that is people who have search-related keywords off of Amazon to bring them into the platform. Two of those three are only available to 10% of accounts right now but the moment you get a glimpse and you see it on your account; nobody's giving you an announcement. Amazon is not emailing you and saying, hey, this is now available. You literally need to check your seller central portal in every nook and cranny on a weekly basis, because I'm telling you, you will find it 30 days before somebody shows you it. Joe: And the advantage to that is? Steven: You can quickly execute it and then generate additional traffic at a lower cost and get into additional areas where nobody else is paying attention to. So if you are on that display bandwagon before two weeks ago, you would have had record low ACOS, new sales you wouldn't have gotten otherwise, you could have shown up on your competitors page in ways that they couldn't predict or know how to combat. And you should still do display today, by the way. I think that's probably the number one action item in advertising right now. If you don't have display ads up, go do that. Joe: I got you. Okay, your average client is doing a million dollars a year in revenue I think, right? Steven: Yep, somewhere around there. Joe: Okay, give me a success story. Steven: Sure. So I have to think carefully now which brands have you made public permission. Joe: You don't have to name brands, you can just talk about the story itself. Steven: Yeah, so let's talk about a generic men's supplements company; let's call it that. Joe: Okay. Steven: The hardest category to sell in right now in Amazon is supplements so if you're looking for a product to launch, I wouldn't go into supplements and that's because of all the challenges and listing yanks and stuff we kind of ended about earlier. It's egregious right now how bad it is in that category but in any case, when I first started, my first client as an agency was a men's supplements brand and they tried to other consultants before me. They couldn't get past four grand a month in sales. Within 60 days we got them to $80,000 in monthly sales. A couple of months ago, they clocked in at 400,000. And it's because the grind; the My Amazon Guy process, the grind if you will, it works. You go in every day and you look for as much traffic as you possibly can get and find as much conversion as you can get. And it takes going attribute by attribute, ad by ad, design by design; every single layer has to be fulfilled. Where they may have previously failed, they didn't load their entire catalog to Amazon. That might sound like a core issue and some of you are like what you mean they didn't load their entire catalog but if you're an omnichannel brand today, sometimes you purposely don't load all your product to Amazon. I think that's a big mistake. The fastest way to grow an Amazon is load more product, launch as many as you can. Every three products you launch, one is going to fail flat, one is going to break even, one is going to succeed. So you've got a one out of three ratio to work but load as many new products as you can to your lifecycle on average on Amazon. Second, get on as many platforms as you can. Diversify. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, Shopify; all of those are important. Joe: Not necessarily in that order, I'd like to know where would you go to first beyond Amazon US. Steven: Yep, Amazon US and you could talk about more marketplaces like Europe or Japan or Singapore and Middle East and Australia, I guess let's pause on the location geos for just a second, let's talk just marketplaces. And so after Amazon, if you have a product that can sell on Etsy that's the one I would go to next. It is the easiest to get on and will produce at a higher rate than it would have six months ago. And it's because when Amazon supply chain took a hit and the shipping timeframes went down Etsy doubled in size overnight. Doubled in size but did not double in competition which means that's your opportunity. We are seeing massive success on the Etsy platform right now. Joe: Any particular category? Because if I'm just selling supplements, I can't sell them on Etsy, right? Steven: You're not supposed to. It's supposed to be handmade and they're supposed to be hard to obtain items. I've seen everything on Etsy, though. So even, you know, it may not be the first platform of your choice if you're selling supplements or if you're selling something that doesn't go well on Etsy. Maybe launch on eBay and Walmart first before you go there, but I would still give it a look. Joe: I want to say that the transferability of an Etsy account may be a challenge. And transferability is one of the four pillars. If you can't transfer the control of the assets of the business, your business is not sellable or much more difficult to sell so we'd have to look into that again. The last time I had any significant Etsy account as part of a sale, it was tuck in hopes that you couldn't squeeze through to try to get the transfer of the control that Etsy account. So I would say caution there but if you're looking for that short term gain, it's fine. Where there's a will, there's a way. My particular buyer wasn't willing to go that route and he could have but he chose not to and that's okay. What about the idea of just simply feeding your stallions and maxing out Amazon.com if you're still growing and there's lots of more opportunity here in the US, why divert your attention to an Etsy or a Walmart or whatever it might be or the EU? Steven: So this is a good debate between focus and diversification. They have a massive amount of friction between the two. I believe it's easier to do diversity than do focus. The shotgun approach generally will lead to more success. That's my personal style. If you're a perfectionist, focus will work a lot better for you. So I would say that's a choice the business could make, a business decision if you will. Joe: And I have to say and interject that it depends upon your goals. If you're going to run the business for the next five years, I think diversification is really smart because if your business is more diversified, it's going to be risk-averse. The lower the risk, the higher the value in terms of the multiple. If you've got two businesses that are equal in revenue and discretionary earnings size, and one is 90% Amazon and the other is 40% Amazon, 30% Shopify, and 30% something else or other marketplaces but the discretionary earnings is the same, same number of SKUs, same hero SKU count and all this other stuff, that diversified business is less risk. Less risk equals a higher multiple. You're doing the same amount of revenue, but your business is much more valuable because buyers see that it is less risk and they'll pay more for it. My two cents. Steven: So I totally agree with that and you're definitely the expert on buying and selling, so I won't even go there. Joe: Have you noticed how I like to interject my opinion on buying and selling when I'm talking to somebody else about Amazon rankings and things of that nature? Steven: I couldn't have guessed why. Joe: It's amazing when you run the podcast and you get a microphone and you can say these things. You had talked about 80% of the work that you do in a seller account is fairly SOP oriented but there's 20% that requires just instincts and a deeper dive into the why of the particular problem or ranking solution. Can you talk about that 20%; what are those things and how do you really hone in on what's going to make a difference in your particular brand and ranking? Steven: So for the 80% that's SOP or standard operating procedure, you can follow a checklist and it can be clerical in nature. If you go through that checklist and you do an 80% job, you're probably going to succeed. The other 20% is the experience, the nuance, the analytical understanding to forecast, predict, and see what's going to happen under the chaotic nature of Amazon and e-commerce, understanding the landscape, and understanding what happened in the previous situation. So as one small example, understanding the notion or the difference between a coopting of demand versus a demand gen product, this is an easy to understand concept but doesn't even cross the mind of most individuals. So what do I mean by this? If you go on Amazon today and you want to sell an apple slicer, that product has been commoditized. You're basically trying to sell a commoditized coopting demand product. There's already demand, you just need to go get it and tsxake your share of it. If you're trying to come out with a patent protected product, gadget, widget; whatever it is that does something that solves a problem that nobody even knew was a problem, that's demand gen. The guy doing demand gen has a one out of 20 chance of succeeding, the coopting demand guy has got like a 12 out of 20 chance of succeeding; much harder but if done correctly, the demand gen product that wins., the one of the 20 will be gigantic in size and will dwarf everybody else. GoPro is a good example of this where they solved the problem nobody knew they had and now they have an entire empire. So if you're looking at analyzing data and you're looking at like how do I solve my problem, you're going to have to consult either an expert or you're gonna have to grind it yourself. You're going to have to spend so much time analyzing this question and watching all the podcasts, watching all the webinars, reading information, submitting the tickets in Seller Central on a daily basis until you hack it, or figure it out. That's what it takes. And that 20% is very hard and you want to understand like, what do I do in this situation? If you've never done it before it's really hard to learn. Joe: And it's probably going to end up producing 80% of the revenue if you click the rules there. You actually have book a coaching call on your website. You're not just working with clients and taking agency fee on a monthly basis, but you are doing coaching calls as well. Can you talk about what type of calls those are and how often you do them? Steven: You bet. So I probably do one a day on average. And I have a very different vision of what agency should be than the typical agency. I would give away all or trade secrets. I got 300 videos on YouTube answering literally every question. If you have pesticides gating on your product and you sell tweezers and you're like, why does this on my account, I don't even understand this? We give away the answer key right on the YouTube video. Joe: And how do they find that; is it My Amazon Guy on YouTube? Steven: Yes, and if you were to literally Google pesticides gating My Amazon Guy, you would find it. Or even just pesticides gating Amazon it'd probably still come up. But the point I'm trying to make here is we share all our trade secrets openly. We're trying to add value to the community because it comes back. I know that if I had value to you today over the next year; let's say you follow me for a year before you even pay me a dime, you will then come and say, hey, shut up and take my money. And so sometimes I will hear from people that have watched 40 of my videos and they just want to say hi. But on those calls, typically we're getting in and we're solving a specific problem. That's usually the number one reason one of those comes up is because, hey, I've got a business problem I need a solution today. I can't wait around and figure this out. Joe: Like that woman's account who was suspended. Steven: Exactly like that woman's account that was suspended. I offer ala carte services on my site for those that aren't ready to make a monthly commitment. Now, I prefer having monthly clients. It's an easier business model, don't get me wrong but we are going to serve wherever we can. We're going to add value where we can. We'll get our foot in the door. One of my largest clients; we did a one-hour coaching call and now they're my largest client. And it's because, from day one, we will teach and show and offer value and grow sales. That's what we do. Well, yeah, it's kind of fun doing a coaching call, you jump on, you're opening up a seller central account, I can draw on your screen. We can go in there and figure out hey, here's all the mistakes you're making, here's where you can best practice improve. We'll hand it all over. And if you don't want to do the work yourself, hire us. Joe: People, do it. I think that it's worth it even if you're just trying to learn something new and manage the business yourself. Go to YouTube, take a look at all of these three things. They give it all away. Normally, you're not ever going to hear me talking about an agency on the Quiet Light Brokerage podcast, we're here to help first and serve you first and in this way, I think we're doing that well. I think my initial conversations with Steven were me grilling him and seeing if my bullshit meter went up and it really didn't at all. So he's a straight sharer. He's helping first. He's educating, sharing it all; he's giving it all. If you want to do it on your own go to his website. Go to the YouTube channel. If you want to have a coaching call, go to the coaching tab on his Web site and spend an hour working with him and learning. Your business is very likely your most valuable asset, you should be spending time on learning how to run it well, number one. But strategically self-serving; look, this is what we do, folks, if you're not understanding the value of your business, what are you doing? You're just driving revenue for what? To put more money into inventory? How much do you take out with 80% year over year growth? Not enough. You will probably make more money on the exit, times two or three than you make running the business on a daily basis. So if you work towards that, understand the value of your business, set an exit goal, and reverse engineer a path to it, even if it takes two, three, four years, you've heard us with those types of clients that we'd love to have on the podcast that have successfully sold their business for millions of dollars. You should do it as well. Go to My Amazon Guy. Check it out. Reach out to Steven and learn as much as you can to improve your own business. I think he's one of the handfuls of people in this space that I've trusted within five minutes of speaking to him. I think you should. Steven: Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it. Joe: My pleasure man, good to have you on. I'm looking forward to working with you in the future. Steven: That sounds like a plan.   Resources: My Amazon Guy My Amazon Guy YouTube Channel My Amazon Guy Podcast How to Appeal Account Suspensions Listing Reinstatements Marketplace Launch Assistance for Walmart, Ebay, and Etsy SEO Articles Advertising Articles Campaign Segmentation Articles Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down to talk about topics in the news including Mindmed’s phase one research into DMT, the intricacies of intravenous or infusion-pump administration, the potential clinical application of DMT, and whether or not mainstream science is ready to handle some transpersonal phenomena like entity encounters that sometimes occur during DMT experiences. They also discuss the projections for the psychedelic drug market and the intentions of the companies entering this space, and a recent tweet from the Drug Policy Alliance discussing how the war on drugs is a tool of racial oppression.  They dive deep into the war on drugs and racial oppression by discussing how sentencing for crack-cocaine is much harsher than cocaine (while basically the same drug), how NYC’s “stop-and-frisk” program was essentially put in place to put people in jail for cannabis possession, and how Breonna Taylor never would have died if police weren’t looking for drugs. They discuss the tragedy of Elijah McClain and what purpose a lot of police activity really serves, while looking at the “protect ourselves first” fraternity mentality that a lot of these power organizations have and how difficult it can be for a good person to become a whistleblower in those situations.  They also talk about revisiting philosophy through Lenny Gibson and how beneficial it has been to explore that world as more mature people and see connections to psychology, as well as learning the limitations of scientific explanations when dealing with deep, transpersonal experiences.Lastly, they mention their excitement in participating in the re-scheduled Philosophy of Psychedelics conference coming up next year in England. Notable quotes “I stopped doing research on near-death experiences at some point, where I was just like, ‘I’m sick of reading about [how] these are just physiological reflexes and responses within the brain, maybe the lack of oxygen, or all the different neurochemistry that’s going on within the brain at the time of dying…’ There’s something so interesting about that experience, that no matter how much mechanistic information I have, there’s still something there that eats at me… kind of like this lore… the lore of beauty and life kind of unfolding. It’s oriented towards growth and beauty, and I guess that’s what some of these experiences have really taught me- and it is that lore to grow, evolve, and move towards something. And I think when I try to put some sort of biological explanation to it, it almost halts that and says ‘that experience doesn’t really mean that much.’” -Kyle “Science has limited capacity to help people with meaning-making.” -Joe “Do we have enough spiritual literacy? Do we have an inclusive enough cosmology to handle all of these cases? ...Are psychologists willing to call in an exorcist of some kind? Or some sort of priest [who] can handle this kind of thing? …I tend to think shareholders might be a little creeped out if publicly traded companies are talking about spirits and entities. Are we ready for that?” -Joe “What does it mean that you have to put somebody in prison for 10 years for a non-violent offense, as a cop? Like, you pulled someone over, you found some drugs in their car, and now they go to prison. And their life is essentially ruined. And you made the decision to become a police officer and uphold laws. Like, can you sit with that and be ok with that, as an individual? Why do you think drugs are so bad that locking another person up in a cage for years and years and years is ok? …[They say], ’because they have meth or fentanyl, they are the most dangerous people out there!’ What about the rapists and murderers? What about drunk drivers that could kill 20 kids in one night? Why are you spending time on drug offenses when there are rapists out there? There are tons of untested rape kids at all these police departments across the country.”- Joe Links NeonMind Files Patent Application for Therapeutic Use of DMT Philosophy of Psychedelics conference MindMed investigating potential benefits of DMT in upcoming Phase 1 clinical trial collaboration Psychedelic Drugs Market Projected to Reach $6.85 Billion by 2027 Drug Policy Alliance's tweet about the drug war Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies Jon Krakauer's "Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town" 2 Million People Want Justice For Elijah McClain And His Story Is Gut-Wrenching Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

On this episode of Quiet Light, we talk with Joe and Mike Brusca. We discuss Ecommerce and how they built an Amazon publishing business. It's a really interesting look at one Ecommerce business model and how it works. Tune in to hear us discuss the right and wrong way to drive traffic and why their business is such a success. Topics: How they got their start during the “wild west” period of Ecommerce. How to structure your business when you get paid “per page reads”. The Right Way and The Wrong Way to drive traffic. Building an algorithm-proof business. The “right” types of books. Delayed profitability and building your back-catalogue. How Joe and Mike are planning their eventual exit. The four pillars of value. Transcription: Joe: One of the cool things about what we do, Mark, is that we're exposed to so many different business models. There are a million ways to make a living both on and offline. You can do all sorts of things offline, but online, it's not just writing content and producing affiliate revenues or building a brand and selling it on Shopify or e-commerce or building on a SaaS business. And we have the luxury and privilege of talking to so many people and learning what they do and how they do it and how they make money. There's not just one model for everyone. And you had Joe and Mike Brusca, is that how you pronounce the last name? Mark: I believe so. Joe: On building an Amazon publishing business to sell. And, I talked to somebody a year or so ago that did a similar thing and wanted to sell. And unfortunately, folks, he didn't have his numbers together. He didn't have any financials. He just had a lot of high-level details and it's not something we thought we could sell because we want to protect both the buyer and the seller. In this case, these guys were doing a very similar thing; building out a lot of content through actually having books published and earning revenue off of that. How did that call go? Mark: It was fascinating. I mean like you said, we get the chance to see different people's business models and look they made no allusions to anything other than the fact that they are looking to build this business and eventually sell it, which is where it became a really interesting conversation for me to have. There are so many different business models out there and we know most of them that exist, right? There's SaaS, there's content, there's drop shipping and e-commerce in general but what they've started is a publishing business and leveraging a different part of Amazon, which is really how Amazon got to start and that is their publishing and selling of books. We dug into what that business model looks like; how are they making money from selling Amazon Books and primarily, this is where their difference is, right? They're not just selling books for the face value of $10 to download this Kindle book but they're utilizing Kindle Free Time, which is an Amazon-specific program that's generating, frankly, quite a bit of money. In fact, they mentioned the best month so far is $25,000 in a single month of revenue for content that once it's built, it's built and it's ready to go and their back catalog perpetuates itself. Joe: That's called cash flow folks. If you're building a product business, you're constantly putting money in inventory as the business grows. That's a beautiful model. Mark: These guys are classic Internet entrepreneurs. They've sold a few dropship businesses in the past. They have some other e-commerce businesses that they're building to sell as well. So if anything else, this is just a fascinating conversation about building a business that maybe you don't know exists out there. I didn't really know much about this and I'll confess after this I spent about half an hour researching what the top books and the Kindle Free Time library are on Amazon just to see is this something that anybody can do. And I think it is something anybody can do but if you enjoy kind of digging into somebody's business models, these guys are incredibly open about what they're doing and how they're doing it. They do have a coaching program and that was one of the things that they wanted to come out for the podcast but there certainly wasn't a sales pitch for that. This is more just kind of exposing what they're doing. I asked them some tough questions as well, and I think they appreciated the fact that I didn't just throw softballs. I wanted to really challenge them a little bit on this concept and what they're doing and just interesting stuff. Joe: Yeah, I'm looking forward to listening to it. Before we go there, folks, this is part of what we do at Quiet Light. We try to bring interesting guests on to help you learn different business models and different ways to earn a living and build a better business. If you've got a story that you want to share where you think you can help the Quiet Light audience, remember reach out to myself or Mark. You can reach us at joe@quietlightbrokerage.com or mark@quietlightbrokerage.com and let us know what your story is that you want to share, how you can help folks, and possibly we'll be able to get you on the show as a guest. With that, let's go to the podcast. Mark: All right, guys, I'm excited to have two entrepreneurs on this week's podcast in a little bit of a different spin on online businesses; an area that I haven't explored very much but is growing very quickly. And I'm interested in, first of all, this business model in general because I see it as a potentially interesting opportunity, but also in maybe some applications that we can leverage this type of business for. But in order to do that, we kind of have to dig into what is this whole niche and this whole industry that's kind of springing up. And so with that in mind, I have Joe and Michael on the line here on the podcast. Guys, thanks for coming on, I really appreciate having you here. Why don't we just go ahead and if you could just introduce yourselves real quickly and let us know who you are? Joe: Cool. Thanks for having us, Mark. And we're Joe and Mike. We're brothers. Joe Brusca, Mike Brusca, and we're from BuildAssetsOnline.com. We've been doing online business since around 2014. It's kind of when we got started. We had regular jobs and all that, and then we ended up and somehow fell into building online businesses. And, one of the first online businesses that we ever did was publishing books on Amazon Kindle. And when we first started it, it was a bit of a Wild West situation where it was kind of new and Amazon didn't really have their stuff figured out yet and a lot of people were exploiting the systems and their platform wasn't really fully evolved but now it's turned into a really viable long term business model. And in these past few years, we've kind of put together a process that allows us to build and make royalties pretty much on autopilot. And we've seen in the past few years some of these Kindle businesses sell for over a million dollars. We haven't sold ours yet but, yeah we're going to talk about that because it really is a great business model; very, very easy to do, very straightforward, and once you get it going, very passive. Mark: All right so you guys are selling Kindle books. Is that correct? Mike: Yes. We're selling Kindle books and like Joe said, it kind of fits into anyone who has an online business portfolio. It is a really great option to have because it's probably one of the most passive models that there is where there is royalties and so it's definitely a unique form of diversification. We've sold drop shipping businesses, we've dabbled in affiliate websites and so we've kind of seen the entire breadth of online businesses that you can do and it's definitely one that we are putting extra energy into long-term. Mark: Now, I want to dig into this a bit more, because I'll be honest, when you guys first approached me about talking about this on the podcast and everything else I was like Kindle, okay, sounds fine, whatever, it doesn't really fit with what we normally talk here but then when you started to get into some of the details, it was interesting just as far as what you're doing, you're getting royalties for these books, but it's not necessarily you just going on Amazon, listing a book for sale, and then selling it because obviously, that would be; I know a lot of people who have had published books that went up on Amazon and didn't do much there. Maybe they've sold a few and everything, but nothing to write home about. You guys are now talking about selling this for millions of dollars so there's obviously a twist here. I'd love to dig in a little bit deeper here into this. What are you guys doing that might be different from the guy who signs up with XYZ Publishing Company and they add the Kindle book and then they might sell 100 or 500 copies of their e-book? Mike: The main difference is that we're creating our own publishing company and what we're selling is essentially publication company or that pen name. And so we're going out and we're making these books under specific pen names, and it's all with the purpose of generating an audience. So like you said, you can put a book out there on Kindle and nothing's going to happen. What you need to actually focus on is building that brand. And so that pen name becomes a brand just like any other Clorox or whatever brand you could think of that people buy in private equity. It's kind of the same thing. So you're creating these digital products under this pen name. You're developing an email list. You're developing an author website. You can even put your books on ACX, which is Amazon's that's how you get on audible, so it's an Amazon company. And so, you have the Kindle version, the paperback version, and the audiobook version. You're doing this with the whole purpose of generating just a big customer base and that is really where the asset lies. Mark: When you're putting these up for sale are you getting money from the direct purchase of these books; how are you generating revenue from these? Mike: So you get money from the direct purchase of the books. But Amazon also offers something really unique, and that's the Kindle Unlimited program. So there's a huge readership for fiction books and so Amazon wants to accommodate this. And so what they do is for $50 a month or whatever it is now, you can sign up to what's called Kindle Unlimited and you basically can read as many books as you want throughout the month. And so any book that's enrolled into the Kindle Unlimited program, you can download it for free. The way that the publisher gets paid through that is by the amount of pages that get read. And so doing fiction books it's even more advantageous because you can publish novel-length books or you've probably experienced with any show that you've watched once you start watching an episode, you're going to go back through the entire back catalog. And so that's what we're trying to capitalize on in order to get the most page reads. Mark: Okay, so the model here is Kindle Unlimited, you get paid per page read so, therefore, you're wanting to create content that is going to be an easy page-turner, as it were, right? I'm not going to publish some Academia throw it up on Kindle Unlimited and do very well with that sort of approach, right? Mike: Correct. And yeah if you're doing something maybe non-fiction or something more academic, it may serve you better just to have it as a straight purchase option. So, 9.99 or even though we sell books at 2.99 those books can actually still do really well as long as they're part of a bigger catalog because people will decide to buy that book. So we kind of employ that as a strategy. We mix, regular sales with Kindle Unlimited, but Kindle Unlimited still makes up probably 80% of the income. Mark: Okay. Now, you guys have built an entire business around this. I'd love to dig into a little bit longer. How long have you been doing this? Mike: So we started it back in 2015. Joe, did you want to say something there? Joe: No, I was going to say 2015, but it's evolved a lot over time like I was kind of alluding to earlier. And I think we only may have resumed it. We kind of took a little bit of a hiatus when we started getting into other online businesses. We're mainly working with building high ticket drop shipping stores and building affiliate sites and content sites. So we kind of took a little bit of a hiatus but then I think around two years ago is when we really got back into Kindle; when we kind of saw that Amazon was really improving the platform and there were there was actually a lot of potential to build a long term business on it because like I mentioned earlier, it is kind people have been publishing on Kindle for a long time but in our opinion two years ago, that was really when it became the most viable thing to do long term and that's when we kind of start seeing these types of businesses pop up for sale. Mark: Yeah. So you got started at 2015 so about five years ago, but really in earnest over the past two years and would have spent some of those iterations over the years with the things that you've had to do to adjust to make this into an actual business. Joe: So I do want to clarify that over that kind of three-year hiatus of not doing a lot of publishing, we were still actually making money. So we're talking no hours a month into this business and it was still bringing in, probably a five-figure outcome each year. So, again, it's really something that's super passive, especially once you do it right. But we were doing things that; basically Amazon has an algorithm and so when you put out a book, you want to get us as high in the algorithm as possible. You want to get that best-selling status or you want to do something to have people on Amazon find you. And so that was kind of the intention in the beginning. It was more focused on like you said you're storing the books on Amazon and seeing what would happen. And so that's kind of how we started out doing it. We weren't doing any of this actual brand building or email list-focused marketing and stuff that. And like Joe said Amazon was kind of like the Wild Wild West, there weren't a lot of rules in place, people were kind of exploiting those rules. And then Amazon began to crack down on that in 2016 and they're always kind of tweaking the algorithm and trying to make things more of a level playing field and just encourage certain behaviors. So over time, the trend has really gone in the direction of having your own external traffic source that you can drive to Amazon and so they reward you for that. And your reward is increased exposure on Amazon so you get that internal traffic. But. If you're actually getting good books and you're focusing on building a brand, these people will come off of Amazon onto your list, and the cycle kind of repeats itself. Mark: All right. So I'm getting the general idea for it. You've got into a little bit as far as if you do things right, which is a loaded phrase; I mean you guys have doing this now for five years and if you do things right is the result of a five-year process of tweaking and figuring things out. Let's first start though with doing things wrong where it is just throwing it up on Amazon and hoping and praying which is no different than selling a product on Amazon. You throw something up on Amazon hope and pray, you're not going to have much success. You need to have a plan. So what are some of the wrong approaches and then what are some of the right approaches on starting up a Kindle business that can be a sellable asset in the future? Joe: Well, when we first started doing it. Yeah, like you said we were just throwing books on Amazon but the thing is we weren't really writing the type of books that we're writing now. So when I say writing, I mean publishing, because we don't actually write the books. But yeah, it was more about just; back then, Amazon's algorithm really rewarded more so than it does now things that were new. So if you put a new book up with the right keywords, even though it was a short book, as long as it was keyworded right it would show up in the right categories but now it's not really like that. So when we say the right way and the wrong way, that's pretty much the wrong way because it doesn't really work anymore. But it did work at a time and you can kind of see this and it makes sense from Amazon's perspective, is that they want that external traffic. I mean, they're always trying to drive people to Amazon and that's what they reward now. So the wrong way to do is it's at a different time and just taking advantage of how the algorithm was back then. But I don't really see it going back to that direction because like Mike said, it's been moving in the direction that we're talking about now, which is the right way for some time now. Mark: Okay, go ahead, Mike. Mike: Yeah. If I could just add one thing, really, what we've, kind of waited all those years to serve and hone in on now in terms of doing things the right way, is building the business back up in a way that's algorithm proof so that if we're throwing all these books on Amazon and they change something it doesn't completely destroy our business. So now when you have your own readership off of Amazon, it's kind of a win-win relationship for both platforms; good books, people enjoy reading them so they come kind of into your sphere but you give that back to Amazon and they reward you. Mark: Right. Yeah, I mean, it's no big shocker that Amazon likes it when you send traffic over to them. I mean, that's kind of a rule of Amazon, you want to play well with them, send them traffic. So let's actually dissect some of this here. And you talked about the right type of books, the wrong type of books, and then we've also talked about building traffic, and we've also talked about publishing these books. So there are three loaded questions in here which is what are the right type of books number one, and what are the wrong type of books and then second of all would be okay, drive traffic; how? What does that look like? Build a brand is easier to say, it's three words, doing that is no easy task. Building up a following of people is always difficult. And then the third question is writing these things; how do you get them written? So these are all big topics and I don't want to throw them all at you at once so let's go ahead and start with that first one. What are the right type of books, what are the wrong type of books, and what are the books that you just have no idea if it's right or wrong? Mike: Yeah, and to be clear, we hate platitude as well so I don't want to just linger there. So the right types of books would be; like I was saying before you get paid based on page reads. Back in the day, people used to just draw up short books just to kind of; you're kind of throwing as many pieces of bait out there, seeing if one rises to the top and then just kind of going from there. Now we publish books that are usually 30,000 words in length at least so that would be considered novel-length. People would go all the way up to 80,000 words and more and so we say that the right type of book has to be a length that readers can enjoy nut it also has to be a book that is written towards what the market is already demanding. And so what does that mean again? You actually need to do your research and go on Amazon and see; you'd have a very, very keen eye as to the trends that are going on; what types of covers are there, are there any similarities in the covers, any similarities in the titles, going through some of the content of the books? You're trying to pinpoint what it is that readers actually enjoy. And so by doing that, you're more likely to get better conversions, more read-throughs, more people actually subscribing to your email list, and that's what we mean by the right book. And so then you're talking about driving traffic. So it's like we said when people find you and they enjoy your books you can get them off Amazon by giving them say like a free book if they subscribe to your list. And so now you build up a readership. And there's also a lot of other websites where you go and collaborate with other authors and kind of do list swaps. So you're building yourself up that way and so external traffic with Kindle is always about the list. But also, you can take that and say even put it onto Facebook by doing something like a look-a-like audience and now you can kind of ramp up more traffic to Amazon. And a lot of times you do it with the purpose of, again, giving them more referral traffic so they can boost you higher in the algorithm. Yeah, there's other ways to capitalize on it as well by making your own publishing website or you're own author website doing things like blogging there to get traffic. And now, again, you have that audience pixeled, you can use them to drive traffic to Amazon. Mark: Right. Okay, so from your guys perspective and I'm not going to ask you to open up all the doors of your P&Ls historically here but when we're talking about building a network and building a brand and everything, there's a lot of expenses associated with this. So you talked a little bit about the passive revenue, which is great, people love passive revenue. But what goes on behind the scenes? I looked at ads and sites before where somebody fills up an ad on-site and they're like look at this thing it's generating $10,000 a month in passive income. But what they didn't show you is the $150,000 they spent on content and link building over the past year. And so you're like, okay, you're just getting started now you sure hope that that lasts for you. You guys seem to have the sort of cost of authors which we need to talk about at some point; how do you find the writers and how do they get compensated and then also building up this audience? Well, what does this look like from an expense standpoint compared to what you get from Amazon? I would assume profitable otherwise you wouldn't be talking about this but what are we looking at here? Mike: Well, I would say there's really two paths you can go down. So we talked about you can use Facebook and drive traffic that way and that would be more of a kind of accelerated approach to trying to get quicker earnings on Amazon. Or you can do more of a slow and steady approach, which is kind of what we do with a little bit of Facebook ads. So what this means is just consistent but relatively low cost. Just say okay, I'm going to invest in a book a month and if you're just consistent with that, say it costs you 500 to 800 bucks a month for all your expenses, your book cover, editing, whatever. Obviously, when you put that first book out, you're not going to be profitable immediately. You have to also do some list building expenses, maybe. But over time, over the course of a few months, you start to build up quickly. Okay, now I'm making $20 a day, now I'm making $30 a day. And so it's really a snowball effect as you build up that back catalog, as you gain more followers. And so now once you have a bigger following, you put a book out and then you get a return on that book pretty quickly. Joe: It's nothing like you illustrated with that ad sense example. So, again, I don't really have the numbers in front of me, but I can give you a rough estimate. So I think it was a few months ago when we usually make between; so there's a few months ago where we made over $26,000 in royalties and we probably got one book published that month where we spent the $500 to $800 and we probably spent 3,000 or 4,000 in Facebook ads that month. That's a rough estimate of what you would see typically. But again, it varies because sometimes you're not always heavily promoting on Facebook. Depending on what month it is, maybe you put out two books but we tend to put out one book a month. But, yeah, that's generally what it looks like for us now. When you're getting started, it's obviously going to be slower. But I've made affiliate sites and I made sites that rely on SEO and link building and the expenses are nowhere near that, not even in the same ballpark. Mark: Okay, you guys lost me a little bit here. $500 to $800, write a 30,000 plus word book, I mean, I pay $500 for a single blog post on our site. So let's talk a little about sourcing authors, I know you guys are in the fiction space here, are fiction writers that much more willing to write for $800 or $500 or what's going on behind the scenes there? Mike: Yeah. So it's definitely a bit of a different market than getting a blog post written or even a nonfiction book because there's really no research involved. It's just kind of a creative process. So comparing it at a cent per word basis, it's going to be a lot lower. And there are people that invest more into that, there are people that invest less. But what we found is honestly as long as the books are good then people will read them, the audience response to them well. We've kind of gotten to a nice, sweet spot there where you can invest more and maybe that has a better return; I don't know, we haven't really experimented too much but yeah, that's really you can certainly go on Upwork or even Craigslist we found writers or you could probably go on Indeed and find writers. But it's not an uncommon rate to spend say two cents a word or even less on a fiction book. Joe: To write a blog post for your company, Mark, I mean that's a lot more expertise required than writing a fiction book for sure. And fiction writers, think about it in terms of rarity; how many people love reading fiction, love writing fiction compared to how many people have any sort of knowledge about online business. I mean, the supply and demand there is just totally, totally different. Mark: Do you guys read the books that you publish? Mike: In the beginning, I did. I was kind of bootstrapping it but these days no, we just kind of; I mean, I'll read samples like if I'm hiring someone new just so I can evaluate if they're actually good at writing. But no, it's just they send it in, it goes to the editor, get the cover design, put it together, send it out. And so if there was any real issues we also have an advanced reader team so they get the book as well to write reviews because Amazon actually does allow you to give away your book for reviews. Right now at 2020 in May they allow it. And that is because it's a very common practice in fiction. You give people the book early to let you know how it is. You can't do that with a physical product. So it actually allows you; it's much easier to develop that social proof and you also are not giving away all of your 20, hundred thousand units to get reviews back like with FBA. Mark: Right, because it's a virtual product at the end of the day. I want to backtrack a little bit because I've had this nagging question my head. You talked about the number of page reads, they pay on the number of pages read, they're not looking at the furthest amount that you've gone in the book but actual time spent on each page is that right? Do you know? Mike: I don't know their exact process, but I would say it's kind of a combination of both. I mean, there's probably a number of time that they spend on a page for it to count and then it would be the amount of pages that they actually read for that number of seconds. Mark: Yeah, because my shortcut got to cheat the system mind was thinking, oh man, what you did to choose your own adventure, you could get them to go all over the book and… Joe: Do you remember when I was talking about the Wild Wild West? Mark: Yeah. Joe: I mean that's the kind of stuff that was going on. So they've spent a lot of time on perfecting and tweaking that algorithm. Mark: You're telling me that Amazon is smarter than me. Joe: Well, I'm just saying you were… Mike: Maybe they were not really paying attention and what people were doing was; so they actually have a cap now on how long the book can technically be. So even if a book is 100,000 pages Amazon will only count it up to 3,000 pages. So what people were doing was they're really abusing the system, they will just fill these books with just the most random things and they would have these books that were so long and then they would have something like to win a free prize just click to the back and then boom, they would make 150 bucks. Mark: Right. Mike: That was part of the reason… Joe: I got a lot of trouble for that. Mike: Yeah. That was part of the reason why we walked away from it actually was because it was almost like if you think about professional sports, everyone is taking steroids so in order to even compete because page reads wards you in the algorithm so you'd have these random books in the best-selling things; this is way back in the day so we never did anything crazy like that but it just seemed too; it was between doing stuff like that or not doing stuff like that and we did it. We always thought it was risky to go crazy abusing the system like that so that was one of the reasons why we kind of took a little bit of a hiatus until things evened out. Mark: Right. Okay, well before listeners wonder how far off track we're going to go from our core type of topics here, this is fascinating, I could talk about this all day. I think this is interesting. You guys are building this publishing business with an eye towards someday potentially exiting as well. I'd like to get into some of the things that you guys are doing internally to maybe plan for that. What discussions have you had internally about that? And I'm hitting you out of left field on this. We didn't prep for this before the call so understandably if you don't have ready-made answers, that's fine but have you guys discussed buildings up for sale and what sort of things have you done to maybe have an eye towards that potential exit someday? Mike: So really, the main thing that we've done to kind of have it focused on exit is to focus on having that separate publishing site. So that way we're really establishing ourselves as a brand. We're not just getting income just from these royalties. We actually get affiliate commissions. We have visitors that come to the website and then buy the books. And so, yeah, it's kind of we focused on what can we do off of Amazon like we kind of touched upon it's good to do that for the algorithm and just for your own sake but it actually does help kind of diversify what we're doing and make things a lot better when it comes down to selling it. I don't know if you have any insight there. Mark: So we have a very simple framework that we call the four pillars of value; it's the risk of your business, the growth potential, the transferability, and the documentation. So building up a brand is key; it helps protect against the risk and it's also aiding towards the transferability of the business, which is something that we would definitely encourage. Joe, were you going to say something on top of that? Joe: Yeah, I was going to say as far as the documentation goes, because I feel maybe that's what you're asking. Maybe I'm wrong, but the documentation is not really complex at all. If we were to put together something for someone that we're handing off the business to we would probably just give them; we have like an education course on this subject, but we would just give them that. But it's really just not complicated at all. It's not like handing off an e-commerce store to someone or even an Amazon affiliate site to someone that knows nothing about SEO or WordPress or something like that. When I say it's simpler, it's much, much simpler. Mark: Right. Yeah, absolutely. It reminds me a lot of the ads on publishing days, but through a more established platform of Amazon and utilizing that program. It isn't known much is my guess. Have you guys looked into; I know you're working mainly in the fiction field, have you played around in nonfiction? Because when we first talked about this, my head sort of went to what if we were to leverage this along with our existing business and add it as a revenue stream there? Your paid on a number of pages read, I'm not sure if you can create cliffhangers at the end of a chapter of a business book so much like is this P&L going to get murdered in the next chapter? I don't know. We'll see. What have you guys done, if anything, in that realm of nonfiction books or have you played with it at all and have you thought about using it with an existing business; you have drop shipping businesses on what you're your drop shipping but is there a potential play there, in your opinion? Joe: Well, we have done nonfiction before. When I first started publishing kind of similar books online, it wasn't Kindle, it was Create Space and it eventually merged, and Create Space became Kindle Paperback or whatever they call it. But at that time, I first started doing coloring books and we've done puzzle books and stuff like that. So I think that would be also classified as non-fiction. So I think there definitely is a play there to do that kind of stuff. And again, because that's something you can also build a brand around in the paperback space and you wouldn't approach it the same like we're talking about now with the page read and stuff like that. You'll have to put every book on Kindle Unlimited. It just really depends on the sector of books that you're going after. But as far as what you're saying I think it really is more of a; I guess any book on Amazon would probably be more B2C stuff. I can't imagine a B2B play in this area. There are people that sell non-fiction B2B stuff, but I don't know if it would be a great use of time for a company  yours, for example. I don't know. I don't really think so. Mike: What I would say is I wouldn't recommend doing that for the purpose of making money on Kindle. But the point is that by publishing a Kindle book, you're tapping into that audience and you're tapping into the organic traffic already on Kindle. So you're not going to make your money on page reads and you probably shouldn't be focused on making your money on sales either. What you should be focused on is putting up a good book that way it's almost like lead generation; the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, I believe, think about how many millions of dollars off of Amazon that probably makes him just by building up his name because it's been an Amazon bestseller for who knows how long. So, yeah, when you're doing a non-fiction book on Amazon for business or for something like that you need to keep in mind kind of the back end funnel and it should be more of a complement to your business rather than the business itself. Mark: Right. Absolutely. And that's kind of what I'm getting at, right? I mean, any sort of content marketing play, in general, is just that, right? We bring a lot of content on the Quiet Light Brokerage blog, we have a podcast, I don't sell advertisements on the podcast even though we have a decent listenership. I don't sell ads on or put ads on the blog or ad thrive or anything like that because that's not the main goal. The goal is to build that audience. Although, if there was a way like with Kindle Unlimited it seems kind of a nice backdoor to make a little bit of money, I just don't know what the payouts are on that. How many books do you think you need out of a portfolio to be able to turn decent amounts of money; more than just 30 bucks a day or so? I can't imagine one book unless it's top of Amazon is going to turn in that much money on Kindle Unlimited, I would imagine you need to have a portfolio of books. Mike: Yeah. And I'd say we were kind of familiar with how to do things already because we were doing them in 2015 so we were able to start profiting really within a couple of months. And it does build but it's a lot easier to scale as well because if you're publishing one book a month and you want to do better, publish two books a month. So, yeah, it's hard to say how much you're going to make because it comes down to the execution of it. If you have a really good book that just takes off in the algorithm, if you do the Facebook ads right, and you can really have a pick-up steam then you can make a lot of more money off one book. And it also obviously depends on the length of it as well; so the term how much one customer can kind of give you off that one book. But, yeah, you'd be surprised honestly. Some books can take off and really, really do well. We've only been doing this kind of new way for two years I guess this month and we've really seen it grow quickly and it grows exponentially. Mark: Interesting. Joe: Yeah, and keep in mind that getting into the Kindle top 100 of all the Kindle store, which we have done; getting into top 100 is way different than getting into the top 1000. The top 1000 is still really good but once you break into the top 100, it just; like Mike said, the book would just take off in terms of page reads and everything. So that's something else to consider, is that you have the slow and steady approach and maybe you never have anything that breaks in the top 100 but with the slow and steady approach as that back catalog builds, it doesn't matter. So that is there is a variable there if the book takes off or not. Now, I think if you do it correctly, every book should do decent but like I said, top 1000, top 100, totally different ball games. Mark: Joe, I asked you this when we talked a week ago or so, why share this information? I'm loving the discussion. I'm super entertained. Hopefully, people listening are entertained as well. What are you guys sharing this information for? It seems like you guys would want to be just kind of be like hey, don't come in here. Don't do it. I don't want to compete against you. Joe: Well, actually to be fully transparent we do sell a course on how to start a Kindle publishing business; Passive Publishing Profits. You check it at BuildAssetsOnline.com. But the other thing is the reason why we started doing education in the first place is the guy that told us to do it, he basically said it's a great way to leverage your success. And we have a lot of different online businesses like we've talked about but the thing is, is we might not want to grow these businesses into billion-dollar companies because we enjoy the lifestyle. Me and Mike, we just work from home and we think that the courses are not so much a detriment, but a great compliment as well; teaching other people and getting paid for that. But you also have to keep in mind that especially with Kindle, we encourage our students that you're not competing against one another, because like Mike mentioned earlier, there's this factor of swaps and things like that. So these people who read fiction books, they are really, really avid readers and so if you're partnering with other publishers like we encourage and like we do in our community, it's a win-win for everyone. There's no doubt about that. And taking that back to even selling education products in general, I mean, it's been an amazing experience for us. I'm sure we've generated some competition for ourselves in some way but I think the amount of partnership we've made and things like that far, far outweigh the cons there. Mark: Yeah, fascinating. Well, I'm always a fan of transparency. I mean, that's the only way to do business and I appreciate that as well and it's linked to really fascinating stuff. Guys, I know we're up against the clock here. I've been talking for about 40 minutes; just a little bit more on that so is there anything else that you would like to cut around the discussion with anything that we didn't cover that you're like man, why hasn't he asked this question? Joe: I don't feel that way. I think you did a good job of really trying to hammer in and have us explain ourselves. Mark: Hey that definitely makes you my favorite guests. You said I did a great job. Joe: Well, not every show does that, to be honest with you. I mean sometimes; I guess we feel leaving a little bit empty because we didn't get asked the deep questions that force us to be on our toes. I definitely got that with this one. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. Well, guys, I appreciate you reaching out. I appreciate you coming on here; really interesting stuff. I'd be lying if I said I'm not going to go on Amazon and take a look at the top 100 on Kindle and see what type of books are there. And there's no time for me to jump on another project but that doesn't mean that my entrepreneurial wandering eye isn't going to spend a little bit time looking at that. So I appreciate you guys coming on. I really enjoyed the conversation. Mike & Joe: Thank you, Mark.  Resources: Joe and Mike's Website Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com

Richard Maxwell has created and runs one of the most unique and inspiring creative musical arts and sciences program in the nation. For me, it reminds me of the entry level sound recording program I went through in college, only Richard's students get into the creative process early because of what he had the guts to create. This program happens in an area of the school campus where they have their own section of rooms that is their facility. It's made up of a larger classroom if you will that doubles as a performance room plus they have 15 Pro Tools stations and Pro Tools running in their A and B recording studios. They learn how to be expressive without fear of judgement, they write songs, they mutually assist and critique each others work in a helpful, loving way and it's magical to see what happens on a daily basis. Richard is a loving, caring person who, by his own efforts and fortitude, has created a platform where he can give the students, his very best in regards to guidance, ideas and processes.If you love music, talking about music, the process of making music, what music looks like in today's world, interested in how music could be handled in schools or always wondered how a single person can make a huge change in our education system, these episodes split into Part 1 and Part 2, are for you! Enjoy, share and spread the musical love. ********** Richard Maxwell's Links: Richard's Website: https://sites.google.com/view/richardmaxwell CMAS Program: https://sites.google.com/view/arcadiacmas YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RichardMaxwellMusic/videos Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.maxwell.3538 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rchrdmxwll/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/rchrdmxwll LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-maxwell-235ab513/ https://youtu.be/wtg_TV3j_wA ********** Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass ********** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#thejoecostelloshow Subscribe, Rate & Review:I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to https://joecostelloglobal.com/#thejoecostelloshow Follow Joe: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcostelloglobal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcostelloglobal/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jcostelloglobal/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUZsrJsf8-1dS6ddAa9Sr1Q?view_as=subscriber Transcript Part 1 – Richard Maxwell Interview: Richard: Basically on a whim. A weird situation develops. And I get a phone call from the then band teacher of all things at Arcadia. This is the late 90s, I'm giving away my age a little bit, I suppose, but we didn't know each other directly, but he had also gone to U of A at one point. And we've heard of each other and for a variety reasons, it just wasn't happy in Tucson. And he says, "Hey, I have a situation, would you be interested in moving up to teach here at Arcadia? [Richard] "Sure!" [He says] "You want to know what the gig is?" [Richard] "Not really" So we're three weeks into the school year at this point. So I come up and I spent a day with him at the school getting a sense for what it is and I walk away thinking, ok, this could be kind of cool. I want the orchestra too. Because that's where my love was, so, I, I meet the principal, great guy, Jim Lee. And he hires me and in the conversation I said, "Look, I'm so excited for it," it's like a first real, it's a big gig for me, it's a huge thing. And it's I'm going to, you know, bigger city, better music town, I'm thinking all these different things, but I tell him, like, "I know the orchestra teachers a couple years from retiring, I want writer first refusal." And he's, you know, whatever, but he, he agrees, thinking probably I'll forget and I can remember a long interview process, with parents and everybody else. Basically what happens is, is after my first year, a couple of things happened that kind of get things a little weird. So I'm still trying to do my own thing in the world of regular music but I don't know enough about the Phoenix music scene at the time I was trying to hold down this job, that is awesome but kind of beaten me up just because I'm new at it. So I make a whole bunch of changes, you know, he had a very, very big jazz program, which is awesome! I love jazz, but as a director, which I don't like the word director, if it makes me feel like a traffic cop, if I can still want to Greg's themes, but I didn't that wasn't where I wanted to be. So I morphed into more like wind ensembles and we ended some pretty heavy stuff. And there's a bit of a love hate with it, but you can see like the level of musicianship. And I'm like everybody who's gonna read notes, like we're not playing games with this, lot of wrote stuff, a lot of, you know, play it based on your, you know, improvising skills, which is fine and you need to do that as well. But I had a certain level standards and I was still pretty, pretty much full of my own brilliance at that point. I mean, let's not kid ourselves. Joe: And this Richard: And Joe: Was just band at this point. Richard: Was that Joe: Was this just Richard: This Joe: Band Richard: Is band Joe: At Richard: This Joe: This Richard: Is that Joe: Point? Richard: First Joe: Ok. Richard: Year. Joe: Ok. Richard: So the second year, two things happen. One is Jim, I guess, decides the principle that I must not have completely destroyed things. And he comes to me and says, "Look, we have this opportunity to expand your contract. We don't have a choir teacher anymore. Can you take over the choir?" I very foolishly said Joe: Well. Richard: "Yes!" It was bad idea, it  was a bad idea for the kids. It was bad idea for I mean, it was just bad. It was. It was. It was. It was well-intentioned... if had that opportunity now, because I do a lot of stuff with a lot of vocalists now, now I could do it and do it comfortably and make that experience significant in a way for those kids that they would be glad, I think that they had it, not then! Oh, my gosh, not even not, I mean, like, literally, I want you to imagine the worst possible experience for those students and then be grateful if they would have had even half of that level of a caliber of experience. I mean, it was, it was, it was horrible. But the other thing he asks me to do is take over the guitar class slash club. Because Joe: Interesting. Richard: He knows that I gig a little bad and I do the singer-songwriter thing a little bit and the studio stuff a little bit, he knows I have these other interests, but he doesn't really know to what extent. And you know, I'm not responsible basically anybody but myself in terms of my time at that point. I don't have any real you know, why not? And it's money and and it's a gig and I like the school and I like the people there and I like the community and da a da a da. So "Sure, why not?" So I take on this whole thing and basically what happens is, things start to build and eventually you wind up with, you know, I have two full symphony orchestras, winds, strings, percussion, all in the same rehearsal hall every day, all year round. We're still doing a marching band, while my version of marching band, which I have been justifiably criticized many times, I'm not a marching band guy, I'm a, I mean, I love the art of it. But I was I like, you know, one year we wrote our own show, the kids and you know, one year, you know, we were doing crazy, we were, it was just nuts, it was you know, they wanted to do rock shows the last two years. And I was kind of moving away from that because I you know, you just you know what you know and you know what you are Joe: Yep, Richard: Or what you're not. Joe: Yep. Richard: So I was like, okay, we'll do rock shows, but if we're going to do rock shows, you don't need a conductor, that's where literally we're wasting a ah resource, right? So, so we had a drum line, our drum line became our click track, screwed up everything in our scores because you didn't get a caption award and you didn't get points, they deducted points for not having a drum major. Joe: WOW! Richard: So it killed our scores. But musically, I think those kids benefited from that. Because that sense of internal clock and time and how you synchronize and what that does to intonation and every other musical element you can think of. I mean, all the things that you as a very seasoned studio player, let alone all your live work when you're sitting there in the control room, listening to playback on that and you're going, you know, because somebody can't...you know, Joe: Yeah, Richard: I know, you know, but Joe: Sometimes Richard: But Joe: It's me, Richard: well... Joe: So I do know. Richard: I doubt it. No, seriously. But my point is, is that, that, that was sort of where things started to change up a little bit. The guitar program is growing crazy. Some Joe: Still Richard: In Joe: To Richard: Some Joe: This Richard: Ways Joe: Day, Richard: Because it Joe: Are then. Richard: This is then Joe: Then Richard: This is Joe: Ok. Richard: Then. So we've got the orchestra building. We've got you know, there's Joe: A Richard: Now there's Joe: Wind Richard: Piano, Joe: Dancer. Richard: There's, you know, everything's building up and we've got songwriting I introduce because for me I've always been kind of a cool you play an instrument, what can you make with it. Well but it's the clarinet. I don't care, what can you make with it? You know, I don't, it doesn't matter to me. So guitar to me, you know, the first year or two was very much about just technique and then I got very much in to, I don't, I don't care about this technique. Let's write songs, let's make music. And it just so it seems kind of going and going, going and eventually it just, the circumstances are such, that there's basically too much to do for one person or even two people. My oldest son, who came in a minute ago, was born without going too far, but he was born 10 weeks early. And he's obviously, you saw he's fine. But at the time and I'm like, I need a change. I've been at Arcadia at that point for nine years. Joe: You Richard: There Joe: Basically Richard: Is a point. Joe: Have said yes to every single thing they've asked you to do. Richard: Well, Joe: Ok. Richard: But I've also enjoyed the challenge. I mean Joe: Right. Richard: I mean, the truth is, is I enjoy the challenge. I'll tell you, this is heading to something that you're probably going to go either think, WOW!, that's really cool or are you out of your mind or possibly both. But in any case, we, you know, there's an opportunity, that our principal has changed, and we have Anne-Marie Woolsey, Dr. Woolsey is there. And I start talking about this idea. And the idea is why, I'm starting to really and maybe it's just because of my own state of mind, but we're doing all these things with, you know, we have what we call the songwriters and we have the more traditional ensembles, it's not CMAS yet, but it's in its early stages of existing. And I'm actually still, I have I have a couple of now what I would say close friends that are graduates from that time who are incredibly supportive people you might even talk to, you just like, like I'm like, so I'll just, local guys like Thomas Brennaman and Alex Fry and Zach Tonkin and there's a ton of them, there's a ton, Ed Bakerman, Addie. She's still gigging all the time all over the country, she's brilliant. I mean, there's, there's, there's a ton of these people, but Joe: And Richard: They're Joe: This Richard: On one Joe: Is late, Richard: Side of. Joe: This is late. Richard: This is this is still within those nine years. Joe: Right. So this would be since you started there. Richard: This is like 08, 07, 08 kind Joe: Right. Richard: Of thing. Joe: Right. OK. Richard: And I am starting to get and it's just kind of I think it's a culmination of things. Most music teachers at a school are, you know, the average is less than five years, I'm at nine, which isn't like good or bad, it just kind of is what it is. But I'm also really struggling. I realize now in retrospect with this dual musical experience, because you know, this is at a time where these devices are starting to come of age, streaming is starting to become a thing and on and on. And you, I just, other people have phrased it so much better than I have but just this idea that the kids, it's done in their rehearsal and they explore all this music, but then as soon as the rehearsals over, they're going home and what are they listening to? Everything but what they're rehearsing. Joe: Right. Richard: And I understand the argument of well, but that's why you need to have those ensembles and do, and I don't think that's necessarily wrong. But fundamentally, there's something missing, if you are, if you, if the real world has one opportunity and the educational world has one that is completely diametrically opposed to that. And we're talking about something that ultimately comes down to a cultural element, a tell your story, if you will, element, which is what I think all art really comes down to. And that's being effectively either ignored or dismissed or in many cases, I would say, mutated into something that basically makes somebody feel, makes a student feel like somehow their musical instincts are either, I don't know, at best immature. But, you know, you talk about a terrible amount of disenfranchisement and disenfranchisement, you're talking about a terrible amount of just not, they think, they feel like it's not legit, like they're not legitimate somehow, that's their choice, you Joe: Right. Richard: Know, or we don't do that here, kid, that kind of thing. Joe: There's a misalignment. Richard: Yeah, and Joe: It's Richard: It doesn't Joe: Just weird. Richard: Mean anything if you walk the logic through, it doesn't make any sense. And yet, it is still essentially perpetrated across the world and a lot of ways, and I just was like, got to do something, now I, you could argue I went too far to the extreme and I regret but, you know, for all the things we've accomplished and all the things that we've done and, you know, the program is basically now I said, okay, look, I've got all these songwriters, we've got this, this is what I've become kind of like an industry history class. We've got the guitar players. You know, we had the pianist. We've got, we, we have this contemporary thing happening anyway. So I went to the principal and I basically said, "Can I just walk away from the band and orchestra part?" It's become, you know, "It's just not me anymore the way we'd like it to be," the politics with the parents and everything else is getting sick, I was just tired Joe: Yes. Richard: Of it. I don't do well with it anyway. That's why, I just, I'm just, I'm very confrontation adverse. It's just, just naturally. And then you get into like high school band and orchestra parent land, with all due respect and it just wasn't, it wasn't gonna be, I wasn't gonna last long without losing my mind. Plus again, Grayson, ten weeks early. So I held on for one more year and I remember very clearly that last concert we did, you know, the good, the farewell symphony, the Haydn at the, as the last piece. And I remember choreographing it and nobody knew about what I was doing, except for my very good friend, who's still my good friend, the theater teacher who was running the lights for us in the on the stage and the head of the school security who's still there, Jeri Eshelman. I told the two of them what I was gonna do, and that was it. Go through the whole concert, do the whole senior recognition thing, the whole thank you's and all of it and then we do, traditionally, we would do one last song. We do the one last song which the farewell symphony, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with, but literally the way Haydn wrote it was that as it's ending, the players get up and leave the stage until eventually Joe: Right. Richard: Not Joe: Right. Richard: Even the conductor is there and it's just I believe it's just the single first violinist if I remember right. So we did that and I added one element. I walked off the stage and very quietly walked out the stage door to my car and went home. Joe: Of course you did. Richard: I just left. It's kind of rude, I suppose. Joe: It's awesome! Richard: But, but, but it is. Joe: And you're still there Richard: Yes. Joe: And you're still employed by that school. Richard: I am, I am, but doing something very different. And it has been, I mean, you know, we could have an entire series of podcasts on the politics of what has gone on. Joe: Oh, Richard: It has Joe: I Richard: Been. Joe: Can Richard: It's Joe: Only imagine. Richard: It's been. I used to get really angry about it. I still am frustrated by it at times. But now I'm more like, I don't, I'm almost more entertained. Because there are too many people now that like yourself who are seasoned industry professionals or their education professionals, who see the concept of what what we've built there and very specifically say that concept is important and vital and necessary so that, you know, you get enough music education, professors and universities and like I said, actual, real in the industry, people saying this is what should happen. And all the arguments become a little bit silly after a while. So now Joe: Yup. Richard: I'm just kind of like, really? You want to line up, you know, your cynical view against of, forget me, you're going to tell all these other people they're wrong!? Joe: Yeah. Richard: WOW! Even in my most arrogant, I wasn't going to do that. So it is what it is. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, it has evolved a lot. I mean, you know, if you look at the setup and even now, I mean, obviously with the closure, Joe: But Richard: Things are different. Joe: Wait, Richard: But. Joe: Before you get past this, so you, you, you state you said you were gonna do one more year. Richard: This is the end of that year. Joe: Ok. Richard: So this is the end of that year. So I basically, you know, and, you know, I made several mistakes, big ones! One of them was, the then head of the district's fine arts and I've talked to Anne Marie since about this and she agrees that she should never have agreed to this. Basically said, ok, we'll support you doing this, but you have to stay away from your old program because you're still going to be on campus and the new teacher needs the opportunity, because, because that kind of community of students is it's a, it's a very family kind of thing. Well, what happened is it became very confrontational between the two programs. My new program is the new "IT." The new teacher is struggling for a lot of different reasons. Put in a situation that she cannot possibly succeed in. You know, imagine being a young teacher and they give you a class of band, a class of orchestra that they've separated now, you have a percussion ensemble, you have a piano class, I think she had a computer class, I mean, it was literally like we're giving you all of the leftovers. It was Joe: Yes. Richard: It was a terrible gig. Nobody is going to do well in that situation under any circumstances, period. It's just. Joe: Right. Richard: A nightmare scenario. But what winds up happening is it creates a lot of friction and a lot of confrontation. And I again, I am so committed to, we have to prove that this thing should exist because I like in my gut, I know it should but I don't have proof of concept yet. There's nobody doing it at a high school, the way I wanted to do it, you know, there was, there were programs that I had found it, then maybe, maybe this is more my inability at the time to search Google effectively. But, you know, you had people doing production. Absolutely! You had the technical side of it and you had people having like composition classes or songwriting classes, even rock band classes or whatever they call them. But I wasn't finding anybody that was looking at it in a more homogenous way, in a more holistic way of it needs to all be, it's all of it, you know. And so I was kind of starting from scratch. I took a lot of college curriculum. I talked to a lot of people that were in the industry and just kind of threw things against the wall to see what would stick. But in those early years, as I'm getting, you know, all these criticisms and destroying this, you know, you're killing the orig...you know, the traditional program, all these things that are provably false and everything else. But that reputation did build for quite a while and I I was like constantly biting my tongue because, again, you know, if I could avoid the confrontation and put it off for Joe: Yeah, Richard: A little while, I'd rather do that bad habit. Don't you know, Joe: Yeah. Richard: Kids don't do that if you're listening, don't do that! But I know, so I just, I really I struggle with that a lot. But we kept building things and one of the things that I saw, a couple of things that I've discovered in all of this, which is that, kind of like what I was saying earlier about the shows we did even during the COVID closure, that are very imperfect. If you, if you were to sit down and look at those shows that we did just these last several weeks, you could be arguably disappointed in a lot of there's, there's glitches and sound and some other things like but this is not what, don't you deal with audio and all this other stuff? But that wasn't really the point. And so we would have we have shows and in some shows there's people that are like, wow, you put that act onstage? Really? I'm like, yeah, is that kid now has been on stage and now we can move from there. Process has to matter more. I get in the professional world why it can't on some level but at the same time, boy, I wish it could. I'm Joe: Yeah, Richard: Sure you do too. And a Joe: Yeah. Richard: Lot of ways just knowing you, you know, I mean, you don't, you get duplication and you get repeats and you get even a certain level of perfection, but you don't get real originality unless you're willing to deal with process over product. I mean, you have to really embrace it. You know, Little Richard just died, as you know and it really, I mean, aside from I mean, is there anybody he did not influence in some way? I mean, literally, the man's legacy is endless. The other thing that kind of is horrible to say, but we're getting to a point where we are going to be out of truly original musicians, truly innovative people, there are very few people and I'm not even saying it's an age thing, it's just who's out there doing things that you go, WOW!, I've never heard that before in that context. And they're just, you know, there's a lot people perfecting it. There's a lot of people doing incredibly viable things and wonderful things musically. But to truly be innovative like that. But anyway, I'm so sorry I get Joe: No Richard: On tangents. I'm Joe: Better. Richard: So sorry Joe: It's okay. Richard: He I'm so, so, so this idea of, you know, process becomes really, really important and we're building it. And then. And what I was gonna say is, is that. Joe: But at this point, I'm trying to just make sure that both the viewers and listeners and I'm clear, though, that that you have this woman who is now responsible for these various things like band and orchestra and whatever else she was given that you have now been given the license, you know, the stamp of approval by the principal or Richard: And the district. Joe: The Richard: Yeah, Joe: District Richard: Yeah. Joe: To create this program that involves what at that time? Richard: Ok. So I you know, I'm sorry. Thank you for pulling back. So there actually is another player, analyst named Mitch Simmons, who needs to be mentioned. He is the director of the district's what's called Career and Technical Education Department at the time. And Mitch is brilliant and wonderful and will self-described himself as not having a musical bone in his body. But when I made this absurd proposal to him and I gave him like a 20 page document, like I had a curriculum and I had standards that I had adapted and which later wound up becoming basically the first draft that the state used and is still using for a lot of, a lot of things. Thankfully, they've had other people come in and perfect them and not just be stuck with my mediocrity, but. But Mitch, Mitch looked at and he goes, we so need this, this is the bridge, we've been looking for the bridge. Arts and here's the thing, everybody looks at career technical education, they get so hung up on the t the technology part. That's, in my view, as I get a lot, I get on a lot trouble with actually CTE people. I get, I get in trouble with the arts people for one thing and then I get in trouble for CTE people with the other. The "T" is, is completely to me, is nearly, it needs to be like lower case and in the smallest font possible. It's the "C" it's the career part. Joe: Right. Richard: Where's the job? Mitch saw it even better, like I understood, like it was my idea. But he saw other things in it and he's like "You", he's like, "Oh, my gosh, we can get, kids could get jobs in these industries." I'm like, "Yeah, we could!" And he gave me, I was, it was a perfect storm. He gave me the flexibility to just screw it up and rework it and reiterate it and retry and my principal did the same thing. And coming back to these shows that we had done, I told you I knew I would loop around back to my tangent. One Joe: And Richard: Of the Joe: This Richard: Things Joe: Is still Richard: That I. Joe: 2009. Richard: We're Joe: Is Richard: Still Joe: This Richard: In 2009, Joe: Ok? Richard: But Joe: Ok. Richard: It relates to something that just happened in the last few weeks. When you have students go through a process where we start with essentially nothing and they go through a self derived process or a self adapted process at the very least and then at the end there's a thing. I don't care what that thing is, that is powerful and wonderful and awesome and so that when you have like we would have shows, we still sometimes have shows that are just like, oh, you got to be kidding me. Because underneath that, there's also the, you've got to be kidding me! Joe: Yeah. Richard: Like, I mean, it works in both directions because it's derived and, and one of the things that I've learned is, teachers and educators who live exclusively and vicariously through their students are doomed to get burned out, frustrated and every other negative you can possibly think of. And I, I am committed to that completely. I don't think you can be competitive and creative at the same time. I believe that is like one of my very big mantras. I think that, you have to be your own creative, like I have struggled a lot, like, like thank God for therapy a lot, with not feeling like I've been able to do my own creative stuff. And I've sort of over the last year and it's been a struggle, it's made this year very weird and very difficult in some ways to say, like wait, I need to find a way to have my own creative outlet because it's not healthy. Like, it just isn't healthy. And whether that creative outlet is me throwing a video up on YouTube or a song up on SoundCloud that four people listened to or four million people listened to is kind of not really the issue. But that, we go from nothing through the process that a thing exists. It's all, it all ties together in this weird Zen ying yang thing. But as we grow, you know, we start doing all kinds of live events. We are, you know, we start very cobbled together. The early parts of the program in the early versions of the program, I didn't let the kids record anything in the first year. It was all learn an instrument. Keeps Joe: Did you even Richard: Them. Joe: Have the equipment Richard: Oh, yeah. Joe: That early? Richard: I mean, it was it wasn't what we have now. Don't Joe: No. Richard: Get me Joe: But Richard: Wrong. Joe: But you went Richard: Yeah. Joe: In there and you said, I need this, this, this, this and this to make this happen. Richard: So we started they got me a bunch of iMacs and we got some interfaces and we got Pro Tools early on because I know we're gonna do it for real and I was very committed to the legitimacy. Overcommitted, possibly, that I allowed other things to suffer. That battle that I know, the politics of things that I allowed myself to fall into the traps of these circular logic arguments that now I would never allow myself to do but, you know. Joe: Guy. Richard: Past is behind us and what's been has been, you know, that is what it is, but. But we just kept evolving and it's still evolves and, you know, we've we've, we've gone so far, as you know, there were years, the marching band kind of fell into a state of disarray and almost non-existence for several years. We started playing all of the home games, kind of like mini Super Bowls. Literally wheeling stages out and putting together shows for that. We still do them once a year. The marching band is back and is now for the last several years, like wins every award on the planet, literally. And God love them for it. It's amazing! Not my, you know, but that wasn't me. And that needs to be ok. I have some people that are still mad at me about that too, but whatever I don't, you know. But we, you know, we can go into studios, we go into every couple of years now we've been going to Blackbird Studios in Nashville this is like, in Nashville. This is a multi-million dollar facility. The last time we were there in February, just before all the closure happened, we were, I mean this is how far the things have evolved, this is possibly the greatest, I've gotten a lot of big compliments and they all mean a lot to me. We befriended Steve Marcantonio because he's the uncle of one of my former students. I don't know if you know, forgive the namedrop but Steve, I mean, like he got his start on John Lennon's last album. What, I mean, so you mean he's, the man knows his stuff! He's a genius and the nicest guy in the world. Like, like unbelievably giving of his time. He has come in and produced our sessions at or engineered our sessions at Blackbird and supervised them while we're there. So we're like one of the greatest recording spaces on the planet with one of the most gifted engineers to ever live and it's a bunch of high school students and me. Joe: That's amazing. Richard: Yeah. Life, Joe: How many Richard: Eight life. Joe: How many go to that trip? Richard: We took like 25 or so, this time 30. Joe: And how do you how do they get chosen? Richard: They just decide they want to go. Joe: Ok. Richard: We make it through tax credit. I have, I'm not going to do the cookie dough thing. I'm just not going to. You know, Joe: Yeah. Richard: Hey, I just I can't do it, but and it's expensive and it sucks and we try to scholarship where we can, Joe: Yeah. Richard: You know, we don't take nearly as many. But, but it's an opportunity. We do other things, we go to the conservatory recording arts and sciences. I'm looking at doing more. There's a lot of great stuff here in Phoenix for that opportunity Joe: Right. Richard: Or similar opportunities. But there is something cool about it, I mean, Nashville is Nashville. Let's not kid ourselves. It's just it's a great if Joe: Get. Richard: I could move anywhere and know I could still make a living, Joe: Yeah. Richard: I'd totally I'd totally being Nashville. I Joe: Yeah. Richard: Just. What a great place! But what you say is, is that this is this, this, this is unbelievable to me. So Steve walks in and he's giving the students an orientation and he's talking about all this gear and he gets about two minutes into it and then he looks at me and then he looks at them and he literally goes, "What? I'm wasting our time, your kids already know all this!" Because he's like talking Joe: Nice. Richard: About how, like the studios are set up and everything else. Ok, so that's not even the biggest compliment. We start getting everything set up and the boards placed and you know, Blackbird's provided interns and these are very highly skilled professionals and we've got Steve, ok? I have a couple of my more experienced students, one in particular who's she's like, I don't even think she's five feet tall, she's a graduating senior. She's just really quiet, sweet little girl, Emma. And she's up at the board and he just walks away. Like, not like I'm quitting, he walks away and he leans over to me and goes, "You don't need me." Joe: What's so funny? Richard: He goes, "She's got this!", he's like, "I'm going to just sit here and listen and I'll give some suggestions." And literally, that's how we spent an entire day recording, I don't know, 9 or 10 tracks or whatever it was of the students, some of them are great, some of them not so much, it doesn't really matter. But, you know, he, and it wasn't because he was lazy. Steve is like the least, you know, like between the two of you, it would be a really tough pick of who works harder. I mean, he wasn't just walking away because he didn't feel like helping, he was just like I'm going to give them the chance at this and this is a like it's like an 18, 20 million dollar place. This was not like, you know, these weren't inexpensive facilities with inexpensive gear. This was, you know, potentially massive, you know, liability and he's like "They have, they have this, just just do what you're doing." Joe: And I assume Emma is running a Pro Tools session? Richard: Oh, yeah, yeah, Joe: Right! Richard: A but, but mostly running the board, you know, on the side. I think it was an API. Joe: Ok, Richard: Something worth like more than my house, like Joe: Sure. Richard: 10 times over Joe: Yeah. Richard: In a room, you know, I think at one point Queen had recorded in the same room. I mean, this is not you know, Joe: Yeah. Richard: And who knows who else. I mean, this is unbelievable! I mean, Joe: Right. Richard: It was, but that to me, that was one of those moments where I was like, ok, the ups and downs of everything that may have gone on, clearly, again, at least as terms in terms of the concept, wWe're doing ok. You know, Joe: Yeah. Richard: If Steve Steve Marcantonio feels like he can let my students run a session on that equipment...ok Joe: Yeah, Richard: I'm going to take that for the win. I just Joe: Sure. Richard: I just don't think Joe: So the program Richard: I. Joe: At this point still in 2009 involves what different aspects? And how do kids get into it or not be in it? Richard: Ok, so I and I still, as much as I can have a, if you like anything at all about music in any capacity, I want you in here. Joe: Ok. Richard: If you're hard to work with, this is probably not going to go well. If you're, if you're lazy, that's going to be ok, as long as you're not blaming me for your laziness. If you own up to it, we'll find a way to make it work. I know that there's a lot of people will say, you know what? "You got to drive the kids, you got to drive the kids." And you know what? That's probably true. I just can't do it because my brain keeps going back to like I get, I get, I get hung up on the I, "You don't want to pick up that instrument and play it!?" I don't, what? what? "Why would you not want to pick up that instrument and play it!?" It literally, doesn't, I can't, I can't sort it, I wish I could, I know that maybe that's a cop out. But basically, at this point, everybody comes in and it's a year of intense, got to play instruments, got to play instruments, got to play instruments. There's a lot of benefits to that. But I start running into a philosophical problem, which maybe I needed to get over myself. But, you know, at the time, the original name of the program was not Creative Musical Arts and Sciences, it was Contemporary Music and Sound. The word contemporary has a lot of baggage, I soon found out. And I also felt like it wasn't really accurate. I wanted the word creative. Joe: Super important. Richard: It needed, it just needed to be there. So there you have the name change. And what, what starts to happen over the preceding years and you know, we get better at producing more material. We are proving ourselves more and more so we can get a hold of more equipment and things of that nature. And all the while, in the back of my head, is this creative name thing happens. You start referring to like what I wanted to be, which is a truly open, creative platform. And so what happens is I start to look at that first year and I go, well, wait a minute, I'm setting up roadblocks for these kids, well-intentioned roadblocks. And I think from a pedagogy standpoint, the idea of you have to rock or a rock...you to walk before you can run. I get it! I understand it! You know, you got to start with, you know, plan like, you know, your 50's kind of surf beats before you're gonna go play Tom Sawyer kind of stuff or whatever, you know, you're not you know, you're not playing a Purdie shuffle right out of the gate. You know, it's I mean, there's you know, and I understand that. But, and maybe this is a, a nod to the reality of the world that students currently live in and maybe maybe it's wrong of me to to say, well, it's ok but there is a, if you're going to be truly open and creative, then you need to be open and creative. Richard: And I started to develop this process where I would look at the program and anything we would want to do or anything the kid would propose and I would say, "Does this move their process forward or not?" And I started to look at the first year and that massive intensity on learning to play an instrument. And I looked at the well, ok, it could be argued that the long term benefits outweigh the short term frustrations but I'm loosing kids. And I'm also, I realize the thing that made me stop having just a year long exploration, if you will, of how to play an instrument, was I realized that the very thing that I was railing against in the traditional music world that, you know, you got to stop telling kids that just because they want to, like the turntables thing, is somehow illegitimate musically. I realize that in my own way I was doing that. And there are so many graduates now that I have been so tempted to try to find on social media and be like, hey, you probably don't remember me, that jerk music teacher you had for a year or two in high school but I wanted to tell you, I was wrong about this part of the approach. And I'm constantly looking like, to me, this is cathartic, like I will confess that in a heartbeat. Whereas other people what are you doing? What do you know? But I'm I can't, I can't, I have a hard... Richard: I look at the program right now. I look at the program in terms of this closure and I even thought, we were doing a workshop yesterday with a bunch of students on some stuff and we got on the topic of it and just their frustrations and the whole thing and I said, honestly, I'm not looking for false compliments here, I said "I would give myself a C plus for how I've executed things as the instructor, as the facilitator." And I'm pretty good at this stuff, I actually have been consulting for years with other people on how to move their game forward and you know, weird situations or whatever. And I'd only give myself a C plus. And, you know, that's really made me think. But in any case, it all comes back to this open creative platform idea. And so what I realized is that when I tell a kid, look, you're going to spend a year really getting good at guitar so that in year two we can start writing and recording. What I've actually said to them is your ideas aren't worthy yet. And the more I thought about it, the more I got really upset with myself. And I just basically decided that whatever happens, happens but I'm not going to do that anymore. And if a kid comes in and all they can do is grab a single drumstick and whack a snare drum in time with their friend. Go back to that Marcus Mumford kick drum idea Joe: Yeah, Richard: A little Joe: Yeah. Richard: Bit, if that's all they can do? We're going to legitimize that because and here's what I found. It's like a slingshot a little bit. Yeah, they seem like they're almost moving backwards in their musical skill set because you're not pushing that but what seems to happen is when you legitimize it a couple of things happened, including they get self-motivated. Because that kid that starts just on that snare drum hitting out time, if they stick with that in the context of I'm making music with my friend, they will get it in time, and then once that's in time, they're going to go, "What happens if I pick up another drumstick and now I've got one in each hand?" And now we have, you know, doubled the rhythmic possibilities. But they're looking at it through the perspective of what can I do with it musically, not all about technique. Technique can't be the "T" for technique can't be important, just like the "T" for technology can't be important. It just can't! The creativity, the career, the career part has to be the over shouting or over overarching thing and it has to be overshadowing everything else on, as far as I'm concerned, a multi expo, an exponential level. It just has to be! So I've continued to move into that. So now the technique is covered differently. I have what I call the, I just, I call it the GAC should be the GEC. It's G, E minor and C and the premise is you're going to learn G, E minor and C or you're going to learn how to keep a very basic beat to somebody else who's learning G, E, minor and C and we're going to have you make a piece of music with those three really basic chords that are all white keys on a piano, that you can play with one finger on a couple of strings on a uke or a bass or a guitar, or you're gonna you know, you're gonna sing unison tones if you're a vocalist or match it with that clarinet or I don't care, it's not about that. It's about seeing the musical connections with somebody else. You are going to collab, that's the other thing, the collaboration part. I can keep bringing on all these "C" words, but it really. They'll become, the self motivation will make up for it. The other thing, too, is, you know, if I want to play Beethoven, I need a certain amount of technique or I'm not getting Beethoven, I acknowledge that, that's important. There is an art to that, that cannot be overstated. But I don't require Beethoven to express myself. And I think a lot of people get confused about that. And I think a lot of people don't understand the importance of it. I think. well, heck, Beethoven himself changed things so radically because he himself believed that he should express himself the way he felt he should express. I mean, I mean like literally by ironically moving away from Beethoven, where if we do it, I think in this context, we're actually paying an odd sort of homage to him Joe: All right. What he believed Richard: Philosophically Joe: In. Richard: in terms of music. And it's just evolved from there. I would rather see a kid get up and play something that's theirs, that is imperfect. But that is them. Then have a kid get up there and feel like, well, it doesn't sound like it's supposed to because that's not what the recording sounded like. Who cares? That's not what it's for. I found over the course, you know, as it's as this is as grown. It was interesting over that, we're finished out. The school year ends next week. But I've been having weekly scheduled workshops that I have kids come into when they can. I should have probably and this is part of my C plus or C minus that I'd give myself. I made them essentially optional as long as they kept up with the asynchronous assignments and stuff. But what I found happened was, is a lot of kids are showing up to these things, just for the sense of showing up to something. You know, we're having conversations that are Joe: To Richard: Rooted Joe: See their Richard: In Joe: Friends Richard: Music. Joe: And. Richard: Yeah, but, but, but, but that's, that's OK. Like, like that's turning into good things. Or I'll go out and frequently what happens is we'll have our session, we'll be talking, we'll come to the end of it, I'll have to go on to something else with another group or whatever and they'll be saying, "Hey, can you hit me up real quick? You know, open up another Zoom?" Or they'll do it on Dischord or whatever and, you know, let's play around some ideas or stuff. So it's, they're still making connections and if they use the workshops for that, do I really have to care that they didn't present the project, you know, in the same circumstance? They submitted the project, will take a look at it or we'll do it in a different workshop. It's ok. I think things like that have to matter more. What I was gonna say and I know, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna hit your two and a half hour mark. I'm so sorry! Joe: So Richard: I mean, I'm, I'm embarrassed. Joe: It's okay...No not at all Richard: I do have to, but I do have to share one other part of the program that has evolved since just last year. And I'm glad you're sitting down for this, because when I describe it to you, it's almost comically funny, but I mean to preface it by telling you that I am now so committed to this because I see the open creative platform element, in such a different way now, that I am, I'm well into my career as an educator. I'm not that old, but I'm old enough. This has given me so much of an interest in what could the next phase of this CMAS program be that I can't even begin to tell you. I would love to bring back the more traditional ensembles. I know, I actually have derived a plan. I know it would work. Politics won't let me do that.  Someday I still have hope but this is different. Out of the blue last spring, I get asked and I still don't fully understand why I got asked. I got asked to, of all things, pilot, no, not pilot. I got us the first started with teach at Arcadia, an engineering design class. Why are you giving me an engineering design class? Well, because you're technically qualified because of the CTE, the way the rules are written for CTE. And you like having the extra contract and this way you can keep the extra contract, because every I look at everything through the lens of my two little boys. That I will literally do I will braid your hair, Joe, for a six fig, for an extra contract. Richard: That's literally where my, that's I mean, I will totally do it. So but so I'm like, ok, sure, why? why not. Right? And I'm, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but to put it nicely, I'm promised a whole lot of resources and none of them, none of them come through. On a whim, I threw a thing like, the one thing that they said they were setting up for me, the people organizing were like, "Yeah, you don't have the engineering background to come to this conference for us to work with you, really sorry." The woman who was basically organizing it for this conference, not in my district, not at my school, actually still have yet to meet her. I would like to meet her. Jill was really kind. She's like, but I know of this other thing going on. I'm going to call you back in half an hour. She calls me back with these phone numbers. I went up on the phone with these people that are going to pilot for this previous school year, for the first time, they have a multi-million dollar grant through the National Science Foundation to revamp the entire concept of engineering in schools. Richard: It's headed up by and now I am flexing on their behalf. ASU, which is one of the large...I think it's the largest engineering school in the world, believe it or not, Vanderbilt, University of Maryland, Virginia Tech and I forget the fifth major university that is supervising this. And they, because the woman, Jill, from this other thing, this small little training session that they won't let me go to because I don't have the degree in engineering. Got all this experience in audio engineering but none of that, and that's fine. They are all excited and I think they may all be drunk. I don't know what's going on. So literally, they're like, no, no, no, no, we, I'm like, I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, okay, here's your, [Them]"Can you come to Maryland for a week over the summer?" [Richard] "I guess" [Then] "We'll pay for it, don't worry, we'll pay for everything. Just can you come to the University of Maryland, we're gonna do a training session." [Richard] "Yeah, OK." [Them] "It starts Sunday." This is like a Tuesday. They're like [Them] "If you can get on a plane, we want you here for a week to do this thing. We just got to make sure we, we just got dot some "i's" and cross some "t's" or whatever. Richard: So we get to Friday night and I get this call from, you know, one of their head lead, lead investigators on this whole thing and he goes, [Them]"Ok, yeah, yeah, we need you here!" I'm like, [Richard] "Are you sure? [Them] "No, no, no, we've been looking at your website and we've been looking at you, you're the perfect person for this!" And I'm like [Richard] "I'm a musician, maybe, I sure as hell I'm not an engineer, and they're like, [Them] "No, you don't understand." OK, they're like [Them] "Just come to Maryland." So I literally, I booked a flight on a Friday, I get on a plane Sunday morning and Sunday night I'm at a dinner where I am so not the smartest person in the room, it's not even funny, Joe. I mean, it's, and by the end of dinner, I realized what they're trying to do and what they've basically decide, what they've basically come up with and they've done all this research prior to it over the last several years, that the concept of what people think engineering is, is completely off. I say the word engineering not to be funny and flip the script here a little bit on you, what are the first three words when I say engineering that you think of? Joe: Well, I always think when you and I are talking and you say engineering, I'm thinking just sound engineering. That's like so when you keep, you keep talk, you keep talking about engineering, I'm like, what does he know about engineer, like Richard: Ok, Joe: Sound engineering? Richard: Ok, Joe: But Richard: So remove Joe: There's electrical Richard: The sound. Joe: Engineering, there's, I don't know, mechanical engineer, I don't know. There's whatever. Richard: Right. But are you going to minus the sound engineering part, you're not going to time much of any of that to music in any fashion right? And the thing of it is, where they did all this research is that apparently most people don't tie it to creativity either. And they don't tie it to solving problems for people. And they don't tie it to something that I've latched on to that, there's a story behind every single thing that has to get designed or built or created or engineered, because otherwise, how would you come up with the need? And some of these stories are incredibly impactful. So their whole premise is that they wanted to pilot this year, there were nine of us across the country, most of them on the East Coast and the Midwest. I was the only, one part of the reason they got excited, I think was also because I was from Arizona and Arizona didn't have anybody in it. And the University of Arizona was one of the biggest contributors to this whole thing excuse me, not University of Arizona, Arizona state. But in any case, but what started to happen, we start having these conversations. And by the end of dinner, we are talking about what they call the engineering design process and what I have for years been calling and have gotten, I guess you could say, known for of the creative process. And what we start to realize are, well, they're, they're kind of like halfway laughing at me, halfway laughing with me because they understood this already. This is why they got so excited for me, I know and they've told me this since. Because when you take the two processes, engineering, design and creative process and you put them next to each other when you keep the definitions the same, but change the jargon on a few terms, they're not just similar, they're actually identical in a really freaky way. So all of a sudden, last fall, I'm in the summer and fall, I'm like, oh my gosh! Well, now and you have to remember all these years of building this thing, then that whole epiphany about open creative platform and what that needs to mean. And now I just feel like I'm on a mission with this. So I go through this whole year and it's, it's very much kind of an engineering design process, although interestingly, I'm still getting and I still am every year getting the music education interns from ASU, nearly every music I get, I don't know I don't get every one of their music education majors, but I get almost all of them. At some point they spend a semester with me, for better or worse. They're coming in and they're watching this class, too and it's getting really interesting to see. And we're talking about parallels and process and parallels and possibilities everything else. And as we're going through this and I'm having meetings with these engineering folks from all over the country and we're talking about all the connections. And I'm like, I have an idea for year two. And I'm like, so I've built this industry based music program that has proven itself, I'm not saying we've got it perfected, but you know, I have a, I do at least have a reasonable track record for flying a plane while it's being built. Richard: And for upping the possibilities of where we can push things in terms of opportunities for kids. And I've been successful,I mean, it's not like, you know, I think that, you know, on balance, the risk of sounding a little egotistical, it's not unreasonable to say at least "Give me a shot to explore the idea." Right? So I started looking some like I'm looking at the standards for this new program I've been piloting for a year and looking at the state education standards. I'm looking at my music standards and my own program standards. And I'm going, oh, my gosh, we could take all of this stuff, you know, speaking of mixers, could have a kid build a mixer. Why not? They're going to have to, I mean, there's electrical engineering in that, we're getting into mechanical engineering because of what a mixture does in terms of its functions, in terms of controlling the sound of space in a room. There's all kinds of engineering already that and I was starring in little projects throughout the year. You know, had them designing windows. We'd need a window between our control room and our life studio space. These are the champagne first world problems that we have in CMAS. But I had the engineering students designing how that would look. We were talking, you know, the lighting on the soundstage and how can we build a different mechanism, door thresholds. I mean, we were already starting to do some of these stuff, at least as concepts and on all these different things. And I'm like, there's so many things. So I called the head of the State Joe: Wait, Richard: Department. Joe: Wait. Please Richard: I'm sorry. Joe: Tell me please tell me you're addressing the the buzz that can potentially come through the console from the lights Richard: Oh, absolutely. No, Joe: And Richard: We're talking about the electrical Joe: Please, Richard: Interference. Joe: Please tell me you're you're talking about the the awful sound of the air conditioner when it comes on while you're in the middle of Richard: Absolutely, Joe: All those all those Richard: All Joe: Things Richard: Those Joe: We Richard: Different Joe: Struggle. Richard: Things. Joe: That's right. Richard: You know, right now above my head, there's a fan because we live in Arizona and this is a house that I've been very lucky enough to be not to convert to a nice home studio, but it's still a house not built as a studio from scratch, you know. And we're talking about things of that nature, you know, how do you deal with isolation when you don't have isolation? I mean, you name it, we're, we're dealing with all this kinds and it's endless and this is my point. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I have this idea my, my district, God love them, doesn't quite see it. But the people who run the pilot with the National Science Foundation, they're looking at, they're going, "You're basically just talking about changing up the projects, not really changing up the standards of the curriculum goals." And I'm like, "Exactly!" Because it's the same thing, the prob...I mean, it's just the same thing. So I call the state, the head of the State Dept. of Ed, who I get along with to be fair. And I'm just like, "I just want to run this by you so that if anybody comes back and says you can't or shouldn't." And she hears that and she's like, "That's just I said, I already wanted to take your classes and now I now, I think I'm going to like, I'm going to come take your class!" Like she's all over it, but she's giving me ideas. So now, just to give you a sense of where this is headed, she goes, "OK, what about this?" I looked like she was even worse than I was. She's like, "What if you had the kids simulate like they're touring, like they're, they're a production company for a tour and they have to get the band from, let's say, LaGuardia Joe: That's awesome. Richard: Airport Joe: Yeah. Richard: Over to London and they got a design like, how are they going to put the gear on the plane? And they've got to calculate now, like, how much tonnage can they actually take and what are they gonna have to buy or rent over there versus what can they take it? How are they gonna get all these other things calculating like the air velocity and how long it will? Well, I'm like, we are so open like that, I mean, like the creative options are there, the industry options are there. And if you had told look, if you had told me years ago that, first of all, I'd be making, you know, my day job would be an education and I would enjoy that, I would think you were nuts! If you told me that I would be developing a pilot for an engineering program that somehow tied in the music industry legitimately and I'm not just like phoning it in and I'm like passionately committed to it. I would have had you locked up somewhere for being certifiable. But, but, you know, back to the original thing and I know that sounds funny, but this all still comes back to those key concepts to me, and that's why I'm excited about it. To me, what is the, what does the art need? Well, the art needs engineers. The art needs musicians. The art needs producers. The art needs...and I'm not just talking about sound engineers. They are important too. The art needs marketing. We've actually had and you've mentioned we've brought in a marketing track a little bit into, you know, what we do with the program. Anything that's industry based, the career part, you know, if it's career based, if it's creative, if it's collaborative. We should be able to do it, and if we can't, what I have learned is that's not because we can't do it, it's because we haven't figured out how to do it yet. And so I'm really big on any silos or any walls that block creative process. I'm knocking them down, you know, and I'm going to try piss off some people doing it. This engineering thing, there are some people that aren't thrilled about it and I'm gonna have to work through that at some point with them, just like there are people who aren't happy that the program exists. You know, on the music education side of it. Joe: That, to me, is just, blows my mind because and Richard: Because Joe: I Richard: Your career, Joe: Don't get it. Richard: But that's because you're career oriented. To you, you love the art but you also know what's necessary to pay the bills. Joe: Yeah, but it's just, it's a tool set that is invaluable because you're, you're going to run into situations where you're gonna be like, I'm so glad I was a part of that, because I can take even that one little piece of it and it's going to help me get through this moment. I mean, to be able to be a musician but at the same time, understand the process of recording, of acoustics, of, you know, so many other things. It's, I don't know. I'm blown away to even hear that. But that's. Richard: I, I, I hate to say it, but it's true. I mean. But like I said, part of me now looks at that and thinks it's just kind of funny almost. And not to, I don't I'm not wish, I'd like, I don't want the confrontation. But I mean, like the people that are going to say no to this, are going to go on record and saying those five major engineering institutions. You know, the National Science Foundation is wrong, Joe: Yeah. Richard: That that's not a real engineer. The state, the Department of Ed for the state, which is funny enough, almost like the smallest bat to swing in all of this, and that's a huge bat to swing. So I'm just kind of like, I'm just going to keep moving forward. It's good for the kids, the good you know, my site administration think they've, they don't get it, but they like it and they're kind of like, we're just going to stay out of your way. I'm not really worried, you know. I mean, it'll be what it'll be. If I'm wrong, I'll go find some, I mean, I guess I'd go find somewhere else, but I just don't I know I'm not wrong, I hate to say it that way. That's such a horribly arrogant thing to say after I talk all of that about not being arrogant. But these people have convinced me people like you have convinced me, you know, like I said, the industry part of it. Why? You know, of course, we all want to be A Listers with valets and somebody plugs in all our gear for us and everything else. But at the same time, the best musicians know how their gear works. Joe: Yeah. Richard: They just do. And to some extent, want to go and make sure it's, like even if they have somebody who plugs it in for them, can you honestly tell me? Look, I know you've had gigs where some but, you know, you've got a drum tech or whatever. You don't go and check that kit before before you perform on it? Just Joe: Yeah, it just Richard: I mean, it's Joe: It's part of your being. Yeah. Richard: Exactly Joe: Yes. Yeah. Richard: It's absurd not to. So I think all of that put together. This is fascinating to me. Joe: And you've already proven the concept. So you would think that, I guess that would be the most frustrating part for me is that you've already proof of concept been done. It's how many years is the program now been in running. Richard: It's officially 12, I guess. Joe: Because of the CMAS program is 12 years, is it, is it, you're in the program from what? What year of high school. To. Richard: So well, and this is becoming an issue, too, it's always been open from freshmen through senior. Joe: Ok. And is it you're either in it or you're not? Or is there tracks that you can say, I'm interested in the sound recording track. But I'm not Richard: Ok, Joe: Interested Richard: So, Joe: In the songwriting Richard: Yeah. Joe: Tracks. Richard: As he was saying, so I'm going to take the this new engineering, in the traditional word of the word engineering, I'm going to set that aside, because that's where that's going to take some years to develop. Richard: So I'm going Joe: Right. Richard: To set that aside. But as far as the rest goes. Basically, it's what's your interest? I want to be in it, I want to I want to do sound engineering. I want to be a producer. I want to be on the stage as the performer. I want to be a beat maker. You name it and again, I, I, I want to promote the shows. I want to make the music videos, whatever. OK. Everybody's gonna go, there's like some core things, I need everybody to understand the basics of how this microphone works that I'm talking. I need the basics of why your headphones need to go into an interface and what that interface does. I need you to understand the stuff on the walls here, why it does what it does and why it's actually not gonna soundproof the roomm, it's only treating the roo

Nate Morton from "The Voice" In this episode, Part 2, we dig deeper into the audition he went on thanks to Barry Squire and his own networking becoming known as a "player" in town. Besides doing gigs around town and networking, he would go to some of the more well-known jam session so he could be seen, heard and start to build his network. As you'll hear as a constant thread throughout both parts of this conversation, networking and relationships have been key to Nate's growth and success. We talk about the sequence of auditions and gigs in a timeline so you can get a feel for the progression of what Nate went through to bring us current to today. In 2005, there's the lengthy audition for "Rock Star: INXS" and then in 2006, "Rock Start: Supernova". Then onto "The Bonnie Hunt Show" from September 2008 to May 2010. Finally in 2011, he lands one of the greatest gigs of all times, "The Voice" We talk more about his early days in Los Angeles and we walk through his timeline of auditions, touring gigs with well-known artists and end in the present day. Enjoy and thank you for listening!! ********** Nate Morton: Nate's Website: https://natemortondrums.com/ Fraudprophets Website: http://www.fraudprophets.com/ YouTube: Nate Morton Drum Cam Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natemortondrums/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/n8drumz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/n8drumz Nate's company affiliations include: Pearl drums & percussion Zildjian cymbals & sticks Roland Remo ePad Cympad GoPro Sennheiser Kelly SHU WingKey https://youtu.be/pjljYtm5DCQ Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#thejoecostelloshow Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#thejoecostelloshow Follow Joe: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcostelloglobal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcostelloglobal/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jcostelloglobal/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUZsrJsf8-1dS6ddAa9Sr1Q?view_as=subscriber Transcript Part 2 - Nate Morton Interview: Joe: And some of Nate: I Joe: The process, Nate: Will say. Joe: Like with the Billy Myers or gay. Right. With with that with that two day audition series that happened. Nate: Yep. Joe: Were you given music ahead of time or did you have to go in and just wing it? Nate: Oh, God. No, no, no, no. If you're gonna do an audition typically back in that era and they would say, you know, oh, go to her manager's office and pick up this C.D. and the he would have, you know, three songs on it and they would generally be listed in the order that they were gonna be released as singles. You know, here's the first single second, third. And in the case of Billy Myers, I feel like her single was already out or was a song called Kiss the Rain. Kenny Aronoff, I think, played drums on the original recording. Joe: Ok. Nate: And yeah, that dude. Yeah. You know that. Yeah. That that up and coming guy. Joe: Right. Nate: What Joe: Right. Nate: He's got, he's got a lot of potential. Joe: Yeah. Nate: I think if he sticks with it, he's really Joe: Right. Nate: Going to Joe: Yeah, Nate: Go far. Joe: Yeah. Nate: I hope, I hope people get my, my stupid sense of humor Joe: They Nate: Like Joe: Totally. Nate: They're just out there just not like oh my God. He said he thinks Kenny Arnow is up and coming. Joe: The Nate: Oh, my God. He's an idiot. That guy. Joe: No. Nate: So, yes, Kenny, if you're listening. I'm sorry. Just joking. So. So I pick up, you know, you pick up the C.D. and. This is twenty, twenty years before almost 20 years before I have to start. No, no, no, no, no. I think that that. I'm sorry. That would have been in the. That would've been let's call it let's call it ninety nine. Two thousand area. And then it wasn't until. Two thousand, five, six or so when Rockstar came along, which is which is this TV show that I did where we started having to learn these like kind of high volumes of songs, right. Where it's like, oh, there's fifteen songs this week to learn, which in retrospect doesn't seem like a lot because there are times on the voice when it's like, OK, here's the thirty six songs rolling this week. Joe: It's amazing. Nate: But at that time to have to come in and in a week learn 14 songs or 12 songs, it was like, I mean if you do a tour. If you do a tour, you might be rehearsing. Let's just say six days a week. Seven or eight hours a day. And you, depending on the tour you're doing and the level you're doing. I mean, you might be learning two songs a day. You're not Joe: Hey, Nate: Saying Joe: Yeah. Nate: Muddy Lane shoes on the day because the keyboard players are dialing sounds and this is that I didn't want to wear. It was it was actually literally that it was literally out of a 10 hour day. The keyboard players and guitar players were dialing sounds for seven and a half or eight hours of getting the sound right for you. The track was so the idea that you would come in and in the space of a week, from Monday to Saturday, Saturday, really Monday to Sunday, you know, it's like Monday and Tuesday, you've got to learn 14 songs because you're seeing the contestants on Wednesday and Thursday. I mean, at that, like I said now. I mean, I could I could, I could. You know, this sounds terrible, but, I mean, I could do that and read a book and crochet a sweater at the same time. Well, but then but then the idea of fourteens on the two days like war. So anyway, my Joe: And this Nate: Only. Joe: Was the rock star time frame that you're talking about. Nate: Correct. Joe: When? Nate: This was the beginning Joe: Ok. Nate: Of rock star. This is Joe: All Nate: The Joe: Right. Nate: Beginning of rock star. Joe: Ok. Nate: So. So. Joe: And how did you get that? Like. Morgan walks in the room and like every drummer runs its runs to the corner like a bunch. Nate: Are you out of your mind? Joe: So don't don't you know, don't belittle Nate: Okay, okay, okay, Joe: The Nate: Okay, Joe: Fact Nate: Ok. Joe: That you had to go do something to get these gigs. That's important. Nate: Ok, Joe. Joe: It's. Nate: Ok. Why did you ask me? Ask me? Joe: Ok, so you were with Nate: Ask Joe: Billy Nate: Me, Joe: Myers Nate: Ask me, Joe: And then. Nate: Ask me the big question, which is because this is this is this was this is the big question that I'll bring it on home. Ask me the big question, which is how did you get the gig on The Voice? Joe: No, because there's so many other things in Nate: No, Joe: Between. Nate: No, no, no, no. Just Joe: Oh, Nate: Try Joe: I thought there Nate: It. Joe: Was. Nate: No, no, no, just try Joe: Ok. Nate: It. Joe: Really? OK. So Nate, how did you get the audition on The Voice? Nate: No, no, no, no, no, no. The gate, the gate stretch. Joe: Oh, the Nate: Try, Joe: Gag Nate: Try again. Try again, Joe. Nate, how did you get the gig on The Voice? Joe: Me. How did you get the gag on The Voice? Nate: Funny you should ask. Joe: Oh, good. Nate: So back in, ho, ho, ho. Get comfortable people back. Somewhere around 2002. I always want to do like in the year 2000. Joe: Right. Nate: If anyone remembers that, I don't even remember that little Conan O'Brien bit. That has to do with Eddie Richter. So back somewhere around 2002, I was playing with the singer songwriter piano player named Billy Appealing. That was a little earlier named Vanessa Carlton. So 2002, 2002, 2003, somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe 2003. And for those of you who may not be familiar with Vanessa Carlton, she had a single called A Thousand Miles. It was a really big summertime single. So interrelates with Vanessa, and we're somewhere in the middle of somewhere and I get a call. Joe: See? But there you go again, you skipped over, how did you get that gig? Nate: Well, I actually didn't skip over Joe because I said because I said Nate's a jerk because because I said that many of my earlier auditions, of which Vanessa Carlton was one can't be very Swier, actually. Probably Joe: Ok. Nate: Did. I probably Joe: Ok. Nate: Admitted that. Yes, she. So OK, then I'll give you the quick I'll give you the quick. Overview of the various wire gate, so of the various of the gigs that I did or of the auditions that I did when I first moved the town, that I found myself in a room in some way, shape or form or fashion at the result of knowing or as a result of knowing various wire. The first one was Billy Myers. The next one, I think, was Tommy Hinrichsen, who is a guitar player, bass player, singer songwriter, rocker of all levels. He's currently playing guitar with Alice Cooper. Right. But it's time he had a deal on capital. Yes, capital is the only capital records. So Billy Myers, Tommy Henderson. Darren Hayes, who was a lead. I think he was the lead singer of Savage Garden. And so for a minute there, Darren Hayes had a solo project. Darren Hayes. And so I didn't audition that. I was fortunate to get through that. I was unable to do it because of a conflict with another very ask audition that I did, which was Vanessa Carlton. So Darren Hayes and Vanessa Carlton conflicted. So I found myself having to choose between the two or fortunate to have the, you know, good, good problem of choosing between the two. And and I elected to. Play with Vanessa Carlton and then also in there was there was a well, there is a he's a bad ass, a techno dance artist, ETM artist, if you will, called Brian Transito or Beatty is his name. So those those handful of auditions all came through the Barry Squire stream. So Joe: Perfect. Nate: Very smart, Joe: Now, I feel Nate: Very Joe: So Nate: Suave Joe: Much Nate: Stream. Joe: Better now. Nate: There you go. Barry Swier Stream led to Vanessa Carlton. So both now mentor Vanessa. Phone rings This might've been a Bery call as well, but it was Hey, Nate. There's a certain big artist who's auditioning and she is looking to put the band on retainer and the auditions are this day, she's heard a lot of players. They haven't said of the band yet. And we would like you to come to the audition and I won't say the artists. Name, but her initials are Alanis Morissette. So. Let's hope Joe: Oh, Nate: So. Joe: Good. Nate: So Joe: That Nate: I'm Joe: Was true, Nate Nate: So Joe: Martin Nate: I'm free. Joe: Form right Nate: Thank you. Joe: There Nate: Thank Joe: Was Nate: You. Thank Joe: Perfect. Nate: You. Thank you. Thank you. Joe: God, I'm so glad. Nate: So so I'm out with Vanessa and I get this call that Atlantis is auditioning. And I know that Vanessa's tour is winding down. And so I'm very excited. I'm like, oh, man, this could be a great transition. So in the middle of the Vanessa gate, I fly home. All of this, by the way, I'm still answering the question, how did you get to get on the voice? If you can't if you can believe it. So, so so it works out that the day she's auditioning it, it falls on like a day off that I've got with Vanessa. And so it's a day off with Vanessa. I don't remember where we are, but I raced to the airport in the morning. I fly home. I'm listening to Atlanta songs on the way home, the song songs if you're going to ask for a rhyme, charting out my little charts. And I think and I get there and I go to the audition and. And it was amazing. I played it. Yeah. Sounds great. You guys will rock it. And at the end of the audition they go, man, that was great. You didn't get to play. Oh, my heart broke. I was so sad. Right. So I did not get the gig. They said, thank you for joining us. You're you know, you did a good job. But we're going to you know, we have another guy. OK, I get back on a plane the next day, I fly back, I rejoin Venessa, which is a great gig. No disrespect to Buddhism. Joe: Anybody Nate: And so. Joe: Know where you went in that period of time? Nate: Sure, Joe: Was it Nate: Probably. Joe: That the van? Nate: Or you know what? Do you know what the truth is? I'll be honest with you. I don't even remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I might have said maybe it would be not kosher to be like, hey, I'm going home to audition for a gig that's no bigger than this one. And so so maybe I wouldn't have said it. Maybe it would have added more a little bit more subtle approach. But nonetheless, I didn't get it anyway. So I arrived back and then I finish out of Inessa tour and I'm a little bit bummed that I missed out on that great opportunity because. Hashtag comments were sent. Joe: Yeah, Nate: All Joe: Yeah, Nate: Right. Joe: Yeah. Hell, yeah. Nate: Shoot. So if you called me today, I'd be like, I don't know, can I. Can I fit your voice schedule? Or is it here? I mean, she's amazing. Right, Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Nate: Though. So the Vanessa. Tour finishes and not too long after the Vanessa tour finishes, and I feel like this is I feel like this is the end of. Oh, for. I get a call from a friend and he says, hey, mate, Mark Burnett is putting together his TV show. It's called Rock Star. He needs a band. And so he is called upon however many in eight, ten, twelve days to put together bands to come in audition to potentially be the house band on this show. It's going to be like American Idol, but it's going to have like rock and rock songs. You know, it could be great. And so I go, okay. That man, of course, I would love to. And so the person who called me for that audition was a bass player named Derek Frank, who has a very, very long list of credits to his name. So Derek put together the band as the band leader, and we went and auditioned. So now we're in early 2005, because if memory serves the first round of auditions for Rock Star, we're in the first or second week of the year. That was like January 5th or something, right? Was the audition. We audition and again, multiple bands audition again. The whole process is going on and on and on. And eventually they wind up saying, OK, I get a call from Clive Lieberman, who is I'm still in my life at that time. I get a call from Clive Lieberman and he says, OK, we've narrowed it down. We have three drummers that we're looking at. And you're one of the three. And here's the next day, you know, can you be here on this day? At this time? OK, sure. Of course I can. So I go there. And now now we're in like late January because the process started like early January. Now we're moving into like mid late January. Joe: Wow. That's incredible. Nate: The man I was started. I'm just getting warmed up. So so I go there. And the other drummers are playing and the rotating Grumman's in and out in the way that. I mean, I've done several auditions and they all work a variety of ways. But generally, if none of the band is set, then some portion of the audition live audition is that drummer with that bass player, that bass player with that guitar player, that guitar player with that drummer that removes that bass player on that guitar player in there, especially in this sense, has a television show. They're analyzing it all. So so they're they're well above like, do these guys sound good? They're like, do I like that guy's dreadlocks? In my case, for example, I know that guy has a guitar that's like Dayglo pink. That's cool. Oh, I hate that guy's boots. Like, it's on that level because the TV show. Right. So at the end of the day, we're playing with vulnerably. Okay. I'm let's let's say I'm drummer number three. So we're playing, playing, playing, playing, playing. At some point they say, okay, drummer number one, you can go home. And then I look around and there's just like German number two and me bling, bling, bling, bling, bling. And at some point they say, OK, drummer number two. Thank you a lot. You can go home and then it's just me and I'm playing for like the rest of the day and well into the night. So finally they say, OK, we're finished for the night. Everybody can go home. Now, when they did that on Billy Myers, it was this is the band we're playing Vibe tomorrow. Let's get her done as opposed to on this, where they're like. All right. Joe: Go Nate: So Joe: Now, Nate: I Joe: Go home Nate: Could Joe: And worry. Now go home and Nate: Go Joe: Worry. Nate: Home. Now go home. Right. So I go up to Clyde. Clide Lieberman. Love them, love, love, love. I got to climb. I go say Hi, Clyde. As I look around, I don't see any other drummers. I said so. So can I. I said, so should I. Should I go home and, you know, have a celebratory drink? And Clyde's response was, well, you should definitely go home and have a drink, Joe: Yes. Oh, no. Nate: Right? It's so, Joe: Oh, no. Nate: So, so now we're at the end of January. The band that they arrived at. Sort of somewhere in February. They had this band. Right. And I was included among and within that band. And they had an M.D., a guitar player, a bass player and a multi instrumentalist. And so then that band did a gig for the. That was a CBS show. So we'd have done a gig for, like, those higher up CBS guys. Right. We would have had to have been approved by them. Then at some point, they kind of went like, well, what if we had this person on bass? So then that band did another gig for the CBS people. Then, well, what do we have this person on guitar? Then that band did another gig for the CBS people. Joe: Wow. Nate: Then I was like, wow, this isn't working out. Let's go back to the other band. OK, now then that band did. So. So there were there were there were hoops aplenty to jump through. But in the end of all the jumping through hoops and I remember this date, I don't know why it's burned in my head. I could have it wrong. But I remember this date. I feel like May. I feel like it was May 19th. We were all sat in a room with the executive producer of that show, Rock Star. His name is David Goffin and that band. Was myself on drums. Sasha could face off on base. Half Amaria on guitar, Jim O'Gorman on guitar and multi instrumentalist and musical director. Paul Markovich. So that was the first time Paul, Sasha and myself worked together as a rhythm section. Now, Sasha was my bass player on Vanessa Carlton. And Paul had also worked with Sasha in other situations. But this is the first time at that that this was the genesis of that rhythm section. So. From Rock Star, that rhythm section went on to do multiple sessions in town. Two seasons of Rock Star. That band went on to do a tour with Paul Stanley. Ultimately, that rhythm section wound up doing the Cher Caesars Palace run. So now I flashed all the way forward from 2000 and. Five. Right. By the way. So the first audition, the first part of that audition was in early January. And the band wasn't solidified until Joe: May 19th. Nate: The end of May. Well, May 19th was when they said, if you want to do it. Joe: Got it. Nate: And then ultimately, by the time contract or signed. Yeah, it was the end of May. It was the end of May. Beginning of June. Somewhere in there. Joe: So all of this time, you're not making any money. Nate: No, the auditions that we did and the rehearsals that we did were paid Joe: Ok. Nate: Because because at the end of the day, you are a professional musician. So even whether whether you have the gig or not, it is still your time, you know. And Joe: Ok. Nate: It is, you know, I mean, we were we weren't on some sort of, you know, incredible retainer or anything. But at the same time, the powers that be know that to expect you to dedicate the time to learning these songs and doing these rehearsals and showing up and, you know, wearing halfway presentable clothes and showing up with good gear and playing gigging town and good, that's not something that people would typically want to do for free. That's something that that you know, that that's what we do. And so Joe: Right. Nate: They wouldn't have expected us to do that for free. Joe: So any point during this interview process from early January to this may date where it finally gets solidified? Did any other tour opportunities come up that almost tore you away to go and say, OK, this great thing has just come in? And if I get this, I'm out here, I'm done with these auditions. I'm going. Nate: So, Joe, when you called me. And you were like, hey, man, can you come in my pocket hasn't got to me and I was like, Sure, sure. And then you were just like, Yeah, we'll talk about your life story. Joe: All. Nate: And I was like Joe: Right. Nate: I was kind of like, oh, there's gonna be like everything I've always been asked before and about we all the same stuff. I hope Joe comes with a new question. I hope so. That's the first time anyone has ever asked me that question. Joe: Seriously? Nate: And yes, that's the first time I've ever been asked that question. And that is an interesting question. And it is, is it is very insightful. Joe: So we'll think I'm Nate: So Joe: Looking. Nate: Absolutely. Joe: I'm looking through all of this because I live through you, you know that, right? So I am all of these questions are like, man, if I was in the middle of all this and all of a sudden, you know, share, I get the call from Barry saying Cher's auditioning. So anyhow, that that's why it was Nate: Well, Joe: Important. Nate: And like I said, it's a good question and it's a very astute question. And the answer is yes. I mean, because it was from early part of the year to like May, April, you know, in that in that neighborhood. Joe: And they're building Nate: So, Joe: Up Nate: Yeah, Joe: Their tour Nate: That's Joe: Vans. Nate: When things are Joe: Right. Nate: Happening. Joe: Right. Nate: Right. That's why things are happening. I can't remember specific things that I would have, you know, turned down or that I would have not been available for. But I will say that even in that context of it not being solidified. I felt like it was definitely worth keeping my. Carts hooked to that ox because it was a TV show. And all the time that I was touring, I was definitely like, you know, like touring is great. Touring is a blast. I love it. I may wind up doing it again at some point. That'll be amazing. We'll be fine. But there's also an extent to where it's like it might also be nice to be able to make a living, staying in town and seeing your family every day and sleeping in your own bed, driving your car and go into your favorite restaurants and not dealing with the fact that you showed up at, you know, 10 and the rooms won't be ready until two. So you're sleeping on a couch in the hotel lobby. You know, that's that's also an element of truth. So. So, yes. So things came in. Kate came and went, and I definitely decided to stay the course and, you know, follow that that that path towards what I thought would be a TV show which wound up being a TV show. And where was I? Sorry, Bella. Joe: So, no, it's OK. So Rockstar, you guys did Nate: Right. Joe: A bunch Nate: So Joe: Of Nate: That Joe: Shows. Nate: Was the first time I played Joe: Yes. Nate: It, right? Right, exactly. Exactly. Joe: You're the new Nate: So. Joe: Heart rhythm section in town, right? Nate: Where are the new rhythm section and how. Joe: Ok. Nate: Oh, we were that time. But but yeah, you know. And so so the whole the only the only point that I was really trying to make in this very, very, very, very long winded, you know, spool here is. The. The fact that I'm able to be on The Voice now is a direct result of the relationship that I started with Paul Markovich back in 2005 on Rock Star. So what is this, 2020? Joe: Yes. Nate: Right. So. This whole gig started coming about. A decade and a half ago. And so I. And so I say all that, I say that to even spend it further back to talk about what I was saying earlier about relationships, which is that you have no idea, you know, the the guy that you do a gig with one time for one hundred bucks at a club somewhere. Might be the guy who calls you for the audition that completely changes the course of your career. Joe: All right. Nate: So, you know, Joe: So Nate: I mean, and. Joe: So Rockstar was till when? Nate: Rockstar, unfortunately, only lasted two seasons, Rockstar was 2005, 2006 on CBS. The first season it was Rockstar in excess and the feature band was in excess. And we were going through the process to find a lead singer to replace Michael Hutchence. And then the subsequent season was called Rock Star Supernova. And they had chosen Tommy Lee. Oh, this is embarrassing. Tommy Lee. Jason is dead. And a guitar player. Joe: Tell us of. Nate: But they are putting together the supergroup. They're putting the supergroup. And and so they were basically auditioning for a singer to front this supergroup. And that was what that season was about. And so then, yeah, like I said, that's easy. It ended. And then Paul Stanley called like Vee Paul Stanley. Joe: Yeah. Nate: Like the walking, breathing, living. Iconic legend Joe: Yes. Nate: Paul Stanley calls and says, Hey, guys, I'm going to go out and support my solo record. You want to play with me and I will. Duh. Joe: Right. Nate: You know, I mean, Paul is amazing. Paul, Paul, Paul is Paul and Cher. Paul, Stanley and Cher share. Shares is a share on all adult donor list, but possibly in share. Both have this. They are at once incredibly. Sort of present and know exactly who they are. And the fact that they are literally. Iconic legends. But at the same time, able to make fun of themselves, able to laugh. Selves able to be down to earth, able to be. Just so what's the word I'm looking for, relatable. Joe: Authentic. Yeah, Nate: Authentic, relatable Joe: Yeah, Nate: In a crazy Joe: Yeah. Nate: Way. You know what I mean? Have figured. I didn't pause daily. I said to you, man, I was in this band, you know, however long ago or whatever you guys met and she was older than that. Oh, okay. Go. I love it. Was the early days as to whether I was the rock band. It's the story. Joe: Peter. Nate: Sorry. You know, because I was such a funny time. So it's the band from Rockstar Impulse Daily. And I hit the pause daily as it meant the band from Rockstar and Paulist Aliens is the best band ever played with us. Here it goes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure this is the best band you've ever played with. Joe: Nice. Oh, my guys, Nate: No, Joe: It's Nate: It was Joe: Hours Nate: It was Joe: Of. Nate: So great. He was so great. It's like the cool thing, too, is we did it. We did a show a while back. And one of the songs we played in season finale after the season finale is over and the show's over. I hopped my car to drive home and drink. And I have a text from Paul Stanley telling me, oh, my God, man, great job on, you know, such and such a song tonight. Joe: That's so cool, man. Nate: It's amazing. Joe: It's so Nate: You know, Joe: Cool. Nate: He is he is genuinely one of those guys who. I don't know. He's just he's he he's he's able to balance being an icon and still being sort of down to earth and, Joe: That's really Nate: You know, Joe: Cool. Nate: Relatable and. Yeah. Joe: So what year is this that you go out with him right after Rockstar ends? Nate: Well, Roxette would have been a five oh oh oh five was one season. 06 was another season. And so I feel like we did. I mean, it would have been 06. It would've been 06. Maybe in two oh seven. But maybe just because because Rock Star was a summer show, so we wider than rock star and been down at the end of the summer. And then we might respect, like the fall slash winter with Paul Stanley Joe: Ok. Nate: And then been done because because the the second leg of the Paul Stanley tour was Australia. And so Australia, if you don't know or if anyone doesn't know. Is backwards to us. So Australia winter is our summer. So it's 100 degrees in the winter. So I feel like it was that. I feel like it was like the fall here. I feel like it was 2006 rehearsals. Maybe in the fall tour here in the fall. And then I feel like that tour would have gone into like maybe. Like October, November in in Australia, Joe: Ok. Nate: Something of that nature. Joe: And at Nate: Yeah. Joe: This point, is this the biggest tour that you've done up to date to Nate: With Joe: That Nate: Paul. Joe: Yet? Nate: He is definitely the most iconic artist that I would have worked with up Joe: Up Nate: To that point, Joe: To that Nate: You know? Joe: Point. OK. Nate: Well, OK. Well. No, because I don't mean. I tried not to like. Joe: You've done so many great things, we can't leave anything out. Nate: No, no, I'm just. I'm OK. What exactly Joe: That's why Nate: Is Joe: I'm Nate: Going Joe: Prodding Nate: On right now? Joe: You for all of this stuff. This Nate: No, Joe: Is my job. Nate: I mean, man, I'm just fortunate. I'm fortunate that I've managed to eke out a living doing this thing. And I'm fortunate that, like, people calling me to do what I do, I feel like. Joe: And you're about the most humble person I've ever met in my life. That's the reason. Nate: That's nice. That's nice of you to say. Thank Joe: It's Nate: You. Joe: True. Nate: But it's Joe: It's. Nate: True. I know. But you know what? It is so so look. So when I was in high school. I wasn't walking around like, yeah. One day I'm gonna play a post alien, Chaka Khan, and, you know, remember me on TV? I didn't think that. I thought like Joe: That was like your Richard Pryor. Nate: I thought. Joe: Now it's like you're selling Richard Pryor. That Nate: I'm so not going to even try to do Richard Pryor. Joe: Was Nate: But Joe: Great. Nate: But Joe: Oh, Nate: But Joe: Good. Nate: I mean, I guess. But bye bye. But my point is that, like, my point is every day I am of two people. I am the person who gets up and goes like, OK, today it's time to get up and learn the Peter Frampton song that we're playing on the show today. Like what? Like the first. Right. Right, so so, so part of me goes. OK, let's learn. Peter Frampton on. That's the that's the current me. But the high school me is still in there, and one of the first records I ever owned was a Peter Frampton record, right? Not Frampton comes alive, but it's like one before that. The single was a song called I Can't Stand It No More. Which I'm not even going to try to sing. But it's a really cool tune. But like so the part of me gets up and goes, OK, let's go to Linda Peter Frampton song play today. But then inside that is still like the little kid going like, I can't believe I'm playing with this guy. That is one of the dudes that I learned to play drums by jamming along to my drum set Joe: Yeah, Nate: To the Joe: It's Nate: To Joe: Crazy. Nate: The LP. I'm a record player, so I say all that just to say, like in terms of being humble. It's not like I'm trying to be humble. It's just that I still the meet the young me still steps back and looks at what I'm fortunate to do and goes, Oh my God. Dude, you're you're a lucky friggin fortunate mofo to get to do what you're doing. So and then again, circling back to where we were, which was you said up to that point, Paul Stanley. And the reason why I paused. I had not played with Cher at that point, but I feel like I had played with Natalie Cole at that point. Joe: Ah, Nate: Yeah, so. Joe: So that's Nate: Right. Joe: Here. Nate: So so genre differences, obviously, and volume of people who know, obviously, you know, potentially different. Joe: Yes. Nate: But I mean, in terms of iconic, Joe: Yes. Nate: I mean, they're both they're both right there. I remember going out to dinners. Natalie would have these dinners. We were on tour in Japan at one point and she said, we know want everybody come down to dinner at the restaurant, at the hotel or whatever, and we're there. And she would say things like, you know what? When Daddy said that? And I'm like. Joe: Oh, my gosh. Your mind explodes. Nate: My mind explodes. Joe: That is so Nate: One Joe: Cool. Nate: Time Daddy said, and it was like, Wow. Joe: Yeah. Nate: So yeah, man. So I mean so so I can't remember the exact timeline. But up to that point. Yes, it would have been Natalie, Paul Stanley. I had a short I had a short run with Chaka Khan Joe: Ok. Nate: Up to that point. So she's you know, she's you know, I mean, Chaka Joe: Yeah. Nate: Khan. Right. Joe: Hey. Nate: I mean it again, like I said, even as I say this, that I have a hard time saying these things because I don't come across like I played with her. It's like to me, I literally look back and I like I play with a person like they hired Joe: So Nate: Me. They're bad. Joe: Call Soquel. Nate: So now I it's. Yeah, it's man. I'm so fortunate. I'm so fortunate. Joe: So where are we in the timeline now, because. Nate: Well, at this point, we're up to about where we're up to Paul Stanley. So impossibly ends, Joe: Yeah. And this again, Nate: Stanley Joe: What Nate: Ends. Joe: Year is this? Remind me. 2009, Nate: Well, Joe: You Nate: We're Joe: Said. Nate: All well, we're we're pretty much almost current at this point because when Paul Stanley ends. That's got to be like, let's see, oh, five or six or seven. That's got to be like in the O2 eight ish 07, Joe: Ok. Nate: Seven or eight ish ballpark. Joe: Yes. OK. Nate: And then I did a TV show. I was fortunate to do a couple of TV shows, and one of them was called the Bonnie Hunt Show, which was a daytime talk show on NBC. And circling way back to your way earlier question about in terms of who was at early with me, who that I know still. So Churchill era was the piano player and the band on the body honcho. And and it is and it is through Chechu Elora that I got the call to audition for the band or the Bonnie Joe: Wow. Nate: Hunt show right Joe: How many years later Nate: Later than Berkeley. Joe: Here? It's like. Nate: I mean, it's a little Berkeley, I graduated ninety four, the call for Bonnie Joe: It's crazy. Nate: Hunt to audition comes 94, 2004 to about a decade and a half. Joe: It's crazy, right? This is exactly Nate: It's crazy, Joe: What you were talking about. Nate: But it's relationships, Joe: Yeah, Nate: It's relationships, Joe: Yeah. Nate: You know. So, yeah. So then. So Bonnie Hunt. And then that ran for a while and then Bonnie Hunt for a stretch, ran concurrent with Cher. So I was playing with Bonnie. And share at the same time, and I can't actually remember which one came online first, but what I was basically doing was I was playing in Vegas with Cher and then on my days off from Cher, I was coming home to Bonnie here in L.A. and I was basically driving back and forth and doing sort Joe: Wow. Nate: Of double duty. Yeah, it was it was a little bit. It was a little taxing because Joe: Oh, my God. Nate: I. Joe: So was Cher a Barry Squire gig? Nate: Cher actually came through my relationship with Paul Markovitch dating back to 2005, Joe: Ok. Nate: So meeting him in 05, doing the show with all five of six rock star Paul Stanley tour sessions in town. Other things in town. And then Cher would have come about. I mean, it feels like. Oh, nine ish. But don't quote me on that. Oh nine oh nine. Give or take six months to a year. Joe: Ok. And the share gig was at a walk on for you because of Paul. Or you still had to audition. Nate: Share. That's what he called a walk on. Joe: Guy, Nate: It makes Joe: I Nate: It sound so Joe: Don't Nate: So Joe: Know Nate: It Joe: What Nate: Makes us so casual, like, Joe: Would Nate: Hey, Joe: Have Nate: Man, Joe: Come Nate: Come on over Joe: Up. Nate: And play with us and share. Joe: I don't even Nate: Hey. Joe: Know where that term comes from. Walk on. Was Nate: Oh, Joe: It? Nate: Well, we'll Joe: Isn't Nate: Walk Joe: That like Nate: On Joe: A Nate: Is Joe: Football Nate: Like. Joe: Thing? Like if you don't have to. You don't have to go through the audition. Nate: No, Joe: Are Nate: I Joe: The. Nate: Think it's. No, I think it's kind of the opposite. I think it's a college. I think it's a college athletics term. But it's not a good thing. I know you're using it as a good term, but I think that in college athletics, you have your your your top tier guys who are on scholarship. So like, for example, on a college basketball team, like a Division One team, I think there's like twelve kids, I think. And I think that, like, 10 of them are on scholarship, but there's like auditions, auditions, music nerd tryouts Joe: Tryout. Nate: To fill like those last spots. Joe: Hey, Nate: And Joe: I Nate: I think Joe: Said auditions, Nate: Those last Joe: Too. Nate: Spots. Joe: I couldn't think of the word. Nate: Right. I think those last spots are walk ons like, OK. We've got art, we've got our eight or whatever it is, our 10, we've got our we've got our blue chippers over here. We've got to fill out the team, open tryouts, and then there's like 100 kids. And of that one hundred kids, you pick like four or five, whatever it is to fill out your team. That's a walk on. So like a walk on. Oftentimes never even gets on the floor like in in that context. But Joe: So Nate: I understand Joe: I Nate: What you're Joe: Totally Nate: Saying. Joe: Use Nate: No, Joe: That. Nate: You did. But no, but I understand. I totally understand what you meant. I told you so. But and to answer your question, yes. I did not audition. Mark was playing with Cher. And I believe that Pink had dates that conflicted. And so I believe that he made the decision to go and fulfill his obligation with Pink, which vacated the Cher position, which gave Paul the leeway to basically call me. And then I came in and I finished out the whole run with Cher at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. Joe: Got it. And she Nate: So Joe: Was Nate: Then. Joe: Amazing. Amazing person, everything you actually got to hang with her a little bit. Nate: She's Joe: A lot. Nate: Awesome. She's awesome. She she is one of the people like and again, I never take any of this for granted. I never think any of this is assumed. None of it. But like those kind of stories that you hear about artists who are like, you know what, I'm just gonna buy out the whole theater for Tuesday night. So my whole band and crew and dancers and everyone can go and watch Boogie Nights. You know, I mean, like or hey, I'm just gonna, like, buy out all of the pole position, indoor, you know, go kart race track for a night. So my whole band and crew could just go and do that. So, you know, she really she did a thing once where Cher is the coolest. Like, shares the coolest. And the first person to make fun of Cher is Cher. Like, she's so, you know, like self-effacing. But at the same time knows that she's an icon. And that's an amazing thing. It's an amazing balance. But we did a thing one night where we played. Bingo. Right. Hey, guys, I want everybody to come down to the theater where we're going to play bingo. OK, so here we sit playing bingo. And the prizes, if you get bingo, is like an Apple iPad. OK. So this person wins, OK? He got B eleven I 17 in bingo. Here's my pad. Thank Joe: Nice. Nate: You. Good bye. OK. Here's your iPad. OK. It's like. It's like. It's like Oprah. You got a car. Joe: Right. Nate: You've got a car. You've got a car. Right. So. So. So the night is that we played. I don't know. There's there's 200 people on the crew. And we played 30 rounds of bingo. So 30 people have walked out with iPods. OK, well, it's late. It's you know, it's Vegas. So. So, so Vegas late. So it's, you know, hetero. 3:00 in the morning. OK, everybody. It's all good. Great job. Last round works on me. OK. Goodnight. Right. Bye. OK. Show up the next day. Do you know whatever it is, soundcheck? Oh, date. He's right that way. What you mean? I didn't win. No, no. Sure. Have for everybody. Joe: Nice. Nate: You know, I mean, like that kind Joe: Yeah, Nate: Of thing. Joe: Yeah, yeah, Nate: He get out Joe: That's cool. Nate: So. So. So, yeah, I know she was she was one of the. Coolest, most relaxed, she Ampol. I mean, I don't. I got to say, it's it's ironic or not that two of the most well-known, iconic, well respected artists that I've ever worked with are also two of the most down to earth. Relaxed. Nothing to prove. Cher has nothing to prove. Paul Stanley has nothing to prove. There's no attitude. There's no weirdness. Like. Joe: It's really cool. Nate: It's really cool. Joe: Yeah. Nate: It's really cool. And I've just been fortunate that. I. I have historically never shows in. Gigs, opportunities, situations. Politically, and here's what I mean. I've never chosen a gig because the artist was the biggest artist or because the guys in the band I thought were the coolest guys who would call me for gigs one day. I've always been the guy who. If you call me for a gig, you call me for a game. OK, Joe. Hey, Nate. Put together a band for this game of going on. I'm never gonna be like, let me call the four guys who I think are most likely to call me for a big gig. Let me call the four guys who are my boys, who I think could really a user gig or B are going to play this the best. I'm never. So that might wind up being four guys you've never heard of. Joe: Right. Nate: But they'll kill it. Joe: Sure. Nate: And they're my buddies and. And it'll be a great game. So I guess my point is I've always done that and I've never chosen gigs. By the way. Based on. Political or financial gain? So numerous times. I've had a. That might be more beneficial politically or financially, frankly. But maybe I hate the music or I've got gig B. Where I love the music and I love the dudes, but it pays half what gig pays on gig based. And the reason I've always done that is because I've always hoped that in the end, wherever I land, I'm gonna be playing great music with great musicians in a cool situation with guys that I really love being around. And I am so fortunate that that's the case. The guys in the band on the boys are my brothers. Those are my guys. Joe: Right. It could Nate: You Joe: Prove Nate: Know. Joe: To be a really long tour if you're on a gig where it pays a lot of money. But the music sucks and Nate: Or you Joe: You don't Nate: Don't Joe: Like Nate: Like Joe: The Nate: The Joe: People. Nate: People. Yeah, or you don't like the people you're playing with. And and yeah. And. Yeah, I like I said, I've just I've just been very I've been very fortunate, you know? And again, it's like the guys on the voice are my family and not even just the guys on the voice. The guys are the boys in the band. The girls on the voice in the band. The whole voice, music, family. People sometimes say, how do you guys get along so well? And I'll quote one of our keyboard techs slash. Brainiac Patrick, who knows the answers to all the questions. He just does he's like DOE technology. But someone once asked, how do you guys get along so well? And Patrick said, or no, they said, why do you guys go along so well? No. Was it. Hold on. Let me go straight. Yeah, I was how do you guys get along so well? And Patrick said it's because we have to. But we have to in other words, what we do and the product that we create and the amount of time that we spend around each other and working with each other. It could only exist if we had the kind of family relationship that we did. We have to if it if it's not that it can't get done, it can't Joe: Right. Nate: Happen. Joe: Right. Nate: You know, Joe: Yes. Nate: So I'm rambling, but that's kind Joe: No, no, Nate: Of where Joe: No. Nate: That's kind of that's that's the whole story. So, so, so an answer. Joe: So, again, in the timeline, year two thousand nine. Nate: Yeah. That's when the voice starts 2010, somewhere in that ballpark. Yeah. Joe: When the voice was, I guess I might be getting it mixed up with the rock star. The Voice wasn't a lengthy audition, right? It was you already because of Paul and everything. I don't remember. Nate: Well, I mean, the voice, so the voice came about. The voice was not an audition. The process that led to me being on The Voice. Started. A decade prior. Over a decade prior, you know, so. So, no, it wasn't an audition, but it was a relationship that built over the over the preceding however many years that was from. Well, I said it decades. So I guess I guess not a decade. But. The voice would have been 2009 10 and I would have met Paul is more than five. So about a half a decade. So, yeah, so would have been a five year, six year relationship prior that led to the voice ultimately Joe: That's Nate: For Joe: Amazing. Nate: Me anyway. Joe: Right. Nate: Yeah. Joe: And it's and it's going strong and you guys sound better than ever. And it's just amazing. And just to be on the set. It was so cool. I think the funny and I tell people the story all the time. The fact that I was able to have, you know, some ears to listen to Nate: Yes. Joe: The band, Nate: Oh, God. Joe: The banter Nate: Oh. Joe: On the bandstand. Nate: Woo! Oh, don't you ever put that out anywhere Joe: Oh, okay. Nate: Where the worst are the worst. Joe: Okay. Nate: All we do is back on each other all day. Joe: Oh, my gosh. It is amazing. So what else? I want to make sure we didn't miss anything. And I want to also give you a moment to plug anything that you're doing. I don't know if you still you still have your band outside of The Voice. Nate: Well, I'm involved in a side project with my buddy Sean Halley, Sean Halley and I, and sadly now do you always do these v a zoom? Joe: So far, because I just started it when all of this happened. Nate: Right. Joe: So. Nate: And all of this for your listeners who may see this down the road, years, three years, four years is that we are in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Joe: Correct. Nate: There are cars being turned over. Joe: Better known as Cauvin Nate: Yes, Joe: 19. Nate: Yes. Yes. That's Joe: Yes. Nate: It's it's it's crazy. So, yeah, I mean, all of this is happening amidst this time when, you know, gigs are getting canceled and all of this. And actually, I had a gig with my side project, which is a band called Fraud Profits, which is myself and my dear, dear friend Sean Halley, also a genius, by the way. And we had this band for our profits, which was filled out by bass player Ben White. And Ed Roth was gonna be playing keys with us. And we had a gig booked on April 10th that we were all excited to do it. And so it's not happening. But in terms of things that I'm doing outside the voice, that is one of the primary things. So you can if you're interested, you can look up Frauke profits F are eight. You d p r o p h e t s dot com. And you can also find us on Instagram. You can also find us on Facebook. And so we will continue to keep you updated on what we're up to in the albums available where all albums are available. It's called Pop Ptosis and it's really rad. Yeah, Joe: Awesome. Nate: Yeah, Joe: All Nate: Man, Joe: Right, cool. Nate: It's. Joe: And then what about lessons? What are you doing Nate: I don't know, I guess trying to study with you at some point when you have some have Joe: Ok. Nate: Some availability Joe: Well, Nate: And you can you Joe: Yeah, Nate: Can fit me Joe: I'm Nate: In. Joe: Pretty tied Nate: Ok. Joe: Up Nate: We'll Joe: Right Nate: Get back Joe: Now. Nate: To me. Get back to me. You can when you can fit me in your schedule. Now, Joe: Oh, Nate: So. Joe: Good. No, sir. So how can people how can drummers that want to go to the next level take lessons from you? How I know that. Nate: Right. Joe: I guess if they're in L.A. and when things get back to whatever air quotes normal, if that happens, they could come there to your studio and Nate: Right. Joe: Do it. Nate: Right. But in Joe: You Nate: The meantime, Joe: Doing? Nate: I Joe: Yeah. Nate: Will. I am making myself available for online lessons. And it's a thing that thanks to this. I think I mentioned to you earlier, I got my whole rig up and running. So I'm talking into like an actual microphone as opposed to my my earbuds and I have on headphones as opposed to my earbuds, because the headphones, the microphone are all running through my studio gear, which I'm making like gestures at, but no one can see. But I am getting the rig here setup so that I can do online lessons. I have done some of the past and I'm thinking that with my new audio going on. Thanks to the motivation of getting with you and chatting tonight. I have it a little bit more under control. So sure, if you want to man if you want get together online for like a lesson or an exchange of knowledge or any of that stuff, I'm so easy to find. I'm on Instagram or Insta, as I call it, when I want to make my wife really Joe: It's Nate: Angry. She's like Joe: Nice. Nate: No one calls it. It's the I call it ads that no one calls it. It's. Oh. Joe: Oh, good. Nate: No, Joe: So Nate: It's very. Joe: What's your what's your handle on Instagram? Nate: Oh, no. Joe: Oh, man, I'll I'll find Nate: Shut up, Joe: It and put it Nate: Shut Joe: In the show Nate: Up. Joe: Notes. Nate: Wait, wait, wait. No, I think it's just. I think it's in in as inmate eight, the number eight D. Are you Amzi in eight D. Are you M z. I think that's me on Instagram. It's also my license plate. Oh, hey, buddy, sorry. So so the band was having a rehearsal at center staging. And my license plate on my SUV says in eight D-R, UMC meat drums. And there were some other band there and I can't remember who the artist was. But like the drummer and the guitar player of that band came over to our rehearsal. I was hanging out. And you know how it is. Musicians know, what is this? The voice. Oh, what are you doing? I'm doing this gig. And so the drummer talks to me and says, Oh, you know, you're the drummer on The Voice. What's your name? Nate anymore. Oh, Nate. Nate. Oh, is that your car in the parking lot? This is Nate drums on the license plate. I was like, yeah. And like, literally, I swear to God, that's because. I could be an atriums like like I felt like I needed to have a gig Joe: Right. Nate: Of a stature that would allow me to Joe: The Nate: Have the mic. Joe: Name Nate: And Joe: On Nate: They Joe: Your Nate: Trust. Joe: License plate. Perfect. Nate: Oh, yes. I was like, oh, you're so young, like young, you Joe: Oh, Nate: Know? Joe: Good. Nate: But he was funny. He was funny. All right. You could be aid drops was like, thanks. Joe: That's so Nate: Next year, Joe: Funny. It's awesome. Nate: Let me just give like a.. Joe: Yeah. Nate: Ok. Joe: Oh, God. Nate: David, he was girl. Of course. And of course, I looked him up and he's like, you know, what are these killing young drummers? There's so many bands. There's so many of those incredible guys Joe: Yeah, Nate: Just playing all that stuff. Joe: Well, cool. Nate: And I go, boom, boom, boom bap. Joe: Yeah, well, no, you don't, but you can say that if you want. You do a lot more Nate: It's Joe: Than that. Nate: True. Joe: So how about Nate: Well. Joe: Facebook? Do you know where they find you on Facebook? Nate: Yeah, sure, Facebook dot com slash Nate Morton drums. Joe: Perfect. So we did Instagram, Facebook. You have a website. Nate: I don't have an actual Web site. The closest thing I have is probably the for profit scam Joe: Ok, cool. Nate: Site. Joe: Ok. Nate: And what else we got? Joe: I assume Nate: Facebook. Joe: You don't hang out on Twitter or do you? Nate: You know what? So here's the thing. And I'm just being honest right now, it is being real. Somewhere along the line, I intentionally or unintentionally linked my Instagram to my Twitter. So it seems like whatever I put on Instagram winds up on Twitter. Or maybe it's my Facebook. But no, I'm not really active on Twitter. So if you actually want to catch up with me, find me on Facebook and I'm easy and like I'm not always the fastest to get back, but I get back to people. So if you find me on Facebook, dot com slash Nate Morton drums and you follow me there, you send me a message, whatever, whatever. I'm going to find it eventually. I'm gonna get back to you because it bugs me. My OCD would be bother. I can't look at a message and like, just delete it. Like, I look at it and I go back to that. So even so, if it's a it's over a day or a week or a month. I do my very best to get back. Joe: I'm sure. Nate: And and and you can always go, like super old school and just email me at an eight D argue Amzi at EarthLink thought that. Joe: Cool. And then really important is your YouTube page. Nate: Oh, I asked ask you to recite Joe: No. Nate: It. Joe: I'll put it in the show notes. But do you have more? Do you have your name? One and then. Is it the nake? Nate: No, no, it's just one. Joe: So it's the one Nate: It's Joe: With Nate: Just Joe: The Nate: One. Joe: Nait can. Like all the stuff. The Nate: Yeah, Joe: Voice videos. Nate: Yeah, it's all Joe: Right. Nate: On the same. That's all Joe: Ok, Nate: The same. Joe: Cool. Nate: Yes, that's all the same channel and it's YouTube dot com slash. See, like the letter C slash. Nate Morton drums, Joe: Perfect. Nate: Youtube dotcom Joe: See, Nate: Slash Joe: Nate Martin jumps. Nate: C slash O C anymore and drums. Oh, wow. Joe: There you go. Nate: I kind of just got that. Again, I swear. Joe: Oh. I think I should actually put some, like, cool Jeffs Nate: Yes, Joe: On the Nate: Yes, Joe: Video like that, lower Nate: Yes. Joe: Your head, just explode like the top flies off. Nate: I think Joe: All right. Endorsement's. Nate: If. You're awesome, Joe. Joe: Say always thinking. Nate: That's my endorsement. That's my words. Joe: No, no, Nate: That's my judgment. Joe: No. Nate: You said endorsements, Joe, your incredible. Joe: Yeah, well, you're amazing. But that's not Nate: What Joe: What you know. Nate: Does that mean? OK. So I am very, very fortunate to be affiliated with some really awesome companies. I'm afraid to say them all because like. I'm afraid to forget one and then Joe: Oh, I know. OK, Nate: So, so, so, so it's OK to put it in the Joe: I put in Nate: In Joe: The show. Nate: The text. Joe: Yeah. Is there anything else that I missed that you wanted to talk about? You know, I don't want to leave anything out. Nate: You know what? That's that's that's interesting, you should ask. And I will just I will just say this. I have it's going to be really weird. I'm going to go a little a little go a little left, Joe. Joe: That's Nate: And I Joe: Right. Nate: Know if you're expecting this Joe: That's Nate: Or not. Joe: Ok. Nate: I have six kids. I have a wife. Her name is Nicole, and outside of all of this, the show stuff and the gigs and this audition and that audition and this tour and that artist in that venue and that TV show and all of those things are amazing. I have to say that. I find my motivation and I find myself. Looking back on what is most important and all of those things are great. In the sense that. They allow me to do the things that I want to do with my family. Does that make sense? Joe: Absolutely. Nate: Know, I don't mean to be fruity or anything. It's just it's like I spend I spend a little bit of time getting to do things like this, like chatting to you. And I talk about drumhead to talk about music on the show. And I just never want to lose sight of the fact that within that world. I take a lot of pride and I put a lot of import on being able to spend time with my kids and my family as well. And one of the biggest words in our industry or in my life. I'll speak very small scale. One of the biggest words in my life is balance. And so while it may look from the outside, like the balance is completely shifted to all of that, there's also the other side, which is that you've also got allow yourself time to like spend time with your gnarly four year old to drive you crazy because she's insane or you're a two year old who might fall off the trampoline if you don't zip the thing closed. Or my 13 year old who has a tennis lesson or who can't play tennis right now. So I take him to Home Depot so he can hit on the on the wall or my 17 year old who I drag into the lounge room to play a game of chess with me or my 19 year old who is away at college while he's home. Now, who I communicate with and go, how's things going in your pursuits? You know. Or my. I left on my eight year old. Who? Who is it? Eight year old teenager. She's eight, but she's already a teenager. Isabelle, could that have a hug? Okay. Joe: Fine. Nate: You know, so. So it's like I don't mean to get too cheesy, but, you know, a long time ago, a great and dear friend of mine, Tony de Augustine, said the hardest thing about creating a career as a professional musician is finding a balance. And I said, a balance between what? And he said a balance between everything. And at the time, I was in my early 20s and I was like, what? What does that mean? And the older I get and every day, every week, month, year that goes by, I really do get it. It's a balance between. Gigs that you love. Gigs that pay the bills. Being gone on tour, making money and supporting your family. Seeing your family. Working hard and, you know, doing whatsoever versus having to work, but making yourself spend time doing things that are important otherwise. So again, I don't mean to get too cosmic with all of this, but yeah, I just want to make mention of that. I just wanted to make mention the fact that. Again. Certainly. Certainly way back again to Sharon, what's her name? Who said you don't sound very well rounded? I said I'm focused. Well, now I've adapted that focus. And that focus is, you know, to fill the time, music and and creativity and doing that side of things. But it's also in focus on Family and spending time with the wife and the kids. All those people who put up with me, Joe: Yeah. Nate: You know, all those little people who call me dad, I'm like, what? Joe: Yeah. Yeah. You have such a great Nate: And Joe: Family. Nate: My wife and my wife and the wife who puts up with me, the wife. Joe: Yes. Nate: I couldn't. I couldn't I couldn't be in my studio working 10 hours a day without her. Joe: No. Nate: I couldn't jump in my car and drive in the universal and work, you know, 80 hours a week without her. Joe: Go Nate: Right. Joe: Get. Nate: So. So those people are important and those people create the balance that that that makes my life really fucking cool. Joe: You deserve, brother. It's. I am honored to call you a friend. I am so glad we met. I don't even know how it happened. I, I know that we were both at one of those drum get togethers. It was a remote village in something. Nate: Yes, sure, probably, yeah. Joe: And I saw you as I was leaving and I handed you a card. And I had this funny slogan on the back of the card. And I was like a block and a half away already. And you're like, Hey dude, I love your card. Nate: It's Joe: It was really funny Nate: Like Joe: Like Nate: Me Joe: That. Nate: That Joe: Yeah. Nate: Sounds Joe: And Nate: Like me. Joe: Then it just it went from there and all the other stuff. So I appreciate you so much and I can't wait to Nate: I Joe: See Nate: Appreciate Joe: You in Nate: You. Joe: Person Nate: I appreciate Joe: Again. Nate: It. Joe: Please give. Nate: Hopefully soon. Joe: Yeah, I know. Please give my love to your family. Nate: We'll Joe: And Nate: Do, buddy, and you Joe: Yeah I will. Nate: And you. Joe: I will. And I really appreciate your time. And this is awesome. And thanks so much. Nate: Joe, absolutely my pleasure. And thank you for having me on. Joe: All right, brother, I appreciate it. You take care.

On this episode of Quiet Light, we discuss Athena Severi's immersive Mastermind group, China Magic, and her work as an entrepreneur. Episode Highlights: Being a “connector of people”. The roots of China Magic. Why it's important to trust the wisdom of others. The China Magic schedule. Splitting the China Magic Mastermind into smaller groups. The Canton Fair. The percentage of women at Mastermind events. Transcription: Mark: I think one of the interesting things about the online world and online businesses is that online business owners tend to be more inclined to be a part of mastermind groups and to gather together and share information with each other. And these groups tend to range from small and informal; I know I'm part of a small mastermind group that would get together like once every few months for lunch to really evolve even to a point; Joe, I know you talked to Athena Severi is that right? Joe: Yeah. Mark: She takes people to China for 12 days as part of her mastermind group to educate and teach people and have people get comfortable with working in China, direct with Chinese manufacturers and teach them how to go about doing that. How did that conversation go? Joe: Yeah, well, great. Look, two things here, number one, it's so good to have a female entrepreneur on the podcast. There's just not enough in the e-commerce space and Athena is one of them. She's a terrific entrepreneur that connected with Kevin King, who we know, the Titan Network and her group, China Magic. At one point, she had an Amazon business and went over to China through a group thing and found it to be not very helpful, essentially abrasive and going about negotiating in a sort of Wall Street manner; the way that it really doesn't work. So she brought in some experts. She comes from the event planning world and she created China Magic and takes, I think its 50 people over to China for the Canton Fair for a 12-day event. Every night they have a mastermind group where they're talking about selling on Amazon. They have people go into the fair and walk around with you and help you find products, negotiate and talk with people in a way that builds lasting relationships. They travel to different cities. They do so many things and they brought in some amazing people that are mentors that go on the trip as well. And they also build lifelong relationships with the people that go. To top it off they stay at the Ritz-Carlton at like the 90th floor; it's pretty amazing. Mark: That sounds fun. Joe: And it's not unreasonably priced for a trip to China and all you get. I think she should be charging more. But one of the key things that I hear over and over and over again is that for an entrepreneur who has made the trip, made the effort to go to China and meet with their manufacturer, they come out with a better relationship with their manufacturer, better terms that improve cash flow, that allows them to invest more in more SKUs or more marketing. And what Athena does is she takes all the risk and mystery out of booking that trip to China. Personally, I would never want to do it on my own. She takes it all out. I would definitely go if I was an e-commerce entrepreneur through China Magic; I'll definitely do. Mark: Sounds great. Joe: Let's go through it. Joe: Hey, folks. Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I have Athena Severi with me. She is the founder of China Magic. But I'm not going to say much more than that. Athena, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Athena: Joe, it's an honor to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Joe: I didn't want to say much more because I want you to tell us who the heck you are. That's what we do here. I don't want to read a script. I want you to tell us what your background is, who you are, and then we'll go from there. Athena: Okay, cool. So I am naturally a connector of people. I build communities. And I've always created very unique event experiences where I connect people with people who are very brilliant, intelligent, and successful in their world. And because of that, I created some pretty interesting and unique experiences, including this will be called China Magic. Joe: Yeah, I think Kevin King introduced us for the very first time and he said, Joe, this lady collects people, which is an interesting thing to say. But then we talked about China Magic and you've talked about it and look, I've not run my own e-commerce site since 2010 when I sold. Now it's conflict, in my opinion, to online because I'm a broker, I'm between, in the middle. Even if I had my own e-commerce site I don't know if I'd want to get on a plane and go to China because it's just so overwhelming. But you kind of run this show and help people get over that overwhelming aspect of it. Can you talk about how China Magic started and what you do for people on the way there? Athena: Yeah. Joe: Because the audience is they're SaaS and they're content owners as well but for the e-commerce owners that think and know; we've talked about it, how to get better deals is to get on a plane and go to China and negotiate with the manufacturer, meet with them, becomes friends with them, become part of the family. But nobody really wants to do that. It's a big undertaking. So you help people with that. So tell us about China Magic a little bit. Athena: Sure. So just to kind of backtrack a little bit, I worked for a consulting firm in corporate America for some time and then I got introduced to the Amazon world. And I actually released a couple of products that went well. I actually quit my six-figure job selling on Amazon. So I would struggle quite a bit because I was actually in; I still am in the yoga accessory world and I dealt with fabrics and colors and sizes and different things that communication with China would always just take a long time. I get a sample sent to me if it was a bit off it would take a couple more weeks before they could actually remake it, send it back to me. And I was struggling with my own growth as a business because of that. And also, I always wanted to kind of design things a bit and not be the same as everybody else. So I think because of that, I was actually at a conference and someone mentioned going to China. And I never even thought of going to China before but I realized that's a big part of being in e-com is the quality of your products, the price point that you can get your products, like your supply chain and the suppliers that you deal with is such a huge factor when it comes to your business. And I noticed that there was a lot of Amazon sellers who were like very successfully and done millions of dollars on Amazon, but they weren't experts at sourcing and they had never been to China themselves. So I was actually quite intrigued by the idea of going on my own. Joe: How did you pull it off for the first time if you've never been, did you go with others or did you go by yourself? Athena: I did actually go with others. So the gentleman who is kind of pitching the idea of China, he really sold me on the fact that in order to really grow my brand, it's good to go directly and to meet suppliers. So I signed up for this trip and spent quite a bit of money. It was a three-day trip and we went to a place called Ebru. And even before we got there, I noticed there was a lot missing. Like no one told us what to pack, how to prepare for visa, how to connect with the fellow members; like there was missing a lot of pizzazz and being that I actually have a background in events and then networking and then taking care of people; I worked with celebrities, I've built huge conferences and events like my whole life; that's my background. Joe: Are you counting Kevin King as a celebrity right now? That's obviously… Athena: No. Joe: No? Okay, just checking. Athena: He's his own world but yeah, yeah, yeah. Joe: Okay. Athena: No, I mean like I worked with artists at a place that's called celebrities in revert for years so, like, I know how to red carpet people, how to take care of people, I know the power of connection and community so I was really expecting more of that. I was expecting to be mentored. And what I found when I got there is that they had a different point of view on how to deal with China. The person who was leading was talking about how you present yourself, this is big business and you really talk down the price and you go in there very hardcore, very aggressively, very western and… Joe: The opposite of everything I've ever heard. Athena: Exactly. So I was sitting there and I was not an expert in China whatsoever but I do know human beings and I thought this is very strange. So I actually wanted to do a test and one of the mentors that were on the trip was supposed to go to and source a few products using that method, going in and being the big dog and talking big things and I was like, you know, I'm going to go the other direction, I'm going to go very human being. So I went in, oh, my gosh, is that your daughter? Oh, how lovely. How are you today? Like actually building rapport and then talking about products, talking about the future, building a real relationship. And then towards the end, when things are already being sort of like that connection is there and the creativity and the future is there then I start talking about how can we do this and how could that work and what price point can we get this at? Do you see what I mean? Like a completely different way. They're going in and being like, how much is this and what can you do for me? And I was getting much better pricing. I was getting much better inputs and creativity and they were showing me things that they weren't showing everyone else. They weren't on the shelves and I was like, this is very interesting. So I noticed that also there wasn't much mentoring. They sent us out with these guys who were sort of high school students to translate for us and they didn't have a background in negotiating. They didn't actually understand sourcing so it's like I was brand new to the subject of China, these guys were brand new to the subject of negotiating and the blind is leading the blind. And so that was the trip I went on. And so I thought, you know what, this could be so much better. This could be amazing. And I went to the organizers and said, hey this is my background. And as it was, I was already bringing in the groups with me. I was like mentoring them I was keeping them upbeat, I was creating the networking, I was just that's who I am. So anyway, the point is that I offered to partner with them. I was like let's get together, let's make this beautiful. And they're like, you know what we're happy with the way this trip is. And I'm like, okay, cool. And I was like I'm going to just do my own. I'm going to bring in some friends and they're like yeah, yeah, cool. And so my first China Magic I brought 50 people to China and we extended it to a 12-day experience. Joe: Wow. let's talk about the benefit of going to China for an e-commerce entrepreneur and first, let's define who they are. Is it somebody that already has an e-commerce business that is going to meet with their manufacturer and work on new terms and so, so forth and find new products or is it, somebody that's just beginning, doesn't even have a website yet or a product and they're sourcing it for the first time. Who's the ideal candidate to join and go to China on China Magic's trips? Athena: Sure. So to me, if you want to be professional as an Amazon seller and you want to be able to have that sort of relationship and that creativity, it doesn't matter if you're brand new to Amazon or if you have scaled up to doing seven figures, eight-figures. Because what we've done in China and I can kind of tell you more about that in a bit is we actually cater to every sort of stage that people are in in their journey because you're going to be looking at sourcing in a completely different way. So, I mean, China Magic has progressed tremendously. We've already done six trips at this point. But to kind of backtrack a little bit and to kind of answer that question a little better I brought in people who were doing millions of dollars on Amazon and because they had never met with their manufacturer, they were actually able to get such a reduction on the cost of their products, such better terms, like these are people who've been working with the same supplier for two years, three years, and they would meet with them and by the end, like they were doing, 30% down 70% on shipping and they were able to get that down to like 10%, 20% down and then 30 days after landing, paying another 35% and then the rest 60 days or 90 days after. And what that does for someone's cash flow is amazing, especially when you're doing bigger numbers. And obviously coming from your perspective as a broker, that really helps with cash flow and it really helps growth. Joe: Yeah and it allows them to grow the business for sure. I think it's critically important. I've heard so many times how people go to China and really connect with their manufacturer and come up with better terms and better pricing. And even if it's just a dollar off cost of goods sold that you sell, 2,000 a month of that particular unit, that's $24,000 a year in savings. And then eventually when you do sell the business if it's at a three-time multiple, that's adding nearly $75,000 on the list price of the business. And you can put as many zeros before or after that as you want, it's important to do. All right so let's talk about the logistics of 50 people going to China but it's your first trip? Athena: Yeah, it was my first trip. And because I'm crazy, I booked every single person's flight myself. Joe: Oh my. Athena: Yeah, like I'm just a wild girl. Joe: You don't do that now, though, right? Athena: No, no, no. I don't do that now. Joe: Okay. Athena: Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that was most magic about China Magic is I connected with a gentleman named Marty Sherman who's been going to China for over 20 years. And this guy understands China on a level I'd never even come across before. And he really believes in developing relationships. And so the very first thing that we do in China Magic is we talk about the culture. We talk about how to really navigate the waters and how to actually approach people. And it's amazing, again, like these guys are professional entrepreneurs, they're professional business owners, they think they understand their suppliers, they think they understand how to do business. But then when you actually talk to someone who's been on the ground in China for over 20 years, the lessons he's learned and the things that he's been able to develop is so incredible. So that's really the power of finding amazing mentors and leaders when it comes to their field because they understand it better than any of us do, just the same way that you understand what you do so much better. Like maybe some guy sold his business or a couple of businesses or whatever versus someone who's actually seen the sale of hundreds, do you know what I mean? Like their professionalism that you gain from having done something over and over and over again. So what I was looking for when I started China Magic were people who were just absolute geniuses when it came to sourcing. So I actually met a guy; this is a crazy story but have you heard of Kian Golzari, Joe? Joe: No, I don't think I have. So does that make me uninformed; should I know about this? Athena: No, no, no. You're wonderful. You know, a lot of people. Okay, so one of the mentors that I had on China Magic asked if this guy could come visit and I was like, yeah sure. And he kind of hung out in China Magic and towards the end of our trip, he's like, do you mind if I put a little presentation together for everybody? I'm like yeah sure. So on this presentation, he starts talking; the guy's sources for the NFL, the NBA, Google… Joe: Wow. Athena: Inaudible[00:15:58.3] his own family's company that has at least 2,500 SKUs, I mean, he's literally a sourcing guide, right? And he became one of my closest friends and now he's my other main guys. I have got Marty, the one that's been going for over 20 years. And I've got Kian Golzari because the formula that I always used is like, if you want to fast forward your business a few years then you want to be around people who are extremely knowledgeable and successful because you can't even put a dollar amount on the value of having gone through so many mistakes, made so many bad choices, learn from all those mistakes; the network of these guys had like it's just crazy. So when people come to China Magic, a big part of the magic is connecting with people like Kian and like Marty and I think that makes a massive difference. Joe: Well, I just wrote down networking then you said there was connecting because we've talked about this before. There's a lot of time that 50 or 75 or 100 people that are going on a trip like this spend together. And the connecting of those relationships goes beyond just renegotiating or getting better terms and more SKUs with your manufacturers. A lot of people are making lifelong connections on these trips as well with fellow e-commerce entrepreneurs, right? Athena: Oh, gosh, completely. Like we've got people who met three and a half years ago at my first trip, they're still connected to this day. There's still some of them that have developed partnerships. And one thing that's very interesting is when you connect at that level Joe when you travel to a foreign country when you're with each other for that long, a lot of the social veneer comes off. You cannot get that relationship at like a conference in the hallway having lunch here and there. So because of that, people really start to open up and they start to share and that abundance mindset really clicks and that trust really clicks. And so I've traveled the world for five and a half years to build up this network. When you walk into China Magic like people come in as strangers and they literally leave as family and it's just like that gave me goosebumps. It is literally; you couldn't even; like you have to experience it to see the level of connection people have. And then those relationships are so valuable later on. Like you just see them helping each other and giving each other resources all the time; yeah, so it's a beautiful thing to see. Joe: So someone doesn't have to know anything about China; how to get in and out, you help them with that entire process from the visa to the booking of the hotel. So you may not do that yourself for their airline. Athena: Yeah. Joe: Is it you show up, you give them some guidance and they're off and on their own or is it pretty much they're told where to go and what to do all along the way? Athena: Okay, so we have kind of perfected this world. It's almost an art. We've got several group flights that we organize. We've got one from the UK, we've got one from the US, and we've got one from Australia. And it just depends on where our members are coming from. And so we organize our group flights. Everyone's on the same flight and then we have everyone get picked up in beautiful bus freight and then we get to the Four Seasons who love us to death and we are like their favorite humans. And they're waiting for us with Pellegrino and cappuccinos; they know how to take care of us. And so what we do on our very first day is we go and get everyone to the Canton Fair. We go to the Canton Fair by the way, and we go in there with mentors. I bring a ton of these mentors. And these are multi seven, eight-figure, we even have a nine-figure seller coming on our next China Magic. And so we walk in there with them, show them around; get them what it's like to see what it looks like. And then on the first night, we orient them to China, to negotiation, and then the next day, we actually go into the fair with them. So we are mentoring small groups of them throughout the trip. And then when they kind of graduate out and they feel confident, they kind of go on their own. But I have my guys on the ground constantly; we have a sourcing team of about 100 people. We've got connections to factories that are not on the grid; about 4,000 factories you can't even find in Alibaba or even at Canton. So if people are having trouble finding something, we actually utilize the vast network that we've built. So we really are very present for them the entire time. And a part of China that I didn't even mention is it's not just about China like we actually do content every single night about Amazon; so from A to Z, everything from branding to PPC to marketing to every single topic in Amazon is all covered within those 12 days. And we split everybody up into these itty bitty groups, and this is why we cater to everyone. We actually work with like if you're a top seller, you're going to want to talk to other top sellers about pain points that you're struggling with at that level. If you're new to your journey, you need a lot of hand-holding, you need a lot of help, and also, it's not going to mix them so we never do that. We have different content for different levels. And so you literally go in there and you're just going to be with a group of people that are in a similar part of their journey, being literally walked through the journey with some of the top brains in the entire industry throughout the entire 12 days. Joe: And is it always the Canton Fair? Athena: Yeah, so we always go to the Canton Fair. We go to Phase 2 Canton, which is amazing because you go and you're literally walking through booths and booths and booths of product, you're connecting with factories. Joe: What does Phase 2 mean versus I suppose Phase 1? Athena: Phase 2 is where you find like a lot of beauty products, a lot of kitchen products, a lot of household products, baby products. Phase 3 is more about travel, about sports, about different; so each phase of the Canton Fair has its own products and you can go to CantonFair.net and actually take a look at which phase is most appropriate. Joe: Okay. Athena: So what happens is like let's say most of your products are from Phase 2, you would utilize Phase 3 to go do factory visits which is another thing that we talk a lot about. It's like actually going and visiting with your factory, visiting with your suppliers, and we walk you through an exact way to negotiate and to project the future and create these amazing partnerships. Joe: So Phase 3 is a different China Magic trip where they're going to visit the manufacturers or was that a part of Phase 2? I was confused there. Athena: Oh no, no, I'm sorry. So Canton Fair is the largest fair in the world when it comes to sourcing and it goes through three phases. There's Phase 1, 2 and 3. We go to Phase 2 and then we go to Hong Kong for a few days and we go see global sources and do more sourcing there and we do more content there. Then we come back for Phase 3 of Canton. And so that's just a whole; like basically, they set up, they take away their products, and then a whole new world gets created in that next phase because they just got too many products to be able to do it all at one time. Joe: I got you. What about going out and visiting your manufacturers if they were off the grid or if they're not at the Canton Fair or are they all there? Athena: Oh, well, it just depends. Some people are there, some people aren't. But we highly recommend to go visit your factory and then we do a factory visit for those who don't have a supplier yet. And we actually went to a packaging factory that does packaging for like Adidas, Nike, Nescafe, or they got connections, this amazing world of like factories that we can take people to that we really recommend for people. We actually show them the exact step by step on how to go and visit with your manufacturer, how to go and like see the people that are building your products, how to actually build your products with them so that they can see you on the floors, you get an idea, and then Kian goes into like understanding how to like; let's say you're building a backpack, there's all these components, right? So how to look at each component over the world and there's ways to increase quality, to get innovative, to save money. So we teach people really that understanding of sourcing at a level to where you become an expert even within the first few days of China Magic. And this is stuff that like a lot of people are missing, like really, they're missing this within their business and they're missing a ton of product; I'm sorry, a ton of profit because there might be ways to save a lot of money on their products or there might be ways to innovate them and charge a higher premium for them or because they're not in there on the floor dealing with their products, understanding their supplier, it really might be leaving a lot on the table. Joe: How much time in advance do they have to plan a trip like this? Athena: I've had people sign up as quick as two weeks before but we get sold out so fast; like we're actually already sold out for our next trip months, months in advance. And the amazing thing about it is it's mainly word of mouth. We didn't even do any sort of advertising campaign or anything like that. We literally did a couple of Facebook Lives from China and we got like 90% sold out just from that. Because what we're doing in China Magic it is magic and I think people want to be a part of that. Joe: Are there any resources I assume on your website; what is the URL for China Magic that might be… Athena: They can go to ChinaMagicTrip.com. Joe: Okay, there's a trip in there. Athena: We have a waiting list, you can get on that waiting list. Joe: Do you have resources on the website for people that still are too scared to go to China or not ready or can't afford it yet or just starting out; any information that helps them with negotiation tips and things of that nature and dealing with a manufacturer from afar? Athena: Absolutely. So we do have a webinar series that we put together. So if they go to ChinaMagicTrip.com they can get on our list. And then also if they want to reach out to me, they can just go ahead and AthenaSeveri@gmail.com that's my personal e-mail if they want to. Joe: Oh you did it; you just gave out your personal e-mail address. Athena: I did. I don't mind. I have tons of people reach out to me all the time. They can find me on Facebook; they can find me on Instagram. I make myself very available. I actually talk to almost every single person that's ever been on China Magic. I've had a personal conversation with them before they even get going on our trip because I want to make sure that they're inaudible[00:25:48.6] abundance mindset so yeah. Joe: I don't doubt that for a moment. I can see it happening. Athena: Yeah. Joe: Every single person; just out of curiosity it's a woman, female-run operation, which is wonderful in this e-commerce male-dominated world that we live in. Athena: Yeah. Joe: But when it comes to ratios in terms of male versus female in terms of people that go on the trip, is it still heavily male-oriented or are there plenty of women entrepreneurs that go as well? Athena: I'm so proud of this, the trip I was on out of 60 people, three of them are women; the women that went on that wasn't my own. Joe: Okay. Athena: Today more than 50% of our trip is women. Joe: Beautiful. Athena: Because I take perfect care of them; I princess out the trip for them and they feel confident because they know me. They know I'll take care of them and I do. So, yeah, we've got amazing women on our trip. Joe: Excellent, and you've connected with Titan Network as well, right? And China Magic has kind of flowed into Titan. I had Dan on a podcast a couple of weeks ago talking about negotiating terms with manufacturers. Athena: That's right. Joe: So this is kind of a good evolution too. So what's the connection between Titan and China Magic? Athena: Yeah. Dan Ashburn is my partner with both China and Titan. So what happened was people would go for those 12 days and they would get so spoiled by the mentoring that we do because we do a lot of hands-on mentoring that the quality of our mentors are amazing. And so the only issue we were having with China Magic is that it would end after 12 days and we would see the amount of progress that was made. It's not just the sourcing, but like people that understand the rest of it and how to build a multimillion-dollar business; like you get to spend an hour with them talking about your business, the progress you make in that hour is just amazing. So what we did with Titan Network is we actually created sort of that mentoring and the magic of China but we did it all year long. So we added events and masterminds and weekly coaching and a lot of hands-on mentoring and Dan is just a freaking genius; I could not have built this without him. And we've basically recruited all of our top mentors from over the years and they're now part of Titan as well. Joe: Excellent. Let's answer the question a lot of people are asking; a ballpark, you can't give an exact figure because it's changing all the time but how much is it going to cost somebody to go on a China Magic trip, ballpark range? I'm putting you on the spot here I know. Athena: Yeah, because our pricing is changing. Honestly, we've been under-pricing for way too long. So I'd say a ballpark is around 8, we've done it as low as 6 for our… Joe: I was just going to say, even if it's 10, it seems like an incredible investment for people to make in their business because they're going to make that back in better terms, better cash flow, great knowledge, great friendships. And people go to mastermind events and spend an awful lot of money, here it seems like a 12-day mastermind event where you're really experiencing a completely different part of the world. Athena: 100%. And we also; I didn't even mention this but even before we get to China, we're doing training with them or mentoring them. We've got a Facebook group for connecting everybody so they actually get to know each other before they even head to China. So that's all included as well. So, yeah, I really I believe in what we do 100%, the lives we've changed; I mean, I have people who came on my original trip and they found a product that has been profiting them $30,000 $40,000 a month since inaudible[00:29:19.1] like it's just ridiculous that… Joe: I get the feeling, Athena, that you actually get more joy out of helping people than counting dollars, is that…? Athena: Oh, I'm terrible like Dan has to like keep me on track because I just have like a big heart and I'm always like, oh you want to come okay well let's work it out just because yeah it really is my happiest place. I think my happiest thing ever is seeing these amazing people that are like our mentors leaders, because a lot of them came from my attendees. A lot of these guys were attendees on my trip. They just happened to be more helpful, had bigger hearts, and had amazing success stories. So then I graduate them into being mentors and it's sort of the circle of life that's so pretty. And then they go and help other people and like, oh, man, it's like a dream come true to be in this industry, honestly. Joe: Oh that's fantastic. I'm going to wrap it up here. I'm glad we finally got you on the podcast. We were introduced I want to say three or four years ago and we keep bumping into each other. Athena: I know. Joe: So thank you for coming on. I'm excited here. Tell me again how people find out about China Magic; ChinaMagicTrip.com or net? Athena: Yeah so it's ChinaMagicTrip.com if they want to learn about Titan, if they're too scared to go to China, they can always go to TitanNetwork.com to connect with me there as well. My phone number is out there, like really, I give my heart and soul to my people and make sure that they're super taken care of. So I'm here for you guys and like I mentioned earlier, if you're beginning your journey, we can take care of you, if you're sort of in that intermediate zone looking to scale or even if you're very, very successful, even if you're looking to sell your business in six months you're like coming to China will benefit you in so many ways. Joe: I couldn't agree more. And for those that are wondering, yes, it is an add-back. If you don't know what an add-back is, reach out to us, we can help. You should know in an add-back is at this stage of listening. Athena: Joe, I just want to mention thank you so much for all that you do for the industry. You put your heart out there. I see how much value you add. It's like you could just do the thing that you're there to do but I see how much you help people grow and expand and it's just wonderful. So thanks for all that you do for community as well. Joe: Thank you for saying that. I very much appreciate it. Thanks, Athena. Talk to you soon. Athena: Yeah, thanks for having me. Resources: China Magic AthenaSeveri@gmail.com Titan Network Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com  

We have sold over 120 businesses here at Quiet Light but this is the first time we've employed the term text list. Does texting make your business blow up? The young entrepreneur we are talking with today is at the forefront of mobile marketing with his company, Conversmart. When done right, mobile marketing gives customers using smartphones personalized information so that they can get what they need exactly when they need it. SMS subscriptions have begun to bypass email subscriptions with their elevated engagement and conversion rates. Arri Bagah was a computer science major who learned coding to make money as a side hustle in college. After college, he got into messenger marketing with Facebook messenger at an ad agency. He started Conversmart and began to explore looking outside traditional marketing channels for his clients. Arris has quickly become an expert in the mobile messaging space, helping his customers generate millions in additional revenue. Episode Highlights: The difference between message marketing and email marketing by numbers. The advantages of message marketing. How the tool allows for easy customer opt-in. Specific examples of the client conversion rates. Growth opportunities for potential buyers. Categories or spaces where message marketing works best. Ways to collect subscribers. Average return on ad spend. Messaging frequency of a successful text messaging campaign. Costs to get started in message marketing. The ins and outs of opt-in compliance. Advice for all types of eCommerce businesses looking to use message marketing. Transcription: Mark: Joe recently you asked me to make a change to our site; a pretty simple change. And that was to give some of our buyers, the people that want to know when we release a new listing and put it back up a little bit, anyone that's out there wanting to buy they want to know when we release a new listing and they want to know first, right? Everyone wants to be first in line for that. So you made a suggestion which we're going to implement here in the coming months which is to add text messaging; SMS alerts when we release a new listing. And I know this didn't just come from you sitting around and saying hey… Joe: Yes it did. I come up with all these great ideas in my head. I don't get any help from anybody else; just a clarification. Mark: You know I'm not sure I want to; okay fine, this was 100% your idea based on somebody that you talked to on the podcast. Joe: Alright, that's true. Mark: Alright who did you talk to and why are we talking about SMS texting? It sounds invasive to me. It sounds like something I wouldn't necessarily want but the data doesn't really agree with me at all as it often doesn't. Joe: Yeah, it doesn't agree with you at all or me. Talk to teenagers this is what they do. And actually, they don't even text now it's just a snap. But in Seattle… Mark: You have to get on the TikTok train, that's where it is now; Tiktok. Joe: Actually that's true. Mark: Yeah so there you go. Joe: I'm hearing about that as well. You have a teenage girl so you know. Should we be talking about our kids? No, they don't want to hear about our kids. Mark: So we talk about my kids will be on here forever. And like it's two minutes each that's like 15 minutes. Alright, SMS text messaging let's get back on that. Joe: I was at a Blue Ribbon Mastermind in Seattle with Brad and Chris and this young kid gets up on stage and he presents on SMS text messaging and how it impacts engagement with customers and he starts talking about 98% open rates and much, much higher conversion rates. And the average order value in all of this stuff and somebody we know, somebody we've sold a business to engaged with him afterwards and hired him afterwards and his business has blown up. I don't want to give his name because people want to talk to him and we keep referring people to him and he's just trying to make a living and people want to talk to him about how he's doing it. So I'm not going to give his name but his business has absolutely blown up. So I ended up connecting with Arri; Arri Bagah, he's a kid guys. Yeah, he's a kid to me. I got gray on my chin. He's like 24 or 25 years old but he's at the forefront of the next evolution of e-mail marketing which is SMS marketing. It's capturing mobile phone numbers, doing specific marketing directly to that mobile number, and it's amazing. When you're online shopping now; this is how he describes it now, if you're online shopping on your mobile phone and someone says subscribe and you click on it and it's the old school way to subscribe it's your email address and then you've got to go confirm in your inbox and then all these multiple steps. Now with SMS and if it's done right and you subscribe you can confirm it right there on your phone and then you get that coupon code right there on your phone and then you could place the order right there on your phone. It's like so quick; 15 seconds versus multiple steps in multiple places. So there is a little bit of that and a whole lot of you want to help your customers, you want to get good information in front of them. They want information to get to them in a way in which they live now which is on their mobile devices SMS is the way to go. You don't have to check your e-mail. It just pops up. There's a blue dot. I'm looking at my phone right now. There's a blue dot on my phone right now. I think it's probably from you Mark. Somebody texted me and if I want to make it go away I have to click it. I have to do that. Same with Messenger and Facebook; it shows up on my phone. I could get rid of it. So the engagement is much higher, conversion rate is much higher; gosh if I could just give a statistic here. He gave me something like a 25 time ROAS, return on ad spend. So if you spend a dollar you're getting $25 back. That's amazing. I think they guarantee a 15-time ROAS. It's incredible. That's all I have to say about it. Mark: That's amazing. I think the emphasis here because we; let's bring this back to what we talk about on this podcast all the time, we're talking about buying and selling internet-based businesses and for somebody buying we're looking at how can we grow what we're acquiring here. And look we know Facebook we know Google but let's face it Mark Zuckerberg has gotten greedy. It's really, really difficult to make Facebook pay well. And if you had a 25 ROAS on Facebook you'd be selling a course next because that's what people do. You're usually happy if you have that 3 ROAS on Facebook. Google is the same sort of thing. And I think it's important for us to look outside of what we think are the most profitable marketing channels. Look all the data does actually point the same direction. The most profitable marketing channels are the ones that you own; email and email we know is cluttered so SMS text makes a lot of sense if you have permission to be able to send SMS texting because no one else is doing it. So it's going to be a really great channel. I'm excited to listen to this because you asked me to add this as an option. I'd like to hear from buyers as well would you want to have text alerts when we release a new list and I think it's a great idea to do. Obviously, it would be opt-in only but it would be a great way to be right at the forefront of that. I'm excited to listen to this and also learn how to implement this as a system within Quiet Light Brokerage. It's fantastic. Joe: Yeah. You just said opt-in only; you can opt-in, you can opt-out. All of that is right there. So you just invited all of the buyers in the audience to reach out to you and let you know so why don't you give out your cell number so you can have them all text you and say yeah man implement this. Mark: Yeah. Joe: No, don't do that. Mark: Or just e-mail me, Mark@QuietLightBrokerage.com and then when I reply they'll have my cell phone number because it's right there at the signature. Joe: I want you all to harass Mark and stay on top of him on this one because I think it's going to be a game-changer for you the buyers to be notified on your phone that there's a new listing that's launching. Right now we're launching one in four hours. Wouldn't you love to be notified two hours in advance of the e-mail launch? It would be great. I think it's a great service that we can do for you and I think it's a great service that all the e-commerce SAS content owners can do out there for their audience as well. So let's stop talking and go to it. Here we go. Joe: Hey folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today we're going to talk about something I'm pretty clueless on which is text marketing, SMS marketing, we've got an expert in the area. I met him at Blue Ribbon Mastermind one Ezra Firestone's Mastermind groups. His name is Arri Bagah. Ari welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Arri: Thanks so much for having me, Joe. Joe: I'm so glad you're here and I'm going to call out where you are actually because Ramone Van Miller has been on the podcast as well. He's a good friend of Quiet Light. We're actually out filming in California now telling his story and you're sitting in his kitchen because you're working with him on one of his businesses, correct? Arri: Yeah. That's exactly why I'm here. Joe: So folks those that actually go to the YouTube page and get to see this, you'll get to see a Ramone's kitchen in the background; at least his guest house at the very least. Alright, Arri tell us about what the heck is text message marketing and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into it. Arri: So I went to Roosevelt University in downtown Chicago for computer science and before I started I met a friend who had like a really nice apartment in downtown Chicago and I just asked hey how did you get that apartment? And then he was like hey I code and build websites. I was like cool I want that apartment. That's how he got this and that's probably what I should do too; to code web sites for people and make money. So fast forward I learned how to code throughout like the first semester. And then it will be like do a lot of the homework just like to learn how to do it myself. And then I decided if I can learn how to code myself then I can just like keep doing it. And that's where like my entrepreneurship journey started. I built a couple of web sites and then got into Facebook marketing. So I decided to move to LA. I got a job at an agency and before that's when I got into Messenger marketing which is a way for brands to leverage Facebook Messenger to market. So at Facebook Messenger marketing, we're seeing really good results. And at this agency, I was running Messenger marketing for like 15 different e-commerce brands at once and it was pretty, pretty crazy. I learned a lot. I got a lot of experience doing it. And I decided to do it for myself. And that's when I left that agency and started Conversmart. And we've grown pretty much since and then got into text messaging this year. And I'm super excited about text messaging because it's a whole different way for brands to be able to reach their customers. It's more direct. And a lot of the brands that we work with have seen really great results. So that's kind of like how everything started. Joe: So we've had you know guys like Mike Jackness who we're friends with, I sold one of Mike's businesses for him. He's an expert in e-commerce space. He runs EcomCrew. He talks all around the world on e-mail marketing with Klaviyo. Talk to; for those that are new to the space and text message marketing, talk to us about the difference in terms of the open rates and conversion rates and how you're able to reach people and things of that nature. Arri: Yeah that's a great question. I think email marketing is great. It still works. Billions of dollars generated each year through email. But the problem with email is that everybody is doing it. Especially with this season; the Black Friday holiday season, people are sending like 3 to 5 emails per day so as you can see the open rates and performance just completely drops when everybody is sending that much volume in emails. So the difference is that with text there are not a lot of people doing it. And if people are; people are super-specific to like which text or which brands they subscribe to so there's not a lot of competition when you're able to reach that customer directly. And one of the things that we've seen is that if you look at the traffic split for your e-commerce store the majority of the traffic is probably mobile already. So if somebody is like on their cell phone browsing your web site and you want to get them on your list right now brands have pop-ups and really if you give somebody a coupon and they have to leave your web site and go to their email check that email, get that coupon and hopefully come back to site and you can see how many distractions there are in the e-mail inbox. Joe: True. Arri: So there is friction right there already. Whereas with text you get that customer, they're already browsing on your mobile, you get them to opt-in through text, you send them a text, they get the coupon, they click and they're right back to your site. So it's a more direct way to reach customers exactly where they are. And really what we found is that we're not asking people to stop doing email marketing, we just want people to supplement the email marketing with text. Because with text you get 99% open rates, 10 to 20% click-through rates and usually double or triple the conversion rate over convert to like email. I'm working with Ramone like you mentioned on his brands. Really like he was telling me hey like our texts always like performs four times better than our emails let's do more text. So he's sending more text messages now which is something that we help with. We can talk more about what type of content people like. So we come up with really good content that people like and we're able to send it directly to them. They come back to site. They make [inaudible 00:13:29.5] just so that's like I think the big difference between email whereas email has gotten really overused and then text is just like this new channel that allows people to reach their customers directly. Joe: Let's talk about some of the steps that someone would take if they were going to move into text message marketing. With emails there's opt-in and unsubscribe and things of that nature, what's the equivalent of that with text message marketing? Arri: Yeah, so you can't talk text marketing without compliance. So with text messaging, we have to get people to double opt-in. I think the reason why people have these misconceptions about text messaging is because they've probably subscribed to a list before and people are just like spamming them. Or they didn't even subscribe and then they got messages. So one of the things that we do today is that we make sure that people are double opting in and that's one of the reasons why we see these high open rates and click-through rates because people are actually expecting you to text them rather than somebody is going through like a form and then you get their phone number and by surprise they receive a text and they're like why is this brand or business texting me. So we make sure that people are consenting to receiving those texts and that's the reason why we see really good results with it because people are now expecting you to go. Joe: So it starts with the double opt-in just like e-mail and you're capturing then those customers where currently either on someone's website on a laptop, PC, Mac, or whatever it might be or on the mobile device where you've got that pop up asking them to enter their phone number I assume obviously to get a discount or a coupon or to get information in the future. I see pop-ups all day long when I'm on websites. That's what it would be on the mobile phone or mobile device when you're asking for a phone number is that right? Arri: Yes. So basically we mostly only do it on mobile and the experience is really great because we don't even have people typing in their phone number. All they do is they tap the pop up twice and it opens up they tap to pop up the first time it opens up their messaging app they send the message and they get opt-in and we get the phone number through that. That is all powered by our platform partner called Pop Script. So yeah you know… Joe: It sounds like a breeze. Arri: Yeah like when you ask someone to put in their e-mail for a discount a lot of people put in their fake emails and especially with phone number you can expect people to put in like 222 and then whatever to get that discount, right? Now we've bypassed that by getting them to like actually send a text. So that's another compliance step that makes sure that your brand is fully compliant. So they send a text, they get opted in, and that's when they get that welcome message and get opted into the automated flow, abandon cart, and all those different things. So that's kind of like how it's set up. Joe: Okay. So can you talk to us about specific examples where you've had a client that's just been doing e-mail marketing and they brought you on board and what the change was in terms of their open rate, their conversion rate, their total revenues, and things of that nature so people listening either as current owners of online businesses or potentially buyers of online businesses and looking at growth opportunities as a buyer as well. Can you help out with an example or two? Arri: Sure. Yeah, we have a lot of examples. So one of the things that I wanted to mention is that your e-mail list is an asset and your text list is also an asset. And those are people that you can reach out to get them to make a purchase even after the rising cost of Facebook ads and all these different things. These are people that you can reach out to because you own that customer list. So if you're buying a business and they have a text list it's a really great asset to own. Joe: I got to tell you I've sold 120 businesses in the last 7 years and I don't think I've ever asked the question do you have a text list nor has anyone ever said well Joe you're asking about the e-mail list what about my text list? So it's rare. I assume it's coming in the future and that's why I've got you on today. But is the text list usually the equivalent of any e-mail list; smaller, larger, how big are they? Arri: You can have like large text lists and they usually work way more than your email list just because of the difference in the performance like being able to reach someone directly. So a few examples I think I've been like working with Ramone like you mentioned like when we started working together they were doing a lot of emails. So everybody that we work with it's always hesitant. It's like you know what I've never signed up to receive texts from a business. I don't see why anybody else in the world would want to receive texts from a business. So this is one of the things that we get all the time. And one of the things that we say is that you're not your customer. Like your customer doesn't live the same way. There are people out there who are looking to get like deals sent directly to them so they can save money. And there are all kinds of people out there who are willing to receive texts and most customers are and we have data to prove it. So that's the first thing. And then when we started doing the text messaging, when we launched our promotions and stuff like that we saw that text was performing four times better than e-mail. So we started to like send more text messages. Joe: In revenue what we got four times more revenue than email? Arri: Yeah. Joe: Do the math on that. People if you're listening and you have an e-mail campaign gosh Mike Jackness that's; ColorIt was huge on the e-mail campaigns, text messaging four times the revenue. That's crazy. Crazy good and it's time that we sort of adopted text messaging. I know that it's hard to ignore when it comes through because if you want that blue or green or whatever color of dot you have on your phone when a text comes through if you want it to go away you have to open the text. Arri: Yeah. And the crazy part is that looking at the millennial group like over I think it was 80% or so opened that text within 90 seconds. I think it was something like that. And yeah people don't always open every text they receive. So that's one of the great things about this. So we send our texts even for this Halloween campaign and things that we just launched every single text that we sent we saw well above 10 or 15% or so click through rates and the conversion rate was at least like 6% or so. And with text like you mentioned people open it and then they want to take to action, right? It's very short. And one of the things that we do is that we add images and GIFs. We design all these custom-built before; our design team does all that stuff. And I think that's one of the biggest value propositions is that we do the creative for the text so that it's not like somebody is just receiving a text from you they're also receiving like engaging content. So we design these GIFs and we improve the conversion rate. So every time we send like a GIF and text compared to just sending text we see twice the conversion rate when we add the engaging GIF. So those are some of the designs that we do. Joe: So for all non-millennials out there the proper pronunciation is GIF, it's not JIF clearly. That's an ongoing joke in my house. Sorry, I'm sharing a joke, people. So it's a visual aspect to it, it's just not content, they can see the images which is proven to bring more emotions to the surface and obviously convert higher. Are there any sort of categories or spaces in terms of products; e-commerce where it works better than others or certain things that you've tried and it just wouldn't work. You know Quiet Light Brokerage we've got a list of; you and I talked about this, we've got people that want to be notified and get notified when we launch new listings. I would think that text message marketing would work brilliantly for them because they'd get instantly notified instead of having to check their email. In Ramone's space, in his category, it works obviously brilliantly. Are there any spaces where you find that; I'm sure there are people that are listening and going oh yeah but I run a such and such type of business, it wouldn't work for mine? Is there anything that; is there truth to that, any that you can think of, or some categories that work better than others? Arri: That's a great question. I think the reason why people ask that is that they probably think that their customer is different than like everybody else. And the answer to that is as a business all you're doing is providing a solution to a problem to a specific group of people. And if your product works and if you have happy customers those people would want to hear from you and that's the reason why I say text works for like any space. I don't think there's any sort of brand that we work with that we saw okay their customer is not responding to text. And the reason is like I said you're solving a problem for these people and these people want to hear from you. So every single time it doesn't matter what space you're in or what product you promoted. It has always worked for their target audience. Joe: Okay, so we've talked about how to capture more phone numbers on the mobile devices, how to reach them, what the conversion rate is, usually four times the amount of revenue in e-mail marketing, and the fact that it works for every category in your opinion. What about A-cost or return on ad spend or average cost per order, how does that compare to e-mail marketing or if you're familiar with the FDA space things of that nature, do you have a sense in terms of whether it cost less or more in terms of cost per order service text marketing? Arri: Yeah, that's a good question but I wanted to add on to the ways that we collect subscribers real quick. One of the things that we've been doing recently is actually like leveraging Facebook and Instagram ads; lead ads to get more phone numbers. So when we run these text campaigns we realize text is performing way better so why don't we supercharge our text list. So we started running Facebook ads to get people to opt into just text directly through Facebook and then they're able to get on your text list so you can put them through nurturing flows. This was one of the performance methods that we've been using. Going back to your question which I completely forgot. Joe: No, I love where you just went. I wrote my question down so I can look down and ask it again. But you're talking about what would be in e-mail flow that Mike Jackness has always talked about with Klaviyo. You're doing the same thing with text message marketing. Arri: Yeah. Joe: What did you call it; what was that flow you called it just now? In terms of like okay everybody, listening can remember but you and I can't; skip it. It's the flow of nurturing, right? Arri: Yeah. Joe: How you're going to nurture that customer along and help them, help them, help them, and then give them something that they could take action on. I was asking about average cost per order or return on ad spend; what are you seeing there? Arri: Yeah the average return that we see for the plan that we work with is a 25, or the minimum return is 25X and usually for brands that we work with… Joe: Cut it down, 25X? Arri: Yeah. Joe: So I spend $10 and I produce $250; is that right? Arri: Yeah. Joe: So I did that really good math. I spend a dollar and I get 25 back. That's easier math for you and me. Really 25 times? Arri: Yeah. Joe: I'm seeing on e-commerce businesses between when they're doing e-mail all sorts of PPC, Facebook, Google AdWords, whatever it might be but all of it combined with Google as well where the average cost as a percentage of total revenue is somewhere between 9 and 15%. You're talking an incredibly low number here. Arri: Yeah. Joe: It sounds too good to be true. I don't mean to talk over you but people I just want to like hammer home on it really 25 times? Arri: Actually I'm being super conservative here. Joe: Really? Arri: Yeah. So the reason why is that the way we do text messaging we're already like we're capturing for the most part people who are already interested in your brand. So people who are on your web site. So you have good website traffic. That's the reason why text works a lot because we're getting people who are interested and then we're able to reach them directly on their smartphones and then you create really custom automated flows and really great broadcast. So that's how we're able to get really high returns. Like I don't think we have like any brand that's getting lower than like a 50X, to be honest. But we like to say we guarantee a minimum of 15X return. But yeah we get really high returns. And I don't even want to go with the ones that are getting like 200X or whatever because that will scare people. Joe: There's going to be a limit to what they can spend if they're getting even a 50X or 15X I guess the limit would be the total number of phone numbers that you have and how often you send these messages, right? I mean with e-mail I know that with Klaviyo; Mike's campaign on ColorIt, he would send e-mails all the time. They were helpful educational e-mails and really in that regard and then there would be a promotion where they could get a discount or a sample pack or something like that. How often are you sending text messages on one of these nurturing campaigns or flows as you call them? Arri: Yeah so we break down the messaging by automated flows and one time messages which is basically broadcasting. So with the automated flows, we like to send; when somebody subscribes we can send them a message immediately with like whatever the offer was and then we can send reminders. We send like two reminders within 24 hours for them to take action. And then on top of that, we have the [inaudible[00:28:04.1] and if they do not take any action or purchase then we'd get them into the Welcome Series which we can send that every three or four days and we'd like to stop after like five messages. We always give people like the reply stop to unsubscribe because if somebody signs and just said then we rather have them unsubscribe and save us some text money. And there was always that option. And then if they get into abandoned carts we have two series abandoned cart recovery messages that we send out until they make the purchase and then we go in to post-purchase. So with post-purchase, you can do a lot of things with like product-specific flows. If somebody bought this product you can say hey; you can upsell them other sort of products are related. So we can get really nitty-gritty with that. And then we have the one-time messages. With broadcasting, we recommend sending at least twice a week. I've seen people who have like text lists and then never want to message them because I think they're scared that hey they're going to receive too many messages. I really talked to a brand yesterday and they're like yeah we sent only one text a month and I'm like yeah you guys need to be sending at least like 6 to 10 maybe 2 every week because you're just going to like double how much revenue you'll generate. Joe: Right. And if the customer doesn't want to hear from you they're going to opt out; as simple as that. Arri: Yeah. Joe: That was the approach Mike took with Klaviyo and ColorIt as well; send as many as you can, be as helpful as you can, and let them know if they don't want to get any messages they can opt-out. It sounds like your approach is the same with your clients. Arri: Yeah. And I think that content really matters too. It's not about just like blasting sales. I think people think that because we are having all these crazy resources that we're always doing sales but we rarely do sales. It's always like short and sweet content with like a GIF that kind of illustrate what we're trying to say that engages the customer more into taking action and in between, we add like sort of small discounts. So it's not always about sending like hey we're doing like a storewide 20% off or whatever. You can actually send like a content. Joe: Okay. Talk to me about the cost to get started with something like this. I mean with Conversmart your business; that's Conversmart, there's no T in there folks but we'll put it in the show notes as well. How does someone get started dollar-wise? What's a test look like in terms of giving it a shot and seeing if it works and how many times do they have to really test it? What do you recommend to new clients that are coming in? Arri: Yeah. So SMS at the very bottom of the funnel so I recommend having a good amount of traffic; at least 20 to 30,000 web site visitors in order for it to work if you just want to do bottom of the funnel but if you want to use the Facebook ads to start growing your list which is a really good strategy because with the Facebook ads you get people to opt in to your text list and those people who were opting in are also buying which is paying for the cost for you to acquire those leads. So you're basically getting free leads. Joe: That's something beautiful. Arri: And then we'll tell you about because that's probably we've been doing hey let's get more free leads. So that strategy works really well. So we get people to opt-in through the web site and then we also get people to send some automated messages. Those are some of the great ways to start. So first you got to get people to opt-in. You have to have the traffic. You get people to opt-in by having a pop-up or on your mobile device or you do the Facebook ads and once they opt-in then you have to send messages. I think Thank You messages is the most important part lke it goes back to e-mail, right? I've met some people and it's always the same situation; it's like hey I have this e-mail list but I'm not even e-mailing them. It's the same with texts. You have to text the people who have subscribed. And it's always great to text at least once a week so when are you doing your promotion so these people are not completely forgetting about your brand or who you are. So it's a great way to stay top of mind while generating revenue. Joe: But budget-wise though for people going should I try this, is something I can give it a go, do they have to have a thousand to 5,000 or 10,000 dollars set aside to test this with? What do you recommend? Arri: You can get started fairly easy. In fact with our partner Postscript which is the platform that we use; if you own a Shopify, it's the one that we work for Shopify but if you're on another platform we can definitely chat about that. But it's super simple to get started in fact I can give you guys like free 1,000 credit if you want to try out text messaging. You can give them the link or something like that. Joe: Yeah, great. We'll put that in the show notes. Arri: Yeah you get charged by how many messages you send if you want to do it yourself. There is no platform fee or anything like that. So once you get those credits you can start sending and see kind of like what the results look like. And like I said it's only going to cost you if you send the text messages and be able to tell if it's working or not. So it's very simple to start. Joe: Okay. So it's all about the number of texts that you send. First, you've got to capture as many phone numbers as possible and get them to opt-in. Like we've got a fairly large list after a decade of email addresses and phone numbers, we can't just use those phone numbers we've got to get them to opt-in first, correct? We're going to follow the law. Actually, they opt-in to receive information from us anyway via email would that apply for their phone numbers as well? Arri: No they have to have opted in for the text. Joe: I got it. Arri: So if it said like only for them we're going to finish up 5 today check here to opt-in for the e-mails it has to also say text otherwise they're not opting in for the texts. Joe: That's good to know. Okay, any last thoughts for people with e-commerce businesses in terms of text or actually I'm saying e-commerce but I would imagine this would work for SaaS and content businesses as well, right? Arri: Yes. In fact like even with like a B2B company. I got a text. I signed him up for like a demo and he's texting me and we actually had a conversation. So this is a great way to like follow up with people if you're like not even in the e-commerce space. You can text them… Joe: It worked for you and worked for Quiet Light too so I don't know why I'm thinking only e-com. Arri: Last words; if you're an e-commerce business I definitely recommend looking at text because it's going to be the number one way people are going to be communicating. As emails are being sent even more I think there's going to be like over 319 billion e-mails sent in the next year or whatever so text is a great channel for you to reach those customers and you don't have to go all in. You can do like small tests and kind of see what the results look like. So yeah I highly recommend checking it out and doing some small tests to kind of see what the results look like for you. Joe: Okay and it looks like they can reach out to you and get a free consultation as well. How do they find you? What's the URL that they'd reach you at or things of that nature? Arri: Yeah. So Conversmart.com, that's where you'll be able to find us, you'll kind of see like kind of an overview of what we do with text messaging. We take a really different approach to text messaging that people haven't seen before especially with the content that we send and the creative that goes along with that content. That's really what helps brands double that conversion rate when they send all these text messages. And also as an agency, we take over the entire channel for you. So basically you can sign up and basically, you just see like money come in from text messaging after a couple of weeks and then we just give you all the reporting. You don't have to do anything besides approving the content and everything. So we'll basically like take over the entire channel for you. And that's pretty much like what we do for every brand that we work with. We don't want them to like worry about getting 11% open rates and 1% click-through rate over email. We can supplement that by sending people text messages that they actually like. And people are going to convert from those text messages. Joe: Excellent. Well, I know that what you're doing is working because you're hanging out with the likes of Ramone and that is rad. So you're doing something right. There's no question about it. Anybody out there that's interested in reaching out to Arri just go to Conversmart.com. Arri I will see you at the next Blue Ribbon Mastermind event and when Ramone gets back from filming today which he's doing for Quiet Light thank you, Ramone, give him a high five. Tell him I said hello. Arri: Yeah. Joe: Thanks for your time. I appreciate it. Arri: Alright. Thanks for having me. Links and Resources: Conversmart Free 1000 Postscript credits

Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to sales tax. Believe it or not, today's topic is an exciting one for all buyers and sellers. Our guest is Diane Yetter from the Sales Tax Institute and Yetter Tax. She joins us to talk to us all about sales tax, sales nexus, click through Nexus, and more. Diane is a niche entrepreneur in her own right, uniquely helping other entrepreneurs navigate the tricky waters of sales tax. Diane businesses focus exclusively on sales tax, helping companies learn what sales tax means for them and what they need to do to be in compliance with state tax laws. SalesTax Institute and Yetter Tax are educational consultancies, providing people with all the tools they need to learn the why, when, where and how of remitting sales tax for each state where they do business. Episode Highlights: What click-through nexus is. Where and how affiliate payments are made. The Wayfair decision and the resulting state actions. Physical, Economic, and Marketplace nexus. Where to find the economic guide by state. Educational tools Diane offers on her website. Are there advantages to learning how these nexus' work versus hiring someone to do it? The penalties for collecting sales tax and not remitting it. Concerns and risks in the acquisitions realm. The process each state goes through to identify sellers out there. We go over the risks to buyers if the seller has not satisfied their state economic nexus. The odds of something coming back to haunt the new owner of a business if there are unpaid nexuses. The resources the Institute provides to help listeners wade through all this. Transcription: Mark: Alright guys welcome to another episode of the Quiet Light Podcast. Real quick before I talk to Joe; if anybody out there hasn't left a rating on the Quiet Light Podcast, do me a favor go to iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you listen to us, leave a rating, we certainly appreciate it. Makes us feel good. Makes us feel like we're doing a decent job at this whole podcasting thing. So thanks in advance to everybody that has done that. Okay, so Joe, when we're talking to a potential seller or even talking to a potential buyer one of the topics that comes up often, is how long does it take to complete the deal, right? And we have people wondering am I going to get this done in three months and what have you. The fact is these businesses are complex. On the upfront summaries what we see usually is pretty plain and simple. You see revenue, you see earnings, you see a multiple, and you kind of think well this should be nice and capsid and quick. And sometimes it is. But other times you have to look a little bit deeper. And you and I have talked about this before, right? For buyers to make sure you're looking beyond the multiple and the multiple is one point of data. And for sellers and buyers alike to also have patience with the process and understand that you're selling a complex asset. I know you had Carl on the podcast who is a recent buyer of one of our properties. And it was one of those situations where the deal took longer than expected and the numbers weren't as necessarily straightforward as maybe you would think when you just look at this. But the net result for him as a buyer and for a client were phenomenal by being patient and looking a little bit deeper. Joe: Yes, no question. This particular deal took I want to say from letter of intent to closing seven and a half months which is probably the longest I've ever had. There's really specific reasons for it. And Carl is partly to blame for it because he made a mistake on his application to the SBA lender. So we had to do the process essentially twice. The seller Kevin hung in there with Carl because Carl was a nice guy. It made a difference. And at one point when the deal fell apart, we had to go back. Well, my advice was to go back out to market for an awful lot more money because the business has grown a lot; probably worth $400,000 more. Carl and Kevin got along so well that Kevin said no I don't want to do that to Carl. Let's just bump the price thousand $160,000; crazy. Most buyers would walk away. They'd be like no. Yesterday it was this price today you want $160,000 more. Carl didn't do that and he's being rewarded greatly for it right away instant equity, in my opinion, a quarter of a million dollars in the business. And then some things that he's doing on his end immediately once that first container load comes in doubling the discretionary earnings because of a focus on reducing COGS. It's just fantastic what he's doing. And it's a great lesson for buyers and sellers to be patient, to be focused on helping each other, and not looking just at that multiple. Mark: You know I love this sort of story because I get it right from a buying standpoint you're looking at a lot of deal flow you need to evaluate businesses quickly. So the temptation is often to look at just the high-level metrics and to eliminate something based on that. But so many of these businesses and if I could just say you know maybe even a plug for Quiet Light you know when we bring a business to the market we usually believe in that company pretty strongly as being a good value play for buyers. And so taking the time to kind of dissect it and to understand more than the top-level metrics and what's going on underneath and look for those opportunities for that immediate win and again looking beyond that multiple. So this is a really good story of somebody doing just that and seeing a really quick reward on that. I want to listen to this. I want to hear all the dynamics. This is one of those more complex deals and I think a really good example of what happens when the deal isn't straightforward but still works out in the end. Joe: Yeah. Hey, one other thing. I had a really strange interruption everybody in the audience I want you to get 10, 15 minutes in. Chris, our producer asked me about a particular person. I'm trying to find out who this is. If you could just get that far listen in and shoot me a note. I want to try to track that person down. Thanks, Ben. I appreciate it. Let's go to the podcast. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and believe it or not this is an exciting topic. It is about sales tax, sales tax nexus, click-through nexus; a term I had not heard until today. Our guest is Diane Yetter or she's from the Sales Tax Institute. So let me try that again. She's from the Sales Tax Institute, see being a podcaster is not as easy as it sounds. She's also from Yetter Tax; both all hers. Diane, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Diane: Thanks, Joe. I'm glad to be here with you. Joe: Alright, so that I don't stutter and stumble my way through trying to tell people what you do, why don't you help us out with that? Diane: Sure. What we do is we are a business that focuses exclusively on sales tax. And we help companies learn what sales tax means to them. So we are primarily an education business. And then we also help them understand what they need to do to be in compliance with sales tax. So we do that through helping them understand where they have nexus, what's taxable that they buy and sell, help them get appropriate systems set up so that they can handle that correctly, and then in the hopefully not event that they get audited we can help them with that. So we do that through our consulting side. And then we also provide a variety of educational courses through our Sales Tax Institute. Joe: And it's good stuff. I just looked at some videos this morning and I've learned a bit already just in your free snippets online. And let's just throw out one of those things because I'm sure the vast majority of listeners have not heard of and I'm going to look at my notes click-through nexus. Let's just give them something that they don't know about right away before we reinforce what they should know about which is overall nexus and collecting sales taxes and the risks of not and the rewards of collecting when they go to sell their business someday. So why don't you just tell us what click-through nexus is, please? Diane: Sure. Click-through nexus is a concept that New York started in 2008. And it's really just the attempt to move to a digital equivalent of paying salesman commissions which was found to be constitutional back in a case against Crypto Corporation in about 1960. And so what click-through nexus is is when a promoter or a seller and this really was intended to go after Amazon. Back in the day when all Amazon sold was books and people like you, Joe, if you wrote a book and you put a link on your website that referred people to Amazon to go buy your book that you would then get paid a commission; a referral fee or making that referral to Amazon. So Amazon was the seller. You were not. They paid you for sending somebody to them. Really no different than a salesman going around and knocking on a door and when they made a sale they would get a commission. And so what New York started and about 25 other states followed along over the years is that paying that commission to somebody in a state if they generated at least a certain amount of sales. Most states had $10,000 of sales from one or more commissioned agents that that created nexus for the out-of-state seller in this example Amazon. Joe: Yeah. And it's a term I hadn't heard of before. I'm impressed if the state of New York actually originally called it click-through nexus back in 2008. Just curious do you know if they call it something else then and have [inaudible 00:09:09.2] click-through nexus? Diane: Well what it was affectionately or unaffectionately referred to by the media was the Amazon Tax. Joe: The Amazon Tax, okay. So most people look at nexus says okay I'm selling a physical product I've got a warehouse or Amazon has a warehouse in how many different states that's where my nexus is. What this is it's for the content sellers, it's for the affiliate marketers, it's for people that are doing product reviews where you don't actually have a physical presence. You don't have the—I'm sorry, the physical product. You're writing content, you're telling the story, you're doing reviews, and somebody in Hawaii—no I'm sorry, if you're in Hawaii and you write the content and somebody buys it in Minneapolis and there's no call center, there's no physical—I'm totally screwing this up, and there's no physical warehouse there, does that mean that you've got to collect sales taxes from that person that bought it or on that sale in Minneapolis? Diane: So what it applies to is if the seller; so in this case, if you are not the seller of the content that you're just the person promoting the content for somebody else that's selling it. Joe: The person that owns the physical product [crosstalk 00:10:24.5] sales taxes. Diane: The person that owns the physical product is the one that would need to collect the tax if they make payments to you as the promoter of it. Joe: Okay, so if anyone listening sells a brand on Amazon and also chose to do the affiliate program through Amazon and is allowing others to sell that product click-through. You should be collecting nexus wherever those sales. Is it—I'm sorry it's not where those sales occur or is it where that person that wrote the blog is? Diane: It is supposed to be a combination of those two. However, that's often difficult to ascertain as to whether or not that affiliate payment generated the sale in that state. And so it really is going after where the affiliate payment is made to. Joe: I got you. Okay, we may need title this to stumble through podcasts because sales taxes are crazy and there's so much information and misinformation. And is it really gray or is it all black and white conversations going out there that I think just the more we talk about the more we'll learn about it. So let's talk about the big Wayfair decision and what has come from that. Can you touch on that; what it was and the end result of for sales tax collection? Diane: Sure. So the confusion that we just talked about with the click-through nexus actually is almost kind of going away because of the Wayfair decision and the resulting state actions. So last June 21st; so close to a year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their long-awaited decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair which was a record-breaking case in terms of how fast it got to the Supreme Court. The original law was only effective in May of 2016. So for a law to be in essence validated and decided by the Supreme Court in just over two years is pretty amazing. But basically what the case was a test and when South Dakota passed their law they wrote it in such a way that they were in violation of the longstanding Supreme Court decisions and Quill Corporation and National Bellas Hess as well as the Commerce Clause. And so what the Commerce Clause said is that a state cannot impose a tax collection responsibility on an out-of-state seller unless they have a substantial presence in the state. Now what the Quill case and the National Bellas Hess case over the last 50 years had interpreted is they added a word into that Commerce Clause test. They said substantial physical presence. What the Wayfair court determined was that physical was never a word in the Commerce Clause and that the state or the prior courts had simply interpreted it to require that physical presence. So by their decision where they actually stated that their decision in Quill was wrong; and they actually said that in the decision, they were overturning that Quill decision. By doing that they said physical presence is no longer a requirement before a state can impose a collection responsibility on an out-of-state business. Rather it needs to have a substantial presence. The company has to have a substantial presence in the state. And the South Dakota law defines substantial presence as having more than $100,000 of sales or more than 200 sale transactions which we define as an invoice into the state. And so that is— Joe: Does this make nexus defined as having a 3PL or Amazon having a warehouse, does this make nexus go away and it flips to what you're talking about now? Diane: It does not. Physical presence is still the first test that needs to be identified. So if there is an Amazon warehouse and you have inventory if you're an FBA seller then the economic nexus really doesn't matter. And the thresholds that are set in the states with the economic nexus are not relevant because of the physical presence of the inventory in the warehouse. Joe: Okay but if there's no physical nexus it then flips to economic nexus. Diane: Correct. Joe: Okay, and how many states currently have adopted the economic nexus? Diane: So we have almost all; every state has either enacted it and it's effective, enacted it and it will be effective. The latest one we have going effective I believe is July 1 right now, we've got some October ones that are in propose. And we've got I think its six states left that are in proposed status right now. The only one that has rescinded and doesn't look like it will pass this year is the state of Florida. Joe: God I love the state of Florida. Diane: Right. Joe: Where on your site and which sites; Sales Tax Institute or Yetter Tax can someone go right now and figure out which states have economic nexus? Do you have something like that? Diane: We absolutely do. So you can go to SalesTaxInstitute.com and then go to our resources section and on that, you'll see a link to the remote seller nexus chart. And on that there are; that page will have all of the different types of remote seller nexus. So the click-through we talked about, affiliate, marketplace, economic, and the notice and reporting. There will also be a link on their specific economic nexus state guide which will give you all of the various different nuances of the rules for economic nexus. Joe: Look at that you've even got a video in there as well. Fantastic. Okay, part of what you do at the Sales Tax Institute is education. You're training people to understand and learn about sales taxes. Are these a combination of in-person training or is it online training as well? Diane: So we do a variety of different types of training. We have monthly webinars that are live in-person or live webinars where you can actually interact with me and ask me live questions. So we have a variety of different topics that you can look at. Joe: Is there a cost to the webinars? Diane: There is. Those cost $175 but you can have your entire team gathered around one phone line and it's a single charge. Joe: And you'll sleep better that night or maybe not at all depending on really. Diane: Exactly. Joe: When I was looking at your some of the videos I wrote down is ignorance bliss?? And I think it's not when it comes to sales taxes. And we'll get into that a little bit more but—alright so there's a monthly webinar; very, very reasonable price. Diane: A monthly live webinar, we also have some on-demand webinars, and one of the ones that might be very helpful to those of you listening now is we have a sales tax 101 webinar. And so that's on-demand. The cost of that is also $175 but you can watch it as many times as you want in 30 days. And that will go through and give you all the basic concepts and it was updated after the Wayfair decision so it's got a lot of the current information about what's going on today. So we've got I think it's five on-demands and then we also have live in-person classes. So we have a three-day basics of sales tax class if you really need to get in depth. That's held in June annually and then we have; it is usually in Chicago. Joe: Okay. Diane: And then our advanced workshop is for people with four or more years of experience and that is held annually in the April-May. We just had that this year in Chicago and next year we'll be out on the West Coast. We also have a; we've offered it twice now, a nine-week online class. We call it sales tax jumpstart. So we will offer that again in September. Exact date not yet defined. And that is really meant and who a lot of our attendees have been in our first two cohorts of that are people that are like your listeners Joe that are smaller businesses, can't get away for three full days of sales tax, and we give them basically all the steps and tools for what they need to do to be compliant. So we break it down into two-hour blocks over nine weeks. And we also share with them a lot of the tools we use in advising our clients. So we try to help them be more self-sufficient. Joe: You know it's interesting as you're talking I know that we're sharing your URL. I mean we're 15 minutes into the podcast and we normally don't pitch and promote the people that are on. It's not about that it's about education. But I think that this is education that you can't listen to it; this podcast and understand everything about sales taxes. So I think I'm having Diane's share this folks early because this information is so complex and so in-depth and changing on a monthly basis because new states are enacting the economic nexus and you need to have some sort of downloadable chart to understand it. Or better yet Diane what we do here often is tell people to outsource. Like you can do the bookkeeping yourself but you're probably a marketer so focus on marketing and outsource the bookkeeping. Yeah, there's legal stuff you've got to do for your business, don't hire an attorney and bring them in-house so you'd outsource that. Why in the world does an entrepreneur that's running a small business with let's say a staff of six need to go through the Sales Tax Institute and learn all of these things themselves when they can hire a company just to do it all for them. I know you don't do that; you train, you educate, you consult. Why not just hire a company to do it all? Again is that a little bit of ignorance is bliss you still have to know it or can you just hire one of these firms that we hear about that will help you set it up and collect and pay the states, what to do and you just don't worry about it. Is that a fantasy? Diane: It's not exactly. You could certainly hire. There are a couple of different things that you need to do. If you're selling on a marketplace platform there are less requirements that you need to worry about and that is because the actual tax calculation is going to be handled by the marketplace. Joe: Let's call the marketplace Amazon. Is that Amazon is going to collect them? Diane: Amazon is the marketplace; correct. If you're selling on Amazon you don't need to acquire software to calculate the tax because Amazon is calculating the tax on that order. Now Amazon is going to send you the data and the financial dollars that they collect in the sales tax. In some of the states, you are going to have to prepare the sales tax return and remit that tax directly to the state. Now the trend that we're seeing in 2019 is states are saying you know what we're going to remove the burden to the sellers that sell on marketplaces and put that tax collection and remittance responsibility on the marketplaces. And so we've got a vast number of states that already have enacted that legislation. And we've got a large number of states that have it still proposed this year. We call this our marketplace nexus on our charts. And so what we're assuming is that—I think there's only five or six states that don't have any legislation proposed to this year or passed yet. And the rest of them are really moving towards saying we're going to remove that burden. Joe: Okay I just want to say. I love that. I love all in capital letters marketplace nexus because that takes the burden out of the hand of the entrepreneur, right? I mean they're just— Diane: It does as long as they are only selling on a marketplace. Joe: Right. Diane: I think what we find is a lot of the sellers that sell on marketplaces also have their own website. Joe: They should. In my opinion, it'll bring a higher value. The problem is that Amazon is growing at such a pace. There are more businesses that used to be 75% let's say Shopify, 25%t Amazon and now it's flipped. Diane: Right. Joe: That will level out over time I'm sure. But yeah let's talk about that. So somebody that is selling on third-party marketplaces but they've also got an Amazon store—I mean their own website, even if they're only selling 5% of their total revenues. Diane: Correct. So where it gets challenging is most of the states require you to include the sales on the marketplaces along with your direct sales in determining whether or not you exceed the threshold to determine if you have substantial taxes. With most states its $100,000 of sales or 200 transactions. So if you're very successful on Amazon and only selling maybe 5 to 20% of your sales are on your own website then you still may exceed those thresholds. And now you do need to have some sort of solution in your direct sales to calculate the tax and then you'll have the responsibility for remitting it. So yes there are companies that sell software that can integrate with your e-commerce platform. Some of the e-commerce platforms have some of the software baked in so to speak so that you don't have to separately license it. Joe: Which ones have that baked in? Diane: So Shopify Plus has a baked-in version of Avalara. Magento I think has some baked in of either Avalara or [inaudible 00:23:58.2] depending upon the version that you're on but others you may have to pay a license fee for that calculation side. The second piece of it is once you calculate and collect the tax you need to remit that tax to the various different tax authorities. Those software companies also could do that for you as an outsource, your bookkeeper may be able to do that for you, and there are also other firms that we work with that are just sales tax outsourcing compliance, providers. My firm doesn't do that but we do work with other firms that do. Joe: Do you have references for those firms on your website? Diane: We do. Joe: Okay. Diane: We got those on our website. Joe: So what would happen if somebody signs up for Shopify plus they collect all this money and they don't properly set up the remittance or the payment to the states? How long is it going to take for the states to figure out and what are they going to do? Diane: Well collecting tax and not remitting it is about the worst thing you can do. Joe: Can we call that a crime? Diane: It actually is criminal fraud. It will earn you an orange jumpsuit. Joe: It is the new black so that's— Diane: It is the new black. You're right. Joe: Thank you. I have to say it. Sorry, everyone. Diane: You had to. Everybody does. So just as you never want to be withholding income taxes from your employee's paychecks and not turn those over to the government collecting sales tax and not remitting it is at that same level. Sales taxes when you collected are considered trust taxes. So you need to make sure that you are remitting the tax that you collect. How quickly will the state find you? That really depends. Often it can happen because an auditor bought something from you and then doesn't see you registered. Or it could be a customer that complains. Joe: That could just be bad luck. Do the right thing folks; do the right thing. Ignorance is definitely not bliss. Let's talk about this a little bit. We're 20 minutes in let's get to the meat of what—say potential buyers and potential sellers are concerned about with both marketplace nexus and economic nexus know, right? Alright, I'm going to just redefine the economic nexus. I get that's when you hit a certain threshold. What's the first nexus? Oh, it's physical nexus. Diane: Physical; correct. Joe: Alright. So yeah this is the stumble through podcast. I'm going to rename it all. Okay, so we've got a business for sale. They've done four million dollars in revenue in the last 12 months. Let's just say they're keeping 20% so the profits are $800,000. The business is for sale for three and a half, four-time multiple and they get three point two million dollars. And let's say that they've been around for five years. They're selling on third-party marketplaces at this point it's probably that 75% there and 25% elsewhere on their own Shopify store, Zulily whatever the case might be. If they're only collecting sales taxes where they have physical nexus and in their own home state and I buy the business; it's an asset sale, not a stock sale. Diane: Right. Joe: What's the risk to me if any? Diane: So I think the first thing is if they're actually collecting in all of the states who have physical presence; so where they've got inventory sitting in an Amazon warehouse they're steps ahead because that's where we're finding a lot of the risk is that these Amazon sellers are not collecting in the states where there is inventory in the warehouse. So if the only risk that they have are the states where there was economic nexus past which the earliest the state goes back on any of that for all practical purposes we have a couple of outliers is June 21st which is the date of the decision 2018 with New York. We've got Massachusetts and Ohio that go back a little bit further because they have something just to add a little bit more confusion to it Joe that's referred to as cookie nexus which is a digital present. So if you drop cookies which every Amazon seller is dropping cookies on their visitor's websites—on their devices so that they can track them. That was deemed to be a physical presence in both Ohio and Massachusetts so they go back a little bit further. Let's take those guys out. Joe: Okay. Diane: So if we're saying today we're selling our business we've been registered in all of my Amazon warehouse states and I've just got economic nexus going back almost a year. And if I haven't been registered in those states then there is a risk although we think that it's probably not a great risk if it is just the economic nexus. Okay? Average sales tax rate across the country is somewhere between 8 ½, 9% is the average rate. Of course, we've got some lower and we've got some higher. And so your risk is not 8 ½% of your profit but 8% of your gross sales. And so it's 8 ½% of—let's say 25% of your 4 million is in economic only nexus, 8 ½% of your million for the last year of sales. Joe: And then you've got to further divide it up into—you've got to hit that economic nexus in those individual states. And with where you've got the physical nexus we're going to count that money and see if we hit that average $100,000 threshold or 200 transactions. It's very complex. Almost to the point where it makes me wonder if that state employee in the sales tax division making whatever they make really cares and is going to dig deep to try to find you that sold a widget after you've sold all the assets of your business. What is the process the state goes through to identify people that are selling products that didn't collect sales taxes properly? Diane: So just as probably most of the sellers listening to this podcast are using data analytics to figure out what should they price their products at, what is a hot product to sell, the states are starting to use data analytics and advanced methods to identify sellers. They've also used methods including subpoenaing; their subpoena power to go to Amazon and ask for the list of the sellers in their states. So we've seen I think about eight or nine states that have done that including New York and Connecticut and North Carolina, Wisconsin, California, Washington. So those are some of the states that have actually gotten that list of those sellers. And we know sellers have gotten those letters from those states saying we think you should be registered. Joe: Okay, they can figure it out is essentially what we're trying to say here. Let's talk about the risk to the—you said the risk to the seller it's still minimum if you've been collecting where you have physical nexus. So great that's the minimum. Well, what about the person that buys the business? And I'm going to try to say this in simple terms and you tell me, correct me, or lead me back on the right path here. Diane: Okay. Joe: Let's say I bought a business. I buy that business for three million dollars and it turns out that you; the seller didn't collect and pay on all the economic nexus that you may have had during your ownership and a few states figure this out and they go after you; your corporation. They're going to go after Diane's brand LLC. First, they're going to try to go after the state after you and if it's an empty—well if the LLC is an empty shell if you ever pierce that LLC by running personal stuff with a business they can then go after you personally for that. And then if you can't pay it on either of those things you're going to go okay well the assets are still being sold, the brand is still out there. I wonder who bought it. Let's go after them. Is that the right path and can they get all the way through to me if they first go after your LLC, can't get money out of the LLC, it's an empty shell or you closed it, okay fine they go after you because you pierced that corporate shell at one point, you're bankrupt, you've got nothing. Can they go after me and if so what's the real risk to me the buyer? Diane: They can and to clarify just a couple of things. Even without doing anything to pierce the LLC all the states have provisions that allow them to go after the officers, the owners, or responsible parties whether the business has been closed down or not. Joe: But everything else was I generally on the right path there in terms of the way it would work? Diane: Correct. They can and there is also provisions that they have that are called successor liabilities. So that means that if they sell the business then they can go after the seller—I'm sorry after the buyer. Joe: Let's just put a point of clarification on that successor liability, you said sell the business. These are assets sales for the most part. They're buying the assets of the business, not the entity itself. Does that successor liability carry through in that case? Diane: It does. Joe: Okay, are they going to go to that successor first or is that going to be the last resort? Diane: It depends on the state and it also can depend on whether or not the rules were followed. Most of the states have something called a bulk sale notification requirement that applies on the sale of bulk assets. So this is not typically required on a stock deal but it is required on an asset deal. And so if you sell those assets there is a requirement that the state be put on notice that that is happening so that they can do a couple of different things. One they now know that this transaction is occurring. In some states, there might actually be a tax on the transaction itself. The second thing is that it gives the state the opportunity to give what's called the tax clearance certificate. So if they've recently done an audit let's say of the seller they can tell the buyer this is all clear. If there hasn't been a sale made or if God forbid the company has not been registered in the state then they can provide information to the buyer in terms of an amount to put into escrow and withhold from the purchase price. Joe: Again though I'm trying to just visualize how that heck the state is going to do this. I buy the assets of the business. It's Diane's brand. I go to the state of North Carolina to get a tax clearance certificate or—no that's for the past is that right? Diane: Correct. Joe: So I want to start collecting sales taxes on my newly formed corporation for Diane's brands. Diane: Correct. Joe: And I do that there's going to—and I actually think I know the answer here. I was going to say how the heck is the state going to know that they were everest passed sales. Diane: Right. Joe: There's a questionnaire that I have to answer that have there been past sales. A few things, I mean I've heard some people just say no or whatever, people in authority, people that are experts like you, I've seen attorneys on this bulk sale notification go yeah no we're not doing that. Are these people just flat out wrong or is it—look the key thing here is risk. I think what I'm trying to help people understand and I need you to throw out numbers for me. I'm trying to understand the odds because that's what these sellers and buyers are going to look at because you can't change the past. You can't change what you did four years ago in terms of sales tax collection. In some case, you don't have to because economic nexus didn't exist back then. But what are the odds of this carrying through in this scenario? Again I'm buying your brand. You've been around. You sold four million bucks in the last 12 months. And I know you can't do this everybody calls labor the legend and I remember just after college I was at a temp agency trying to get a job and had to take a typing test. Diane: Yes. Joe: And I did it. And I was terrible. Terrible was like 82% accuracy at the time and the guy tells me it was. But I'm like what are you talking about. Like Larry Bird shot 66% from the free throw line and he was a legend. That actually got me the job nothing else; my expertise and anything else nothing. But Larry the Legend got me the odds, percentages; that's what people want to know. So I'm buying it. How much—is this going to keep me up at night or is there like a five or 10% risk here that some of this may carry through? Diane: So I think it depends on a couple of factors. So I hate to give you a fudged answer but here's a couple. Joe: I have to put you on the spot. We are recording. Diane: Yeah. So here's a couple of things that come into play. If the only nexus is economic I think the risk is fairly low. If you have been an FBA seller you've got inventory in the state and you haven't been collecting. I think that risk is significantly higher because there is now ways that the states are getting that information. Joe: Fairly low is 3% is that what you're talking? Diane: I would say transactions happening within the first year, we're saying it's probably—you know will the state come after somebody for economic less than 20% chance. Joe: Okay but first I bought your brand; first I'm going to go after you. First, they're going to go after your LLC then they're going to go after you. If they can't get money from either of those then they're going to come after me. So is that 20% on me or is it 20% first to you and then you're all saying— Diane: I think it's about 20% that they're going to go and find that an economic seller did not register when they should have; an economic nexus seller. Joe: And unless you're bankrupt they're going to take money from you first. Diane: Correct. Joe: And how do they get that money? Diane: They will do an audit. So they will look at your books for reference and then they will calculate an assessment. Joe: And if you can't write them a check you're going to work out a payment program. Diane: Correct. Joe: They are attorneys that can negotiate that down. Diane: Correct. Joe: All that still applies? Diane: Yup that would still apply. Joe: Okay, so economic nexus pretty low. Diane: Correct. Joe: Physical nexus fairly high but again even though their sell-through nexus—is that what you call it? There's so many different nexus here. The physical first; they're going to go after you first. The buyers here the concern should be fairly low unless the seller of the business is ultimately going to be filing for bankruptcy and there's no money there, right? Diane: Correct. And how you would get caught as you said when you're filling out your registration application for your business because now you're going to be compliant. One of the questions that is on there is did you buy this business from anybody else. And that's on I think virtually every state application. And that's how it would be identified. Now if you choose to leave that blank the applications are signed under penalty of perjury. Although I have never seen a state actually pursue perjury charges on somebody that answered the questionnaire incorrectly; I got to advise you that that's what it says. Joe: Sure. Okay, and we are 35 minutes in and generally we want to keep this short. Honestly, I feel like I could talk to you about this for another 35 minutes but I don't dare because the listeners would just drop right off a cliff. So Sales Tax Institute, Yetter Tax, what resources; we talked about them at the beginning and I was writing down—I can't even read my own notes, what resources are you making available on the length that we're providing. You're giving us a link on the QoP podcast so we know it's there and you're providing some specific resources for anybody listening. What are those? Diane: Correct. So we're going to make it easy for your listeners Joe. We're going to give you a specific link, SalesTaxInstitute.com/quiet-light-podcast and we're going to load all of these great resources that we talked about right there so it'll be one place that your listeners can go to. And on there we're going to give them the ability to download our white paper that talks all about these different kinds of nexuses and what you need to do. We're going to give them the link to what we call our remote seller nexus chart which will include all the different types of nexus; click-through affiliate which is common ownership and agencies doing things on your behalf, the economic nexus, the marketplace nexus, and the one that we didn't have time to get into which is the awful notice and reporting which is when you don't collect tax. So that chart will be on there. We're going to have a chart for the economic nexus which is all the states and the different thresholds by state, their actual effective dates, what dollars do you include in doing that threshold calculation. We're going to give you a link to one of our greatest FAQs about what is nexus that has a little video about all of those nexus types explaining what they are. And then we also offer a service called our Wayfair Risk Analysis. We can take your data and go through and do the analysis to figure out what your risk is as well as where should you be right. Joe: I love that. I hate that we're at the end of the podcast for that part of it because a lot of people just want to have this done for them. So you can do a risk analysis as part of— Diane: Absolutely. Joe: And do they—is that through Yetter Tax or the Sales Tax; since it'd actually to be through the link but look people listen and then they type it in. So if they go to is it Yetter Tax would they be able to figure out that analysis? Diane: The easiest thing to do is go to the SalesTaxInstitute.com and then click on the consultation button. Joe: I got it. Diane: Then you will see a link to our Wayfair Risk Analysis there. Joe: Alright, Diane you know your stuff. You are a sales tax nerd. I see it. I'm not insulting you. I see that on your Twitter handle. Thank you for being such a nerd and understanding this and sharing the knowledge with everyone here. Ignorance is not bliss. Learn about sales taxes because if you don't it's going to come up and bite you somewhere unpleasant and that's in your wallet. Thank you for your time, Diane. I greatly appreciate it. Diane: Thank you, Joe. It's been a pleasure. Links and Resources: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/quiet-light-podcast https://www.salestaxinstitute.com http://www.yettertax.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianeyetter https://twitter.com/yettertax?lang=en Economic Nexus State Guide: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/resources/economic-nexus-state-guide Remote Seller Chart: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/resources/remote-seller-nexus-chart Wayfair Risk Analysis: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/wayfair-risk-analysis Sales Tax Software Vendors: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/resources/tax-software FAQ: What do I need to know about the Wayfair Case and Economic Nexus?: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/sales_tax_faqs/wayfair-economic-nexus FAQ: What is nexus? : https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/sales_tax_faqs/what_is_nexus Whitepaper: Nexus after Wayfair – What you need to Know: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/resources/five-things-to-understand-nexus-whitepaper Sales Tax 101 On-Demand Webinar: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/sales-tax-education/sales-tax-101-on-demand-webinar Sales Tax Jumpstart Live Online Class: https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/sales-tax-education/sales-tax-jumpstart Consulting Service: http://www.yettertax.com/about-us-services/

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Gary Myers: Hi. My name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe Fontenot. Gary: We're the hosts of the Answering the Call podcast. Joe: And this is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Today our guest is Emir Caner. He's the president of Truett McConnell University. Gary: He talks about leadership, it's challenges, and where he finds inspiration. Joe: And so, here's Emir. Joe: Dr. Emir Caner, you are the president of Truett McConnell University and you've been there for 10 years now, since 2008. So it's really great to have you here. I had a question for you first. We're going to talk about some leadership things, but every single email and then on your website you say three words. Truth is immortal. Emir Caner: Yeah. Joe: What does that mean? Emir: I did my dissertation on Balthasar Hubmaier, who is my hero of the faith, not only for his strengths, but for his weaknesses as well. Ended up living his life the last 14 months before he was arrested and ultimately martyred for the faith, he had baptized six to twelve thousand people, and that's if you can imagine a church that baptizes 150 a more a week, and published 17 books at the same time. Ultimately was arrested and burned at the stake outside the gates there in Vienna, Austria. So his slogan I have plagiarized now some 500 years later. 'Truth is unkillable' is the literal translation from the German. Truth is immortal is the popular translation. It just reminds people that while truth can decay and truth can diminish, it can never die, because like the resurrection it will raise itself like our Lord. And as long as our Lord is raised from the dead, truth itself cannot die itself. Joe: That's a pretty comforting concept, I think, especially since we live in a truth is relative world. You know, truth is not only here, but it's immortal. So, I have a question for you. I was looking at your career and so forth, and something strikes me as kind of interesting, and it's specifically about leadership. So there's a lot of talk about leadership in the world, and all this kind of stuff, but I think a lot of time leadership gets generalized. So for instance, one of the things I found, came across, was this idea that there's a difference between being like number two, and being number one. In an institution, an organization, I'm talking kind of about responsibility and direction, not like in an ego sense. And you take the difference between number two and number three, and it might not be much. What is the difference between number one and number two? This is something ... You know, you're currently the president of Truett McConnell, that institution, but you've not always been at the top, in that case, and so you've had kind of both sides. Can you talk a little bit about some of the things that you've learned in the process of that? Emir: Yeah. Some of it's experiential. I had never intended to be in the spot I am. Never thought I was qualified. Many days still don't think I'm qualified to do so. But before this position at Truett McConnell University, I was at Southwestern Seminary, and helped found the College at Southwestern that's now Scarborough College. I think the number two, the greatest difference, and I gladly fit into that, is I wanted to give unfettered support to my president. And as long as everything, of course, was ethical and theological, even if we disagreed, and ultimately you do. In any position of authority you will disagree with those are in authority, my goal was to prop him up to encourage him and to do what God had put him in that place to do in every way possible, whether it was recruiting students or fundraising, whether it was in the classroom or sitting with students in my office like I do. In some ways there aren't many differences. I think the largest difference is the enormity of the task becomes clear from the chair because you start to realize, "Oh gosh. I've got 300 families who rely on me in order to make a living. I have 2900 students who have a desire in their life, and a call in their life, and in some minute way I am responsible for them as well." And so there is a gravity to the situation that you wake up and you realize ... If you don't realize at that point that you are inadequate, you are probably arrogant, because there is no possible way. The best piece of leadership advice I've ever received came from Dr. Charles Stanley. When he was asked how did you get where you are today? Right? He started first at Atlanta in 1971. Now he's got a potential audience of over a billion. His answer is, "I don't know. All I did was one step at a time." And I think that's a crucial issue of leadership is that those that I wish to emulate most never intended to be there. They only intended to follow the Lord, whatever the path was. And that was truly helpful, because when you get to the chair you start to recognize there's no way of doing this without the grace of God. And not in part, but really in whole, because any decision you make has an impact on every student. And the decisions you make will have an impact not just for tomorrow, but for decades to come. So that's also the joy of the situation, because then you get to see graduates. You get to see them do things far greater than anyone could have dreamed, and that's the joy of it. Joe: Was there a time when you looked at leadership, the way you described it here is almost as follow-ship. You are here to serve. You're here to follow. The one foot in front of the other on the path that God has laid out for you. Was there a time when you looked at leadership more in a, I would almost say stereotypical way? Like a lot of people look at the leader and say, "The leader has a plan, has a path. They're going. We're going to follow them. When I get to that position, I'm going to be the one making the direction." But kind of what you've described is something a little different in the sense that you were here to follow God, right? And so has that become like a change in your life? Did you always look at it like this? Emir: I just really never saw this coming. When I got called to ministry my dream was just to preach the Word. And I think that's enough. It's not just, it is the primary goal even to this day that I do. And then all of a sudden I was asked to become professor of church history and Anabaptist studies at Southeastern Seminary. And that's all I dreamed about in life was just to do that, and I got to do that for years. And then all of a sudden I got a call from Southwestern to say, "Would you think about taking this on?" I'd never seen that coming. So I gladly did that, and we purchased a home. My wife and I had a great church out at Forth Worth. Our family was growing, and young, and I thought, you know, this is it. This is where everything will happen. And then an email came in from a trustee at Truett, and thought, "No. I don't want this." And trustees can tell you even 10 years later, I waited until the very last minute to say yes, because there was no possible way in my mind that I could be what Truett needed. But when you get the unction of the Lord, you have to say yes. And so here you are 10 years later. And there is. There's a great joy. It's not hard living in the mountains of North Georgia. Joe: Right. Emir: Right? It's a beautiful place. It's a contagious place. So many of our students not only come, but they stay because of the mountains of North Georgia. But no. I think there is, Luther Rice Seminary has a professor who wrote a book on followership, and I guess that's part of it. I would only add most books on leadership are written of the perspective that those who have succeeded. I read a lot from those I can learn from who those who in the worlds eyes have failed, but they haven't. There was a missionary out in South America in the 19th century, I think about 1857. They found his diary. He went out to a remote island trying to win the tribe to Christ, and never did. Never won one to Christ that we know of to this day. But his diary says it all. In his diary, his last diary before he starved to death was, "I am overwhelmed by the goodness of God." And I think you can learn just as much from that faithful servant as you can from the successful story. In fact there's a great danger of only looking to those who ... They love the stories of Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill. They failed, they failed, they failed, but then they succeeded. But I wonder, would you really read Lincoln, or Churchill, or anyone religious life if they had just failed? And as a church historian, that's what I do. I love to study those who are the forgotten, are the grassroots. Joe: What are some of the main things you've learned from those forgotten? Emir: You know, as a church historian, history ... Less than 1% of history is ever written down. And history that we read, in fact, if you study church history in terms, even as you teach in Baptist life, Evangelical life, Protestant life, we still only teach it from the perspective of the successful. So you teach the church fathers nearly as cleanly as Roman Catholicism teaches of the church fathers of Jerome, Augusta, et cetera. But I look for the grassroots. And it's one of the reasons why I'm a free churchman. It's a reason why I studied Anabaptistica. Why they are our forefathers spiritually, and I would say historically as well is these are the forgotten. They were meant to be forgotten. They were martyred to be forgotten. But those, I think, are the true heroes. And you really can translate that into modern day church life. Where if you think about it, you walk into church, all the accolades goes to the person with the limelight. But the forgotten heroes of the backrooms, of the 3-year-old Sunday school, of the deacon who goes to the hospital. That's part and parcel of how we should look at church history. Joe: I think we're at a little bit of a disadvantage in the one sense of everybody puts the emphasis on the winners, right? Whether it's the person whose standing up at the front, you know, on and on and on. How does a person spot the forgotten who are not "losers" right? But they're the people that are being faithful and so forth, but the world has not validated them? Emir: Many times you can't, right? Because the eradication of history stops you from doing that unless you move into oral history, or you find some forgotten documents. But that's exactly what we should do. When you got The Evangelical Theological Society, there are many good papers being done, but sometimes you sort of get tired of the regurgitation of Martin Luther for the 17th hundredth time of the ... It just becomes insane that they think they found something. I love when you'd stated grassroots you find things you never thought. So for example, with Anabaptistica, one of my professors came over to the States, studied at Georgia Tech, got his bachelors/masters in PhD in aerospace engineering. And he was an agnostic, didn't believe, and then he got saved. And all of a sudden he did a master of divinity and doctorate, and did it in Anabaptistica. He's Italian, French Italian, and so he decided to go study the archives. And that's where I tell people they are. They're in the back rooms of families. They're in the archives of libraries. Every book written about Italian Anabaptists, and they were heretics. All of them. And they basically repeated secondary history over and over again. Well this French Italian then went into the archives and studied, and it was all a myth perpetuated by those who wanted to eradicate their history, call them heretics, because in the medieval times you had to prove heretics in order to put them to death. But you ultimately found is while there were some heretics among them, the vast majority of Italian Anabaptists were orthodox. They were Trinitarian, they were salvation by grace alone and so forth, and they were martyred for the faith. And so when I do my Anabaptist tour, like I'll do next summer, we go to Venice. No one else has done this in an Anabaptist, or the Mennonites don't do this. So we go to Venice. We literally go to the place where they would take the Anabaptists at night quietly, whole families, put them out into the water, drop them underneath the boats, let them drown, come back to dock, nobody knew them again. And one of the honors of being a theologian or historian is being allowed to tell the story of those who are forgotten, just like those guys. Joe: That's amazing. Do you think those forgotten people still exist today? Emir: Yeah. You know- Joe: I mean are alive today? Emir: They're not only alive, but they need to come more to the forefront of, for example, how we do issues of church planting, or ecclesiology. If you go to conferences, there are a lot of conferences on church planting. But church planting in urban Atlanta is radically different than doing church planting in the mountains of North Georgia. And there are different heroes for different situations. And the forgotten man who is sitting out in First Baptist, Lizard Lick, North Carolina, which is an actual city- Joe: It is. Emir: ... is doing as faithful work as the urbanite or the suburbanite that's in the larger church. And I think we've forgotten that the backbone of Southern Baptist life is not merely made up of the megas, but is made up of the smaller churches, and the yeoman's work that's out there, that a man that's in a community of 500 baptizing 30 is just as extraordinary as man that's in a community of 100,000 and baptizing 300. And those are the forgotten. Those are the ones I love to preach for, because you walk in to this remote location. I remember a few years ago I drove up, they didn't even have a parking lot. And they had this auditorium that sat about 300, and you pulled up to grass, and it was packed, and I went in. And doing that, being in Georgia, preaching under watermelon sheds, and old revivalist. I preached at a revivalistic facility that had had a revival service every year except for once since 1812. Joe: Wow. Emir: Those are the forgotten too many times, but I think we have to realize or maybe even re-realize what it means to have that differentiation between the segments of Southern Baptist life as we unify under theology. Joe: How we tell the difference between one of these forgotten heroes, the person whose doing the good work, and perhaps the world is not recognizing them, versus someone who is not, and they're basically sowing the seeds of, or getting what they're sowing. In other words, the difference between someone who is being faithful to the gospel, but not seeing anyone come forward, versus the person who is not being faithful and not seeing? You know what I mean? How do we know the difference between what the world is miscategorizing and what the world is categorizing correctly? Emir: Yeah. You know, I often ask the question in class when I teach on Adoniram Judson, would we talk about him if he had left after five years? Before he saw a convert? Before he saw people come to faith in Christ? And I don't think we would have talked about him. I don't. But the reason I don't think we would have talked about him is not because he was a failure, but because he walked away too soon. The faithful stay faithful. And that's how we need to consider who are the heroes of the faith is not merely by the recognition of success by numbers. I do worry sometimes that we diminish that so much that we're paying the price for it, right? Numbers do mean something. He who wins souls is wise. It's the recognition that someone cared enough to look at me as a Muslin and say, "I want you in church, and I want to you to be saved." On the other hand, the faithfulness is the reason why it's the ending as much as matters as the beginning. I think God rewards on the beginning as well. But the recognition comes, and I tell students, your greatest part of ministry is not when you're 20, 30, or 40. Your greatest ministry should happen when you're 50, 60, 70, 80 years old, because you're building upon the blocks of God's call that at one point you were a pioneer taking down trees, and now your faithful service, you can look back and see God's hand to such a degree that even if God doesn't do anything from that point forward, there's a joy and gratitude that lives within your heart that gives others who are doing the same calling, and encouragement to walk faithfully. Joe: Yeah. That's a very different kind of thinking. That's a kind of thinking that looks 20 to 30 years into the future, not a kind of thinking that looks two years into the future. I mean of course, we always consider- Emir: Yeah. I worry that Southern Baptists are into fads. But I worry about because just like parachute pants, they're going to go out faster than they ever came in, and for good reason. Joe: Sure. Emir: So when I hear statisticians and some leadership pundits say, "But you got to reach the millennials," my mind is okay, I get that. I understand the technicalities, but the millennial generations now gone. Right now you're dealing with another generation. Another generation. The fact of being faithful does not segregate a population into generations, whether that's an ethnic segregation, or whether that's an age segregation. Instead, the person sits in a neighborhood and says, "That 98-year-old in the nursing home is just as important as the 19-year-old in a college right over there." And many times we see successes reaching the younger and we forget what it is to reach the older who are closer to eternity in so many ways as well. And thereby we designate success by the sex appeal instead of by the sacrifice. That's part of what I think can be a problem with an evangelical life. It's not a denigration. We got to reach the youth, right? When in Georgia the number one number of those who are baptized as a youth is zero, we recognize we have a problem with the youth. But the statisticians never say what the number one number is for the older either. We concentrate so much on one generation, we forget the next, and that is not biblical in any regard. So I think the recognition has to be, all right. If you win New Orleans, then you've got to reach those who are in your community, whether that's in Slidell, or whether that's in an urban community. Whoever's around you, God's put around you. In the mountains of North Georgia, it's going to be different. But we have to be in some ways a generationalist church, one that cares as much as about one age as the other. Joe: You know, leadership obviously is about hard choices. We all know that, hard decisions. You said in an interview back in 2011 that a decision for Christ, this is talking about Muslims, could end in being kicked out of the family or even death. You didn't, if I have this right, you didn't have really much of a relationship with your father for most of your adult life because he was a Muslim. You became a Christian and he basically disowned you. Emir: Right. Joe: Do you think that Christians in America, and I'm talking about people, not Muslims, not your situation, I'm talking about just a person who grows up in a "Christian" home, nominal or whatever. Do you think Christians in America have it easier? Emir: Let me go back on something you said first, because I want people to hear this because when you're reaching out to Muslims, and I've taught Islamic evangelism so much now for the better part of two decades. I think people make ... There's a misnomer out that somehow you got to know Islam well to win someone to Jesus, and it's just not true. It's helpful. It's supplemental, but it's not essential. Those who know Mohammed well are not necessarily those who win Muslims to Jesus. It's those who know Jesus well that will win Muslims to Jesus. On the part of America Christianity, I would say we all have it far easier, not merely other Americans who didn't grow up Islamic like I did, but all of us including me, because while I was disowned by my father, I didn't pay the price that so many are paying across the globe. That usually happens, the demarcation line is with baptism. And at that point of baptism they see you as never returning. By the way, the statistics say that 75% of Muslims who become Christian go back to being Muslim. Joe: Really? Emir: Because of the heavy pressure. Because the fact that Islam isn't merely a religion, it's a 24/7 socioeconomic development of religion that involves every part and aspect of your life from the economy, to how you dress, to who you marry and so forth. But those across the globe, and you're starting to see this incredibly rambunctious powerful movement of God in places like Iran. And why I think that's happening is because the persecution is leading to others coming to faith in Christ, just like in the Anabaptist movement in Europe in the 16th century, just like the persecution under Communism, under my wife's country all the way through the Soviet Union in the 1940's through the 1980's is true of Islam today. The great persecutors of the church day are still Communists in China and North Korea and so forth, but are also, it's Islamism. Not all Muslims, because some Muslims come to America in order to leave the traditional elements of the faith. Not radical. I think people forget, it's not radical Islamic theology to put to death someone who leaves Islam. It's traditional. Mohammed said, "Whoever leaves the Islamic religion, kill him." Comes from Bukhari's Hadith. So that's why 85% of Egyptians say that anybody who leaves Islam should die. It's not radical, it's traditional. So it is. But it's where the church also seems to be growing most. I would just add one other thing. I always hear people say that under persecution the church grows the most. And that's true many times in history, but philosophically doesn't have to be true. Our greatest moments in American history with revivals came when we recognized our dependence of God came when we were polarized as a nation. It didn't come under persecution. It came under different elements. Freedom can birth revival just as well as persecution. It's just a matter of what is God's will in that regard. Joe: As leaders, what can we do to help people get to that realization, which I think is the key. As you were saying, persecution brings that realization that we need God, but there are other things that can bring that realization that we need God. As leaders, how do we get people to understand, or how can we shepard people to that point? What can we do? Emir: Yeah. I tell my students there's an old cliched phrase that says Christianity is not a crutch, it's a wheelchair. You cannot be semi-dependent on God, you've got to be fully dependent on Him. I think we wait for God moments. You know, essentially I tell my children, of whom I have three, you have to learn in one of two ways. You either learn through knowledge, which is to desire scripture, right? The reason God wrote his revelation is that we would read it and follow it, period. But unfortunately we are stubborn and fallen creatures, and so the only other way you learn is through experience. So the two ways that you put that into a person's life is that you preach it faithfully from the pulpit instead of opinionations and things of this nature that become so popular in today's pulpits. You faithfully expound the Word of God verse by verse, book by book. You will hit every topic if you touch every verse. For the second part, which is I would say is the majority of our church members, its experience, which means there are going to be God moments where they recognize they need God. There will be a loss of a job, loss of a family member, a brokenness in their heart and their mind. And that's at that point where the pastor, the shepard has to walk in, and he can do one of two things. He can either assuage their conscious and miss the God moment, or he can like a Barnabas convict and encourage at the same time and allow them to see a dependency on God that will become the pilgrimage. And it is. Revivals are an instant. And I study them faithfully. But faith becomes a pilgrimage. Far after the first great awakening was over, people were still walking faithfully with the Lord. They just weren't seeing the numbers they did under Jonathan Edwards in New England, or Charles Finney's Ohio, whatever it may be. That's just part of what I think it's going to take in America, and if we don't learn through this too, I think the intervention of God is just a matter of time, whether we want to see it as a cause or a permission, it really doesn't matter at this point. But when we put ourselves outside of the umbrella of God's protection by disobedience, what else is going to happen besides the consequences of disobedience that happens to a person or a nation? Joe: I've one last question. Anything you would do over? Emir: Ha! Golly! What would you not do over? I don't know. In some ways, as a historian, I would say no because your scars tell your story. In other ways, any disobedience to God, you'd always want a redo on that. I think the greatest mistake I made young in ministry was I thought I was teachable, but I wasn't as teachable as I thought I was. Joe: Oh, that's interesting. How did you recognize that? Emir: You don't. You wait. Joe: In retrospective? Emir: In retrospect. It wasn't as if I was obstinate. It wasn't like I was obtuse in any way. It's just that my confidence outweighed my humility. And looking back, I think most ministers would say, "I wish I had listened more and spoke less." In particular, one of the things I did, and even wish I would do more is, when I got called in the ministry in the 80's, I made it a point to listen to older preachers and actually to attend conferences where I thought, if this jokers near 90, I'm going to show up because he doesn't have long on the Earth. And so I would hear people that no one else today hear, because they're gone. Right? They've graduated to glory and their time with Jesus is now at hand. And I would encourage that of students is if you find those who are older, and they have been faithful in their walk, go listen to them. You'll catch far more than you know. One of the people I bring into Truett, and every time he just rolls his eyes at me, is Junior Hill. Joe: He was here not too long ago. Emir: Yeah. He's 80 years old. Every time he'll wrangle and go, "I don't know why you want an old codger like me." But inevitably after he's done preaching, the line out the door of students is much longer than he can stand. And it's because the students recognize it's not merely he's grandfatherly, I think there's a recognition of the intangible faith that he has walked with the Lord for decades and decades. And that's what I wish I could even do more is just listen to those who have walked the faith for so long. Joe: Well, thanks so much Dr. Caner for coming on the podcast. It's been great talking with you. Emir: Yeah. It was good being here.

It seems that with certain Quiet Light Brokerage listings, there is just a mad rush of activity as soon as they come out. Most of the listings that we put out will receive at least 100 inquiries right away, but what does it look like when we put out a “hot listing” that garners two times that much interest? Today we are discussing the type of business that gets 9 offers. We go over how many inquiries those types of listings get, how much discussion and conference calls happen around these potential transactions in a short time frame, and just what it takes to get these listings under contract. We hope you enjoy this little case study of how to set up for a successful sale from the seller side and tips for how to act from the buyer side. Being thoroughly prepared and running a real, viable business are keys to success. Episode Highlights: The main characteristics that made this business so attractive. How the pricing decision played into the transaction. The process of selecting the 15 buyers we entertained. The conference call screening process between the seller and potential buyers, facilitated by the broker. How to choose a buyer and deal with disappointing those who lost out. The 4 pillars of success and how this business checked them all. The one intangible thing that took the business to the next level and attracted the buyers. How the packages that Quiet Light puts together tell a story about the listing and the journey of the brand and its seller. Transcription: Mark: It seems that with some Quiet Light Brokerage listings as soon as when they hit the marketplace there is just an absolute mad rush of buying activity towards those listings. Now to be clear most of the listings that we put out at Quiet Light Brokerage, the vast majority, in fact, it could be an exception to the rule is going to receive at least 100 inquiries from buyers and calls right away. So what does it look like when it we come across a “hot listing”? Well, it looks like a lot of conference calls scheduled very, very shortly and just a mad rush of inquiries probably upwards of 200 and 250 within the first 24 hours in some cases. What's the difference between a listing that is not as hot like that that gets on a 100, 150, which is still a lot and something that doubles that? Joe, I know you launched a listing 3 or 4 weeks ago from the time that we're recording this episode that we would definitely throw in that hot category. What were the top line statistics on that? Joe: It was a let's call it a 95 to 98% Amazon business. It was 30 months old. It was in the category of America's fastest growing recreational sports. It was run by a single owner operator that was a stay at home dad that was a CPA by training yet outsourced the bookkeeping to an e-commerce bookkeeper. $440,000 in discretionary earnings and we went out on a 3.3 which is lower than my recommendation. But in this case, the conservative CPA said no I don't want it to be listed for too long. I really like to get it sold let's … can we go out at a three. I suggested a 3.5. Rarely does somebody come back and say can you sell it for less and he did in this case and we ended up [inaudible 00:02:50.9]. Mark: The guy sounds like one of these unbelievably likable guys. How many inquiries did you get within that first 24 hours? Joe: You know I didn't count the first 24 but I know that you and I were … we were in Dallas and on the way to Houston for a meeting and I think we pulled it up and within the first 4 hours, we had something like 185. So within the first 24, I think it probably doubled to close to 400 would be my guess. Mark: That is insane. Now I do remember obviously these are all loaded questions so anyone listening like I know the answers to most of these questions— Joe: No, he doesn't. He forgot them all. He can— Mark: I actually— Joe: Yeah. Mark: I was introduced by the way this is completely outside; a complete diversion here. So sidebar I was introduced at a group of CEO's yesterday. And in front of the entire group of CEO's the guy that introduced me said “And Mark, by the way, took his son, they have seven kids or is it they're expecting their seventh kid. He's got so many kids he forgets their birthdays because he took his son to urgent care the other day and he got his birthday wrong.” I'm like thank you for that. I'm so glad to be known as the guy who forgets his kids' birthdays. Joe: You've got a lot of kids man. Mark: I got the month right. I didn't get the year or day right. I know the answer to this. We were in the car together and your phone was blowing up. We were at a conference. You were trying to schedule out all of these people wanting conference calls and you did this right over the conference itself which maybe we can talk about in just a little bit here. Within that first 24 hours if you would just guess how many conference call requests did you get? Joe: Well, let's keep in mind that that our process requires that the buyer either speak to me first before requesting a conference call or we've spoken in the past. So in this case in the first 24 hours, I had at least 10 requests for conference calls with buyers that I've already spoken to in the past that have looked at prior listings of ours and they wanted to make sure they were on a call with this one. We wound up with a total of 15 on this. As I said the owner of the business, Paul, is a stay at home dad. It's funny and I don't know if they loved this or just love making fun of Paul for this but he's a stay at home dad right? His son is a couple of years old but he takes his son to daycare at eight and picks him up at five. So I'm not sure how stay at home that is. Anyway so … but the beautiful thing is that he maybe … Paul if you're listening I'm sorry, maybe it's nine to four and you expanded it. Either way, you're a great guy and people love you and your business. I am not getting a Christmas card from Paul this year. Mark: I'm sure you are. Joe: Anyway, he was able to clear his calendar which was great. I was getting so inundated and I was at eCommerceFuel and I'm like I can't do these conference calls. And I had said to Paul on the way through eCommerceFuel look I want to bump this launch a week because it's going to get crazy and I'm not to be able to be on this conference calls. He says oh god really? Come on I really want to get it launched and it totally got my heartstrings so we launched it anyway. So I took the two days … it launched on a Wednesday I think and I took Thursday and Friday and all I did was talk to folks and schedule the calls for the following week. Paul cleared his calendar. We set up a link so that people could just grab a link and schedule them. We did a max of three a day separated by at least an hour a piece and we wound up I think by Monday closed the business. We had all 15 slots scheduled. We capped it at 15 which is really five too many. You just don't have to have that many conference calls. Normally we have three to five conference calls and we have at least one acceptable offer. Here we had 15 scheduled and we wound up with nine. Mark: These are 45 minute slots or are they an hour long slots? Joe: They were hour long slots. I go with an hour yeah. Mark: So just to put this in perspective for people that have not been on the sell side, I know I had this with a listing last year that I represented where it was just a really favorable price on the business and so we had that 15 conference call sort of scenario that we were doing in one week. For anyone on the receiving end of that our clients, the sellers, that's exhausting to go from one conference call to the next to the next; an hour where you're being asked the same questions and you're doing the majority of the talking during that time. This might be a little bit beside the fact but how did he hold up throughout all those calls? Joe: He did pretty well. They were spread out which was nice. He usually had … he had a minimum of an hour but usually, it was two or three hours in between. And we had one drop out so it ended up being 14. But he did pretty well. He had to keep moving around the house. That particular week his son was home because he got a fever a couple of days before and he was quite sick so he couldn't take him to daycare. And his mother flew up from Arizona to be with his son while he moved around the house to be in an appropriate place to do the conference calls. Most of the time he was actually in the nursery doing the conference calls from his laptop. Mark: Right. So I want to get into a couple of big topics here. I want to talk about what were the characteristics that made this business and you already talked a little bit about this but what were the characteristics that made this business so attractive? Because I also know that we suggested to Paul going out at a 3.5. He's the one that wanted 3.3 for the asking price on this. That's the multiple that we're asking on the earnings. So I want to go into what was it that made this such a hot listing where people just needed to look at the teaser that we gave and that alone generated 200 plus inquiries within the first 24 hours? So what's going on there and then second I want to go through a little bit more of the process that you went through in selecting the buyers that were going to get those conference calls. Because out of 250 finding 15 you know I know a lot of buyers out there would be like well how would I become one of those 15 if I'm going to be competing against this? And then last I mean this is kind of the darker side now or the bad side I guess of what we have to do when you have a hot listing like this is we have to disappoint a number of people that actually really want this business but lose out in a bid for it. So I want to go over those three categories with you and then obviously Joe you're better at this podcasting thing than I am so if there's something I'm missing let me know. Joe: Can you repeat that last part again, please? Mark: You are better at this podcasting thing than I am but I still have the number one episode thank you. Joe: And two and three, yes you've got them all, but you do the title so I think there's a little trickery going on it. Mark: And I used to do the promotion too so … your podcasts easy for me what with number one. Joe: I mean you talked about the four pillars; risk, growth, transfer ability, and documentation. And when you go through these things Paul's business just checks all of these off and all the subcategories within those checks them all off. He owned his own brand. He developed it himself. It's in a niche that is out there and there are other brands but he picked a … he specifically chose a niche within a larger niche to serve a certain segment of these people to start with. So there's a growth opportunity to go. He picked the sort of beginners in this sport. He didn't go with the top end of the product. He went with a middle of the road product that beginners … a price point that beginners would enjoy. So right away you could say okay well I'm learning this business and now I'm going to take this to the new level and go with the more professional people that play this sport. It's not quite professional but retired professionals can play. So he did a really nice job there in picking the category. It was just by happenstance. He happened to be on vacation visiting his folks in Arizona and saw this game that they are playing and said what the heck is that? Looked it up, studied it, researched it and it started growing like crazy and chose to go in that category. A registered trademark, beautiful brand, beautiful packaging, and again let the business age. We've been talking for probably nine months and it was getting close to the 24 month mark but we got through that Christmas holiday season. This particular business is not fourth quarter heavy seasonal. It's actually better in the spring and summer months. So we got prior to the spring and summer months so that a new one would have a great advantage with an upswing in the summer months. It was clean books, SBA eligible which helps cast a broader net to probably half the offers. I can't say half because they were nine. So four out of the nine offers, five out of the nine were SBA offers. The growth trends were fantastic; 80, 90, 100% year over year, month over month growth. It looked really good comparing month to month and from year to year. Transfer ability; super easy, he owned the brand. He wasn't reselling anything. He had a good relationship with his manufacturers. And the documentation, of course, good SOP's in place. He did it all himself so there weren't VA's that were combing [inaudible 00:11:42.3] anybody else or people that works on his house or anything like that needed to transfer. This sort of intangible thing that I think took this to the next level is the person behind the business. He's not transferring with the business but he is so, so likeable and so trustworthy; just the full story behind him. And I'm not suggesting that everybody goes and becomes a CPA, quits their job, and works from home and be a stay at home dad. But people want to invest in a business and buy something from somebody that they like and they trust. As Mike Jackness said on a call recently you have to be a good human being in order to get the deal done. It needs to work for both parties. And just describing who Paul is and then how he is in the video and how he came across, he's just a good person and people wanted to buy the business from him. Mark: Yeah, I'm looking at the teaser right now. It's cool if I read some of the teaser, right? Joe: Yeah of course. Mark: All right so again I'm just looking at this. I'm … this is selfish on my part, the next listing I put out I want to get 250 inquiries because that's awesome. I mean that's great for our clients. All right so I'm looking through this and look in through the prism of those four pillars of risk, growth, transfer ability, documentation. Risk; Amazon businesses, this is primarily Amazon. The biggest thing that I find and maybe you'd disagree is that it needs to be defensible against competition. In here I see towards the bottom there's a trademark and the brand is brand registered, there we go. There are over 2,000 reviews you are … these are getting harder and harder to fake. So you're speaking towards this … the main risk that people associate with Amazon. Right away people are thinking oh awesome that's great. Growth; this is rapidly growing. You leaved this but this is rapidly growing as one of America's fastest growing sports. So A. this business is growing, B. this niche is growing; two really good things, so growth is checked off pretty easily. You have some other stuff in here. Transfer ability; the owner, single owner, dedicates approximately 15 hours per week running the business. I could do that right? Who can't do 15 hours a week on something? And then lastly documentation; the owner is a former CPA. Do you need to say anything else? I think you checked each of those boxes with a giant red check mark to say everyone looking at this; this thing is going to check all of these boxes and become really valuable. It turned out surprisingly enough to be true. These four pillars work. Joe: Yeah, they do. They do. And one of the pillars is growth but within that is growth opportunities and growth trends. And the opportunities I'll dig into the package itself. I can't quite remember but he had launched new SKUs in 2018 and so we look at the revenue when did he launch those and the revenue by SKU during that time period. And it was clear that some of these SKUs had gained some traction in 2018 but they hadn't been available for the full 12 months. So that's a built in path to growth. So it's one other thing that buyers liked. And then when you … I mean that teaser it obviously checks all of those four pillars but then when you get into the package and we recorded a video, a video interview with him via Xoom like we're doing now. Obviously, people are listening to mostly audio but we do the video as well. And he's in his home you can see the kitchen in the background and he's got the packaging and he holds up the packaging and it's just beautiful. It's a really nice product and this is again hard for people to duplicate but this particular product it's just cool. It's just a cool niche and a cool place to be and he did a really nice job with the packaging. He did everything right as far as I'm concerned and obviously as far as buyers are concerned as well. Mark: Yeah, one thing I want to touch on here because we talked about this a lot for buyers that you want to be likable and come across well to the potential sellers. But it works both ways too right? I mean obviously, somebody who's selling who's a complete jerk probably isn't going to get too far with us because the process is just too difficult. So most of the … most of our clients are great people anyway but there are some people who have just magnetic personalities. And for this deal, you for I think one of the first times we experimented or you experimented by doing more video conferencing between buyers and sellers on that. How did that impact the deal and what should buyers take away from boy these guys want to do a video conference should I turn on my camera or should I, oh no, no I don't really have good lighting for this and a good set up for it. Joe: Do it. One of the best calls we had was with a guy named Noah. And he hadn't planned on doing video because he was on his dad's party boat. I know he's 35 years old but he's helping his father move this big boat from one port to another because it's being sold. And Paul and I are on video and we said the video is optional and said it's recommended but optional. And he said well both of you guys are there and he goes I'm kind of embarrassed. I'm on my dad's boat. I'm on a boat. I'm like we have to see it, turn it on. Mark: It's great. Joe: Yeah. His dad was in the background moving stuff around and he's shooing him out of the frame. It was fantastic. So Noah was like able and memorable and that stuck with Paul. Paul wanted to sell the business to Noah at the end of the call. So that makes a huge difference. Not everybody did it. There were two or three that were in the top three. Yeah, obviously three when the top three but two or three that stuck out. Two of them did a video one of them didn't do video. The very first person that we had a call with he chose not to do video. He made a great offer and he … we came close on having him but we ended up … Paul ended up choosing someone else. But I think you do the video. I'm doing it more and more and if you've got an opportunity as a buyer to do a video if your broker allows that then, by all means, do it. Mark: I think on the sell side this is something just to note. To people listening, we're going to be doing this more and more because it really makes a difference on the sell side as well. Sellers most likely will be doing video. And I love that he was able to just hold up some of the product on the video to be able to show it there directly. I mean how cool is that? Joe: People are … I mean they're buying a business potentially just based on the black and white information that we put in a package. It's worked for years but we moved to doing videos in the interviews and making it part of the full business summary. 24 months ago I remember doing the very first one. It was horrible. I just did audio actually. I recorded it on my phone and it was horrible but beneficial. And now we've moved beyond that to video. You get to look relatively in the likes of someone's eyes and gauge whether you trust them or not and if you're going to put your life savings on the line and buy their business. And I think it just makes a tremendous amount of information. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. That's really cool. And again this is coming from somebody like myself that does not like video … doing video personally. I tend to be one of those shut the camera off types of guys but I'm more and more warming up to it and definitely getting more accustomed to it as well. So that's pretty cool. And also the odd story, by the way, I know our content director Chris Moore and Chris I know you're listening to this you're going to hate this that I'm saying this but some of the most memorable conversations I've had with people have been in the oddest places. The podcast with Chad Annis where he was in his RV and I could see the pine trees out in the background or Andrew from ECF Live, eCommerceFuel, awesome forum, he was in his van holding up a microphone. I'm like this is great. It's this weird background that only entrepreneurs understand. Joe: Exactly it's classic entrepreneur stuff. You know people when I'm having calls with them and valuations and you hear the dog barking in the background oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm like you're an entrepreneur you're going to hear mine any minute. This is the life that we live. It's great. So back to the points, the last point I want to make in terms of what makes a difference … what made a difference for this particular business I think is the images. Paul provided me with great images for the package. And he had them because he had professional photography. And it helped. Obviously, everyone knows that runs an Amazon business what a difference good images make. But he had great images of packaging, of the product being used by human beings having fun and all that stuff. And I was able to litter them throughout the package and it just brought the whole thing to life. And I think it made a bit of a difference too. Mark: Yeah, you know something I've said over the years I've told you Joe and the others here at Quiet Light is that some of the packages that we put together are supposed to tell the story of the business. And I look for that with every business I represent. Like what is the thread that I want to tell you? What is the common thread throughout this? The data and everything else supports a story. And hey people love stories right? That's … we're all drawn to them. Joe: Right. And you said data, I just want to say one more thing I keep looking at the package and I'm like there's another thing. One more thing they gave me was data; data from the outside world that proved that this is one of America's fastest growing recreational sports. So I was able to link to outside magazine articles and newspaper articles and outside sources that backed up what he was saying and what I was saying in the package which is really, really helpful. Mark: Okay, I might regret this question because I don't want to go long on the episode here but you said more than once that he was just a really likable guy. Do you know what made him likeable? It's such a hard question to ask, right? How can somebody be more likable than another person? We've identified when Walker did an acquisition through Quiet Light Brokerage thanking the seller; taking the time to thank our client and saying thank you for agreeing to sell me your business and how much of a difference that made at that point. Was there anything that kind of stood out outside of the video that really made him stand apart? Joe: He was who we described him to be which was a CPA, a stay at home dad, and honest, and uncomfortable in front of the camera, and vulnerable, and real. He never watched the video that I did with him. I told him. He's like I might watch it because I hope that was okay. I was really conscious here and there. I'm like well let's not watch it because you were great. You were human. You were real. And I'm not editing anything out of it and I'm not redoing it because you were great. People are going to love you because you're just normal. And he never watched it. I don't know if he's … I ought to ask him if he's gone back and watched it since we've got it under contract. But he was just real. Just real and honest and he wasn't selling. He was just stating the facts and that's one of the things that we do … I get excited so maybe it feels like selling but stating the facts is what he did. He didn't try to pitch or sell. He was just being himself; likable. Mark: That's … I think I heard that somewhere recently about authenticity among like millennials and I would broaden that out and say among those within internet realm because we've seen so much stuff that it's so easy to colossal or make yourself look bigger or better or more polished than you are. I think people within the internet world we tend to value authenticity a bit more than people might think. And so that vulnerability I think is a key. I'm not saying that you put on a show like oh look at me I'm all vulnerable. Hey, look if you are really confident in what you're doing be confident. Be true to who you are. That comes through. You can tell that in people, right? You can tell when they're being real or when they're trying to make themselves sound better than they actually think they are. Joe: Absolutely, no doubt about it. You want to go on to process and what we do there? Mark: Yeah. I want to know. So 15 conference calls tell me … again mistake that you probably made in this and you told me this, I'm not accusing you of this; launching a listing during two conferences. You were sick that week. You were flying to two different cities, driving to one city with me as well. So how did you manage getting that many inquiries, that many requests for conference calls with everything else going on? Joe: Well, it actually worked out pretty well because I was not feeling well and I was at the conference and I said I am not doing this over the next two days we're going to push it all the next week. And it enabled me to communicate in writing with all the people that inquired, all the people that … look there were a couple of hundred in the first few hours of course but those that I've spoken to before that know the process they reached right out to me. They called me, they texted me, they e-mailed me and said, Joe, I want to talk to this guy. I want to get on a conference call. Because they know that's the process. And so those that have followed our process, looked at as many listings as possible so you know the right fit when it comes along and you can act quickly did just that and reached out to me. And so I just walked it all off and we scheduled the calls. For the process when we had the calls if anyone hasn't been on them, us the broker we talk as little as possible. We make introductions, hand the call over to the buyer to give a little bit of background on themselves and then go right into their calls. We put ourselves on mute and in this case, I took myself off camera as well and we listen and we jump in if we can help out but for the most part we stay quiet until the very end of the call and then we just wrap things up. At the end of each day, I had a quick wrap up call with Paul and I said okay you've had three today, its Monday, you've had three, who do you like the most? And then on Tuesday, I said all right you've had six who are your top two? And the same people kept rising to the surface. Although people near the end of the week very quickly got to the … Noah I think was probably on Wednesday or Thursday. So we ran through the process and I think one mistake I made Mark in hindsight when I look at it, I knew it was going to be a frenzy and as much as people think oh multiple offer situation you going over asking price etcetera. We did. Yes, we had them and yes we did go over asking price because we priced it right. We didn't price it too high or too low; we priced it right. And that gets more increase than anything else buyers know. We chose to go best and final. And I think in hindsight I probably would have had two rounds so that … you know what we did was we told everyone we're going to have a call with every buyer. You may submit offers prior to the following Monday at noon if you wish too but we will not be making a decision until close the business the following Tuesday. You've got to have it in my Monday at noon and we'll make a final decision close the business Tuesday. It gave us a little time to review. Everyone gave it to us in the same exact format that I provided so it was easy. We didn't have to interpret different offers. And most kept it simple which is what I knew Paul was looking for and what I suggested that they do. One made it a little complex but I know them and I know what their goals are. They're raising funds so they've got investors to satisfy. And then tell me what you did? We get a clear deadline of Monday at 12 pm Eastern Standard Time. I got one that came in maybe at 4 o'clock that day and one that came in at 9 o'clock that day, pm, with apologies and a text saying I thought it was midnight. Would you have allowed those offers to be presented or would you've been cold and said no? Mark: I don't … it depends on the situation. That's a tough one especially because of the [inaudible 00:27:08.9] when you said 12, and 12 is I mean you can interpret that both ways. Joe: 12 no we had a total of nine offers. We ended up with 14 conference calls because one fell out. We had nine offers. Mark: No I mean you put your deadline at 12. Joe: Why? I said 12 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Mark: Yeah but I mean you have to think like 12 pm, you think night and you know. Maybe I'm the only one that can read time but— Joe: I don't … I only speak Eastern as I tell everyone else in every other time zone. There's too many time zones and I just say Eastern. I try not to coordinate with their times anyway now we were accommodating. In hindsight I think we probably should've narrowed it down to the top two or three and gone back out to them. But the reality is that when you have a seller that has multiple offers it's hard on the seller. First is that they're on … in this case 14 conference calls that are lasting about an hour each. That's 14 hours. And then he's talking to me for 15 to 20 minutes at the end of each day as well. That's a lot of time in one week. More time than he spends running the business right? 15 hours a week of running it. More time selling it than running it. And then you've got to make a decision based upon we had one offer that was … let's see; it was $150,000 over asking price. Mark: Wow. Joe: A pretty big jump. Mark: Yeah. Joe: That one was an SBA offer. So the benefit there is that not only is it $150,000 over asking price but it's going to take upwards of 60 days longer to close than a cash buyer. So he's going to put another $50,000 in his pocket by waiting an extra two months. I mean just a cash windfall right? Mark: I want to disagree with you on something real quick before we get too far away from this point because it said that— Joe: Is it back to me being the better podcaster or something else? Mark: I'm going to say that to the end after this because I think I'm doing such a stellar job at this interview. Joe: You're doing great. Mark: It's easy when you know the person you're interviewing and you know the story as well. But I'm going to disagree with you on is should you have gone a second round with the offers. Okay, that would be the standard process when you're not expecting multiple offers and when maybe … like if I have a listing that's been sitting around for a month and we narrowed down and we happen to have three buyers that kind of called us around the same time then it makes sense. Because the buyers don't know that they're in a competitive situation but … and I might sound a little harsh here but hey if you're a buyer and you're in a situation where you know it is competitive, and the buyers, in this case, knew it was competitive, that there was a lot of stuff going on. Joe: Yeah. Mark: My guidance has been the same like put in your best and final. There's two sides of that coin; the first … one side is don't try and necessarily get a discount because the market is going to speak. It is going to push that price up necessarily. And two don't over bid what you're comfortable bidding. Find out if I get it at this price I'm going to be happy or satisfied at least? If I go above I'm always going to wonder if I paid too much. Find that, make the offer, and get it done. So I actually think that you did the right thing by doing one round instead of two rounds. I would recommend the two round again if it was kind of a surprise multiple offer situation. Joe: Well, I think … you know I had one person tell me they wish there was a second round. But it was crystal clear in writing in black and white that it was best and final. And so I took his suggestion and constructive criticism in a way that I thought maybe was worthwhile and we could do a second round next time possibly. But when you're in a multiple offer situation it's emotional for the seller. Mark: Yeah. Joe: Believe it or not people it's hard. It's hard for the broker as well. So I just want to reemphasize one thing that you said and that is you don't want people to get … the buyers to get emotional in their offer. We want them to make an offer that they're going to be happy with after they're under letter of intent because we want two happy individuals at closing; the buyer and the seller. It has to be a good transaction for both of them so we don't want them to overbid and so we work really hard to make sure that they're making an offer that they're comfortable with that assuming everything's good in due diligence that we'll get all the way through the closing with. Mark: Yeah and I think if you're a seller out there you're thinking why wouldn't you want to get something above what they're comfortable with? The reason is simple; the offer is the beginning of a longer journey, right? You've got to go through that due diligence, you've got to go through transition, planning, there's a lot of time in there for those cold feet to really, really freeze up a little bit. And for the buyer to say I made a mistake I got caught up in the heat of passion and now yeah. And I want to emphasize one other thing that you said here and that is we think multiple offers is a really good situation and it is but for anyone that hasn't been in that situation before where you have multiple buyers all of whom are very qualified to buy your business and given you good offers. It's really tough to choose because you can't choose five offers. You've got to choose one. Joe: Yeah. Mark: And in your head, you're going to be thinking I've got to get this right because I don't want to go through this again or I don't want to go through this due diligence process and then have to go back and what are people going to think I have to go back. So it's actually really stressful and one of those good problems to have but still a problem. Joe: And that's where I think the video … the folks that did video you know a better connection with Paul little bit although one of the top three didn't do the video but just a super nice guy. I mean I just wanted … we both, Paul wanted him to be able to buy the business. He travels all over the country all the time and has two teenagers that he just doesn't see enough and he wants to work from home. Mark: So there was that personal connection. Joe: Well, it's that personal connection tugging at Paul's emotional heartstrings, at mine. I think he's a great guy. I would love to help him find an amazing business so he spends more time with his family and becomes an entrepreneur which he's not now. He's in the corporate world. Mark: All right we're getting close to the end so let's wrap. I want to get to the end here and talk about— Joe: Sad news. I'm sorry. Sad news having to tell eight people they didn't get it. Mark: Then also I want to know the metrics. Because I know you had recommended to him go out, we should go out at a 3.5 multiple. We covered that the beginning and he said I don't know if we need that you know as … being and Paul sounded like a great guy 3.3 is what it went out at. I'd like to know where the highest and lowest came in and then also the sad news portion having to tell so many people that wanted this business sorry we're going to keep you in mind, we'll keep looking for you. Joe: Yeah, again I wanted it to go at a 3.5. I thought it was worth a push and I let him know it's a bit of a risk. We haven't sold one at 3.5 that's 100% Amazon business with discretionary earnings this “low”. It's still 440,000. We wound up with the highest one being at 3.6, 150,000 over asking and the one that he chose was 50,000 over asking at 3.4, 3.41. And it was an all cash buyer and had the funds on hand. Had had the funds and had the experience and has bought Amazon business before so he looked at the full package. Cash buyer, close in 30 days, hiring Centurica for due diligence but understands Amazon really well and that training and transition was going to be a breeze. It's the full package and that's why he chose that particular buyer. Mark: Yeah, again we've talked before about people winning with lower bids. Not necessarily being the top bidder but still being able to win. And we've also talked about the idea that financial motivation isn't always the sole motivation right? People sell for a variety of reasons and so being able to understand, as a buyer understand some of those secondary goals can really help you out quite a bit. Joe: Let me just jump in, it's not always a cash buyer that wins as well. If everybody remembers the story I've had Syed Balkhi on the podcast and he chose a buyer that was an SBA buyer at full price on his business versus a cash buyer because he just really bonded with that SBA buyer. And he carried a 10% seller note on that particular listing too. So he chose an SBA buyer and a seller note over an all cash buyer. So SBA wasn't necessarily the problem it was just a combination of a number of things and Paul really wanted to get the business sold. And he is kind of a nervous guy a little bit so he didn't want to have to wait upwards of 90 days; 30 was comfortable. Mark: All right what final thing should people know about this particular deal? Because this is a fascinating little case study of just a listing that's going crazy, how to act on the buy side, and also how to set your business up from the sell side. So what final things should we probably round this episode with? Joe: Well I hate to finish it with … you know just because this one sold a 3.4 doesn't mean yours is worth 3.4. This one has all of these little points and metrics to it. I launched one this week Monday at 3.3 and some of those same buyers, those eight buyers a few of them have looked at it and said no. Others are comfortable with the niche and like it and see the upside to it so I think we'll get at or close to asking. But just being prepared running a real business, think about it from a buyer's point of view. They're going to be investing their life savings and if you were them what type of business and what type of person would they want to buy that business from? We want them to succeed. You want them to succeed. And that's really what you need to focus on. Mark: That's fantastic. Hey, thanks for sharing all of this. I know that you always have the best case studies mainly been because you do the most deals at Quiet Light. So thanks for sharing this one. The next one I'm going to write a better teaser than yours and I'm going to try and get like 251 inquiries in the first 24 hours. Joe: You taught me how to do it so I know you can do it. Mark: Well, then I'll make sure that I'll let you know in every podcast. All right cool, hey thanks, Joe. I appreciate all of it. Joe: You bet.     Links and Resources: https://www.quietlightbrokerage.com/ Listen and subscribe on Itunes  

Going back six years, the concept of owning an e-commerce business where you could set up a site, sell a physical product, and never have to hold stock was extremely appealing. That concept has died down in recent past. Today we have someone on the podcast who is here to report that drop shipping is not dead. It is sustainable if it's done right. We're going to hear how our guest is perpetuating that sustainability with his business. Anton Kraly is the founder and CEO of DropShip Lifestyle & eCommerce Lifestyle. His business is focused on empowering people through eCommerce and effective marketing. From a book that he absorbed in one week, Anton got his website up and his business going. He learned all about AdWords and how to make it so his site got those clicks. Anton takes us on his twenty-year journey from delivering a physical product, then moving onto product listing and inventory on a larger scale, to eventually going back to the true drop ship model. A successful drop shipper's job is to build a store with a desirable product, make it look good, have excellent customer service, and then sell, sell, sell. Episode Highlights: Benefits of drop shipping versus building your own brand. The disadvantages of drop shipping – if any! Anton's tips on where to find products. The average order value Anton recommends. How to convince the manufacturer to take you on as a seller. The best platforms to use for sales and website examples to review. How to advertise and where to find clients. Marketing channels to use other than Google. The importance of self-management/DIY when building. We discuss the Amazon factor and its implications for the drop ship model. How to use drop shipping as a stepping stone to building a brand. Transcription: Mark: About five or six years ago Joe we had an e-commerce business … man maybe even more than that, maybe seven years ago or right around the time you started at Quiet Light Brokerage. I remember like the hierarchy for e-commerce businesses right at the top was having a drop ship business. Because people love the idea that you could set up an e-commerce physical products business but never actually have to touch the product like oh this is beautiful. Today they've kind of fallen out of favor. We don't see drop ship business as often and I think it's because people think that they're just kind of easy to spin up and then they get wiped out. But you had somebody on who is in the drop ship world and loves it and is doing a great job. Joe: Yeah. Anton Kraly ‘s been doing it for about 20 years. He actually started in New York. He had a bakery route where he had a truck literally delivering bakery products to different retail outlets and set up a website and started dropping shipping bakery products all around New York online back 20 years ago. Fast forward to today he really talks about the differentiation between owning a physical products e-commerce business and large amounts of working capital rolling like crazy and taking all the profits putting it right back into it and [inaudible 00:01:56.5] that story versus a drop ship model. A drop ship model; he really hones in on the fact that it is mostly pure profit. You're focused on advertising dollars; that's important. We talked about the average ticket size and why it's important to be larger rather than smaller and US manufacturers and how to find them. Like you said five, six years ago it was all the rage. I think it's a great model, to be honest, we think it's fantastic. It takes less working capital to get started if you do your research and really focus in on some of the things that he's talking about. I think it's a great opportunity for somebody to start their own business versus buy. I know you had Amanda on the podcast about that. I think it's a great opportunity to go that route if there's not a ton of money for startup capital and you really don't want to do imported from China which can be complicated. Mark: Yeah. Look at one thing and think about these ideas of fading niches and fading business styles is that if you find a business today that is in one of these fated business setups like drop shipping; if it's doing well today that's most likely a highly sustainable business. We look at these things and we say oh well drop shipping didn't work because it's just not sustainable for the long term. If somebody has been doing it and is doing it now today then there's something sustainable about it. I would agree that the old model of just taking a product feed and throwing it up there, yeah there might be some problems with that. But drop shipping is still viable if it's done right. So I'm interested to see what he's doing specifically for that sustainability and protecting against that competition and hearing how this will all work. And this is fascinating. Again this is kind of a blast from the past but how it works today. So let's get into it and see what he has to say. Joe: Let's go to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Anton Kraly with me on the line. Welcome Anton, how are you? Anton: I'm doing very well Joe. Thanks for having me. Joe: It's great to have you here man. You know the process; we've talked about it just before the recording started here. Why don't you give the folks a little bit of background on yourself and what you do with ‎Drop Ship Lifestyle? Anton: Sure. So yeah my name is Anton Kraly. I built my first e-commerce store way back in 2007. I started off then selling cookies online and basically just got into the business after reading I think a book that got most of the entrepreneurs [inaudible 00:04:07.8] started which was the 4-Hour Workweek. I mean it introduced me to back then Yahoo Stores and AdWords. So I spent a week figuring it out and it worked. I since then kind of been working my way up selling more and more expensive products and transitioning from what used to be an importing model to the drop shipping model. Joe: One week? You took the book 4-Hour Workweek and in one week you got a listing up and running and a business off there? Anton: Yes but before that, I thought that e-commerce and building websites was like this big thing that took a team and $100,000 plus and all these … you know just technical people. And that book what all it gave me was you can go to YahooStores.com and spend $29. And the website was ugly. It was very ugly but I had a delivery route for a bakery in Brooklyn, New York. So I had this idea that I could build a website. I had access to these bakery products. I figured out Ad Words and just said hey we'll use keywords like New York Bakery, New York Cookies, and said I think my little descriptions were moved out of New York and missed New York Bakeries? Click here. And yeah I started getting sales like almost right away on that. Joe: That's amazing. I love it. I love the story and I love the action in terms of just doing it and getting things done. It didn't have to be perfect. If you waited for it to be perfect you would still be working on it for sure. I think I built my first site for $50 so congratulations you got me beat. So … but you were actually physically owning the products in terms of the baking goods and at one point you worked in to just drop ship. Can you touch on that a little bit? Anton: It's funny actually I was I guess technically drop shipping then but what I had at that time … I was 21 years old right out of school and I bought a delivery route for a bakery in Brooklyn. Joe: Ah okay. Anton: What I had basically was the rights to pick up boxes of cookies and sell them to a section of Long Island where I was living. And once I started this business at first I was just shipping them myself like literally having USPS pickup branch boxes and then I just said to the bakery like hey can you guys just ship these things for me and they said yes. So that was drop shipping. I didn't know what it was but after I was doing that … not for long, probably a few months I just was thinking like okay I'm selling $20 boxes, $30 boxes making like $10 per sale if that net so why can't I sell something that costs $200 or 500 or a thousand. So my initial plan back then or is my plan of action and what I did was go on e-Bay, look at completed listings and just looking for things that sold consistently. I buy at now prices, basically identified some items, I still don't know what drop shipping was so I found a website Alibaba.com and started importing. So I did that probably for two or three years import only. Bringing in dozens of containers from China to Long Beach in California and all my e-commerce stores back then were on that model. As I did that again after a few years of traction and doing really well growing like doubling over year over year I actually started to have companies reach out to my stores. And they would say hey we saw your website, we see you sell these things, we make these things do you want to sell ours? And they basically introduced me to drop shipping. Because they explained you don't need to buy this, you don't need to put it in your fulfillment center. You can just list these products, you sell them, and we'll ship them for you. Joe: Let's define that then. For people that don't have the experience set that you and I have go ahead and define drop shipping and how it's different from owning your own brand and physically owning the products and shipping them yourself. Anton: Got it. Drop shipping really is a high level term so if you Googled it you could find probably 10 different business models that technically would be drop shipping. And the way that we do it is basically we consider ourselves Internet retailers. So the way I like to describe it is if you went to a shopping mall and let's say you went to Dick's Sporting Goods right? They're a retailer. You go there and you buy Nike shorts and maybe Callaway golf clubs and whatever brands make kayaks and they sell other people's products. So that's how we do drop shipping. So again instead of building a site and let's say … you know I have a sofa behind me, so instead of making sofas or private labeling sofas we would just go out there and find the top 50 or 100 whatever it is sofa company is for us in the US because that's where we do business. We would reach out. We would say hey you know we see your products and we own this site and would like to sell them. And the arrangement on the drop ship model is they give us their full product catalog. They give us all their descriptions, their SKUs, their images, they just give us all the content and then us as retailers it's our job to make them look good on our websites. Basically, make sure we're taking care of customers and then, of course, our job is to drive visitors and then turn those visitors into customers on our online retail stores. Again the difference is I wouldn't ask those 50 sofa companies can I buy ten of all your best selling products and ship them to my warehouse. I would just get the sales on my website after the sale is made the order gets forwarded to whatever brand it is. The brand ships it direct to the consumer. So again your job as a … and the way that we do it your job as a drop shipper or internet retailer is to build a good store that has great product descriptions that actually has existing customer service and that gets really good at finding buyers bring them to your website. Joe: Yeah. So you touched on some things that I think are advantages of drop ship over owning your own brand but I want you to go ahead and give me two or three there and then we'll talk about them for those listening in the audience. Anton: Yeah; definitely, so back again let's … maybe 2008, 2009 when I was only importing. Basically, I was limited in terms of growth, in terms of revenue because every time I place an order with China I had to put down at least 30%. Before the container got to California I had to pay the balance. Joe: A container … I mean we're talking about a tractor trailer load size— Anton: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:09:32.2] Joe: —a lot of money there. Anton: Yeah. That's right a lot of cash. And basically, that's what happened. Our growth back then was limited based on how much cash I had. Again I had … only I had what was coming in so it was a bankroll sitting there that I could draw from. So basically yeah that was an issue. And then also if I wanted to add new products, back then I probably had between 10 and 20 different SKUs. So I couldn't just say I want to sell … I want to double the amount of products we offer and sell those. I just didn't have that option because again it was cash prohibited. Joe: Number one might be … I mean if someone is starting out on their own and they don't have a whole lot of working capital they may seriously consider drop shipping versus finding, building, designing, private labeling their own brand and then ordering some from an overseas country. Anton: Definitely. Joe: So working capital. If somebody is strapped and doesn't have tens of thousands of dollars to start off with. Anton: Yes. Joe: Okay. I got you. What kind of working capital do you think the … an average drop shipper that's someone that you train needs? What's the ideal situation? Anton: So it depends if you want to outsource things. Again like when I first started I built all my own websites and I created all my own ads and I wrote all my own emails and I did it all myself. So if you want to be the type of person or if you are the type of person that does all the work it really doesn't cost that much as far as a budget. Maybe honestly like a thousand dollars, $2,000 in the high end is like that's okay, again, if you're willing to do the work. If you do want to outsource things like uploading products and having unique descriptions and having content created for your website, I wouldn't recommend outsourcing ads at first but if you wanted to do all that then maybe 10,000 bucks and you can get set up with a nice looking store that's pretty much ready to go. Joe: So drop shipping is not dead right? You know I just … before we started recording we've just had a very attractive drop shipping site go into contract in the in the mid million and a half range actually. Most people that are out there looking for a business think physical products and own their own brand so that they can in many cases they do it on Amazon or a Shopify store. What are the disadvantages that you've experienced by being a drop shipper versus owning your own brand … well owning your own brand, you still own the customers as a drop shipper. Anton: Yeah. Joe: But what are the disadvantages? Anton: So we've done it both ways and let's go to it. We can talk about this but if you are again we'll just keep using the sofa example. If I sold for 50 different sofa brands and I had a successful store I would know what the top 20% of products were. I would know what sells the best. And then again what I used to do … I don't do this anymore I'm planning actually my move to Charlotte is to get back into this but what we used to do is introduce our own brands then on our website. We basically just okay we have 50 brands now we have 51, one of them being ours where we could sell our versions of the top products and maximize profit there. So that's the biggest advantage if you have your own brands. The margins just simply are higher. You can make more money because you're not paying for someone else's brand equity basically. Joe: Okay, I got you. That makes a heck of a lot of sense. Anton: Yeah the other one is we usually … I mean you could speak about this but sale price. If you want to sell your store and you have your own brand that could be a bigger package. It could be more valuable to a buyer that wants that. But that would be another advantage. Joe: Maybe. Yeah, there are a lot of advantages and attractive features about drop ship. Number one, no working capital required. A lot of the people that own their own brands and launched their own business with a brand starting out they do it bootstrapped. Maybe they don't have … maybe they have got 5,000 instead of a thousand or two like you talked about for drop shipping business but every ounce of profit that they make if the business is growing like crazy and they're just trying to keep up with volume of orders and inventory so they don't run out what I see is for 24months they're taking all the profit and putting it right back into buying more inventory and there's hardly left … any left over for them; its discretionary earnings, its taxable income, because they're buying a lot of inventory. But they don't get to pull a hold off out of the business and I sense that with a drop shipping business and I've seen it there's a lot more pre-working cash flow because you're not actually buying that physical product and so you've taken the order and have the money hit your account right? Anton: Yeah and that's the beautiful thing. So like you mentioned with building your own brand and constantly having to reinvest if you're growing to purchase more product, typically with that the payday does come when you sell the business. That's when you get all that money out. As the business value grows but your cash flow doesn't … or your free cash flow. And with drop shipping yeah if you do this the right way and you're working with the right type of suppliers and of course you're not overspending on traffic you really do control your costs. So most of your costs are variable so having … even if you're in reinvesting like a little bit more into traffic and trying to raise your budget it is realistic to have a 20% net profit every month in cash that you can then again determine what you want to do with. If you want to invest it into a business or do you want to take it out? So our cash flow from day one is much much higher than when you're going to be trying to scale your inventory. Joe: Okay. So let's talk about I want to start the drop ship business, I'm convinced I want more cash flow. I'm not worried about a big sale down the road although they are very, very sellable businesses. How do I find the products? How do you find manufacturers that are willing to allow me to sell their products on their behalf? Anton: Yep. So as far as finding products there's so many things out there but basically what we look for for some general rules of thumb is expensive products. Our average sale price we want to be usually a thousand dollars or more. We do sell products for less than that but that's the average order value we're looking for. We also look for different product types where customers really don't care what brand they get it from. So an example I sometimes give is let's just say someone heard oh a thousand dollar products price. I want to sell televisions or high end gaming monitors. Well, I would say that's a bad idea because if someone wants to buy that they're going to buy a Samsung TV or an LG monitor and that's not a company you get approved to sell. But if you wanted to sell something like sofas or books shelves or any of these products types no one cares … no one says I want this brand name sofa and I have to have that. So things that … yeah, there's really not brand loyalty. That definitely helps and things where there is a lot of possible variation or colors. So another example I give is chandeliers. So someone buys a new home like we're trying to do now you want to replace the lighting fixtures. If I want a chandelier I can go to Home Depot and Lowes and see what they have. But if I see something on Pinterest or Instagram and I want this specific size and color and amount of bulbs like I'm not going to find that at a local store. So China might stack the cards in your favor by going for things where customers are usually drawn online, to begin with, to make those purchases. Joe: Okay so – Anton: [inaudible 00:16:14.8] to search for a new iPad but something generic. Joe: Right. So something generic with a high ticket item. How do you find those manufacturers? Anton: Yeah. So Google … I mean that's really what we do. And one of the tips I could tell people not to do is don't look for drop ship suppliers online. Because when you go that route what you're going to find is directories and middlemen that typically charge like a monthly fee for access to their products. They really are middlemen. What you want to do is always get approved directly with the brands that you're selling for. So you don't want to go through a distributor if at all possible. You definitely don't want to go through any one that calls themselves a drop ship supplier director or anything like that. Again going back to the sofa example, I would go on Google, I would type in whatever I want to sell; maybe three sitter fabric sofas. I would go through Google. I would open every website in a different tab that sells them. I would look for either a page called brands or manufacturers or suppliers. And I would go ahead and then open or make a document with every company name I found there. And basically, I would work off that list. So I would build my own list of not … again like I wouldn't call them a list of drop shippers, I'd call them a list of brands that manufactures sofas. And then I would reach out to them old school by picking up the phone and saying hey this is Anton from AntonSofas.com, I found your website and these products and thought they'd be a great fit and who can I speak to about getting approved for an account and take it from there so yeah. Joe: How do you convince them to allow you to be a drop shipper when you haven't built a website first or is the—? Anton: We built the website first. So yeah if I was getting into a new industry let's … again sofas, I build a website. I would upload maybe five or 10 stock images. Everything else would be finished though, the about us page, all of it. Then we have blog posts up there. The whole thing; the phone number would work, the live chat would work. And then when we spoke to them we would say basically we're launching this website on whatever it is you know March 1st and our plan is to work with X, Y, and Z companies. So mention some of their competitors that makes sofas that's probably well-known and respected. And we could say our plan is to launch with again these companies, we'd love to have you on board. We think that your products whatever it is X, Y, Z that we found on their website would do really well. If they ask tell them a little bit about our previous experience, how we're going to get traffic. Tell them about how customer service is everything with our business and kind of go through the things that we know that they're looking for and the things that … they're also the things that we know we have to do to make the store successful. Joe: Okay. So build a website on the product and then start the marketing and we'll get to that in a second. So in terms of building the website do you have examples on Drop Ship Lifestyle of what one looks like that would be an ideal one to build? Anton: We do. We have a bunch of different links. I could send you some to check them out but I think one of them that we have a lot now is in lightandchandeliers.com so if anybody wants to check that out. We also have HappyPawsDogStore.com. So those are websites that are built on Shopify using the Drop Ship Lifestyle theme that we had built and they just show again what the site would look like at that stage when you're ready to start contacting suppliers, get approved, and [inaudible 00:19:17.6]. Joe: So you answered one of my other question which is which platform do you prefer and it sounds like Shopify. Okay. Anton: For 99% percent of stores, yeah. Joe: All right so you've identified the niche that you want to go in to, you build the website, and then you find the manufacturers and develop the relationship and bring their catalogues into your website. How do you go ahead and find the customers and market the brands? Anton: Yep so our favorite way is still through Google Shopping by using Google product listing ads. Those are the ads if anybody goes on Google and types in a product name or you can just use the general niche name you'll see the little images of different products. It'll show the product's price. It will show the store name. So we advertise there and then also if you're … if you search that on Google and put shopping you'll see all the ads there. And it's just always been like back in the day I think when I first started it was called frugal.com and like that's always been our highest converting source of traffic. So we focus on not just having our products there but really optimizing our product feeds to make sure that we are getting a good ROI. Because the big … since again all of our expenses are variable our biggest expense is marketing. So we spend a lot of money on ads. And so I'm just making sure that we are putting it in the right places and monitoring it. Like we we're always reviewing our ad campaigns. That's what drives the business. Like you need a high converting website, you need great brands, but if you're not really active with … inside your Google ads account then it doesn't matter. So yeah that's what drives our sales. Joe: So that initial one to $2,000 that you thought was a big budget initially does that include the advertising budget when you launch? Anton: Most of that would be going in there. And this is another good thing I should have mentioned earlier but speaking about how these are cash flow businesses with the way that we do advertise to get the majority of the time it's either coming from a Google product listing at search or someone searching for a brand name or a product name or an SKU number or it's something that we optimize for on our website where they're searching again and they're finding us organically. But by the time people find us they're typically trying to figure out am I going …with where my going to buy from basically. They know they want product X, Y, Z and they're looking to figure out where they should buy it from. So we do a bunch of stuff on our websites to have them choose us. But also by the time they click one of our ads they're either going to buy or not buy typically in like three to five days. So it's not like we're spending whatever a hundred dollars today and hoping it comes back to us two months from now. Joe: Wow. Anton: Spending money now and if we're not [inaudible 00:21:34.0] positive within a few days then turn it off. Joe: Let me just summarize and differentiate the business model between owning your own physical brands folks and the drop ship store. Again I just want to wrap it up and summarize if you're not wrapping up a summarized. So building the shop … you're building the store, you're spending a total $2,000 budget all in and that includes advertising. With a physical products brand, you're doing that as well but you're ordering the product from let's say China, for instance, waiting for that product to come in, putting it up on Amazon, spending some money to get traffic either to Amazon from Facebook or some other source and doing sponsored ads in Amazon. So far we've spent, we've spent, we've spent, we've spent, and then you're going to get paid out every two weeks from Amazon. Your advertising budgets are going to take and blow your credit cards once a month. With Drop Ship Lifestyle or drop shipping, you're not spending any money on product. You're building the website and you're building … doing the marketing campaign. And it sounds like if somebody is going to take … you start getting orders right away after a few days, weeks of advertising again even your advertising budget is with your credit card and you're not getting … you don't have to pay that depending upon the time or the month when you launch for another 30 days. So you're getting the revenue from the sale before you have to buy the product and you're just sending the … do you send an invoice, an ACH wire, or do you—? Anton: No. Joe: Or some of your manufacturers take a credit card as well? Anton: Most of them are credit card. So whenever we can we go credit card and so yeah the points if anybody's into that is amazing. I haven't paid for travel in like 12 years so you'll want to use rewards cards. Joe: There was a time when I was spending … the highest I ever spent was 50,000 a month on Google Ad Words when I had my business and we furnished our house, we took vacations, everything for the points. Now let me just talk to buyers and sellers, particularly sellers out there when it comes to points. Something like this if you've got a drop ship business and you're doing it this way that Anton's talking about, if you are spending $100,000 a month on inventory and advertising, of course, you've got to pay for it in advance. Anton: Mm-hmm. Joe: So … but if that's 100,000 points if you use a point converter or a cash back credit card. That is what's called an owner benefit. Anton, I want you to pay attention to this and talk to all the folks that you train. Anton: Okay. Joe: That is an owner benefit that you should track because if and when you sell your business it needs to be added back to the add back schedule as an owner benefit and can boost the overall value of your business. I just launched one recently and he travels the world and does it all with … no, I'm sorry he buys all of his inventory with credit cards and that gives him an enormous amount of cash back. I think it was something let's call it $25,000 cash back over the course of the trailing 12 months. If your business is listed at a three time multiple everyone that adds $75,000 to the overall value of the business. For buyers, if you're looking at businesses and you're looking for some instant equity if a broker didn't list cash back points or anything like that and sometimes you've got like Anton said travel you can convert those. With our American Express there's we've got a certain number of points and we can convert that to cash. That's the amount we're talking about. But that could be instant equity in a business for a buyer if you're taking over drop ship model and your broker didn't do that or the broker that listed the business didn't do that you can. Okay, how much are you spending? What kind of points? You know using credit cards do the math and it's definitely instant equity. Okay, sorry long rant there. The biggest thing for me and so when I'm talking to buyers and mostly sellers and I'm going to say this for the folks that are listening the biggest mistake you can do … make is not pay attention to the details of your financials and documentation. A little thing like that, we all work so hard when we've got our own businesses to drive top line revenue and talk oh I'm doing this many millions in revenue. That doesn't matter as much as the bottom line number and when you pay attention to that that actually brings more value when you do decide to exit your business. Okay, Joe is done ranting. All right so other than Google Shopping what other marketing channels are there in terms of paths to growing the business itself? Anton: So the ones that we … I'd say use every time so it varies, so you find some industries where there are certain placements but whenever we're building a new store we will be obviously Google is our number one. Organic traffic is big. We used to invest a lot of money into it trying to rank major keywords. We don't do that anymore. What we do now is just focus on site and make sure that all of our product pages especially once we know which our top 20% of products are going to be, we make sure those are extremely unique and optimized because that's just free clicks and free sales. So organic is big for us. Bing, believe it or not, we advertise. It's probably 10% of our overall marketing budget. Joe: I'm not sure if I believe it or not. Okay, 10% all right. Anton: We're putting some money there. There are people, they're sales. Joe: Okay. Anton: We can't scale it. Every time we try to scale it it breaks. But add a small budget and it works. Facebook we are big on but only for remarketing and the reason being we do sell high ticket products. So to put an ad for a chandelier in front of someone that likes I don't know what interior design they're not going to buy it so … retargeting though we are big there. YouTube ads actually work really well for us as far as remarketing also. And then one of our other ones that budget depends on what industry are in and what's out there but advertising on other content sites that already exist. So you can call it influencer marketing but it could either be a business, website, a content site, it could be someone's personal content site. But either doing like paid promoted articles or taking out ads in the sidebar. Either way but trying to form relationships with people that already have the audience there and then paying them to either have them talk about us or to allow us to put a little banner on their website. Joe: I got you. And a lot of the stuff you just talked about, we've had guest experts on that do YouTube ads or might do influence or marketing things that of that nature. Are you generally finding the people that you work with managing all of this themselves early on how … somebody that doesn't have the expertise to do that what do you advise them to do? Anton: Typically if they're starting from scratch and they want to build a business and with this type of business I don't recommend hiring anybody from day one. I recommend like learning at least … look do it yourself and get it profitable and then okay look for someone that might want to run your content side of the business or look for an agency that can manage your Ad Words but I really … for most people when they're starting I say do it yourself. It's easy to throw money away and I made this mistake early on with my e-commerce businesses. We were profitable but when I look back I spent all this money in like fees into all these companies and I didn't know enough to know that I was grossly overpaying for a lot of things. So yeah lesson learned. Joe: That's the beauty of experience and age and wisdom right? You get to remember all your mistakes and what you might have done differently. Talk to me about Amazon. Anybody got drop ship businesses that are reselling on Amazon and if so how do you do that? Anton: I'm sure the answer is yes. I'll tell you we don't do any drop shipping on Amazon haven't even ad … I used to advertise there back when they allowed Amazon product ads to go to external sites. But that's been gone for a few years. Yeah, there's some people that I work with, some of them are students at Drop Ship Lifestyle that have their own drop ship stores that do what I've spoken about earlier where they'll introduce their own brands into the mix of their drop ship store. And typically when they do that they'll also have their products on Amazon because they know that people at least a percentage of them will also with Amazon and look there. With the type of brands that we work with typically when we are getting approved to sell for them and we're signing the agreements, one of them says that you're not going to sell on 3rd party platforms like companies like e-Bay. They don't want to sell us to sell there. Same thing with Amazon reason being is because if they're going to have their products there they usually do that internally. A lot of the times because the items are usually expensive and margin heavy they're not the type of items that people are private labeling and putting on there. So it's really at this point I'm sure this will change in the future but at this point, it hasn't been a huge factor because I think our price points are higher and again the items are usually like too big to be sending over to FBA and paying storage fees. The numbers don't work at this point with that model. Joe: Do you foresee any danger as a drop shipper that the Amazon business model is going to be a challenge for drop shippers because those manufacturers can go directly to them and guys like me anytime I want to buy something I go to Amazon first? Anton: Yeah I do. And I'll say at this point I'm not like freaking out like oh my God like I … were gone but I do think that five years from now 10 years from now, if Bezos gets what he wants then Amazon will have the entire market share of everything. So I … you know I've talked about this before but I think like we'll see. Like that's definitely where they want to go. I think they're pretty upfront about it so unless someone else steps in or unless the government breaks them up from getting too big then yeah we'll see what the market looks like. Again I don't think it's coming anytime soon but maybe call it 10 years we'll see what things look like then. But I'm in no way confident that they're going to just back down and say we have enough. They're not about to stop. Joe: Yeah well I think your approach to larger ticket items that higher value, not easy to ship, not easy to store at an Amazon warehouse kind of eliminates … they can't have everything right? I mean Jeff— Anton: They're not now they haven't. I mean they've taken over pretty much every market in that call like $100 sub priced product range and even electronics; like I buy some of my electronics from them. But as far as the types of products that we sell it's been that one area that they haven't really stepped into at least not in a big way. Like they sell basically … at this point, they sell cheap versions of the stuff that we sell. So you know if you search for a lot of the brands we sell they wouldn't sell for those brands but they'll sell like an inferior type product I would say at this point. Joe: I got you. I know that I say the first place I go is Amazon and I rarely buy anywhere else but them but when I find a certain brand I will go to that website and I would certainly buy from them. And I know my wife will certainly buy from the brand manufacturer or in many cases we built our house three years ago and she was that person looking at 30 different websites for the lighting fixtures and probably brought from one of you guys at one point. Anton: Probably, but for anybody that's like thinking about that and kind of like worried like well yeah that probably is going to happen. I think one of the biggest things you could do is look at sites now that are … I don't know I would say going above and beyond like don't do the bare minimum as far as content and as far as usability and as far as like everything; the whole experience. One website that I buy from all the time is the bnh.com. They sell you photo and video equipment. And they do have a huge store and warehouse in the middle of Manhattan but most of their orders now are online. And I think that all that stuff that I buy from them I could buy from Amazon and I buy it from Amazon all the time but I like the experience there better for that type of product. So if anyone wants inspiration check out B&H and see how they do things. They do a great job. Joe: Thanks. So I think this whole podcast has been inspirational for those that are looking to build an e-commerce business in this case specifically drop shipping. It's a great alternative to the risk and cash outlay of building your own brand. Any last thoughts in terms of what the benefits are anybody should think about in terms of drop shipping versus e-commerce? Anton: Yeah I think for anybody even if you're listening to this and you're like oh that sounds good but I already have half a million dollars in the bank and I just want to build a brand. I still think you could do both simultaneously and it's a great idea to start with a drop ship model in whatever industry you want to private label or manufacture in. Start drop shipping, build a website, build an audience, get sales, see what people buy, see what they like and don't like about products. You'll have all that market data you'll be making money and then you can go ahead and start your own brand with all the information and really increase your chances of just hitting on your own bit. Joe: That's great Anton. Your website is DropShipLifestyle.com you're helping folks understand the drop ship model. What's the best way for them … anyone to reach you that want to chat? Should they just go to the website is there a—? Anton: Website, DropShipLifestyle.com click contact, and everything is linked up off there. Joe: Fantastic. I appreciate your time today. I look forward to doing business with you in the future. Anton: Definitely. Thank you, Joe. Links and Resources: DropShip Lifestyle Contact DropShip Lifestyle  

Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: I'm Joe Fontenot. This is the Answering The Call podcast. This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Today's guest is Kyle Beshears. Kyle talks about a new word, new word to me at least. Kyle was here at the Defend Conference, and the word he taught me was apatheism. Gary: Apatheism? Joe: Apatheism. Gary: That's a new one on me as well. Joe: It is, it's not fruit, it's something else, which he's going to tell us about now. Gary: Let's hear from Kyle. Joe: Okay, so Kyle you've said something that doesn't get said often and it's called apatheism. In some ways we can guess what it's about, but I think your explanation is much more helpful. What is apatheism? Kyle Beshears: Yeah, the word's a bit intuitive. You can parse two words out of there, apathy and theism, a clever way of trying to describe a feeling of indifference towards questions related to God's existence is how I would initially define apatheism. There's a ... I don't know how to describe it, the-ism we think has to do with the way we think, right? Kyle Beshears: It's a belief, it's cognitive, but I think apatheism affects our heart as well, and how we feel, our emotions. Apatheism is not just finding questions related to God's existence intellectually or being apathetic to them intellectually, it's also an affective reaction to questions about God. I might define apatheism as when a person believes questions about God are unimportant and they feel that way as well. It's both a belief and a feeling. Joe: Okay, so let's work that out. Like a role-play, right? Your apatheist, I am me, and I say, "Kyle, I would like to talk to you about God." What do you say? How do you act? Kyle: Well me personally I would be polite, but to have the conversation ... Joe: A kind apatheist. Kyle: Yeah, yeah, you seem like a nice guy Joe, but in reality I really don't want to have this conversation. I find it as uninteresting as arguing over whether or not Pepsi is to be preferred to Coca-Cola, right? It's just not an interesting conversation to me. Joe: It's sort of irrelevant. Kyle: Irrelevant, yeah, I don't find that God affects my life, my relationships, my future, and I don't think ... Maybe he affects you in a personal way, but that's that's you, that's idiosyncrasy, that's unique to each person. To me, I don't care. Joe: Do you think it's a generational thing? Kyle: Thinking through it, I think it's probably more prevalent in younger generations, so millennial's and younger. I've just been reclassified as zenial, so I guess we're in between generation Y and the millennial's. Joe: Okay. Kyle: I think probably you're starting to see it in Y, in zenial's, millennial's, and whoever comes next. I don't think it would be fair to assign apatheism to just younger generations. I think you see wherever there is a decrease in religious attendance and church services, wherever you see an increase in religious un-affiliation, I think you'll find apatheism there. Kyle: Apatheism may even be ... You might be able to find apatheism more geographically that generationally, right? Pockets in the Northeast in the United States, Western Europe, Canada, I think you'll find that apatheism is more prevalent with those people than in say southeastern United States or majority world contexts like South America and Africa where church is growing, you'll find a complete opposite. Joe: Where do you think apatheism comes from or what causes it? Is there an easy answer for that? Kyle: No, I don't think there's an easy answer for that. I think you can trace the beginnings of apatheism maybe as far back as pre-Socratic thinkers. You have this movement in ancient Greece where some philosophers are starting to move away from polytheism and they're moving towards this ... It's not monotheism, but it's God is everything and God is fate, right? Kyle: The problems you're having with your crops or your relationships or your wealth are not because of fickle gods, it's because of fate, so why should you care about the gods? You see an apathy towards the comings and goings of the gods, but it's not replaced with the apatheism we experience. Their apathy was a virtue like you come to just recognize that you can't control fate. Kyle: The moment you truly understand that, you'll find bliss, you'll find happiness. I think the kind of apatheism we experience today starts to rise in the Enlightenment period where people are rejecting Christian theism in exchange for agnosticism, which is we can't know if God exists. Deism, which means a God exists, but he or it doesn't really have any direct impact on our daily lives. Joe: Set it and forget it thing. Kyle: That's right, yeah, the popular phrase is the absentee landlord. Atheism, no, I'm unconvinced that God exists, right? There's this a line from one of those Enlightenment era atheists named Denise Diderot. I'm going to pull it up real quick. Sorry, you'll have to edit this part. Joe: No, it's okay, we don't edit, this will all be in there. Kyle: Oh, okay, great. Joe: They're listening to us right now. Kyle: Good, good, so Denise Diderot, famous Enlightenment atheist thinker, and he distills apatheism in his time in this one sentence. He says, "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all," right? If you don't know much about hemlock, you should not put that on your tacos. Joe: That's the stuff that kills you. Kyle: It will kill you, yeah. Joe: Painfully. Kyle: Hemlock and parsley look similar, right? Diderot is saying it's more important that you discern between what can go on a salad and what will kill you than warrior fret about whether or not God exists. Joe: I feel like that betrays this huge idea already that God doesn't exist. If he exists, it's more of the idea of God exists. The same emotional attachment we might have like a small kid has to a blanket, do you know what I mean? This makes me feel good, I almost feel like in once sense what he's saying is forget about the blanket, it's just a toy thing. Joe: There's real issues, something could kill you and not kill you. The irony there is that what happens when you die? It really does matter if there is a God or not. Kyle: It is deeply ironic with this question, what happens when you do mistake the hemlock for parsley and you end up dying? Joe: Right. Kyle: Well, now the question of God's existence becomes of the ultimate importance. Joe: Right. Kyle: Yeah. Joe: Yeah. How do you put apatheism on the scale with atheism? I think a lot of people know atheism, whether it's the new atheists which are angry and want to pick the fight, or whether it's just the person who says look, "I'll be honest with you, I've thought through this, I don't think God exists. I'll talk to you about it, but it's not something I talk about a lot." Joe: Then you've got this new class or this newer category, newer to me, apatheism, which is just like this is completely irrelevant. Where do you put those on a line as far as the easiest people to talk to? Kyle: Yeah, intuitively you would think apatheism has a lot to do with atheism. If you don't think God's existence is important, well then you must not believe in him. That could very well be the case for a lot of people, but actually I think there is something that an atheist and a theist has more in common than does an apatheist, and that is interest in questions relating to God's existence. Kyle: If you were to ask a Christian theist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Yes, of course I do." Then you would be able to have a conversation, "Well, what is that God like? What are the implications of that belief?" If you were to ask an atheist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Well no, I don't," and then you'd be able have a conversation. "Well, what does God's nonexistence mean," right? Kyle: Now if you were to go to apatheist and ask them, "Do you believe God exists?" They're going to shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't care." That indifference drains any conversational power out of the whole dialogue, right? They won't have the conversation with you, because they don't care to have the conversation. In one sense atheists and theists should both share a deep concern about apatheism, because both the atheists and the theists find questions relating to God's existence important, because they understand the ramifications of answering the positive, theism, or negative, atheism. Joe: That's really interesting, I never thought about that before. An atheist should be concerned about the ramifications of an apatheist. Kyle: Absolutely. Joe: Clearly a theist of the Christian should be concerned, because we want everyone to be restored to God and love God and have a happy life. The atheist should be too, tell me why. Kyle: Yeah, I mean a simple scenario, who's going to buy Richard Dawkins books, right? Let's say Richard Dawkins publishes a new book, which is a very compelling, intellectual argument against the existence of God. The people that are going to buy those books are people interested in the question of God's existence. The atheist, the theist, and even the agnostic are sitting in a room having a conversation about God, because they're all interested in whether or not he exists, and what God is like if he does, and what it means if he doesn't, or even what it means if we can't know. Kyle: The apatheist is on the opposite side of the room looking over at those three having the conversation thinking they're wasting their time, it's completely useless. Yeah, I think that should be deeply concerning to atheists and agnostics as well as theists. That maybe rounds us back to the question that you asked earlier, which of those do I find most difficult to engage with the gospel, the atheist or the apatheist? Kyle: Unequivocally, I think it's the apatheist, because at least when you're approaching atheism, you have a mutually common interest in whether or not God exists. Joe: Yes, okay, so I have a very specific question about this. I'm going to come back to that in just a second. Before I get to there, what are we talking about? Are there a lot of people that are apatheistic? How do you count, find, survey apatheistic people? Would they even care? Then how do they compare to atheists or agnostics? What's the ratio? What's the population? What are we talking about? Kyle: Yeah, this is a frustrating thing looking into apatheism. It's impossible to tell how many apatheists there are in any given culture. The reason is because if you go to polling data, so things like American Religious Value surveys or Pew Forum or Gallup that ask questions about religious identification, those pollsters do not double-click into the reasons for why people don't believe. Kyle: Very quickly we might say, "Well I know where all the apatheists are, they're in the nones, the N-O-N-E-S," right? The religiously unaffiliated, those people who when asked if they have a religious affiliation, they say, "No, none." Apatheism is not restricted to the nones, and there may be nones that are not apatheistic, right? You may just not have a religious affiliation, but it doesn't mean you don't find the question of God's existence important. Kyle: Further, to complicate matters, you can find apatheism in people who identify as a religious tradition. You can say, "I'm Jewish, I'm Christian," but they don't really care what that means. Joe: For sure, I mean, there's so many, not so many, but I already at the top of my head think of so many secular Jews who are popular in the media or whatever. I feel like in a lot of ways they don't really care. They're Jewish by culture and heritage, but not religion in the spiritual sense. Kyle: Here we're in New Orleans, I'm in Mobile in Alabama. We're in the South, the primary religious affiliation is going to be some kind of Protestantism or Catholicism, right? That doesn't necessarily mean that they care about what that means, it just means that, that's the household they grew up in, that's the tribe to which they belong. Kyle: Apatheism permeates both religious affiliation and non-religious affiliation, so it makes it very tricky to try to gauge. Joe: Where does apatheism as a proper noun end, and where does all the category, whatever you would call this, and maybe this is apatheism, all the category of say the people that come and sit in the pew, but don't do anything, do you know what I mean? They don't tithe, they're not active, they're coming for some reason, maybe it's social, maybe it's guilt, maybe it's who knows? Joe: We all know this exact group of people and they're usually a large group of people, is that apatheism? If not, is apatheism something different or more extreme maybe? Kyle: Yeah, so I think what we're walking around now is the difference between apatheism and what's called practical atheism or pragmatic atheism. Practical atheism is as old as the Bible itself. We hear Scripture lament that the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Now that doesn't mean that they were actually atheist. The fool doesn't say, "There is no God." The fool says in his heart, so there's a dissonance between what this fool believes and how this fool acts, right? Kyle: This is the height of foolishness that you believe that there is a God or you acknowledge there's a God and you recognize that the implications of God's existence affects your ethical moral behavior, but you act as if he doesn't exist. I think for a lot of our experience in the church, what we're seeing is practical atheism. Kyle: It's a profession and even maybe a vague belief of God's existence, but a refusal to recognize and act upon the implications of that belief. How that's different from apatheism, is that the apatheist doesn't care about God's existence or nonexistence, he or she could care less. The practical atheism's apathy is sympathetic, it's not real. Kyle: An apatheists apathy towards God's existence is real. To me, from my experience and my readings, this is very new. This is a very new thing in the life of the church, not one that it's had to approach perhaps ever. Joe: Yeah, you had mentioned earlier that you and Tala Anderson have written or presented a paper on this. Kyle: Yeah, that's correct, so Tala Anderson is a professor of philosophy over at Oklahoma Baptist University. He and I and a couple of other folks presented papers on apatheism at the American Academy of Religion in Denver this past November. The goal of that presentation with those papers is to define apatheism from an evangelical, Christian perspective, and then to propose ways in which we might approach it as gospel believing evangelistic, Christians who are first concerned that you don't care about God's existence. Kyle: Second, that we would like to see you come to know the Lord Jesus the way we do. Yeah, we felt it was one of these conversations that the church ought to start having, right? Especially as the United States continues to secularize in an unique way from the rest of the West. A little slower than Canada and Western Europe and a little more diverse, right? Kyle: We're seeing an increase in interest in neopaganism and the occult, which is completely unexpected. Joe: Interesting, yeah, where did that come from? Kyle: Apathy, right? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: We are secularizing in a different way, but yeah, as a challenge to the gospel, we thought it would be a wise thing to begin, at least bringing it to the public mind. Joe: Yeah, getting the word out there. Kyle: Most people experience apatheism, they know it, but they don't know it. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: Right? The second you say even the word apatheism, people go, "Oh yeah." Joe: Right. Kyle: I know exactly what you're talking about. Then it makes that thing that was intangible, tangible. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: If it's tangible, well now we can talk about it, because we can identify it, we can see it, and we can prayerfully think through how we ought to approach it. Joe: This brings me to the question, one of the questions I wanted to ask specifically was how do you start a conversation with an apatheist? An atheist, right? That's easy, there's so many entry points. It might be intimidating, but it's clear there are a lot of ways in. An apatheist says, "I don't really want to talk about this." How do we talk about something someone doesn't want to talk about? Kyle: Yeah, this is the tricky part, right? The word that's probably floating around in people's minds with a conversation like this is well that's apologetics, right? I know what I need to do, I need to go bone up on apologetic methods, arguments for God's existence. If they don't find God important, well maybe if I argue that he exists, they'll find that he's important. Kyle: Unfortunately, that presupposes something that's not there, that they're interested in having that conversation, right? Joe: Right. Kyle: I certainly don't fault people, because as creatures created in the image and likeness of God designed to have a relationship with our creator, we are by default we have interest in God's existence, right? Thinking that everybody thinks the way or feels the way we do about God is intuitive, right? Certainly, that's the model we received from Scripture thinking about the context and the time in which it was written. Kyle: Everybody thought God or gods existence is in the little g, like multiple gods, is important. We've built our apologetic models off of that, and rightly so as a biblical foundation. For example, the most famous apologetic model that's cited from the New Testament is Paul's Areopagus sermon in Acts. When he goes into Athens and he's preaching the gospel and people find it interesting, so they invite him to the Areopagus or Mars Hill in the King James. Kyle: They want him to present this new philosophy they're so unfamiliar with. As he's walking there, he passes a pantheon, so he sees a bunch of statues of gods. He notices that there's one statue to the unknown God. They are so superstitious, that they wanted to make sure they didn't offend the one god that they might not have remembered in their little collection there. Kyle: This one God is really interesting, because there's something special about him, right? He seems to proceed the other gods, there's something more powerful, more mysterious about him. Paul notices that they're very religious and he leverages that religious interest. He starts, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious." Kyle: He presupposes that they both share a minimally common interest in theism, even though they are polytheists and he is a Christian. At least they both think that God's existence is important. From that story we've built our apologetic methods, have we not? I mean, I find it very rare to read a book on apologetics without that model coming up. Kyle: That's so important, because it's so good, but what if we live in an Athens without a statue to the unknown God? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: What if we live in a society now where there may have been a statue to an unknown God, but it's come under disrepair for being neglected, vines are growing on it, soot, it's been chiseled away, right? People don't care about the Pantheon anymore, how could Paul have started, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you're very religious." They would say, "What do you mean? No we're not, we don't care about what you have to say." Joe: It's like in the one hand you've got we're in a car and they're in a car. We have gas in our car and we're going north. They have gas in their car going south, and we're trying to get them to turn their wheel and come north, the right way. This new scenario that you're talking about here is like we're in a car and we're going north and they don't have any gas. Kyle: Right. Joe: It's like a totally, foundationally different issue. Kyle: That's correct, yeah, so that's why I argue that it's far more challenging to present the gospel to an apatheist than it is an atheist or an agnostic, because you are robbed of that minimally common belief. Not only are you robbed of that minimally common belief, but the question, do you believe in God, is zapped of its power because of indifference and apathy to it. Kyle: That question is meaningless to an apatheist, in fact, they may even feel negative towards it, because they're so tired of being asked it, right? Joe: Right, so you're starting at a deficit almost? Kyle: Exactly. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: You have to take a step backwards in just recognizing that we don't share that minimally common interest is crucial to approaching apatheism, yeah. Joe: Excuse me, what should I do if I've ... I have this friend and he's apatheist, I'm just going to say, and I have a few friends that I already know fit. Say they're not friends, say we don't have a relationship already, is that the key? Is it having a relationship? Even then, maybe they don't care to talk about this. I'm the kind of person, jumping into me for a minute, I'm the kind of person that I will get confused like sports. Joe: I'm like which one is the football and the basketball? I'm at that level, right? Extremely ignorant when it comes to sports, just a real idiot, and so somebody wants to come and talk to me at sports, I'm just like I will smile and be nice and can't wait for you to stop talking about this, right? How would a person come to me and talk about sports in a way that's interesting? Joe: How do I go to a person and talk about something spiritual when they just simply don't care? Kyle: Yeah, so in that scenario what I would say is you are interested in sports, you just don't know it yet. Joe: Oh, good one, I love this, please tell me more. Kyle: How do I get you to recognize that you actually are interested in sports? Well, I would begin by finding what are you interested in period, right? When I say that the classical methods that we've developed from apologetics, we've presupposed something that perhaps we don't have any more. What I'm not saying is well we'll just nuke apologetics altogether, right? Kyle: We're just going to start over again, that's absolutely foolish throwing the baby out and the bathwater, right? Joe: You've got nothing. Kyle: No, there are people in the history of Christianity thinking theologically, philosophically and approaching their cultures, that I think anticipated this type of thing. I think we look to, in their technical terms, individuals that have explored presuppositional or existential approaches to apologetics. Things like the moral argument can be very helpful here. Kyle: What we do is we start from the bottom up, rather than the top down, right? The to down approach is you believe in God, I believe in God, but you believe in God in a way that does not align with reality, so let me explain to you how. Let me argue that, let's go through your objections, and then boom, we get to the gospel. Joe: Which even works for an atheist, because you would say, "You believe in the value of this concept God, you just believe that it's false." Kyle: That's correct, yeah. Joe: Right. Kyle: Then you deal with objections and then get to a gospel presentation. With the apatheists though, I think you have to flip the script a bit, you have to start with the bottom up. We start with the individual, and I've found that most people are interested in themselves. Joe: Yeah, sure. Kyle: Via fallen nature that we are our favorite thing to think about. When I'm having conversations with apatheists, the place I start with is not God. He is the goal of course, but the place I start with is them. I ask them, "What do you find interesting? What drives you? What are your fears? What are your hopes? What are your desires? What do you think is virtuous? What do you think is unvirtuous? What do you think is good character? What do you think is a character flaw?" Kyle: Naturally most of those conversations go towards political things. What I try to do is I try to steer the conversation towards issues of morality. Then employ what Francis Schaeffer identified as pressure points and worldviews. Things that are held inconsistently or ideologically, and really push on them and ask, "Why? Why is that?" Kyle: Very quickly, for example, using the moral argument for why murder is wrong. You would ask a person like, "Why do you think murder is wrong?" The person would say, "Well, it's not good to kill somebody, because you're taking away that person from their family." "Well I agree with that, but what if a person, another person believes that taking away that person from their family is good, is a good thing, and they have one reason or another? Well who's to say that you shouldn't murder that person?" Kyle: Well the conversation then goes to there's governments let's say, right? You shouldn't murder, murder is illegal, so I guess that's why I think murder is wrong. Well what if there is a government that decides murdering is good, right? Joe: We've had that before. Kyle: We've had those before in history, right? Then what do we do, right? You argue this until you're in this theoretical land of a one universal government that determines whether or not murder is wrong. Then well you can imagine that universal government decides at one point no, genocide is good, so now what do we do? Well I don't know, what do we do? Kyle: That's a pressure point in their worldview, they can't explain why they believe murder is objectively wrong. Joe: Yeah, I think this is interesting, because a lot of the stuff we learned in apologetics, we've essentially shuffled the deck on. We're still using all those cards, we're using all those approaches. We're using all those ideas and concepts. We're using the reductio ad absurdum, the logic, like take this to its logical end and where does this take us based on what you said you, etc. Joe: We're doing it in a way, like you said, which I think is so critical, we're doing it in a way that starts with something they care about. Kyle: Right, that's exactly right, yeah, and notice the entire time I was having, we were having this very speedy, truncated vision of that conversation, I didn't bring up God once. Joe: Right. Kyle: I didn't need too, that wasn't the point in the conversation at the beginning stage. Then the question becomes well, why can you say murder is objectively wrong? I don't know. That moment, the, I don't know is called doubt, right? Doubt, when used sometimes, is quite advantageous. You've caused them now to think critically about their worldview. Kyle: Soren Kierkegaard has a great line about doubt, using it in this kind of a way. He says, "That doubt is a higher form than any objective thinking, because it presupposes the latter, but it has something more, a third, which is interest." Joe: Yes, because doubt is not simply, I don't know, like agnosticism in the little a, agnosticism. It's not just simply a vacuum, it's an out of balance vacuum. I feel uncomfortable, because something needs to be back in line. Kyle: That's right, so this is Kierkegaard's point. Doubt's a good thing in these kinds of situations, because if you're apathetic about your faith, if you're apathetic about a position, no amount of questioning or propositions is going to zap you out of that apathy until you're interested. Obviously you can't be apathetic toward something and interested toward something simultaneously, it's impossible, it defies both terms. Kyle: How do you get somebody from apathy to interest? Kierkegaard says, get them to doubt something about the thing that they're apathetic about, or that is related to the thing they're apathetic about. Then you have interest, and interest is important, because it zaps the apathy of its power, right? That one thing that they were completely disinterested in and indifferent towards just a moment ago, now becomes something that they have to seek out. Joe: Yes, doubt becomes like the fulcrum gets them back into the interest area. Kyle: That's right, that's right. Joe: That's very interesting. Kyle: At this point, in these moments of doubt, they start to think objectively. Now for the first time maybe in a long time they're interested. This is when you make a gospel presentation. This is when we can re-approach apologetics in the way that perhaps we're more familiar with, right? We've not assumed the presupposition that these men of Athens are very religious in every way. Kyle: We've gotten them interested and then now we can move forward. Joe: Really, unless a person is clinically depressed or something like this, unless a person is really just disconnected and not motivated to live, they are interested in something, in things. They have ambitions, they have motivations, and I feel like what you're saying is we just need to do the work of finding those. They are not being upfront in that kind of way in the way that an atheist is. Joe: An atheist says, "I'm very upfront about what I disbelieve." Somebody who is apathetic in this way says, "I'm not really gonna tell you in that way," right? Kyle: That's right. Joe: This conversation is boring to me, but it's not boring. It's just the framework of it's boring, and what you're saying is you come in with this back door, you find the doubt, find what they're interested in, expose the doubt, and then the new interest emerges, the relevance to the real conversation. Kyle: That's right, if you've struck a vein that truly causes them to doubt, interest inevitably comes. Nobody's ever doubted something and then not felt some kind of interest towards why they doubted that thing, right? It's a very, very powerful tool to use, it just needs to be used wisely and appropriately. Joe: Sure. Kyle: Perhaps even in moderation, you don't want to just throw somebody into an existential tail spin. Joe: Yeah, this is for your own good. Kyle: That's right. Yeah, I think it's a challenge, right? Joe: Yeah. Kyle: It's a challenge. Joe: It's a challenge, but it's also a way forward. I think you come across someone who is in apatheist, someone who's really just apathetic about spiritual things, you're like well I don't know what to do. I think a lot of people feel that, and having this approach first step I think is very helpful, it's very helpful for me. Kyle: Well that's good, that's good, yeah. Yeah, I would say I've had this kind of conversation quite a few times now, and one of the things that I've had told to me is that just seems like a lot. I can't even remember this conversation that we had, how am I supposed to draw up this framework the second I identify an apatheist? One, I think these types of things come with experience and practice. Kyle: Evangelism, of course, is a gifting that the Holy Spirit gives us, and it's one in which he guides us, and one that we become better with through experience. The challenge I would say is well don't worry about being able to draw on this and other things that you've thought about before, go do it in and see if the spirit is not good and willing and able to guide you through these things. Kyle: Then second, in these moments we're called to be stewards. If we're stewards of the message that we're given and we rely in faith that even in our stumblings we're trying to analyze somebody's worldview, find pressure points, push on them, get them to doubt, get them to interest, that first of all this is precious to the father. This is an act of worship and it's pleasing to him. Kyle: Second, he's good to use it, so you may not zap them out of their apathy the first time, the third time, the fifth time, the 10th time. That's okay, like you may be chapters one through three in a story that's 50 chapters long. Joe: Yeah. Kyle: Yeah, it's a challenging thing, but I still think that not only are we called to through the great commission to engage all peoples, which include the apatheists, even if they're more challenging than others, it's something that the spirit indwells you to do, right? He's there with you in these moments. Joe: I think the encouraging thing to me is having the right tools, knowing what to do, at least in some sense is a good thing, but ultimately, it's not my job to save anybody. Kyle: That's right. Joe: Right? It's just my job to say why I care. Kyle: Yeah, that's right. Joe: To me that's encouraging. This has been really great Kyle, I want to ask you one last question, how are you answering God's call? What does that mean and look like and so forth in your life? Kyle: Yeah, I mean personal day-to-day, the way I'm answering God's call is through finding the ways in which he's sanctifying me, and digging in and pushing into those. It may sound very basic, but I think it's very true. This comes through repentance and through prayer and through reading Scripture and acting on the things that God has told me to do and not just filing them away in a journal. Kyle: Very recently, just being candid, the Lord has pressed on, or just pushed on my heart in prayer that he would like to see me be more aware of what repentance means and to be bolder. Answering God's call for me in this season of life is being keenly aware of what is repentance, how often do we do it? Should I be doing it more often? What does it mean to be bold, to be bold for the gospel? Kyle: It means being a good husband, it means being a good teacher. It means being a good preacher when I'm given those opportunities. I think for me, the short answer of how I'm answering God's call is he's given me talents like from the parable, talents to steward and to multiply. Every day I ask how can I multiply the talents that you have given me? Kyle: Not just to receive an answer, but to act on that answer as well. Joe: It's a great question, how can I multiply the talents that you've given me. This has been quite a joy as always. Thanks for coming to the podcast Kyle. Kyle: Yeah, Joe, thank you for having me, it was a pleasure.

Another one of the top 10 guests of 2018 is returning today to review the SBA process for both buyers and sellers. We'll discuss what's changed and things buyers and sellers need to look out for in 2019. Stephen Speer of ECommerce Lending, based in Florida, is a specialist in eCommerce acquisition deals. He offers a superior financing experience to buyers and sellers. Stephen urges sellers reach out to him to get their game plan ready and advises buyers to get pre-approved in order to get the ball rolling in the right playing field. Episode Highlights: What Stephen looks for in a business when prepping SBA on the seller side. Why co-mingling of multiple business can be problematic for a seller. His recommendations for cleaning up and consolidating financials when preparing to sell. What the the “debt service coverage ratio” (DSCR), also known as “debt coverage ratio” (DCR), is all about. Where the add backs come from and where Stephen's team looks for them. He advises companies to use an external bookkeeping outfit – for a great ROI! How Steve and his group think outside the box when it comes to SBA lending and refinancing in order to make the purchases happen. What he looks for in an SBA financing candidate. Just because you can write a check doesn't mean you don't have to be likeable. Situations or factors that can stop an SBA loan. The importance of reaching out to Stephen before starting to shop for the business that falls into your price range. Stephen reveals his lending sweet spots – the floor, the ceiling, and his averages. All the financing details – down payment, terms, and interest rate. Why sellers and buyers both need to go through the vetting process. Transcription: Mark: Joe last week we aired the episode with Shakil Prasla and we started out the episode with me basically having you fess up to the fact that I have the number one most downloaded and listened to episode. Joe: You're amazing Mark. Let's just say it right now you're incredible. Mark: But you're [inaudible 00:01:07.9] with Stephen Speer and at the risk of becoming a rethread podcast where all we do is bring back our top guests. We are having back one of our top guests this week again. Joe: Stephen Speer that's right. He's an SBA lender which is interesting in that the top two podcasts that we had had been about buying online businesses and we're brokers that sell online businesses. But hey … look you are amazing and you started this company 11 years ago and your focus was education and helping buyers understand the process and helping them as much as the sellers. So it's worked. And the fact that our top two podcasts are about buying online businesses has proven out that theory. We had Stephen back because last year there were a lot of changes in the SBA policies and guidelines. The dollar amounts came down a little bit, seller financing wasn't required on certain deals, and we recapped some of that and we reviewed the process both for if you're a seller what you need to do to get yourself in good shape to be SBA pre-qualified. And if you're a buyer out there looking to build that portfolio of businesses or buy your first one what you need to do in order to connect with someone like Stephen and get yourself in a position that you best be able to act quickly when that perfect business comes along. Mark: So yeah these rules do update on a yearly basis but fortunately this year it doesn't sound like there's a ton of new changes. With that said there's a lot of good information in this podcast because we get these questions over and over and over again about what does it take to qualify. And I think one thing that … I know we talked to Stephen the other day as a company. We had him and a couple of other SBA lenders come into the company and just— Joe: Yup. Bruce from [inaudible 00:02:47.2] bank, yup. Mark: Yup. Bruce from [inaudible 00:02:48.8] bank. You know I think it's important for people to understand that there is SBA guidelines. Yeah, that's one thing, but then outside of the SBA guidelines, there are some individual bank guidelines as well. And to understand that even though these rules and these guidelines that we're going to cover in this episode might be out there they're not hard and fast when it comes to finding an individual lender. Did you cover any of those guidelines from Stephen's group with the podcast? Joe: Yeah, we went over some specific things that he looks for and his firm looks for. He's with Bank One now … or I'm sorry First Home Bank but some of the topics that we touched on on the podcast and even when we talked to him separately and that you and I talked about is why is it important to pre-qualify your business for an SBA loan? Sellers may be thinking well it doesn't matter why should I do that. And the answer is because it casts a broader net and not a broader net of buyers. There are definitely some buyers out there that only want to use SBA funds because that's … they only have 10 or 15% to put down. And then there's another pool of buyers that could stroke a check for one, two, three million dollars but they're building that portfolio like Shakil and using SBA money so they're only putting 10 or 15% down each time. So it's really important from a seller's standpoint to understand the value of clean financials and getting prepared so you're pre-qualified for an SBA loan. And from a buyer's standpoint, it's a great way to go if you're comfortable with that option. Mark: Absolutely. All right let's get into the episode, let's find out what's changed in 2019 and then also recap some of the rules and some of the things that both sellers and buyers should know about SBA loans. Joe: Let's go to it. Joe: Hey, folks, it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage, today I have one of our top 10 guests back for 2019 Mr. Stephen Speer. Welcome back Stephen how are you? Stephen: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me Joe I appreciate it. Joe: Awesome. Man, well listen I want to go through all of the SBA lending practices, what it takes to qualify for a business, what buyer's should be looking for, and I also want to get an update on you and your team. I think you made some changes in 2019 … I'm sorry '18 I want to cover those as well. But for those that have not listened to you in the podcast in the past can you give us a little summary, a little background on yourself? Stephen: So I have an e-commerce lending team at First Home Bank. The bank happens to be located in St. Petersburg, Florida. Our team are lending throughout the country. As a matter of fact very few of our loans are actually in Florida but I made a transition months ago with the privilege of being able to grow my e-commerce team and we provide a level of support as we go into the new year. So I'm pretty excited about that. Joe: Yeah, it's exciting and I know that we've done a number of deals together and you've done a lot of work with Quiet Light and some of the other website brokerage firms. How big is your team going to get to? Where are you at now and how big are you going to be compared to where you were before? Stephen: So my team comprises of four people. Myself, a gentleman named Bill [inaudible 00:05:55.9] who is kind of my right hand man along with my underwriter and closing team. So I'm pretty excited about that. I plan to add an additional person in Q1 and another person who I have identified for Q2. So I plan to have three people do what I do. In other words, myself and two more and then stick with my underwriter as well as the closing team. Joe: That's huge. I always worried about you getting hit by a bus. Now you can get hit by a bus and we'll be fine. Stephen: Well yeah, my wife would love to hear that so. Joe: We don't want her listening to the podcast [inaudible 00:06:32.5] buy a bus and start driving around looking for you. That's great man, that's great. One of the things that I want people listening to this to understand is that we've dealt with a lot of SBA lenders over the years and you're a … you're not a banker. You don't come across as a banker. You don't have certain boxes that you must absolutely check every time when you speak our language. And you hang out with e-commerce entrepreneurs which is great. Let's talk a little bit about what it takes to qualify for an SBA loan from the sell side of the business. What do you look for from a business? When I send you a listing and say “Hey Stephen will this qualify?” what things are you looking for? Stephen: Well, first I'd like to … I would say I'd request financials. So first what I look for is what type of business is it? Is it FBA driven, is it 3PL, or do they provide their own fulfillment? So I look at that. If it's a product based business I look at the number of SKU's, type of product. I really do dive into that because one thing I try to avoid is having … trying to finance a single type business that's [inaudible 00:07:45.1]. So that's one thing I look at. So once I get past that I really kind of dive in to the financials. When I mean financials, the holy grail of financials are the tax returns. So for example now that we've entered 2019 I look for tax returns for 2017, maybe 2016 [inaudible 00:08:05.5] year, solid tax return for 2017, and solid year ending financials for 2018, and as we continue down the path of Q1 obviously 2018 tax returns. So basically back to your question a wrap up of … in 2016 of the business, solid year of 2017, and a strong trailing 12 month or strong and the word strong – Joe: Lots of people listening that are on their business will say “Hey that's not a problem. I got tax returns. Everybody files tax returns.” and then they give you a tax return and it's co-mingled with four other businesses that they're selling and they're only selling one … I'm sorry four other businesses that they run and they're only selling one. That's a problem isn't it, the co-mingling of multiple businesses under one tax return? Stephen: That is a problem and unfortunately, it's a problem that seems not to go away despite your best effort and your team's best effort as well as my team's best effort. They just seem not to follow that advice so that is a challenge. Now I do … with that coming up so often I do have a set of things I'm able to put in place, for example, I direct this seller back to his or her accountant and be able to income streams and expenses done in a professional manner. It can't just be Quick Books and I've been able to still get financing for businesses that do have co-mingling within a tax return. Joe: Does it just take a little bit longer to get those worked out and closed? Stephen: It does take longer. Generally, it adds roughly two months to the entire process. Joe: Woah. Stephen: It does take time depending on the responsiveness of the accountant. Especially as we enter Q1 and then start working on returns and start getting buried because [inaudible 00:09:52.5] season. It does take a little bit of time but it's not something that's not doable. The biggest recommendation I have either if you're thinking about selling a portion of your business now is to get on that and have your accountant provide or put together what I call consolidated financials. And basically what we do is we take the tax return and compare it to the consolidated financial which show a delineation of the different businesses and we're able to perform. Joe: Okay so for the sellers out there listening to that and going well I don't have to have an SBA buyer I can just sell to a cash buyer. You're absolutely right, there's a ridiculous amount of money out there in the landscape for people buying online businesses. The reality is though that you want to cast this broad of a net as possible for potential buyers. And we see this over and over again somebody that's from another country that is selling a business if it's a multi-million dollar business but you're not US based, not filing US tax returns. It is more difficult to sell because the buyer pool is not as large. There are buyers out there that I know personally that have the ability to stroke a check for five million dollars but they're smart and they don't want to. They want to keep as much money as they have … as they can and buy multiple businesses and maybe use someone like Stephen and SBA lending and only put down 10 or 15%. So you do cast a broader net if you can do the consolidated financials. If you're just starting off in business your best approach is to have one LOC for that line of product that eventually you may sell. We had Syed Balkhi on the podcast as well and Syed has a number of different businesses and every time he says “okay I'm done with this one” we're able to list it and sell it very, very easily. And the last one I think we did cash … actually, I think we did two SBA loans and it was very easy because he files separate tax returns for each business. That's the ideal situation. How do you feel Stephen about someone selling a business and they're coming to you with Excel spreadsheets for their profit and losses versus Quick Books? You don't really care about that you're looking at the tax returns and a P&L anyway that's in excel format right? Stephen: Primarily if we're talking just a single business, single return, single P&L's yeah that is fine. So that's not a problem at all. Obviously, the more … accounting is all about substance over form, it's kind of an accounting term. That is true but it can't be hand written or something very unprofessional I mean because ultimately underwriters look at that. If that's just kind of run together and it doesn't make much sense it's not done by someone who knows how to do a P&L or a [inaudible 00:12:47.0] but as long as it looks presentable that's fine. Joe: Well, you and your team are betting on the future success of the business. So first you want to see that the business is run properly. And if somebody is not using Quick Books or Xero or some form of accounting software it's an indication that it's not being run in as professional a manner as possible right? So that … okay, and the buyers look at that that way as well. And I could tell you from a brokering standpoint when you're using Excel spreadsheets for your financials and co-mingling it's much more difficult to get maximum value for it because no matter what things are missed. I had a call this morning where there was several thousand dollars that was buried inside of a marketing budget that was actually a personal thing. We had to dig very, very deep to find it. And that times three adds nine, ten thousand dollars up to the value of the business. So ultimately your view is you want to make it a safe investment in financing this loan and make sure there's a success down the road for the future. Is there a … some sort of multiple barrier that is a ceiling for you? Is it … how do you … it's … I can guess you call it debt to income ratios right? Stephen: Debt service coverage. So let's say … okay, so debt service coverage is primarily what we look at. We really don't look at EBIDTA multiple. I mean we do and we don't. The valuation piece definitely we look at that but primarily we look at a debt service coverage. So for example, if the overall loan is the obligation, annual obligation for a loan is $100,000 let's say, the bottom line number on the tax returns needs to reflect at least $115,000. Giving us a debt service coverage of 1.15. Now a lot of sellers run their similar personal expenses through the tax returns. I'm able to add those back so you can't just take a tax return and say okay it's a bottom line of 115,000. You got to take whatever the bottom line number is and then their add backs. Standard add backs would be interest, [inaudible 00:15:02.7], depreciation, amortization, those are primarily some of the add backs. Some of the seller discretionary add backs might be … especially if it's an FBA setup type business where there's run expense, well, the new owner probably will just run it as a home based business, some people add that back. Some people tend to run their car expenses through even though it's a home based business. I'm able to add that back. And any one time expenses, the revamping of a website or other ancillary things or a one time they could add those back. And I take that number and determine the means and debt service coverage. Joe: Do you pull those from our spreadsheets because we have add backs and do you look at those or do you dig into the tax returns for the add backs? Wouldn't it be hard to find them in tax returns? Stephen: Yeah so both, I look at what you provide in terms of your spreadsheet but some of those I'm not able to add back like typically insurance would be really hard. It'd be hard fought to have an underwriter add back insurance expense for example. Joe: It shouldn't be added back. I agree. If it's an expense that's going to carry forward it shouldn't be an add back. Stephen: Yeah and really those … so of your add backs, the ones you reflect typically on your spreadsheet I'm able to add most of those back and those … I use that spreadsheet as a roadmap. But I do go into the tax returns and make sure that the numbers are aligned. And then I'm able to really dig into a tax return and see if there's any other type of add backs that I'm able to find. Joe: Okay, so from a seller's perspective they want to do the best they can not to co-mingle multiple businesses under one tax return. Obviously, have tax returns and a good financial so we can dig into the add backs and make sure that debt to income ratio is going to work, anything else that they should be considering? I think you said obviously you don't want a business that's balanced on just one SKU doing 90% of the revenue. Ultimately the bottom line is you want to make sure that the bank is going to get paid from the person buying the business and it's going to be a success right? Stephen: Yeah and another thing we look at if there's any sort of declining revenue or a blip where … for example I had a client last year that completely lift Chinese new year and didn't have inventory to sell. So there was a blip but I was able to explain that to an underwriter. And obviously with the new buyer who felt that this business [inaudible 00:17:38.3] little bit higher. He was able to avoid any blips in the coming [inaudible 00:17:42.9] for example. So it's also an explanation there. The key for sellers is even if you're not considering selling your business now get these things in place so when you go to sell you're going to get the most amount [inaudible 00:17:58.5] of your business. I had a lot of sellers come to me and it's kind of like they want to list now and their financials are a disaster now. So I recommended that buyers kind of get on the ball. Maybe it's a new year's resolution to fire your current accountant and hire a good one and to really get the financials in place and put certain financial things in place now or pay dividends in the future. Joe: Yeah, I'd refer people to certain e-commerce bookkeepers, two or three of them on a regular basis and have them go back … they'll go back in this case to 2019 and import all the bank statements and vendor invoices and everything and get things updated and accurate. And Quick Books actually helps the CPA do their job better. On a go forward basis, it's the best thing in my experience for a decent sized business to use somebody else. Let them focus on the bookkeeping and you focus on running the business and doing … driving revenue and maximizing profit. I think that's really going to work. Stephen: Oh absolutely. And the return on that investment Joe, I mean you had a podcast recently that— Joe: I'm touched. Stephen: The return on that investment is enormous. Joe: And it's incredible. I've seen it happen firsthand where we've had P&L's in Excel spreadsheets and the deal fell through three or four times and then the guy took the same information, hired a bookkeeper, they put it into Quick Books and we sold the business for 50,000 more of that … I think we had again three or four LOI's and it sold quickly which is fascinating; a fascinating study. Let's talk a little bit Stephen about you. About e-commerce lending and your group and how you think outside the box. Because I want to talk about this a little bit. Not all lenders are created equal. You and I have a transaction going on right now where you had to really think outside the box. And I'm going to summarize it and I want you to then just talk about what your thought process was and how you approached it. We have a buyer at Quiet Light Brokerage that again has the money to stroke a check but he is in a situation where he's building a portfolio of businesses and he's using the SBA lending process. Buyers can take up to what … five million dollars in money right? Stephen: Primarily. Joe: So somebody could buy five … I guess that would be one million dollars I'd then be putting in loans right? They're liable for up to five million. So he's buying multiple businesses— Stephen: One loan or 10 loans it doesn't matter. Joe: Okay perfect. So he has two under a letter of intent with Quiet Light Brokerage now and mine is in the process first. And he's got the wherewithal but I think he had some pretty sizable loans that threw off his overall debt to income ratio. How did you work that out? Stephen: So … and that definitely took a lot of out of the box thinking in the sense that he had … he has an Amazon loan and I can't divulge too much personal information but the monthly payment on the Amazon loan was staggering. It was five figures on a monthly basis. I looked at debt service coverage and throw in a very large five figure monthly payment through all the numbers ROI. Joe: And this is on a separate business that he owns. Stephen: Separate business that he owns. Joe: Right, okay. Stephen: Because it does affect what's called global debt service coverage. So on a separate business that he owns which happens to be an online business. Joe: Right. Stephen: He has very large payment and then he purchased a bunch of inventory and financed it through Amazon. So it threw all the numbers off. So you kind of have to dig deep and say okay how about we refinance at that, take that monkey off his … that large knot off his back and be able to incorporate, be able to reduce that monthly payment and still get the new purchase done. And that's what I'm in the process of doing. His new purchase, his loan on his new business acquisition was just approved and I'm going to process at refinancing his Amazon loan. Joe: Now the Amazon lending loan is very prevalent these days with Amazon based businesses. And you and I have done just for the record content site, SaaS business, all sorts of [inaudible 00:22:00.5] certainly not just Amazon. But in this situation, this particular individual had several hundred thousand dollars in loans and the money gets withdrawn out of their Amazon deposits. Do you recall what the interest rate was then? What his payments were? What the interest rate was and compare it to what you're going to be able to do for him? I just want to emphasize you thinking outside the box and how much money you're going to save this guy on a monthly basis. Because he's thrilled right now I got to tell you he's thrilled. Stephen: So his monthly knot with Amazon was 48,700 and something. Joe: Holy cow, okay. Stephen: It's going to be a couple of grand. Joe: No way 48,000 down to $2,000 … that's amazing. Thank you for thinking outside the box. You're helping him and you're helping a couple of the sellers of the businesses that were doing deals on now. That's fantastic. Stephen: Yeah, and you touched on something really important now. I do have a fair amount of buyers out there, actually, currently 347 buyers out there looking for businesses to buy. And quite a few of them can easily [inaudible 00:23:03.5] for a two three million dollar business but they're building a portfolio. So back to your comment about portfolios a lot of buyers out there right now are building portfolios. They want to buy two, three, four different businesses … online businesses for the course of the next two or three years. And they don't want to use up all their cash. And the fact remains is that when you're trying to scale a business cash is king. You need cash to scale a business. You need to buy additional inventory. You need to grow it. And if you're cash strapped it's really hard to grow an online business. So I'm helping several of those buyers accomplish that. So an SBA loan is not just for the person who needs a little bit lower barrier to entry. An SBA loan is also for the person that could easily pay cash but chooses not to, to stay in line with his or her business goals Joe: Absolutely. Well, let's talk about the buyers a little bit and what you look for in a buyer? You and I have never had a situation where we brought a buyer and you said yes and then it turned out they weren't qualified. But I had a situation a few years ago where I had a couple of Harvard MBA graduates. They literally just graduated a month before from Harvard. They got their Master's in business and they decided to partner on an investment in an online business. And they had some funds. One of the graduates had some funds from a parent. It went through the process. They're pre-approved from a different lender and then underwriting said these guys have absolutely no real world experience we're not betting … I think the deal was two million dollars. We're not betting two million dollars on these guys. Yeah, their pedigree is good, their education fantastic but no and the deal fell apart. What do you look for? Are you looking for real world experience? Is there a certain asset value that they need to have? How do you handle it when somebody comes to you? What do you look for? Stephen: So first I look at … I try to determine and I do interview my buyers. So once you refer them to me I do interview them as you know and one of the first things I really touch on is experience; so first determining if they have direct experience or indirect experience. And then as I mentioned in a previous podcast it's almost like going for a job interview, even if you don't have direct experience you need to make the person real comfortable with hiring you. The same goes with a loan is that even if you don't have direct experience what business … what skill sets do you have that's transferrable and also who's going to fill the void of having direct … let's say SEO experience or direct experience in the space? So those two things I look at. So if the person has direct experience, pretty much a no brainer. A person that doesn't have direct experience it's putting together the narrative like paying underwriter even though here she doesn't have direct experience but indirect experience in these categories. And additionally, they're going to have support via an employee or a contracted employee that that fill a void. Joe: I got you. Stephen: So I'm able to … I've never … honestly, I've never had a deal where an underwriter has said gosh that's great they went to Harvard but they have no direct experience. Joe: We had a situation … I'm going to name a name here but I'm only going to use their first name; a guy named Rocky. Rocky was I think he was in his 60's. He retired and ran a General Manager for some car dealership something … somewhere in the country. I loved the guy. I thought he was amazing. Just as a broker, as a lender you just … you connect with somebody like I want to help this guy. I want to find him the ideal business. Although let me say I told him he's crazy. He didn't need to buy a business. He was retired. What for? You have plenty of money I'm like you're crazy just go play golf or something. But he ended up buying something from us and he didn't have any direct online experience. He was a GM for dealerships that yeah they had websites but he didn't run them himself. I find there are a lot of people in the corporate world that are putting in 60 hours a week that look at the e-commerce entrepreneurs that are selling a business when they're working 20 hours a week and they're making more money and they want to live that life. They want to spend more time with their family, with their kids, travel. Are a lot of the folks that come to you these types of people, and is that in direct experience still okay? Stephen: Yeah so to answer your question yes a lot are. Be it Rocky or any other, they don't have direct experience. So the thing about Rocky is that … first, off he is incredibly likable, incredibly well spoken, and have a very strong resume. The guy was successful in his professional career. Joe: Yeah. Stephen: And then unlike somebody working at a low skill job the guy ran the car dealerships which he was 60 hours. Or he was probably working 90 hours a week now but with a transferable skill set. And also he filled that void of not having direct experience in running an online business but was able to fill that void by bringing somebody in. So we felt very comfortable with that and he ultimately was approved. And the last time I talked to him he's doing very well. Joe: Yeah, I think he bought a business from Amanda. I didn't have one for him at the time but Quiet Light, in general, had one. And I think Amanda loved working with him as much as you did. So the likability factor that Rocky had, when buyers come to you is that important? Do you have to like them to do business or? Stephen: Well not like … I think— Joe: Make a difference with human right? Does it make it a better—? Stephen: They are human. So an underwriter is human and if they have a good dialogue with the buyer, for example, Nathan was incredible as well. Joe: Yeah. Stephen: One of the reasons Nathan's loan sailed through is because he was very well spoken and had the incredible background to be successful. So yeah it does. Joe: Okay so we're going to just touch on that thing that everybody knows but they don't talk about and that is if somebody comes to me, if somebody comes to you and they want to buy a business we want to sell you a business. But if you are 10 times more difficult than the next person and they also want to buy a business, my client … my seller is going to say okay well I've got an offer from each which one do you like more Joe, talk about the plus and minuses. And we've got to do that. And in your case you just said you've got something like 354 buyers on your list. They're looking for a business, they're not buying it from you, they're buying it from the likes of Quiet Light Brokerage. Stephen: Right. Joe: But you still have to work with them on a regular basis and you still have to go through the process with them and be likable. Simple thing guys, everybody listening just be likable. Just because you've got the ability to stroke a check doesn't mean that you can push a guy like Stephen around. There's lots of people that are trying to buy a business, lots of people that are trying to sell businesses and being likable is so-so key because this is an online world. We're not sitting across the table from each other and it makes a huge difference being likeable in the process. Stephen: We've kind of touched on that. I was recently … I have a buyer who's been looking for a year and a half. Not to scare new buyers out there but sometimes it does take a while. But he's not likable. Joe: Okay. Stephen: And he was on a phone call … I was on it as well with the seller and he was beating up the seller on the phone in front of me like I wasn't on the call. I don't know but … and the seller chose another buyer. Joe: It's not hard. I'll talk from personal experience. When I sold my business I remember being on one of these buyer conference calls. I had three or four. Jason Yellowitz here at Quiet Light sold my business way back in 2010. And I had three or four calls with potential buyers before it went under contract and sold it. But I remember sitting … I was in the car on a call and I'm sitting in a parking lot and I've got this guy just belittling my business and talking about all the negative things and I'm just to all I can do to end the call. It's you know … to not end the call and to be polite and it was really hard. And even if he made me a full price offer … all cash, full price offer I have to take into account, sellers have to take into account how difficult that particular type of buyer is going to be in due diligence and in the training and transition period. There's a cording, a relationship it's … it ends at a certain period but you're going to be in a relationship with that person and you want to make that as pleasant and as enjoyable as possible. So being likable is critical without a doubt. Stephen: Absolutely. Joe: What are the top two or three qualities that you look for aside from good financials from the buyer? Like, do they have to have a certain debt to income ratio? Do they have to have certain assets in order to buy a business? Stephen: As I would say assets it's more present driven unlike buying a house. I think we definitely look at what's called post-closing liquidity. For example, when all the dust settles is it broke after closing or still has a fair amount of cushion. So we definitely look at that. Is there outside income? Does [inaudible 00:32:09.5] have a … what I call a day job to … for outside income? That's another thing we look at. So those are two very important variables. Credit score is important but it's not like buying a home where you get to really perfect your lending terms. It's pretty much either get a loan or you don't get a loan in the SBA world. A recent issue … if the person is being down with a ton of personal debt that's something that we look at. Generally, that's a character … it's the ones living beyond their means that's generally not liked. So those are just some of the variables. And also what I look at is does this person have the skill set to be able to scale a business or is the business going to go stagnant as it transitions over to him or her. So that's another thing we look at but [inaudible 00:33:00.5] just some of the variables. Joe: So when someone comes to you and says I want to buy a business part of what you do is you look at their financials. You look at all those variables and you say okay great you qualify to buy a business up to a certain amount. Is that the process? Do you say okay … do you give him a guide as in terms of you can buy something up to a million or two million [inaudible 00:33:19.8] like that? Stephen: Yes and a lot of the determining factor is based on their … is it direct, do they have direct experience or indirect experience? So that is going to move— Joe: Noted. Okay. Stephen: Secondly, post-closing liquidity that's really what I focus on. If the person is trying to buy a million dollar business he has to inject or put down a hundred grand and he has 110,000 in the bank that's not going to work. So we kind of have to move the needle down. Joe: And in that situation, they wouldn't … it's not that they don't qualify to buy a business but in that situation, they wouldn't qualify for a million dollar business maybe a half a million dollar business. Stephen: Right, it would move the target price down a little bit. Joe: Okay so just let me clarify that so that somebody has a $110,000 and they want to buy an SBA business and put 10% down, for those listening that's generally the number 10 to 15% down, 110,000 you're going to be left with 10 grand; not going to work. So you got to look at a half a million dollar business. Stephen: Or 800, 750 something like that. Joe: Yeah and then you look at their debt, what they have, what they need to live off of and that smaller business is not going to cash flow as high especially after the debt service from your loan. So you look at all of that and help them with what they're capable of buying first and foremost right? Stephen: Yeah, most of my buyers have what I call a day job so most of their … in most cases their day job covers their personal debt so that's rarely a real factor. Now I do have an individual recently who didn't have a day job and had tons of personal debts so that kind of blew her out of the water. But generally we do look at that. So again back to post-closing liquidity what I do is … so for all of you out there once Joe refers a client to me for pre-qualification I'm able to have an interview with that person on a scheduled call and ask some questions and also they provide me what's called a financial statement. And then I'm able to in most cases issue a pre-qualification and give them a target amount. In the case … in the example that was well over 800,000 for example. And then that person goes back to Joe and says okay I'm pre-qualified with Stephen, he told me to look at businesses around 800,000 let's go. Joe: And then they have a path which is the most important thing. Somebody that doesn't know what they're looking for, doesn't know what they're buying capabilities are is less qualified from our view. So one of the things we want you to do folks if you're out there as a buyer reach out to someone like Stephen and get pre-qualified so that it will help you narrow your focus. And then the next step is to look at as many listings as possible from the online world and figure out what you like and don't like about the business. When you find the right one if it's a great business you want to be in a position where you're already prequalified to act quickly. Because if it's a great business guess what other people are going to be looking at it and making offers as well, really important there. Stephen: Absolutely especially since there are a lot of buyers out there and if you snooze you're going to lose. So you need to kind of get your house in order before looking. Joe: Absolutely, I agree 1000%. So let's talk quickly about the qualifications of the buyer. Do they have to be a US citizen? Stephen: They could be either a green card holder or a US citizen living in the United States. Joe: That green card holder or US citizen living in the United States, the business itself does it have to be a US citizen or a green card holder filing US tax returns? Stephen: In most cases yes depending on the structure of the business. Joe: Okay, there's always a sort of gray area in the situation. Stephen: Yes, it depends on the structure, you kind of different components as in the past few company on the foreign entity— Joe: Right. Stephen: Things that does affect that answer. Joe: Right. Okay and then your business and the size of loans that you guys generally do, are we're looking at you're looking for a half a million and up two, three million, where is your sweet spot in terms of lending? Stephen: So generally my personal loan floor let's call it is half a million dollars. But obviously, if it's a client I've been working with and happens to just look at $800,000 businesses I would grant one for 400,000 on that person. My average loan amount is about a one and a half million dollar range. So … and you know looking at my 2018 numbers that's close to 60 million, 40 transactions, that's about that number. Joe: I got you. I think we have 38 of them that were directed at me I think right? No, I'm kidding. Stephen: 41. Joe: So you're loaning on the value of the business. And what about if it's an inventory based business are you loaning for the value of the inventory as well? And then working capital … does somebody, do you always loan … give working capital money so that they— Stephen: Always. So a very good topic here so obviously I'm going to finance the business itself. I'm also … if the purchase price of the business does not include inventory I finance the inventory, the on-hand inventory. And what I do is I work with you Joe in determining what that number is going to be at closing. So I finance that. I also include working capital. And that working capital I generally work it into a loan in a sense that I'm able to include it in your market … not directly your market, so okay of that 100,000 working capital 50 is going to be for additional inventory above and beyond what's being purchased with the business. And the other 50 is going to be marketing campaign or advertising campaign, it could be for hiring support staff. Joe: Okay and then lastly I want to talk about the term of the loans. We're talking five years, 10 years, 30 years, what are we looking at? Stephen: It's a 10 year loan and of all those components, by the way, it ends up being all in one loan. It's not where you have separate loans for each. So it's all incorporated into a 10 year SBA loan. Joe: Okay and 5, 6%interest rate somewhere in that range; five to seven? Stephen: Base prime plus two and three quarters, right now it's 8.25. Joe: Prime plus two and three quarters. Okay so for those that want to run their own numbers 10% down, 10 year note, prime plus two and three quarters, do the math on that. Stephen: Yeah. Joe: The seller note in 2017 and prior to that in most of the transactions that we did or did together you required some sort of seller note. And that changed in 2018 so for … got a business that's a million and a half and somebody wants to put down 15% are you requiring a seller note on a deal of that size or are you not anymore? Stephen: So up to 2017 a seller note was required by the SBA and not by the invidual lender. Joe: Okay. Stephen: So typically it was 10% down payment let's call it from the buyer, 15 from the seller or vice versa in terms of the seller note for a total of 25% down payment rejection. Joe: Okay. Stephen: In '18 the barrier to entry was lower. The overall requirement paying on a deal is the minimum 10%. In terms of what lenders require, some lenders require a seller note. We do not. Sometimes I incorporate a seller note to strengthen the loan especially if the buyer does not have direct online experience. So it gives kind of the underwriter warm fuzzies in the sense that the transition will most likely go smoother. The seller has a little bit of skin on the game. So there are situations where I do incorporate a seller note for approval purposes. Joe: So for buyers, sellers, even other brokers listening to this, this is you know you're hearing Stephen say I incorporate this or I incorporate that to help the underwriter feel better about the loan and make sure it goes through. What I do personally is when I have a deal that's pre-qualified by Stephen or someone like Stephen when I get an offer on the business A) I want to know if Stephen knows who they are and if they're working with him and how they look qualification wise. But B) I really like to send the deal structure to you Stephen and say this is the deal structure is this going to float with your underwriters? And I think that's critical to the ultimate success of the loan and the transaction process. Because the last thing that we want … it's happened once or twice and I don't recall if it was with you or not but … where you've … actually no it was with you where the underwriter looked at something and they had to tweak it just a little bit, had to increase the seller note by 5% or something like that. That's not what we want to do so now I run everything by you prior to having a letter of intent signed. I recommend everybody to do that if they're going to do an SBA loan through Stephen and e-commerce lending. Stephen: Absolutely, so that's a very good point as we continue down the path of e-commerce lending I am constantly tweaking the way I do things. And that's one thing I do is I bet really hard upfront so there aren't changes on the backend. Fortunately some of my buyers don't [inaudible 00:42:26.4] the businesses that they're looking at prior to signing a letter of intent. It's kind of an after they do that they come to me and say hey I just bought this business and here's the deal structure I want you [inaudible 00:42:38.3] well that's not going to work. Joe: Yup they don't do that with Quiet Light they have to [crosstalk 00:42:41.7] so the whole process we require that conference call. Because we … it's not, we don't want people to go under a letter of intent just to tie it up and then make a decision. We want them to make the decision, go under letter of intent, and close and go through that process. It just saves everybody a lot of time and hassle. Stephen: It really does. Joe: Okay, any last thoughts about … you want to share with the buyers or sellers that are listening to the podcast today? Stephen: Yeah in terms of sellers even if you're not selling a business now please reach out to me in general and have us put together a game plan for future sale. It's really, really important and again it will be dividends on the backend. And then for you buyers out there reach out to me. I'm more than happy to pre-qualify you for a business. You can reach me at stephen@ecommercelending.com and the first name is spelled ph or call me at 813-766-4524. Joe: Thanks. I will put that on the show notes as well. The last thing I want to say is just to reiterate what you're talking about there with the sellers and it's called choose your pain. Go through the pain of getting your financials in good shape now and having a great transaction and a sale or don't do it and you're choosing your pain later because it's going to be difficult. You're going to be … you're bank account is going to be in pain because you're not going to get as much value for your business. So make the choice and hopefully you'll choose that first one. It's not fun, it's not exciting but it's the right thing to do. Do some valuation exit planning, reach out to Stephen; reach out to anybody at Quiet Light. Go to inquiries@quietlightbrokerage.com myself, Mark, anybody on the team is happy to help you even if you're not planning to sell your business for another two, three, four years. That's what we're here for. Stephen, you're awesome as always. Thanks so much for your time. I look forward to a great 2019 with you. Stephen: Absolutely, Joe. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it as well. Joe: All right man, talk to you soon.   Links and Resources: ECommerce Lending Email Stephen Call Stephen 1-813-766-4524  

Today's guest is truly the epitome of what an entrepreneur looks like. As an immigrant to the United States, Ramon Van Meer spent many years self-employed, just making ends meet. So while a rags to riches story it is not, considering that he has been out of school and working for over 20 years, it's still somewhat of a surprise when you learn that someone in his position just signed a nearly 8 figure deal. Ramon is sharing his backstory today. A few years ago people wouldn't have invested a few thousand with Ramon, but today they are lining up to work with him. A high school dropout who came up with an idea for a niche business that has grown exponentially in just a few short years? The growth and subsequent sale of his company, SoapHub, is an incredible story, not just for the size of the transaction, but also because of what Ramon accomplished to get there. Episode Highlights: Ramon shares his difficult upbringing in Holland. How that time shaped his life and made him who he is today. The lesson here is not to quit school! Why a network and connections are so important. How this sale is 20 years of work in the making, even though on paper Ramon looks like overnight success. You'll hear the full roller coaster story of the sale from not one, but multiple buyers and offers that resulted in the final sale price being nearly double of what was originally set. What made the difference for the end buyer, both the buyer himself as well as the money behind the buyer. What Ramon has learned from his mistakes. Ramon shares his number one recommendation when preparing to sell a business. How essential the right lawyer is in these types of transactions. Transcription: Mark: At Brand Builders Summit back in August … that was August, right? Yes, it was August. Joe you brought somebody to me. You introduced me to somebody. We had dinner with him a couple of nights and he's a client of ours, we worked with him on multiple deals but he's just a quiet guy, very very nice kind of understated and didn't stand out to me too much; other than the fact that he was a client of course and I wanted to get to know him better. But it wasn't until lunch on I think the third day that we were there and you told me a little bit about his back story which was a heart wrenching, moving, inspiring, all those things in one and you have him now on the podcast sharing a bit of that story. Joe: I do. He's really the American dream. He moved to this country nine years ago I think. He had a really really tough upbringing. He could have gone down many different paths. He could have wound up in jail very easily. He dropped out of high school at the age of 15. He started becoming an entrepreneur, working construction, doing whatever he could, has been self-employed more or less for the last 20 years and even up to three or four years ago was living month to month as an entrepreneur. Overnight success? Absolutely not. A long long road but we just closed a transaction that was nearly eight figures and you would never know it. Unless you have an eye for picking out the guy that … I think you told me just pick out the worst dressed guy in the room and he's probably the best well off or they at least get the most money. This particular gentleman Ramon he was very chill, very relaxed, people just talked to him, got along with him and then heard his back story and just blown away with what he's achieved. A few years ago people wouldn't give him $5,000 now they're just throwing money at him. Of course, he's not taking it because he's going to do this all on his own but it's an incredible story not just for the size of the transaction and what he's accomplished but what he's overcome in life to get there. Mark: Yeah now well let's get to it. That's a really good story. Joe: Hey folks, its Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage. And today our guest is my friend and my client, Ramon van Meer. Ramon, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Ramon: Thank you so much Joe for having me. Joe: It's good to have you here man. You and I have been working together now for … gosh almost eight months right? We started in January. Ramon: Yeah. Joe: I got a call from our mutual friend and former broker here at Quiet Light, Darren Harden. He sold a smaller business of yours a couple of years ago and he called and said hey look you're looking to sell your business and he gave me a number that you wanted and I thought okay well let's see what happens. I took a look at your numbers. I knew you had a good history from Darren about you. And we kind of overshot that number a little bit. It took a while but we did it and I want to talk about that process here today. I want to talk about your background, your history, the type of person you are, the things that you have achieved in spite of your upbringing, and the challenges that you've overcome. And I'm going to dig a little deep and I hope you don't mind because I think it's a great lesson. Ramon: Uh-oh, all right. Joe: So with that why don't you tell the people listening a little bit about yourself, where you're from; all that big story there. Ramon: All right very brief story. I'm originally from Holland, the Netherlands. I have a big accent so … but I came to the United States nine years ago. I now live in the Bay area close to San Francisco. I always have been an entrepreneur before I would say before entrepreneurship was a trend; even back home from construction companies, to promoting parties, to selling piñatas online, to running a … bootstrapping a site about soap operas of all topics. Joe: You seem like a big soap opera guy. You're really into them right? I mean just a passion that you followed. Ramon: Yeah because you know I have zero to do between 12 and four o'clock afternoon … no, and you know I know we go on that delay there down the line but I think it's really cool. A lot of people would say you have to really be passionate about the stuff that you sell or do. I have zero passion for soap operas and it turned out to be probably the biggest exit I have so far. Joe: Yeah and clearly folks I'm being sarcastic about that because it's an ongoing joke that Ramon has never watched a single full soap opera in his entire life. Are you going to go to your grave someday never watching a soap opera or do you think you might sit down one afternoon and just watch an episode of Days of Our Lives or General Hospital or whatever is airing these days; just one? Ramon: The problem is its … okay, so the show is one hour long. Of that one hour its 30 minutes commercials and all that 30 minutes is just very painful to watch. I'm sorry soap opera lovers it's just not really my cup of tea. I never spoke … said it out loud because of anyone, friends … you know my audience but it's … yeah. Joe: These are words from a guy that had millions and millions of people visiting his website and YouTube channel every single day and he never watched a single full soap opera. All right we're going to get into that a little bit. So as I said for those listening he would not go deep enough so we're going to go a little deeper. You moved here from Holland nine years ago. Let's talk a little bit about your upbringing so that people that I think have had some challenges in life and are hoping to do what you've done can hear your story. You at one point in your life were homeless correct? Ramon: Well. Joe: Briefly. Ramon: I think … well yeah. Well, it was more the fact that my age was very young but yeah I had to … I have slept on the streets. Not really on the street like I don't want to make it sound too dramatic and more- Joe: I did that for you. I started off with that question. So at the age of 12 you had to spend a few nights on the street at the age of 12. And then friends' couches and then eventually worked it out and did you move back in with your dad or did you stay with friends from 12 to 15? Ramon: Well yeah not to make it too long of a story my parents were separated. My mom eventually … I was living with my mom, eventually, she was not able to take care of me anymore so I had to move to my father's house. And he basically just kicked me out on the street when I was 12. He had a lot of issues with alcoholism and a lot of other issues. So I was … the first couple of days on the street then at some friends' houses and then one of the parents of one of the friends I was staying at tracked down my mom and my mom took me back in. But she was actually not in a state of mind to raise a child but there was no other way around it so … yeah. Joe: And I've made you very uncomfortable in the first five minutes of this interview. Ramon: Yeah thank you, Joe. Joe: I do it because honestly every time I talk to you and I hear your story, I'm blown away with what you've achieved. I think there must be something just ingrained in your DNA that made you believe that you were going to be a success in life. Is that sort of … you always kind of knew you were going to go off and on your own and overcome these challenges that so many would just give up on and go down a terrible different path? Did you have a belief in yourself that you were going to be a successful entrepreneur even at a young age? Ramon: Yeah and not every day but in the big picture I always believed that one day somehow I would be successful. I always had that entrepreneurial spirit in me. I was not good at school in that same phase of the stuff that happened at home. I got kicked out of some high schools and eventually just stopped going to school when I was 15 because … yeah and I started doing stuff for myself like as a business owner. So I always knew that with hard work and just being … keep on going. I think the stuff that happened to me in the past actually helped me. I almost now have a mentality that I survived all that stuff back then so the things that I'm dealing right now is actually nothing compared to back then if that makes sense. Joe: No it's certainly made you who you are today and a better person for it. For those listening just to get the full picture, we just sold Ramon's business for just shy of nine million dollars. It's the second business that we've sold for Ramon through Quiet Light Brokerage and he's a serial entrepreneur. And I think you said to me a couple of weeks ago Ramon that just two or three years ago you could not get someone to give you or invest $8,000 in you and now there are people coming out of the woodworks to give you money to invest and buy businesses on their behalf; which you're not doing, you using your own for the most part. But when you have such a big success like this you're looked at very very differently. And you've done some incredible things and on top of that all you're a good person which makes a big difference. And the buyer saw that and I talked to him yesterday and he repeated that several times during my interview with him. Now first off for the children listening if there are any young entrepreneurs don't quit school just because Ramon did and he sold his business for nearly eight figures. Don't quit school, stay there, please. Ramon: Stay there because look I'm 37 now right? So this is 20 years in the making. It's not that yeah I started this soap opera website three years ago so someone will say yeah you became … you went from zero to hundred in three years. But honestly, it actually took me 20 plus years to get this. So it's not the smart … it's not the easiest, it's not the smartest way to go about. The more and more now that I'm … especially the last year and I got to know a lot of other super successful entrepreneurs it's that networking and connections are so important. So if you are in school you will get all these connections and relationships with really key people that are going to be key people in your life and I had to do it the other way around. Joe: Yeah and I think something that you and I saw at the Brand Builders Summit and the other events that you and I both go to is the connections with the people that are attending those events and the relationships that you build in the masterminds that you join, sharing ideas. Everybody has a different experience. Everybody has a different level of expertise on different things and for the most part, they're willing to share. Unless you're a direct competitor which is really … it's such a vast marketplace, selling … doing content sites like you do which is your niche and your level of expertise versus even a physical product site like Moyes, he … great success; huge story … willing to talk to you about tax liabilities and things of that nature that you have to deal with now; a very good problem that you have to focus on. So let's back up a little bit. Let's focus in on your niche and your specialty. I think you've looked at now a number of different niches now that you've sold your largest business content advertising site in a soap opera niche. You had considered building a portfolio in either physical products or SaaS or content sites and advertising sites, have you narrowed down where you're going to focus on now for the future? Ramon: No, I have still not. So my dream is so to speak building a small … you know I call it like a private equity model where we have a small team, an in-house team where we can start or acquire or buy a stake into an existing company. Because our background is content and driving traffic, sales or viewers, eyeballs through content. And so using that strategy to either push sells for a SaaS product or for an e-commerce or for content. But yeah you and I have been going back and forth, I do think I need to specialize in one niche and every … e-commerce has its pros and cons and so is SaaS and so is content. And like you've mentioned to me many times before like the grass is always greener you hear stories, the success stories of people selling their e-commerce business for a hundred million dollars but it's not easy to do and there's a lot of … there are downsides of running an e-commerce and the same goes for content and also with SaaS. So I'm now taking the time to talk with as many people as possible and do research and then go from there. Joe: So let's talk about SoapHub and the site that you sold. Ramon: Okay. Joe: We don't have to get into too much in terms of specifics but I want to talk about the path so that business owner sellers out there understand what an emotional roller coaster it can be. Ramon: Yeah. Joe: We listed the business for sale in … I think it was February of this year. We had multiple offers. We listed it I believe at five million dollars and came pretty close to asking price and put it under a lot of intent. I was driving home from Georgia probably I don't know 20, 30 days into due diligence moving along very well. The buyer was very happy. He flew out there to see you. And things are going extremely really well and you called me on a Saturday afternoon. Can you recount that conversation for the people that are listening? Ramon: Yeah and I feel still … I still feel bad about that. So … but picture it as SoapHub was doing really well already, not just revenue wise but profit wise. And between the time that you sit down with Quiet Light and come up with a valuation and an asking price until that time you know, there's … time goes by right? Like I think we spoke first in December. It was the first initial and now we were at three months past and literally the revenue and profit of SoapHub was skyrocketing. And it took me a while to okay what should I do here? Should I keep going with this process and with this buyer that was under LOI with me or should I just say you know what let's hold off for a couple of months and increase the 12 month trailing? Because most businesses or all businesses that go through brokers their valuation is based on a multiple of the last 12 months of profit. So the more months of higher profit you can show, the higher the valuation. But yeah on that Saturday I also remember I was nervous. I didn't want to call you but I thought that's … when you're dealing with such a big event, this is a life changing event for me. Not just for me but also my family; my mom, my dad, my son, everybody involved, and the employees. I thought I had to do it. So I had to call you up and say “Joe, I'm really sorry but I think it's best for us to take the listing down for now and then and relist it again in four, five, six months.” Joe: You're having as much trouble telling … say we're just recounting the story as you did the day you called me on that Saturday. It's kind of- Ramon: I know. Joe: You still feel bad about it. I knew when that call came through on a Saturday I thought okay this can't be good. Ramon's calling me on a Saturday afternoon and that's really odd. And I knew it was going to be a tough phone call. So you had recounted that basically we went through the numbers on the call and you had said look just I got to think about my family. This could be … this is a lifetime event sale and the business is growing so much that this initial … I think we're at a four time multiple now is dropping so low that you feel like you're giving the business away. And I think you and I went through the numbers and we said all right look if we wait another six months even if we just held the same multiple we'd be at a valuation at around seven and a half eight million dollars. The goal at the end of the phone call was just to step back, run the numbers, talk on Monday, and then break the bad news to the buyer if we needed to. And we did that and it was hard and he felt bad. He felt … he was very upset because it's great opportunity. So we pulled it back and we were going to just wait right? We're going to take the listing down and wait another six months more to pass. We updated the financials just as a recounting of the story. The numbers jumped tremendously and we reached out to the backup buyers based on the conversations you and I had. At the very least we've got to tell the current buyer of the situation and what we're going to do in six months or so. And then of course two other backup buyers were constantly reaching out to me and said if anything changes please reach out. So we pulled out of that LOI, it was a non-binding letter of intent and we backed out of that and ended up having multiple offers. It pushed the value of the business up well in advance of that six month period because we ended up closing well before that time ended. Was that an easy process? You know a lot of sellers think oh I want multiple offers. Oh, I want to be in a situation where it's getting bid up over asking price. Was that an easy process for you? Was it comfortable? No stress, really easy to go through or was it emotional? Ramon: It was super emotional because you have multiple offers that most of the times are not identical. They're a little bit different and you also have to think who is this buyer? Of course, you're talking on the phone a couple of times but you have to think about “Okay who is most likely to close?” Because it's one thing to make an offer and sign an LOI but not everyone will be able to close. And then if the buyer at the last minute is not able to close then you lose two months of work. Due diligence periods and also lose that momentum where there are several buyers trying to outbid them. You know you have that momentum going that you are getting more over your asking price but if you have to go back after two months then you kind of lost that momentum. So yeah it was a very tough decision because especially the two top offers were from two buyers that I was … would like to work with them … both of them. Joe: Right. Ramon: So it was a difficult decision. Joe: All three buyers were highly qualified and heck of a lot smarter than I am and brought a really good offer to the table. The difference for those buyers out there that are listening when you're in a multiple offer situation, the difference for the one buyer that ended up eventually buying the business was that he had some investors behind him and he brought them to the conference call, Ramon, right? Ramon: Yeah. Joe: So we got to not only speak to the buyer itself but the money behind the buyer. We got to have conversations with as well. Did that make a big difference for you? Ramon: Yeah, definitely. Because that gave me confidence that this buyer is most likely to close and also close faster. People that are more experienced is more easier to work with. And so as a sellers point of view … because I've been sitting on both sides of the table, as a seller's point of view yes, of course, you look at the money, at the offer, the money … you know a mug money first but you also look at okay who is the buyer because you're going to have to work with this person for quite some time. How is he financing? Is this person being able to close this kind of transaction? So if you are in the race to buy something try to also make sure that the seller knows that yeah the seller goes with you that you're ready to close and you're able to close and you have experience and it will be a smooth transaction. Joe: So we were going to close in … I think it was going to be 30 to 45 days. It was investor money behind it and we were marching along doing very well and then it fell apart again right? You pulled out of one LOI and then the money behind our buyer disappeared. They're … it was a family fund for those listening. It was a family fund and the two people that came forward and were on the call with Ramon and the buyers were fantastic … are still fantastic and I would still work with them if they came forward to buy a business from Quiet Light with either this buyer or another but the general manager of the Family Fund made a decision that he never makes and he said soap operas no I don't think so kill that deal. Just like that, it was gone. And did you call me and let's say vent … did you vent to me on the phone shortly thereafter? Out of stress and emotion, you said that you've yelled at me a few times but I call it venting. How were you feeling when that fell apart quickly and we put it back together obviously because we're having this conversation today but I mean what was going through your mind when you were literally … I think probably what two weeks away from closing this transaction and having an enormous amount of money deposited to your account and life changing life for you and your family. How were you feeling that day? Ramon: Well it was two ways like of course I was disappointed because we put a lot of our work in to it. We were literally two weeks out right? So not only me but the whole team, everybody involved. We moved all our lives around that magic closing date of … in my case it was June 30 I believe or something like that right? It was the end of that month, we were two weeks out and then the deal fell through. So it was just more like man we worked so hard, we were so close and it now falls through. And it shows that there are so many moving parts and in my case or in this case everybody involved wanted to get this deal done but still, something small happened and out of everybody's control and that made the deal fall through. So there are so many moving parts in order to close a deal like this that yeah everything has to fall in place. Joe: It was tough for sure. Ramon: But it was tough and more also that a lot of the employees they got proper chance to sell and they were already in their mind shopping around. And I felt really bad to break the news to them because all this time leading up to it was like okay guys we're almost there, a couple more weeks let's keep the hard work going and stuff like that and then I had to break the news like oh sorry guys we have to move it up again. But I did … I did was you know … I knew that eventually, we'll be able to sell because it's a great website and it's you know … so. Joe: Yeah that's the thing it fell apart for the strangest reason. One, because it was growing so fast you made a very tough but obviously financially intelligent decision and you took a little bit of a risk but you pulled back and said this is growing so so fast. And we're not talking about 10% month over month growth here folks. We're talking 200, 300, 400% month over month growth. So it was an easy decision yet tough on your part because you were disappointing the buyer and making a tough call to me. And then it fell apart but we go back to the value of having multiple calls with buyers in advance of signing a letter of intent. Because this particular buyer he really wanted the business and he had other sources of revenue or investors and he pulled it off. He convinced you and I that he had another path that he'd been working on the whole time. He hadn't gone down to that out of respect for the other buyers but as soon as the other investors as soon as they were out he opened up that other path and went down it very quickly. You and I did the same thing again. We needed to jump on calls with other people to have them instill confidence in us that they could get the job done. And you're right it was June 30 was the initial close date with that buyer and then I think it was near the third week of August where we ended up closing so another six or seven weeks does that sound all right? Okay, so the downside- Ramon: Those were the longest weeks of my life. Joe: I know. But the downside is that they are the absolute longest weeks, days, hours of your lives. Boy that does sound like a soap opera; days of our lives. Ramon: Exactly. Joe: But looking back in the blink of an eye it's gone. The time passed. And you benefited financially from that because you got to hold the business for another let's call it 60 days and got the profit from that business for another 60 days. Ramon: Yeah. Joe: It's almost like a bonus because you closed anyway. Was it worth the extra 45 days, 60 days that it took or do you wish that you went back instead June 30th I would have taken it all day long even today knowing what the end result is closing 45, 60 days later? Would you do it all over again and close on June 30th? Ramon: That's a good question. Probably now, no I would have taken the extra because it's … we're talking about a lot of money. Two months extra of profit plus the buyer increased his offer a little bit as well when the deal fell through. He said I'm working on other things just give me some more time I will be able to close up if you give more time and then he increased his offer also a little bit. Now that everything fell exactly how it was supposed to be yeah I would have taken the money but it was a really good learning experience for me going into this. I've sold a bunch of websites; I bought and sold a bunch of websites but way smaller all in the … not even close to this one. I think the most was like around 200,000 I sold. And then dealing with an asset purchase agreement you don't really deal with attorneys, you don't really deal with a lot of things that now came on my plate. And it was dealing not just with my own attorney but then the other side's attorney and it's just so many people are involved and it was an emotional roller coaster. So I think now looking back its good because now it made me better for the next transactions if that makes sense. Joe: You know most people would hang up their shoes and say I'm done with your kind of transaction sale but you're already focused on growing other businesses, buying other businesses and building up portfolios so kudos to you. You're a young guy you can do that. Ramon: Yeah. Joe: What would you recommend to people that are listening that are in a position to sell their business for a lifetime event sale for them, whether that's 100,000 a half a million, a million, five, ten million dollars; what are the most important things to consider as they begin that process and go down that road, things that you've learned? Ramon: So the thing that I've learned and I did wrong … and you hammer on this on many podcasts is clean books. Clean books people, I made a mistake of having … it was not on purpose it was just out of laziness I think that I co-mingled different websites in what … so I had one LOC, one bank account, one account with Google. The issue is that Google does not allow you to have multiple AdSense accounts. So even if you have 100 websites with AdSense tags on it and all comes down in one Google account. But yeah I had … I bought different content sites in that last three years. I sold content sites. I invested in things all from that one bank account. So thankfully we were able to make it work but it was a lot of work from my end to really … I had to go back literally three years and every transaction I had to … oh this was for SoapHub, no this was not for SoapHub. And then whatever was not for SoapHub I also had to be able to back it up with proof or listing this was for this and here's the proof. And so it was a very tedious, long, stressful work including my CPA and my bookkeeper and thankfully it was able to … we were able to work it out. But I know for a fact in other cases that where people co-mingled and then they had real issues with their valuation. They were not able to get the top dollar because the buyers were not able to really dissect what is the real profit of that company. So that's … learn it from me, I did it. I learned it the hard way. So now I've set up different companies, different LOC's and run everything as clean as possible. Joe: Okay. Ramon: So that's one, the second is read on asset purchase agreements. The first time when an asset purchase agreement got sent to me it was so complicated for me, I didn't know what to look for, what did we have to be in it and then whatever my attorney advised me I basically say yeah well it makes sense why not you know. So the notes of my attorney I just blatantly copied and then send that to the buyer and said this is what we … I want to change in the asset purchase agreement. And then the buyer's attorney they came back with their notes and then went back and forth back and forth. I think now looking backwards now I kind of know what is important. I think attorneys try to … and I understand the reason but they try to overprotect their clients. So my attorney tried to overprotect me, the buyer's attorney tried to over protect them and somehow we have to find a middle. There are tons of examples where attorneys ruined the deal. You probably will have a lot of stories of that. So I think it's good if you kind of get advice from people, learn, read up on it online and see what is really needed and what not. So now I'm working on the deal right now with a great attorney but now I'm more experienced and I can say well this is what I don't want in attorney. I don't … I understand why you advised me that but it's not needed. I've done it before this is not needed and let's just keep it as simple as possible. Because … yeah, attorneys can ruin deals. Those are the two biggest advises. Joe: Well I can agree with you on the attorney part wholeheartedly. I've been in situations where a relative of the seller completely killed the deal. I had a deal where the young guy just out of graduate school and he had a great business that he started in his undergrad and literally graduating from graduate school about to start his professional career and we've got a business that was under contract with three quarters of a million dollars … way way over the standard valuation but there was a problem. The problem was that his mother and father were both attorneys and his wife was a law student and they took that asset purchase agreement, shredded it, and fought tooth and nail for the tiniest tiniest little thing and were completely unreasonable to the point where the buyer who honestly was very reasonable walked away, threw their hands up in frustration. At the Brand Builders Summit you and I attended in Austin a few weeks ago Richard Jalichandra from 101 Commerce got up and he's bought three businesses from Quiet Light in the last six months, eight in all. And their goal is to buy 101 hence 101 Commerce. They've got enough experience where they are going to say look you can only work with this group of attorneys, there's no conflicts … [inaudible 00:36:00.5] have conflicts with us and our legal team. But these attorneys understand e-commerce and contract negotiations you got to work with one of those. It's almost you've got to have a contract attorney that understands fairness and balance and that it has to be a good deal and a good transaction for both sides. So I agree 110% on both of those points. Ramon: Well just to piggyback up that also when you look for an attorney make sure this attorney not only has experience in internet space but also the niche where you are. Because an e-commerce deal is totally different than an asset … a content site where you're just buying an asset or a SaaS, so also try … if you find a … if you go out there and try to find an attorney that can assist you with an asset purchase agreement is see if they have experience in not just internet marketing but also the niche. Joe: Okay. So overall the moral theory is that when you're selling your business it can happen very quickly. We put it under contract very quickly and we could have been through the entire process from listing it to closing inside of 60 days, 75 days tops the first time around. But you made the tough decision to pull back because the growth was astronomical. You made a good decision and you ended up almost doubling your value and that's a pretty huge number when it comes down to it. And not only that you made a lot more money along the way because you still held on to a great business that was doing great numbers and growing. There were times where it was tough and we collectively said look there are multiple options here and one of them is to stop this process, hold your business, take care of your family, take care of your staff, hold the business and keep running it. It got that frustrating at times and that emotional at times because it is a big deal if you sell a business of this size. And again it's actually a big deal to sell a business whether it's 100,000, 500,000, a million, or 10million, it doesn't matter. It does get emotional. I think the number one thing that people need to look for in an advisor is one that will set realistic expectations and that can manage emotions. And not just their own but those of the buyer and those of the seller and sometimes the third parties that are involved with their investors involved as well because no matter what most of these deals go slightly off the rails and it's our job to get them back on. But I couldn't have done it without you, Ramon. You've been fantastic. You've set some new goals in life though so I want to kind of wrap up with this. You and I had a conversation so people understand a little bit more about who you are and what you've accomplished and what you're gonna do in the future. You have a goal to help a certain number of people be successful in life based on the goodness that you've received I think. Is that … am I somewhere along the ballpark? Can you touch on that just briefly if you are comfortable enough sharing that? Ramon: Yes. Joe: Am I embarrassing you by the way? Ramon: Everything I told you you're using against me, Joe. No, I'm just kidding. Joe: Not quite everything. Ramon: I just … as you might know, like I don't really like to be in the spotlight. I never really do podcasts or I had … I made one exception for a news outlet to do it but yes. So because I'm very entrepreneurial I think it's almost … it's your duty so to speak that when you quote unquote get to a level that you have to give back and help other people and which you can help … you know there are millions of ways of how you can help other people. I think for me is that I want to help people … like I see that I was blessed to achieve the American dream so to speak and I want to help achieve other people to to do that as well. And I have a number in my mind, I want to help 500 people not just by helping a … you can pay a year for school or something; no, helping to change really their lives how my life has changed. Like three, four years ago I was really literally going from paycheck to paycheck and not knowing where … how next month is going to look like. And three years ago and now three years later I'm in this position. So change can really happen and I want to help 500 people by … if they have a business idea by funding their ideas and helping them in starting their businesses or maybe I am able to acquire a business and then have somebody run that for me stuff like that. So it's more or less helping 500 people in achieving the American dream by starting their business or helping them grow their business. Joe: Do you write down these goals? I think in talking with Ben the other day when he said he came to visit you in your office that you had some stuff on a whiteboard and he looked up and he said man just incredible goals that you've set and he said it'd be foolish for anybody to bet against you. Do you write these down on a white board? Do you just think about them in your head? Do you hear about a goal setting? How do you … what's your process? Ramon: Yes so I write them down … actually, because I'm about to move today I'm at a house office and because I'm packing, I'm moving next week but I have notes almost everywhere of my goals. So for some weird reason I believe in re-civilization and so when I wanted to buy a specific house that was my dream I would print out pictures of my quote unquote dream house and I will just pin them everywhere. But I have a list of life goals so to speak and yeah I have printed that and that's in my office at the house. Joe: Amazing. Ramon it has been a complete real pleasure working with you for the last eight months. For those listening, we've got somebody that overcame some pretty serious challenges in life. He has been an entrepreneur for 20 years even up for the three or four years ago as he said living paycheck to paycheck, buckled down, worked hard. As my baseball coach used to say … and I was not very good, he always used to say the harder you work the luckier you'll get. And I think Ramon worked very hard, visualized those goals, wrote them down, put them up on the board, and has achieved them. He made some tough decisions along the way. It was not easy. I can tell you that now. Some of it was quite emotional but it worked out in the end. Ramon, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your story with me and with the audience of Quiet Light Podcast. You're a good man; I look forward to doing business with you for years to come. Ramon: Same here Joe, thanks a lot. Joe: Talk to you soon. Links and Resources: Ramon's Email

Brad Wayland may be the only QLB broker that was asked to join our team. Others amy dispute that, but they were not interviewed today, so they don't have a voice! Brad has been with Quiet Light Brokerage for less than a year now, and has already established himself as an honest, hardworking and driven entrepreneur and broker. Prior to joining Quiet Light, Brad spent his time focused on SEO for a custom t-shirt firm (Blue Cotton) where he is a partner. From there Brad built a portfolio of content & affiliate sites and eventually sold them to a private equity firm in 2015. In all, Brad completed 30 transactions between 2010 and 2016. Mostly as a buyer, with four sold. Brad learned quickly how to find the right opportunities and work out a deal that made sense for both the seller and himself. And he gained a reputation as the person to sell to, where sellers reached out to him to sell their business. Episode Highlights: [3:22] Who is Brad Wayland? [8:10] Why is the custom t-shirt business the most difficult ecommerce niche? [8:40] Buying and building a portfolio of content sites. [11:15] Wall street style negotiations, or nice guy everyone is happy? [11:45] Name dropping. Yep, Brad met Warren Buffett. [13:50] How to implement economies of scale. [14:45] Outsourcing and keeping things simple, streamlined and with little effort. [16:10] How Brad set up the corporate structure(s). [17:00] How to work with investors and set up a win/win. [19:40] Why having investors can turn pretty uncomfortable, quickly. [20:30] Brad's recommendation on deal structure for investors. [23:10] What interest rate do you pay investors? [23:30] How the multiple of SDE changes with larger net numbers. [27:15] Brad's view of PE monies and what's happening in the industry [28:40] Google “freshness” is critical to long term content portfolio success. [29:50] Content multiples are strong, the nich is hot and buyers are in abundance. [30:30] QLB closes a content site for just under $9,000,000 [32:30] Bryan @ QLB has a supplement business under LOI for $18,000,000. [33:55] The worst conversations we have as brokers are… [35:35] Near death accident: Wayland Falls – the newly named mountain in North Carolina. Transcription: Joe: So Mark the more we bring on brokers here at Quiet Light the less I feel like I've achieved anything in my life. I think you and I are just a couple of slackers compared to the people that have joined the company. Mark: You know I feel the exact same way. We were at the capitalism.com just a few weeks ago and I was standing next to Walker, you know the last picture he sent me was of him in the lineup with Bill Nye the Science Guy right next to him. And he's casually mentioning over a dinner about the different documentaries he's been a part of and all that right? But it goes for every single person on the team. Amanda, when we were talking to her there and I was just consistently feeling like boy I need to get my butt in gear. Joe: Yeah I don't try to have in-depth conversations with Amanda about business because I just feel stupid. Mark: Right, I mean she just starts going off and you're like oh okay I … everything I thought I knew yeah it could pale as in comparison. Brad though is one of those guys and I remember the first time we did a companywide call; we do this once in a while with Quiet Light Brokerage because we're all over the world. All over the country but all over the world and so I don't know maybe once a quarter we have a companywide Zoom conference call where we can see everybody and there was Brad on top … in his office overlooking his factory floor. And I think everyone was just kind of like oh this guy has actually done and accomplished some real things. Joe: Yeah Jason was calling from his kitchen. Amanda was calling from a car. Chuck was from home. I was from home. You, of course, have to get out of your house because you have got a basketball team and a half in your house … well, maybe not that much I exaggerated. I love to exaggerate about the number of kids you have by the way. Mark: Hey it changed since the last time by the way. We've had like four more kids. It's attractive to … you know and it's hard to- Joe: Completely different podcast right there. Mark: But Brad was somewhere in the world. We have no idea. I think he was in Cuba or Costa Rica or something. Joe: Oh right he's always somewhere else, some other exotic location. But yeah Brad is an impressive guy. A very low key but man he's sharp. He talks about his history, talks about what he did at the Blue Cotton T-shirt company. It takes 22 hands to make one t-shirt. It gets touched 22 two times but he stepped in, focused on SEO, and that company blew up after a couple years of him being there. But that's not really what the podcast is about. It's about him and his experience but I'd really focused in on his content portfolio. At one point while running … or while being a partner at blue cotton he built a small little multimillion dollar content portfolio on the side and eventually sold it. And he outsourced everything. He had a reasonably low workload and he used initially other people's money. You have to listen to find out whose money he used. It's kind of interesting and fun but he did very well. And he talks about that approach and I think it's something that any listener can get something out of it in terms of whether they're building their own portfolio of physical products companies, drop ship companies, SaaS companies, or content companies. And of course get to know Brad along the way as well which is kind of the purpose of the podcast. But I think there's so much more to it than just getting to know Brad Wayland. Mark: Yeah I think one of the things I love about this company is it seems like everybody that we bring on just seems to up the ante as far as their qualifications. I mean two or three years from now we're going to have Elon Musk asking us for a job. Joe: Okay, got to be very sad for all the investors of Tesla, sorry folks. Mark: I don't know maybe they'll kick him up and who knows. All right enough of me talking, enough of you talking, let's listen to Brad. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe at Quiet Light Brokerage and today we have one of our very own on the podcast with us. Now don't get bored he actually has a life time of entrepreneurial experience. He's bought and sold many businesses. He's kind of a big deal. I think he bought and sold more than I have for sure; probably more than most of us. His name is Brad, most of you folks listening know who he is. Brad Wayland welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Brad: Hey Joe thanks for having me on. Joe: How are you doing? Brad: I'm doing well. Joe: Are you ready to tell all of these people everything about you? Brad: I'm ready to tell them but I would contest your point that I'm kind of a big deal. In fact, I was on another podcast with Chris Guthrie that you had on the Quiet Light Podcast a couple of months ago and several years ago. He did an intro and he said most of you probably don't know Brad Wayland. He's what I call a silent baller. Am I right? All right well- Joe: He subscribes to HBO there. Brad: Yeah I would call myself pretty well unknown. But I have had a lot of experience and I hope that I can share some things today that will help our listeners. Joe: Well you are humble. There is that and you're part of the Quiet Light team because of that vast amount of experience that you do have. And you're one of the few … actually, maybe the only one where Mark actually said “hey maybe you should do this” versus the rest of us which reached out to Mark and said “hey can we do this?” that's right isn't it, Mark asked you to join the team? Brad: Well there's different versions of that story but I specifically remember that I asked Mark. I knew Chuck from the buying and selling world so I kind of made a joke at Mark about [inaudible 00:06:41.6] Chuck on I guess if things don't go well on the buying and selling world you might end up doing some brokering. And he was like I think you might be interested in doing some brokering with Quiet Light and that's where the conversation kind of started. And then over about a six month period he kind of showed me the Quiet Light way and I started getting more and more interested. And I really enjoyed my time at Quiet Light so far, it's good for people. And really every day when we get on the phone calls with buyers and sellers I'm just blown away by how impressed they are with the team we have at Quiet Light. Just the knowledge is there, its entrepreneurs. I tell everybody every day, its entrepreneur led. These are people that have bought, sold, built, operated in through hard times so I really do enjoy it. And I think brokers sometimes have like a little bit of a stigma attached to them. And I think that we are kind of definitely leading the way in kind of changing that. Because I find that people really look at Quiet Light as a breath of fresh air. Joe: Yeah I would have to agree. I was just at Brand Builder Summit down at Austin and really for the first time in a long time, I mean I started in 2012 the broker stigma had an icky feel to it. You and I have been self-employed for years … decades probably and people are starting to reach out to brokers for the experience and expertise that we do have. So it's good but let's talk about your experience and expertise. Who the heck are you? Tell us about your entrepreneurial history and when you started? Kind of how many things you bought so on and so forth. Brad: I started having some interest in the internet world around 2003 and I had graduated from college with a finance degree and was working as an accountant for a publicly traded company. And I really hated the work and actually thought you know what I'm going to get fired from this job before I can find another job because I felt like I was doing such a poor job. I just wasn't really built for the check in to your cubicle at 8 AM and checks out at 5 PM. I needed something a little more challenging for me and maybe a little less structured. And so I was thinking I would go into financial planning because I had a degree in it and had an offer. And a couple of friends of mine said “Hey would you like to come on and work on some business development for us in our t-shirt company?” And they had just crossed a million in sales and they have launched a website and it's called Blue Cotton. And so I came on and quickly I became enamored with search engine optimization and spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. And honestly I fumbled it around like four years and even to the point where I think they thought does this guy have any idea what he's doing at all? But around 2005, I started realizing what we needed to do and that was rebuild the site. It had not been built where it could really ever rank the way that certain things were structured and basically the site was just a giant image. So we rebuilt it. It took two years to rebuild it and when we launched it we were on the front page of Gizmodo within 24 hours from just people finding it. And back then there was- Joe: Gizmodo, what the heck is Gizmodo? Brad: It's a popular tech blog. I'm sure you probably heard of it. Joe: Clearly I haven't, so thank you. Brad: Well it crashed the site. And so that first day we launched it [inaudible 00:10:02.2] spent two years working on this project, it's never going to do anything. And that morning we got a phone call from the developers, our phones are ringing off the hook and they said something's going on. There's tons of traffic on the site. Back then you didn't even have Google analytics. We were paying for index tools back then. And so they … Gizmodo crashed the site, we had something like five million people trying to get to the site and it couldn't happen. Joe: Wow. Brad: You know it was just some crazy situation and there was no social media. So a lot of the traffic back then went through these popular blogs. That's how people … they have their RSS readers on their desktop and they would go through and read their articles and stuff. So they did that and then we had built a design studio where people would create their t-shirts in Flash. And a month later Adobe awarded us the site of the day which didn't crash site but it gave us a page rank 9 of 10 link from Adobe's website. Joe: Wow. Brad: Adobe was the most … at the time Adobe was the most went to website in the world. And the combination of Gizmodo … well because of Acrobat and I mean think of all the click here is that you have for Flash, for PDF reader, for all those things. It had tons of links coming in. And so the combination of those two things propelled us and we went on a crazy tier of growth. It grew up 50% a year for nine years on average. Joe: Woah, we'll let the listeners do the math on that unless you're going to tell us. 50% percent a year for nine years and you wouldn't want to know. Brad: Well we went … we grew from … I mean we were small. We were like a million dollars in sales but that ride took us from like, it probably took us to about seven million. I still own my equity in that company. I didn't start that way. We kind of after the web kind of took over the two owners came to me and said hey 85% of our revenue is coming through this thing you've helped us work on so we need to come up with an arrangement here. So we ended up doing that in 2008 and today Blue Cotton is still a thriving business. It's got … we're, I would call us a medium sized business now. We'll be considered a low eight figure business in terms of revenue. We've got 125 employees, 110,000 square feet of production capabilities which one I'm using all of that now. We use about 55,000 [inaudible 00:12:27.3]. So I did that and just to kind of quickly summarize that when you're in the custom t-shirt world you are making money in the most difficult way possible. A custom t-shirt has to be touched by about 20 people before it goes out the door. And if you order one for your family reunion then it's got Joe Valley's Family Reunion 2018, it's time sensitive. You've got a specific idea and you don't want to be the guy that ordered them and your family says “Man, Joe these are awful. You did a terrible job designing them.” So there's a lot of anxiety in the purchase and so I became pretty interested in content. And around 2010 a friend of mine who was … is a pretty big name in the vector space, like image vectors, he was looking at a blog for sale and it was on Flippa. And he … it was it was a $50,000 purchase price and he said you know what it's only worth 25 grand to me in high five. Man, that thing has content and ads like that's the most amazing business model I've ever seen. You don't have to do anything. Joe: Especially compared to 22 hands per t-shirt. Brad: Right. So I ended up buying that site for $50,000. And that started a new trajectory for me. From 2010 I started getting heavily involved into content and affiliate and just bought and sold a lot of stuff from 2010 and 2015. 2015 I divested a lot of it up to private equity but the- Joe: Can you ballpark how many you bought and sold in that time period? Brad: Yeah so I did 30 transactions between 2010 and 2016 and most of it was buying. I had basically four sales everything else was purchase. I kind of quickly … the space was the web design space so the blog that I bought … economy was kind of in the tank in 2010 and so the blog that I bought I quickly made my money back on it. It's a $50,000 purchase and I made the money back in like 10 months. And I thought this is like too good to be true. So I started kind of keeping my eyes open for opportunities and found another one that was for sale and overpaid for it compared to what I had done. So I paid 72,000 for the second one and it was starting on that same trajectory but after those first two, economy was really not doing well and I started having people reach out to me. And so I had a guy reach out and say hey I hear you're the guy that buys web design sites, you've bought this one and this one would you want to buy mine while I was tapped down on cash. I had spent all my kind of extra money that I had to kind of do something like that with and so I told him you know what I'll give you about 80% of what you made in the last year but that's the best I can do and I can do it today. Joe: And they said? Brad: And he said I'll take it. Joe: So let's talk about that on … just for a moment because you've got experience, I mean you bought 30 businesses, 30 transactions over the last several years. Was your process New York Wall Street walls to the wall top negotiating or was it nice guy that really likes you and you built a relationship and you made it work both in the end? Brad: I'm probably me there. I'm a quick decision maker. When I was in … when I graduated from college I had the opportunity to meet Warren Buffet at a finance event that went on in my hometown here at Bowling Green. And Warren Buffet said that he plays bridge, and he drinks diet Coke, and he takes 13 phone calls a day, and he doesn't have a computer in his office and one of the questions was how do you evaluate companies? He had bought Fruit Of The Loom which is why he was in town and they said how do you evaluate it? And he said honestly I don't spend a lot of time on it. I go with my gut. I look at the few things that I think I have but I usually make a decision within a matter of hours about whether or not I want to buy something, the price, everything which is not the way M&A is done. Joe: Wow. Brad: I know. He's a great capitalist in terms of what he does and that's not me. So I'm not trying to embarrass Warren Buffet but there is one element that is like me and that is I don't waste time. I like to put deals together. I'm not very patient. And that kind of benefited me in the buying and selling world. So I did things very unconventional. Like my transactions, I would never use escrow. I would try to do it as fast as possible, meet them in person, come up with an arrangement of I'm going to wire half here and then you're going to transfer this. Or I'm going to wire it all you're going to transfer these things at the same time. I just did a lot of things that weren't kind of the norms because I'm just not very patient. I kind of wanted to get my hands on it that second. I didn't want to wait 60 days for things to pan out. Joe: So no long drawn out contract negotiations on asset purchase agreements or SBA deals anything like that? Brad: No. Joe: Pretty simple. Brad: And I would say that I focused less on making sure I got this exact price that I wanted at that exact multiple that I wanted. And I focused more on trying to find things that I knew I could immediately do something with. When I got into the design space I don't know anything about design. In Blue Cotton, we have nine designers that work there. I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about web design really. I know I can tell you some names of like what post would be like but I know nothing. If you put me inside one of those Adobe programs I'm totally lost, I know nothing about it. But what I did learn pretty quickly is that there are some economies of scale to having things that are alike each other. And so when I had one blog and an advertiser would come through it was like what would happen if I had five of these blogs? Or what I could do is I could leverage the advertiser for five times the amount and have the same amount of contact. And so I did a lot of that and I did it on the affiliate side. You know I couldn't negotiate better affiliate deals for my company because I would say well here's all the traffic I have in total and they would look at me and be like oh well if you've got that much then we want to do this size e-mail send or we want to do this size add by and so I started to feel that … and a lot of the … so about 15 of my 26 purchases were in the design space. Joe: And did you have writers that were consistently focused on the design space, outsource VA's, or did you do it all yourself? Brad: Yeah so in the design space there's a lot of writers available. You go to some of the popular sites like Smashing Mag or some of these other big names. You'll see a new name every day. And so I again I kind of always try to structure things in a way where I didn't have to spend a whole lot of time on them. So you know one of the things that I did is I found writers that were okay at being paid once a month because I didn't want to be jumping into PayPal 15 times a month to pay writers. So I found writers that could go across several sites that wanted to do like a substantial amount of work. And so I'd have four or five of them and then at the end of the month, I would just one time pay everybody for all their posts. I found people that knew what I wanted instead of me having to review every single post I found people and I was like okay you did these three posts for me this is exactly what I want, go down that road. Some of them would send me like here's what I'm thinking about doing this month, some of them were just like I know what he wants and they would just do it. And I just always try to streamline things to a … the most hands off as possible. I did not want to hire people to support the network. I didn't want to … I wanted to keep it very like the opposite of the teacher business. I wanted it to be something that I could do a lot with a little time. Joe: Did you put all 30 of the properties or 26 when you sold four off, did you put them all in one LOC did you have them separate? How did that work out? Brad: Well I had to … we hadn't gotten into how I built the portfolio so I will tell you that I quickly ran out of my own cash and had to start looking for help. So I did end up having three different LOCs total and that was because of the way I had to go find capital for the deals. Joe: Okay. Brad: And then I kind of got tired of that and so I basically rolled all of those partners up and blown and got them out and took everything over 100%. And you know the thing is when you're … there's guys that it was their pockets that are out there raising money and I had a conversation with one of our … someone who's buying a property from us yesterday about it. When you're trying to raise money from people instead of going out and asking for everything you think they could possibly muster up one of the best ways to convince people that you give them good returns on their money is to do something good with some … with a small amount of money, something that you know is not a big deal to them. And I didn't really do that on purpose. It's just that my deal started out kind of small. I started around this $50,000 range and by the time I was done I wasn't interested in $50,000 transactions. I didn't do anything that was all that large but I did a couple of three hundreds. I did two $500,000 transactions. And the thing about those transactions is I put that money together in a few days and it wasn't coming out of my bank account. So I had people that believed in what I was doing and I could literally pick up a fund and say hey I've got this opportunity and they would say I'm in. Joe: For those that are listening that have portfolio folks that might do that but for those folks that are investing that haven't ever done it before are they getting equity or are they getting return on investment and how quickly do you start paying them back? Brad: Yes. So the way that I was kind of pitched it I didn't have anybody that I was connected to that was like used to investing in tech … so I'm talking about people that have some extra income or extra savings but they're not people that were like highly technical. So, my parents, you know the first people I went to were my parents and I said “Hey would you guys want to invest a little bit of your money into an idea?” And they said, “Sure, what's the terms?” Well, my terms were terrible for me in my opinion. I said well if you'll put up the money I'll give you 50%. That's where I started. Joe: Oh. Brad: And I talked to someone yesterday he said that that was absolutely ridiculous. They are like you gave them 50%? I was like well I didn't have … I wasn't going to be able to buy it [inaudible 00:22:40.7]. Joe: They could praise you so that … you know they ultimately lost money on the flunk transaction called Brad Wayland. Brad: Still that's true. There are some things in our past, there's some car situations and things like that but it definitely cost them some money and a hard day. But I started with them and … but I became concerned also about … oh wait a second, they're willing to put a lot into this after we started going. They're willing to put more into this and I started thinking I don't really want to be responsible for my own livelihood and know that I could potentially tank theirs. Joe: Right. Brad: So I started to get kind of concerned about that. And they didn't have unlimited funds anyway. But around that time I started looking to partner with other folks and I partnered with some people that I didn't know as well as my parents. So people that had told me like hey I want to get in and my relative over here is willing to invest in me. So I did that kind of deal and I became pretty uncomfortable with those pretty quick. And the reason why is because when you're working with your parents or if you're working with a close friend you kind of know we're not going to end up in a courtroom somewhere. Joe: Right. Brad: You know that that's not going to happen. You know now you could ruin your relationship or you could have that little mark on your relationship where you're like well remember that time when I lost like $400,000 of your money? Sorry about that. You know like that's not a good situation. But I started getting uncomfortable with having partners at all in the space when I took on partners I didn't know. Joe: So how did you determine … you know once you've got beyond that experimental stage and your relatives and friends of relatives and giving them too much, what would you recommend to somebody that's listening that wants to build a portfolio of sites? Is getting money from people are not used to investing? What would you say? Look if I were to do it all over again with what I know I'd probably offer them X, Y, Z, and pay them how often? Can you summarize what you know? Brad: Yeah. So if I could do it all over again I probably would do it the same way. I understand that giving up 50% sounds like … I don't know if that sounds like a lot or not. One guy I talked to yesterday said yeah it sounds like a lot. It probably was a lot. They weren't doing anything. And I was … you asked a minute ago were they getting paid? If I took a check they got a check. And I was looking for cash flow because I wanted to build up and be able to go buy more and do things. So I wanted to realize real gains and kind of do something with them. So I would give a lot early but I would structure the agreements to where you control the situation. And that is one thing I did. I just … when you have all the knowledge and the other side doesn't really have an opinion, they're like hey I don't know really know what you're doing with the money over there. I just know that you're operating these websites out here and you're making us money. When you have that kind of arrangement those people are more willing to say well you tell us what the investment is going to look like? And so from my perspective I kind of went down the road of just saying look I want to … I still want to pay you your money but I don't want to have partners any more for various reasons. Like I want to structure this in such a way that makes sure that you get your return but also make sure that I benefit from it in the way that I think I should long term. And so I'd like to roll out … basically, I bought them out. I just came up with a structure and said this is how I would value the properties and I can [inaudible 00:25:59.2] the properties to pay this off. And so I rolled everything out into basically a Seller Finance note and I was able to get it done in 20, 30 days. As opposed to an SBA loan or trying to go out and raise … when you do a situation like that where people are giving you their cash and you're dealing with multiple investors, if you are able to call the shots then when you're ready for that change you can do it very quickly and efficiently. Joe: How many different investors did you have at that time where you had to get them out? Brad: So I only had really three people that had invested at that time but at the same time I was looking to buy more. So when I rolled it out into a loan I actually brought on three new investors but I brought them on as just debt. Joe: Got you, okay then you paid them a higher than normal interest rate. Brad: I did. So it depends on who it was but my interest rates were 6 to 9% on the deals that I did. Joe: Okay. Brad: So it just depends on who it was. And I never really nickeled and dimed people over the interest rate, I try to find people that I thought would be able, that would trust that I would do the right thing with the money and [inaudible 00:27:07.6] plus trying to get the exact interest rate. Joe: Let's talk about for those listening thinking about rolling up different properties into a portfolio. Let's talk about multiples and returns on investment. You know we talk all the time about a business that's doing 100,000 that's five years old with one employee is worth a certain multiple but an equal business with one employee and work load that same age that's doing a million in discretionary earnings not only is it worth 10 times more in terms of numbers but it's also that multiple goes up right? So instead of two and a half to three and a half times in terms of value, the multiple because of the size and breadth of the business that multiple might jump to four or five times. Did you find the same thing to be true when you rolled up essentially 30 small content sites, 30 small blogs into one portfolio and sold off to a private equity firm where they pay a much larger multiple? Brad: Yeah okay. So … just so you know the private equity firm that I sold it out to I sold it at four and a half multiple. So just to kind of … that was a high multiple, I was very pleased with the transaction. Joe: Okay. Brad: So in my sale, I definitely saw an increased multiple. Okay, so from my perspective I did transactions that were … I did a lot of them in the 50,000 range and then as I got further down the road I did a lot of 125, 300, a couple of 500s. And here's what I found from my perspective, the properties in the … at least in the web design blog space that we're selling for more were higher quality properties. So where we deal with every day like we're talking to someone who's selling on Amazon, we could find someone who's selling on Amazon that's doing $50,000 a year in discretionary earnings, it's got … doing everything but they're in a small category. Whereas you could find someone who's doing a million dollars in discretionary earnings that's doing everything perfect as well but they're in a broader category. So we would see that where it's like hey they're both doing great they're … you know but they just happen to make less. In the design blog space, it wasn't so much like that. It was like if you're doing great then you are bigger and you are earning more. And so they did command higher multiples. I don't know off the top of my head I know one of my 500,000 transactions was a two and a half multiple and … but I know that one of my $300,000 transactions was a three point maybe one or two. Joe: And you talked about when you purchased it. Brad: When I purchased; yeah. So [inaudible 00:29:46.2] a lot of that. Joe: When you sold it was all lumped together and one multiple was applied. They didn't look at the individual blogs and sites and say we'll give you this for that and this for the other one, it was all- Brad: Right and the and the private equity plays … I mean I'm sure that you've talked to people just like I have, the private equity world is … we're seeing some changes I think in the industry right now with private equity. I think there's kind of two things going on. One is private equity is scooping up a lot of sides, stripping out all of the cost out of them, and literally just let them die and because the return on the money is good even then. That's one thing that I've seen private equity doing and that's what happened with mine. It killed them off. I mean there's no way. Joe: It killed them off. Brad: Yeah but having said that, that company that bought it is thriving. So I think through the acquisition they learned some things about what they wanted to do and what they were good at. So I don't know that they would look at it as a failure because I think that if they were able to use the information to then go and build a much bigger company that's doing some pretty big things. On the other hand, I had mentioned the other way that private equity is going like we just had a transaction that closed this week that I … where you've got an operational group that is under private equity. So we see the private equity guys a lot of times, they're like hey we want five million on EBITDA. Well, we don't have a lot of sites that come our way that have got these big seller discretionary numbers. So what I think is happening in the industry right now is there are these operational groups that are saying hey we'll go deal with 10 or 15 of these things, we'll still get you your … whatever you're looking for, several million dollars in sellers discretionary earnings but we'll operate all these things underneath you and kind of keep them running. And I do think that they'll like hold on to the content and just let it die. I think that Google especially is fighting against that right now specifically. I think their Freshness algorithm has kind of taken over and kind of prevented people from being able to do that effectively. And so I don't think that strategy is advised or a good idea and I think it will go away completely. Joe: You mean in the algorithm updates or having those sites die off a lot faster if you're not doing anything? Brad: They do. They just … they track what you're doing and I've even done some experiments. So I analyzed it on a small content portfolio and I have a marketing firm that runs those forming. They basically do all the content and everything. And we have experimented and seen Google Freshness is a very real algorithm that if you fall asleep on a blog or something that has any kind of time sensitivity at all then you will pay the price and it doesn't take very long. Joe: Got you. So for anybody listening that thinks that Quiet Light is only a physical products e-commerce brokerage firm, Brad is obviously showing us that the experience that we have is pretty vast. Jason's been in the affiliate space. We've all done SaaS, affiliate, content, advertising, physical products, but Brad obviously I think probably the bulk of transactions that you've closed so far with Quiet Light as an advisor you had been in the physical product space. But you've got a tremendous amount of experience in content as well correct? Brad: Yeah but to me, the content is hard to come by. I don't know if you feel that way or not but I don't get them a lot. I did a transaction last month for a guy that I actually had bought three websites from in my buying days. And it was a really interesting dynamic because I was able to … when the buyer has been on the phone and saying can I trust this guy? I was able to say you know what I did three deals with him myself and I can tell you it went exactly like this [inaudible 00:33:21.0]. So that was kind of a neat thing. But you know he came to me and said hey I want to sell a content site and he was monetizing it through digital downloads, and not a big transaction, a couple of hundred thousand dollar transaction. And you know he said what should I expect? And I said you know what the content is pretty hot, we don't get tons and tons of content people trying to sell these days. People want to hold onto it because it's very low workload and it's very high earnings for what people are doing and they seem to be getting very good multiples for it. So we priced it out at a 3.25 multiple and we got about 96% or something of the asked within 72 hours, I think you sent me an e-mail and said both your listings this week are going to be under a lot. By the weekend you are right one was 48 hours, one was 72 hours that transaction was closed in three weeks start to finish. Joe: Yeah content is easier to do due diligence on as well. I just had a content site closed. What is … we're recording on I think Wednesday right? Brad: Yeah. Joe: So 10 days ago. Less than 10 days ago I had one sell and it's interesting I'll give you the details of it. Daily updates, hundreds of thousands of visitors to it and Google was rewarding it like crazy because of the vast amount of new content on a daily basis. And the revenue took off like a rocket. It was just under a nine million dollar transaction and a very very high multiple. Higher than yours but it was explosive growth. It was very big. A lot of … their discretionary earnings is obviously very high. So the bigger the discretionary earnings, perk of the growth that you've got there the higher the multiple as well. So content sites if you're out there listening and you've got a portfolio of them or you're an individual person running one and you think that you're hearing things that are not worth all that much, truth of the matter is that we saw lots. And there's lots of good buyers for them. Brad: And I think that's your point, you asked the question earlier. Are we seeing the multiples go up the same way? And I think across the board you just have a supply and demand issue when you get into larger sites. There's just not a lot of them available and we're seeing that our buyers are ready to go on larger transactions. You just don't get as many large transactions to come by. And the example that you gave, I'm pretty sure you had competing offers on that deal. Joe: I did. I had three offers and they kept … they update each other and grew it up. Bryan- Brad: Three offers on a nine million dollar property, that's something. Joe: Yeah. Bryan's got the physical products business; its nutritional supplements. It was listed at 15 million and is under contract at higher than that because there were multiple offers on it. So don't be afraid. I hear people tell me look I think I should sell before it gets too big because there's not going to be as many buyers out there. That's not what I'm finding. It's not the case. Would you agree that there's a ton of money out there for the right business? If it's a good quality business it's going to last. Brad: Well it will sound very counterproductive to what we're trying to do at Quiet Light but every week I talk to people on the phone and I just basically tell them if you've got the willingness to keep working on your business you should not sell. I mean you just shouldn't because you should grow it as big as you can. Because it's not easy to build a business that does what your business is doing. Whatever it is, anyone that we're talking to is having some level of success because they're talking about selling and they know they've got cash flow and things like that. And I just always tell them if you're done let's go. If you're ready to be done or you've got other plans or you want to travel or you want to do this or that or you want to … you've got a new venture that you're thinking about sure let's list it. Let's get it done. But if you've got the willingness to keep going then we're here when you're ready but honestly keep going. Go as far as you can take it. Joe: And Mark calls that reckless honesty because it's not necessarily in our best interest but it's what we all do. He did it for me when I sold back in 2010. The difference I'll tell you now for those that are thinking they're emotionally tired and done really you've got to sort of tap yourself in the chest and say do I have the heart? Brad: Yeah. Joe: Because the worst conversations I've had are when I say look, you want X value, your business realistically is only worth Y. If you hang on another 12 months and you reinvest your energies, you set some goals, you get that traffic back up, and you get that revenue going again at a higher level you'll get Y but it's going to take 12 months. The worst conversations I have are when they come back to me in 12 months and say you know I didn't do any of it. The revenue has gone down 20%, can I still get the X you talked about? And the answer is no because they didn't have the heart. Those were the worst conversations. Brad: Right. Joe: So always, I tell people tap in my chest if you've got a heart do it. But like you say, if you're emotionally done; if you're ready we're ready. I think some people … I've been doing this six years as you know and occasionally we tell people look it's in your best interest to hold off. Sometimes they'll interpret that as we don't want to list their business. That's not the case at all. Brad: Yeah not. Joe: When they're ready, we will do it. We'll get that buyer. And just from the few examples that we've talked about, there are buyers and situations where we get it under contract very very quickly. Listen Brad we are running short on time you shared a lot of information here that I think will give people good insight into you into building a portfolio of either content businesses or any businesses the way that they can sort of piece it together the way you did and then exiting which is fantastic. I do want to talk about one thing briefly though. Personal in nature if you don't mind, can we? I won't go too far I promise but say yes. Brad: Yes. Joe: Okay. So I understand you went hiking in North Carolina recently and they're renaming a mountain after you. Brad: Yeah. Joe: Do you … what happened there? Brad: Well my wife and I have five boys from range two to 11. So we're pretty busy living life. And for our 16th anniversary, we decided to go to Asheville North Carolina, leave the kids at home. My parents came to town to take care of them and we went to Catawba Falls … which you can Google it. There has been many fatal accidents there. In fact, there's been a fatal accident there since I left. Pisgah National Forest has many accidents from what I've come to learn. But we were hiking up a trail at Catawba Falls and then we entered a closed section of the trail. I didn't know it was a ropes kind of situation so we're climbing up ropes and going up a rocky kind of cliff. Joe: Let me just clarify for the attorneys out there that's thinking they can help you. You entered a closed section of the trail; closed. Brad: I didn't know. Here's the thing, I've got some lawyer friends that have reached out to me about it and here's the other thing the Pisgah National Forest is owned by the US government. So if you decide that you want to sue them just know that the US government does not take lawsuits kindly. And they take zero liability. So I had friends reach out to me and say you need to pursue this and then I was like I was in the Pisgah National Forest and they're like no, that's not going to work. You're going to lose that. But basically, it depends on the state. North Carolina does not have very friendly laws for stuff like that anyway. It's one of the least friendly states for that. But I hiked up, I saw a beautiful waterfall … actually and filmed in the movie The Hunger Games and that's why we wanted to go up and see it. So we went up there, saw the waterfall, we needed to kind of get a move on it because we had hiked a lot longer than we had expected so we're moving very quickly on the way down. Joe: You and your wife and kids or just you and your wife? Brad: No just me and my wife. The kids were at home. I vacated the ropes for a minute, I don't … I saw a path; it seemed like a reasonable thing to do. It was only going to be like 10 ft. and honestly I don't remember anything after that. I fell 40 ft. down a very rocky slope and I don't remember anything until the paramedics and the firemen were there. They tried to life like me up they couldn't do it. And I broke my arm, dislocated my shoulder, collapsed my lung, I had deep bruises and things like that. I did not have a concussion surprisingly. Joe: You got to thank God. Brad: Three and a half hours to get … yeah, I did. It took them to three and a half hours to get me out in to the hospital. Joe: Wow. Brad: And anyway thank God it was just a lucky situation, very scary for my wife. She was talking to me for a long time without me really knowing what was going on. For 45 minutes she thought she's lost his mind. Joe: Well the first thing I think we all did a Quiet Light was you know thankfully you're okay and we were doing little prayers for you and all that stuff. And then we start like man that guy is just not so bright going on the closed trails. For everybody listening, if anybody is foolish enough to do what Brad did, we bought him the inflatable … what do they call it, the inflatable? Brad: They're like these big bubbles that you get inside with your family. Joe: We bought Brad a bunch of those and I started a petition here in North Carolina to change Catawba Falls to Wayland Falls but nobody listened. Nobody listened at all. Brad: Unfortunately. Joe: I've been there and next time I go again I'm not going on the closed trails I don't think but. Brad: You may not know where the closed trails are. I didn't know it was closed. Joe: Okay. I've been there because I know that it was like oh look that's where the Hunger Games was filmed. Brad: Yeah. Joe: I'm going to bring a sign and I'm going to drop it in there. I'm going to take a sledge hammer and put it in the ground call and Catawba Falls and take a picture for you. Brad: Yeah. Joe: See if anybody takes it out. It could be there for- Brad: It was a crazy accident and I'm thankful for all the support I got. From Quiet Light, from friends of family, it was a … I recovered very quickly. I've got a pretty gnarly scar right here that is still … I'm hoping it's going to turn the color of my skin is it looks like I got really depressed or something. Joe: He's holding up his wrist ladies and gentlemen and it looks like he decided to take his own. Brad: Tried … that's what it looks like. Joe: Is there a pin in there now? Brad: Yeah there's a play and about a dozen screws in that arm but I've got full mobility back. I'm free of therapy. I can't do pushups yet but I'm getting closer. Joe: And you did it all while we started at Quiet Light and you had listings and not a single client really knew what was going on and they … I mean it's because you worked anyway which is amazing so that's awesome. Well again Catawba Falls, I'm going to try to get it changed to Wayland Falls but let's see if that happens or not. Brad: Good luck with that. Joe: Brad, thank you. I learned a lot. Brad: Thank you. Joe: I learned a lot about you and I appreciate your time. Hopefully, everybody here has did as well and we'll keep doing what we did here at Quiet Light. Thanks, man. Brad: Okay thanks a lot for having me on. Links: Brad's LinkedIn Profile brad@quietlightbrokerage.com About Brad Wayland on QLB

Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: And I am Joe Fontenot. Gary: And we're the host of Answering The Call podcast. Joe: And this is the podcast where we talk to people are answering God's call. Today, I talk with Shaun Grunblatt. Gary: He discusses a process of overcoming shame in the past. Joe: And, here it is. Joe: Shaun, you have an unusual past, but today you are doing your PhD. What are you doing your PhD in? Shaun Grunblatt:New Testament in Greek. Joe: Okay. So, what does that mean? Shaun: Well, I'm studying many of the critical issues in New Testament foundationally, including the languages, language that it's written in, and preparing for a future of hopefully teaching, or continuing to teach because I have been teaching ever since I finished my Master's degree. Joe: Okay, and so a lot of people here at the seminary, this is not an unusual story, right? We have a lot of people, they're doing this exact thing. A lot of people come from a pretty normal background, but not you. So, you did a podcast interview with Davy Aiken whose podcast we will put in the show notes. People can listen to your full story there. I listened to it and I thought it was pretty amazing because you were a drug dealer, like for real-real. You had a very big tragedy where your first wife was actually murdered, and you seriously considered taking active revenge on her death. That is not a normal pre-PhD story. And so how did you get here? Shaun: That's a- Joe: I mean I know that's a big question, but like ... you know ... Let me back up. How did you realize that maybe that was not the life for you? Shaun: Well, that's an interesting story. It really kind of develops over a great deal of time. A lot of that comes in to my understanding about my relationship with God. Throughout my life I grew up really kind of believing I had a relationship with God because of my Catholic upbringing. Went to Catholic school, nominally associated. You know I prayed and read scripture, and was what I like to refer to as sympathetic towards God. I wouldn't oppose God to his face and I had positive warm feelings about him, I just wasn't submitted to his Lordship. Shaun: But in the midst of the tragedies that you can hear about in my testimony which you referenced, they sound impactful when I hear someone else reading them back to me- Joe: That's very impactful, let me just let you know. Shaun: When I hear it told back to me, I'm like, "Wow, that sounds pretty intense." But in the midst of all of that, there are periods where I began to seek God and I really felt God working in my life long before I had fully submitted to him, and long before I believed that my relationship became what it is now. But in the midst of, really in my brokenness and seeking the Lord, trying to reestablish my family, get back custody of my children, the difficulties that I was facing in that, facing criminal charges, I finally reached a point of complete brokenness, utter hopelessness to where really I had considered ending my life. Shaun: My stepfather, Tony Vespo, had been to a place called The Home of Grace, and it really changed his life. It was a faith based treatment center out of Vancleave, Mississippi. I went to the Home of Grace. Joe: How old were you then? Shaun: How old was I then? I believe I was 27. Joe: Had your wife already passed away? Shaun: Yeah, this is after she has died. This is after, I picked up, I wanna say my fifth felony charge. Joe: Fifth felony. Shaun: I was facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison. Joe: And you're only 27? Shaun: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And so I'd lost my wife, I had lost my children, and I was looking at losing my freedom. I really didn't have a whole lot of reasons left to live. Really, my children were the thing that kept me going because they had lost their mother, and I felt like any way in which I might give up on them ... by killing myself, or doing anything else, leaving the country, that was my other thought or option ... would be abandoning them and that was just unacceptable. Shaun: Really in all of that brokenness, I went to the Home of Grace and heard the Gospel in a way that I had never heard it before. It was revealed to me that God had purpose for my life, and that all the shameful things that I had embraced, the darkness of my life, no longer had to be a shame, it could be a glory to God because he could forgive and use even someone like me, and turn all of that around so that my life could be a reflection of his grace and love and glory. Shaun: So I began to live with that purpose. I heard the Gospel in a new way there. I confessed my sin and just asked the Lord to save me. Joe: Do you think that's the point when you became a believer? Shaun: I believe that that's the point when God changed my life, transformed my life. You know the word believer could probably be applied in a lot of different ways, it's kind of generic. But it's the point at which my life changed, and it changed the way I saw the world. Joe: So what happened from there? What was year 28 like? Shaun: I got out of the Home of Grace and every temptation was there. One of my very good friends, who I'd actually been arrested with on that last event, he died about three days I got out of the Home of Grace. His name was Michael Turner, Tomato, as we called him, and he was very, very close to me. He had spent the week with me, among several other of my close friends, searching for my wife when she was missing, and really someone who had been there for me quite a bit. When he died, many of my friends got together and we spent time together. And so I'd just come out of rehab, and I'm around my friends who are still heavily involved in drugs and that lifestyle, and really I'm at a crossroads of do I share Christ with my friends and continue in the life that he's prepared for me, or do I, in my pain, just slink back into my old lifestyle? I know my mother for one was very concerned about that time period. Joe: Was she a believer or was she a- Shaun: Yeah she had become a believer before I had. Not originally when ... My parents were divorced when I was young and subsequent to that I lived with my father for many years. Subsequent to that she became a believer. Anyway, as I got out of the Home of Grace and really began to face the world and the struggles, and come to the realization that even though God has forgiven me, maybe not everyone else has. In hindsight, my observation for a long time has been that it took me, I wanna say almost five years, to get back to zero. Many people, you know just a normal person who hasn't destroyed their life, they can build upon their life and make progress. But what I had to do was number one, assure myself of my freedom, or get to a position where I knew that I could be free. I had to get my children back. I had thousands of dollars- Joe: Free like legally or free like spiritually? Shaun: Free legally. That's something that I believe the Lord helped to provide for me while I was in the Home of Grace, he set me free. But I had other freedom issues that I was facing. So while other people may have been able to make many progresses in their life, I had to climb uphill to get to zero. I had to climb uphill to get to a point where I didn't owe thousands of dollars in court fines, where I wasn't expecting to go to prion, possibly for the best part of my life, where I could spend time with my children, and where I could work towards a career. Do any of the normal basic things: to be able to pay bills, provide for yourself, and have the basic necessities of life. That was a tremendous struggle for someone who was in a position that I was in. Joe: Did you ... you said that took like five years, did you ever- Shaun: At least. Joe: At least think about quitting? I mean what was that like? Shaun: Well, for someone like myself, I was a teenager when I started selling drugs- Joe: How old? Shaun: I guess 16 or 17. I think 16. To go to a point of ... to go from, at one point I had made such an amount of money that I had a money counting machine ... to working for minimum wage- Joe: You were like Scarface. Shaun: Not quite. But I made ... The point I'm trying to illustrate is that I made a huge amount of money. More money than I've made since then, working, I would make in a month. And so the challenge of transitioning from that kind of a lifestyle into a lifestyle where someone else gets to tell me what to do for minimum wage, or anything near minimum wage, was severely humbling and a much slower rate of progress. When I knew that the thousands of dollars of debt that I had, the issues that I had, there is another way to try to accomplish those goals that is a much shorter track. That's a small illustration of so many spiritual temptations and struggles that you'd face climbing out of something like that. Shaun: The relational hurdles converting from a lifestyle in which you are preserving your sex life for marriage, and the kind of investment that goes into something like that. The financial issues, the social friends ... I'm gonna be honest with you, it's hard to build intimate close relationships with people in the church world in the same way than- Joe: Why do you think- Shaun: -Than it was in the world that I came from. And the reason why, is because people don't have anything to lose relationally. You know, some of the challenges- Joe: That's very interesting. Shaun: -That we face in the church is people have to keep up a certain appearance. But they also have jobs and families, and time constraints and responsibilities. I lived in a world where most of the people had very few responsibilities that were in my circle. A lot of free time to be together, and we had to have a really high level of trust for one another to be able to engage in the activities that we're involved in. So it was a hard circle of friends to get into, but once you were in it, there was a deep level of intimacy. Joe: Do you ever miss it? Shaun: Do I ever miss what? Joe: Any of it? Shaun: The world? I miss the closeness. Joe: You made more in a month than you've ever made dollars wise since then. Shaun: I don't miss the friends. Joe: You had the money ... Shaun: I don't miss the money. I still have relationships with many of the people, the ones who are still alive. I've lost many of my friends. Heroin has killed several, drugs, other drug related complicated things have led many of my friends to die. But no, I mean the money, the anxiety, the struggles, the looking over your shoulder ... that world I don't miss. You don't need a lot of money to be happy. It doesn't hurt to be able to do things, but no, I don't miss any of that. I mean the people I miss them. Often many drug addicts can be, besides what the drugs do to their lives, can be amazing and really wonderful special people. Joe: You said something earlier, you were talking about just kind of the depth and the level to which you were in that life. And then we kind of live in this world today where there's this perfect expectation. Shaun: You mean in the church? Joe: In the church, right or wrong, it's what it is. Do you ever get kind of afraid talking about what you used to do, in front of this church world? Shaun: Only initially for me. I had family problems growing up and always wanted approval from my dad, or male approval, that kind of thing, insecurities. When I felt the call to ministry, which was fairly in the Home of Grace basically, I knew that God had a purpose for me to serve him in a lot of different ways. Really a big challenge for me was to speak publicly. I mean many people are afraid of public speaking. They say statistically more people are afraid of dying ... public speaking more than dying ... not afraid of dying. And that was a big challenge for me, but mainly because I was afraid of saying something stupid or not gaining approval of the men of the church or the people of the church. Joe: Did any of that ever happen? Did you ever get up in front of people and say something stupid? Shaun: Oh I'm sure I've said many things that are stupid. I probably still do. But that's okay, there's nothing wrong with ... I realize now that I don't have to be perfect and there's nothing wrong with making mistakes. We all do, and if we don't, then maybe we should look into something about what's going on with that person. No, but what I really wanted to say about that was this, that one of the biggest challenges for me was when my pastor asked me to share my testimony. I spent a lot of time illustrating and trying to condense what I'd been through, and what God's done in my life, and it was a huge hurdle and I was just obsessing over it. Shaun: But it was such a powerful and a freeing thing, because as I shared what I had been through and what God had done in my life, how he'd taken my shame and used it for his glory, so many people afterwards and people that I had not expected, and especially some of the people that I was afraid that ... Basically this was a disarming of the devil, because he had told me the voices that I was hearing that were telling me not to share was because of shame. It was because it's this kind of voice where, "Oh they're gonna know." But that was something that haunted me because I was very different. In the little church I was at during the time I was in Ponchatoula, I had been a big drug dealer in the city, and I traveled around a lot, and my lifestyle was very different than a small southern Baptist church kind of a lifestyle. Shaun: You know, fitting in is a little bit different anyway, and wondering what people thought about me, what they knew about my background, if they found out about it how would they treat me, how would they look at me, would I continue to be accepted. And I was working in youth ministry at the time as an interim, or with the youth minister later on and became the interim there. So you're always wondering sometimes in that environment what people think about you, and you know, the things people say about gossip and all of those things that go along with that, that we know sometimes does go on. Being able to share what God had done in my life, and who I had been but God saved me anyway, completely disarmed the devil of all the power to shut me down and to fear what people thought about me, because when I revealed those things not only did it take away his ability to say, "What if they find out," because I told them, they don't have to hear rumors about it or be uncertain about some of those things. Shaun: It glorified God and so many people came to me afterwards that I never would have expected who had been through, not exactly what I had been through, but they struggled with addiction. You know, their brother died from addiction, or close family members. Every part of our society is being touched by addiction right now. I mean it doesn't observe class, or any other kind of boundary that we'd like to place around it. It doesn't matter what neighborhood you're from, or what family you're from, or any of those things. So many people were encouraged and were touched by what I shared, and came, so it was such a blessing to do what I was so afraid to do, and what I felt so bound to do. And it was exactly what I felt called to do. Joe: Tell your story. Shaun: To tell my story, to reveal the love of God even in my shame. And it's my shame that was trying to stop me from sharing that. Joe: Does the shame ever come back? Shaun: No. I wouldn't say that. You know there are different factors I think that may come into play. Sometimes when you overcome one test, there are others around the corner that you may face. For me I think after that it was ... Well, coming here to the seminary. I remember my first day at orientation when I was at Leavell College, really sitting in the chapel before orientation and just feeling like I didn't belong. Feeling like ... and it was similar feelings that I felt into the church, but I wasn't like all these people. Shaun: Kind of like some of the things that you said when you introduced me, you know my story was different so I felt that. I felt like I was not like anyone else, and I felt like I didn't belong, and I felt like well they're gonna find out that I don't belong. I'm not like them. I haven't been ... I wasn't churched, is one of the words that I've learned that we like to use now. And you see that. You see people who are unchurched and they come from a different culture. And sometimes we don't understand them that. Shaun: I had come from a different culture and it made me afraid because I didn't think I would be accepted, and maybe there was fears that although I had a very strong sense of calling, I was under attack. I really truly believe I was under attack and I wanted to flee, but I didn't, and it's been great. A lot of my experiences through Leavell College really affirmed what I was here and doing. Dr. Strong is the dean of Leavell College and he was a mentor of mine, and still is in many ways. We don't get to spend as much time together, but I remember after taking class on Acts with him and really, really working hard on it, and running into him in the bookstore. And really never knowing, this is a couple ... a year or two in my time here ... still wondering about whether or not I belong, is my work good enough, am I at the bottom. Kind of just insecurities or however you might define that. Shaun: I remember him seeing me in the bookstore, and just giving me a word of encouragement. He's got a true Barnabas soul. And he thanked me for the hard work that I'd done and how well I'd done on the final. That was just meaningful and it was the right word at the right time. Joe: Kind of like a father figure stepping in and validating you in a lot of ways. Shaun: Absolutely. All that I had feared that I would never receive in a complete and different culture and environment, and something I really always wanted, you know, as a child. Joe: One last question Shaun. In some sense we all come from where you came from. Yours is much more extreme. But we are all enemies of God. We're all on a path of being reconciled to God. What would you give the advice to a person who is a younger you coming into an active life of following Jesus, but they're dealing with shame. They're dealing with a background that they're not proud of. What would you tell them? Shaun: Well first I'd tell you, you're not alone. As you come and as you share your story, which you should, because God has done something great. Not different than what he does. Just like you said, every one of our testimonies is a miracle, whether or not you were facing prison and had done horrendous things, or you grew up in the church with a great family. I believe that your coming to faith is miraculous and an important story. But if you come from a background that's like mine, share your story. You'll find that there are a lot of other people who are like you, and you'll find that even the shameful things that you did and your differences can be your strengths. Can be the things that will be of value to your ministry, an asset to what you can do in the kingdom of God, and really bring value to the church. Shaun: Because you'll have a perspective and experiences and the ability to reach people who others can't. We can all love people who are very different than ourselves, but we can't always connect in the same ways that other people can in a more deep way, and a way that says, "I know that struggle." Each of us, it doesn't matter whether it's something strange, but for other people, there's other people that maybe come from a completely better opposite background than mine, other people can connect with them better than I can. Some things are easier to relate to if you've been through them. Shaun: So I just wanna encourage you if that's been your ... if your background is anything at all like mine, drugs, brokenness, loss, death, a different kind of a culture than the church ... outside of the church wondering, "I'm not like these people. They're all special, they're all holy." All those kinds of things and insecurities. Those are not things that should inhibit you from fulfilling what God has you called for. In fact, they may be the keys to helping you do that well. Joe: Thanks Shaun. Thanks for coming on the podcast with us today. Thanks for telling us your story. Shaun: Thank you for having me. Gary Myers: Hey, it's Gary and Joe here again. Would you do us a favor? If you liked this podcast, go to iTunes and leave us a review. This would mean the world to us. Thanks.

Two years ago, Brett Curry from OMG Commerce would not have recommended advertising on YouTube. But today, he sees it the way we now look back at Facebook. When cost was cheap and the audiences were huge. YouTube gets a billion views a day, a billion! Brett's company knows all about advertising on paid channels…be it Amazon or the multitude of Google channels. Recently Brett has seen opportunities on YouTube that allow his clients to advertise on a fixed cost per acquisition basis (my favorite)! In this podcast shares what he finds works and what does not. No need to hire his firm…if you want to learn how to do it yourself, good news! He's created a course with Ezra Firestone. See the show notes. Episode Highlights: YouTube has always been a great content platform. How recent ad types make YouTube much easier to monetize. Youtube is used as a product search engine more than people realize. Viewers (and now shoppers) on YouTube are actively doing something, these new campaigns can target people based on that activity. Nothing sells like video if it's done right. Brett explains the pre-roll and true view options. The key tips on how ecommerce business owners can approach the daunting task of video ad producing that can be profitable. Some companies use agencies and others are hiring full time video people in house. Search behaviors are different on YouTube than on google. The integration of the platforms allows for hitting more people in order to make more money. Why Youtube is an invaluable re-marketing platform. If you give Youtube the right audiences to go after and you and you have a video that's powerful, over the time the machine will start hitting that CPA target. These platforms can successfully follow the journey of the buyer. The importance of getting all the campaigns working together and connected. Transcription: Mark: The world of search engines has changed significantly since about 10 years ago right? Google has been the king for a long time. I believe they started around 1997, 1998 and they've dominated and kind of set the tone for what we think a search engine is supposed to be. But in today's world, if you're in e-commerce or if you're in online business in any way you have to think about different avenues for search. For example, Amazon is the number one search engine for products at this point. But the number two search engine in the world is also owned by Google and that's YouTube. For a lot of us especially those who have been in the online world for a long time we sometimes just think narrowly about Google because that's what we've always done. But there's a lot of other opportunities where people are actually searching and have that direct intent and that's going to be YouTube as one of these things that we need to look at. And Joe I guess you talked to somebody who's really been focusing on YouTube as an advertising channel to be able to acquire customers for a business and he gave you some insights into how to use this channel more effectively. Joe: Yeah I spoke to Brett Curry from OMG Commerce. I saw him do a presentation specifically on monetizing through YouTube. I guess the best way to explain this is once upon a time on radio I had a campaign, a niche model called Per Inquiry. And we would pay the radio station per inquiry that converted to an actual customer. It's cost per acquisition that we call it now. YouTube has that opportunity now. So Brett really honed in on advertising physical product companies and doing it cost per acquisition … I'm stumbling like crazy here folks sorry, cost per acquisition on YouTube. It's not something we think of out of the gate when we think of YouTube because we're just watching the latest sports, concert, whatever it might be but people are starting to really use YouTube for searching for products and then clicking that link and converting. There are video opportunities where you only pay if someone watches the entire 30 seconds. That's something else we talked about but the one that excites me the most is the cost per acquisition model when he gets into that detail. Mark: Now I think video is something that all of us need to start opening our eyes to. I think there's just tons of opportunity when it comes to video. And you know fortunately, I think it's a little bit intimidating for most of us. And I say fortunately because if you can get over that intimidation if you can get over some of the worry about “man this is actually pretty expensive to produce” there is a world of opportunity out there if you can start getting it. So I'm excited to listen to this because I've really only just toyed a little bit with YouTube advertising. I haven't actually gotten in and tried to understand it fully so this would be a good primer. Joe: Yeah it's great. And don't fear the production costs folks because some of the best converting videos according to Brett are the ones that are actually customer produced. So consider that in terms of presenting to on YouTube. That's it, I'm done talking. Let's go see what Brett has to say. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley with Quiet Light Brokerage and today I have Brett Curry from OMG Commerce with me on the line. How are you Brett? Brett: I am doing fantastic Joe thanks for having me on the show. I'm excited to be here. Joe: You're also a podcaster too right? You've got a podcast what is the- Brett: Yeah. I love podcasting and usually I'm the one firing off the questions and listening. Honestly, I think listening is the harder job of the two here. So I'm looking for just to talking up a storm here talking about YouTube. Joe: Awesome. Well, I want to talk about a whole bunch of things because I think we met at the … for the folks that don't know we met at the Blue Ribbon Mastermind Conference in Denver. It's part of … I'm going to get that chain of events here wrong probably, it's part of the Smart Marketer Group, right? You guys … how long have you been part of that group with Ezra? Brett: Yeah. So I met Ezra Firestone at a Traffic and Conversion Summit event like six years ago. It was in San Francisco. It's a long time ago. I met Ezra there. He was just launching his Mastermind Group called Blue Ribbon and I thought to myself this is a dude that I need to know. And so we kind of striked up a conversation, I joined the mastermind group, the rest is history. So I think that was I think years ago believe it or not. Joe: And I've been going to mastermind Groups and we talk about them here on the podcast whether it's Rhodium Weekend or eCommerceFuel things of that nature. Blue Ribbon right up there for those listening if you can … if your business is big enough and you've got the revenue reach out. Find Ezra somehow through Smart Marketer probably right? Brett: Yes smartmarketer.com you got to consider it. I'm a huge eCommerceFuel fan as well. Andrew Youderian is a friend of mine. I think they do a killer job but yeah those two are right up there man. If you're serious about e-commerce and growing check out both of those and you're welcome Ezra and Andrew for the club. Joe: And for those listening if you're not in a Mastermind group or you're a buyer and you think how am I going to learn all this? It's through these mastermind groups. They didn't exist for me. I sold in 2010 as Ezra was saying I spoke to him on an earlier podcast. They really didn't exist when I started and now they're available for so many people to get so much more success I think than I had at the time. But listen I want to talk about OMG Commerce. I want to talk about you. You did a presentation at Blue Ribbon Mastermind on monetizing through YouTube and then kind of blew me away with the specifics of that and then all the other things that you do around that at your company. We want to talk about that. Can you give us … the people listening some background on yourself, on your company and how you started, what you do and then I want to jump into that. Brett: Yeah, absolutely. So right out of college in 2002 dating myself a little bit, I launched an agency; a small agency helping local businesses with TV, radio, and print; so kind of traditional old school media. I became a marketing junkie in college and I was introduced to Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham and some of those kind of marketing gurus. I fell in love with the psychology of marketing and I kind of fancied myself as a copywriter for a little bit. And so I launched this agency, I started doing SEO in 2004 and somewhat just clicked. No pun intended it just fit my personality. I liked it and so I kind of became and SEO nerd. But still thinking about copy and the conversion rate and things like that. And then moved into AdWords and then really things took off in 2012 when I got hooked on Google AdWords and kind of … really we started our agency OMG, my business partner Chris Brewer and I we started the agency in 2010. But 2012 we kind of got hooked on Google Shopping. I wrote The Ultimate Guide to Google Shopping after months and months of testing and perfecting things. Shopify published that and then that kind of helped ignite the agency. And so since then, I've been speaking at events like Traffic and Conversion Summit and Ezra's events in social media marketing world and internet retail and things like that. And so really the agency is built on driving traffic to e-commerce stores and primarily using Google Ads; so Google Search, the text ads, Google Shopping, Display Network, and more recently YouTube. I've always been a fan of You Tube. Recent ad types make it much easier to monetize and much easier to track and create measurable results. So I'm doing a lot with YouTube. And then kind of the other side of the business is Amazon. Helping companies with their Amazon ads as well and so … but I spend most of my time in the Google Ads ecosystem. Joe: Well I tell this story and I'm sorry for the podcasters that have to … listeners that hear me repeat this but you know I spent a lot of money on Google Ads and I didn't have any experience. I didn't have any training. And I think there are too many people out there doing that. They were like me. The problem is that I've discovered is that you try someone who claims to be an expert and in fact, they're not. And they take your budget and they blow it up and you cost per acquisition goes up and your profit goes down and you know this is six months before you want to sell and all of a sudden the value of your business goes down as well. When you get up and presented … I knew first and foremost because you are at Blue Ribbon you are going to be top notch. But then I dug deeper. I sat by Chris, we talked for a while and you talked specifically about YouTube and I know that you can't do that alone and that you've got to package everything else in there. But some of the things that you talked about were … and I'm going to let you dig into it and tell us about it, some specific fix targeted cost per acquisition and only paying if somebody views the full 30 seconds and a whole bunch of things that I don't think is out there for the average person that's doing all of the marketing channels themselves to figure out. So tell us about that a little bit. Brett: Yeah absolutely and I think I'll just … I'll set the stage really quickly if that's cool just talking about YouTube in general. And you know I've been a fan of YouTube forever. It's always been a great content platform. Everybody is on YouTube. A billion monthly users, average session duration is like 40 minutes which is longer though on Facebook. And the cool thing about YouTube is it's full of a lot of learn, do, and buy moments. So if I'm on YouTube I'm actively doing something. I'm looking for how to fix my lawnmower, how to fix my washing machine although I try to avoid that at all costs and just pay people. But if I'm at pinch go to Google or go to YouTube to learn how to do things or researching products. That's something that a lot of people don't know is that YouTube is used as a product search engine pretty frequently where people are looking for unboxing videos and demo videos and things like that. And so … or just you know how to, my kids use YouTube all the time from everything to how to play the piano to … my 16 year old son now is looking at how to pick up chicks which will it make you proud or worried I'm not sure. But yeah you can learn anything on YouTube right? So when someone's on YouTube they're actively engaged in what they're doing and so the beauty of that is you can target people based on what they're doing on YouTube. But then like you alluded to now there's these ad formats that just really make it powerful. And so it's kind of combination now of better targeting than ever before so we can make sure we're reaching the right person better than we ever have before on YouTube. Everybody is there but how do we get to the ideal person for a particular e-commerce business. And then how do we have like a bidding and ad format that people want to click on and want to take action on and we're paying a rate that makes sense. And so that's kind of the backdrop. But yeah, so you talked about only paying if someone engages. That's called YouTube TrueView and so for those that don't know that's the pre roll or before ad. So if you go to YouTube to watch a clip from The Office or something and then there's an ad that pops up before that or the place before that you've got five seconds until that magical Skip Ad button pops up. And so the way that works is if a user skips the ad before the 30 second mark or before the end of the ad whichever comes first then the advertiser doesn't pay. So you know I could watch 28.9 seconds of an ad, click skip and the advertiser doesn't pay a penny for that. And so … or someone has to click through to the sites. If they're watching and they think ooh this is cool I'm going to click on the ad and go to the site and then the advertiser is charged for that as well but really an awesome concept. You know I used to in the previous agency days, I did quite a bit of TV and it was my favorite medium pre … before I got really deep in online marketing just because the power of video right? Nothing sells like video if it's done right and so … but if you're running a TV spot you pay for the spot regardless of if people walk out of the room or change the channel or whatever. With TrueView you're only paying if someone watches or engages so it's pretty powerful. Joe: Well let's talk about … for the people that are listening and that have a physical product and let's say they're just doing Google AdWords and they wanted to reach out to you how did that … how does it start, how … to me the idea of producing video if that's something you've never done is kind of daunting. How do you try to approach that? Brett: Yeah it really is and so this is what separates YouTube from say Google Shopping or Google Search ads which are just the text ads. You know a text ad that you can create in about three minutes. Or if you did research it takes a little bit longer than that but it's really easy. Google Shopping, the ads are pretty easy. There's just data feed involved, there's product feed involved which can be a little bit tricky. But a video, man that's tougher. You got to hire a video crew potentially. You got to hire an actor or you've got to be comfortable on camera, whatever. Ultimately though you really can create a video even using an iPhone if you wanted to but my advice on the video itself is be straightforward first. So I think … because we've all grown up seeing ads we have all kinds of ideas of what works and what doesn't work. So we know the funny Super Bowl commercials that we like and so we think we need to recreate something along those lines right? So I need to come up with something like the what's up guys from Budweiser. I'm a believer in direct response. So that's the type of ad we suggest that you run because most physical product companies if you're not huge a pure branding play is going to be tough so you want something that's direct response. And so I prefer a kind of straightforward approach. But a couple of things you can think about is one, you do need to hook someone immediately. So that Skip Ad button comes up in the first five seconds so hook them immediately. So what do you got to say, what question are you going to ask, are you going to be like running up to the camera, are you going to be doing something interesting to make someone say okay I was going to skip because I don't like ads but there's something about this that I need to watch. So hooking them in the first five seconds is key. I believe you got to lead with the strongest benefit. So what is the benefit that your product provides? Is it time savings or is it status or what is that major benefit and then dramatize that. Bring that to life even if it's just you talking and showing the product. So that's important. You also got to incorporate some social proof. So do you have a testimonial, do you have an endorsement, do you have something … are you endorsed by somebody that is trusted by your marketplace; some kind of social proof. And I think and kind of part of this you want to show don't tell you know. A talking head video can work but you want to show as much as you can. That is few of the things to consider to [inaudible 00:15:24.2] have to get in to but things like [inaudible 00:15:27.5] sort of moving the risk. What are the risks that someone has in their head before they buy? So if you're selling apparel or footwear or something what if it doesn't fit? Then what do I to overcoming some of those objections in the video is important. And then a really strong call to action, so like hey what do you … what do I want you as the viewer to do next? If you leave that … oh but this is just crazy to me, you know most people think “well it's a compelling ad people will naturally click”. Not necessarily, you kind of have to ask them to. Like go here, get this free shipping code, or check out this, or watch this further demo, or join our email list to get a discount; something, some kind of call to action and then push people to do that. And the nice thing is there are some new ad formats that really make those CTA's or calls to action pop. But that's just kind of few of the things that make for a good video. But I admit making a good video is much harder than other ad formats, it just is. Joe: Through your agency do you guys have a referral program … people that you say okay these guys have done a good job and you refer people to agencies or do you find that the entrepreneur is creative and ingenious and can create a video on their own and make it work? Brett: Well, yeah it's interesting. So we're seeing now a handful of our clients are hiring full time video people because of their product videos. So video can be useful on a lot of ways right and different types of videos. So maybe I just have a pure product demo video and I put that on my product detail pages and then I'm cranking out little short clips for my Facebook advertising and then I'm launching maybe YouTube content that I'll try to get to rank organically and then I'm running YouTube ads and I've got someone creating that. So surprisingly this is something that I don't think existed with the size of companies we're working with now. You know kind of two million to 10 million a year and really up to pretty 20 million whatsoever, a lot of our clients are in that range. Those companies now have full time video people. Joe: Okay. Brett: There are a few agencies I could name but we don't do any of the creative work ourselves but I can make recommendations. Joe: So let's go to that assumption then that the client has video … has access to it or produced their own, why YouTube though? Why … like when I go and I search … like I did a search today on how to export a profit and loss statement from Xero because a client said it can't be done and I'd seen it done. I get them all the time. Oh yeah? Well let me send a video. So I did that and I sent him, I skipped the Quiet Light Brokerage banner ad because we don't need to click on it. Brett: Yeah. Joe: But it never really occurred to me to buy through YouTube. So what … people know that when you do sponsored Ads inside of Amazon or you spend money on Google Ad Words or Facebook that there's going to be a certain volume you can get to in return on investment. Is it worth it to advertise on YouTube? I know it has a billion viewers but how many people are really thinking products? And is it worth it; a bang for the buck? Should people be paying attention to advertising on YouTube? Brett: Yeah, the quick answer is this; absolutely. And this is one of those answers that even just probably two years ago my answer would have been a little bit different. It kind of would have been a maybe. Like I said YouTube has always been a powerful platform. If you're a good content creator and you created good content and got organic traffic and then YouTube has always been a good source for running a business. But from an ad platform, I believe it's just become viable for a lot of businesses. I would say most e-commerce businesses should consider it and that's a relatively new development. So aside from everybody being on there and aside from people being actively engaged where like you're looking at how to pull a report from … it was Xero? Joe: Xero. Brett: So how to pull a report, if there'd been an ad related to something like that maybe it would have captured your interest or maybe not. But you can target people based on what they're doing on YouTube plus much more. So, of course, YouTube is owned by Google and so now you can target people based on their behavior that Google sees even off YouTube. So one of the options you have is keyword targeting. So if maybe I've got a new Xero alternative so better than Quick Books better than Xero whatever I'm going to … I want to woo people over to my new accounting software; which sounds like just the worst job in [inaudible 00:20:04.7] accounting software. But anyway we'll [crosstalk]. Exactly, I think I just fell asleep as I was mentioning it. But so then I could use keyword targeting and I could target people looking for Xero and Quick Books and Quick Books Online and Quick Books online tutorial. And maybe I'd even target things like why is Quick Books doing this; like some pain points around Quick Books like Quick Books keeps crashing things like that. So those are some of things people type into YouTube kind of just to find a fix. Well then if I've got the alternative to Xero and Quick Books then I run my pre-roll ad for somebody watching a video on how to fix a pain point inside of Quick Books. So there's this keyword targeting that's based on content on YouTube which is really powerful. But then going to what I alluded to a minute ago you can also target people based on what they're searching for on Google. So I think it'd probably be a toss-up like who has more information about you; Google or Facebook? I don't know really. They both know everything about us. And so I don't know about you, my search behavior on Google is different than it is on YouTube. Often if I'm going to YouTube I'm just watching music videos and stuff like that like sort of as in background even. But I search on Google for all kinds of stuff. So then you can target people on YouTube based on what they're searching for on Google. So if I sell running shoes I can look at a whole host of search terms that someone maybe typing on in on Google and I can build an audience around that and then target those users the next time they're on YouTube. Joe: So it sounds like if someone is doing any paid advertising on Google whether it's AdWords or Google Shopping or whatever it might be that they need to think of YouTube as just what it is which is an extension of Google. They're owned by Google. It is Google. Brett: Yeah. Joe: And all those same tools and resources are there that you just got to think visually. So it's really the last couple of years you started to see your advertising work better and get … Google's getting better at it to allow you to do a better job. Can you give me an example without naming any client names on in terms of what it's done for them so that somebody doesn't go “oh, wow, okay”? Brett: Sure. Joe: And what other channels within Google they're also spending money on? Brett: Yeah absolutely and so I'll kind of mention this first, I think YouTube is for a long time have been good at creating brand lift. So even kind of before some of the new targeting options and before some of the new ad options it was good at getting people to be aware of a product. So we'll use Boom by Cindy Joseph because Ezra wouldn't mind if I talk about it and we run all of the Google ads for Boom. But if we ran YouTube ads introducing people to Boom … let's just say we had no call to action I think at the end which we wouldn't do that but let's just say we did, that would likely cause a brand lift. More people would start searching for Boom on Google. After watching the video they'll be intrigued and say oh what is this let me check out a little bit more. And so that's always been kind of the platform or always been a benefit of the platform. But then kind of beyond that the next thing I would recommend someone to do is look at using YouTube for remarketing. So for people that visit your site whether they go to product detail page only or whether they add to cart and abandon, let's remarket to them. So let's use YouTube as a remarketing platform. And so that's what I've been doing for a while as well, taking our remarketing list like you alluded to all of this is built in the Google ads platform and it's now rebranded as Google Ads, not Google AdWords. So it's all in that platform so we can upload our remarketing list, we can start segmenting that and running YouTube ads to those people. So we typically segment break out site visitors, break out PPC viewers, break out cart abandoners, and kind of have different ads that we run from them. But then kind of beyond that we're looking at a new format called TrueView for action. And you kind of mentioned this before too where you're … this is where you're bidding on a CPA basis. So basically what we're doing is we're telling YouTube hey I'm willing to pay X, I'm willing to pay 100 bucks or 80 bucks or 50 bucks or whatever for a conversion and over time YouTube gets really good at dialing that in. So if you give YouTube the right audiences to go after and you have a video that's powerful over time the machine will start hitting that CPA target provided your site converts as well. Joe: Google TrueView? Brett: So as- what's that? Joe: Did you call it Google TrueView? Brett: It's TrueView for action. So it's a subset of TrueView. So you could just run standard TrueView which is the ad format I talked about before where someone has to watch 30 seconds or the whole video or you don't pay. So that's kind of standard TrueView. With standard TrueView, you're paying a cost per view. So you're telling Google I'm willing to pay five cents, two cents, 20 cents per- Joe: Yeah, risk … there's risk there but it sounds like the TrueView for action is look you're not going to pay unless it converts which is- Brett: Yeah exactly. Joe: But is there volume there? Brett: There is immense volume and that's one of those things where we've seen people be able to scale pretty quickly. So with Boom by Cindy Joseph, we went from not even really a channel to a pretty large channel quickly. And we were able to start kind of dialing in and hitting their CPA target within a couple of weeks. And then it will sustain that now for several months. Joe: What happens in the first two weeks when you're … if you're doing TrueView for action aren't you always hitting that CPA target? Brett: No. So you're not. And you give Google the CPA you want to hit and you set a daily budget. Joe: Okay. Brett: But the machine is experimenting in the beginning. And this is something where this is a little bit different than let's say Facebook ads as an example I know … and I'm not a Facebook ads guy. I don't run … I don't run our Facebook even but I know there is kind of this thought that with Facebook ads you build a bunch of an ad sets and you let them … you know each one spends 30 bucks, if it doesn't convert kill it, whatever. Really search pruning quickly. That doesn't work on YouTube, not with TrueView for action. You need to give the machine time to learn. So you're maybe going to be letting it run for seven or 10 days. Obviously, you could pause it if nothing's happening. But usually that CPA, it's going to be above the CPA initially and then it's going to start getting closer and closer to it. So we found again with the right video, the right targeting you can usually hit your CPA target if you let the machine kind of dial in. Joe: Okay, and you guys don't do any of the Facebook stuff. You're focused on most of the Google platforms and then you do the Amazon platform as well. Brett: Yeah exactly. Joe: And is it because that you integrate the Google Shopping, YouTube ads, Google AdWords, PPC whatever they've rebranded it you integrate them all together. Brett: Yeah. Joe: Do you think they help each other? Is it Google has gotten to the point where is it intelligent enough to pull resources from one to the other to help improve cost per conversion? Brett: Yeah absolutely and then one of the things that Google just really stepped their game up in the last couple years in the last six months even is audience targeting. So being able to apply some of those audiences even to your search campaigns and a few of the audiences to your shopping campaigns. But it is all connected because if you think about it if I'm in product research mode, if I'm looking at buying a new … let's say I'm buying a new [inaudible 0027:37.5] a couple of this things for a house and then I'm researching on Google then maybe after I find a few things I'm going to YouTube to watch a video or some unboxing videos or installation videos now I'm going back to Google. And so what you can do if you've got all of the campaigns setup and part of a … we call it a full funnel approach or a team of campaigns, we're not viewing search and shopping in YouTube as this completely separate entities but how do they work together because they do. So if someone finds us on search or shopping when they don't convert then let's use YouTube as the remarketing vehicle. If someone discovers us on YouTube and they watch a video and they become engaged with us but they don't purchase well then let's add them to a remarketing list and target them with search and shopping ads. Because maybe someone learns about your brand on YouTube they don't buy, their next activity is going to be I'm going to go to Google and search. I'm going to go search for this company now or find out more and so we can target them that way. So that's another piece we look at as we create a list of people that have viewed a video as an ad. And then we layer that into our search and shopping campaigns. And we've seen this … let's just go back to the Boom by Cindy Joseph example; we even created some campaigns where we only target people that have seen a video ad. And a lot of those people then go back to Google and they can't really remember the brand name but they remember seeing the video or whatever like something's caught their attention so they're just they're typing in a bunch of random things. Like make up for older women or you know things that would've been mentioned in the ad. And then we're able to target them because we built a list of people that viewed the video as an ad but actually converted them to research a shopping campaign. So if we just think about it, if we kind of step back and think about our own journey like what's my journey as a buyer? I really just click on one ad and buy. I don't just see one ad for a brand new product I've never heard of and purchase immediately. That doesn't happen. I'm usually going to search for something, be exposed to it, click around, visit, and then see another ad and then convert. So we would … we like to get all the campaigns kind of working together and connected. Joe: So let's say that someone is managing their advertising campaign themselves and business is getting big enough to they want to elevate themselves to more of the captain of the ship instead of a navigator if you want instead of just focusing on one part like the marketing are there resources out there to learn everything you need to learn about for the Google ads platform within Google and outside of it or is it simply your 20 years of expertise that … and what, staff of 17 that allow you to be better than any Tom, Dick, or Harry that's going to try to do it for their own business? Brett: Yes. So I mean there is a learning curve and I think the learning curve is a little steeper with Google ads than it is other platforms potentially. It's one of those things where learning the basics is not that complicated but then seeing how everything interacts and how one change leads to other implications is a little trickier. So there's a little bit of a learning curve but there are some good resources. So on the Google Shopping side, I wrote the Ultimate Guide to Google Shopping a few years ago. Shopify published that. It's totally free. Joe: Do you have to update that on a regular basis? Is it changing? Brett: Yeah, I just updated it a year ago. I needed another round of updates. The core of it is still good but it needs to be updated. Joe: Okay. Brett: I'm working on a course with Ezra Firestone. We launched the beta version on all of Google Ads. So it kind of starts with- Joe: Oh, excellent. Brett: -that foundation of Google ads. Joe: That's what I was looking for and I didn't know that. For everybody listening, I didn't know that by the way. Brett: Yeah. Joe: Because look some people are going to be hesitant to work with an agency. Brett: Sure. Joe: And historically I've been anti-agency although I owned one. I owned a media buying agency specifically for radio back in the day. Brett: Yeah. Joe: And my experience is as an agency owner is that you're going to work really really hard because you want to client to keep spending money because you get a percentage of that money that he spent. So you want them to be successful but as an e-commerce owner, my experience was … God, they blew it, my gosh my cost per acquisition went way up. Everything is destroyed. They're not paying any attention to anything that I said but what you did and what you presented was great and different. So that's … I wasn't going there but thank you for going there. So you've created a course on the Google ads platform with Ezra which will be done when? Brett: So probably by the time this … I don't know when is this is going to live but it will … it's launched in September of 2018 is when it will launch officially. Joe: Okay. Brett: So it should be available here pretty quick. Joe: So people can find that probably on smartmarketer.com right? Brett: Smartmarketer.com Joe: And OMG Commerce I would assume as well? Brett: Yeah well, have some links to it as well. Joe: Okay so let's assume that a certain group of people are going to be I'm never working with an agency and they'll Google and they find that there and they'll get that expertise and training which is exactly what I want. I want people to get the best advice and expertise. Brett: Yeah. And one thing I would maybe add to that is I would recommend that everybody get educated at least to a certain degree. Even if you plan on outsourcing it or hiring internally for it, learn the basics of the platform. Learn how everything kind of ties together. Because then you'll be able to analyze does this agency I'm going to be getting they know what they're talking about, is this person that I'm hiring do they know what they're talking about? So I think as a business owner you got to educate yourself at least on the basics and kind of see how the full funnel works and things like that. But yeah you don't have to hire an agency. You can hire someone in-house and train them up and that could be great for some businesses. Joe: Unless they quit. Brett: Exactly, yeah. That's true, yeah. Good to be diversified a little bit. Joe: I agree. Well listen, Brett I appreciate it, I appreciate your time coming on here just sort of unraveling the mystery of YouTube because again to me I've never thought about buying something there. Now that we've talked and I saw your presentation it's every time I'm seeing an ad and I've actually watched a few which is interesting but I haven't clicked through to buy yet. And I think that that's going to change. And I think that people will get ahead of it and start learning it now and being one of the early adopters of advertising on YouTube. They'll get ahead of the curve like those that focused on Facebook first. Brett: Exactly and I think it's … I think Facebook's going to be a viable ad platform for the foreseeable future. I think You Tube is going to be as well but I would liken where YouTube is now to where Facebook was a few years ago where it's pretty affordable to be on YouTube. Those costs will go up over time as more people hop on to the platform but it's a great place to be. And yeah we've seen from skin care to apparel to automotive to tech; all those verticals in e-commerce are getting good results on YouTube so it's worth exploring for sure. Joe: Fantastic, so YouTube is today where Facebook was a few years ago. Brett: I think so, yeah. Joe: That's a good way to end it. But for anybody that does want to talk to you, I think they can find you at OMGcommerce.com is that right? Brett: Yup OMGcommerce.com I'm happy to chat, happy to do an audit potentially of existing efforts and I'll let you know how we could potentially help. So yeah OMGcommerce.com. Joe: Well put that down in the show notes and if this is out before the course is done we'll go back and we'll put it in the course after the fact so that those that just want to learn on their own and maybe bring it in-house can learn from that as well. Brett: Yeah awesome. Joe: Thanks for your time Brett I appreciate it. Brett: Okay thanks Joe I really appreciate it. [inaudible 00:35:07.7] All right see you.     Links: OMGCommerce Website ecommerce Evolution Podcast – Get to know Brett How to Use YouTube to Scale Ecommerce Ads – Online eCourse

Once upon a time I (Joe) had an AdWords PPC budget that hit $45,000 a month. Over 5 years I learned AdWords on my own, had no training, a half dozen campaigns and a handful of ad groups. I thought I was pretty savvy and successful. This was about 10 years ago and to be frank, I'm older, wiser, more seasoned and would tell my 10-year younger self that I was a novice and wasting a TON of money. Don't be like me. Since 2010 I have heard dozens of entrepreneurs tell me they outsourced their paid advertising unsuccessfully. So when Jason Yelowitz introduced me to Strike Social Founder I was a little skeptical. But success and growth speak for themselves. Patrick McKenna boot strapped Strike Social from his kitchen table in a rented home in LA about 5 years ago. In 2016 Strike Social was named on the Inc. 500 List for the fastest growing companies. Their rank? Number 17! Strike Social helps brands improve their paid advertising campaigns, dramatically. One example Patrick gives is an ecommerce company that had their CPA go from $80 dollars to $16. This created great problems for the client. The first was rapid growth and much better margins. The second was access (or lack thereof) to monies for inventory. As you likely know – running out of inventory is an issue. Rapidly growing brands lack access to capital, run out of inventory and lose ground on the path to growth. Strike Social does a free analysis of a client's paid ad campaigns, a free test, and when the client comes on board and grows so fast they don't have funds for enough inventory, Strike will provide working capital for inventory. If it weren't for the rank of number 17 on the Inc. 500 list and the fact that you don't get there without proving yourself, I'd say it all seems too good to be true. After chatting with Patrick on today's Podcast, I say try them out get a free review. At the very least you'll learn what you are doing right and wrong in your own paid advertising campaigns. Episode Highlights: Instagram's paid advertising platform is the next Facebook. It's working. In Google AdWords you should have 1,000+ campaigns, not 6. Facebook is content driven and ads need constant testing. Video ads in Facebook can be as short as 3-4 seconds. YouTube is great, but not for direct conversations and CPAs. Strike Social developed technology recognized by Techcrunch.com that helped propel them to #17 on the Inc. 500 list. Strike Social will provide working capital to clients so they can ramp up inventory to match growth. Transcription: Mark: So one of the things that I find most difficult and frustrating about running a business in today's internet world is this idea of having these coordinated campaigns across multiple channels and multiple platforms, and the degree to sophistication which you need to run each campaign across each platform. For example with Facebook and Google, it's not so much to do just [inaudible 00:01:25.5] a couple of key words and hoping everything works for Facebook bring up a couple of ads and hoping it works. You really have to delve in and get super detailed. I understand Joe that you talked to somebody today that's doing this for a living. And they started a company and not only have they just started and are doing well but they're ranked really high in the Inc. 500 list specializing in running these cross-platform campaigns that are really highly refined. Joe: Yeah. It's Patrick McKenna from Strike Social and about five years ago he bootstrapped a company, he was literally working from the kitchen table in a rented house in Los Angeles. And he developed software that would analyze paid advertising campaigns and then go way beyond what you normally do in an excel file and so on and so forth. Standard stuff right? Well, that's what I thought when he was introduced to me by our very own Jason Yellowitz, they're neighbors. Patrick's company Strike Social in 2016 was ranked number 16 … no number 17 on the Inc. 500 list. And I think you and I have talked about this that that's impressive, number 17 on Inc. 500 list, you don't get there by accident. You don't get there without being really really good at what you do. Over the years, the last six years that I've been doing what I'm doing I talked to dozens and dozens and I might want to say hundreds that [inaudible 00:02:49.9] of people that started their own Google Ad Account and developed it as their business grew and managed it themselves and then got to a point where they said you know what I should outsource this. And they found somebody online and they outsourced it and what happened? It failed. That cost for acquisition went up, the budget went up and they had to bring it back in-house. Dozens of times I talked to these folks. So when I first connected with Patrick I was skeptical but then we talked, went into detail and he gave me some success stories that are really truly just incredible Mark to the point where I need you to listen to this podcast and consider talking with him about Quiet Light Advertising. They do testing for free. They do an analysis with their software and they'll do a test for free as well. And then they prove themselves and then like every other agency they get paid on a percentage of spend. But here's the kicker they've taken some clients and grown their businesses so dramatically that clients run out of inventory. That's the number one thing we tell folks is don't run out of inventory. It seems so simple but when people bootstrap the company and they grow they don't have enough working capital. And I've listened to other podcast, you know the EcommCrew Mike Jackness podcast where they talk about trying to find sources of working capital for inventory. Well, Strike Social will be that source for their very own clients. Because they've run into it so many times where it was so successful the client ran out of funds to buy more inventory. So they became that working capital source. So really impressive story, I would encourage everyone to listen all the way through to the 31 minute mark where he starts to talk about the working capital aspect of it. But there's a lot of good stuff here. He talks about some basic things that everyone should do. A quick story and then I'll stop talking. But when I ran my own Google AdWords campaign for the company that you brokered for me back in 2010, the most I ever spent was $45,000 in one month on paid advertising. I worked my way up that, up up from that in 2005 to 2010. Of course, after the crash, it was much lower but at the max … at the peak, I had a total of 10 campaigns set up in Google AdWords. And I had it all done with my keywords and I used all the software at the time to find those keywords and develop them; 10 campaigns. So in talking with Patrick, he talks about that their clients have an average of 1,000 to 6,000 campaigns and that's for one product, Mark. And that just makes me think about … again, yet again how much money I lost in two ways, really on wasted advertising spending and on not making it so good that my cost for acquisition came down dramatically. And I just want to encourage everyone that's listening to think about it and listen to what they're saying and have a conversation with them because odds are you're not doing it as well as you could be if you're doing it yourself. Just like what we talked about with book keeping, Excel is not accounting software. The basic pieces that you pull together for managing your campaigns across multiple platforms is not as good as what these guys have either. And it's worth to listen to him, worth a test I think in my opinion and experience. Mark: Yeah and I really have to agree with the fact that if you're doing it in-house and look I'm running some campaigns in-house right now for both companies that I own. That for a variety of reasons … but you have to understand if you're going to run it in-house, if you're not going to have a specialist, chances are you're not going to be doing it as well as it could be done. Because AdWords is an environment that really takes specialization. Facebook is an environment that really takes specialization. Frankly, I'm saying up a good automation sequence falls in the same category as well. So I'll be interested to listen to this. I definitely will be listening to this. I'm always looking to pick up on some information. Joe: Yeah and look Instagram is also in there as well. It's something we talked about. You know when AdWords was it that was the player Facebook came along and started to become the second option. Well, Instagram is now that option to Facebook and it's really starting to work. So those that have not expanded to those channels, listen, take a look, learn. And the other thing look this wasn't a pitch for this guy's services. This was helping people understand what they may or may not be doing right or wrong in their campaigns. And he talks about three things that you can do and focus on. And at the end Mark, I didn't ask him for a contact information like at all. It's in the show notes of course but for those that only listen the company is Strike Social. It's strikesocial.com and you can email them at hello@strikesocial.com that's hello@strikesocial.com it's a … we didn't talk about it at the end so I want to throw it in now. Mark: Awesome well let's get to it. Joe: Hey folks its Joe Valley of Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Patrick McKenna with us from Strike Social. How are you, Patrick? Patrick: I'm good. How are you, Joe? Joe: I'm fantastic. Folks, anybody that knows Jason Yellowitz here at Quiet Light, you should, he's been around for I think longer than everybody except for Mark Daoust the founder of Quiet Light. Jason was my broker when I sold back in 2010 and he happens to live across the street from you right? Patrick: That's right we live in Reno, he's right across the street. Kids are always running in my house. Joe: Jason is a good man and I wouldn't mind having him as a neighbor. I often poke fun at Jason and his Bathrobe Millionaire book but it's a heck of a success story and I still don't have a piece of the bathrobe. Have you ever seen it laying around his house? Did he save it? Seriously is it like behind like a glass case hanging on the wall? Patrick: It's on the mantle sitting up there. He's very proud of that. Joe: Next time you're in I want you to take a selfie in front of it and send it to me okay? Patrick: [inaudible 00:08:47.7] Joe: Look in all seriousness Jason is top notch. He's my mentor. He's mentored to many. He's a terrific guy. And he introduced you to us. And as I mentioned before we started recording we do not do fancy introductions here at Quiet Light on the Quiet Light Podcast so I know it's going to be hard for you but I want you to brag about yourself a little bit because you have a heck of a success story. Tell us about Strike Social and what you do, what the background is and all that good stuff for us. Patrick: Sure, yeah we … you know Jason and I are sort of kindred spirits. We've been through the battle, it sounds like you have too … I mean a business is incredibly challenging. We did it like anyone else does it. We take the plunge, you bootstrap on a kitchen table out of our rental house in LA. And we started that process in March of 2013 and then we launched some technology and we got recognized in TechCrunch for this advertising technology, this analytics platform. By November after that article came out we're selling like crazy and that was some different challenges. You think initially that wow this is great and that my products rate and the market loves it. And then you start to realize that you're putting yourself out of business because you're trying to fund invoices and all those types of things that come up when you're running a business. So we went through all that stuff, raised a little money in 2014, raised a little bit more in 2015 and it's standed globally and by 2016 we're recognized in Forbes Fast 500 fastest growing companies in the US. Joe: What number were you? Patrick: Number 17. Joe: 17 out of 500? Patrick: Yeah. Joe: That's incredible. Patrick: Pretty amazing. That was up 2016 revenue numbers and we're excited to see where we land this year for Fortune List. It will be the 2018 release that will be 2017 numbers so- Joe: Got you. Patrick: It's that it so. Joe: It sounds exciting and painful all the same time. You've literally started on a kitchen table at a rental in LA. and then grew the business, bootstrapped it from there. Probably like many of the listeners who are you know the listeners that are sellers and entrepreneurs and listeners that are hoping to step into the entrepreneurial role that you're playing now. That's pretty incredible. Tell us about what Strike Social does and who your typical customers are. Patrick: Right. So initially we went out to the largest agencies in the world and we sold execution services around advertising. So initially we started with YouTube now we're across all the social platforms and search as well. But we would basically like take on and execute buys for their largest customers. So our customers will be X-box in PNG and pick any Fortune 100 brand, the big guys. And then we started doing that here in the US then we went to Asia and then went to Europe and I don't know if you know who the holding companies are but you know WPP [inaudible 00:12:17.3], the big guys that I mostly don't talk to a smaller company. So it was really nice to have that reign for us to go sell in to and it was a really profitable situation for us. And we kept building technology and investing in technology and people and locations. We have a location here in Chicago where we're headquartered. And then we have a location in Poland and a location in Manila. We've got about a hundred people here now and we've got boots on the ground from Japan, and Korea, and Australia, obviously the US, Singapore, Europe. So it's been a really really fun ride and yes you go through all of the emotional ups and downs of running a business when you're buying one. Joe: Yeah. Good problems with that kind of growth, really good problems. Talk to me about the technology that you developed that originally got you recognized in I think you said TechCrunch and you said analytics platform. Can you talk about the actual service and why someone would use … like why these B2B advertising agencies would use yours versus having an expert in-house do it. What does it do and what's different about it that made you the 17th fastest growing company in 2016? Patrick: Yeah I think when video first came out I think it was really challenging for companies to understand, it is kind of a new medium, how do I be successful here? So our analytics platform so they showed them how to be successful. But what we did is we executed the media guys. So we look like a typical agency, we don't really like that word because we built software solution to help us with that. And then overtime what we've done is we built this incredible artificial intelligence box that allows us to go across platform, plan and execute strategies. And so it's all … it's a human and technology solution combined. And like I talked about advertising now it's a complicated orchestra. And what you need at the end of that is execution so … and we can talk about that more but it's very challenging to stay up to date on these platforms and you need a partner and a technology solution to really execute and do well. Joe: Okay. And you started out with YouTube, so at that time there were not a lot of experts in the field of buying advertising, buying that advertising space on YouTube. Patrick: That's right. Joe: You know when I … when Jason sold my business back in 2010 I was spending a boatload of money on Google AdWords and I learned it from the ground up. I did it myself starting in 2005 and I … at one point I never had any training so I can't imagine how much money I wasted over the years. I mean it was a point where I topped out at spending $45,000 a month. I mean Jason loves to tell the story of how I got mad at American Express because I went above my average so I cut my advertising in half and it's the stupidest thing I've ever done. But I did it because I got mad. It is a ton of money; I blew a ton of money by not being the expert. But you guys learned that expertise in terms of buying ad space on YouTube and then you expanded to the other social media platforms. So are you now doing paid ads on Google AdWords, on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, things of that nature? Patrick: Absolutely DBM, Amazon, all the ones- Joe: What would DBM mean? You got me right there. Patrick: Sorry … Doubleclick Bid Manager is Google's DSP solution to get the rest of the web that's not … that you can't do in AdWords. Joe: And what's DSP stand for? Patrick: Digital Supply-side Platform, so that's how Google goes and buys display advertising on say the [inaudible 00:16:36.9] within New York Times. Joe: Okay. Patrick: Yeah. So it's another Google product. It's part of their Google Suite and actually it's interesting that you bring that up that's … that they had a tagging solution there that … and we find this a lot in companies that are running small businesses on just AdWords that you can get really good multi variant testing on that platform rebuilt technology to allow you to expand that. I don't know how extensive you got with your test. But one campaign maybe you have 40 different variables, maybe you're really good and you get up to a hundred. We'll do like 6,000 with their technology. Joe: Wow. Patrick: So yeah we're testing age, demo, interest, topic, keywords- Joe: Let's get really down to it. People that are listening, their ears might be perking up and this is why we're talking because you don't get to be number 17 on the Forbes fastest growing companies by screwing up. Patrick: Yeah. Joe: Because you wouldn't have the clients that would be referring and helping you grow your business further. Patrick: That's right. Joe: So my initial thought as I said on our first call was more often than not I do valuations and exe-planning for people and see that they were doing fine on their own advertising. Managing it themselves and then outsourced it and it totally blew it up as in bang and their cost for acquisition went up. And usually, in my experience, it's not a great thing. Your success in having people use your services changes my mind. So let's talk about specifically we've got folks that are … was their physical product owners and of course there's content as well but I think you said you don't really do a whole lot of content stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong but let's say we've got physical product owners that are mostly because of the crazy growth on Amazon doing Amazon sponsored ads our advice is always go well beyond Amazon grow your business so it's not one revenue channel. Your value is going to be higher but they are challenged with how to do that. So do you do an analysis on a business and you're looking at Facebook advertising for that physical products, do you take over the Amazon, sponsored ads, do you do Instagram all of these things? Patrick: Yes, all of them. And you know what before we start with any business we start with an audit to get to a genuine conversation. You'd say okay here in the platforms you're on tell us about your objectives, lets pull your data into a dashboard that you'll own and take possession of. And more so you … where we see some quick wins and easy gaps and then we'll go take you know what if you like what we're saying we'll go run a test for free to see if we can improve what you're doing. Joe: How much is the cost of the audit that you do? Patrick: It doesn't cost anything. Joe: Okay the audit is free and the test is free. Patrick: The audit is free, the test is free. That's right and we just rolled out this … the reason I'm talking to you and I'm just talking to Jason about this is you know we just rolled out this Strike Marketing Partnership. You know we have a very large e-commerce company under our belt right now and we are able to take that business and improve their cost per lead from $80 to $16 and it really grow their business. They were able to- Joe: Were they profitable at $80? Patrick: Yes. Yeah, they were. Joe: Okay. Patrick: Dramatically improved their numbers and now they're on a path to being a billion dollar company. Joe: And so you took it from $80 cost per lead … was it cost for lead or cost for acquisition or both? I guess it doesn't matter but you took it from 80 to 16 and then where they able to use the same budget or I mean- Patrick: They were able to increase it. Yeah you see that's the key and I think the one point I want to make Joe is that we are entrepreneurs here and we're in the advertising marketing space and like one of the guys that's on our staff started panatea until he started the March Air Movement and sold it to a very large Japanese company because he doesn't need to work. But he's passionate about entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and he's an expert in building that brand. And when you said content you know content is critical in … when you start talking about AdWords and multi variant testing you can't apply that same learning over to Facebook. It's a completely different platform. Everything is grouped together. You have to be a little bit patient and let Facebook find that first customer for you. And then it starts to learn who your customer is and it's started in and it's off to the races. But if you're open at that platform and if you're doing it the same way you're doing it on AdWords whether it's YouTube or just AdWords so you're not going to perform there, you're just … you're not doing it right. Joe: Okay. Patrick: So- Joe: What are in that Amazon Seller account? Do you guys handle the sponsor ads as well? Patrick: That's right yeah and we have a seat on Amazon so we have a partnership with them. Seat means that we get a seat. Joe: You know I was going to ask that. Patrick: Yeah sorry. I can see it on your face, what's a seat? Joe: Okay. Patrick: And seat that means that we're in their partner program and we can log into their technology and buy inventory at stale. Joe: Sure. Patrick: So … yeah and that means we also have a rep, and that's the other thing to is that these platforms change all the time. And one of the recent ones was GDPR it's made a … GDPR oh. Joe: Come on now GDPR what's that? This is going to be the acronym show. What is it? Patrick: Yeah the acronym … I'm sorry, I spend a lot of time in advertising so you know neither all … there are all things … GDPR is a … it's a European Union situation where the user is in control of their own data. Joe: Okay. Patrick: And the platforms, you have to basically ask permission or I think you've probably seen on sites you go to now. They're saying a. so do you like content, you need to accept my cookie. And if you're in someone's database right now and you have a European client in your database you needed to e-mail them and say hey by the way I need you to okay the fact that you're in my database. Initially, don't do that, I mean don't be that; you can get fined significantly. Joe: Most of our … the people in the audience, the people that are listening I shouldn't say most I mean it's anywhere from somebody doing a hundred thousand a year in revenue to you know 40 to 50 million in revenue. So it's all over the map there a little bit. Let's give some stuff away for free here that I don't want this to be obviously you do the evaluation and you do the test for free. And then let me just answer that; let's answer the quick question because people are going to say well what happens after that? Do you get paid on a commission basis part of the advertising how does it … part of the advertise you spent? Patrick: Yeah I think that's why we fall in that advertising agent bucket because we get a percentage of the media. Joe: I did the same back in my Media Mind days when I used to buy time on radio; percentage of what you're spending. Patrick: There you go. Joe: And about the job you do on that cost for acquisition the more you're able to spend because the budget goes up. So it is the right- Patrick: Portion. Joe: Way to do it. Yeah. All right so let's talk about that aside do you have any sort of hot tips? What can someone do just on their own looking at their own advertising budget in whatever platform you want to talk about? Patrick: Sure. Joe: Give away some tips or what can somebody do that's using … let's start with Google AdWords. What's the biggest mistake people make and how can they fix it? Patrick: Yeah I think that one of the biggest mistakes, I mean you can kind of take this across all platforms is trying to figure out the audience and the actual attribution and then finding the adjacent audience. So I'll give you an example, and our artificial intelligence does this. The idea is that you need to expand your audience. So you find an audience that gives you a high lifetime value and you recognize that in keywords or interest in Google AdWords. For example, you might be targeting 18 to 54 year olds in AdWords. You need to break each one of those segments up and realize that 18 to 24 year olds aren't interested in the same thing as a 45 and through 54 right? So if you're trying … if you're targeting people who are interested in the NFL, the 18 year olds that also have that same interest are interested in the UFC. And so you have to find those adjacent audiences to lower your cost of acquisition. Does that make sense? Joe: Yeah. Patrick: You expand the reach of the audience size and that's something that our technology does and our big people are doing that. Joe: Okay so it's finding out their like audiences. I always hear something on the Facebook algorithm in the paid advertising part of that similar audience or look alike audience, is that what we're talking about? Patrick: Kind of, on Facebook it's different. So AdWords is a multi-variant test platform. You're basically setting up … hopefully, you're setting up somewhere between 10 and 150 different campaigns. We're going to set up about 1,000 to 6,000. Joe: I think I had five or six and I had multiple things underneath there. So you're talking about 1,000 to 6,000 campaigns? Patrick: What was what was your target audience age range? Joe: From the women 25, 54 but I honestly can't recall if I even know. No, not much. I don't want to talk about that because I lost a whole lot of money the more we talk about it. Patrick: Oh my gosh. Joe: Wasted money. But you're doing a thousand campaigns inside of Google Ad Words? Patrick: You can [inaudible 00:17:10.1]. That's the only way, get out to get that. No, no, no, that's my product. That's the only way to get down to how am I going to expand this audience? What does this audience …. what is this audience also interested in? So it … what you basically said, what you told the platform was I want women 18 to 54 is that what you said, 18 to 54? Joe: 25, 54 but- Patrick: 25 and 54 and you basically said they all have the same interest and they don't. Joe: No they don't. Patrick: And they're not even on the same device. So you've got to break it out by device; tablet, mobile, desktop. And you've got to break it out by each age group. You've got to break it out by each interest. And you got to break it out by each keyword. Because if you don't get that data in there you're science is [inaudible 00:28:04.6] value is. Joe: Okay so someone doing this on their own in an Excel spreadsheet doing … think they're doing fairly well odds are that they could be doing a whole lot better. Patrick: Basically. Joe: Right. Another … okay so the tip there was I keep, I want to call it look alike audiences but it's not. Patrick: Just call it multi-variant testing. In AdWords, you've got to multi-variant test, and you've got to get as granular as possible to get the learnings out of that, out of that platform. Joe: Multi-variant testing, okay. Patrick: Yes. Joe: Second so the tip, the next thing you'll sit down and tell somebody to look at? Patrick: So on Facebook, it's completely different. You can't, you have to bucket everyone together and then as soon as Facebook finds you that acquisition and that's you know obviously Facebook and Instagram then it starts to learn okay now I know who you're looking for and it starts to find all the people that look alike. That's where the look alike part comes in. Facebook's AdWord is working in the background to figure that out. When we first set out it might be looking at your return and saying oh my gosh I'm doing way better on AdWords. You have to stick with it. And one of the things that we see as well is that you have a longer sign up or click to buy solution in your platform. What you'll see is people will start that buy on Facebook and they'll get to your form and realize that they don't have enough time for this and they need to go sign up on the desktop. And they'll go to Google search, look up your brand and you have to be able to do that. And that's where that DCM code comes in to play; from double click. Joe: Okay. Patrick: It actually digi up and see the assist on Facebook to AdWords, give the credit to Facebook that was the person who … that's where they saw the ad. They'll just go in to the desktop to finish filling it out Joe: Okay. Patrick: That makes sense? Joe: I did evaluation maybe three weeks ago for someone that back in the first quarter they reduced tremendous volume in their business by Facebook advertising. And then the algorithm update hit in I think April, you know by May. And they went from let's say a half a million a month in revenue to 40,000 a month in revenue. Patrick: Yeah. Joe: Incredibly painful. Patrick: Yeah. Joe: They then jumped to Google AdWords and made adjustments on Facebook. But that type of algorithm update how do you and how does your agency … [inaudible 00:30:34.3] agency, how does your service address that, fix that, take care of that, and make sure that your clients are not going to be suffering from that major algorithm update that Facebook seems to be doing on a regular basis? Patrick: Yeah, it's a good point Joe I mean we're all sort of at the mercy of the changes that happen. That update may have been Facebook's response to Cambridge Analytics which was kind of like on the back end of that GDPR stuff I was talking about. So they have made changes and all these platforms change all the time. What we had is like when I was talking about Amazon with the seat, we're in Facebook's Ad Manager; we have a Facebook rep so we … those changes come to us before. Hey look here's how you're going to have to set these campaigns up in the future to be successful. Be prepared for this, this is going to be our algorithmic change and they'll never tell you what's in the science behind it. But you bring up a valid point about Facebook; it is a very content rich platform. You have to be testing instead of multi variant testing, different light items of campaigns. What you're really doing there is your multi-variant testing creative. So you have to look at an audience and you have to understand is the audience tired of my ad? They're seeing the same ad over and over again. Are they tired of that ad or is the audience exhausted with my product? They don't want it anymore and I have to go somewhere else. But typically what we're doing in Facebook is a lot of creatives popping. So well create a slot, 15 different pieces of creative image a week period [inaudible 00:32:19.0]. Joe: So with AdWords the campaigns you could have a thousand plus potentially. Patrick: Yeah. Joe: Maybe at least 6,000 with Facebook it's more about the creative and fifteen different creatives over a two week period. Patrick: Yeah that's right. Joe: And then you'll continue to test that and swap it out to just continually monitoring the click rate and conversion rate. Patrick: That's right. Joe: What about video on Facebook is that something you're doing and recommend? Patrick: Yeah you know [inaudible 00:32:46.1] there are working really well, there's video component in there. But yeah we're seeing great conversion off of short video. And you know you … on that creative side you have to have high quality images and the videos don't have to be very long; two, three … three to six seconds perfectly in there. Joe: I think the quality I think the audience gets because that's the number one thing in terms of their own website and the Amazon seller accounts is top quality photos that should be the first thing. All right so we talked about Google AdWords, we talked about Facebook, any other thoughts in terms of you sitting down with somebody having a drink and what they should look at if they're running an e-commerce paid advertising campaign? Patrick: Yeah I mean actually on the paid advertising side I … you just have to keep exploring the platform's interest, is that really good … if you know how to use that platform it's becoming a very good conversion platform. And it's interesting when you start to see these new platforms come out typically because they're new there's not a lot of complex decision there so if you can … it's kind of a land grab. It's kind of like what Facebook did to Google. Facebook was a new platform, they finally got their Ads Manager to work properly and Power Editor is what they call it. And people have done really really well. Same thing is happening with Pinterest now. They've got their advertising technology and algorithm is starting to do really well in the backend of collecting data and saying oh this person who bought this is also buying this and they look alike kind of thing. Pinterest is becoming a CPA platform. Joe: Okay, so AdWords, Facebook, Pinterest … and when we say AdWords when we say that we are talking about Google content searches plus I assume were talking about YouTube looped in there as well. Patrick: Yeah YouTube is very tough in terms of direct conversing. What you have to do on YouTube is you use YouTube as a mid-funnel driver to your branded keyboard search. So I know that that sounds challenging but your creating an awareness campaign but you're looking at how that's driving cheap CPA in AdWords because it's your brand and that costs less than say some generic term that like clubs or something like that; whatever you're selling. Joe: Okay. So when you work with a client do you work on … obviously, you've got a budget that you work on, goal setting with either cost per lead or cost per acquisition things of that nature. People … my point is that I know that when I was in the audience is just listening thinking about hiring someone that I was worried that they're going to blow up my budget on it. Patrick: Oh yeah. Joe: Do you work with them on all those goals as well? Patrick: Oh absolutely and everybody is logged in. We're typically buying on your account so nothing's getting taken out of there. And again like everything starts with that audit. But back to your point about I think what entrepreneurs do is they need that margin or store ad to be really high to afford the inventory. And what we go about with Dave and some of the other entrepreneurs here is we want to help you with that. So we'll [inaudible 00:36:19.8] with you so that you can take a little bit more risk on the advertising side. And we talked about this a little bit before the show and it's what I talked to Jason about- Joe: Yeah let me just jump in and get to the point so people understand. Patrick: Yeah. Joe: Part of the biggest problem that a bootstrapped physical products company has is amazing growth and lack of capital to buy more inventory; they're growing at 100% month over month, year over year. And they're taking all of that working capital and putting it right back in inventory and just trying to keep up. And what I do or anybody at Quiet Light does evaluation for that business we talk about planning. One of the simplest things to be more profitable is just don't run out of inventory. But it's kind of hard because they run out of money and can't keep up with that growth. So what you're talking about is as an agency, as a firm, as a partner- Patrick: As a partner. Joe: You're willing to work with them and lend them money to buy that inventory. Patrick: That's right. When we went from $80 to $16 CPL, we broke our partner's logistics. That … I can sum up what you're talking about in just amazing growth; we have the same problem. So you don't have enough capital, no bank is going to give you a decent loan, your business is too young in the first three years and so we recognize that. We're able to look at your advertising and we'll tell you what we can do on the execution side. But we have to make sure that you have the logistics down in the inventory to go take those risks. And we want to take those risks with you. So overall it's to grow your business as big as you possibly can. So that's the goal. That's how we make money. Joe: It's [inaudible 00:38:11.9] it's not all that different from Quiet Light, we're here to help. We have that … sometimes that stigma of oh you're a broker and that was the hardest thing for me going from entrepreneur owning my own business to entrepreneur that's a broker advisor is that those entrepreneurs they say you know I never want to sell my business. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want you to talk me into something. But we are here to help and help you grow your business and build that relationship so that when you plan to sell you'll exit and you'll exit well. Patrick: That's right. Joe: And what you're doing is the same thing is you're helping more than anything else. Of course, you're a business trying to make a living too and obviously doing it very well. But you're going to do the audit for free, you're going to do the test for free. Patrick: Yeah. Joe: And then you're going to dramatically reduce that cost for acquisition or cost for lead whatever the case might be in what the parameters are that you set with the client. Patrick: That's right. Joe: And they're going to have a problem which is dramatic growth and they're not going to be able to keep up with the inventory. They probably already can't keep up with the inventory purchasing and you're going to be there to help fund the inventory purchases and keep this growing which allows you to spend more money on their behalf and a great cost really a great cost for acquisition and make more money for yourself along the way as well. Patrick: Yeah. When we started our company we did it on American Express and Google AdWords buy in YouTube. It [inaudible 00:39:37.5] credit card every $700, so you know I feel your pain that you were feeling and we get it and it's real. Growth is tough to manage; very tough to manage. So for me, I like to consider myself sort of a scaling expert whether that embodies locations and sales. I'm good at that. I mean there are people here that will just do that … building a brand from scratch and selling it for hundreds of millions of dollars. Joe: That's amazing that you get that kind of talent that is choosing to work with you. It's kind of a great working environment for these folks. Patrick: Yeah. Joe: Ok look I never have to work again for the rest of my life but you're making it fun and we're changing people's lives so let's go ahead. Patrick: Yeah and think about Joe, I meant it's exciting. I mean you're in this business because you get to meet really interesting other entrepreneurs. And they all bring something interesting to the table. When they take a nap on we've all been in that battle together and this is a new sort of idea like why are you doing this so- Joe: It's great. Patrick: Yeah it's got to be a part where we're really excited about it and happy to bring it to the market. Joe: Yeah listen, I want to end it here simply because people should be reaching out to you. It's a very least they're going to learn something in the review process. They're going to learn at the very least what they're screwing up on, what they're doing wrong, and what they can do. Choose to do it themselves or- Patrick: Anything works, that's right. Joe: Have you test it and prove that you can do it better than they can. And then they can free themselves up for other things as well like additional product development and clean documentation on their financials. So I say that in every podcast episode hire a good [inaudible 00:41:23.0]. Patrick: That's right. Joe: And one priest, they've heard me preach before. Patrick listen thanks for being on the show. Thanks for taking time out of your day I know you're very busy. We'll go ahead and get this produced get it out to folks and share it with you as well so you can share it with your team. Patrick: Joe thanks for having me. Joe: It's great man, thank you. We'll talk to you soon. Patrick: All right man, take care. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Quiet Light Podcast for more resources from this episode head over to quietlightbrokerage.com. If you're enjoying the show please leave a rating and review on iTunes. This helps share the messages from the show with more business owners like you.   Links: Free review and test: hello@strikesocial.com Inc. 500 Ranking Strike Social

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

Rochelle Friedman was a corporate lawyer representing some of the top products and brands in the world. A few years ago she jumped ship and started the Walk Law Firm. Now more than 50% of her business is representing both buyers and sellers in transactions that involved the transfer of an Amazon Seller Account. Because of her specialty and expertise, I wanted to have her on the Podcast to share her approach, and what she sees other brokerage firms in the industry doing. In today's Podcast she covers the risks and pitfalls of transferring an account through an asset sale, and talks about the different types of transactions she sees occur. Rochell also delves into the two big “stomach ache” clauses in a typical asset purchase agreement, and how to address them up front so the due diligence and negotiation process is successful. As you've heard us often say…”don't decide to sell, plan to sell”. The same holds true with legal matters. Make sure you are properly incorporated, that your trademarks and copyrights are up to date and transferrable. All of these are part of the assets of your business, and hiring a firm like Walk Law Firm to review them in advance of a sale is advisable. Episode Highlights: Learn Rochell's approach to transferring an Amazon account. Hint…it is the same as ours. Transferring non-US accounts is the same process. Both buyers and sellers need to be happy at closing, or a deal falls apart. Having a qualified contract attorney truly matters. The same attorney will fight differently if their client is the seller vs. the buyer. There are TWO MAJOR stomach clauses in every APA. Address them early on in negotiations. Transcription: Mark: Joe how are you? Joe: I'm doing good Mark. How are you doing today? Mark: You know ever since you got back from Italy you are kicking my butt again when it comes to the number of interviews you're doing for the podcast. I think like three to one, four to one as far as the ratio is concerned and I'm sure our listeners are ecstatic. Joe: I don't know. I actually have the easy part. I just do the interviews you do all of the stuff in the background so thank you and I appreciate it. I just do the interview. And this time for this show I don't … falsely, folks, I talked to an attorney and it was actually a really good call and here's why I had; her name is Rochelle Friedman, she's from Walk Law Firm and you know look with physical products businesses and the transfer of an Amazon Seller Account everybody has questions about how to go about doing it, whether it's a US based account or one that's international. And I came across Rochelle through some other folks that I worked with and I had a call with her. And I just picked up the phone and I called her and chatted with her. Look she does close transactions for Quiet Light Brokerage, for Empire Flippers, for Website Closers and you guys know who they are so it's okay to mention them right? And I know she does that so I wanted to confirm with her what processes, what she does and shockingly Mark it's the same way that we do it believe it or not. And she goes into detail about it, and she goes into great detail about it. Not only that she talks about contracts in general, she represents both buyers and sellers. She's a contract attorney that came from the corporate world representing businesses, every day household businesses, she was their attorney a very good one in the corporate world last went out on her own and now represents both buyers and sellers in transactions. And I think it's worth listening to. I think it's really really important as you and I have talked about how important planning is. Don't wake up and decide to sell but plan to sell, same thing should be said for an attorney; talk to one. Get your ducks in a row and make sure that you're doing the right thing as you go into your transactions you can do it with confidence. Mark: I'm gonna put you on the spot because you said we're going to address in this podcast episode how do you transfer an Amazon business and how are people doing it pretty much across the board. But for anyone that already knows how to do that or has done that what else do we cover in this episode? Joe: She covers the two big stomach ache clauses in contract negotiations. That being the non-compete and the indemnification clause. I think the indemnification clause is the bigger of the two because we do a pretty good job up front addressing the non-compete. And so if you do that work up front in the client interview and work with the seller on that to make sure they understand what a non-compete is and make sure there aren't going to be any issue is never really a problem. The hard one to wrap your brain around, your hands around is the indemnification clause and what that is from a seller's standpoint. You sell your business you think you're done, you get 100,000 200,000 a million dollars in your bank account and you move on about your merry way. You sleep really well at night because you got a bunch of money in your account. Well, your buyer's attorney is going to have something in there that is going to have them reach back into your bank account and take some money out if you lied or cheated or stole or did anything fraudulent in anyway. Now you should sleep well if everything was done right but if there's anything that wasn't they're going to put that in there. And they're gonna put that in there anyway and the big question is how long is that grace period for? Is it six months or 12 months or 18, and then how much is it for? And Rochelle you know towards the end of the podcast she laughs and she chuckles and she talks about how … well she has one standard when she's representing the buyer and she has a completely other standard when she's representing the seller so it's good to hear from both sides for sure. But the stomach ache clauses are really important in there as well. Mark: That's fantastic. And those are easily interest almost guaranteed at it every time we send out a purchase agreement on those two clauses. Joe: Guaranteed. Mark: You always see stuff. All right let's get in to see what she has to say about all of this including in the indemnification stuff. Let's get to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Rochelle Walk from Walk Law Firm on the line with me today. How are you doing Rochelle? Rochelle:     I'm doing great Joe, how are you today? Joe: I'm doing well. I have a sister in law name Richelle so if I mispronounce your name during the podcast at all today that's the reason why. I'm apologizing in advance. Rochelle:     Not a problem at all. Joe: As we talked about a little bit before recording we don't do fancy introductions so if you could just give the audience a little bit of background on yourself. Tell them about who you are and the work you do that'd be great. Rochelle:     Sure. Thanks, Joe. First off all thanks for having me on, I appreciate the opportunity. My background is actually a little bit complicated because I have been practicing law for 33 years but unlike a lot of other lawyers, most of my practice has been as a general counsel or as the chief administrative officer of very large public companies. So most of my time spent as a lawyer has actually been as a business person. And I like to explain myself as a business person who happens to also be a good lawyer. Joe: Excellent. Rochelle:     And when I started this firm I was at the point where I was leaving a major public company, decided I wanted to do something different, and decided I wanted to use the same skills I garnered as a business person and lawyer for really large public companies and turn it into something that would work well for small to mid-size companies. So during my years in my big company world, I worked heavily in consumer products. I was head of license brands for Sherwin-Williams, brands like Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren, I worked with Dutch Boy, I worked with Thompson-Minwax, Krylon, very famous brands. And then I left there and I was at a company called Oglebay Norton it was mining and minerals. We had clients and customers like Home Depot but we also had heavy industry as clients and lots of engineers. And then ultimately I went to a company called Anchor Glass and it was consumer glass, some of your favorite beverages, as a matter of fact, would be bottled in the glass containers whether you know beer, wine, Maker's Mark you know some famous brands. So my career has always been around famous brands and lots of retail. So when I looked at what I could do seven years ago when I started this practice, I thought about it and said I can really understand consumer brands. I really understand branding. I really understand intellectual property but it's a new world and we need to be able to do it online. And I dove into e-commerce understanding how Amazon works, how eBay works, how Jet works, of course, some of those came later, how Walmart.com as a marketplace work … Walmart used to be my customer at Sherwin-Williams and now here at Walmart.com it's a completely different animal and I dove into that. My practice has always been heavily mergers and acquisitions so about 50% of our practice is the mergers and acquisitions of businesses. And seven years later that has become a huge footprint of Amazon sellers, online sellers, e-commerce businesses that are seeking to flip. Entrepreneurs who have created … you know they have created great brands but in order to take them, to exploit them to the next level they need a lot more bandwidth. And it's, therefore, their time to move out of that business. Having spent a lot of years buying and selling Mom & Pop tank stores for Sherwin-Williams and Mom & Pop paint brands and Sundry brands it's no different, it's just now we're doing it through e-commerce instead of bricks and mortar. Joe: Okay. So about 50% of your business is the M & A side, the other side is what; working with people on intellectual property, branding, things of that nature? Rochelle:     We're like their outsourced general counsel. It can be everything from intellectual property and branding to possibly contracts, employee issues, independent contractor issues, tax issues- Joe: Okay. Rochelle:     Really almost anything they need. Leases, fire agreements, everything you might imagine a general counsel doing. Joe: I got you. So for folks listening, the reason I have Rochelle on the line today is because a lot of you have asked during the buy or sell process if Quiet Light can recommend an attorney. We have several that we work with; Shawn Hussain at the Ecom Law Group is terrific. We work with him often and Rochelle knows him and came across Rochelle and we were talking about the transfer process of an Amazon business. And I know now that you've worked with all of the website business broker firms that are at a high level like Quiet Light and you've been on both sides of the transaction. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: Do you prefer or do you most often work with the buyer of a business, representing the buyer in contract negotiations or do you find yourself on the seller's side more often? Rochelle:     It's really about equal and we don't really have a preference. We're perfectly prepared to work with both buyers and sellers. Buyers and sellers have different needs and one of the things that I think we're pretty good at and just so you know we're a firm of three full time lawyers. We are about to affiliate with a bigger national firm who also does quite a bit in e-commerce and emerging business and we can … I'm not prepared to tell you who and the details of that but that's coming down the pike so we'll have a lot more bandwidth. But what's important about us as we understand the difference between what a buyer needs, what a seller needs, financing it; if both you're a buyer and a seller how it's being financed matters, and understanding how this Amazon accounts transfer. Sometimes transferring the account actually isn't in your best interest or the buyer, sometimes it's the only solution for the buyer and- Joe: Let's talk about that- Rochelle:     You have to assess that. Joe: You know that the listener's ears just perked up because we're talking about the transfer of an Amazon account. Rochelle:     Yeah. Joe: You and I both know as does everyone who has an Amazon account that the Terms of Service says that the Amazon account is not transferrable and that- Rochelle:     Generally. Joe: Right there's a bracket in there that says generally. To me logically it never made sense that you could build an amazing brand on Amazon and never be able to sell that. And I've had experience direct with Amazon and they've proven that they do in fact allow the transfer of accounts but- Rochelle:     Of course. Joe: Tell us, tell the audience, tell me how have you seen an Amazon account most often transferred with the different transactions that you've done with the top websites and business brokerage firms. Rochelle:     Sure you know a lot of times it's very much behind the scenes. If you are actually selling the ownership interest in the business you're not really transferring the Amazon account. Although Amazon may disagree with that but you're really not transferring the Amazon account, you're transferring the ownership interest in your business. And the only thing you're doing with the Amazon account is actually maybe changing an EIN if … depending on what you're buying and if you're getting the EIN of the new business and probably changing where you want the banking to go. I've even had situations where we haven't had to change the banking at all. If you're buying the assets however and you're leaving the ownership interest of the business behind by getting all of the assets of the business you're going to need to go in and possibly change the name of the owner of the account, change the … certainly, the EIN or the Employer ID Number, change the bank account number, and there may be some other things you're going to change as well. But there are some things that we recommend sellers do and frankly, it's better for buyers to help ease the pain of that process. First of all, we've never had Amazon stand in the way. As a matter of fact, if you text Amazon they'll even tell you how to go on and do it. So as much as they say it's generally not transferrable they actually don't get in the way as long as what you're doing is not disruptive. So where will they get in the way? If the IP address of the person making the change is different than the IP address of the person who has been running the account Amazon is going to have a big flag for fraud and they will get in the way and they may shut down the account. What they usually will do is let the sales continue. However, you can't access your account until somebody verifies that it was an intentional change. And they use to give you a couple of weeks to do that verification although my clients are typically through that verification process within a couple of hours. It may take Amazon a few hours to flag you but watch for the flag it's usually going to come to the seller. One of the great ways to avoid any of those issues, if you're using a VPN to access your account in the first place then you transfer the account with the VPN it has all locked in. You're not changing the IP address and that way when you do this transition there is no issue of the buyer or the seller plugging in the information as long as they're all going through the same VPN. Similarly, let the seller make the changes. Generally, the seller makes the changes. If it's a big enough account Amazon may flag it for fraud anyway but within a couple of hours the seller will get that email or will get contact from his or her account rep and that pain will be immediately fixed. We do it all the time and we haven't had an issue. Joe: So do you end up having to have a contact yourself with Amazon if there's an issue or is it just something that the seller contacts them and it's resolved eventually? Rochelle:     So my rule of thumb, leave your lawyers out of Amazon at all times. We may be in the background helping draft the e-mails, helping respond to the emails, they always come from our client who has the most contact with their Amazon rep. Joe: That's the sellers. Rochelle:     We want- Joe: That's the owner of the seller account. Rochelle:     Exactly. We want the least amount of disruption in the communications. Amazon really doesn't need to hear from your lawyers. You just need to work directly with Amazon and frankly, it's a fraud detection problem. Amazon doesn't want to be caught where somebody somehow hacked into your system changed your accounts and you later come back and accuse Amazon of having changed your accounts or having diverted your money. So you can't blame Amazon for what they're doing. You just have to be able to work with them and be prepared for maybe a day or two of disruption. But typically we haven't seen it disrupt sales. Joe: Okay. Rochelle:     We've seen product takedowns disrupt sales but we have not seen that transfer of the account disrupt sales. Joe: Excellent. Okay. Well let's take a few things, we talked about you're seeing the most method text and then we talked about the VPN and then you talked about … well, I want to talk about different Amazon countries so- Rochelle:     Okay. Joe: What I've seen in the transfer process is the same. You know we wrote the 10 steps to transfer an Amazon account in 2016 I think and the process that we see is actual phone calls to seller central saying “Hey look I'm transferring the business, one of the assets of my business to the Amazon Seller Account. How do I transfer control to the new owner?” and they do the same thing you just talked about in Texas- Rochelle:     Right. Joe: They give you written instructions and they'd sent it via email. Rochelle:     Exactly. Joe: Our clients tell us that sometimes they get lucky; in the 1st call it works and sometimes it takes 10 calls. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: At 1st hold on you can't do that and then on 10th oh yeah exactly I know what you're talking about, they do it. I've had some chats with Amazon chats do the same thing but you said text. Now do you mean email, do you mean the chats, what do you mean by text? Rochelle:     I mean the chats. Joe: You mean the chats, okay. Rochelle:     And it's usually the Seller Central chat system and we even have videos and screenshots of the chats that some of our clients have had. Joe: Okay. Rochelle:     Remember with Amazon Seller Central you are dealing with … I'll describe this way my husband describes pizza. It's only as good as the 16 year old making it; when you order a pizza from a pizza parlor the quality control is a little bit lax. Well with Amazon it's not a quality control problem but the experience of a customer service rep is only what that person has had as experience. And depending on how specific you are, on how clear you are on what you're trying to ask them will depend on how good they are at getting it to the Amazon separate instructions and pulling back and telling you what to do. The more experienced reps are very good at telling you exactly how to go into Seller Central and make the changes. Joe: I like that. I wonder if on the chats that the more experienced reps answer the chats versus the phone calls. DO you know if there's any data behind that or is that just an assumption? Rochelle:     No, I have no idea. Joe: Okay. Rochelle:     I have not seen that and I really don't know and remember the chats are being answered by people all over the world. Joe: Okay same as phone call side too. Rochelle:     Exactly. Joe: Okay, good. So just to back up a little bit of what you are saying I've had many many Amazon … Quiet Light Brokerage has many Amazon transactions transfer just that very same way. I personally have a situation for folks listening who or had an Amazon account that had a gold status, I don't know if that exists anymore but it was called a gold status and that meant that. It was old enough and large enough where they had an Amazon representative assigned to their account. So they had somebody they could always reach out to and during that process, they reached out to that person and said “Hey look transfer selling the business one of the assets of the business is my account how do we take care of this?” And that individual went to Amazon legal and said hey look this is what we're doing and Amazon Legal provided a form- Rochelle:     Right. Joe: And all they wanted to know was the name of the buyer. And it's always been a theory that Amazon wants to make sure that those that have been banned are permanently banned so they wanted to know the name of the buyer so to do that search to see if they've been banned. That's all they did was check the name of the buyer and the transfer went through with no problem at all. So just backing up what you said there. The VPN, I had Norman Farrar on the podcast, Norm is an expert in SOP's and marketing Amazon. He guested on many many podcasts. Norm recommended the same thing and for those that are listening that do a lot of traveling to different events and whatnot, you're all at mastermind groups and you're getting advice if everyone is using the local VPN and there's a hundred people that get it sitting in listen to an expert and they get a great idea they'll all log on to their Amazon account using that IP address in the local wireless, local hotel, or whatever it might be- Rochelle:     Right. Joe: The Amazon bots are gonna go crazy and you're all going to get shut down. Rochelle:     Exactly. Joe: So Norm does that. Norm recommends VPNs. Rob Green who does the same thing, high level seller, a lot of podcasts, a lot of speaking all that events. He's got three or four different seller accounts, different VPN for each one so he goes even to a further level. Rochelle:     All of my biggest clients are using VPNs. It is the smoothest, simplest way … as you said it's not just a matter of selling your business and having the VPN set up, it's actually an operational benefit. Because what it also means as you get bigger it's not just one person who needs to get into that account. You may have a team of people who have to go in and do different things at different times. They could be all over the world. But everybody coming in through the same VPN there's no confusion to Amazon bot. And frankly, it's a lot more secure. Joe: I agree. And it's you $10, $15 a month. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: You should be doing- Rochelle:     Absolutely. Joe: Okay. Let's talk countries, you haven't talked about countries yet. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: You haven't said Amazon.com eu whatever it might be. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: Are you finding the same transfer process to be successful for Amazon.com, UK, Germany, France, Italy, etcetera or are you doing something a little different depending upon the country? Rochelle:     So generally we are using the same transfer process. Now one thing that I have to pull out when you are dealing with other countries you may have a V-A-T or VAT or Ad Valorem tax issue and generally that is not transferable. So you are going to need … the new company is going to need to set up their own tax ID in those countries. And there may be a change that has to be made and it may lag a little bit. Typically we use the same process. Most of our clients are driving their business through Amazon.com in the United States. It's a much smaller amount of traffic and a much smaller amount of sales going through the other countries. Although it's starting to pick up, it's starting to get a lot bigger. But we haven't focused as much on those international accounts but we haven't any trouble transferring them either. We just use the same process. There's been no disruption except for making sure that we have the Ad Valorem tax information necessary for those businesses. Joe: Got you. Rochelle:     And it's been pretty seamless. Joe: Got you. Okay, we've experienced the same thing. In regards to the value added taxes for people listening we did a podcast with Alex Lyon- Rochelle:     Excellent. Joe: From AVASK Tax Advisors three weeks ago depending from when this is launched is it. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: Let's put it this way, it launched 1st of June or so. Great detail on how to set it up, what the pitfalls are in trying to do it on your own and the cost associated with it. And we also addressed the transfer of a seller account when to set that up and what comes first. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: And she sort of detangled everything and it's not all that complicated. Rochelle:     Perfect. Joe: Have you had a situation where the seller wanted to keep their seller account but transfer the brand out to a new owner and if yes tell us about it, please? Rochelle:     We have. Actually, we've had it both ways where the seller wanted to keep their account because maybe their seller account had multiple brands, multiple A Sense and they were only selling one set of their product lines, maybe one brand. And if that happens it has to be up front at the beginning of the deal. Everyone needs to understand at the beginning of the deal whether or not the account is going to transfer. And the buyer needs to appreciate that they may not be getting the seller account and frankly sometimes it's not the worst thing. For instance if the buyer is already an active Amazon Seller, the buyer may be very happy to have its current Amazon account just take over the A sense and that is a very smooth transition and it's literally a relisting of the A sense moved over and then the seller account just delist those; takes them off their registry. Joe: The only challenge with it, you know it just piped it's … is the inventory. The inventory in the FBA account, Amazon will not transfer it from one FBA account to another. So you've got to time it so that new inventory is coming into that new seller account. You might leave the older account open, it still sells through that inventory but the new owner gets the revenue or the profit. Rochelle:     And the seller, if they sell through the existing inventory, may do it for the benefit of the buyer. Joe: Yeah. Rochelle:     So that the money still transfers and all of that inventory and we just do an accounting. Joe: Exactly. Rochelle:     You're exactly right Joe that is what happens. Let me give you another scenario and I actually have this scenario right now. I have a seller I represent who has multiple seller accounts and he … they have multiple brands in their seller account and they're about to sell that business. That particular seller account is poorly rated. It has had lots of negatives for a whole variety of reasons part of it's because it's very old and part of it is because of mistakes that were made early on. But the nature of that particular business, the products they sell makes a lot of money but the seller account itself is not great. And the buyer is actually going through the process right now and determining if they would be better off just starting a brand new seller account and not taking that history because again, you're picking up the history of something that isn't really great. Joe: Yeah I guess it's better to have no history if the old history is very poor. But the challenge is let's back up and start with for those listening buyers or sellers if you have multiple brands in one seller account think about that transfer process. Someday you may wake up and say you know what I'm tired. I want to just unload something and put some money in the bank, set something aside so I can see something for the worth that I've done. The best way to do that is to have a clean transaction; you know separate LLC, clean documents, clean financials, and a separate seller account. Rochelle:     Separate VPN. Joe: Separate VPN, exactly. You can have multiple seller accounts, I've talked to people that have six seven different seller accounts. You just have to get permission from Amazon and they will grant it again like Rochelle said at the beginning you just have to talk to the right person at Amazon. Rochelle:     Or … and you have to do it right, you have to keep those businesses as separate businesses with separate seller accounts. They're not going to let one business have multiple seller accounts. Joe: Okay that's good information and it's hard for people when they bootstrap things and they test and certain things take off and they think this is great. Selling a business is more of a challenge and you got to have those things as separate as possible. I can tell you right now if you're going to spend a thousand dollars setting up a separate LLC and an extra thousand a year doing the accounting for it; you know $600 a year for separate Quick Books account you will get that money back tenfold in the sale [inaudible 00:28:26.9] your account so it's absolutely worth it to do it. So in terms of transferring the brand out of an account here's the drawbacks is that your buyer has to have another Amazon account with good or better ratings than the one that you have. Otherwise, your buyer pull is going to shrink and when your buyer pull shrinks the potential value for business shrinks as well. Rochelle:     That's right. Joe: I've talked to many experts and I've named a few whom here that I have talked to about the transfer of a brand into a brand new Seller Account and they all think that's crazy. If it's got … if a good brand is in a good Seller Account you're transferring that to a brand new Seller Account they don't know anything about it- Rochelle:     It makes no sense. Joe: And it's just risky. Rochelle:     Exactly. Joe: I have a transaction that's going on now where the buyer had just purchased an Amazon Seller Account, it happens to be in a different country than the US and has got a great seller rating and they're going to buy another brand and move it into that same seller account into that same country versus taking over their Seller Account. Because the seller feels that there's a risk there that he doesn't want to take on. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: So there's a lot of different ways to do these transactions and I hope that people can hear Rochelle through your communications that you're an attorney that actually thinks a little bit outside the box and understands that there's always two parties that are coming to the table and both have to be happy and satisfied in order to close a transaction. And you agree? Rochelle:     I absolutely agree and you know Joe one of the things that I'd like to talk to people about is, remember it is the Seller Account you're selling and very often that's what's driving the value. But also keep in mind there may be other things you're selling such as techniques or technology that you've invented to support your Seller Account that helps to drive the business to that account. Or possibly even your own know how and they may need you as part of the transition team. There may be issues with a non-compete especially if you're running multiple brands and you're selling one channel or one brand. So as you're getting ready to sell your business you really have to think about what it is you're selling. It's the Seller Account, it's the brand, what else is being sold and can you really sell the things that the buyer wants? Joe: Yeah all of that should be done up front. What … the worst thing to do folks is to wake up and go okay I'm tired I want to sell my business so I'm going to call a broker. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: That's the worst thing that … the best thing to do is to do what Rochelle is talking about and plan it in advance. Think … okay, maybe someday I'm going to sell my business let me just sort of get my ducks in a row. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: Maybe I never will and maybe I'll pass it on to my kids but in the event, I get tired and want to move on I want to be prepared. And you want to think about all those things in advance and have those sort of all those ducks in a row. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: In any contract negotiation let's touch on this briefly, both buyers and sellers you see both sides of the transactions all the time. What other stomach ache clauses that you see in an asset purchase agreement and how do you rectify them? Give me a couple of examples. Rochelle:     So I can tell you the top two are always the non-compete and the indemnification provisions. Those are always numbers one and two sometimes you know in whichever order you want to put them in. But those are the two things that are almost always the most concerning. So the non-compete; the non-compete sounds easy. I agree I'm going to sell my business that sells paint brushes and I promise not to compete in paint brushes. Well, the buyer may be looking at it a little differently. The buyer may say, I don't want you to compete in anything that has anything to do with paint or anything that has anything to do with art or possibly anything that has anything to do with home or other kinds of activities. Very often they're going to look at Amazon categories and they're going to say I don't want you to compete in the category in which the product you sold is in. I've even had a buyer say I don't want you to be a … will compete in any category on Amazon or in any category in which I, the buyer may be in now or in the future. Joe: Definitely nuts because I would tell them they're nuts. Rochelle:     Well, of course, we say as politely as we can. We don't like to queer deals but those are always fight issues. And my suggestion although I know people don't like to deal with difficult issues up front when you're in the dating period but my suggestion is that you understand the non-compete from the start of the transaction and the LOI point. Joe: Absolutely. We put all of that in our client interviews in depth, we ask about the non-compete, we talk to our sellers in detail about it because that is an important part of it from the seller's side. Look if this … the person selling the business is selling class fishing poles and they want to sell that business but still sell fishing poles it's too close and I'll tell them right up front as will any broker at Quiet Light Brokerage it's not going to work. Buyers are going to have a problem with that. I've never had a situation though I got to tell you, Rochelle, where a buyer has made an offer and said that we don't want you to sell anything on Amazon. That's simply too [inaudible 00:34:05.0]. I've never had anybody narrow it down to the category either because if you think about Home and Garden it's just too broad. It's usually been specific to the product and sometimes you know a little bit around that product. Let's say that if it's pick one that is not an actual- Rochelle:     We can talk about your fishing poles. Joe: Sure. Rochelle:     Some people will say nothing in marine so does that mean I can't sell a boat? A boat is really different than a fishing pole. Does that mean we can't sell a [inaudible 00:34:38.9]? Joe: Fishing tackle or things of that nature. I would say that it's … you can you can dance beyond that specific product a little bit but you can't go okay fishing pole and maybe lures but you can't go to boats, right? Rochelle:     Right. And the reason I bring it up is I have had and I will tell you where it is the … a lot of the buyers today are private equity firms. Joe: True. Rochelle:     And they're doing roll ups, and those private equity firms feel like they're buying the expertise of the person, not just the product and they are all over the idea that the expertise of the person could be used to teach or develop somebody else to sell against them. And as these private equity firms are rolling up multiple brands, multiple areas and their diversifying they have gotten very aggressive on this non-compete language. So we actually have seen … this may affect, I saw a language that was so broad that I said we absolutely can't have our client sign it because she couldn't even work at the makeup counter in Macy's. Because Macy's has an online site and even though she'd be working at the store it would be technically a violation. Joe: Right. Rochelle:     And the private equity guy said to me well we didn't mean that. I said well that's your language says though. And he said I see where you're coming from. We were able to bring it back and this is really where the skills of your lawyer and your broker come in. Because the combination of the two helps bring people back to reality but it's important that conversation happens up front. Joe: I couldn't agree more. I find the vast majority of deals go off the rails at some point and the difference between a good lawyer and a good broker and a great lawyer and a great broker is pulling that back on the rails. I think the ability to have open communications and occasionally you know maybe I'm wrong I don't mean to throw you in a category here but- Rochelle:     Yeah. Joe: You know I think attorneys when they respond to an asset purchase agreement and do edits and send it directly via email and make comments. It's vastly different than if they actually get- Rochelle:     Get on a phone. Joe: When they get on a phone and speak to the other attorney, it's- Rochelle:     Absolutely. Joe: You guys are brutal in emails and comments but then when you get on the phone you can generally work things out. Rochelle:     So one of the challenges Joe is that really it's more than there was but today there are very few lawyers who have experience in this kind of business. Joe: Yup. Rochelle:     And the typical document we're seeing has all sorts of stuff in it that makes no sense for an Amazon business. It's got loads of employee representations on employee benefit plans, it has loads of pages on environmental reps and warranties because they've taken the standard ABA form or the standard form they always use and they send it and say this is our asset purchase agreement. Joe: Right. Rochelle:     And people like … and I'll use Shawn Hussain as a great example I do a lot of deals with them, people like us look at that and we just simply white out all those pages. So we start off with 75 pages when we're done it's about 35 and 40 of them were just garbage. Joe: Let's jump to the indemnification clause. Rochelle:     Yes. Joe: Stomach ache clause number two, tell us about that one. Rochelle:     So indemnification, for people who don't understand what it is, it's the clause that says if something goes wrong after the sale here's when and how I might be able not I the buyer may be entitled to get some money back. Or get some protection get some defense. So understood anything that happened in your business prior to the sale of the business is certainly the seller's responsibility. Anything that happens in the business after the sale of the business is the buyer's responsibility. But then there's the foggy world; what about product that was produced by the seller but not sold until the buyer owns that inventory? What about claims made on the websites, claims made in the marketing materials, claims of natural or organic that the buyer is relying on that the seller created, or what about simple … the business didn't do very well? You told me this business is a million dollar a month business but when the buyer takes it over the think tanks, the lightning deals go away. There's all sorts of speculation, the supplier doesn't supply quite as well to the buyer as the seller, and then the buyer comes in and says how do I get money back for this it's not what I expected. It's really really important that going into the deal you understand what the caps and limits are, what's the maximum amount of money a buyer can get back and under what circumstances, and is there a deductible. So for instance fraud; okay everyone understands that if the seller committed fraud, the buyer is going to expect their money back and probably all of their money. At the same time let's just assume that what really happened is that the seller had representation, some warranties and in it it said that the financial statements that are attached are true and correct and it turns out one line has one number transposed, it doesn't change the business, it doesn't change the quality of the business, it is an immaterial mistake, should the buyer get money back? Should they get all their money back for that? Should they get any money back for that? And so that's what I would call a typical representation warranty. Let's assume there was as a result of that mistake there really was a little bit of a material implication. Well, it will … let's say turned into a $10,000 problem, so what should the buyer get for that $10,000 problem? The language and the representation warranties are very important. What we recommend is that going into the deal there be a very clear conversation about the difference between fraud which might mean you get your purchase price back or maybe even the right to unwind the transaction versus an unintentional misrepresentation or mistake or something hiccups that you didn't anticipate. And we recommend that you have a clear cap, what's the maximum amount that the buyer can get back in the event of those issues and it might be we … generally, we see somewhere between ten on the low side and 30% on the high side as the range; that's today's market, as the range for those kinds of indemnifications. We might see a basket, so we might see something that says but if it's all under $25,000 or under $50,000 depending on the size of the deal the buyer gets nothing back. It's just a small de minimus issue whereas if it's hundreds of thousands of dollars of issue there might be a cap on it. There are fundamental representations such as title to the assets and if it turns out the seller sells you something it didn't have title to it, of course, the buyer is going to expect to be completely reimbursed for that. There are questions about whether or not you'll pay for the attorneys. These are provisions that both your broker understands and your attorneys understand. I strongly recommend that you line up an attorney at the beginning of the deal at the LOI for the base of this and you also line up an accountant who and as a seller. Joe: Well in advance. Rochelle:     Well in advance. Joe: Yeah for sure. I hope you have one already for those listening that are sellers you know the four pillars that Mark and I talked about; the risk, the growth, the transferability, and the documentation are all critical. And you can't have that documentation in place without having a good a. bookkeeper and b. CPA to figure out what's going to be and left with after the sale. That's why I don't want you to wake up and go okay I'm ready to sell, list my business, please. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: You want to think about those things in advance. I did a podcast with Dave Bryant from EcomCrew way back on importing from China and Dave talks about how he planned in advance selling his business and renegotiated the cost of goods sold on certain skews over a 12 month period. Saved himself about $40,000 and got that back in a multiple of three when he sold the business so all of these things are really important. As you talk about the indemnification, and as you talk about the non-compete for those listening you know I'm sure some of you nodded off right? Just like you did when I talked about the doing the valuation in cash versus accrual accounting. You can make so much more money in the sale of your business someday if you ever decide to sell or your heirs do when you take care of these things in advance when you plan when you have proper documentation. Now all of that will make these stomach ache clauses like the indemnification, not an issue. Proper documentation in advance of the sale you'll know that you did the right thing with your customers, you know that you don't have any cash and potential liabilities; you know that your financials are correct. That transposing of the number you know is it material, is it immaterial? Rochelle:     Right. Joe: I've never had it happen pretty small if it's immaterial to material. I always go back to things can be worked out for the most part with math and logic. Emotion is the wild card, a good attorney a good a broker will help keep those emotions in check and on track to closing. And I think one of the reasons why I wanted you on the podcast Rochelle is because you seem to apply that math and logic into the conversations that we've had and you realize really really strongly that both buyers and sellers need to be happy. Rochelle:     Right. Joe: Otherwise that transaction is not gonna close. There's no point. A one sided deal is never going to close folks. So if you have an attorney that is fighting tooth and nail for indemnification clause it's going to have the seller not cover anything, not cover any risk for the buyer, it's not going to close. It has to be comfortable for both parties. I always tell a story, I'm not going to tell the full story but it boils down to I will not take on a clients that is married to an attorney that has an attorney's her mother father sister brother that's going to do their contract negotiations because they fight like rabid dogs for things that you know there's one tenth of 1% of it happening but they fight like crazy to make sure that their client, their relative is fully protected. Because they're gonna have to have drinks to that relative at the next 4th of July barbecue. Deals fall apart for those clauses that we've talked about more the indemnification in my experience than the non-compete because again a good broker will handle that upfront and take care of it upfront and it should be both buyer and seller free LOI. Now one last thing on the LOI face in terms of when to hire the attorney Rochelle, our experience is the letter of intent is non-binding and fully contingent on the asset purchase agreements on due diligence and the further detail of asset purchase agreement so we don't recommend that clients hire an attorney for the language in the letter of intent. Because it says right in there is non-binding and contingent on those things. I think as long as some of these points or all of these points are worked out in advance you know particularly the non-compete that it's in there that 9.5 times out of 10 it's not an issue. Occasionally we have a little further negotiation in the asset purchase agreement, would you agree though that you should be hired once the LOI is signed and for the asset purchase agreement negotiations? Rochelle:     Let me frame this a little differently. Joe: Okay. Rochelle:     If you're getting ready to sell your business you should have a lawyer lined up who's taking a look at your business to make sure your ducks are in a row. Make sure if you have supply agreements that they are written signed enforceable supply agreements because if you're planning on selling those supply agreements then they have to have assignable supply agreements. So what I always suggest is just like you have your accountant in your back pocket you ought to have an attorney that you work with that's helped you think through your business. So I actually believe that you need to have a good business attorney lined up early on. Now having said that, 90% of my clients don't even though that is my advice and I wish we would be there. Joe is exactly right we are very often hired after LOI or right as the LOI is being prepared. And the only catch we have with LOI is if you have an LOI that doesn't address indemnification, it doesn't have a cap in it, when we go to do the asset purchase agreement the attorney on the other side will say the letter of intent didn't have a cap, the letter of intent said purchase price because it didn't say anything else. So when you're silent on those terms in the LOI you might have uphill battle. What you could do to protect yourself is to say a … indemnification with cap and basket to be agreed upon in the definitive document. So then you've at least left open the possibility that there's a negotiation to still be had on that topic whereas if you simply leave it silent the buyer is going to say that … I know I'd say when I'm a buyer I'm going to say no no no no no there were it said indemnification there were no caps, there were no baskets. Joe: Yeah, you're going to say different things as the attorney for the buyer than you are for the seller. Rochelle:     Absolutely I'm very good at switching hat, as a matter of fact, I have represented clients who have been both buyers and sellers and they laugh about the fact that my tone changes and the way I look at the document changes. But we do what we have to do for our clients. Joe: Yeah for those listening look like many of you had … you don't want to contact a broker to talk about the valuation of the business or what it might be worth and I've had people tell me that because they don't want to feel like they're committing. You've got to do the same thing with the attorney, I think you should have a call with a broker a year two years in advance just to understand the valuation process and how to gauge what your discretionary earnings are on a monthly basis, quarterly basis, so you get an idea for the value instead of just listening to podcast, instead of just listening to people in mastermind groups and their experiences because the full story is never told. Instead of just looking at listings and oh that's a 2.5 multiple, that's a three multiple, it's a four multiple, you don't get the full story. You can't do it that way. You should have a conversation and have it directly applied to your business and your business only because every business has its own unique qualities. The same applies I think as you're saying Rochelle to having a conversation with an attorney in advance because if there's a problem with the way that you set up your LLC or the trademark or a design or anything like that- Rochelle:     Right. Joe: You should have those things addressed in advance. Well worth it. Do you do any … do you have an hourly charge for that first call? Do you have a free consultation? Do you just talk about business what it … how does it work if somebody wants to reach out to you and have that conversation? Rochelle:     Well we offer a 20 minute free consultation to all new clients. So we do it telephonically, most of our clients are not located. We're based in Tampa Florida which is a lovely place to live and do business. Most of our clients are all over the world. So we do it telephonically or through Skype or some other online method and we offer … we say 20 minutes and sometimes it goes a little longer depending on how in-depth we get. And in that call, we can then talk to you about what you need and how to price what you need. So sometimes what you need immediately is really just a few hours of our time and consultation and we'll bill it that way. Sometimes what you need is for us to dive in … as a firm we will do flat fees, we will do structured fees meaning that a certain price to cover the LOI and other price to cover due diligence a 3rd price to cover the asset purchase agreement and actually do it in phases. We will do capped fees, it all depends on the nature of your transaction and on how well we can get our arms around what you're asking us to do. So for instance, if we're doing it capped fee or a flat fee we're going to be very specific about the services you're getting from us and things that are outside those services might be in addition. If we're doing an hourly rate, of course, we'll have some sort of retainer up front and we will be specific about what's included in those services but you'll be billed by the hour. We try very hard to be transparent and easy for our clients to understand what they're being billed for and how they're being billed. Joe: Excellent. Rochelle listen we're going to wrap it up here, appreciate your time today. Can you tell those listening how to reach you, how do they find you either online or via phone call? Rochelle:     Absolutely so by phone, our number is 813 999 0199 and I am in extension 115 if you press 0 when you call that number ask for Layla and she will set you up with me or one of our attorneys for an additional counsel. And by e-mail I am rochelle@walklawfirm.com And we have a policy of responding to people within 24 at the most 48 eight hours but we're usually pretty good about popping right back to you and getting something set up. Joe: Terrific we'll make sure that that phone number the e-mail address and the website address are in the show notes as well. Rochelle:     Thank you. Joe: Rochelle any last thoughts for those listening that may be either buyers or sellers that you want to share? Rochelle:     I just think in closing that when you think about buying or selling a business due diligence is the most important thing you can do. So even if you're an experienced Amazon seller whether you're a buyer or a seller you need to know who you're doing business with. Get some … if you're the buyer certainly understand the brand you're buying and understand what you're trying to accomplish by buying those brands, what services you need and frankly if you're the seller and you might be taking back seller paper which is a promissory note a seller promissory note you're going to want to know who the buyer is. Make sure you understand are they equipped to run a business like this and if they're not what kind of transition services do you need to provide them so they can hit the ground running. Know what kind of people there are, check them out. If you're dealing with people who are squirrelly get out of the deal in the … before you even sign the LOI. But if you're dealing with good people try and figure out how to make them successful because your success as a seller especially if you're taking back a seller's promissory note or consulting agreement your success is going to be very much related to their success. Joe: I love your approach you know if you're … if you ever decide to leave the law business give us a call. You may be a very very very successful advisor here at Quiet Light Brokerage. Rochelle:     Thank you, Joe, I appreciate that and look forward to working with you again on some transactions. Joe: All right. Well, thanks for being a guest I appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. Rochelle:     Thanks, Joe.   Links: www.walklawfirm.com Walk Law Firm, PA The Wells Fargo Building 100 S. Ashley Dr., Ste. 620 Tamp. FL 33602 Phone: 813-999-0199 Fax: 813-839-4896 LinkedIn

Alex Lyon from Avask Tax Advisors works with over 2,000 eCommerce and FBA clients. Her role is to help them understand, register for, manage and comply with VAT registrations and payments. Did you know that when selling online in Europe the taxes (VAT) are included in the purchase price? Did you know if you don't increase your list price your margins shrink by the VAT amount? Did you know that if you have a UK company there is a minimum total revenue threshold amount you can reach before you have to collect VAT? Did you know the biggest mistake made by US companies is not registering for VAT, but that you can sell on Amazon prior to having the registration number? If you answered “no” to at least one of the above questions…and plan to expand to Europe, hearing Alex's explanation of the VAT process could be critical to your expansion success.   Episode Highlights: The biggest mistake Alex sees is not registering for VAT, and it is costly! You can sell before being registered, but it'll cost you if you don't increase your prices to account for VAT. You do not have to set up a foreign corporation to sell in Europe, regardless of your overseas location: i.e. US, Singapore, etc. You only collect in countries you are shipping from (there is a caveat). Amazon does not show VAT charges separately in your seller account. The PanEU program makes sense for some, most only register in the UK and Germany. If you don't pay VAT…your Amazon account will be suspended and/or closed (eventually). “Import VAT” is charged on the inventory shipped into the country and paid immediately. “Sales VAT” is charged on the retail price of your goods, and paid quarterly. The UK and Germany are the two largest markets for selling online in the EU. The UK is the easiest to expand to from the US because of language and the challenges of shipping to Germany. Wiring VAT payments can take 4-5 days and a currency account in Europe shortens the wire times. Using an intermediary bank, or currency account, can save 1-3% in exchange rate fees. With Avask, the costs to register for VAT in the UK is about $200 USD, and then about $1200 USD per year. Caveat to costs: “Distance Selling Thresholds”, if met, require more than $1200 per year because VAT is required in countries you do not store inventory in. Transcription: Mark: Good morning Joe. How are you? Joe: I'm good Mark. How are you? Mark: I'm hanging in there. I'm enjoying the weather lately and getting outdoors a little bit not working as hard but we're still recording podcasts. And you recorded one on an interesting topic and something that I think more and more people are having to face that have Amazon businesses and that's some of the tax implications going overseas. Joe: Yes. Actually, anybody who has a physical products business that wants to sell in Europe and it's on value added taxes, oh my God not exciting at all. But did you know real quickly that you know obviously here in the States you buy something and then the tax is added? When you buy something online, or in Europe, UK, Germany, France, Italy, etcetera the price is built into…I'm sorry the taxes are built into the price. So if it's 120$ the item might be 100 but the taxes are 20. And a lot of buyers that ex…by sellers that expand overseas don't quite understand that concept initially and they could immediately start losing margin by not increasing the prices for the value added taxes. A great conversation it was with Alex Lyon from AVASK Tax Advisors they have over 2,000 FBA clients and e-commerce clients throughout the world that sell and need value added tax compliance so really informative stuff. And anybody that's considering expanding overseas should absolutely listen to this because it's not that complicated once you listen to what she says. Mark: What are the consequences if somebody is not taking care of the value added tax? Do you know by any chance? Joe: Yeah absolutely. So they're very-very compliant over there. It's not gray like it is here in the States, its black and white. So the problem is that if you sell in let's say the UK and you're not registered, you're going to be determined. Amazon has to share the information with I think it's the HMRC. They have to by law; they share the details of everybody that sells on Amazon. So the HMRC has access to your sales information and therefore can force you to pay the value added taxes that you should have collected. If you didn't collect it you're going to pay for that out of your pocket simple as that. So you've got two choices: pay for it out of your pocket and lose that 15 to 20% margin and probably make no money at all or walk away and be banned from selling in in Europe on Amazon. Mark: That's significant. I think moving across the ocean to selling in different countries is a huge opportunity for anyone. Buying an e-commerce business that wants to ship overseas that you need to start taking advantage of that opportunity but you also have to go through some of the understanding of what sort of regulations are in play. I think this you know isn't…this is not exactly an exciting topic but you know and I think it's a really important topic for anyone to listen to, to possibly unlock an opportunity that your competitors are not taking advantage of. Joe: Yeah and before we say let's jump into it let me just say this that I've seen explosive growth with people moving and expanding their products to the EEO, explosive growth in particular France. I mean the UK and Germany. And the cost associated with it using someone like AVASK and they're not the only ones who do it, it's not all that expensive. You're looking at maybe 1500 $ to get the ball rolling and get it done right. And you can you can start selling immediately as long as you're registering and then you pay from the date you started selling. It's really not that complicated. There's a lot to it but it's really-really important that if you're going to sell overseas which I think everybody should if they have real growth plans that they listen to the whole podcast. Mark: All right with that I will say let's jump into it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got to Alex Lyon from AVASK Tax Advisors with me. She's an expert on VAT which I believe is value added tax. Something a lot of folks trying to expand their e-commerce businesses over to the UK and beyond really need some help on. So Alex welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Alex: Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Hi everyone. Yeah as Joe has mentioned my name is Alex. I am Indirect Tax Client Manager of AVASK. So I've been working here for three years now just helping e-commerce sellers expand over into Europe. So we've got over 2,000 Amazon sellers that we work with. UK companies also companies based all over the world as well. So yeah that's been us. Joe: That's fantastic. Are they all FBA clients (Fulfilled By Amazon) or do they you know sell off FBA as well (off Amazon) with their own e-commerce businesses? Alex: It varies so a high majority of people are FBA sellers just because it's a lot easier to hand everything over to Amazon and kind of let them do fulfillment. But there are quite a large number of Amazon Sellers as well such as shipment from your own country which obviously makes a lot of things easier in terms of the VAT because you don't have to actually declare the sales in Europe because you're not fulfilling from his countries. So yeah it's kind of a majority FBA but we do have MFM sellers as well. Joe: Okay, good. Good. Good. So let's talk about the basics, get things straight here for our listeners because a lot of people here in the states are expanding their Amazon.com accounts beyond Amazon into the European countries and seeing explosive growth. But the big mystery is how to set up the VAT's and how to find an agency like yours to handle it most of the costs associated with it are. So you can start am I getting it right is it Value Added Tax and tell us how it works? Alex: Correct. Yes, it's value added tax. It's the same principle across the European countries but they have different rights and different filing frequencies. The easiest way to explain it would be that it's similar to the sales tax you have in the US. But the main difference would be the way which you include it within the price of your product. So this is kind of the biggest hurdle where people fall over on where they don't actually include the VAT amount within the price of the product which means that you're not actually collecting the VAT from your customer but you still have to pay it to the revenue. So you're essentially paying it out from your pocket if you don't include it. So in the US for someone like myself when I come over I don't realize it works like this when I go to the checkout in sell sites because I didn't know and I'm kind of how…where is this amount coming from. Whereas in the UK you don't know that it's already there in the price of the product so yes its essentially the same as the sales tax but it's more hidden. Joe: So Amazon is collecting that 20% for units built into the purchase price of the product. So if it's 100 $ if the VAT is 20% for instance, 20% is something set aside to pay your VAT…your taxes? Alex: Yes. Joe: Okay. Alex: So you need to list in on Amazon for the straight 120. Amazon won't do that for you. Joe: Okay and do a lot of people make that mistake where they just list their business without bumping it for the value added tax? Alex: Yeah there's a large number of that do. Without getting kind of proper advice on how VAT actually works. So it is…see it's hard enough to in taxes in your own country let alone I'm kind of working out how to do it in a foreign country. So yeah that's a big hurdle where quite a lot of people fall over on. Joe: Okay. So you're located in the UK. AVASK is located in the UK. But I think I saw offices around in different parts of the world, is that right? Alex: Yes that's right. So we've got an office in London and I'm on based on in Winchester which is about an hour south of London. And then we've also got offices in Shenzhen and LA. We try to come over to the US as much as possible as well just because oversea it's kind of US sellers that we've [inaudible 00:08:19.0] work with. So yeah we try and get over to the events as much as possible as well and get that travelling. Joe: So the vast majority of clients as you said are US based clients and they start selling and Amazon.com and then expanded to the European countries? Alex: Yeah, definitely. Amazon is oversea, it's huge in America and it's just kind of been taking off here in Europe as well. So it's a massive market in Europe and I think if you're product is successful and you've been able to make it successive there in the US then there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't also be able to do in Europe. Joe: Okay. So let's say I own an Amazon.com account, I want to reach out to you what…and I want to sell in the European countries, step one two three can you walk us through that? Alex: Yup sure. So step one is to work out where you're going to be shipping your products from. So most people go with the UK or Germany just because they're the biggest markets, UK is obviously a lot easier because you don't have to translate any of your products. So whichever country you decide you're going to fulfill from you then have to get a VAT number in that country and also an EORI number for all of your shipments. So those two numbers you have to have those before you make a shipment. If you make a shipment without those numbers you're going to get charged import VAT and then you won't necessarily be able to reclaim that back whereas you would if you have the numbers. So that's very important. In terms of the registration process, engaging a UK agent is really helpful because you've got someone who can communicate with tax authorities on your behalf. And that also means that we know exactly what documents are needed for each of the registration. We'll process all of that for you. Once the application has been submitted and you're waiting for the numbers to come through at that point you should start getting your listings up. Working out some shipping quotes and kind of working out all the details on actually how you're going to get your product there and what the listings are going to look like. Joe: Okay. And I just had a conversation with someone that is buying an Amazon business and they were confused about when the VAT was going to be applied. Is it to the amount of products being shipped into the country or is it the amount that's sold? Alex: It's both. So if you're doing FBA you're making a box shipment to an Amazon warehouse. That box shipment you're going to have to declare at customs. So any shipment that's out into a warehouse is going to have import VAT at UK customs charged on it that's assuming of course that your shipment has come from outside of Europe, so most people ship from China or from the US. So import VAT is going to be charged on the cost of your goods. When you put together a commercial invoice of that shipment, that's the amount of the import fees then we charge on also with freight charges and things. Joe: And then what time do they pay that import VAT, when it arrives? Alex: Yeah correct so usually depending on what shipping company you'll go for usually they'll pay it for you and invoice it back to you. But they still have to do your kind of clearance number to create a shipment. Joe: And then do they have to…then they collect that VAT when it sells and they keep it or is it a different…are we talking about two different things? The import VAT versus the VAT that's charged to the customer on the Amazon account is that two different things or it's the same? Alex: It's the same tax but it's computed in different ways. So import VAT is non-cost whereas VAT on your sales is on the retail price of your goods. And they're also kind of declared differently so with the VAT when you [inaudible 00:11:35.18] you pay that in your VAT within each quarter. You don't pay that immediately when you make the sale. Whereas the import VAT, you pay it immediately at customs. And the way that those kind of…they tie in together although they're separately you…it's within your VAT return. So you do your VAT filing every quarter. So every three months you declare the amount of sales you made and then obviously you're declaring the VAT that's due on your sales and then any import VAT that you pay you can get that refunded and it's used as a credit within your VAT return. Joe: And how easy is it within the Amazon seller account to see that money that you've collected and have it match up against what you're going to owe? Or is it not as black and white as I think it would be or is it really relatively easy? Alex: It's gotten a lot better, to be honest. And so Amazon have got a specific VAT report that you can now download so you can see the breakdown. But in terms of the actual…when your customer purchases an item they won't be able to see the breakdown of VAT and the amount that's going to the amount that's going to the revenue. Another kind of stumbling block where a few Amazon sellers fall over where they don't get the kind of proper…do the proper research before is that's that although Amazon take their fees from the money you receive in terms of your sales, the VAT is [inaudible 00:12:49.6] on the total sales price. You can't deduct Amazon fees and then the amount that you actually receive from Amazon is what you pay VAT on it's the total amount that you're costumer is paying you pay VAT on. Joe: Why is there any calculation at all that the seller does? Doesn't Amazon calculate it for you it seems like they would since they know the exact sales? Alex: Yes so, unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. You have to include it. You have to price your product you have to do your pricing matrix. If you're expecting to move due your pricing and then Amazon add the VAT on it…that's not going to happen. You have to make sure you're including them. Joe: Well then I was thinking in terms of Amazon that in your pricing you would say this is my price and then this is my VAT amount it's not done that way you just simply mark it up to 120$ if it's a 100$ item. Alex: Yeah, exactly. Mark out straight away. And you can tell Amazon with the VAT calculation service you can let them know if you've got any kind of reduce rated or zero rated items which will reflect on the actual sales report. But it's not going to affect what your actual retail price is on Amazon and what it's listed as. Joe: Okay. Let's talk about volume. Here in the States, there's a lot of question about when should I start collecting sales taxes and [inaudible 00:13:58.6] and all these different [inaudible 00:13:59.8] unfortunately not black and white yet. It's still very-very gray. I had a situation where I listed a business for sale and asked about collecting VAT and he said well I'm not…I haven't hit that threshold yet in the UK. And I think it was a UK corporation as well, can you talk about thresholds and when and if you have to collect. In different [inaudible 00:14:21.4] what if you're a UK corporation or a Hong Kong Corporation if you're someone at the LOC or corporation here in the States? Alex: Okay, so if you have a company that's incorporated anywhere apart from the UK then you have to register for VAT immediately so that's sale number one whether it's going to have 1$, 10$, or 100$ it's straight away so no threshold whatsoever, you have to be registered. If however, you have a UK company there's a threshold of 85,000 Pounds and that's in terms of a turnover over a 12 month loaning period. So if you hit that within three months you have to be registered if you hit that in 11 months you have to be registered but that's just for a UK company. So if you've got an overseas entity you have to register straight to it there's no threshold. Joe: As far as buyers go, when you and I talked about this and have conversations with buyers when they buy an Amazon account that has a European component to it there's always questions about TMI not going to be collecting during a certain period of time, how do we sign up, how do we get that registered, what kind of danger I'm going to be in. I think you said the other day in a call separately in preparation for this that you can start pricing your products right away while you register and you're not going to…you're not going to lose any grounds or sales while you're registering and then paying VAT down the road a bit. Can you talk about that again a little bit so that…and talk about it from a buyer for perspective. If say someone is buying an Amazon account and taking it over and would reach out to you to register how do they ensure that they're collecting from day one of ownership and that they're not going to…not get themselves in a little bit of trouble? Alex: Well, first of all, I want to make sure, well check whether the Amazon account has already previously been charging VAT. So what we've discussed in terms of the pricing, obviously if you're taking over an Amazon account you're buying that account. And if they haven't been including VAT in the prices, you obviously then need to…the first kind of goal is to straight away go ahead and increase everything by that 20%. Joe: Let me just jump in here for a sec. So that's a consideration when someone…this is for the buyers that are listening, correct me here Alex if I'm wrong but when someone's buying an account and the owner has UK corporation, if they're below that annual threshold of 85,000 Pounds in revenue they're not charging VAT. But if I buy it and I'm not a UK corporation I immediately have to increase the prices in order to collect VAT or leave it alone and I'm going to lose 20% of my sales to the VAT. Is that correct? Alex: That's correct. Yes, so you because you're an overseas company you have to charge VAT on your sales even though they haven't been charged previously. Joe: Okay really critical for buyers to understand that when it's a UK corporation. Okay sorry to interrupt please continue. Alex: Okay so once you have then kind of taken over the company you can actually back date a registration. So say I'm talking over…I'm buying an Amazon account under my US company from a UK company we'll stick to that example. From the 1st of May you know going through the whole process it's taken a couple weeks to actually get everything set up. When if it got to the 1st of June and you still hadn't registered you can then back date that to the 1st of May. So as soon as you know that you're going to be buying the Amazon Seller Central, I would make sure that you're charging VAT to your customers because although you may not be registered you can backdate the registration. And it means that you have to pay VAT in all sales you make previous even though at that actual moment in time you weren't registered but you're back dating registration. Joe: Okay just to summarize. Don't change a thing in terms of prices assuming it's a…let's go with back to the it's a non UK entity so that they're a US entity buying a US entity but they have a UK account to it. If they're charging 120$ now and they're collecting VAT you don't have to change prices at all. Alex: Correct. Joe: You're going to register with a firm like yours and then when it's time to pay for the first time you're already collecting those and you'll go back dating and calculate what's due. Alex: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Joe: And how often do you pay? I think you said was it quarterly? Alex: Yes quarterly so every three months yeah. Joe: And is it the same every three months? Is it the beginning of the 15th of the next quarter is when you have to pay the taxes or is it depends upon when you register? Alex: So you got one month and seven days to actually do the filing and make the payment. As you can fall into different stagger groups in VAT quarters so it's not necessarily you are January to March you can be February to April or March to May. So there's three kind of different groups of VAT filings you could fall into. Your VAT advisor should obviously let you know and would be contacting you when everything's due. In terms of the frequency yeah it is quarterly. Joe: Listen, Alex, as you can see I'm an old guy, got some gray hair here. I fell asleep in accounting class in college. I honest to God I did fell asleep, the next class came in and I think I've told the story again so I won't go to much detail. I don't like this stuff. I don't like this level of detail because of what I do for a living it's absolutely critical as an entrepreneur and know how important it is. Do I have to really…if I'm the guy that's buying an FBA business and it's got European components to it, how much do I have to really know or can I just rely on you guys to do the work for me? Alex: You can definitely rely on us to kind of advice you and let you know. But it is…I do think it's good to know kind of the basics of what you're doing. In terms of Amazon, you've got two different programs so European Fulfillment Network or Pan-European Program. Pan-European Program is great you get to move your stock around to seven different countries [inaudible 00:20:03.1] you're stock is close that your costumers time are positive reasons to do that. But if you just kind of turn that on on your Amazon Seller Central and you'd haven't done any prior research, you won't know that you then actually have to get [inaudible 00:20:17.6] registered in seven countries. You have to do filings maybe month in more than half of these countries. So everything that you do in terms of where your stock is located, where your sales are going will have an impact on your VAT registration, your VAT applications within Europe. So yes it's good you should have [inaudible 00:20:36.6] in there. We'd let you know but don't be completely ignorant to what you're doing and where your stock is going. Joe: Hey it sounds like you just touched on being able to shift from seven different countries in a penny you…there's a lot of potential savings in terms of the shipping costs and fulfillment costs that you're closer to the customer. But you talked earlier I think that if you've got your inventory in the UK or Germany in the two biggest centers that you register for VAT in those countries what if your inventory is spread around seven different countries so you're closer to the customers do you then have to register in all of those countries? Alex: You do. Yeah, as soon as your stock is in that country and you can sell in from there you have to be VAT registered in that country. So VAT is basically payable to the country and is being done close at supply. So if your stock is in a Czech Republic warehouse the place of supply VAT sale when it's going from the Czech Republic to the customer in Italy is going to be in Czech Republic. So being VAT registered in the UK is completely useless. Joe: Okay. Alex: So yeah- Joe: Very much like nexus here in the States if there's 15 Amazon centers theory is that if you have 15 different locations of inventory you have nexus in those states and that's where you collect sales taxes. Not as formal as where you are. Tell us about the biggest hurdles and biggest mistakes that you've seen people make…well that you have in been bringing people to the European countries and selling an FBA. What things are really obvious? What mistakes are really common that people can avoid? Alex: So first one is to not get registered at all. So with that threshold, quite a few people get confused that the 85,000 threshold is applicable to them; sounds really appealing and really lovely so they just don't register full stop. And then when you do get registered you just do it from today's date because [inaudible 00:22:27.3] realize but now I know that I'm going to do it from today. There's a huge amount of compliant checks going on with the revenue in the UK. They are hurdling through every single Amazon account and doing tax investigations. You know we've had to help clients where we're going all the way back to 2012 when the legislation came in that they have to register. So that's kind of six years of taxes you're going to have to go back and pay and if you don't your Amazon can get shut down. So the first kind of hurdle is actually getting registered. It's kind of what you'd think is the most simplest part just to do the application. Joe: Six years of VAT taxes you've had people in that situation? Alex: Yeah. Joe: I would think that in some situations people will just throw their hands up in the air, close the account, and walk away, and not pay the taxes. Alex: Yeah. Joe: Is that something where if you're a US resident where you're going to be found and have to pay those taxes in some way shape or form? Alex: Well you spent a nice six years building up your Amazon account. You've got all of your reviews you know you've built up that kind of brand in the UK so to kind of just throw your hands up and walk away is a big thing to do in the first place. Because even if you opened up a new Amazon account you're not going to have all of those reviews and obviously the name of you as a director of that company when you do a VAT application in the UK you have to state that information and you have to kind of give all of those details of yourself anyway and yeah so you'll have- Joe: So if you're going to walk away there walk in away forever. Alex: Yeah. Joe: Unless they cheat and get around the system somewhere. Alex: Exactly and unfortunately like in the US…so as not like in the US there's now amnesty in the UK so if you think that you're going to be negotiating and kind of say that oh I'll make sure to pay everything going forward so I'll pay a percentage you wouldn't get that and you also have to pay mass penalty as well so it do not kind of sound all that great if you haven't done the right thing to start with. Joe: Okay. So I've talked to a lot of Amazon sellers. I've seen their financials. Some people tell me you know I've done the analysis Joe and it's just not worth the effort for me to sell in Germany and Italy in France and in the UK. It's just not worth it. And I think they're completely and utterly wrong because I've seen the explosive growth. You've got 2,000 FBA clients. What country are you seeing people get the most bang for their buck? What's growing rapidly over there and what country should they pay attention to the most? Alex: UK and Germany definitely. They're just the two biggest markets. France is…does follow very closely but yeah 100% they're the biggest. Joe: Okay. And the easiest of those two might be the UK because you don't have to do translation? Alex: Yeah, exactly. And I'm shipping direct into the UK is a lot easier than it is shipping to Germany. Joe: Okay. Okay. There are a lot of concerns about money laundering. I've heard people talk about this and how complicated it is and on the German side and German FBA accounts. Am I just hearing people with sort of the chicken little mentality that the sky is falling and being really paranoid or is there something to that? Alex: I think sales in Germany in terms of my money laundering and everything is all going through Amazon. So amazon are collecting the funds and sending it to you. You don't need for some representation in Germany so payments go directly to the tax authorities whereas in France you've got to pay to your French advisor and then it goes to the tax authorities so yeah I'm not sure of what grounds. Joe: Do you even know who Chicken Little is or what that theory…okay, I see you just- Alex: No sorry. Joe: Okay. It's a cartoon character here in the States disguised- Alex: Okay [crosstalk 00:25:55.9] Joe: I used that terminology when there's so many people online talking about all the horrible things that can happen when you're own an Amazon seller account as opposed to the reality of how many great things are happening and it's changing people's lives. Alex: I think that's like when you go to a restaurant or you go anywhere, you're more likely to leave a bad review if you've had a bad experience whereas if you've had agood review you probably leave any review at all. I do notice that happen. Joe: A hundred percent, you're absolutely right. One of the things that I see often and I know you guys are AVASK tax advisor so I want to talk about that advisory part and the tax part. But one of the things that I see happen is that sometimes when sellers expand overseas they just take the easy route and they'd let Amazon handle making deposits directly to their US bank account. Whereas other people that take a little bit of time, do some research, still use World's First Bank or somebody else to be that intermediary and the money will go there at a lower exchange rate saving them tens in…tens of thousands of dollars annually. Do you find that to be the case, do you would advise folks to do that and if so what world banks do you suggest they use or look at or is that a service that you provide as well? Alex: Yeah, definitely. So if you kind of first of all from a VAT paying perspective there's…most people have to pay via wire transfer. And if you're getting kind of close to the payment deadline it can take for to five working days for that payment to clear with HMRC. They then if any payment is received late they will give you a surcharge with subtentiative liability and that can go up to 15 cents. So if you've got a currency account located here in Europe the time that it takes for the funds to actually clear and consider the payment to be made is a lot quicker. So that is a big benefit of getting a bank account over here even just a currency account. Joe: Can you define what a currency account is and how it differentiates from a bank account, please? Alex: So it has kind of all the benefits of a bank account and they're very similar but I don't think I mean don't 100% take my word for this. Obviously, it's better to speak to a currency account provider. But you can't hold large amounts of funds in that account. It's kind of like an intermediary way. You're basically doing a transfer and a transfer to your local account. You can't also do things like direct debits and buy out checks and things like that. Joe: Okay. And as I understand it just for people listening that currency account I think Amazon, for instance, may charge you if you are a…may charge you 4% currency exchange. Whereas the currency account you may only be charged 2%. And so you might be…and these are ballpark numbers so you're saving 2% on whatever amount of money is flowing through that. And if it's a million dollars, you do the math on that. If it's 10,000 $ you do the math on that. So I see a lot of people do that as well. That's what a currency account is right? Alex: Yeah. And especially with kind of making payments in Europe in terms of VAT you're going to be transferring your money from Amazon to the US and then back so the UK again so you're kind of transferring it a couple of times and to make that payment. So if you want to incorporate a UK company [inaudible 00:29:08.3] you could have get an actual high street UK bank account which is obviously a benefit of that UK company. You could just kind of grow the funds and leave it in a high street bank account in UK. Joe: Well, let's talk about that for a minute. Maybe I should have asked this at the very beginning and listeners I apologize because this is a question I get offset. You know I'm expanding to the UK, I'm expanding to Germany do I have to set up a UK business with a UK address or German company? Do I have to set those up or can I simply be a US based company selling products overseas? Can you explain, you've got 2,000 clients what are they doing? What do you recommend? Alex: You do not have to incorporate a UK company. It's the majority of people use their overseas company just because it is a lot easier and has less administration in terms of the accounts that you are drawing up each year. It's all just falling onto one company. You've got your CPA in the US. He's doing everything for you. You don't have to hire a CPA equivalent in the UK so ask accountants to do your [inaudible 00:30:03.9] paying your kind of all those tax due filings. In terms of what's actually best is really hard for me to say because it is on a case by case basis. It's you know do you want to build a brand, do you want a UK bank account, do you want to take advantage of the VAT threshold, there's so many factors. It's not one, it's one size fits all, unfortunately. Joe: Okay but the simple answer is for anybody listening if you're US based with a US bank account a US corporation, you do not have to set up a European company a UK company or in Germany that's misinformation. You don't have to do that. You can register for VAT and start collecting and paying and still have your one CPA here in the US. Is that correct? Alex: Yes. Joe: Good. Of your 2,000 plus or minus clients, what are their sizes? I mean you have you got people that are doing you know a million, two million dollars a month in revenue and those that are just doing five or 10,000 $ a month? How does it range and how does it flash out [inaudible 00:31:01.5] so we just know more about you guys. Alex: Yeah, exactly that range I don't [inaudible 00:31:05.4] information but- Joe: Maybe I should have said a half a million a month. Alex: Yeah there's a huge range there is. And that's for the UK companies and also overseas companies. You know we've got a lot of Chinese clients as well. We've got kind of a whole Chinese department [inaudible 00:31:20.6]. So yeah the range is massive. We can help you whatever size. Joe: Okay. Let's say that I'm doing a quarter of a million dollars a month here in the States and I decide I want to expand overseas and I'm going to start with UK and Germany. Aside from my inventory costs and getting the product there, what are my costs for someone like you in setting up VAT and getting registered and compliant and all that stuff? Alex: Well it depends which country you're going for. If it's just one if it's selling- Joe: Say I'm gonna start with two. I'm going to start with the UK, actually I'm just gonna go with one. Let's go with UK. Alex: Okay 150 Pound registration one up fee and then 870 Pounds a year annual compliance and that doesn't depend on turnover. So whatever your turnover is it's the same. Joe: That's pretty cheap, if I'm doing a quarter million a month, 150 Euros a couple of hundred bucks tops and then maybe a thousand US dollars a year simple as that. Who calculates what my VAT is owed each month? Is it me and my CPA or is that part of your 870 5,000- Alex: Yeah we do that. We calculate everything. And you can give us limited access to your seller central we'll go in and download all the reports directly. You don't have to be a part of that process. Your sole responsibility is to make the payment. Joe: Can I just have you make the payment for me if you have access to funds or you just tell me what to pay and I pay it? Alex: No we don't do that. We will tell you what to pay and then you have to make the payment yeah. Joe: This is…okay I'm a little [inaudible 00:32:47.2] I haven't talked to anybody about pricing but to me, this is so incredibly fair and reasonable. Are you guys…is this the standard fees? I mean this is normal cost or you're really expensive or really cheap? What's the situation? Alex: I think that's about average. We pride ourselves over the service that we give kind of in comparison to the actual fees to other providers and things. We don't get too hung up on what the actual charges are in terms of that. What I would say though, I don't want to be [inaudible 00:33:16.2] in terms of that 870. Because if your turnover was in the millions you will be breaching distance selling thresholds to all of the European countries. Joe: You'll be what? Say that again. Alex: Breaching distance selling thresholds, we haven't spoken about that so- Joe: Distance selling threshold. Alex: We'll go into that really quickly. So if you've got all of your stock in a UK company…country sorry company the UK country, UK warehouse and is going to customers in Germany. So UK from a warehouse going to a customer in Germany, if their sales go over a certain threshold to Germany you then have to register to VAT in Germany even though you're not fulfilling from that country. Joe: Okay. Alex: Makes sense? Joe: Yeah, all right. This is the part where Joe doesn't love this level of detail but thank you for that. Alex: It's just that I don't want to be misleading in terms of 870 Pounds you know whatever your turnover is because that's all UK fee. If your turnover is massive you will have an obligation to register in other countries as well. Joe: And if the turnover is massive to probably going to be shipping from those countries to save that fulfillment cost anyway. Alex: Yeah, yeah. Joe: And that's something that they would do the math on and you guys may help them with. Alex: Yeah. Joe: Okay we're running out of time. We're about 30 minutes in which is actually a bit long but this is a fascinating subject, a critical one, and I'm sure some people just they fell asleep because it's also not their favorite which is a shame. Because the number one thing people can do to make their business more valuable is get the books right. Get the details like this absolutely correct. It's going to help with the transition of the business as well as well as the value. Alex thank you so much. Any last thoughts that you can share with people listening? Whether they're buying and selling in terms of what they should do and how they should do it other than just do it and do it right. Alex: I honestly I would just say to speak to someone you know we do free consultations [inaudible 00:35:07.0] if you just give us a call then we can just run through everything with you. There's you know all though we've covered a lot in half an hour it's a lot of information, there are still some things that haven't been mentioned so yeah I would just speak so when I mention we've got all the information for before you completely just jump start in. Joe: Okay. Well, we'll make sure that all of your contact information is in the show notes. Alex: All right. Joe: But for those listening that can't see them there it's AVASK tax advisors that's A-V-A-S-K tax advisors and they do free consultations. I think it's really important as a buyer or seller if you're planning on selling over in the UK. Alex thanks so much for your time today I really appreciate it. Alex: Okay thanks. Thanks, everyone. Links: Alexandra Lyon Indirect Tax Client Manager Skype: alex.avask Email: alex@avaskgroup.com T: +1.213.330.4904; +1.213.256.0537 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandragrant4/ https://www.avaskaccounting.co.uk/   James Shayler International VAT Technical Officer Skype: james.shayler16 Email: james@avasktax.com T: +1.213.330.4904; +1.213.256.053

AFTS Cast: Mickie, JJ, Kurt, Chris, and Joe Do you remember Chris’s D&D adventure from last year?  We sure did, and we’ve been eager to play more of it! We’re back with a few more episodes, featuring the D&D Starter Set characters.  Let’s get a recap of the adventure, and enjoy the podcast! Like or … Continue reading AFTS DnD-CW5 – 17 Plus 5 is 23 →

Highlights 100 Years ago: About President Woodrow Wilson | @01:45 Special Guest: John Milton Cooper Jr. | @07:45 War in The Sky: Introducing General Billy Mitchell | @15:45 American Emerges: Baseball on the Polo Grounds - Dr. Edward Lengel | @16:40 European view of the war: Mike Shuster | @22:10 Special Commemorative Coin and Service Medallion Collector Sets | @27:05 A Century In The Making: Joe Weishaar | @28:25 Speaking WWI: Acronym flips RAMC and REPS | @34:25 Spotlight In The Media: Director Peter Jackson | @35:45 100C/100M: The City of Nitro, West Virginia - Rich Hively and Mayor Dave Casebolt | @38:50 WW1 War Tech: Tankgewehr - David O’Neal | @44:45 The Buzz: Social Media - Katherine Akey | @51:05 ----more---- Opening Welcome to World War 1 centennial News - episode #56 - It’s about WW1 THEN - what was happening 100 years ago this week  - and it’s about WW1 NOW - news and updates about the centennial and the commemoration. Today is January 26th, 2018 and our guests for this week include: John Milton Cooper Jr. giving deeper insight into President Woodrow Wilson Dr. Ed Lengel, with our new segment: America Emerges - Military stories from WWI Mike Shuster, from the great war project blog looking at growing discontent in Europe Joe Weishaar in our “A century in the Making” - an Eagle Scout’s perspective Rich Hively and Mayor Dave Casebolt from the WW1 memorial restoration effort in Nitro, West Virginia David O’Neal and the restoration of a WW1 anti-tank gun And Katherine Akey, with some selections from the centennial of WWI in social media All that and more --- this week -- on WW1 Centennial News -- which is brought to you by the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library and the Starr foundation. I’m Theo Mayer - the Chief Technologist for the Commission and your host. Welcome to the show. [MUSIC] Preface [MUSIC] Woodrow Wilson - an academic and learned man, president of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910 - a progressive Democrat seeking and winning the governorship of New Jersey - then running for and being elected to his first term as president of the United states in 1912 - two years before war broke out in Europe… His progressive agenda and accomplishments in his first term are near legendary. His personal life is equally dynamic, losing his first wife to illness in 1914, and barely more than a year later - re-marrying while still in office. By his second term campaign in 1916 - the war in Europe was in full swing, the Germans had sunk the Lusitania, and Wilson ran for office on a platforms of “America First” - and “He kept us out of the war”. Within months of being sworn in to a second term, he leads the nation to war and into an unprecedented transformation, politically, legally, economically, socially and  Internationally. Wilson takes broad powers and wields sledge hammer transformations, nationalizes industries, quashes freedoms, and when congress does not do his bidding, used executive orders to move the nation into the war effort. Earlier this month 100 years ago, Wilson presents an agenda for a new international world order - instantly thrusting America into a new role as a world leader. With that as an overview, let’s jump into our wayback machine and go back 100 years to the third week of January 1918 in the war that changed the world! World War One THEN 100 Year Ago This Week [MUSIC SOUND EFFECT TRANSITION] It is mid-january 1918. With the Wilson administration ruling as much as governing - some seek to depose his power. Once such incident takes place this week.   [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: January 20, 1918 A headline in the New York Times reads: War Cabinet Bill Ready For Senate; To give control to council of three… Backing Chamberlain’s Stand - Senate Military Committee Demands Reorganization of War work… This is what is happening…. Oregon’s Democratic Senator George Earle Chamberlain, who serves on the Senate Military Affairs Committee,  makes a speech in New York and states: “the military establishment of America has fallen down because of inefficiency in every bureau and department of the government of the United States... “ And he introduces a bill into the Senate that would retake the powers of the executive and the cabinet back into the legislative branch - specifically the Senate. The White House and the Wilson Administration fires back... [SOUND EFFECT] Dateline: January 22, 1918 From the headline of the Official Bulletin  - The government’s war gazette published by George Creel at the order of the President. President Wilson Answers Criticism by Senator Chamberlain Concerning Departmental Management of War - Claims he was not consulted on proposed legislation And the story includes: "When the President's attention was called to the speech made by Senator Chamberlain at a luncheon in New York on Saturday, he immediately inquired of Senator Chamberlain whether he had been correctly reported, and upon ascertaining from the Senator that he had been, the President felt it his duty to make the following statement:" [WILSON] Senator Chamberlain's statement as to the present inaction and ineffectiveness of the Government is an astonishing and absolutely unjustifiable distortion of the truth. As a matter of fact, the War Department has performed a task of unparallelled magnitude and difficulty with extraordinary promptness and efficiency. There have been delays and disappointments and partial miscarriages of plans, all of which have been drawn into the foreground and exaggerated by the investigations which have been in progress since the Congress assembled-investigators --- these drew indispensable officials of the department constantly away from their work and officers from their commands and contributed a great deal to such delay and confusion as had inevitably arisen. But, by comparison with what has been accomplished, these things, much as they were to be regretted, were Insignificant, and no mistake has been made which has been repeated. President Wilson closes with: My association and constant conference with the secretary of War have tought me to regard him as one of the ablest public officials I have ever known. It will soon be learned whether HE or his critics understand the business at hand. To say, as Senator Chamberlain did, that there is inefficiency in every department and bureau of the Government is to show such ignorance of actual conditions as to make it impossible to attach any importance to his statement. I am bound to infer that the statement sprang out of opposition to the administration's whole policy rather than out of any serious intention to reform its practice. John cooper interview President Woodrow Wilson is truly one of the most remarkable leaders this nation has had. In order to help us get to know him better we have invited John Milton Cooper Jr, an American historian, author, educator, and Former Senior Scholar at the Wilson Center to speak with us today. Welcome, John! [greetings] [Q1: John, Woodrow Wilson is considered one of the greatest American President ever - Was he? And why? ] [Q2: setup John.. Wilson seems like a bundles of contrasting ideas - He campaigns to keep America out of war - but then leads a declaration of war and fields on of the most intense war build ups and efforts in our history. He wants America to fight for freedom and liberty as he nationalized industries, gags dissent and attacks freedom of speech. ============= Q: How do all these contrasting ideas reconcile? ==============] [Q3: This is a man who had a huge effect on the nation and indeed on the world - what would you say his most remarkable achievement was as a President?] [Q4: As we hear the ongoing story of WWI on this podcast, what else should be understand about Wilson to help us keep it all --- and him in context?] [goodbyes] John Milton Cooper Jr is an American historian, author, and educator. Links to his biography of President Wilson and to the Wilson Center are in the podcast notes. Link: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/john-milton-cooper https://www.amazon.com/Woodrow-Wilson-John-Milton-Cooper/dp/0307277909 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0CEED7133FE433A25752C2A9679C946996D6CF http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F02E2D6133FE433A25751C2A9679C946996D6CF http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B02E3DF103FE433A25757C2A9679C946996D6CF http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=950CEEDF103FE433A25756C2A9679C946996D6CF http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9505E1D8143AEF33A25754C2A9679C946996D6CF http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E02E1D8143AEF33A25754C2A9679C946996D6CF http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A07E4D7143AEF33A25754C2A9679C946996D6CF War in the Sky This week in War in the sky - we want to introduce you to General Billy Mitchell… a pretty extraordinary man. As World War 1 broke out, Billy Mitchell recognized the importance of aviation.  So in 1916, he learned to fly on his own nickel.  Heading to Europe, On January 20, 1918, Mitchell, now a Colonel - was promoted to Chief of the Air Service of the First Army. Colonel Mitchell found himself in command of more than 1,500 British, French and American aircraft - the largest "air force" ever assembled.   We will learn more about this leader and flyer over the coming months - a man who became the chief of air services this month 100 years ago in the war in the sky. See the podcast notes to learn more. Link: http://www.mitchellgallery.org/gen-mitchell/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/the-billy-mitchell-court-martial-136828592/ https://www.army.mil/article/33680/william_billy_mitchell_the_father_of_the_united_states_air_force America Emerges: Military Stories from WW1 Welcome to the second installment of our new series: America Emerges: Military Stories from WWI --- with Military Historian, author and storyteller, Dr. Edward Lengel. Hi Ed [Exchange greeting] Ed - Your story this weeks rolls us back to September 1917 when America celebrated National Draft Day - the draft not being the most popular new law of the land - In New York there was a baseball game. We look forward to hearing the story! [ED LENGEL] Ed.. What are you going to tell us about next week? [ED LENGEL] Ed Lengel is an American military historian, author, and our new segment host for America Emerges: Military Stories from WWI. There are links in the podcast notes to Ed’s post about baseball? and his website as an author. Links:http://www.edwardlengel.com/doughboys-baseball-classic-game-polo-grounds-1917/ https://www.facebook.com/EdwardLengelAuthor/ http://www.edwardlengel.com/about/ [SOUND EFFECT] Great War Project Mike: Your story this week is about how the war is being considered in Europe as we roll into 1918. What is the headline? [MIKE POST] Mike Shuster from the Great War Project blog. LINK: http://greatwarproject.org/2018/01/21/americans-now-in-german-gun-sites/ [SOUND EFFECT] The Great War Channel For videos on WWI go see our friends at  “The Great War Channel” on Youtube. This week’s new episodes include Assassination attempt on Lenin Central powers occupation of Italy British Pistols of WW1 And finally - Road Trips 2018 Next month, we have invited the host of The Great Wall Channel, Indy Neidell to join us and talk about how hosting this youtube channel for the past 4+ years has affected him… Meanwhile - Follow the link in the podcast notes or search for “the great war” on youtube. Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar World War One NOW It is time to fast forward into the present with WW1 Centennial News NOW - [SOUND EFFECT] this section is not about history, but rather - it explores what is happening NOW to commemorate the centennial of the War that changed the world! Commission News: Collective Sets In commission news: As we mentioned last week, the US mint has released a special 2018 WWI commemorative silver dollar - but also -- they created WWI service medallions commemorating the five military branches that fought in WWI - The Army, the Navy, The Marine Corps, the brand new Air Corps - later to become the Airforce, and the Coast Guard. These five special collector sets of Commemorative Silver Dollar and Service  medallions are being minted in very limited quantities and the only time in history - ever - that you will be able to buy them is between RIGHT NOW and February 20th, 2018… So you have less than a month to snag a piece of history with a collectors set - get one, get all five, but get them now. Go to WW1CC.org/coin that is / c o i n… or click on the link in the podcast notes. If you are listening to this podcast, clearly you already have some interest or connection to the centennial of WWI - this is the remembrance of this centennial you will want to keep and pass on to the next generation. But you have to do it NOW. link:www.ww1cc.org/Coin https://catalog.usmint.gov/coins/commemoratives/ A century in the making - America’s WW1 Memorial in Washington DC It’s time for our new 2018 segment: A century in the making - America’s WW1 Memorial in Washington DC. As our regular listeners know, we are building a national WWI Memorial at Pershing Park in the nation’s capitol. It’s a big project. It’s complicated. It’s hard. It’s been a long time coming. So in this segment we are bringing you along on an insider’s journey that explores this grand undertaking, the adventure, and the people behind it. Joe Weishaar - is our brilliant young visionary, who won the international design competition for this memorial -- He is also an Eagle Scout… a designation that just predates WWI. In fact, it turns out that the first Eagle Scout award was given to scout Arthur Rose Eldred in 1912. Now - Eldred actually goes on to join the Navy during WW1. He serves on convoys in the Atlantic and on a submarine chaser in the Mediterranean, surviving both a sinking ship and the Spanish Flu. Last week, Joe spoke at the Boy Scout’s annual midwest regional fundraiser. As an Eagle Scout himself, Joe helps us continue to strengthen the connection between the Boy Scouts and WW1. Welcome, Joe! [greetings] [Joe: when you spoke at the event last week - was it scouts, scout leadership or others? Who was the audience?] [How were you and your story received? [Joe: Do you think that your scouting experience influenced you or prepared you in entering and ultimately prevailing and winning the international design competition for the National WWI Memorial?] [Do you think the scouts are aware of the connections of scouting and WWI?] Something interesting came up this week in our research about WWI 100 years ago… Let me read you an excerpt from the January 21st, 1918 issue of the New York Times… The headline reads: WAR TASK FOR BOY SCOUTS Will Be Dispatch Bearers for Public Information Committee And the story reads: President Wilson has sent the following letter to Colin H. Livingstone, President of the Scout’s National Council: My Dear Mr. Livingstone: I desire to entrust the Boy Scouts of America with a new and important commission - to make them the government dispatch bearers in carrying to the homes of their community the pamphlets on the war prepared by the committee for Public Information. The excellent services performed by the Boy Scouts in the past encourages me to believe that this new task will be cheerfully and faithfully discharged. Your sincerely, President Woodrow Wilson http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9801E7D6133FE433A25752C2A9679C946996D6CF [Joe - any thoughts or comments on the story?] [goodbyes] Joe Weishaar is the winning designer of the international design competition for National WW1 Memorial in DC - The design lead for the project …. and an Eagle Scout! We are going to continue to bring you an insider’s view with stories about the epic undertaking to create America’s WWI memorial in our nation’s capital. Learn more at ww1cc.org/memorial Link: www.ww1cc.org/memorial http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/3968-designer-of-national-wwi-memorial-visits-joplin-for-scouting-event.html [SOUND EFFECT] Speaking WW1 And now for our feature “Speaking World War 1” - Where we explore the words & phrases that are rooted in the war  --- Soldiers in war treasure the personal effects they carry with them into battle-- photographs of loved ones, letters from home, trench art they spent hours creating, cigarettes, and souvenirs found on the battlefield. It’s their precious connection to the OTHER reality…. In the heat of battle, it’s easy to misplace or lose your trinkets, especially when a soldier is wounded and gets moved from the front by stretcher bearers and other men of the medical services.   For the British in WWI, with typical english wrye humor - they renamed their Royal Army Medical Corps - the RAMC to -  Rob All My Comrades! They gave a similar treatment to their mail services - the Royal Engineers Postal Services - the REPS - they got recast as postal pilferers with REPS - Rob Every Poor Soldier. Trench humor... Rob All My Comrades - and Rob Every Poor Soldier - recast acronyms from the trenches of WWI and this week’s speaking WWI phrases - See the podcast notes to learn more! link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_of_British_Army_regiments [SOUND EFFECT] Spotlight in the Media For our Spotlight in The Media section we have an exciting story this week. England’s Imperial War Museum has teamed up with famed Director Peter Jackson and asked him how he would tell the story of WWI. The director of the Lord of The Rings trilogy took on the challenge and announced the new project this week. Here is Peter Jackson speaking about telling the WWI story in a new and innovative way. [Peter Jackson interview] Follow the link in the podcast notes to see some sample footage of what Peter Jackson was talking about and to learn more about the project. Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePxpbDmykD4 https://www.facebook.com/iwm.london/videos/10155880426025479/ http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/peter-jackson-world-war-one-film-ww1-1202670953/ [SOUND EFFECT] 100 Cities/100 Memorials Moving on to our 100 Cities / 100 Memorials segment about the $200,000 matching grant challenge to rescue and focus on our local WWI memorials. This week we are profiling the Living Memorial to WW1 in Nitro, West Virginia  -- This project is in the 2nd round of grant application now being reviewed. With us tell us about their city and their WWI project is Rich Hively, president of the Nitro Historic Commission and Dave Casebolt, Mayor of the City of Nitro Welcome gentlemen! [greetings] [Mayor Casebolt, why do you call the city of Nitro a “Living Memorial to WW1” and where does the name Nitro come from?] [Rich, what are you proposing for the 100 Cities / 100 Memorials program?] [It sounds like a fascinating place - If I come to the city of Nitro - what will my experience be? ] [Thank you so much for being with us today!] [goodbyes] Rich Hively is president of Nitro Historic Commission and Dave Casebolt is Mayor of the city of Nitro, West Virginia. Learn more about the 100 Cities/100 Memorials project, and the Living WW1 Memorial in Nitro, by visiting the link at the podcast notes. Link: www.ww1cc.org/100memorials https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/nitro-to-build-world-war-i-memorial-park/article_5123ba42-d88e-55a7-aeb6-76ad82b248a1.html http://historyofnitro.com/ http://wchsnetwork.com/city-of-nitro-installs-wwi-doughboy-statue-at-new-living-memorial-park/ Link: www.ww1cc.org/100cities WW1 War Tech This week we starting another new segment for 2018, WW1 War Tech. We so frequently come across technology from the war that is utterly fascinating, and we look forward to sharing some of these technological curiosities with you -- not just weapons but also medical, communications and other tech that sprang up at that time. But today - it’s all about a “bigger than an elephant gun” shoulder fired german behemoth designed to … shoot tanks! With us is David L. O’Neal, creator of the “WWI Preservation Collection”, who very recently finished restoring this 1918 Tankgewehr, or Tank Gun! Welcome, David! [greetings] [To start, Before we get to this mean Mauser - how did you get into restoring WW1 era machines?] [Tell us about the 1918 Mauser -- how did you come across the one that you restored, and what makes this a unique and special tech of the era?] [On your website, you can see many images of the gun at every stage of repair and rebuild -- tell us about the process? Did you use any high tech to restore the WWI tech?] [Audience appeal to the restoration] [What happens to the Mauser now?] [Last quick question - What is your next project? ] [goodbyes] David L. O’Neal is the creator of the WWI Preservation Collection. Learn more about the Collection, and view images from the Tankgewehr restoration, by following the link in the podcast notes. Link: http://www.ww1history.com/parking-lot.html The Buzz - WW1 in Social Media Posts And that brings us to the buzz - the centennial of WW1 this week in social media with Katherine Akey - Katherine, what do you have for us this week? Hi Theo! Atlas Obscura Both of our stories this week take us down into the trenches. First, we’ll head over to Atlas Obscura to an article about a rare example of a well preserved World War One trench.  The trench is part of the British lines in Sanctuary Wood, also known as Hill 62. The Belgian Farmer who once owned the land returned to it after the war and chose to leave the trenches as he found them. Sanctuary Wood now operates as a memorial and museum. When you visit you can climb down into the ruins of the original trenches, and the museum includes many items the farmer found and collected over the years on the property: rifles encrusted with mud, German steel helmets riddled with bullet holes, and a collection of period stereoscope photographs of the battlefield. See images of the trenches, dugouts and shell holes by visiting the link in the podcast notes. link:https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sanctuary-wood-museum School Maneuvers Lastly for the week, we’ll head to Kent, Ohio, where school children recently got a very hands-on lesson about WW1. Armed with homemade cardboard pistols, rifles and machine guns, (and a few snowballs here and there), ninth-grade students of Theodore Roosevelt High School waged a mock battle complete with generals barking orders and medics running over to attend to the “wounded”, dragging them away from the battle on sleds over the snow. This exercise was a first for the school, involving 50 advanced world history students divided into French and German forces. Each student received a card with their role and tasks to execute during the simulation--and after. Generals who designed battle plans and fortifications would have to write condolence letters for lost troops. Soldiers would pen journals and medics would record their cases and actions, while journalists would assemble a newspaper account of the action and interviews. After the battle, the students enjoyed hot chocolate and genuine Army MREs -- meals-ready-to-eat. Read more about this unique project by following the link in the podcast notes. That’s it this week for the Buzz! link:http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/01/cold_lessons_of_trench_warfare.html Outro Thank you for listening to another episode of WW1 Centennial News. We also want to thank our guests... John Milton Cooper Jr, author, educator and historian Ed Lengel, military historian, author and storyteller Mike Shuster curator for the Great War Project Blog Joe Weishaar, architect and National WW1 Memorial designer Rich Hively from the WW1 Living memorial in Nitro, West Virginia David O’Neal, creator of the WWI Preservation Collection Katherine Akey, the shows line producer and the commission's social media director… And I am Theo Mayer - your host. The US World War One Centennial Commission was created by Congress to honor, commemorate and educate about WW1. Our programs are to-- inspire a national conversation and awareness about WW1; this podcast is a part of that…. Thank you! We are bringing the lessons of the 100 years ago into today's classrooms; We are helping to restore WW1 memorials in communities of all sizes across our country; and of course we are building America’s National WW1 Memorial in Washington DC. We want to thank commission’s founding sponsor the Pritzker Military Museum and Library and the Starr foundation for their support. The podcast can be found on our website at ww1cc.org/cn   on  iTunes and google play ww1 Centennial News, and on Amazon Echo or other Alexa enabled devices. Just say: Alexa: Play W W One Centennial News Podcast. Our twitter and instagram handles are both @ww1cc and we are on facebook @ww1centennial. Thank you for joining us. And don’t forget to share the stories you are hearing here today about the war that changed the world! [music] REPS -  Royal Engineers Postal Service --- OR Really Exceptions Podcast Stories! I love acronyms! So long!

Yiping (Joe) Xia is the co-founder and CTO of bike-sharing company Mobike.Prior to working at Mobike, Joe Xia worked as head of APAC Uconnect Connectivity at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, APA SYNC team leader at Ford Motor Company, and senior engineer for system and software development at ZTE.He finished his Master of Science (M.S) in Telecommunication and Information Systems at University of Essex in 2006, and his Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) in Communication Engineering at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2004.Episode Content:Joe Xia explains how Mobike started and how the co-founders came togetherJoe describes what a typical day is for himAs we see the first consolidation of bike sharing companies in China, Joe discusses if this a viable strategy for them to reach a larger market shareQuestion for Joe: Do you see a merger with Ofo one day, just like the User Didi deal? Two giants consolidating eventually?Joe shares which markets he wouldn't go into and whyJoe discusses upcoming interesting new developmentQuestion: If you wouldn’t be the CTO of Mobike what would you be interested in doing?Joe recommends two books for entrepreneursEpisode Mentions:IntroCross Border Matchmaker (CBM) E-Commerce ConferenceMobikeWeb SummitBook RecommendationsZero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the FutureInsanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's SuccessDownload and SubscribeDownload this episode: right click on this link and choose "save as"Subscribe to China Business Cast on iTunesOr check out the full list on subscription options Periscope Live broadcasting of the recordings follow @StartupNoodle (open link on mobile)Add Mike ('michelini') or Shlomo ('shlomof') on wechat to join China Business Cast WeChat group

AFTS Cast: Mickie, JJ, Kurt, Chris, and Joe Do you remember the couple episodes where Chris continued an adventure for our D&D Starter Set characters?  Well, it’s back for a couple more episodes!  In this third installment, we get back into the story, with Chris at the helm.  Let them eat dirt, and enjoy the … Continue reading AFTS DnD-CW3 – He Blew Chunks →

Good Lord, are they going to talk about yoga again?  Turns out, this week there is ZERO talk of yoga.  But Paul and Joe DO talk about blenders, an update on an old crush of Paul's, and The Spawn stops by to update us her new career path, how much she loves Elon Musk, and Joe attempts to have a serious conversation about how North America was populated.  Music: Morning Light by Wilderado and Fire It Up by Busta Rhymes Executive Produced by Cyrus Poe

In this episode, we talk about IoT: what's coming, why we're intrigued, and how we've already started it incorporating it in our office. In the next episodes to come, we will be having guests on the show to take a deeper dive into this technology. If you have any suggestions or know people we should reach out to, please get in touch! Transcript: CHARLES: Hello, everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast, Episode #77. My name is Charles Lowell, a developer here at The Frontside and your podcast host-in-training. Today, I have with me two other developers here at The Frontside. This is going to be a Frontside-only podcast and we're going to be introducing a topic that hopefully we're going to be podcasting a lot about in the coming weeks and months just because it's something that's kind of grabbed the interest of the office and seems like it's something that needs to be talked about. Hello Joe and hello Elrick. JOE: Hello, Charles. ELRICK: Hey, what's going on? CHARLES: Everything, really. Today we're going to be talking about the Internet of Things and we'll be talking a little bit about how we came to be interested in this topic and why we think this topic is important. Let's talk about why this topic is important. I think that this is a very important topic because IoT is only becoming more and more prevalent. It's emerging from the status of being this niche or boutique or very esoteric technology that's only worked on by a very small group of people to becoming very, very open and available and accessible so that anybody can buy a Raspberry Pi or an ODROID or Arduino and slap some Linux on there and connect it over the internet to a bunch of different things and the space of creative possibilities is just exploding. For me, it's very similar to where we were in the early 80s. You know, I see these IoT devices as being the hobbyist's computers, the Z80, Apple IIe, the Commodore 64 and that the people who are hacking on those things 30 years ago are going to be the people who are now leading the tech space today. I think another big and relevant analogy is web technologies. There was this inflection point where web technologies became very open, accessible, available and the people who were in it ended up being able to ride that wave for 10 years to where we are now. In both of those examples, we had the hardware and the PC revolution where the computation was distributed across a bunch of these different devices. Then over that time, we saw a migration over to the cloud and these web technologies where everything was centralized. Now, I actually think that there's a pendulum swinging back where we're actually going to see more and more computation distributed amongst physical devices, except this time, it's not going to be manifest as a PC. It's going to be manifest as these networks of devices that are just all around us. I really do think that we are on one of those watershed moments where these distributed networks of tiny devices are going to be the big next platform that when you invest in it now, this is something that's going to yield dividends for the next 20 years. I think it's an important topic but I don't think we had a well-crafted thought about it but we just kind of stumbled into the space. I was thinking we could start a little bit by talking about how we got into this and how it captured our imagination. If you rewind the clock to the stone age of 2015, I think it was the end of 2015 and it was Christmas break, that's often a time when people go and they hack on individual projects and Brandon, his project that for whatever reason, he decided to take on was he was really into Hue Bulbs at the time. We had Hue Bulbs around the office and we wired up some demos to control them from a website. He decided he wanted to take those Hue Bulbs and make them so they were accessible from our Slack. He built a server in Elixir because he also wanted to learn Elixir because if you're having fun in hacking around, it might as well pick up as many new things as you can. He built an API in Elixir that talk directly to the Hue Bulbs and the Slack integration that talk to the Elixir API and we actually are able to control all of our lights purely from Slack. We could turn them all on, we could turn them all off. That was great but then as we began to use it, we were wishing that we had control over our lights from our phones. We wish we had control over them through the website. I think, Elrick, isn't that was your first contact with the Frontside, wasn't it? ELRICK: Yes. That was my first contact with the Frontside. I was working on the lights app. I initially started working on just the user interface and bringing some different animations and working on the actual experience and the user story on that side about controlling the lights and what particular things you needed to do in trying to craft a UI around that. That's what I initially started. CHARLES: That was really fun. ELRICK: Yeah, that was really fun. That just started progressing more and more. As you said as we started to think about how could we access these lights from different places, using different devices and then that's how we stumbled into the Internet of Things. CHARLES: And it turns out, there's actually a lot of tech in the form of platforms out there that have been developed to help with this, although I would say that the water are still pretty murky as to kind of the best set of patterns to follow. ELRICK: Yes. JOE: That's hard to find information, especially with regard to design patterns. Since we've been working on this light thing, there's been so many times I've Googled and looking for prior art and found none or next to none. It's very much the Wild West. ELRICK: Yeah, because it's like going from a point where you're controlling one piece of data per se, like you have one sensor that does one thing. Now, it's starting to grow until you can have one sensor that can do multiple things and send it across different types of data and then how do you structure that data, how you capture it, how do you hold that state somewhere and it's one to one source of truth. It's just going to be the Wild West of how do you manage this, how do you structure it. It is definitely growing and changing constantly. CHARLES: I think one thing that is difficult is it feels very much like they're aligned in terms of silos. For example, the Hue has the Hue Bridge, which is capable of talking to the light bulbs and then they also have an API which is under development by which you can connect publicly to servers hosted by Philips to talk to the hues inside your office but if you want to integrate your Hue API like we did with Slack or with your iPhone or maybe some other device that you're trying to control, it becomes a little bit more difficult. You have all these vendors like Nest, MyQ and there's a whole bunch of lines like doorbells and smart this and that and everything and they're very good at talking. They have an ecosystem, this large vertical ecosystem, assigned with each one but actually getting cross cutting communication is a problem that I think is something that we've had to deal with and it's very, very difficult where we want to start having these devices talking to each other. ELRICK: Yeah, that area right there is ripe for innovation. I don't know the names off the top of my head but I know that there are people trying to make a smart hub per se. You can think of it like Jarvis from Iron Man. You buy that thing, you put it down in your house, you tell it all the devices you have and that takes care of all the communication between everything. There's definitely an area there that someone can step in and say, "You know what? I figured it out and here's your Jarvis Box." JOE: We're starting to see stuff like that with Alexa and Google has something similar. That's a little scary to me. I think that the one thing that needs to be made clear is when you're talking about these silos, it's a very good point because we think they're decentralized. We think these things are decentralized but in a way, they're not yet. We don't have peer-to-peer communication necessarily like Hue. They're going to public API but you're going through their ecosystem. You're passing through their lens, so to speak. We think Slack has distributed teams but there's a centralized server where those messages passed through so how do we break from that into full decentralization? CHARLES: Right, I know that's – ELRICK: The Jarvis Box. You could probably have a server at your house that keeps all your data there and then it spits out what it needs to spit out to the IoT server somewhere if they're doing some collection. When you leave your house, to say, "I need that information to come back to my cell phone now." Maybe in the future, you'll be able to control that, either from your house or just send out the pieces of data that you need and the centralized stuff, you can just keep at your house. CHARLES: The whole question of ownership is one that I feel is something that we have not addressed head on. Everybody is just rushing forward with how do I implement this, how do I get it done and it definitely is worth taking a step back and understanding who owns the things that I'm working with and that I'm inviting into my home. I think that smartphones provide a great example of how it can work really well for the consumer. I think certainly, in their inception I think this is mostly true if you have an iPhone. Most Android devices, you actually own that piece of hardware and the things that you install on it are very much controlled by you. I think that Apple especially, gets a big shout out for making sure and putting in those safeguards so that anyone who's participating in the ecosystem has to first acknowledge that the data is going to be owned by the user. I think that's maybe a little bit less true than it was back in 2009 or whatever but I think that there's definitely a lot of thought that went into that upfront, that I worry isn't going into with Alexa. Is Amazon protecting? Is there an understanding that if you're participating in that ecosystem that ultimately, the thing is owned by me? I feel the same way about a lot of these AI and robots where it may participate in the conversation but who is it really serving? Is it serving you or is it a proxy to serve somebody else like a Google or an Apple or an Amazon? JOE: I may just be a pessimist but I think it's safe to say that it's almost always the latter when money is involve. ELRICK: They had some situations arise where the powers that maybe we're trying to get the actual recordings and different things as Alexa is always on. Let me turn mine off because she's going to say, "Oh, did you ask me for something?" I have one sitting right here in front of me. They have been in situations where people had said, "Because that's constantly recording and that recording is going somewhere," and then if situations have arisen, they said, "We want that recording," and then Amazon is like, "No. We're not going to give you that recording because that is private information." They're trying to find a way to get around that and what laws and things are going to come out of this area that we're in right now, it's still unforeseen. But I think that companies that are in this space, know that the future of their company rests on them protecting that data and user data because if you don't, then people will sidestep and go elsewhere. CHARLES: Right. In so far, they hold that as a value. In so far, people are conscious of those concerns. If that's something that people are willing to pay money for, then you've got a market driving force pushing you in that direction. But if people don't care, they don't think and they're just like, "Whatever. It's cool," that's not going to be something that a business is going to roll into their product because ultimately, if people care, then it'll affect their bottom line. If they don't but it won't and they're going to act in their own best interest. ELRICK: True. CHARLES: I do worry that there needs to be a social awareness of what kind of powers these devices actually will end up having over our lives and hopefully, those will guide it but you're absolutely right. ELRICK: True. I view all of this IoT stuff and data is not too far off of what people do on Instagram per se like you have your pictures, you can either post crazy pictures or you can post casual pictures. How you use the power that these IoT devices are giving you is essentially falls into your hands like what am I going to send across this thing. I think that hopefully, the power falls into the user's hands and they empower people with these devices and not make them feel like a prisoner in their own home or car because this IoT things are popping up in vehicles now. If you step into your car, you start talking and your car is listening. If they go from it like the same way we approach our applications and such and say, we're going to empower the user, I think if these IoT companies take that approach and learn from the mistakes that were made in software by not empowering users, then after a couple years they're like, "Oh, my goodness. We need to empower the user." When Steve Jobs was preaching about this in the 80s and everybody thought he was crazy. Don't fall into our mistakes. Empower the users and I think that this technology in this space would just keep flourishing if they do that. CHARLES: Absolutely but it is going to take a generation of engineers to make sure they're always pushing in that direction, a generation of users who don't just wait for companies to hand power to them but demand it. ELRICK: Demand it, yes. CHARLES: Yeah, demand it and a generation of business owners who are going to listen and think about the long game and realize that that's the path to long term health and viability. ELRICK: Yep, even outside of the whole privacy thing where it's like there's too much data being sent out. People are building just cool stuff with IoT that doesn't really send that much data outside of normally that we do. Even on our phone, people use GPS all the time and that is sending data about all your locations, where you are, what restaurant you're at, what bus stop you're at, what bus you're on, what plane you're on and people are building a lot of cool things, just even using that. I saw the other day that someone had a bicycle, it has GPS and lights and gyroscopes and all kinds of stuff in that bicycle. When you're riding, the lights will go off and say, "It's time for you to take a right." It will blink in a certain sequence or take a left. It register your speed and it all comes back to your phone so it's not too outside of the norm of what we do on a regular day. There's people building things just in that sweet spot per se with these IoT devices that are building some pretty cool stuff. JOE: It's a very good point because Slack doesn't have to be centralized. It can be peer-to-peer. Hue doesn't have to be centralized outside of having a bridge on your local network. We don't really need to be phoning home for all of this stuff and if we move towards like a true decentralization, we don't need trust at that point. A company has our best interests at heart if we think about it as your trust ideal to remove the need for involving third party in the first place. CHARLES: Yeah, so what would that look like? I'm going to fast forward a little bit because we were a little bit further along on our journey and we've been experimenting with Amazon IoT services and we've been maintaining our own APIs to control our Hues directly. While they're still going through the bridge, it's not incorporating any other ecosystem but we are still routing all of this stuff through this low level Amazon infrastructure. There's a class of problems that that solves which it does help to have those primitives to be able to access your IoT devices through a firewall, to have them and be able to, at least have a known way to update themselves and distribute software to them. There's these fundamental infrastructural problems but at the same time, Amazon doesn't have any access to that data that's moving through their land, so to speak. What they're essentially doing is leasing you a railroad but they don't have new visibility into what's contained inside the cars. JOE: Do you know that? CHARLES: I actually don't know that because of course, it's through the Terms of Service. ELRICK: Who reads EULAs? They're too long. JOE: I think it's more often than not, people are going to use convenience over privacy. CHARLES: That's true so it is in keeping with what I understand of other Amazon services, which do have those guarantees. I don't know in particular for the Amazon IoT. But let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about a little bit about our setup and why we went to using Amazon IoT services and what it provides for us. ELRICK: We decided to use the Amazon IoT platform as a means to allow us to one control the bulbs from anywhere, to get access to them and then also to be able to distribute that change to anything we want. Coming through IoT or coming through their platform, when a change happens, you don't necessarily just have to send it to our one set of bulbs. You can send it to anything you want. You can send it to a phone, to another application somewhere, to a database. It gives you the ability and the flexibility to distribute that change or that state change anywhere. CHARLES: Which is I guess getting at the heart of it is actually managing this distributed state beast of a problem and really, the AWS IoT just helps you get your foot in the door. There are still a lot of cans of worms that are involved once you get there but for the first point that you have said, I want to unpack that a little bit because it's a problem very familiar to us but might not be to the listeners, you've got the set of devices and they come up, they connect to your Wi-Fi and that's fantastic and they can talk to other things on your Wi-Fi, on your local network and can discover services there. But what if you want to control them from outside like I want to send a message from Slack and have it affect the lights in our office. You've got to move through some public cloud to do that because Slack servers are not on our local area network. What you can do then is have essentially one thing that the IoT services provides is your device comes online and it immediately calls home to a generic location and opens up, what is in practice a web socket. You can program in whatever language you want but that's probably the analogy that's most familiar to everyone. It basically connects a web socket that then you can send messages to it in real time so any time I want to connect to that, I can do it and I don't need Hue's API. I don't need Slack's API. I can just talk to one API which is the low level Amazon -- AWS IoT API -- and I can send real time messages to my devices. That's a huge problem solved right there. But it's hard to maintain that infrastructure yourself. We could write our own AWS IoT but then we'd probably host it on AWS anyway. JOE: The real world is not a JSON Blob. That becomes a problem. In college, I took a course where we programmed robots for the majority of it and what you quickly find out is that you can't count on revolutions of a wheel or what have you. The world is imperfect. Keeping a state is one thing but keeping state reflected back and keeping state up to date is where the challenge has been for us. CHARLES: That is right because you've got this highly distributed systems. That's kind of a second class of problems that it attempts to solve for you. You got these highly distributed set of devices but even if the connections are 99.9% reliable, sometimes they're highly latent. You can't control the latency on the connection and sometimes, it fails altogether, which can affect one, how do I even read state from these things. Is the button pressed? Is the button not pressed? Is the light on? Is it off? Is the wheel spinning like you said? Or is it off? These are things that you need to know and then you need to react to those changes like, "We're spinning at 90 RPM. I want to bump it up to 10. How do I get my system to converge on that desired state based on my current state?" It's hard because you don't know all of the demons of distributed state management are in full like they have ripped off their masks and they're roaming about. ELRICK: Yep. I saw them introduced something the other day but I haven't had time to dive too deep into it. It was something called Greengrass that it will continue to gather and allow you to utilize your devices locally and it will keep all that data and then it will do the diffing, let's say when you connect back online until what your old state was and what the new state is and then go about updating everything. JOE: That could be very useful. ELRICK: Yeah. It just got implemented probably three weeks ago or something like that. It's inside of the IoT platform. I just clicked in and they said, "We have a new feature now called Greengrass," but I haven't got time to dive too deep into it but like you were saying, state management is something that's extremely difficult, especially across a distributed systems. They know it's a problem and it seem to be addressing that problem and trying to make it simpler for people and give you these tools to say, "Here are some stuff that you can leverage," and a lot of that is great. CHARLES: I think that's an excellent point and I think that it's also worth mentioning too that there's two sets of state that you have to manage. There's the runtime state, which controls the flow of data as your system operates. Then there's the static state of just what is the code that's going to run on this device. Let's say, my robot or my button that's got V1 of the software, that all it does when I push it, it rings a bell. That's V1. I want to add this awesome feature to this button that when I push it, it rings a bell and it also pops open a Topo Chico from the refrigerator or something like that. The question is how do I get that software from my laptop with that Topo Chico enhancement all the way to my button, which is what essentially amounts to being across the internet inside this private network. In the current state or when you're first starting out hacking, let's say this is based on a Raspberry Pi, I just burn a new Raspberry Pi image with my new software with V2. I walked over and I stick it into the Raspberry Pi and that doesn't really cut it. That does a great job but now, I want to turn this into a business and I want to have 20,000 of these things installed or let's think big like every home in America gets one. Every home in the planet, I want two billion of these type of devices. What happens when I come out with V3? ELRICK: Then you can either go the route of hiring -- CHARLES: Hiring a favor. ELRICK: -- Technical folks to go out, to update all your Topo Chico poppers or have your users struggle to do it or what we did, implement Resin. Let Resin update your Topo Chico poppers around the world. CHARLES: Right. There are a lot of problems in terms of static state management, runtime state management, peer-to-peer communication and problems of resiliency and robustness. I'm hoping that we can discuss these over the coming weeks and months because each one is a topic in of itself. ELRICK: And offline management too. CHARLES: And offline management too, there you go. There's another one. There's a lot to explore, a lot that's unknown and there might be people who have answers to all of these and there might be papers on them but they're buried in weird corners of the internet. I'm hoping that we can fill the podcast with a couple of guests to come in and talk about these different things. ELRICK: Yeah, that would be fantastic. CHARLES: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. ELRICK: I started playing around with Watson IoT. It is an IoT service that allows you to leverage the natural language processing and computing from Watson. It's pretty awesome. CHARLES: Wow, that is really cool. ELRICK: That's another space of IoT that we can explore and hopefully, we can explore over the next few podcasts. CHARLES: Yeah, awesome you all. Well, I think that's about it for this episode. Thank you, Joe. JOE: Thank you, Charles. CHARLES: Thank you, Elrick. ELRICK: Thank you, Charles. It was fantastic. CHARLES: And I look forward to hacking on the lights with you guys. That is always one of my favorite things to hack on. I don't get to do it enough but I think we're going to try and have a big throw down on state management on Friday, right? ELRICK: Oh, yeah. CHARLES: It is going to be exciting. It's going to be super nerdy and we'll let you all know what the outcome of that is. See you all next week. As always, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us. You can get us on Twitter at @Frontside or send an email to Contact@Frontside.io. We always love to hear from our listeners. Take care!

Joe Schramm, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at BeyondTrust, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss refining your focus on specific partners, channel growing pains, understanding the win for your partner and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast. Jen: Hi, everybody, welcome to The Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer, Vice President of Sales and Marketing here at Allbound. And today, I'm joined by Joe Schramm who is Vice President of Strategic Alliances at BeyondTrust. Welcome, Joe.   Joe: Thanks, Jen. Good to be here.   Jen: I'm glad to have you. I think the best way for us to get started first of all is maybe if you can tell us a little bit about BeyondTrust and your organization.   Joe: Sure, sure. So BeyondTrust is in a segment of cyber security focused on privilege access management. We're also in another segment called vulnerability management. Both segments are pretty well defined in the cyber security landscape, but I would say that privilege access management is probably growing at a higher rate, and that's where we're seeing, a lot of our new product growth, net new logo acquisitions, and so forth. So we're very much focused in the cyber security domain, and it's a very hot market. It's something that we're doing really well in and are very happy to be participating in.   Jen: You have a history of working in business development, strategic alliance roles at very high-tech companies in security. And, I don't know if you have a byte of information or a hard and fast rule, something that you've really taken with you as you've gone from one organization to another to really help grow your channel program at BeyondTrust. How do you help it really run smoothly?   Joe: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think probably my favorite hard rule that I like to live by I learned some time ago now...this goes back several years and a few different organizations ago. But really, my favorite thing to think about and to focus on is what I call “partner profiling”. So a lot of organizations, when they start to build their partner program, they tend to gravitate towards easy wins, meaning if a partner came to you and said, "Hey, I'm interested in working with you," you'd rush to sign them up without really stepping back and understanding, "Are they the right partner for us, right, based on the type of company we are and the products we sell and how we sell them?"   So partner profiling, for me, is one of those almost religious experiences where I sit down and set out to really define the top three or so attributes and partners that we want to proactively engage and recruit and bring into our partner program. And it's easy to get this wrong, right? A lot of organizations, like I said, will gravitate towards easy picking, sign up lots of partners without stepping back and understanding, "Are those partners really aligned to your market? Are they in business for a sustained period of time?" To me, that's an important attribute is length in the market.   If an organization has been around 10, 20, 30 years, it's a very good leading indicator that they've got a big customer base and that they've had to reinvent themselves along the way a couple of times, and pivot as technology changes and continue to sustain and grow their business. That's an important attribute. And then certainly, things like a good go-to market capability, so having sales people, having pre-sales people, having perhaps delivery capability or at least very good technical competence within your domain.   So profiling and identifying what those key criteria are is really, really important. And then making sure that as you engage and as you seek out partners that the ones you're engaging with proactively, even the ones that you're reacting to based on inbound interest, you're qualifying them against those criteria pretty firmly to ensure that your chances of success, once they're up and running, is going to be a lot higher.   Jen: I think that's such great advice, and it should really resonate with a lot of folks who are focused on this account-based movement right now that's happening on the direct part of business because that's what we do, right? That's what we do with an account-based strategy is we identify who's a good target for us looking at those profiles. And, I know it can be challenging when you're building a partner program and you've got that inbound interest in joining your program. It almost like reminds me of if you've got someone volunteering their services, right, they are volunteering to sell for you or sell on your behalf, and you've got to say no to them sometimes. So it could be really hard to do, for sure.   Joe: Yeah. It takes some practice, for sure.   Jen: Yeah. Now, you have launched several key initiatives really to grow the channel at BeyondTrust. Can you share a little bit about the areas that you focused on so far in the organization?   Joe: Sure. I'll touch on maybe a top three that I would want to share here in the context of this discussion. So the first one is that we decided to embark on a global distribution strategy for our company. If you look at the way we were organized from a distribution perspective, it was very localized, so specific countries. For example, in the U.S., we had a distributor. In Canada, we had a different distributor. Throughout Europe, we had many different distributors, throughout Asia Pacific, many different distributors. And what we found was that there was a lot of inefficiencies, a lot of inconsistencies with that model.   Furthermore, we found that not all those distributors were doing much more for us than facilitating transactions, which is important, right? You need to have an ability to transact business. You need access to different kinds of resellers that distributors oftentimes have access to. And you obviously need access to certain kinds of procurement vehicles, which again, distributors often have access to either directly or through their network of resellers, so state and local contracts, for example, GSAs, too, and the federal site to name a couple.   So it's really important that you have some measure of a strategy there. But what we did was we set about to consolidate our distribution strategy and align ourselves to a distributor that we felt was very focused on the security domain, which is what we participate in, and also one that we felt could help us scale the business and generate net new opportunities through their network of resellers.   And so we decided to join a program that Westcon-Comstor offers called Accelerate. And it's a very selective program. We're one of like, I think, five or six different vendors that belong in that program, and that's really the extent of it. This gives us a lot of focus with Wescon, gives us an ability to wide up each region in a sequence. So we're very active with them in AsiaPac. We are now writing up North America and Latin America. In Europe, we'll be coming online later this year, in fact in Q2.   So it's provided us with a nice way to rationalize, streamline, drive more efficiency, drive more consistency with our distribution business, have one, well, not one entirely because we do have a couple of distributors that we're maintaining, but it helped us rationalize and reduce the number of distributors that we've had on a global basis. That's one initiative that we embarked on.   Another one that we embarked on last year was our Technology Alliance Program. So we wanted to have an opportunity to provide our technologies, provide our open APIs to potential technology partners as well as potential consulting partners who would want to or need to develop custom integration in their product or on behalf of our customers. We launched the Technology Alliance Program last year, and that's been great. We signed a couple of very strategic technology relationships through that technology program, SalePoint, McAfee being a couple in particular.   But we also have some others now coming to us and saying, "Hey, we want to build an integration to this product, to that product." We can do that very easily now. We can provision not-for-resale software. We can provide them with the APIs. We can provide them with some simple instructions on how to leverage them. And we're finding that some of these partners that are coming to us are now able to build these integrations very quickly.   And the third area that I would highlight is that one of the things that I thought was missing for the company when I joined really late 2015 or early 2016 timeframe, was that we didn't have a partner strategy centered around consulting partners and system integrators. We had been talking to a few and have been having some conversations with some. But I saw that as really a missed opportunity to align ourselves to some very well positioned, very focused consulting organizations that are really centered on the identity access and privilege access domains in particular, and for us to align ourselves with them to create new opportunities for us and for our salespeople, as well as scale our delivery service capability.   So as we're growing, one of our constraints or one of our challenges has been keeping up with demand for consulting services to implement our technologies. And so we aggressively recruited and onboarded about a half dozen or so boutique consultancies last year, and that's paying off for us really well. They're getting certified and getting consultants out there in the market who can implement our products and create bench strength and scale for us on the delivery side. And just as importantly, they are also identifying net new opportunities for our technologies with their clients that we didn't know about previously. So that's creating some net new business for us through that effort as well. Those are the three things that I'd call out.   Jen: You've been busy. That's quite an undertaking in a fairly short period of time, which is really commendable. I want to dig into some of the results that you've been able to see. You shared with me previously kind of what happened in one year. Your channel business is up 100% year over year. Business through the channel has grown from 15% of the business to between 25% and 30%. I mean, is this the result of those initiatives? And also, is there anything else, any other great results that you've seen because of work that you've done in 2016?   Joe: Yeah, I think there's a couple of forces in play here, right? One is that we're in a high growth market, right? Our market segment's growing at over 30% per year. And so there's always going to be organic growth with what you've been doing. So that's definitely attributable to some of the growth. But I think moreover and more importantly is that we've really aligned ourselves to not only the right partners that can help us, but we've also really narrowed our focus down.   So when I joined the company, we literally had hundreds of resellers in our system, and I couldn't get my head wrapped around how we had so many. And then of course, you look back at the history of our company, and for a long time, we were a growth-by-acquisition company and we came together as BeyondTrust four or five years ago through the acquisition of four or five different companies. And with each acquisition, it brings a different partner base with it, right? And we never really rationalized that partner base.   So this year, actually, last year, we started this process and we're going to continue to do it this year, but we've really started to refine our focus on the partners that we really want to proactively manage. That's not to say that we won't work on an opportunistic basis with any partner, but what we're doing with those other partners, what I call the tier-two partners, is we're rolling them underneath Westcon to help us manage and grow those partners so that we can take my direct team, right, the alliances people that we have on the team and have them spending the bulk of their time really building business with the core set of partners that we want to focus on.   So I think those are a couple of contributing factors that have really played a role in our success and the growth that we've achieved. We expect this year to again significantly grow the channel business. So we're excited about the prospects, excited about the opportunities. I think we've got many of the key things in place to enable that growth, and it's really just going to be a question of our ability to execute.   Jen: That's awesome. Anytime an organization grows, and especially when you're in channel and you grow so exponentially, it's exciting and it's amazing, it's great from a revenue perspective. It can also be a little bit painful. Just there's challenges anytime that you do grow. I'm wondering, could you share maybe some of the challenges that you faced or maybe some challenges that you're anticipating and how you're going to mitigate those?   Joe: Yeah. So there's always challenges as you highlighted when you are growing, and these challenges that are good problems to have. And I like what our CEO says. He says, "We don't run away from problems or challenges, we run towards them," right? And so that's the attitude of our company, which I love and I embrace that philosophy. Every time he says that, I kind of smile because that's kind of how I operate. I want to attack things and get after it, right?   But that being said, yeah, there's certainly growth pains. Now, there's a couple things that we did early last year in anticipation of the growth that we were expecting and wanting to drive, right? One was we needed to launch a partner portal. We had a large number of partners, some of whom were very active with us, some of whom were occasionally active with us. But we did not have a good vehicle for disseminating content, and for addressing the educational needs and the content needs of both our sales folks that work for the partners, as well as the technical folks that work for the partners.   And so we stood up our partner portal last year, which has been very widely adopted, and I would say it allowed us to centralize a number of the processes, chief among them, our deal registration process. So that's been fantastic. And that's a key metric that we want to measure as you get your registration volume year over year, and even at a granular level by partner or region or what have you. We can measure how that's building. It's an important leading indicator as to what's going to come out the back end of the funnel, one, or two, or three, four quarters later, right? So that's been great.   And I think that the usability of the portal and the intuitive nature of the portal has been great. We see very sticky behavior, very good evidence that a lot of our partners referenced the portal. They referenced it frequently and not just to do deal registration. We obviously can report and track on what artifacts they're accessing, how frequently those pieces of content are being accessed. We can look at that and kind of analyze, what's valuable, what's sticky, what's being consumed the most. And so all that's really, really important for us. And so that's been great.   Another challenge that we've had to deal with has been training this new class of partners that I spoke of, right, the consultants and the systems integrators. Having training in education capabilities, certification capabilities was a really important driver to help us scale. And we launched our BeyondTrust University early last year as well. And that, too, has been extremely well received. We probably have over 500 partner individuals across the globe that are engaged in BeyondTrust University either from a sales enablement, pre-sales enablement, or technical consulting enablement perspective. And we're now starting to turn out certified consultants who can actually help scale on the delivery side.   So those are a couple of highlights and things that we've had to overcome. And we're not done yet. We're never, I think, fully satisfied. We can always do more. But, those were a couple of really important foundational components that we needed to get in place to help scale.   Jen: Well, with all of those individual partner users, you were talking about those partner entities, you weren't talking about the companies, right? You're talking about actual individual people who are engaging with that content or who are phase two, your end customer. You've got all those folks. You've got over 4,000 organizations as customers. You've got half of the Fortune 100. I mean, I'm just baffled. Like how are you able to dedicate time to your individual partner entities? I know tiering's got to be a big part of that, not just the segmentation of types of partners but also tiering within. Is that something that you guys are doing as well?   Joe: Yeah, yeah. We did that last year for North America. We just completed our first pass of it for Europe, and we're in the process of doing it now for Latin America. And I think AsiaPac is a little different for us. We've kind of been working through a two-tier distribution model in AsiaPac from earlier points in our history and so there is less rationalization needed there, I believe.   But certainly, if I take North America for an example, we looked at the entire pool of literally over 300 reseller accounts that we had in our CRM system and we started winnowing that down and looking at it different ways. We said, "Okay, over the last two years, how much new business has been booked by each of those partners," right? And obviously, you typically see a 80/20 kind of formation there, where 80% of the revenue comes from the top 20% of the resellers. And we quickly realized that we've got literally hundreds in our system who haven't done any business with us over the last two or three years.   We also looked at how much renewal business is being handled by that pool of resellers, and we found that there is some that do a large number of renewals for us but there's an awful lot of onesie-twosies out there, right? Literally, we have a reseller that handles a couple of renewals for us a year, and that's the extent of it. So we value that. We don't want to just throw that out the window, but we look at the volume of it and we look at the alignment to the partner profile that I spoke of at the top and say, "All right, who are the top 12 that we want to focus on, or the top 15," and really zero in on those resellers and say, "Okay, how do we sit down and build a business plan that's meaningful for both companies?"   And for us, we're kind of looking for anywhere from half a million in net new product license bookings or more from those kinds of partners, and whether they've done that historically or not may not necessarily be the critical decision factor. Maybe a partner has only done 250,000 with us but they've only been working with us for six months and we believe that they've got the right DNA, the right profile to really take that up to the right level.   So that's kind of how we've done some tiering here in North America. And I'd say that we're really focused on probably the top 10 or so resellers, and then there's a cadre of consulting partners maybe 15 or 20 in total that we're either on board with or working with in some capacity to try to figure out whether they belong in that bucket or not. But taking it from literally 300 down to 15, 20 is a much more manageable number, and we believe that by providing that focus that we're going to see more benefits coming out of those relationships.   Jen: Thanks for sharing that. I think it's really, really helpful to a lot of people who are in a similar situation that you're in. And on that note, the last question I really want to ask you is if you have any sort of concise piece of advice that you can give fellow business development professionals who might be in a situation similar to the one that you embarked upon when you joined BeyondTrust, any words of wisdom that you can share?   Joe: Yeah, I'd piggyback on the first point about the partner profiling, and say that it's really important that you understand what your targets looks like. And then the second thing, which is really important, once you start getting into discussions and conversations with potential partners, you really need to understand what the win is for the partner. And it kind of amazes me that a lot of times, people don't step back and ask that question or even understand that and they may assume that, "Oh, these guys are VAR, therefore, they're only interested in margin on the sale of products."   Well, the landscape is changing out there, right? I don't really believe that organizations that may have historically survived and thrived on just being product-resale companies are going to survive, right? We're seeing a lot of evidence that traditional resellers are morphing into what I call a solution provider, and they're trying to solve problems for clients that includes products, that includes services, and it may include managed services.   So the landscape is shifting a little bit, but the point being is that it's really important for you to understand what the win is based on the partner you're talking to. And, one partner may say, "Hey, I'm only interested in selling product." Fine. Another partner may say, "Well, we do some product resale but we're really in the consulting business." Or it might be obvious from the onset that they're in the consulting business but, they like referral margins on the back end of deals, too, right? So trying to be flexible, trying to frame and understand the win for the partner is equally as important as understanding what the win is for you. So that's my piece of advice.   Jen: I think that's great advice. We can always be better listeners. Really listen to what our partners need and what's going to make them successful. That's fantastic. You know, Joe, before I let you go, before we totally sign off here, I always put people through a little bit of like a fun personal speed round, so ask some questions that kind of dig in a little bit, get to know you as a person a little bit more. Are you up for it?   Joe: Yeah, sure, why not. Sounds like fun.   Jen: All right, all right. So easy questions. First one is what is your favorite city?   Joe: My favorite city, oh, that's a good one because I've been to so many great cities. Honestly, my heart belongs to New York.   Jen: Good. What do you love most about New York?   Joe: I grew up in the New York area and I've always loved it. It's a city that, honestly, you can pretty much do anything within the bounds of law, of course.   Jen: Right, right.   Joe: Do anything, see anything, experience, any kind of entertainment, any kind of cuisine. It's just an amazing city to me. I've always loved it. But I've got to tell you, I do love London and I love Tokyo. I got to Tokyo last year and I am absolutely amazed by Tokyo and I'm dying to go back. I was only there for two days, and if I can figure out how to go back for 10 days, I think that'd be like my first choice. And I may come back with a different opinion about what my absolute favorite city is after some real time in Tokyo I think.   Jen: That's a really long way to travel for two days. Wow, wow. You need to go back.   Joe: It was a total of a 10-day trip in Asia but we only had 2 days in Tokyo.   Jen: Yeah, okay. That makes more sense. Okay, second question, are you an animal lover?   Joe: Oh, yeah, definitely.   Jen: Yeah. Do you have any pets?   Joe: We've had some pets from time to time, cats, hamsters, fish those sorts of things. I'm an absolute dog lover. But here's the thing, I travel so much and my kids are getting older and heading off to college. And, it's always been one of those things that we'd love to do, but at the same time, we've always felt that owning a dog would be unfair to the dog because you need to be around to spend the right time with them and treat them like any other family member quite frankly.   Jen: Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Okay, next question, Mac or PC?   Joe: Oh, gosh. If I ever had the choice of having a Mac for a work tool, I would say Mac. But I never seem to get that choice so I have to go with PC. I'm using a Microsoft Surface and I actually love it. It's great, very lightweight, very reliable. And you can use it as a tablet as well, so it's got some nice flexibility.   Jen: Yeah, everyone who I meet who has one absolutely loves it, so that's great. My last question for you is let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses-paid trip, where would it be to?   Joe: It would probably be Italy, and I'd have to say Tuscany in particular. For me, Tuscany is kind of the perfect balance between my need to see things and do things, but you can kind of find the peace and tranquility to relax when it's time to do that, too. It also has that phenomenal food and wine aspect to it that I love. So Tuscany, I'd take it any day.   Jen: Wonderful. Sounds lovely. I was picturing myself being there as you were talking about it with a glass of wine, of course. So thank you. Thanks so much for sharing your time with me, with us today, Joe. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally, what's the best way for them to connect with you?   Joe: Find me on LinkedIn. It's Joseph Schramm, S-C-H-R-A-M-M. Easiest way to find me. There's not too many of me out there that I'm aware of at BeyondTrust. So yeah, I would welcome the opportunity to chat with anybody or kick any of this stuff around. It's good fun. I'm passionate about it. I enjoy it and would welcome the opportunity to talk to people.   Jen: Wonderful. Well, again, thank you so much. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. And thanks everyone else for tuning in, and join us next week for an all-new episode.   Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to The Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com. And remember, never sell alone.

Chris from Chris and Joe Do a Thing joins us to discuss Season 7, Episode 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Conversations with Dead People. No Audio issues!No Xander!!No way that was Cassie talking for Tara!Scott Hope reference!Spike is doing WHAT?!?!?!!JONATHAN!!!!!!!!!! Direct Download Feedback options... Read More