Podcasts about joe how

  • 27PODCASTS
  • 80EPISODES
  • 49mAVG DURATION
  • 1MONTHLY NEW EPISODE
  • Jun 8, 2024LATEST

POPULARITY

20172018201920202021202220232024


Best podcasts about joe how

Latest podcast episodes about joe how

Top Traders Unplugged
SI299: Sharing the Trend Following Pie ft. Andrew Beer

Top Traders Unplugged

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 8, 2024 69:38


Today, we are joined by Andrew Beer where we discuss the outlook for inflation and why Andrew believes there is an existential crisis in macro economic modelling. We then touch on the question "if trend followers might be the only true short sellers left" as well as how to deal with the lag effect when using replication models. We round off our conversation discussing why Andrew believes we should all “share the trend following pie” and why the managed futures space is stalling when it comes to AuM, why he believes that money is “packed anxiety” for most people, why the ETF space needs an injection of positivity and much more.-----EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE: Find Out How to Build a Safer & Better Performing Portfolio using this FREE NEW Portfolio Builder Tool-----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT's TRUE ? – most CIO's read 50+ books each year – get your FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.And you can get a free copy of my latest book “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.comAnd please share this episode with a like-minded friend and leave an honest Rating & Review on iTunes or Spotify so more people can discover the podcast.Follow Andrew on Twitter.Episode TimeStamps: 00:44 - What has caught our attention recently?03:04 - Is what we thought was "normal" Real Yields actually not normal?09:30 - Are the trend followers the only true short sellers left?19:09 - How do CTAs react to the lower prices?21:35 - Industry performance update23:00 - Q1, Joe: How do you deal with the lag effect in replication models?32:36 - Let's share the trend following pie40:38 - The disadvantages of the institutional world43:56 - Why is the managed futures space not growing?49:49 - A crazy story from Andrew56:26 - Are low-cost offers killing the industry?01:02:39 - The ETF costs dont add up?Copyright © 2024 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved----PLUS: Whenever...

Vanessa and Gallant
04/12 Hour 3 - How Involved Should Astros Ownership Be?

Vanessa and Gallant

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2024 42:47


In the third hour with Paul and Joe:  How involved should Astros ownership be with the team?  Should Yordan Álvarez not be batting second?  What is the number one position that the Texans need? Garbage Time including movie and tv show recommendations 

Vanessa and Gallant
04/04 Hour 3 - Do The Astros And Rangers have Bad Blood?

Vanessa and Gallant

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2024 48:47


In the final hour with Paul and Joe: - How the Astros feel about playing the Rangers this weekend - Jeff Passan throws shade to Astros + taking a look at Altuve's HOF case - Texans quick rebuild is now the blueprint for NFL teams?

Vanessa and Gallant
03/26 Hour 1 - Astros LOSE To The Space Cowboys

Vanessa and Gallant

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 26, 2024 53:17


In the first hour with Paul and Joe: - How to Astros look compared to years past? - Astros lose to the Space Cowboys 3-1 - Rockets win in close game against Blazers

Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing
EP 324 - The Asset of Attention with Joe Solari

Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 21, 2023 63:59


In this solo episode, Mark interviews Joe Solari about his new book May I Have a Moment of Your Attention? Prior to the main content, Mark shares comments from recent episodes and then reflects on the reasons why he canceled a trip he was supposed to take to Florida to attend NINC (Novelist's Inc.) This episode is sponsored by the Patrons of the Stark Reflections Podcast.   In their conversation, Mark and Joe talk about: Joe's winding experience path, the long journey he has been on, and how there's no way you could possibly train for the job that Joe does The daily roadblocks that Joe had to overcome as he was beginning to learn about the complex writing and publishing business The importance of not assuming that the person on stage actually knows what they're talking about Also not assuming that what you "need" is what you're seeing presented on that "stage" Joe's very first 20BooksVegas conference (which he has been to since the very beginning of it) How Joe feels that we're still in the early stages of the entire self-publishing landscape Understanding different formats, like audio, where the consumers aren't necessarily readers, but do enjoy story The value of recognizing the assets in your business, which includes the asset of AUDIENCE and the related importance of DEMAND How ads aren't scaleable, but that audiences are scaleable Joe's latest book MAY I HAVE A MOMENT OF YOUR ATTENTION and how it's only available to buy direct from Joe How the book was created, and how, in part of Joe building his brand is NOT just putting the book up everywhere The audit statements in a survey that Joe asks readers of the book to complete The way this survey and other assets help the reader get to "know, like, and trust" Joe and then be willing to purchase from him How traffic to your Amazon page can be one of the worst things you do if that traffic doesn't convert to sales The value of a customer retention system The importance of feeling a special part of a brand's community Focusing on serving your ideal reader rather than trying to sell more books How author Chris Kennedy allows his fans to incorporate their own fan club about the worlds he has created and written The way that people who spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on merchandise, cosplay, etc, are not even thinking about how much a book costs Joe telling authors to try out his author marketing audit survey and to pay attention to it and see how they can steal his ideas for their own branding and marketing efforts The free 20 minute calls that Joe offers The critical importance of focusing on your audience, and not on what other authors are doing After the interview Mark reflects on a couple of the things Joe talked about, including the advice on assumptions made about the person "on stage" offering advice, and on the critical value of focusing on how you can serve your ideal reader rather than focusing on trying to sell more books.   Links of Interest: Joe Solari's Website Joe's Author Marketing Audit May I Have A Moment of Your Attention? (Book) EP 323 - Rambling Reflections From the Road: This Old House EP 096 - Focusing on and Delivering to Your Audience with Dale L. Roberts  EP 232 - From Script Writer to Novelist with David Boito Buy Mark a Coffee Patreon for Stark Reflections Best Book Ever Podcast Lovers Moon Podcast The Relaxed Author Buy eBook Direct Buy Audiobook Direct Publishing Pitfalls for Authors An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores Wide for the Win Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books This Time Around (Short Story) A Canadian Werewolf in New York Stowe Away (Novella) Fear and Longing in Los Angeles Fright Nights, Big City Lover's Moon Hex and the City The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard   The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: March 16, 2023 - Hour 2

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 16, 2023 49:12


Patrick answers listener questions about RCIA and confession, how much power does the devil really have, and he shares a story of when he was confronted by two Calvinist Protestants and how he defused a heated argument Kaylee - I am in RCIA and was told I could go to confession as long as I am a baptized Christian. Is that true? Tom - I am a revert Catholic. How can I live the faith in the secular area I am living? Joe - How much power does the devil have? Patrick shares a story of when he was working at Catholic Answers and two Calvinist Protestants confronted him that everything he was saying was wrong. After having a coffee with them, and a heated argument, Patrick finally gets through to them with writing six words on a napkin “I never said Cyrus does a great job” Eduardo - Has the Baltimore catechism been revised base on the new catechism of the Catholic Church? Catherine - A Baptist told me that Jesus was crucified on a Dog Wood tree. Is that true?

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: February 21, 2023 - Hour 1

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 21, 2023 50:56


Patrick shares an update on the murder of bishop David O'Connell, discusses why there isn't a Gospel of Peter in the Bible, answers questions about what is necessary to have a valid baptism and the biblical bases for the teaching of purgatory. Patrick gives an update on the murder of Bishop David O'Connell Patrick Reads email from Ken about why there is no Gospel according to Peter Marteen - Why are there confusing terms in Catholicism like Pope and Papal and how can we make this easier for us and others to understand? Michael - Was my Catholic Baptism valid? a lady said i had to be submerged Eric - Where is purgatory in the Bible? What does the Church teach on this? Joe - How do we know if someone is going to purgatory? Raul -what was Constantine's role in Council of Nicaea?

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: February 08, 2023 - Hour 2

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2023 53:48


Megan - Ten Commandments: Was sex outside of marriage included in the 6th commandment? Kyle - Papal infallibility: Is it true that the pope can make infallible statements? How does that work? Benson – Is it possible that the Four Horseman of the Apocalyptic are modern vehicles of today's society? Sam - How do Mormons view the trinity? Joe - How do you debate someone who says that the word of God is sufficient when talking about Sola Scriptura?

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: January 26, 2023 - Hour 2

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2023 51:07


Patrick debates Sola Scriptura with a caller, shares a story about Eucharistic miracles, discuss the Catholic position around infant baptism which is supported by the bible and talks about discerning private revelations in the Church. Email from David – Jesus did choose how he was born; I think you misspoke about something. Dan (Continued) - What is Patrick's exact definition about Solo Scriptura? Email from John – You gave great advice to the woman who got slapped by her husband. Esmeralda - 8-year-old son wants to know When was God made? How long ago? 13-year-old daughter wants to know if Adam and Eve's children got married between themselves? Esmeralda wants to know when was the dinosaur era, were there any humans then, did Adam and Eve exist. Joseph - All humans are weak and with the exorcism prayers we ask God for the authority to help us with our human frailty. But as Catholics, only the holiest souls pointed by the bishop are chosen to perform the specific prayer of exorcism. Isn't this a conflict? Ben - Are Eucharistic miracles for Catholics only or also non-Catholics? Do we know the intention of Jesus behind this Eucharistic miracles? Joe - How did Adam and Eve know what was death (or sin) if they haven't even committed the original sin? How did they know what sin or death was like? Patti - About the guy who said infants can be baptized because they are not capable of recognizing Jesus. What about John recognizing the presence of Our Lord in Elizabeth's womb, when Mary went to visit her. Mary Ann - Your take on Book ‘The Flame of Love' Elizabeth Kindelmann

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: January 17, 2023 - Hour 1

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 17, 2023 51:03


Special Guest Host Fr. Matthew Spencer Jamie – What is dispensationalism and do Catholics believe in it? When can a priest deny absolution? Joseph - How can someone be Catholic if the Church teaches people with unconfessed sins will go to hell? Jeff - My 14-year-old son is starting to rebel against us. How do we address this? Joe - How do I invite some people to come to Mass and navigate them receiving communion? Dave - I met you Father at an event for Parish ambassadors in Sacramento. My brother and I considered becoming members of the Benedictine oblate

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: October 27, 2022 - Hour 2

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2022 51:08


Patrick answers listener questions about free will and predestination, who really started the Catholic Church, and if it's normal for to be charged to attend RCIA classes Joseph - How do I reconcile Judas' pre-ordained decision to betray Jesus with that of his free will? Patrick recommends “Predestination” by Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange Ron - Did Alexander the Great start the Catholic Church? Biblical stories of military events in kingdoms of Israel, Judah really did happen, archaeologists show Melissa - My sister and brother are Lutheran: they baptized their children at home. Not sure if they did it right what should? GOP warns of ‘rainbow fentanyl' as Halloween approaches Bill - What do you think of a parish charging for RCIA? Joe - How does dating and predestination work? How can we pray for our future spouses?

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: October 10, 2022 - Hour 1

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2022 51:10


Patrick answers listener questions about how to better evangelize, was there a purgatory before Jesus died on the cross, and is attending a non-Catholic funeral permissible? Joe - How could Catholics better evangelize? Kip - Was there a type of Purgatory in Sheol before Jesus died on the cross? Steve - I am writing a Catholic themed fantasy book. Is having a character who is a dragon wrong? Kevin (18:12) – Is there a difference in attending a non-Catholic wedding to attending a non-Catholic funeral? John (email) – When does taking a shortcut become a sin? Jim (40:30) – What does the Church teach on where to find truth, in the Bible or the Magisterium?

Beards & Bros Podcast
Marvel vs DC PT 1

Beards & Bros Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2022 78:45


The Bros breakdown or thoughts on the Marvel Vs DC sagas. We talk most over powered Superheros, our favorites and not so favorites. We manage to make record time in saying to Joe "How does it feel to be F'ing wrong!" Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/beards--bros-podcast/message

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: February 18, 2022 - Hour 3

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2022 51:06


Patrick compares the Catholic Church to Noah's Ark Gina – If the Church recognizes other forms of baptism, how do we know those are valid? Frank – My wife died in June, and she asked me to call a priest. She passed away before I could. What happened to her soul? Did she get the graces because she desired them? Norman – If the passion and death of our lord took care of all the sins of the world, then why do we need baptism? Joe – How does someone become a saint? Ann - Regarding plenary indulgence at the time of death Marylyn – I was taught by nuns that there are three different types of baptisms. What happens to unbaptized babies who die? Kathy - Question about Prophets in the church vs 'modern day prophets' Peter - Question on genetic makeup of Jesus. Did he have half of Mary's DNA? Teresa - Are the 7 deadly sins considered mortal sins?

The Patrick Madrid Show
The Patrick Madrid Show: December 06, 2021 – Hour 2

The Patrick Madrid Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 6, 2021


The real story of St. Nick Pat – Do you know about the defense bill and how they are sneaking women being drafted into the bill? Joe – How do I defend the Church when people claim that European settlers forced conversion and used native Americans as slaves? Joan – I disagree with you when […]

The Joe Costello Show
Jordan Montgomery Interview

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2021 45:42


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. Jordan: Towns Joe: So Jordan: In Washington Joe: I Jordan: County, Joe: Got fired Jordan: But it's Joe: Up Jordan: The Joe: When Jordan: Largest Joe: When they sent me your bio Jordan: Amish community Joe: And then I got to watch Jordan: West Joe: Your Jordan: Of the Mississippi. Joe: Inspirational videos. Jordan: So Joe: I Jordan: I grew Joe: Love Jordan: Up in Joe: That Jordan: Sort Joe: Stuff. Jordan: Of Amish Joe: I love Jordan: Country, Joe: The stuff that Jordan: A Joe: You're Jordan: One Joe: Doing Jordan: Stoplight Joe: With Jordan: Don't Joe: Iowa Jordan: Blink kind of Joe: Hawkeyes. Jordan: Town, Joe: So Jordan: Simple Joe: I saw Jordan: Life. Joe: That and Jordan: You Joe: I Jordan: Know, Joe: Was like, Jordan: My Joe: Oh, Jordan: Mom Joe: Man, Jordan: Was a teacher. Joe: I got Jordan: Dad Joe: To have Jordan: Was Joe: This Jordan: A blue Joe: Guy Jordan: Collar Joe: On. Jordan: Worker. Joe: This Jordan: But Joe: Is Jordan: My Joe: Awesome. Jordan: Dad taught Joe: But Jordan: Me the value Joe: So Jordan: Of hard Joe: Before Jordan: Work. Joe: We get into Jordan: And Joe: Any Jordan: I Joe: Of Jordan: Really Joe: That, Jordan: Learned Joe: You Jordan: Work Joe: Said you listen Jordan: Ethic Joe: To some Jordan: From Joe: Of my Jordan: My Joe: I guess Jordan: Father. Joe: You probably Jordan: He was an entrepreneur, Joe: Already know what Jordan: So Joe: I'm Jordan: He Joe: About Jordan: Owned Joe: To say, but Jordan: A small Joe: I Jordan: Painting Joe: Really Jordan: Business. Joe: Want to know about Jordan: And I always really Joe: You Jordan: Appreciated Joe: And how Jordan: The Joe: You Jordan: Fact Joe: Got Jordan: That my Joe: Started. Jordan: Dad Joe: And Jordan: Was at every Joe: This Jordan: One of my Joe: Is Jordan: Sporting Joe: The part Jordan: Events. Joe: Of the podcast where Jordan: He never Joe: It's Jordan: Missed Joe: Completely Jordan: An Joe: Up Jordan: Event Joe: To you, Jordan: In music. Joe: How far Jordan: He never Joe: Back Jordan: Missed Joe: You Jordan: A sporting Joe: Want to go. Jordan: Event. Joe: But for Jordan: You Joe: Me, Jordan: Just there Joe: When Jordan: For me. Joe: I Jordan: He Joe: Meet Jordan: Was ultra Joe: Someone like Jordan: Present Joe: You, even Jordan: As a Joe: If Jordan: Father. Joe: It's through the Internet Jordan: And Joe: Like Jordan: So Joe: This, Jordan: When I got out of college, Joe: I want to Jordan: I Joe: Know Jordan: Knew Joe: What you did to become Jordan: For sure, Joe: The person Jordan: Joe, Joe: You are Jordan: That Joe: Today. Jordan: I wanted to control Joe: What Jordan: My Joe: Was Jordan: Own Joe: The Jordan: Time. Joe: Path that steered Jordan: I just remember Joe: You in this Jordan: That Joe: Direction? Jordan: With my father's Joe: What Jordan: Example, Joe: Were the things Jordan: I thought, you Joe: That Jordan: Know, Joe: Happened Jordan: I just Joe: To Jordan: Want to Joe: You? Jordan: Make sure I can control Joe: Sometimes Jordan: My own time, Joe: It's as young Jordan: That Joe: As Jordan: Nobody Joe: You're in Jordan: Ever Joe: Elementary Jordan: Tells me where Joe: School. Jordan: I have Joe: And Jordan: To be Joe: Your Jordan: And Joe: Father Jordan: What I have to Joe: Was Jordan: Be there. Joe: The coach Jordan: And Joe: For Jordan: It's Joe: Certain Jordan: Not that I Joe: Sports Jordan: Had a problem Joe: Teams. Jordan: With following Joe: He got you Jordan: Instruction. Joe: Fired up or Jordan: I just Joe: And Jordan: Wanted to build Joe: You translated Jordan: My life by Joe: That into being Jordan: Design Joe: Also a business Jordan: And Joe: Coach. So Jordan: Really take control Joe: I'll stop Jordan: Of Joe: Talking. Jordan: My time Joe: And Jordan: And Joe: I want Jordan: Lead Joe: You to Jordan: My Joe: Just Jordan: Family Joe: Kind Jordan: Well Joe: Of give Jordan: In Joe: Us Jordan: The Joe: The Jordan: Same Joe: Back Jordan: Way that Joe: Story. Jordan: My dad Joe: So Jordan: Led me. Joe: When Jordan: So Joe: People listen Jordan: I Joe: To Jordan: Grew Joe: This Jordan: Up in Joe: And Jordan: Rural Joe: Then they Jordan: Iowa. Joe: Later watch Jordan: I went Joe: The YouTube Jordan: To the University Joe: Video, Jordan: Of Iowa. Joe: They could say, Jordan: I'm Joe: Oh, Jordan: Still a Joe: I Jordan: Very avid Joe: Get this, Jordan: Hockey Joe: This Jordan: Fan and Joe: This Jordan: We've had Joe: Was me. Jordan: The Joe: Or Jordan: Fortunate opportunity Joe: Now Jordan: To Joe: I Jordan: Work Joe: See Jordan: With some Joe: How Jordan: Of the sports Joe: He Jordan: Programs. Joe: Landed, where he did. 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. So Joe: And knowing Jordan: I appreciate Joe: That Jordan: Your pointing Joe: He was Jordan: Back Joe: Able Jordan: To Joe: To Jordan: My Joe: Do Jordan: Father's Joe: It because Jordan: Example. Joe: He owned Jordan: I Joe: His own Jordan: Probably Joe: Business Jordan: Still Joe: So Jordan: Underestimate Joe: Early on Jordan: The impact Joe: For Jordan: That that Joe: You Jordan: Had Joe: And Jordan: On Joe: For Jordan: Me Joe: The listeners, Jordan: As Joe: That Jordan: A young Joe: Triggered Jordan: Kid, but Joe: Something Jordan: He Joe: For you Jordan: Really Joe: That Jordan: Taught Joe: You Jordan: Me Joe: Were able Jordan: What Joe: To say. Jordan: Entrepreneurship Joe: I Jordan: Was Joe: Want Jordan: All about Joe: That for Jordan: In so many Joe: My Jordan: Ways. Joe: Own family and my own kids at some point when I have kids that I have that flexibility to do this. So that was really cool. 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. Jordan: The first Joe: And Jordan: Thing is we try to Joe: It Jordan: Tell Joe: Feels Jordan: A lot Joe: Like when Jordan: Of stories Joe: Somebody Jordan: To drive Joe: Comes Jordan: A plan. Joe: Into the Jordan: We Joe: Classroom, Jordan: Don't use PowerPoint Joe: When you're in elementary Jordan: Slides Joe: School, Jordan: Or use Joe: You Jordan: Pictures Joe: Start Jordan: Or graphs. Joe: Throwing papers Jordan: I'm not Joe: At each other. And Jordan: I'm Joe: So Jordan: Not minimizing Joe: How do you deal with that Jordan: Anybody Joe: When you Jordan: Who does Joe: Speak? Jordan: Those Joe: Because Jordan: Things. Joe: You do all sorts Jordan: I just Joe: Of speaking Jordan: Think if you're going Joe: Engagements. Jordan: To be someone who keeps Joe: So Jordan: People's Joe: This was Jordan: Attention, Joe: Just one Jordan: You got Joe: Small Jordan: To be great Joe: Piece of it. Jordan: At Joe: But you Jordan: Stories. Joe: Do something to capture Jordan: I Joe: People. 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. I'm getting hit up left Jordan: Yeah, Joe: And right Jordan: Yeah, Joe: With Jordan: Yeah, so Joe: People that Jordan: Got Joe: Have coaching Jordan: Multiple Joe: Businesses Jordan: Answers to the question Joe: Are their personal Jordan: That you just ask, and Joe: Coaches Jordan: It's a great question, Joe: Or their life Jordan: By the Joe: Coaches Jordan: Way, Joe: Or whatever. Jordan: Tom Joe: And Jordan: Landry Joe: There's something Jordan: Probably Joe: About Jordan: Said Joe: Your approach Jordan: It best. Joe: That's Jordan: He said Joe: Just different that Jordan: Koshin Joe: Really I gravitated Jordan: Is Joe: Towards. Jordan: Allowing Joe: And I'm going Jordan: People Joe: To put Jordan: To Joe: You Jordan: Hear Joe: On the spot Jordan: What they Joe: Just Jordan: Don't Joe: Because Jordan: Want to hear, Joe: This is something that I Jordan: Helping Joe: Think people Jordan: People see what Joe: Will Jordan: They don't Joe: Ask Jordan: Want Joe: Themselves Jordan: To see Joe: In Jordan: So Joe: And Jordan: They can become Joe: They don't Jordan: The person Joe: Know the answer to. Jordan: They Joe: But Jordan: Always wanted to become. Joe: People would say, well, why do I need Jordan: That's Joe: A personal Jordan: That's what Joe: Coach? Jordan: Koshien Joe: Why Jordan: Is, Joe: Would that person Jordan: Right, Joe: Across Jordan: And Joe: From me, Jordan: The reality is we Joe: Whether it's Jordan: All Joe: In Jordan: Have Joe: Person Jordan: Blindspots, Joe: Or via Zoom Jordan: Myself Joe: Call, Jordan: Included. Joe: Know anything Jordan: So I've always Joe: More Jordan: Had Joe: About Jordan: A coach, Joe: Me Jordan: I got three Joe: Or my Jordan: Now. Joe: Business Jordan: I've always Joe: Or Jordan: Had Joe: Be Jordan: One. Joe: Able to help? Jordan: I had Joe: And Jordan: 10. Joe: I think Jordan: Over Joe: There's Jordan: The last Joe: There's Jordan: Five Joe: Definitely Jordan: Years, Joe: People that decided Jordan: The Joe: One Jordan: Average Joe: Day they will Jordan: Olympic Joe: Come, said, I'm going Jordan: Athlete Joe: To be a life coach. So Jordan: Has Joe: They Jordan: Seven Joe: Sort of Jordan: Different Joe: Created Jordan: Coaches. Joe: A Jordan: And Joe: Bad name Jordan: I Joe: For Jordan: Think as Joe: The people Jordan: You grow, Joe: That really Jordan: There's Joe: Do it Jordan: What Joe: Well. Jordan: Happens Joe: Right. Jordan: Is there's this paradox Joe: So Jordan: Of education. Joe: You're Jordan: The Joe: One Jordan: More Joe: Of the Jordan: You Joe: Few Jordan: Learn, Joe: People that I've had on where I could Jordan: The Joe: Ask Jordan: More you Joe: This Jordan: Realize Joe: Question, Jordan: You Joe: Too, Jordan: Don't Joe: And Jordan: Know. Joe: Say, OK, I know I'm going Jordan: It's Joe: To really Jordan: Always Joe: Get Jordan: Sort Joe: A Jordan: Of evolving Joe: Good, honest answer. Jordan: In our our Joe: And Jordan: Self Joe: So I'm Jordan: Awareness. Joe: Putting you on the spot for Jordan: But Joe: The Jordan: We Joe: Coaching Jordan: Don't have blind Joe: Community Jordan: Spots Joe: Because I Jordan: And Joe: It's something Jordan: We don't know Joe: That Jordan: What we don't know. Joe: I've never Jordan: And Joe: Had Jordan: So Joe: A Jordan: You Joe: Coach Jordan: Need Joe: And I probably Jordan: Somebody Joe: Could have Jordan: Else Joe: Used Jordan: To Joe: A coach. Jordan: Speak Joe: I probably Jordan: Truth Joe: Can use Jordan: And life Joe: A coach. Jordan: And Joe: That would Jordan: Give Joe: Be Jordan: You Joe: My Jordan: Feedback Joe: Question is like, well, Jordan, Jordan: And Joe: Why Jordan: Be real Joe: Do you know anything Jordan: And candid Joe: More about Jordan: And Joe: It? Jordan: Give Joe: Obviously, Jordan: It to Joe: You're Jordan: You Joe: Going Jordan: With Joe: To do Jordan: Love. Joe: A discovery, Jordan: Right. Joe: Right? Jordan: And Joe: We're going to Jordan: And Joe: Learn Jordan: With Joe: About Jordan: Care. Joe: Each other and you're going to learn Jordan: But Joe: What what I Jordan: What Joe: Do Jordan: I found Joe: On a daily basis Jordan: Is most Joe: And and Jordan: People Joe: Things. Jordan: Aren't Joe: And then Jordan: Receiving Joe: Looking Jordan: Enough Joe: At it from another Jordan: Feedback. Joe: Point of view, you can help. But Jordan: Even those Joe: I want Jordan: Who were Joe: You Jordan: At the Joe: To Jordan: Top Joe: Answer that Jordan: Of their Joe: Question Jordan: Game, I'll Joe: For Jordan: Give Joe: Me, Jordan: You an example Joe: Especially Jordan: Where this shows Joe: For the Jordan: Up, Joe: Listeners Jordan: Joe Joe: And entrepreneurs Jordan: Shows Joe: Out Jordan: Up Joe: There Jordan: In communication Joe: Going, Jordan: All Joe: Man, Jordan: The time. Joe: I'm alone every day Jordan: So Joe: In this business. I Jordan: None Joe: Don't Jordan: Of Joe: Have Jordan: Us are Joe: Anybody Jordan: Perfect. We Joe: Else Jordan: All have Joe: Helping Jordan: A lot to Joe: Me. Jordan: Learn when it Joe: Do Jordan: Comes Joe: I Jordan: To Joe: Need Jordan: Our communication Joe: A coach Jordan: Style, Joe: Or Dulli? Jordan: What we say, how our body moves, our tonality, our pace. So we test out salespeople all the time. So I'll get hired by a bigwig financial adviser. 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.

The Joe Costello Show
Josh Carey - Co-founder of PodMAX.co

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2021 52:32


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.

The Joe Costello Show
Tim O'Brien from The Healthy Place

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2021 56:01


  Tim O'Brien along with his wife Becki, have created a unique vitamin, supplement and nutrition store that is more about helping people than it is about margins and commissions. As Tim says" Souls before sales!"   It was a pleasure sitting down with Tim to learn more about The Healthy Place and what products and services they have to offer.   After Tim educated me, I'm definitely going to lean on him and his team in the future, to help me make better and more educated decisions when it comes to my health.   I hope you enjoy this episode and you walk away with at least one snippet that either helps you in your entrepreneurial journey or with you health in general.   For 30% off, please use our affiliate link as it helps us to generate a little income to produce this podcast...thx so much!   https://findyourhealthyplace.com/?rfsn=5901087.08b0f6   Thanks for listening!   Joe   Tim O'Brien Founder - The Healthy Place Website: https://findyourhealthyplace.com/ Website: https://livelyvitaminco.com/ Website: https://wildtheory.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/applewellness/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehealthyplaceTHP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYQVVKB58mGd_YgxAL0LMGA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/apple-wellness-the-healthy-place/about/ Email: tim@findyourhealthyplace.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 Tim: My guest today is Tim O'Brien, the founder of The Healthy Place, an e-commerce store for healthy products. They also have for brick and mortar locations, one in Madison, Wisconsin, one in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, one in Middleton, Wisconsin, and one in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Tim's passion is health and wellness, and he has spent the last decade sharing his passion with the world on a personal side. He is married to Becky and together they have three children. In this conversation with Tim, I expressed how much health and wellness is important to myself and how convoluted the marketplace is and very difficult to trust who you buy from and which products you buy. I was excited to have Tim on the show so that I could learn more about the difference in what the healthy place offers over buying products at other places like GNC, Walgreens, the vitamin shop and obviously Amazon.com. So sit back and listen to the education that we get from Tim on how to buy better and healthier products in the health and wellness space. Joe: Hey, Tim, welcome to the show. Tim: Hey, hey, how you doing, buddy? Joe: I'm doing great, man, happy, what is it? Wednesday, I lost track, I just got Tim: Yeah, Joe: Back into Tim: It's Joe: Town. Tim: Hump hump day of the week, man, and Joe: Beautiful. Tim: I'm doing this to say thank you for giving me a chance to be on your show. Man, this is cool. Joe: Yeah, no, that's my pleasure, as as I mentioned before, we actually started this that I have, you know, I know that literally health is everything. Like you can have everything in the world that you ever, ever wanted. And without your health, it's just, you know, it's it's unfortunate because I know people go through things that had nothing to do with them not being healthy. They just got delivered a bad hand, Tim: Yahav. Joe: You know, so that's a different story. But those of us Tim: Jerome. Joe: That can make sure we stay healthy, there are things that we can do. But before we get into all of that, and as a lot of my listeners for the podcast and the viewers of a YouTube channel, now, I'd like to get the back story because a lot of the people who listen to the show are my hope is that these entrepreneurial spirits that are trying to figure out what they want to do are there in the midst of doing it. And they they need ideas from people that are being successful doing it. So I would like to go back as far as you're willing to go back to allow myself and the viewers to understand how you got into what you're doing today. What Tim: I love Joe: For? Tim: To share that. Yeah. Joe: Yeah, like what triggered the fact that you're now in this world of, you know, Tim: Supplements, Joe: The health world Tim: Natural Joe: And. Tim: Alternatives, Joe: Yeah, Tim: Yeah. Joe: Yeah, yeah. So I'd love to hear that and then we'll get in, Tim: I'd love to. It's Joe: Ok. Tim: A cool story, I kind of like telling it because it's just cool to see how things can work together to sort of bring you to the place that you're at. And it's sort of confirmation in some different ways. So I love to share it, man. I'd be happy to do so when my when I was like five or six years old, my mom fought through thyroid cancer. And I remember her like going through the chemo radiation and losing the hair, like seeing her at the hospital. I have four siblings, so just a lot of fear in the home, worried about mom. And then I remember this time where she came home and she was sort of like excited and sort of like filled with a little bit of hope because she had gone into this health food store in a little town called Muskego, Wisconsin, just this tiny little town that had a health food store. And she talked to this guy named John for like an hour and a half. And John shared with her all these natural alternatives that had some good science and some good reason to believe that it could help her in her process recovery, treatment of the thyroid cancer. And so she would like go in there like once a week, whether it was a refill for some supplements or whether it was some more education, because there was a lot of literature that this guy handed out as well, like books that he gave her. Tim: And I would go with her. And through this whole process, she she was benefited quite a bit from these natural alternatives that helped her and her recovery process. So I remember hearing about that as a little guy. And through that process, she got a job as a manager at this health food store. And she was there all the time, 40, 50 hours a week kind of thing. And us kids were home schooled. So we would go with mom often sitting in this back room of this health food store, doing our math problems, doing our schoolwork. And I watched over the years these testimonies produced of people coming in with chronic pain, depression, sleep issues, other folks that battled cancer, that my mom held their hand through the process, educating them. And so that was like my whole upbringing. And it really got into my DNA that there is natural alternatives out there that work and the general population just doesn't know about them, because the way our medical system set up pharmaceutical medications, you know, we have some of the best doctors in the world. And, you know, you go to them, you get a prescription, you don't Joe: Mm Tim: Necessarily Joe: Hmm. Tim: Get a natural alternative recommendation. So I got a bit passionate about that in my late teen years. So I got a job at a GNC franchise and worked for the owner who invited me to move out to Madison, Wisconsin, to manage some of his GNC stores after a little while. So I was like, man, OK, my boss thinks I'm good at this. I really enjoy helping people, encouraging people. I just happen to like like people in general. So it was it was sort of a fit. Like I got this passion for this natural alternative thing. I feel like I'm helping people. I'm impacting the world. I want to make a difference. And I was managing these GNC franchises in Madison, Wisconsin. Well, there was a corporate takeover, dude, in twenty seven where everybody lost their jobs, like corporate took over these six franchises that my boss owned. And it was like, OMG, like, what am I going to do now? And so I determined, you know, hey, I want to do something. And that's natural alternative space. I have always been sort of passionate about business in general. I had like three paper routes when I was 11 and I hired my sisters for a quarter a day. I was making bank Joe: Right. Tim: And I was so I tried a network marketing business for a little while that was suppliments and that was brutal. Multi-level marketing can be really hard. And I was like, OK, I don't want to go that route. Maybe I should open my own health food store. And at that time I had just met dating, married Becky, my wife. So we're prayerfully like thinking through this. Should we do this, put the house on the line, open up our own health food store and risk everything. And we decided to take the plunge. So our first brick and mortar store, 2010, was in a town called Fitchburg, Wisconsin, which is right outside of Madison, Wisconsin. And then twenty fifteen, it was store number two in the Madison area and then twenty nineteen with stores three and four. So that was going well. We then moved towards ecommerce where like, hey, if we're making an impact and a difference here locally, which is really exciting, we really enjoy it together. We work as a team like let's let's hit the nation. That sounds fun. And so we started to see a little bit of success there, especially ones covid hit of last year because our in-store traffic took a hit. So our pivot as a company, like a lot of smart companies, was, let's focus on e-commerce. And so that really helped us talk about a blessing in disguise, really helped Joe: Mm hmm. Tim: Us figure out the e-commerce space a little bit. So really exciting. In December, January of this last year, we got our little warehouse. So now we have a warehouse in Madison and we're shipping packages out all over the United States. And that's the story. And the mission is about impacting, empowering and educating as many people as we can to just like, learn, grow and create a lifelong foundation of health and wellness. It's like a fanning a flame. You know, somebody already just has a little spark. You know, they're putting the cigarette out outside my store, throwing the McDonald's bag in the trash and like, I need something for my chronic pain all the way up to the health enthusiasts. And no matter what, to me, it's so encouraging to just fan the flame of someone's health and wellness. Because you said it earlier, life is a gift and people need to remember that. Joe: Yeah, and so have you always, based on the background of sitting in that store with your mother and seeing what the proper nutrition and supplements and things like that did for her? Did you always pretty much lead a healthy lifestyle? Tim: Funny is Joe: Don't Tim: No. Joe: Tell me you're a fast food junkie. Tim: No, I wasn't. Yeah, I was, and I always felt very bad if I was going through that fast food line, but my diet really didn't really take a huge impact until I married Becky. So for whatever reason, I would I knew a lot about supplements, really passionate about natural alternatives. But I was I was not the guy who is eating ultra clean, raw, organic, clean. I was like, OK, I'm going to eat a basic diet cleaner than most know what kind of excuses that. And then I'd lean on supplements for nutrition. And so when I met Vecchi, this is two thousand eight, she's like, wow, this doesn't even make sense. Like you can't go eat at pizza, frozen pizza, you know, and then go take your supplements. And so she really convicted me. And it's been a pretty cool team because that's always been her passion is very clean eating. And she didn't understand or know about the supplement natural alternative thing. And my passion has always been for my mom's story of natural alternatives and supplements can change a life. And so then getting married and working together as a team to educate Madison and our social media platforms and on YouTube, it's like there has to be a marriage between nutritional deficiencies, making sure we don't have them eating well, eating clean exercise. So we should work together. And I've improved since meeting, Becky. Joe: Wow, so are you actually telling me that she was already before you guys even met, she was interested in this sort of thing or she was she was Tim: Yeah. Joe: A healthy, clean eating person. Tim: Yes, she was Joe: Wow. Tim: A health enthusiast, yeah, I mean, just health, and that's part of what drew me to her is like, man, this girl's got discipline, like extreme self-control. For me, that's been an area of struggle, just like in general, like discipline waking up early. I'm the guy that would, before I met Becky, like stay up till one and then sleep till nine till I had to quit, get to work. And, you know, he's like, man, we got some work to do. But, yeah, she sure inspired me and a few of those areas. Joe: Ok, so without prying too deeply then, because now you're really piqued, my interest is the fact that you guys are lying so well. How did you meet? Tim: Yeah, so we there was like a young adults meeting through it, through church called Metro Believers Church in Madison, Wisconsin, you know, I'm a Christian, she's a Christian, and in my early twenties, it was like, hey, I really enjoyed finding people like minded. And I think in the back of my mind, I'm like, I'm searching for a life, you know? So I would go to a couple of these different churches, young adult ministry meetings, whatever, 20 something groups. And we just started hanging out. So it was like a group of like six or seven of us. And I was about six months in. I pulled her aside one day after church and said, I still laugh at what I said. I said, Hey, Becky, I've taken a shining to you and I'd like to continue on to marriage. And she's like, oh my gosh. Like, OK, I'm kind of like you, too. It was weird way to ask, but OK. Joe: It's also that's Tim: Yeah, Joe: Old school, Tim: I don't do it right. Oh, yeah. Joe: But also Tim: Oh. Joe: All right, cool, well, that's that's great. So how did you change or why did you change the name from Apple Wellness to the healthy place? Tim: Yeah, really good question, you know, Apple Wellness was a good name, you know, in the sense of like Apple a day keeps the doctor away and we just had too many people thinking we are the Mac Apple store. So I literally get calls, at least weekly, Joe: Wow, Tim: And Joe: That's so subtle. Tim: At least I know, and then I'd see my employee across the way and he'd be talking to somebody and he'd be like, well, try turning the phone off and then turn it back on, you know? Joe: Oh, my Tim: So Joe: God. Tim: Especially after he got the e commerce thing going, I started, Becky, as the graphic designer and kind of branding expert within our company for a long time. She's like the Apple word's taken. That's just gone. And I should have consulted with her a little bit more before we chose the name. Joe: Uh huh. Tim: And so she's always kind of wanted it changed. But then I found out that Apple, the company, has an Apple wellness program Joe: Oh, Tim: For employees Joe: Of. Tim: Like it's trademarked. I mean, so I figured it was just a matter of time before I end up getting some sort of litigation letter from Joe: Yeah, Tim: Apple. Joe: Yeah, well, OK, that's interesting. Tim: Yeah. Joe: So you stole one of my questions, but it was perfect because it was actually in line with what you were talking about. But I want to go back to it because Tim: Sure. Joe: It's important, again, for like the entrepreneurs that are listening to this and what we just went through with covid, you talked about shifting. They're not shifting, but literally adding to what you've already established. Right. So you were Tim: You. Joe: You were a retail store, people walking in foot traffic. That's what you counted on to make a living. Right. So when covid hit, obviously, everyone stayed home. So there goes all the foot traffic. So did you already have the e commerce portion of this set up before this happened when you said it was a blessing in disguise? Were you already ready to go the moment like that? Tim: Really Joe: The Tim: Good. Joe: You know, Tim: Yes, Joe: The doors. Tim: Yes and no, I Joe: Ok. Tim: Mean, it's like we had the website, we had the ability to set up ship products out. We had maybe three hundred out of the four thousand products that we have in our stores on the site. So we were ready in certain ways and then not ready for a lot of things. And we had no idea on the digital side of marketing, Google ads, Facebook ads, SEO optimization, email marketing. We hadn't done text messaging. We hadn't done very much of that, very basic and each one of those areas. So it was all of a sudden like pedal to the metal once March hit, where it was like, OK, we have some of these basic fundamentals. And I always tell a business owner like you, if you don't already, you have to have a website like I mean, covid showed us all that pretty quick, like Joe: Yeah. Tim: Have to have a website and you can get free ones are very inexpensive. Wick's dotcom. I'll tell business owners, like even if you're not a photographer, don't don't try to be don't don't get some real basic a white posterboard. Put the product right over it. Just take a picture by a window. Don't don't try to get real clever with it because Vecchi tells me that it can end up looking really bad if Joe: Mm hmm. Tim: You're trying to do so. Basic things like get a website, get a social media, you know, ask your grandkid if you don't know how to set one up sort of thing. So we had all the basics, but then for us it was like, OK. Let's get live chat on our website, because we are one of our difference makers, is consultations Joe: Huh? Tim: With we change lives because we ask questions and we figure out the best products and forms and brands for their specific issues, problems. So let's get a live chat on our website so we can have those conversations. Let's get free shipping. Let's make it really easy. Even if we lose money on maybe one out of five orders, let's just like make it easy, reduce friction in any way that we can. Let's get on Google ads and Facebook ads. So we hired a digital agency for that and it's pretty cool. A year later, we had 30 percent overnight of our foot traffic was just gone once we were able to stay open, thankfully. But that 30 percent in one year's time, we were able to build that on our e-commerce platforms. We were able to replace what was lost. So I'm still head spinning, so thankful for my team able to bring that together because it's quite the operation and it takes a lot of work. Joe: Yeah, did you did you keep the stores open themselves or did you? Tim: We did Joe: You did OK. Tim: Not. Joe: Ok, Tim: We Joe: And Tim: Were Joe: Was it. Tim: Scrambling in the beginning of if we could be classified as essential or not, and my belief is that the immune system is something that can really be strengthened. I'm more passionate about terrain versus the germs so we can strengthen our terrain, strengthen our immune systems, both defense and offense. I mean, there's incredible science behind simple nutrients like sand, mucus from elderberry. The University of Sydney showing the prevention which with elderberry prevention of viruses entering the cell. I mean, it's some pretty cool science. So at the beginning of the covid thing, it was like, OK, I'm not going to tell anybody I can cure or prevent Joe: Mm hmm. Tim: Whatever, but I'm sure as heck going to yell it from the rooftop that you can strengthen your immune system and a strong immune system. Strong health is the best defense against any disease, virus, sickness anywhere. So I got pretty passionate about that a year ago. Joe: Cool. Yeah, that's great. So I'm normally pretty good at not bouncing around, but in this case, I want to go back to when you decided to do this. You know, obviously when when someone gets released from a corporate environment and they're like, oh, my gosh, I don't have control over my own destiny because these people Tim: The. Joe: Just literally rip the rug out from underneath me, which is another thing that a lot of entrepreneurs know because this is how they got to where they are there that happen to them. Like I'm not letting someone else dictate how my life is going to turn out. Right. So Tim: Yeah. Joe: But what's really crazy is I don't know if it if in Wisconsin or the places where you have these stores, obviously we know that you already brought it up at GNC is a big brand around the country. There's also where we are. There's the vitamin store. Right. Are the stuff that one of those Tim: Yeah, Joe: Is a vitamin Tim: Yeah, Joe: Shopper. Tim: Yeah. Joe: So there's a lot of these places. So it's almost like you saying you and Becky going, oh, yeah, we're going to create the next pizza delivery like pizza Tim: Now, Joe: Delivery Tim: There's already Joe: Franchise. Tim: 10 right around Joe: Yeah, Tim: The corner, Joe: Right. Tim: So let's see number 11, yeah. Joe: Right. It's we're going to be the next Pizza Hut or Papa John's or whatever. It's just like that that industry Tim: Yes, Joe: That's it takes a lot Tim: It's Joe: Of guts. Tim: So competitive. Joe: Yeah. So when you thought about it, as all entrepreneurs, do, we always come up with these ideas and then we sometimes will kill our own ideas without our spouse or partner or someone will say they'll be the sensible one and say Tim: Right, Joe: That's Tim: Right, Joe: Never Tim: Yeah. Joe: Right. But then you have all these outside influences of of friends and things. And, you know, at any moment, if you would have said, hey, we're thinking of opening up a vitamin supplement, healthy sort of Tim: John. Joe: That people would look at you. But what about all of these major brands? So tell me about how you got over the hump to make to pull the trigger. Tim: Yeah, do that's such a good question and, you know, to identify and I had some friends who opened a coffee shop, you know, and a year later, you know, the coffee shops not doing so well is unfortunate with covid timing and everything. And it's like the supplement thing where you, like, hear this and you're like, oh, I don't know, you know, I wish him well, but I don't know if that's going to work because it's just like there's a hundred of them, you know. Joe: Right. Tim: So I think for me what happened was I worked for GNC for, I don't know, five years. And you start to see good stuff. You start to see bad stuff, you start to see their model. They were purchased by China a while back. So, OK, it's all sourced from China. Forms of nutrients are in their synthetic forms or not so absorbable forms. And you start to learn like, OK, a better product would help this person more than this form of curcumin that's not absorbing into their system from China or wherever, you know, so you start to see where you could make a difference and you sort of start to see your difference makers. So in the supplement world, there's two veins of supplement stores. There's the type of stores that are all about muscle gain and weight loss, you know, weight loss, thermogenic high caffeine, ephedra, and then trim and tracks Hydroxycut. And a lot of that isn't super healthy for Joe: Hmm. Tim: People to be taking steroids or pro hormones, you know, not super healthy. So that's like one vein of supplement stores. And then there's another vein of supplement stores that just they sourced from China. They use synthetic nutrients. It's a little bit more about margin and profit than it is about quality and making a difference. And so that is something I realized pretty early on. And there's not too many supplement health food stores that have a lot of knowledge where you walk in. And there's not just like a high schooler selling the huge jug of protein because it gets a two dollar commission on it, you know. Joe: Yes, I do know. Tim: Yeah, yeah. And there's just not a lot of those out there. So then all of a sudden starting to dream about, you know, originating from my mom's story where somebody really helped her out, where I can really make a difference, because if I open my own stores or store at the time, I can bring in some of the best brands in the world. And pretty quick, in any industry, you find out, good, better, best. And I want to be in that best category. And all of a sudden you're working with some of the best brands in the world and you have the knowledge to be a to guide somebody with Crohn's disease. Let's just Joe: Mm hmm. Tim: Talk over asthma on natural alternatives that really work. And if you impact them, if you help them, if you change their life a little bit for the better, now they're going to keep coming back forever. And they tell everybody they know because there's such a vacuum, such a desperate need in this day and age for knowledgeable resources in the natural alternative space. We have a ton of medical, we have a ton of pharmaceutical drugs. We just don't have information coming to the general public on natural alternatives that work. And I get to be that resource in Madison, Wisconsin. So I think that's why we have done well in our brick and mortar stores. And I think that's probably why our attention is higher for our e-commerce is because of that customer service, that knowledgeable resource, that going the extra mile to impact their lives. And I'll give you an example. A lady might hit our live chat from California and say, hey, I'm looking for a V12. Can you give me a recommendation? And then we might ask the question like, absolutely. Here's a couple of options. Do you mind if I ask while you're while you're taking V12? Oh, my doctor said because I have really low energy, I have nerve pain and my mental clarity and focus, I get like foggy brain all the time. So then all of a sudden we say, awesome, OK, I'm actually going to encourage the method in form of V12 because it absorbs much better than this sign form that I first sent you, because I really want you to feel the difference. And since you're feeling fatigued, a little brain fog, I'd love for you to consider this adrenal boost product that has adapted genic herbs in there, like Atul Gawande wrote Rodeo Mocca because ninety two percent of fatigue is related to your adrenal glands. So then you recommend that product. They get it. And this lady two months later goes, Oh my gosh, my energy is a little better, my focus is better, my stress is reduced, which I didn't even bring up. But that adrenal product helps with stress, too, I guess. Joe: Mm hmm. Tim: Then all of a sudden they're leaving a review like, wow, that wellness consultant, Ryan, he's one of our our wellness consultants. He really helped me out. And so it's a very different sort of dynamic than a typical GNC store, health food store, vitamin shop type experience. They're Joe: Huh? Tim: All great stores. I mean, I love Natural. Anywhere you can get them. So that was like our difference maker and that's why I thought I could make a go out of it. Joe: Ok, cool. I have so much to ask you now, because you keep opening up like Kansas. So. So before again, I, I want this stuff to be helpful for the entrepreneur. And then then we're going to help the consumers that listen to this. So how when you decided on doing this and said, OK, and let's pull the trigger, how did you figure out the place where you're going to open up store number one, that you do all that extensive, Tim: Oh, Joe: You know, Tim: Good question, yes. Joe: Traffic, you know, what's going to pop up around us? What Tim: You know, Joe: Is, you Tim: Find Joe: Know? Tim: Find a good broker, a real estate broker that can find you spaces. So I had a guy named Kent in Madison, Wisconsin, and he you don't have to pay these guys. You know, it's the landlord that pays them. Joe: Right. Tim: And so as a young entrepreneur about to, like, risk everything you had, that was really important for me to know. Like, I I still am shocked by that. Like, you can just call one of these guys, try to find a reputable one, find somebody that trusts that can make a good referral. And they do all this scouting for you. They send you all the reports and you don't pay a penny. You know, I am a bottom line at the end or something, but you don't pay a penny for this. They get paid from the landlord. So he was bringing me idea after idea after idea. And he had been in the industry for a long time. So he knew the city really, really well. And he was able to guide me through, hey, this has a really strong anchor. The anchor in Fitchburg was Joe: Yeah, Tim: Target. Joe: Yeah. Tim: It was a super, super target. So I was like, oh, learning about anchors are important, Joe: Yeah. Tim: Really important. So I tell you, if you're listening, like, look for some strong anchors, because that's really going to help you for traffic. Joe: And just for the listeners and the people that don't like it, like when they talk about like a small strip mall or a plaza or something like that or even in a in a mall small, an anchor is an anchor store. That is when they go in, there's a really good chance they're not going away like they are a big thing like Target or Wal-Mart Tim: Exactly. Joe: Or Nordstrom or whatever. So I just wanted to clear that up because I didn't know at one point. But I know when you're looking at retail space like that, you want to be surrounded by an anchor store that has been around forever and is not going away. Tim: Yes, and just to further drive that point home, we have for brick and mortar stores and the one that's doing like the worst is the one that doesn't have a strong anchor by it. So just get one with a strong anchor and then look at price points and definitely negotiate. So we had that broker that was able to help us out. He was able to negotiate tenant improvement. Our big deal when you're opening a store, because you you could use money towards the build out and you can ask landlords for that. So if, again, if you have a good broker and you tell them your story, what you're trying to build out, a lot of times you can get a number of things paid for by the landlord because they're about to ask you to sign a five year lease. Joe: Mm hmm. OK. So at this point, the four locations that you have, you are in a lease situation Tim: Yes, all for you Joe: At Tim: And I've Joe: Any Tim: Looked into purchasing. Joe: Ok, so there is yeah, that's my question. It's like when do you pull the trigger on saying, OK, I want to actually start to own some of these buildings are these spaces. And that's a huge job. That's that's really put your Tim: Yeah, Joe: Neck out. Right. Tim: So in all four, I looked at them and each one has a different story, the first one I looked into though, at the Fitchburg location, the buildings were not for sale. So I was like, all this is so cool. So I looked into it and it was seven million dollars for these two buildings because it's in a strong anchor, high traffic area. So it is difficult to buy the spot by the strong anchor Joe: Maha. Tim: Because it really it would have been risking I couldn't I couldn't do it. But then the idea next idea is like, well, maybe I should move locations now that my name is established, if I can buy a strip mall down the way or something like that. So that Joe: Te. Tim: Idea is in the back of my head. But then you move away from the strong anchors. That's Joe: Right. Tim: Been called me back. Joe: Right, cool. See, that was perfect because that was like all of the things that you have to consider and Tim: Right. Joe: It's yeah, that's a tough decision, man. That's a lot of money. Tim: It is, Joe: Yeah. Tim: Dude, I Joe: Yeah. Tim: Know and I have a buddy who owns a dentistry office and he Joe: We. Tim: Was able to purchase his location and it's awesome. He's about to pay it off after ten years. And I'm super excited. So Joe: Yeah. Tim: It is depends on the situation. Joe: Yeah, OK, so now let's get into what I consider in the world that you're in and I'm a huge fan of natural like I is, it's a there's a difference between naturopathic or is. Right. Is that pronounced correctly? Is that they say it Tim: Yeah, Joe: Now Tim: Naturopathic Joe: Or Tim: Medicine Joe: Or homoeopathic. Tim: Homoeopathy yupp homoeopathy Joe: Right. OK. Tim: And integrative medicine is kind of like medical and naturopathy together. Joe: Yep, yep, so Joel and my life partner went through a battle of breast cancer where she had some lymph nodes and luckily, you know, Tim: Giese. Joe: Through through chemo and radiation, she came out on the other side and everything's great. But Tim: Good. Joe: The big thing that she also had was she had a naturopathic doctor Tim: Hmm. Joe: That went that came from the cancer world. So the advantages is that he understood the treatment that was happening with the normal medicine and he knew what to give her to not take away from what she was doing with the chemo and radiation, but at the same time helped to keep her system built up and not offset any of that. So there was a perfect marriage between the two. And Tim: That's. Joe: I swear to this day, I feel like that was the reason that she was Tim: Wow. Joe: Fairly, fairly normal through the process, like we were doing 90 X and she was in the middle Tim: That's Joe: Of chemo Tim: All Joe: And radiation. Tim: Right. Joe: Yeah, it was ridiculous. So Tim: Dude, that's Joe: So Tim: Awesome. Joe: I'm a big fan of the naturopathic side of things and natural remedies and all of that. So Tim: Not the. Joe: So that's why this was a cool episode for me, because it's hard to talk with somebody that is in this niche that you're in without it being the big stores. And so my first question, because I got so many of them Tim: I Joe: First question and the first Tim: Love Joe: Question Tim: It. Joe: Is how do you become with all of the misinformation that's out Tim: The. Joe: In the world? Right. And this is what confuses all of us as consumers. You go to Amazon and you say, I need a B vitamin of Tim: Right Joe: Some B supplement. Tim: Now. Joe: And the habit is you you click on the five star rating, things that you want. You think that's going to be the best because people are taking their time to read it, which Tim: Yeah. Joe: I think there's enough Tim: What Joe: Conversation Tim: Did he. Joe: In the world that says that's not necessarily true. Tim: Right. Joe: And then you literally are just like throwing darts at a dartboard with Tim: I Joe: A blindfold Tim: Know that, Joe: On. So. Tim: I know. Joe: So how do you get through all the misinformation that you feel so confident enough that when you when you suggest something to a client that you haven't been taken advantage of by the misinformation, like Tim: Yeah, Joe: How do you get through Tim: Because. Joe: All of that stuff? Tim: A great question and even the reviews, if a company markets really well and they're incredible at marketing, they can get a billion, five star reviews and they can be like synthetic sourced from China, not NSF certification. So over the years, you start to be able to read between the lines and you start to be able to say, hey, this is B.S. over here. This is marketing. Only not met with quality. And like any industry, you start to learn the good, better and best. So there's a few things. So first and foremost, I think everybody needs somebody on their team. Like your wife has that naturopathic doctor now as a resource that she can probably shoot an email to or make an appointment with and ask these questions. I think everybody needs somebody on their team because most people have a medical doctor and beyond that and they might have a pharmacist. Right. And they're good to have on your team, but we need somebody with. Expertise, knowledge, history in the supplement space, because even a naturopathic doctor, they know way more than I do about the human body, about maybe. Yeah, just just how to treat maybe disease. Tim: Right. When you're in the supplement space, there is you get to deal with hundreds and hundreds of brands. And over the decades, which I think 18 years now, you start to find out what brands are good and trustworthy and which ones aren't because the FDA doesn't regulate all the supplements. So you can say whatever you want on the label about me, your romantic drink here, but you can say whatever you want and. FDA isn't going to necessarily nail you if you're lying, if your label is making false label claims and this happens, there was a clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where not real clinical, but where they took products from a number of stores, GNC, Walgreens, Wal-Mart and Target. They took supplements from those four stores and then they had them tested at Chavannes and it was Chavannes Labs. And all four of them had discrepancies with what the label said and what was actually in the capsule. And one product was an Asia product, which is good for the immune system. And it had zero percent echinacea in there and a little bit of garlic like Joe: Oh, Tim: What Joe: My Tim: The H Joe: Gosh. Tim: Now? Yeah. So that exactly what you said. It's shooting in the dark. Is it marketing that's producing these reviews? Is it quality? Is it going to help me? Is it a waste of my money? Am I being sold. Right. So there's all those questions and the privilege that I'm so thankful for is just being submersed in the supplement world long enough. You learn a couple of things. So sourcing is vital. Where is it coming from? There is vitamin C that you can get our China, that there's some concerns there with chemicals, heavy metals, arsenic, or you can get vitamin C from Scallan, which happens to have a really rich ascorbic acid form of vitamin C clean, great place to source it from. So where a product is sourced from is really important. Number two is does the brand have NSF certification? So NZDF C, GMP grade facilities that they work with, which they're paying money to NSF to a third party test and ensure that they're having all of these practices that are healthy for supplements, they're sourcing their cleanliness. Has it been tested? Is it clean? Those questions? And NSF doesn't care about the company. They care about the reputation. So there sure as heck going to just that's a good certification is trusted in the supplement world to ensure that what's on the label is actually in the product. Tim: So sourcing No. One, NSF, GMP certification, number two and number three, which all of these take some sort of expertise or having somebody on your your team. You know, that's why I say to have somebody on your team first. But number three is the forms of nutrients. So E 12, which I gave the example earlier, Psion Kabalan and B 12 is synthetic. So your body has to convert it and you lose a lot of the content in that conversion versus a methyl form B 12, which is the natural form that your body absorbs really, really well. So four items, number one and two, saucing and NSF, you can have a very clean form of sign Kabalan and B 12 source, very clean. You could have NSF facility ensuring that you have that 50 micrograms of cyanide Kabalan B 12 in the B complex. But then it would take some expertise to know, like, OK, that's fine, that's good. But we would prefer a methyl form would be 12 because it absorbs so much better Joe: Mr.. Tim: And every single nutrient. This blows my mind because every single nutrient has good, better, best. You know, whether you're talking about vitamin C, ascorbic acid, sodium ascorbic calcium ascorbic B 12, which I'm talking about the six paroxetine hydrochloride versus toxified phosphate turmeric. You can get the the turmeric that colors your Indian curry orange and you can take that capsule and it's good for you. It just doesn't do very much for inflammation unless you extract the curcumin out and then even that doesn't have a good absorption rate. So blending it with the turmeric, essential oils and the sunflower lecithin launch the absorption where it's literally absorbing two hundred to five hundred times better than the turmeric Indian spice that you started with. And that's the form of ninety five. That's the form that Baylor University of Texas is using to literally treat cancer and chronic pain with incredible results. I mean, the cancer story is very cool. Inflammation is the root of the root system of cancer. Joe: Mm, huh. Tim: So that's an example where it's like oh man form so saucing, NZDF, GMP, great facility forms of nutrients. Those are the big three that you want to look at to know quality. Right. So that's what I always tell somebody, find somebody that you can trust. So for you guys, it might be your your doctor that your wife worked with for in Madison, Wisconsin. A lot of people trust the healthy place to help guide them, know we don't do commission so that we can just recommend what's best so Joe: Right. Tim: People can use that live chat feature on our website to just ask those questions. But find a health food store maybe that is trustworthy in your home town, that you do meet a job like my mom met John Joe: Mm hmm. Tim: Or find a store like mine that you can connect with and you can go to when health strikes, health problems strike because everybody has some conditions, some problem, something, even if it's something as simple as fatigue, you know. Ninety two percent of fatigue is related to your adrenal glands. You can strengthen your adrenal glands and you can have more vibrant energy every day. And people just don't know that. So they keep reaching for the coffee or the soda or the caffeine pills, what have you. So get somebody on your team that you can trust. Joe: So go. So you said at one point in this conversation that do you have over 4000 Tim: Products, yeah. Joe: Excuse now, right? OK, so let's just take that as an example. It's a full time job for someone like you to be the Tim: Yes. Joe: Gatekeeper Tim: Yeah. Joe: Of your of the healthy place. You have to be the gatekeeper to say, yes, this comes into our door and gets put on ourselves or in our e-commerce store or Tim: The. Joe: No, this doesn't meet the criteria. So to me, it feels like it's continuing education and literally a full time job for whoever that person. Let's just say it's you at the moment that Tim: Yeah. Joe: Is the person that says yay or nay on these products. So it's just mind boggling what is out there and what you have to do to sort of educate yourself to to say, yes, this makes the cut, not only doesn't make the cut, but it's in a product. It's not a product and not a C product, you Tim: Yeah, Joe: Know what I mean? Tim: You're Joe: So. Tim: Absolutely right. And it's like reading a book, though, you don't want to minimize what I do, it's like it's not hard for you to read English, you know, after you've learned it. But if you're learning a new language, it looks like totally confusing. Overwhelming can take me forever to learn this language. And it might take some years to learn it. Once you have that language mastered, it's just like reading a book, you know, Joe: Yeah. Tim: You just check the boxes, right. OK, where is the source from NSF? GMP, what's the forms of these nutrients? Because you start to learn and then you have experts that you follow. A lot of people smarter than me that I follow. Dr. X, Dr. While, Dr. Whitaker, Dr. Northrup. And you start Terry Lambrew and you start to follow these gurus in the southern industry that have been there for 40 years, that know so much more than you. And you're reading their literature, listening to their podcasts. They're the symposiums around the planet that are going on for this breakthrough, that breakthrough. You get the subscriptions right to the. So I just tell everyone, get plugged in at least where you're getting encouraged on a regular basis to own your health, build your terrane strength in your health and all the ways that you can inspire yourself on a regular basis and then get somebody on your team that you can trust to help guide you in the space, because it is a new language, right? Joe: It's nuts, it's just it's so frustrating. Did a three month vegan plan Tim: Nice. Joe: Because Tim: Yeah. Joe: I'm not vegan, but I loved it like it was good for me. But I Tim: Yeah. Joe: Actually I actually, in the process, lost a lot of muscle mass because I was also going always going to the gym. But all of a sudden I started to shrink both, Tim: Right, Joe: You Tim: Like, Joe: Know. Tim: No. Joe: So, yes, I'm like, I'm doing all this hard work. And it's just I needed to get on a B 12 vitamin of something. And it's funny because I don't even know what I'm taking, but it's something that I got from Amazon and Tim: Your Joe: I Tim: I can do it. I've been assigned to general Joe: I'm sure. Tim: Check that Joe: So Tim: After Joe: I'm going Tim: The program. Joe: To look when yeah. When we're done, I'm going to look and then I'm going to and then I'm going to say I need a direct line to Tim in Tim: There Joe: The Tim: We Joe: Chat Tim: Go. Joe: Room. Tim: Yeah. Joe: So have you ever thought of franchises? Tim: I have, I Joe: And Tim: Have. Joe: And I'm Tim: You Joe: Just interested you don't have to you don't have to Tim: Know, Joe: Say to. Tim: I'm so I am very interested and I have been kicking that ball around in my head for a long time because we are we specialize in education, right. So you got to find ways to duplicate yourself in a franchise. And so we created a three month curriculum that our wellness consultants have to go through. They have to pass quizzes and tests and they have to get certifications from this company, this company and MKB certification, all the enzyme certifications to understand the industry, know what questions to ask customers and how to make recommendations. So that's one of the hardest things that we've done that would make it more easy to duplicate the knowledge side of our company and our brand. And as I've talked to people who have created franchises, the the legal side to it is one hurdle and then enforcing them to actually maintain your model as representing the healthy place. What we have created is the two big unknowns for me as far as difficulty. So then the choice came, should we just keep adding brick and mortars in our own territory? Right, right. In the Madison area and then put all of our energy and focus into our brands that we've created and our website because there's infinite you can do in the business world and you kind Joe: Mm Tim: Of Joe: Hmm. Tim: Have to choose. Joe: Yeah. Tim: So we decided to park the franchise idea for now and really go after lively vitamin CO. This is one of the brands that have been borne out of our brick and mortar stores. So now we're selling that to other health food stores around the country. And the number two is build find your healthy place dotcom, because just like Amazon is a freakin mammoth, there's so much opportunity to impact and power and educate everything that I'm passionate about on that website. So currently with four kids, we are chilling on the franchise idea. But I think it's brilliant because there's not there's not the option out there, which is why it keeps coming back to me Joe: Yeah, Tim: Like Joe: Yeah. Tim: There's not that many health food stores out there that really care. Soulsby for sales. You know, as one of my Joe: Mm Tim: Saying Joe: Hmm. Tim: That, Joe: I Tim: I really Joe: Love that, by the way, I love that. Tim: Thank you. Thank you. There is a time I was praying and it was like not I it going to make my friggin mortgage. When I first opened the store, I was praying to God for sales and I was like, God to declare bankruptcy here is brutal. And it was like an arrow is like, do you care about their soul as much as you care about the sales? Joe: Yeah. Tim: And it was kind of striking. So, yeah, there's not that many stores out there that really care about the human that have knowledge to help guide them and a model that works to help people, you know. So it's still an idea that keeps coming back to me. So Joe: Right. Tim: We'll see. Joe: Yeah, well, good luck if it happens, I'm sure it'll be great. Tim: Thank you. You see one popping up next door, you'll know where to get your V12. Joe: There you go. So you hit upon this a moment ago with the whole franchising thing of how to actually create this template and create a strict thing where where the people that are talking to your customers are very educated and they're giving the right information and asking the right questions. So how have you done that with the people that are at your current stores and how have you done that with the people that are on the other end of the chat? When somebody files in to ask these questions, Tim: Yeah, so. Joe: How do you get something like when is somebody OK? You're ready to take a call, you're ready to be on the chat, you're ready to to advise a customer in the store, like, what's that process? Tim: Yeah, Joe: And you don't Tim: So. Joe: Have to go too deep. I just Tim: No, Joe: I Tim: No, Joe: But Tim: That. Joe: I'm sure somebody is going to say, like, hey, Tim, super educated on this. So every time I talk, like I just said, you know what I call him on the chat, I want him, you Tim: Right. Joe: Know. So Tim: Right. Joe: How to how do you duplicate Tim so that everyone that's coming in on the chat or walking in the store says this is just a clone of Tim like he may. He's already run them through the ringer, you know? Tim: Yeah, that's so the three month curriculum that we created is our pride and joy. I'm so thankful for that. It was brutal to create. So I created one hundred videos, having a five minute conversation where I'm explaining different parts of the world and explaining brands and what to look for and how to explain it. And then we'll go through they'll have to pass quizzes and tests based on each module. So there's nine different modules to this curriculum. They have to go through trainings with specific companies. They have to do a number of roleplaying activities with our managers where they pretend to be the customer Joe: Mm Tim: And Joe: Hmm. Tim: Coming in, hey, I'm looking for some CBDs. What do you got? And so they get tested there and they have to get these certifications from each of these brands, so they have to pass it. So there's one guy who got to the end and he is like, OK, dude, we got to rewind because you're not retaining this stuff. So either you did the last minute cramming for this quiz the night before. And like I didn't I did that in high school. Joe: Ok. Tim: And then you don't retain it, right. Joe: Yeah. Tim: So do you really care about this or not? So he had to start over. He had to go through it again. So it's a team. We have a leadership team of five. And so we have these nine modules, the quizzes, the tests. They have to pass them. They have to do the role playing. And then the leadership team of five will say, OK, this person's ready or they're really not ready. And there's still a couple of parts of our team where we're like, OK, where they can be a wellness consultant in the store, but we don't think they're ready to be on live chat. So then we'll wait maybe six months until they have a little bit more experience, because where our team learns the most is from the customers coming in asking the questions and they don't know the answers of how to treat colitis Joe: Mm Tim: With Joe: Hmm. Tim: Whatever. So then they have to go find out to get back to that customer and then they learn something. So right now, I'm proud to say our live chat feature on our website, if you go to find your other place, dotcom lower, right. You get that little live chat bubble, the seven different consultants that you might run into over there are, I wouldn't say clones of Tim because I think they're smarter than me, but they are really well equipped and able to match, kind of hit the mark of where they need to be. And they all know and are passionate enough about helping people to not. One of the first things that I'll tell them is, dude, never bullshit. Joe: Yeah, yeah. Tim: That's a real thing. And I came from a I won't say anything negative where it's just more about getting the sale, about getting that commission. And and that's part of why we don't do commissions. So it's a fun process for intense. Joe: Well, that's great, man. Yeah, so I want to respect your time. We're down to the wire. I want to make sure I didn't miss anything that you want to talk about. So you have four stores in Wisconsin. Tim: Madison, Joe: Correct. Tim: Wisconsin, the. Joe: Ok, and you have the website Tim: Find your healthy place, Dotcom. Joe: Buying your healthy place, Dotcom. Anything else that I missed that is important that we talk about? Tim: You know, dude, I mean, as I was thinking about this program and your followers, like what your mission is, you're trying to encourage entrepreneurs, trying to encourage people to be thankful for life. You don't Joe: Mm Tim: Take Joe: Hmm. Tim: To treat life like the gift it is, you Joe: Yep. Tim: Know? So I did want to offer your followers a coupon code. If they don't have you know, if you have a health food store in your own home town, that's great sport. Those guys, if you have somebody on your team, that's awesome. That's my main passion. And if you need a resource that you can trust, if you go to find your healthy place dotcom and you get something type in coupon code, Castelo, and that'll give 30 percent off the full price on anything on our whole website, we have thousands of products. So anything from V12 to something more intense. And regardless if you buy something or not, use that live chat feature to ask questions. You know, I've had people call my cell phone bill. Hey, Jim, you know, I'm in Wholefoods right now and I'm looking at three different multivitamins. Like which one do you think I should get? You know, and I get to tell them and it's fun and you can share the love. And so use that live chat feature as a resource, because more than ever, dude, we need natural alternatives. We need some education we at least need to know about, like Joel and your Joe: Yeah, Tim: Life partner. Dude, Joe: Yeah. Tim: What if she didn't have that naturopathic doctor that gave her some natural supplements through one of the most intensive crisis's that she ever faced in her life? Like, you know, in your gut that that helped her in a dramatic way because you watched her do P ninety three, the cancer experience. Joe: Yeah. Tim: I mean, that's a miracle, dude. And it took somebody reaching out and it took a resource being willing to respond to create that miracle, you know. And so that's what I want for people. Joe: Yeah, it's I can't stress it enough that Tim: Right. Joe: What I saw before my very eyes every single Tim: Right. Joe: Day and it would and then I see people that are going through cancer of some type and they're only being treated, Tim: As Joe: You know, Tim: A medical doctor, yeah. Joe: And they're their body is just being crushed. Tim: Yes. Joe: And there's and there's nothing, no nothing helping to offset the chemicals and all of the harshness Tim: Know. Joe: Of that treatment. And so. Tim: Right, and let me say, you know, you saw it with somebody you loved very much, I saw it with my mom when I was five or six. And since then, I'm getting goosebumps. I have seen it for thousands of people through the last 11 years that the healthy place has been a company, thousands of people, not always cancer, but but we're talking depression, chronic pain, Crohn's disease, asthma, like people suffering like megacorp. There's so much suffering going on Joe: Mm hmm. Tim: In the world and there is natural alternatives that people literally don't know about. They have nobody in their world telling them. So they just listen to whatever mainstream media or their medical doctor Joe: Yeah. Tim: Or their pharmacist. And there's a lot of good people with good intent in those areas. It's just there's not the voice of natural alternatives. So we need to know about this stuff. We've got to get the word out. Joe: Yeah, it's great, man, I love what you're doing, and this Tim: Think. Joe: Was exciting for me and and I think I actually have your personal email, so I'm just going Tim: That's Joe: To I'm Tim: Awesome. Joe: Going to go I'm going to go ten. I need Tim: You Joe: More Tim: Should. Joe: Energy, Tim. I think I think I have inflammation. And I'm going Tim: Yeah, Joe: To be like. Tim: I know you should, and if anyone's listening to and they because sometimes, you know, they just have a trust factor or whatever, Tim at Find Your Healthy Place Dotcom. I am happy to take emails. This what I get to do all day, dude, and it's just fun. It's so rewarding. You just get to point people in the right direction and help them out. So I love it. Joe: I wish you all the luck in the world, this is a Tim: Thank you. Joe: This is a great thing that you're doing. It's nice to have somebody who is, like you said, it's it's Soulsby before sales. It's a great it's a great way to do it. And I think Tim: Thank Joe: You'll be Tim: You. Joe: Rewarded continually be rewarded for doing Tim: Thank Joe: It that Tim: You. Joe: Way. I'll put everything in the show notes. Thank you for the coupon for the listeners Tim: Now. Joe: And I'll make sure I have all the correct links. So find your healthy place. Dotcom is the website. The company's name is the Healthy Place for locations in Madison, Wisconsin. You eventually might franchise someday, Tim: Yes, Joe: But Tim: And people on Facebook, you know, Joe: Yeah. Tim: The healthy people on Facebook, my wife's a genius as far as really caring for our community there. So you'll find a lot of good content and Instagram as well. So thank you, dear. This Joe: Yeah, Tim: Is. Joe: Tim, thanks so much, man, I really appreciate your time today and thanks for all the insight and I really do wish you the best of luck. Tim: Any time, brother, and wish the same to you. Joe: Thank you, Matt. Tim: I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I want to thank you for listening to my podcast. I know you have many options to listen to various podcasts, and I'm honored that you chose to listen to mine. I would love it if you were to rate my podcast Five Stars and write a nice review. It really helps to bring up the rankings of the podcast. Other listeners, once again, thank you so much for listening to the Joe Costello show. I appreciate you very much.  

The Joe Costello Show
JM Ryerson

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2021 62:33


JM Ryerson is a Mindset & Performance Coach that provides top level virtual and in person Coaching on Mindset, Performance, Leadership, Business, Team Building & Career Development. He believes in a work life balance, providing athletes, teams, sales executives and individuals the tools that lead to success at work, at home and in life! You and your team will gain skills, tools, strategies, and practices that can be used for many years to come. Let's Go Win together!! I hope you enjoy this conversation with JM Ryerson and as always, thanks so much for listening! Sincerely, Joe JM Ryerson Top Level Coach and Keynote Speaker for Athletes & Executives Website: https://letsgowin.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letsgowin365/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letsgowin365 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/letsgowin365/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jm_ryerson Email: lisa@letsgowin.com JM's Books: Let's Go Win: The Keys to Living Your Best Life - https://amzn.to/3eX0N2s Champion's Daily Playbook: https://amzn.to/3bDzwQv 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: Everybody, thanks so much for joining me once again. I'm so honored that you're listening to the podcast today. I have a special guest. His name is J.M. Ryerson, and I'm very excited to speak with him about all that he does in the field of mindset and coaching and various other things and his books. We're going to get to it also. J.M., welcome. JM: Hey, thanks for having me, Joe, appreciate it. How are you doing, brother? Joe: I'm doing great, man. I'm excited to talk with you, I have a bunch of sort of casual questions to ask up front. You have your own podcast. And I was able to listen to a couple episodes in preparation of this. And the intro to your podcast was awesome. Is that you in your in your radio voice? JM: No, I wish I could do that. No, Joe: That was. JM: It's not me that is a gentleman with a very deep voice and he I don't know where they found him, but I thought he did a pretty nice job. Joe: That is it is so cool, when I heard that, I was like, wow, that's amazing, he can actually change his voice that much to do those intros. It's like I'm jealous about it. It was really cool. And it was funny because I happened to listen to the one where it's you and your wife. And she actually said, you have a really great radio voice which what you do. But she didn't say too much about you being on TV, so I'm not JM: You know, I think that the same way you did, I'm Joe: Ok. JM: Like, I'll take that as a compliment, I guess. Joe: Right. OK, good. I was wondering I just want to make sure it's even another sort of personal casual question. How tall are you? JM: I'm six five. Joe: Man, in the pictures, you're obviously, you know, your kids are in it and then your wife, but it feels like you're towering two feet over everybody. JM: Well, being that my wife is five, too, and maybe it's Joe: Ok. JM: Not even use five three when I married her, but regardless, you know, do smaller Asian gal and I'm a tall white dude. So it just kind of Joe: Yeah. JM: She always jokes, if you see the family photo of her side, one of these doesn't belong to the other because I do stand out pretty Joe: Yes, JM: Significantly. Joe: Yes, absolutely. I was like, oh, my gosh, how tall is this guy? OK, I would like to go back to the beginning as far back as you want to go, because I like setting the stage for people that might not know you yet. I like to give them a foundation of who we're speaking to and how you got to do what you're doing today. And I think it's important because even the work that you do, it's helped those people to say, OK, what was the transformation from whatever he started doing to where he landed today? Because I think that's helpful for the listeners. Most of my listeners, I think, are really startups, entrepreneurs, people that are there trying to figure out what their passion, their bliss, their purpose on the earth is. And so it's nice to hear how people land, where they are and what took place before that. JM: Sure, I mean, if we're talking professionally, I once I graduated college, I moved right to California, which is I'm a kid from Montana that I never thought I would leave Montana. I love Montana. But somehow I landed in California, went to work and went to work for a great company. But it wasn't corporate America wasn't my gig. And I kind of knew that. I guess it took me three and a half years, but I got a lot of great experience. And so I was looking to do something else and I was very fortunate. I met who ended up being my business partner for many years, almost 15 years, and I didn't know it at the time, but just I jumped into financial services and I, after one year, decided to start a company with the gentleman that had hired me. And we had an amazing run. We built three companies together and I just kind of became entrepreneurs. What I enjoyed well, along the way, I made a ton of mistakes and I made all the mistakes that I didn't want my kids to make. And so I finally decided, you know, there's something here that I should probably I want to write a book about. And it's not about me. It was more about the authors I had read, my parents, my grandparents, the mentors I had had. And so I literally decided, you know what, let's write this book. JM: And so I went through this process of writing in the galley, working with me at the time said I didn't think of you as a selfish person. I said I didn't think I was selfish either. What are you talking about? She said, if you share this book with only two human beings. So my two boys, Trystan and Tradin if you share it with only these two human beings, you're selfish. OK, lesson learned. Won't do that. So it just kind of started on the path of, you know, let's let's talk about what let's go win is all about. And that went into the company, which went into a podcast which dove into more coaching. And so I don't know that I planned it all out this way. It just kind of happened. And I'm so blessed that it did because I get fulfilled every single day. And I guess the last thing I'd say to her is, let's go win. The whole idea is not wins and losses. It's quite literally setting you up to win. But that doesn't guarantee success means that, look, we're going to do our very best to put our best foot forward. But that doesn't mean we're going to win. That means we could fail on. I fail every single day. I'm great at it. I'm a great failure. I fail all the time. Joe: So am I, so my. JM: There you go, so and so that's but the whole idea is to set people up for the greatest, you know, so that they can succeed. And so that was the whole idea of the book. And it's just been kind of a whirlwind, but it's been beautiful. I've met so many amazing people. I work with so many great people. So it's just been awesome. And I've loved the journey. Joe: So I want to go back even further because I feel that, again, I'm going to I'm going to reference your size that I have a feeling you are in sports. And I also read a small clip somewhere about how you were and like I am. And like many entrepreneurs and people that have that a type personality or whatever, that were really hard on ourselves. So I have a feeling that you were really good in sports. You were super competitive and you were super hard on yourself at an early age. And so the piece that I read was you sort of giving yourself grace as you got older saying, I need to I need to lighten up on myself. I need to lighten up on my family. I need to lighten up on the people around me. And and so I want to hear more about what that was like. Again, I'm making this assumption, I assume that you were athletic at a young age. So can you tell me more about that and how that had that transformed to where you are today? JM: Yeah, it's a fair assumption, and if you were to ask my parents, neither of which were super athletic, I my mom, she doesn't have a competitive bone in her body. My dad did play some athletics, but kind of threw his shoulder out early. So they were never pushing myself or my brother or my sister. And all of us were very, very athletic, very competitive. My sister swam in college. I played basketball. So that was something that we always did. But growing up, we played every sport. Joe: Mm JM: I mean, Joe: Hmm. JM: I played basketball, football, baseball, swimming, soccer. I mean, you name a sport. If it had a ball, I probably was chasing it or something. But to your point, I'm being hard on myself. There was a moment I was 10 or 12, I can't remember. And I was going for the state record for swimming and not one state record. I was going for eight, which I think at the time no one had ever broken more than five. And for whatever reason, I just got it my head. I'm going to break eight state records. I can do it. I see the races. I can do this so much so that at the point that I was getting out after the sixth record I broke, I couldn't move. And and imagine my dad is watching this kid get out of the pool. He can't walk because he is so physically exhausted and dehydrated. And my dad said, why are you doing this? Please stop. And I told my dad I I'm doing it because I can. And so it was always interesting. My folks never pushed me that way. They've just loved they they they just, you know, supported as best they could and said, you know, whatever you're going to do, you're going to do. But I was I was always hard on myself. I always wanted to perform at my very best, whether I did or I didn't. JM: And so the greatest part of that, I don't think the competitive drive has gone away. What I've what I've really learned is I guess it would be a growth mindset versus fixed. It's like, look, I I'm going to compete. I'm going to give my very best. But that's where it ends. That's you know, I'm not going to judge myself harshly. The only way I would judge myself harshly is if I didn't put my best foot forward, if I didn't play completely full out. And I will say, looking back, I always did. I always gave 100 percent effort, but I was hard on myself if I didn't succeed. Now, if I give 100 percent, even win, lose or draw, it doesn't matter to me. I can rest on my laurels, knowing I gave everything that I had to give in that moment and it's OK. And so I guess that has been the progression or maturity or whatever you want to call it, because it has shifted. But yes, athletics has been it's still an integral part of of my my life because both my boys are very competitive in what they do and I love it. But I'm kind of taking the role like my parents. I just want them to try their very best. I want to support them. I want to love them, and I'm not going to put additional pressure on them. Joe: The cool thing is, is that you have this knowledge now to share, like each generation, they used to be like old school, right? It's like, you know, you felt a lot of pressure to do to do well. And I think the cool thing about how things are shifting is parents and people in general are becoming more loving and caring and they're not putting that pressure on their kids. At least I hope, you know, the people I talked to seem to be going in that direction. I'm sure there's still that that little league that out there JM: But Joe: Just. JM: There's a lot of them, and typically what I found, Joe and I am totally generalizing, but my wife and I talk about those that are really pushing their kids hard, typically are they're living their sports dreams through their child. Joe: Yeah, yeah. JM: And I think it's awful. It's look, if you played any such level, whether it's college or even some pros, you notice they're pretty laid back. You know, they're like, whatever, man, give your best. And one of the things that has been interesting, I will say being a mindset coach and I work with athletes professionally, there are times with my son who plays very competitive tennis and I am his mindset coach. But there are times where I have to remind myself I'm just dad. I just want to give him a hug and tell him I love him. And that's all that's all that needs to be said. I don't need to talk to him about his mindset. That's been an interesting thing to learn for myself even recently, because, again, yes, I'm a mindset coach. Yes, that's what I do for a living. But in his eyes, I am dad first and foremost the way it should be. And so sometimes I have to do remind myself to just love them. And it doesn't matter that they didn't perform their best, even if they didn't give their 100 percent effort. They want to be accepted and loved. And so that has been kind of an interesting journey. Joe: And I wonder if just your behavior there's a an unspoken thing that you do that's just helping them, but you're not having to work at it as a mindset coach. It's just them observing you in life and hearing things that you talk about. And they just absorb that because. Right. Kids, their minds at this age are super absorbent. So they're probably getting a lot just from being around you and you're not having to be that person forcing ideas and things on them. So it's interesting that just letting them watch you and see what happens. So, JM: Yeah, it's one heck of a social experiment, isn't it, being Joe: Yeah. JM: Trying to give your very best. But, you know, I had my my son's baseball coach say he is an absolute pleasure to coach. He's a good human being. And that at the end of the day, that's what I care about the most. If he ends up playing to whatever level, I don't really care. But if he's a good human in this world, that's what we're looking for. Joe: Yep, yep, so can we while we're on the subject of sports, can we talk a little bit about and you don't have to name names, you can name names. I don't care. It's up to you. But I want to know the progression of you. Are you out of financial services altogether at this point? Is this your main being a mindset coach and an author and a speaker? Is that your main focus at this point? JM: I am juggling both balls in the air right Joe: Ok. JM: Now, so it's interesting because the mindset coach I've done for so long, I just didn't have a label on it. And just because I was in financial services, Joe, you probably know a heck of a lot more. You know what, 90 percent of your listeners know more about financial services than I do Joe: Yes. JM: In 18 years of in the industry. It's just it was never my focus. So to answer your question directly, I do both, Joe: Yep. JM: Really. I'm doing what I've always done and that's build teams and work with them on performance, whether it's in sales or leadership. Joe: Ok, now you mentioned you hinted at the fact that you've worked with some athletes, so can you talk a little bit about that and how you you've worked with them in the past, the ones you might be working with now and anything that you can tell us about that? Because it's interesting to me. JM: I can't tell you names specifically just because a lot of Joe: Yep. JM: It's just confidentiality, but what I can tell you is golfers, for whatever reason I've been thrust into that world, maybe it's because I'm passionate about golf. I truly love golf. I love to watch it. I love to play it. I love the whole idea of you're out there on your own. And and truly, it is a test of the mind Joe: Mrs.. JM: As much as any sport out there. Tennis. My wife played in college. Like I told you, my boy plays competitively. So so far it's been more on the individual sports that people have been referred to me, and that's the ones that I've taken on. But you know, which is interesting because, yes, I grew up playing both, you know, individual and team sports, but I'm more attracted to team sports than I am individuals. And here's the crazy part. There is not a sport out there that truly is individual. What I mean by that, yes, when a tennis player goes out there, typically, unless he's playing doubles, he is all by himself Joe: Uh. JM: Or golfers, certainly by himself. But the team that surrounds them is why it's so intriguing to me. They have a golf swing coach, they have a dietician, they have a mental coach mindset coach. They have a physician. Maybe they have a chiropractor and they have all of this is a team that is helping put their best effort out onto that field or golf course. And so that's been kind of an interesting thing to realize is, yes, it's an individual sport, but there's a whole team of people behind them. Joe: Yeah, it was funny because I was sitting in a buddy of mine, I just went skiing in Utah this past weekend, spring skiing. I have been skiing in twenty five plus years. And I went with my oldest, oldest friend from elementary school, junior high, high school. And we ski start skiing together at seven. And he was going out alone. He's like, come come on out with me as I called. And I was literally nervous all three days because, you know, I'm getting up there and the last thing I want to do is break something. And it's a pretty steep mountain. We went to Snowbird in Utah. I did great. I'm still alive. I have all my limbs, everything's working. But we were just talking about all of that sort of stuff and oh, F1 team sports. So he's looking so he doesn't know anything about F1 and I know very little about F1. But I was like, I think, Larry, they're like 80 people behind that driver JM: The. Joe: And it's just like all of his own stuff. Like you talked about his own physical things and all the things and then diet and then all of the engineers and then all of the pit crew. And it's just like this monstrous team of the most expensive sport in the world. And he's like, do they make any money? And I'm like, it's all bragging rights. I don't think anybody makes any money in that sport. But that's an example is a super extreme example. I wanted to ask you about how things have changed now with the fact that I grew up as an entrepreneur, my father owned businesses, and then I got into the corporate world a little bit after college and the whole world was essentially going to these office spaces. Right. We were all working in these corporate buildings as teams that you could see touch here at any moment, jump up from your desk and go and do whatever. So when you're working with companies now, there's a huge shift that people are working remotely. So how has that changed your business and your style of of coaching these, let's say when we go to the team part of this, you know, in a corporation says, hey, Jim, come in, we want you to work with the sales team. We want them to be more cohesive. How have you been affected by cope with the remote people working? JM: I mean, everybody is lacking in the same thing, and that's connection, I don't care, it's just the world needs that. We need it badly. We need to get it back. And so, yes, the world has shifted in terms of people are working from home. Far more good news. You're spending less on overhead, which means you can reinvest in your business. Your top line, you know, looks even better because now you're not spending maybe so much. But I will tell you this, having that cohesive unit, having that culture that has not gone away. And so what I think people have really had to get more clear on is how are we going to provide that same environment, that same feel, the same clarity that we had, but working remotely. And that has been an interesting challenge because, again, you and I are sitting here on a Zoom beautiful thing about it. We probably weren't doing it this way. I wasn't going to see Joe's face prior to it. But most Joe: Ok. JM: Of the time, right before you're in Arizona, I'm in Florida and we can do it. So that is a form of connection. However, the real piece of people being able to connect, because every time there's a layer in front of us, a computer screen, something in the way we lose that heart to heart connection. So I don't have a great answer for that specifically because you can't really replicate being in the same room. If you and I were sitting together, it would be a different conversation to a degree. We'd be having a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or whatever we were doing celebrating this moment where now, yes, we get to celebrate. And yes, it is a form, but it's just different. So I think everybody is adjusting to that. And that's been something I get to facilitate a live event on Thursday and Friday of this week. And I can't wait because it's walking through the door. It's actually getting the the ability to hug someone and say, you know what, I deeply care about you. That physical connection piece, I don't think that's ever going to stop. So I think what companies are starting to do as the world opens up, as more vaccines happen, as people are more comfortable, they're starting to adjust and say, look, you can work on your own, but we're going to have gatherings. And you know what? We are going to value those gatherings far more than we did before. It's not just another quarterly meeting. It's not just some boardroom meeting. This is a form of connection. This is our bond. This is our tribe. And let's respect that time. So I think there is some beauty in what's happening in that regard. It's taken what we took for granted. And we're Joe: Yeah. JM: Starting to say, wow, that was really unique. That was special. And, you know, unfortunately, as human beings, we have to have that perspective. Sometimes we have to have something, you know, happen to us for us to realize that was really cool when all of us were able to celebrate together, come up with these incredible ideas together before it was like, oh, I got to go to that quarterly meeting again. Well, at least will have a couple of free drinks Joe: That's JM: At the happy hour. Joe: Right. JM: I mean, I've heard people say this now people are clamoring to get together again. Joe: Yeah, and I think it's because, like you said, as humans, we we have to have that physical connection, right. It's important to us. And then the other thing is we give off this energy that it can't be translated through a screen. And so, like, you talking to going to do these live events, I don't know if you're a keynote speaker or you're giving you know, it's a meeting or whatever it is, but you're going to walk into the room and there's going to be an energy. Right, that you don't get now. And that's what's missing. And I think people are so over it and they so want to be out. It's like I have an entertainment booking agency here in Phoenix and I book all the entertainment for all the high end resorts and then all the big corporate events that come. And all the hotels are at 100 percent capacity. It's just because people want to get out and socialize with other people. So they're either coming into town, just stay, or they're doing suffocations, but they they just cannot stand it any longer. It's incredible. JM: Yeah, it's it's been an interesting ride, I mean, this this group that got together at the end of January, we actually were in Scottsdale and six people, including myself, went home and had covered Joe: Oh. JM: It. Now, here's what's interesting. And thank goodness everybody was healthy, everybody was fine. And this is not to get on that whole. You know, I respect where everybody feels on this. I do. But all six human beings that got it, they're all they can't wait to get back together again. Now, many people have been vaccinated and the world has shifted that much in literally, what, three, almost four months that now we can do this a little bit better. But to your point, Joe, people need this connection, man. People they we as human beings, the energy that is such a real thing. I wish I could know your energy that much better than just over a screen. You can feel it a little bit, but it is tangible. You don't have to say a word. If Joe walked through the door, I could feel, oh, that's really good energy. I'm not so sure. But there's always an energy. And that is something that you cannot replicate over these, you know, you know, doing it virtually. Joe: Yeah, so I want to talk about the books in order of how they release before we do that, how has this changed the way you do your work with these individuals, these corporations? I mean, you you know, we've all had, like, people come to me and say, hey, I want to do a virtual event and can I get and I really didn't jump on board to the virtual stuff because for me, entertainment has to be life. I can watch a magic show on TV and say, oh, that's cool. But there's nothing, nothing, nothing like being in an audience in a life situation. So I just I used my energy in other ways, you know, started a YouTube channel podcast of the things that filled my soul. So how have you had to shift your coaching business to deal with those questions that come up, for example? You know, maybe they need to help people stay more positive not being around people, you know, so they come to you and say, hey, Jim, you know, we want you to work with our team. And we think the biggest thing that's lacking is just it's just like motivation or their mindset because they've been alone for almost a year. JM: Yeah, this one was actually pretty easy, unfortunately, because so much of the content shifted and maybe it should have always been there. But the truth is what was happening is there was so much negativity. If you woke up and you turned on your TV, boom, it's right there. If you picked up your phone and social media boom, it was right there. So there was so much negativity being fed into most people's brain. So they weren't actually running their own agenda. It may have been CNBC, Fox or Facebook, Instagram, whatever platform. And again, this is not I don't care which one you watch or listen to. That's not the point. The point was people started losing who's running their agenda. And so that really was the focal point of what I worked on is, hey, you used to get up and you had a routine and you were whether you were meditating or working out or just hopping in the shower, brushing your teeth, it didn't matter. But it wasn't so in your face. His death and there's death everywhere that you're listening about, this amount of cases followed shortly by death. And so what was happening is so many people, whether they realize they're not their lens became extremely negative. JM: And so a big part of what I did is, hey, don't forget your routine. Let's make sure you run your agenda first. That doesn't mean barrier head in the sand. Absolutely not. Not be informed. You need to be you need to know what's going on in the world. I'm cool with that. However, let's not make it the first thing that you do in the morning. Let's not make it that you just haphazardly are just scrolling on your phone or watching TV for hours on end, because what was coming out is really cynical human beings seeing the world in such a negative way. And there was so much going on in the last year, not just covered other things that were creating some of this tension. And so a lot of my coaching just went to that. Who's running your agenda? And I probably should have been asking this question earlier than that, but it became so prevalent. And so in my face, I was like, who's running your agenda? And that's been the majority of my coaching with individual clients, with with teams, with companies. Who's running your agenda and is it serving you? Joe: Yeah, and it's like so many people that are in the same arena that you and I are in with being an entrepreneur and trying to help people just guide them on the knowledge that we've gained over our years and things that we've read and just trying to be helpful that we've heard so many times when the morning you win the day. Right. So it's that I don't know if people understand how important that is. And you can see so many people just will turn on the news while they're making their coffee and just it just like this downward spiral. And the funny thing is, I used to live in New Jersey, commuted on the bus through the Lincoln Tunnel because I had an office on 30th Street and Broadway. And that's when I own my own company. And all the people on the bus would get in, settle down and then open up their newspaper and just sit there. And so I get it, like a lot of these people were financial people down on Wall Street. So they they had to get caught up with the day. But I used to get to the office and feel so I felt like, OK, I have to do this to like all these smart business people and I have to, you know, get to the office and go, oh, God, that was the most depressing hour I just spent. And from that day forward, I never do. I don't watch the news. I don't read the newspaper. I do like I do me. I do what I can do in the world. And I don't know. Yeah, you have to stay somewhat informed, I guess. But I stay away from that like the plague, not just. JM: Well, as long as you're monitoring it, as long as you're making sure it's not running your agenda and you can do that with filters, one of the beautiful things about these devices, you can filter pretty much everything to just get, you know, the important news of the day and not have to scroll through everything. So there are ways to set it up. But to your point, when the morning when the day it's so true, that's never been more true than it is today. Joe: Yeah. JM: Absolutely. As a leader, in order for you to lead anyone else, you have to lead yourself first and take care of yourself. It is probably the biggest thing. And I'm going to generalize, especially with my female clients. I am like, you are not being selfish by taking care of yourself. You're being selfish. If you don't, you're being selfless by working out, taking care of your mind, your body and your soul every day, because then you can take care of your kids the way you want to show up as the mom, the sister, you know, all the hats that that they're wearing. I'm like, you have to take care of yourself first in order to serve all these people. Joe: Yeah, and it's so funny because I think the same thing I grew up with a feeling that wanting money, right. Was this greed thing and wanting to to maybe become wealthy. And it's the same thing with money as it is with health is like in order to take care of you, you have to make sure that you make the money. You need to take care of you and then your immediate family and then down on from there and then do whatever you can. So it's the same thing with health. Those two things are and I always put health first. I don't. For me, it's always been the main thing. I thank my lucky stars every day that I don't deal with any health issues or take any medication. But I worked at it. You know, I go to the gym pretty much every day and it's the only way for me to survive it. Actually, mentally, my mind shifts. If I don't on a day that I don't go, it's not only do I have this mental thing happening where I just it's like I'll you know, but I also think there's a little bit of guilt I put back on myself. Going I had to do is just plan it and do it. No one's running your own your life except for you. I don't you know, you have this feeling like someone still telling you where you need to be or you feel guilty about not doing something. And it's like you said, you have to plan this stuff out. So can you tell me what your routine looks like? JM: Absolutely, I wake up, the first thing I do is I say my daily affirmation, I say that in the evenings with my boys and I say it every morning. Then I set my intention for the day. What do I want to do today? I want to bring great energy. I want to be super productive. Whatever my intention is for that moment, then I will typically get into breath work about five to ten minutes. Depends on how long the exercise takes. Then I'm into meditation, then I'm doing my brain games. Then let me see here. Sorry, I usually have it all. Then I'm doing my exercise at some point. I'm reading my book journaling and then I'm off into the day. Now, what's been interesting with covid is it hasn't necessarily been as structured as it used to be. I used to wake up super early, get it all out of the way, then take the kids to school. Now, it's just been kind of haphazard in terms of I get them all done, but I might get two of them done. Then I'm dealing with kids, then I'm doing that, then I'm dealing with work. JM: So it's just been a little different, which has been interesting because I love my routine, but those are the basic things I take. I tell everybody to simplify it. If you take care of your mind, your body and your soul, it's the three things you have to do. Because you said something about about health. Health is wealth. I don't care how much money you have. If you don't have your health, you have nothing. And so you do need to plan that. And so those will be the three things I tell people, look, take care of your mind. What are you doing for your mind? Are you reading, doing the brain games? What are you doing for your health? Most people have that part down. I'm going to go workout, lift, run, whatever you do, it's it's up to you. And then ultimately, what do you do for your soul? For me, it's meditation. For some people it's reading the Bible. For some people it's taken on nature walk. Some people it's like, I don't care, but take care of those three things, fulfill those buckets and then go about your day. Joe: Yeah, and you know, what I think often happens is people feel they something happens maybe in the morning that that sets the morning off in the wrong way. And whether it's like you go out to your car and you want your tires is flat. And what they do is then they throw the baby out with the bathwater and they don't do anything they don't. So if you have those three buckets, you're supposed to take care of your health or meditation your mind or whatever. And you don't you can't get to one thing. They throw everything out. And so I have learned on days where I'm really tight on time, OK, I'm still going to go to the gym and I'm just going to jump on the treadmill. Normally it's cardio abs. I mean, it's it's weight lifting abs cardio. If I but I don't sit there and go, OK, I don't have time to do all three, so I'm not going to go do any I go and I jump on on a stair stepper and I still get the work done. So I think it's important to make set yourself up for success that you can get at least something done. Don't make it so hard that if you don't do all of it, you feel guilty. You know, it just ruins your day. And I think that's important to. JM: So that's a great point, Joe, because, look, I grew up an athlete, like you said, I played basketball in college. I was working out two hours a day in college, literally just lifting and playing ball and I mean, at least two hours every single day. Well, that's not how my world works today. So should I just do nothing? No, of course not. I changed my goals completely. I want to sweat once a day. That's literally my my workout goals this year. Sweat once a day. Sometimes that means lifting. Sometimes it means lifting and cardio. Sometimes it means playing. Pick a ball. That's actually the one I really prefer to do. But it it doesn't look the same as it did when I was 18, 28 or 38. It changes, but as long as you're taking care of that body one way or the other. And to your point, if it's not perfect, so what? Do something so. Joe: Yep, I agree. OK, keep promising about the book, but I still have one more question to ask you and it's probably going to tie into the book and it's probably going to tie even better into the new book. But I want to ask you about journalling. I want to know. I heard you on your podcast talk about I think you said or your wife said it's the cheapest form of therapy JM: It Joe: And JM: Is. Joe: It doesn't talk back to you and it doesn't judge you. JM: Right. Joe: But I have never journaled. And so many successful people that either know or talked to her had have on my I've had on the podcast like journaling such a big thing. And I'm like, well, why are you doing it? And what is it going to how many times are you going to hear it from somebody and not do it? So I would like to hear your perspective on it. JM: Well, you gave my my opinion is it is the cheapest form of therapy available to us all, whatever it costs for a couple cents and paper, let's say a dollar or so. But why is it beautiful as we have around 50000 thoughts go through our head a day? Some of those are crazy. They are nuts. Some are very negative. Some are very positive. The point is, is they're swirling around. And the reason I think journaling is so important, I'll give you I'll give you a story. So let's go win specific to the company. Back when I was 21 or 20, I don't know the exact time frame I had written about. Let's Go Win and had three circles, very similar to what my logo looks today. Now, I lost that journal. It got put in my memento box. I didn't think anything about it. And I was cleaning out the garage because we recently moved to Florida and I'm looking in and there's this journal. I'm flipping through it. Holy cow. There's let's go in. It's sitting right there. I had marinated on this idea for over twenty years now. The reason this is important, had I gone back through that journal, maybe I get to let's go in that much earlier. JM: Maybe maybe I don't. Regardless, it was a thought that I planted now or thought that was planted in my head that I then put on the paper. When you do that, there's something that happens. It allows you to get clarity. It allows you focus. It allows you to just have a brain dump. And so I don't know why people resist it, because to me, I love writing probably as much as, gosh, writing or reading. I'm not sure which one I love more, but they just fill my soul. And so I just like to write. I enjoyed the blogging part of it. I enjoy writing the books because it allows me to put all this stuff onto paper and some of it's crazy. I guess what the paper doesn't say, Jim, that's crazy. It just doesn't say anything. It's just literally captured what I've written. So anyway, if you haven't done it, it doesn't there's no judgment. Just try it and see how you feel. That's what I always tell all my clients. I'm like, just try it and then let me know how you feel. I've never had a client come back and say, that was terrible. Every time they're like, wow, that was kind of cool. Joe: Yeah. JM: Oh, you know what? I started I just was going to write like half a page and I wrote ten pages. And that's not uncommon because you have a lot going on up there and it's nice to get that stuff out. And again, no judgment. Maybe you don't even look at it again, but at least put it out there. Joe: So do you journal both in the morning and in the evening are only in the evening. JM: That's a good question. The specific journalling that that we're talking about just in the evening, but I write so much now from my occupation that I learned a lot in the mornings as well. So I don't know. I do my best writing times are about four a.m. I don't know why. Just as quiet as can be my brain. Actually, I do know 11:00 a.m. and four a.m. are the two times they say were the most creative. Not sure why that is, but I guess it's quiet. I guess our brains have officially, you know, opened up to that to that space. But to answer your question directly, typically I'm journaling in the Evening Times, unless I'm writing for work. Joe: So without giving anything personal, can you explain what it would look like if you sat down in journals tonight? Like what would somebody write? Like if I sat down, you sat down. How do you even start? How do you even know that you're journaling and not complaining or you're not starting a small book or your whatever? I don't know. Like, what do you what do you. Oh, I, I loved my lunch today. I don't know. What do you write. JM: Why not? That sounds great. So there's two main staples, I will tell you, I journal on two things frequently. I believe we are in complete charge and no one can affect these two things, our activity and our attitude. Now, I do write about that. It's in Champions Daily Playbook. That's why I ask people to do that, because I like to journal on how is my attitude. Today was an awesome did I show up and was I really someone bringing positivity to the world or did I suck today? And by the way, it happens both ways. Like I could have been better today and I just I'd write it down because what I'm really looking for is my patterns, my habits and what's really happening because of, let's say, seven days in a row, I had really crappy attitude. What's really going on? There's more to the story than just I had a flat tire. My girlfriend broke up with me. My dog ran away. You know, all the country song lyrics, something more is going on. And I don't like that. Nobody wants to show up and be miserable. People want to be happy. So to answer your question, I would write about whatever. But if you're looking for a guide, write about the two things you're in complete control of. How is my attitude? How is my activity? Because for my job, did I do a great job for my kids? Was I an active parent or was I slug on the couch watching, you know, looking at my phone? And by the way, we all do some of that at some point. There's no judgment. It's just talking to yourself to say, you know what, I showed up great today. Pat on the back. Great job, man. I up so good today. What can I do differently tomorrow? And that'll show you and really create some answers that can help you show up is the best version of yourself. Joe: How long have you been doing it? JM: Oh, man, I started after high school for some reason, I don't know why in college I studied abroad. So I remember I journaled a lot when I was in the Netherlands and on trains, I would read and learn reading journal. And then I did it all through my 20s and 30s. I just I've always written things down. Joe: Well. JM: I think mainly, though, is because I'm seeking answers just like anybody I want to show up. And in sometimes you don't have somebody that you can't talk to everyone about things without having some form of judgment. So instead, why don't you go to that piece of paper, just get it out there. I remember being really frustrated with a business partner had I set the vile things that came through my mind. Before I wrote it down and actually was smart about it, that would have probably cost a relationship, cost a business partnership, Joe: All right. JM: Instead I wrote it down and then I was like, whoa, that is crazy. But it was in my mind my mind had created something that wasn't even true. So anyway, to answer your question, I've been doing it since probably 18 or 19. Joe: North Korea, so, see, you're lucky because that's that's you know, you can see the value of it now and to be able to have started that long ago. So I'm jealous, but I'm going to take your I'm going to heed your words of advice and I'm going to do it. It might look really dumb at first, but I'll figure it out over time. And like you said, you hit it on the head. It was the perfect answer. Literally. You can't talk to anyone without some small amount of judgment. So to be able to just have you in that piece of paper has to be super helpful. So I'm definitely going to give it a try. JM: I've Joe: It's perfect. JM: Yet to hear how it goes, Joe. I'm excited. Joe: Yeah, absolutely. OK, so let's go in. That was your first book. When did that come out? JM: That came out. Oh, that's a good question, I should know that two years ago, I think Joe: Ok, JM: I really. Joe: I thought that's what it was, too, but I am fearful of always assuming what I read because I looked at so many pieces of data and I'm like, I don't want to say it. And I'd rather have you make the mistake then. JM: I think they did, but I think it was in the last two years, you know, it's almost like we lost a year with covid. So Joe: I know, JM: Was that five years ago or is that Joe: I know. JM: Last week? So I believe it's two years ago that that came out. Joe: Ok, so give us the overview of the you started to you hinted at early in this conversation about it, was you putting down your experiences in your knowledge and things that you thought were what you've read, things you've read, things you've studied just to share. Like, you know, we're hoping that everyone just shares what they can with the world to make it a better place. So give us an idea what that the initial idea behind that was. JM: Now, the idea was for my two boys, I wanted them to not skin their knees as much as their dad did growing up. And so the lessons I also wanted, the documented lessons that I learned from my parents and my grandparents so often get lost where they're no longer here. So these are I had the opportunity to ask the questions and my mentors and authors. And so imagine if you read, I don't know, 17 of 30 books a year and you can take some of that knowledge and hopefully make it really tangible, because for me to ask my kids to read that many books per year, that's probably impractical. But there's some really good nuggets that you can pull from some of these authors. And so the whole idea was to take all of that and put it into a very usable form. So where you could fly from L.A. to New York and by the time you land, you finish the book. I didn't want it to be overwhelming. I wanted it to be an easy read with tangible advice in each chapter. And so I broke it down that way. I just said, look, what are the 12 most important areas that I think people can really effectuate change? And that's how I started. And so it was the best six months of journaling I've ever done in my life was that process. Joe: And that was completely separate, that was you creating the the the outline of not the outline, but the the book coming to life you that was a separate journaling process that you did to create the book. JM: And Joe: Yeah. JM: I have somebody I worked with, and so when I would say an idea and talk about it, then we would talk back and forth and she would interview me. And it just became such a beautiful piece. I'm not saying it's the greatest thing written ever. I'm not saying that. But the way it reads, I want them to hear my voice. And I hope that it comes through that way, that it's it's not a judgment or anything. It's rather here's what I found. And I want my kids to know, like, hey, if dad got hit by a bus tomorrow, here's something that he can leave behind that hopefully, you know, helps them again, not not make as many errors, because just like any parent, I want my kids to to have the best opportunity. And so that was the whole idea. Joe: And I also think that it's the conduit, it's who's delivering the message sometimes that actually makes a difference to the person on the other end. So you could have written the same line in your book that was written in five previous books, and then those people actually read all of those five books. But the way in the context of the way you expressed it in your book with the surrounding text around it, all of a sudden it's an aha moment for someone. So I think it's it's that's why it's so important to share, because it might not make sense coming from the previous five people that they read it from. But somehow you've set them up for success in your book where all of a sudden they get to that one line that they know they've seen. They've heard it, they've read it five other times, never made sense. Now it makes sense. And so I think that's what's really cool about this sort of thing, is that, yeah, we you know, there's a lot of things that came before us. We're not inventing the wheel every day, but we are taking our experiences and our knowledge, putting them into a form that could actually help someone that they never got that help from earlier because it didn't make any sense to the. JM: And that's beautifully said, because there's a saying when when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And so that could be the case, right? Maybe my I don't know that my 11 year old has actually finished the entire book. And that's at some point he will and that'll be cool. And hopefully he will hear it and maybe he'll read it 20 years down the line and maybe he'll say, oh, yeah, I remember that. Joe: Yeah, OK, so then all of a sudden you just wrote the Champions League playbook, so I don't I haven't had the honor to to read these books yet. But I'm going to hear this is when I when I say I don't want to make assumptions about things, but but the gist by the title and where it's coming from, from the first book, it almost seems like it's more of an actionable book from what you originally did. So now you're given the overview and let's go win and you're giving all of the the different steps. But now it's kind of like you're holding people's feet to the fire and the second book and saying, if you follow through, here's all the things you need to do to really make all of this stuff happen. JM: Yeah, so I read a study that said less than 40 percent of the people you ever hand a book to will read Chapter one, and that was a pretty sobering statistic. So I thought, all right, why don't we create something that's one chapter long and the rest is literally a playbook. And I called it a playbook and not a workbook because I didn't want it to feel like work. For those of you that are feeling just like Joe, where you're like, how do I journal? I explain it, make it really easy. And the playbook, it's like ten bucks on Amazon. You know what? You've never journal before. Here you go. This is literally the the how to or you know, and it's not a journal necessarily, but it is it allows you that freedom to just say, OK, this this helps. I can do this. And it takes no more than like maybe five minutes in the morning. And usually it's far less than that and maybe five minutes a night. But again, if you go longer, cool. And so the whole idea is to literally something that you can do every single day to set yourself up to win, because I wish I had started doing this stuff earlier. I mean, I wish I had known this when I was my son's age, when I was 14 and 11. I wish I was doing these things, but I didn't know about all that. So my hope is that people can take it and apply it and say, wow, that was really helpful. Thank you. And when I get those, Joe, I'll man, it just makes you feel fantastic because you're able to help someone get that much further in life. And what what a unique feeling and so fulfilling because it's great if we do something cool ourselves. But how great of a gift. If you can have somebody else say, you know what, I did that, and it really worked. And you're like, that's amazing. I'm so glad. Thank you. Joe: So give us can you give us an an overview of of the latest book and what people will find in other you mentioned journalling. I would think there's a, you know, a bunch of things in there that are going to be super helpful. So can you give us an idea? JM: Sure. So I start the book off very simply with, you know, the basic setting goals because most people don't even write those down. Now you are 60 percent more likely to achieve a New Year's resolution a year later by simply writing it down. You're another 20 percent more likely to achieve it if you actually look at it every single day. So I said, well, I know the stats. Let's go ahead and put that in there. Then I put in four daily affirmations. Most people have never heard of a daily affirmation because they weren't taught to do that. And so my kids, since ev every day of their lives, they've said or heard the same thing. And that is. Are you a leader? Yes. How come? I'm confident, strong, intelligent, athletic, good looking, dynamic, popular talent and independent boy with a growth mindset. They have said that since they were 10 months old. Now, if I could go back in hindsight, I would have said Jamaica. I'm confident, strong and intelligent and leave it at that. But I didn't. And I created this long thing. But they love it. They won't go to bed without saying it to me. And, you know, he's 15 guys. He just turned 15. That's crazy. But anyway, they do that every single night. So that's the second thing is just doing a daily affirmation because the world's going to tell you you're not confident, you're not strong, you're not intelligent, you're not these things. JM: I want you to rewire your brain to say, yes, I am. Who gives a care what anybody else thinks? Yes, you are and you are. Whether you believe you are. You're not. You're right. So that's the second thing you're right is doing that setting that daily affirmation and then it's just a check in. Did you take care of the mind, the body and soul? Yes. OK, yes. No, whatever the answer is, then you have how's your attitude? How is your activity? Rank it, then you have a journaling section and that's pretty much the gist of it. But it's just laid out. And so for ninety days, if you can do this, because it takes the new study says sixty six days to create a habit. Well, if that's true, then let's let's say we miss a couple of days, we screw up. We forgot to let's try for those 90 days and let's just see what happens. What if we created for 90 days we followed this plan. How does my life look differently? Do I feel better? Am I showing up better? Is my business improved as my health improved? All these things should take place by just simply following that exercise. So that was my hope. I've had some amazing people say thank you, God, I'd never journal before. That was amazing. I'd never thought to do this. And that's what I'm hopeful for. Joe: That's great. So one last question, because I want to respect your time, and I know we're close, we have a choice every day when we wake up. Right. And the choice is that you can say to yourself and say out loud and whatever state of the world that I am thankful, I'm grateful, I'm happy, healthy. You know, even if you're not healthy, those words can almost change how you are. And so why is it and I listen, I am just as guilty or more than anybody on this Earth that for the longest time was like, woe is me. Like I bust my ass and I'm not getting the things that I expect to get. And things don't go my way and and always, always looking for the you know, I know I'm going to get there and there's going to be a long line at the store or I'm going to get to this place that I can't find a parking spot if that was me. And it's only shifted recently. And it's a completely different world. And it's it's like, why do we always choose the worst thing? Like we have literally have an equal down the middle. You can choose left, which is crap, or you can choose. Right, which is great. And we just seem to to always choose. And again, I'm not generalizing like the world. I'm just saying that when I see it now from being this other person that I've created over the past couple of months ago, we literally can wake up and just choose to have the most amazing, happy day. And we don't do that. And I it's just mind boggling. JM: Yeah, I don't know the answer why just you're right that many people do. There's an exercise everyone can do, take a piece of paper and draw a line right down the middle on one side, right victim, and then write out all the attributes associated with it on the other side. Write responsible, write all the attributes that go along with it. Now, we don't have time to do that today, but when you do this, you're going to find a couple of things. The reason people choose to be a victim is because you get empathy, you get sympathy. However, what else goes along with that is some really negative stuff. When you choose to be responsible, it's powerful, it's strong, it's in control. And there's a couple of negative, like you could be overwhelmed. You could be this. But the majority is it's very positive on one side and it's very negative on the other. The reason I have people do this exercise is for what you said and you said a beautiful word. I hope people heard it. You choose you get to choose to show up and have an incredible day. You get to choose to have, you know, the most beautiful sunrise. You get to choose that no one else gets to choose that. The moment you figured that out, Joe, now you're free. Joe: Mm hmm. JM: Because it is your choice, no one can make you feel any other way, only you get to choose that. I don't know how long or why or what it's going to take for people to understand that. But it is your choice. And when you do that, you have so much power and you start to create most people here manifest destination. You don't have to believe in it. I've witnessed it. You can read it and it is your choice. So I don't know, brother, I'm happy for you. That's amazing because you're right, you get to choose even having a mate. And I'm sure you have an incredible life before on top of that. But how much more beautiful is it now? Joe: It's it's insane and like you said, you know, I think the universe I literally do. I mean, it's like people might around me that know me now I have to hang with me, might get tired of me saying, yeah, the universe delivered again, but it did. And that's what I'm going to say. And that's just what it is. So sorry. It just it's. JM: The word energy early, rather, and that's I don't that is not where people look, the universe is full of energy. And so what you put out, it will it will reciprocate. If you're putting out nothing but negative, I promise you Joe: Yeah, JM: It is going to come back Joe: Yeah. JM: Because you're attracting that. You put out positive. You're going to recognize the positive. There's a crazy study in the UK where they had people walk down the street. Now, prior to that, they asked there was five and five. Five people said they're lucky. Five people said they were not. Four out of the five that said they were lucky saw the 20. It was 20 pound, not twenty pound note on the sidewalk, four out of the five that said they were lucky. One missed it. All five human beings that said they were unlucky did not see the 20 pound note on the cement. And they did this study again and again and again and kept coming back with the same statistics, so you don't have to believe it. But it is true. It is what's happening and you are creating that. So congrats show. That's amazing. Joe: Yeah, I'm right with you, I believe it. So, J.M., thank you so much, man. Did we miss anything? So the book. Both books I know are on Amazon. Is is there any particular way you would like people to connect with you? JM: Sure, they can go to letsgowin.com, I put out a blog that, you know, that's some of my journalling. Those are thoughts that you get you get to be a part of. There's a free work life balance on there that I take every month. So that's on the website letsgowin.com and then let's go in 365. Brother, any social media outlet, let's go in 365. I'd love for people to follow and check it out and I'd love to hear from them. Joe: And you have your podcast as well, right? JM: Do let's go. When is the podcast? It's so much fun, you guys, I think the the guests make the show. I love to hear their amazing stories, just like Joe did. And I think you did an incredible job. You'd listen. Well, you ask really awesome questions. I hope to do the same. But every time we're going to give it our all and we're going to have a great time. Joe: That's awesome. It was an honor. I love meeting people like you and I. I'm going to make this public promise to you that I'm going to start journaling because I betcha there's yet another step of magic there that I've been missing all this time. So I'm going to add it to my already awesome life to step it up another notch and and get all that stuff out of my head. JM: I love it, brother, I can't wait to hear about it. Thank Joe: All JM: You Joe: Right, man, JM: For having me. Joe: That. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. And I look forward to doing more with you down the road. JM: You too, brother. Thank you. Joe: Thank you.

The Joe Costello Show
A conversation with Rocky Garza about life, love, happiness and success

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2021 50:17


I had a conversation with speaker, life coach and author Rocky Garza on life, the choices we make, our happiness and our individual pursuit our time well spent here on earth. We use me as the guinea pig and Rocky and I walk through my scenario, my situation, my thoughts and actions. It was enlightened and he brings up there really cool thought process about our choices and how there is always two truths and a lie and it's up to accept the two truths and how we take action with those truths. Once again, thank you very much for listening. I am humbled and grateful to be in your ears. Much love, Joe Rocky Garza Speaker - Coach - Author Author of: Kill Doubt Build Conviction Website: https://rockygarza.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockygarza/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rockygarza LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rockygarza/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7ID8k8gJC9rR3_1ZuCGWEA 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, everybody, thanks so much for joining the podcast and I appreciate you listening and I have an exciting guest today. Rocky and I only met recently on clubhouse. We don't know each other that well, but for me, this is going to be an exciting episode. What he does speaks to my heart. We're going to use me as an example today. He's going to work with me during this conversation. And I'm going to ask him questions that any of you might be able to ask him if you'd hired him to coach you and to help you through whatever it is that you're working on. And so I'm very excited to have. Rocky Garza, thank you for coming on, Rocky. It's a pleasure to have you.   Rocky: Yeah, thank you so much, Joe. It is an honor to be here. It was fun being in in the room, a clubhouse together. And looking back now, I was trying to think about it this morning. Like, what room? What are we and where we even landed here. And I don't exactly remember even what the room was, but I know at some point you had mentioned and said something that I thought, you know what? I'm going to I'm going to reach out. I know I shot at the end and we went from there. But I was thinking this morning, how do we even land here? But you know what? I'm I'm the kind of person that. All I know is I was supposed to be here and something you said resonated enough to be able to say, I'm going to reach out and it's been less than 10 days and here we are. So I'm really glad to be here.   Joe: Yeah, that's perfect. It's the way it should happen, it should be that people resonate with each other. There's something that that they can mutually benefit from and then also help the rest of the world by serving in some way. So I'm excited about this. So I like to always start these off to give as much time as you need. But I like to do a back story. I like to know where you are, who you   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: Are, where you came from, where you are today. How did you get there from where you were.   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: So if you don't   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: Mind doing that, it would be   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: Awesome.   Rocky: Yeah. Yeah, I would love that, I love that. I think so much, yeah. So I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning because I think there is value for all of us as we begin to begin or continue to kind of unpack who we are and what that means for kind of the steps and the actions we will take moving forward from our present day. I think I think we kind of have to go back to the beginning. And I'm sure we've all heard phrase like our origin story or in childhood as like. And so I think there's there's an immense value in our ability to do that. And so I was born in Kansas, but I only lived there for like two weeks. And then I moved back to Dallas. And so I don't claim Kansas other than it's on my birth certificate. But Dallas, Texas, has always been home for me. My parents got divorced when I was two and so my dad got remarried when I was seven. He's still married, has two boys, so I have two half brothers, but I never live with my dad. Growing up after my parents got divorced, I moved a ton growing up like like 13 times before I graduated high school just from either my mom's house, my grandparents back to my mom's to a different house, to back to my grandparents and so on. And really, a lot of that was like pre seventh grade. My mom's been married and divorced a few times, slash jobs, slash just life change.   Rocky: And so we moved. We moved around a bunch. I'm an only child, my mom's only child. So it's kind of just me and her slash me and my grandma immigrant, my grandfather. That's kind of how my life was growing up. And I went to junior high. I went to high school, graduated high school, went to junior college for a couple of years, mostly because I didn't know what I wanted to do and I thought I was going to go play football. And then at the last point, I was like, I don't even really like football that much. Like, why would I go do that for four years? That doesn't seem like a good idea. Anyway, I went to junior college for a couple of years, transferred to A&M here in Texas is where I went to college for my junior and senior year. Where I graduated from went there on a Fulbright scholarship. I'm not an academic and I barely graduated college. But somehow, via my survival tactics of charisma and words and being in the right place at the right time, I found my way into a full ride scholarship to college. After my first semester in college, I lost my scholarship because I didn't make grades. I didn't fail out of college, but I just didn't keep that GPA that you're supposed to have to keep or someone pays for you to go to school. And I look back and I kind of use that and there's probably, you know, a hundred pivotal moments prior to that.   Rocky: But but I always kind of lead up to that moment because I think for me, that was probably the first time as a as a semi adult, I guess I really wasn't adult. Yeah. But a semi adult to realize that was kind of the first pivotal thing in my life that kind of put me in a position to look back and recognize what decisions I had been making up into that point. You know, I think for all of us, I'm a pretty firm believer that whatever happens to us between the ages of six and 12 that we do to survive. And when I say survive, I don't necessarily mean life or death, but I do mean what we do to get by right now. Some of us, that is our story. But for many of us, it's not to say life and death, but survival is how did we form what we knew to be true about the world, test those theories and then find out they were, in fact, true. That's kind of the progression of our childhood. And so to me, that that that a six to twelve age is really foundational in that it's where we are abstracting things to see how they work. I learned between ages of six and 12, if I could out. Thank you. Outtalk talk you out with you out, shmooze you out, connect. You get to know you what I would call it invulnerability now is more a mature adult.   Rocky: I actually look back and say, call disclosure. I was actually not being about anything. I was just disclosing the same information to you. I was told everybody else, but I learned that if I could do that in such a way, it would allow me and in but also keep me safe enough that if you left or I left, you couldn't hurt me like the people in my past had right there. Like this fear of being left is fear of being abandoned, this fear of not being loved. I had found a way to navigate myself in such a way that I could keep myself away from you, but also convinced you we were close enough. Right. And I think this moment when I look at college and losing my scholarship was this moment of going. I'm finding myself. I'm twenty years old. I'm in college. I now have no money for school. I haven't talked to my dad in three years. I haven't seen my mom in a year and a half. I don't really have any really good friends because I've isolated myself in this weird dynamic of him. I close. Am I not close? What does it actually mean? And everyone thinks that I'm awesome and that they love me. And simultaneously I've never felt more alone in my life. And I think if I look at my life, this is not Saddam seven. And a lot of counseling, I feel pretty good about where I'm at today, OK, but I think as I look at that point in my life and go.   Rocky: All the things that I was doing, all the activity that I was that I was involved in, all the pieces that I was attempting to put together have led me to a place where I am the most alone, the most isolated and recognizing, the most unfulfilled that I have ever been. And yet. There has to be something else, there has to be something different than what I have been doing over and over and over and over, and so I don't know what the answer was. I just knew whatever I'd been doing, it ain't working. And we've got to try something else. And so, thankfully, I ended up finding a way to get my grandparents kind of stepped in and help me pay for college. And really from that point on, that was back in 2000, 1990. Sorry, sorry. That's not true. I was back in 2003, really from then until now. So the last 17, 18 years has really been for me, I think as I look back has been this journey of discovery, this this space of going how do I, one, discover and uncover who I am to find a way to believe that is good. So clarity is one thing, but confidence in that clarity is something totally different. And then once I believe it's good, how do I like actively and then actually do something about it? How do I use that in my life? And I end up going to a place called Sky Ranch here in Texas.   Rocky: It's a summer camp for kids. And I worked there full time for a few years right out of college. I was actually on pastoral staff at a church for about three and a half years. After that, I, I met my wife. We started a photography business back in 2010, and we did that full time together for about five years. And then I started the company I have now about six years ago. And so and that's that's a fast track of 15 years there. But in all of that, it was this discovery. Identify. Look to see if it actually is good, if I believe it's good, how do I uncover the wounds? You know, there's there's a kind of cheesy phrase I say often, but it's like in order to dress your wounds, you have to address your wounds. And I think for me, in that period of time, it was like me addressing my wounds, like, hey, how many times did somebody to say, Hey, bro, you're bleeding? Before I was like, look at look at that. That is what that is like. And I think the last 15 years has been this these continual perpetual moments. And it sounds a little bit like sad and hurtful. And this definitely moments of sad and hurtful. But how beautiful does it feel the moment we recognize we have a wound and we address it and then we address it? How much better is that? Right.   Rocky: That's the only way healing can happen. And so for me, that career, such job I have now, for me as a marriage of my life experience, how do I take everything that I've seen and known growing up? How do I marry that with eight years of full time ministry, which I just defined as deeply caring for people with a fundamental belief that I think people are good and then marry that with eight to 10 years of entrepreneurship and go, how do we take what we have experienced in our life with a fundamental belief that we are good and put that together to go, what do I get to experience? What is the freedom that could come from the reality of allowing myself to fully be known? What is involved in that freedom, is it is it that I get to make more money if that's my desire? Probably is that I get to have deeper relationships, because that's something that I'm pursuing. Probably this that I have find a freedom to sit in isolation. I don't feel fear that everyone's going to judge me or not like me. And I consistently say I'm a people pleaser when in fact I'm just a relationship seeker, probably. But I think it comes back to we have to start in a space to go. Am I known? I mean, do I know myself? Do I have a language for that? Am I clear about that? Do I have confidence that it's good to have the courage to live it out? And then finally, do I have the conviction that says this is a deep sea to believe I am no longer willing to jeopardize? And that is that is that is a huge and mixed with millions of, you know, variables.   Rocky: They go into all that. But for where I am today, you know, why why do I wake up every day today? I would say that I wake up every day because I want to be able to challenge others to live vulnerably so that you can experience the freedom that comes with being fully known. And in that freedom, as I think where we landed this place to go, financial freedom, relational freedom, confidence in ourselves, trust that we are good. But I think it begins by beginning to live vulnerable because I define vulnerability as creating the opportunity to see and be seen by others. If we can't start there, then we don't actually know what we're looking at. So there is no clarity. And if there's no clarity, then the other things don't happen either. And so it's not always that linear and that simple. But at the same time, I kind of think sometimes it is that linear and it is that simple. We've got to be able to go back, though, to a place to where we can begin to uproot and uncover what those fear, doubts, obstacles, insecurities are so that we can begin to make a path for.   Joe: Wow, that's powerful. That's a you sure went through a lot in the short amount of time, but I appreciate you laying all that out. Do you feel like you're in the best place you've ever been at this point in your life?   Rocky: I simultaneously feel like I am actively moving in the clearest I have ever felt about me, what I do and what I can do for someone and question almost every day, is this exactly what I'm supposed to be doing? And if I could really hone in to what I really think I should be doing and I say doing, I mean, for me to get really specific business, product, service price, like if I could if I could, you know, move ourself in, do I think in my life, is this the most clear and free I've ever felt? 100 percent. I was looking back and Instagram on my 30th birthday. I'm thirty seven now. I'll be 38 this year. So almost eight years ago I was in Marfa, Texas with two friends. We had no kids yet and I put an Instagram post. It was like me standing back when I used to have hair shout out to people like you and me and I used to have hair. If you don't know that John are both bald and I would sit in front of this bus and Marfa and I had a I was like 11:00 a.m. with a margarita taco on my hand. And my my my caption was like, I'm 30 years old today. It is the best I have felt physically, mentally, spiritually, like emotionally like man. Great. And I look back at that and I'm like, what a joke. Because today I'm like, I feel the muscle, you know.   Joe: Right.   Rocky: But but I think. What does that mean? It's been a constant upward trajectory. No, it's been I mean, it's been it's looked about ninety seven bell curves between that moment in this moment. Right. But I think in that to go why I think I come back to to answer your question. Why come back to go like like with like service, product and price. I guess that they're right because I think I feel so passionately about who I am and the belief that it's good and what I can do with that, that it's it's a whole other conversation and podcast episode to go. How do we take that and then find a way to meet a need in the market, find a way to communicate it effectively at a price point that is doable, that is actually sustainable, that it's not in exchange for time for money and really build a business out of that. That's the million dollar, no pun intended question for me. I think a lot of the time, and it's do I believe in myself what I'm doing? And I'm confident in my ability to affect change in someone's life. One hundred percent do I always feel confident, know how to sell that know. And I'm learning more and more that that's OK. And I need to go to people for help, because if I go back and say, what am I good at, it's not any of those things. And so that's OK. But I have to be able to be also confident if I need people in my life to help me, because I'm not sure I can get there. And I should say that I am 100 percent positive I cannot get there by myself.   Joe: Right. So you, from my understanding now, you are a coach as one of the things that you do. You're an author,   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: You're a coach. We're going to talk about your book later on in the podcast.   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: The book that's coming out. But from my own research, I saw certain podcast episodes you were on, either the ones that you've done yourself with guest videos. And I saw a piece about identity mapping that   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: You talk about. And I   Rocky: No.   Joe: Also saw another thing about self-love and but it was self-love focused towards men. Right. Because it is a different thing for sure,   Rocky: 100   Joe: Because   Rocky: Percent.   Joe: Guys just don't think that way. Right. And so that was interesting   Rocky: Yep,   Joe: As well.   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: But so let's use me as an example. OK, I am not allowed to tell you my   Rocky: Great.   Joe: Age because I've been telling my age too much and my girlfriend Joan thinks that I'm going to it's going to cause   Rocky: Gary.   Joe: Me harm if I keep saying the age that I am. And so I'm not going to tell you my age, but I'm all of that. So I've gone through my whole life, my and my ultimate focus when I first started was to eventually tour the world as a as a musician and be this this famous drummer and tour with John Mayer, let's say, as an example. So I went to college for music, but then when I got out,   Rocky: Ok.   Joe: I became an entrepreneur living down in New York City. I still played I was like a weekend warrior and would go play gigs Thursday through Sunday. But my focus was building a business because I took the mind frame of, hey, instead of me acting as, you know, like being a musician and struggling to make it, how about I do something that I know I'm really good at right now, which is being creating a business, being an entrepreneur, having that business be successful so that I didn't have to worry about the financial piece any longer.   Rocky: Right.   Joe: And then having the money I could go then now pursue a music career and buy my own tour bus and pay really great musicians to be part of my band. And so this was the frame of mind that I had a   Rocky: Mm hmm.   Joe: Bad, bad move. I would never tell any person in any career of anything, not just music, but anything that you got to go full steam ahead towards the thing that you want. And you can't have there. There's people that have different theories on burning the boats and not having a Plan B.. I'm all in on just have that plan and go for it. Burn the boats, do not   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: Have a plan B and it'll happen if you put in the work. I didn't put in the work musically, so I am where I am today. I take on all the responsibility that I didn't do what I needed to the 10000 hours to be John Mayer Strummer.   Rocky: Ok.   Joe: Now fast forward, I am successful as a entertainment booking agent. I own my own company and Phoenix started   Rocky: And.   Joe: It in 2011 was when it first started and it became more official around 2013. Successful Management Entertainment Booking Agency does it. I like it. I'm good at it. I like doing it. Does it does it make my soul sing now? Probably not. Have I found what I should be doing in this world? I don't think so.   Rocky: Hmm.   Joe: Am I? Am I servicing? Am I, am I giving to the world something that leaves a legacy that I feel really good about? Yeah, I put hundreds of musicians to work every year, but is that how I want to be remembered? I don't think so.   Rocky: Hmm.   Joe: So this   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: Is where   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: You come in. So   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: I sit every day now and I struggle going, OK, I like doing my podcast. I love meeting people like you. I love surrounding myself by humble, kind, successful entrepreneurs, not the ones who are constantly boasting on clubhouse that they're multibillionaires and this and that and taking pictures in front of Lamborghinis and jets. So I'm going through the struggle of identity purpose.   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: How how do I service   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: The world?   Rocky: Yeah, so my first question almost always, and not because I expect you to be and if you rattle off an answer, we're going to get to work. If you don't, then you're in the 99 percent of us who don't always have an answer. So I'm going to give that give you that freedom, but. What do you want?   Joe: So this is the part that's that's tough because we talk about I want financial freedom where I never have to think about money   Rocky: Ok,   Joe: And   Rocky: Ok, so   Joe: I   Rocky: Let's   Joe: Want   Rocky: Let's   Joe: It and   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: I want   Rocky: Let's.   Joe: It also because I want it to be able to help my family first, which is what's in my brother. I don't have my my parents are no longer alive, but my brother and my sister, obviously my immediate family, Joel and my girlfriend of 20 some years,   Rocky: Mm   Joe: You   Rocky: Hmm.   Joe: Know, her daughter, my two kids and my immediate family. And then from there, I would love to be able to give four hundred thousand dollars a year to that charity and give a million dollars   Rocky: Mm hmm.   Joe: A year to that charity   Rocky: Mm hmm.   Joe: And go over and build schools and whatever. Just I didn't   Rocky: Great.   Joe: Have to think about that piece of it.   Rocky: Yeah, OK, so tell me what you feel like, what is accomplished if and when you are able to achieve. If I say what do you want and your your guttural response is financial freedom. OK, then you broke down for me what financial freedom looks like the practical side of where the money would go and that what do you feel like is going to happen? What what what changes for you if you don't have to think about money anymore?   Joe: That any action that I take that I feel is the right action. I don't have to think whether or not money plays a part in that because   Rocky: Ok.   Joe: That has been removed, that's been taken off the table. So   Rocky: Ok,   Joe: If   Rocky: So right   Joe: I   Rocky: Now,   Joe: Want   Rocky: Right   Joe: To.   Rocky: Now, the biggest yeah, right now the biggest inhibitor to you really pursuing what you believe at any moment is that the first question that always comes to mind is what is the financial implication of this decision? And do I have the capacity to make this decision based on my other responsibilities? I have other places with money. If I choose this question number one always is, what is the financial implication of this?   Joe: Correct, especially   Rocky: Ok.   Joe: At an older age, you're like, OK,   Rocky: Yeah.   Joe: I've been busting my hump, by no means am I in any financial distress, but   Rocky: Sure.   Joe: To just never   Rocky: To not   Joe: Have   Rocky: Think   Joe: To   Rocky: About   Joe: Think   Rocky: It.   Joe: About saying, hey, I'm going to go and spend a month helping someone to build schools because it's something that's good and it gives back that would be cool to do.   Rocky: Ok, OK, so let's use that, let's use that, why can you not go to Guatemala in May for a month this year to go help build a school? Why can't you go do that?   Joe: Because if my focus is on doing something like that, then I can't focus on at this point running the business that I have because I had four employees before covid hit. Now it's me. So I'm literally running this entire business alone   Rocky: Ok,   Joe: Again.   Rocky: Ok,   Joe: So   Rocky: So   Joe: Then   Rocky: So   Joe: The money   Rocky: What?   Joe: Dries up if I'm   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: Not doing it right.   Rocky: Yeah, right, OK, so what I want to say, so it's beautiful. Thank you. What I just heard you say is right now, the problem is not money right now, the problem is, is that given a million external circumstances that we couldn't control. I mean, I'm with I'm in the same boat as you right now. The problem is not money. Right now. The tension we are feeling is that we are in a position that our work requires us and therefore our work. We are questioning whether or not that work that we are doing is the thing we actually want to be doing.   Joe: Mm hmm.   Rocky: Because I think if you love your your work that you were doing. Again, we're not saying you don't like it. Everybody who's listening to shut out your client or work with him, he loves it. OK, just take that note. Joe   Joe: I   Rocky: Loves a job.   Joe: Like that good.   Rocky: What we're saying is it's not that you don't like your work. We're saying is you feel a longing to pursue and do something different with your time. Maybe we're not sure what that is, but it feels like the contingency point to give you the freedom to go do that is the fear that if I did that, will there be money? And by money we mean will there be safety? And by safety we mean will we be OK and be OK? Meaning will I have to rely on someone again? Because where I've relied on people in the past, they have let me down and I am unwilling to commit myself to something or someone where that you have the opportunity to walk and it is fundamentally destructive to me. You will not do that to me again,   Joe: Yeah,   Rocky: I   Joe: It's   Rocky: Fear.   Joe: Yeah, and it's it's wanting to do something so much bigger.   Rocky: And I would say I want to challenge you because it's part of my my role and who I am as a person. I want you to do an exercise whenever we're done here, just we'll chat about it again offline is I want you to really look at it and define what it is that you see and believe that impact is directly a result and equal to size as opposed it is to depth. I hear you saying I want to have a broad impact. I want to do something that is seen in big and broad. And I'm saying just as a challenge, not because I'm right. What about depth, though? What about the artist who you work with who couldn't pay their rent or buy groceries for their child if you weren't helping them get gigs? And their life is fundamentally different because you've taken a risk to be the person that allows them to pursue something they love that you are unwilling to do, that they are willing to do. And you are actually a proponent for hundreds of musicians to fulfill their dreams and feed their families. And without you as an integral piece in their life, they would not be able to fulfill something significant in who they believe that they are. And so because of that, your impact is so deep and with one hundred artists is in fact broad and wide that your breadth and depth actually are simultaneously changing the lives of every person that hires you and works with you because they could not pursue their dream in the way you wish someone would have stood in the gap for you.   Rocky: Twenty five, thirty five years ago. You are consistently standing in the gap and providing that opportunity for somebody else. And so sure, it's not sexy like a school in Guatemala. Sure. It's not as elaborate as writing a massive check that we get to go to the gala for when covid is over and drink champagne and someone gives us a little plaque that we're going to throw away so we don't care about anyone. That's not why we gave the money. It's not the freedom. I wish I could just choose whatever I want. No, you don't. You are choosing what you want. If you didn't if you weren't choosing what you wanted, you wouldn't be doing it. Every human being. This is not just for Joan was for you as a listener. You say I'm doing something I don't really want to. Yes, you do. If you didn't want to, you wouldn't do it, period. Well, I can't do that because if I don't do this, I won't have enough money.   Rocky: So go to an apartment, sell your house, get rid of your car, ride the train. You don't you don't want to do that. You want to do that. You do what you want. Generally speaking, outside of external circumstances were always out of our control, so I don't don't hear me say that if you're like no, you don't understand where I'm at, you're correct. I don't understand where you're at. And if you're in a position, you absolutely have to do what you're doing and you hate it. Hey, we've all been there to some degree. So, I mean, I'm not making a statement about your abilities any anybody who's listening, but here specifically for most of us. I think you are doing what you want. I think that we lose sight at times, that it is, in fact what we want. I think we lose sight at times about the impact we are really making. And so sure, maybe, maybe, Joe, maybe 40 years ago, you didn't actually make the step that you wanted to take. But there's hundreds of people a year that you are affecting change and given the opportunity to take that step and you and only you are the one who has the capacity to stand in the gap and help them do and see that.   Joe: Yeah, I mean, you're right, I've gotten phone calls and texts and emails saying, dude, you saved my life this year, like you doubled my salary. You brought more opportunity to me than I have ever had before. But again, while I I do like getting those calls and emails and texts and I feel good about that, I feel like someone of my I don't know who   Rocky: Say   Joe: I am.   Rocky: It, own it, own it,   Joe: Yeah,   Rocky: Own   Joe: I   Rocky: It,   Joe: Know.   Rocky: Say it.   Joe: It's just like I feel like there's I could do so much more I, I feel like I'm not living big enough.   Rocky: Ok, so   Joe: That's   Rocky: Now   Joe: It.   Rocky: So great, great. That is totally different and has nothing to do with financial freedom, it has nothing to do with depth or breadth. It is you feel in your soul there is something else before you die that there is you want to do and pursue. And so I'm going to challenge you to say, stop saying that it's financial freedom that's keeping you back. That is untrue. You have there has never been a moment you and I have known each other now for thirty five minutes. Exactly. OK, I know by just talking to you for thirty five minutes, there has never been a moment in Joe Costello's life where he did not do and have the capacity to make sure that he had the ability to care for himself and those around him, no matter how hard it was he was one to do, was required to make it work. Right. OK, so nothing is different today than it was five years, 10 years or twenty five years ago. So if there's something big and audacious, if there's something you're saying, this is this is it for me, if you're saying I want to get to the root of this, other thing that I can talk about is like money and freedom and donations and but all those things fall into a philanthropic legacy, giving of self to other space that we could pick a million things that fall in that category. Great, then let's do let's figure out what do you want, what do you where do you really want to have an impact the day you're gone? They say, man, that guy Joe. And I bet I bet if we went to your clients, you've had the longest that we pick 10 clients, you've had the longest and gave them a worksheet to fill out and say, could you give me the attributes about Joe? You appreciate what you like he has done for you, the impact he has had in your life.   Rocky: I bet every single one of them would say something very synonymous to each other. And then if we could take that and say, where do you want to point that energy? That is, Joe, the music, the the gigs, the entertainment that just happened to be the cat catnap, the tunnel, the vessel, the we knew it and we liked it and we found it out. And then, you know, fast forward 20 years. We wake up and here we are. I think you're just saying I want to change the vessel, the work you're doing. We've already agreed as impactful that people texting you saying you are changing my life, saving my life. That's like shit that people send like a paramedic or their brain surgeon or like they don't send that to their music manager like that. What is it? What does that even mean? OK, so we're identifying the beauty. We are identifying the uniqueness. We are identifying the very specific impact that you have had, you currently have and you future have to continue to make. We are saying we got to do the work to identify where do I want to point that and where do I want to spend the next 15, 20, 30, 40 years? Pointing that energy, because I know that I have it and I know that I can now have a proven track record to say that it's there. So where do I want to point it? I don't want to think about what is inhibiting me from changing the direction. I want to identify the component that's going to allow me to push it in that direction, moving forward.   Joe: So I've had other people on the podcast that in one of them happens to be a gentleman named Patrick Combs and Patrick and his partner Eric run a company called BLIS Champions. And the whole   Rocky: Ok.   Joe: Purpose of it is finding your bliss, right,   Rocky: Mm   Joe: Finding your   Rocky: Hmm.   Joe: Purpose. It's it's this and this has been the theme this whole past year. OK, what is it like? What covid hit the world shut down. Right. And so the entertainment business got hit really hard. So I basically had a list of things I wanted to do. Pot   Rocky: And.   Joe: Starting the podcast was one of them starting a YouTube channel, which alone was another thing we did. But when I sit here and I and I went through an exercise the other day where you make two columns and you make I forget what it was, if it was like all the things you're good at and all the things you're interested in or something like that, and you draw you draw an arrow from the left column to the right column to the thing that sort of matches that to narrow down what it is that you think you're here to do. That's the part. And I look at it like, oh, got at my age, why would I still be struggling to find that thing? And that's the frustrating part. It's like, how do people and this is for my audience to is anybody who's listening. I am so jealous of anybody that has found their purpose. Their bliss wakes up every day. And this is what I was put here to do. This is what I love to do. And not only does this all work for me, but it actually creates this world that I like to live in. And I   Rocky: Mm   Joe: Can   Rocky: Hmm.   Joe: And I and I don't think about money like the combination   Rocky: Mm hmm.   Joe: Of having doing having your bliss, your purpose in your bliss and at the same time not thinking about anything financial. To me, that's like the match made in heaven.   Rocky: I mean, my answer to that is, yeah, if you can if you find that course, hey, I'll pay for both of us to go. And I say that and I say that, like 50 percent joking, also 50 percent serious. But I say that because I want to humanize for you and mostly for you and me, because we're the ones talking. But for all for all the listeners as well. I want to humanize the reality. I want to humanize the statement of what you are saying and feeling that even as me someone that I want to make a few assumptions and then you correct me if I'm wrong, but like, you go and you're like, OK, I look at this guy Rocky, and I look at this brand. And sure, he had a few broken links on his website, but that's OK because I helped him with that. But he has a brand and he's on point and his colors and his photos and he seems clear about what he's doing. I heard him on clubhouse and I said yes on a podcast. And like he seems to be speaking true that he seems to be genuine and all the words you would use that you hope you could say about yourself. Right.   Joe: Mm   Rocky: Like   Joe: Hmm.   Rocky: He has this and isn't it so? And I say, all right, because I want to humanize the reality of I'm sure that is true. I feel pretty good, like I have to be able to stand Konovalenko. I don't have to caveat that. Like, I feel like I have a good marriage and I work really hard at it and I'm trying to be the best father that I can that with limited knowledge and experience of not really having one growing up. And I feel like I'm I'm crushing it like I love my kids and they love me and and both, not one or the other like. And so I have this idea that's another a book that I want to write. So I'm going to pitch it here and we'll see if it resonates. It resonates. We'll write it if it doesn't and scrap it, it's terrible. So but I think we all live me too in this space. And there's an old game we used to play when we were young called Two Truths in a Lie. Right. And you say two things are true. One's a line. You got to guess which one. OK, I think we all collectively every day we have been lied to and conditioned that we forget that there are two truth in a lie and every statement that we make and then we go, I'm either going to have this or this, I'm either going to be the full expression of everything that I am and financial freedom. And it's this or. Life's really pretty hard. It's kind of dull and it doesn't make sense. And here's the here's the premise. There's always two truth in a lie. And the two truths always exist together. And the only thing that makes life real and worth living is that both truths have to be true simultaneously. The lie is, is that we think we only have to believe one. The lie is we think only one is actually true, so you know what 20, 20 was like for you and me, I'm going to chalk it up. It was actually. Man, it was good, like we   Joe: Mm   Rocky: Did   Joe: Hmm.   Rocky: Good work.   Joe: Yeah.   Rocky: And it was really is costing a lot on your podcast I don't get to listen   Joe: Yeah,   Rocky: To,   Joe: Absolutely,   Rocky: Ok,   Joe: Yeah,   Rocky: It was good and it was really fucking hard.   Joe: Yeah.   Rocky: Both. So the two truths in the lie are that it was really good and really hard, and the lie says it's either one or the other. And so for this scenario, for you guys, there's got to be more I got there's got to be something out there that I could just get this then this thing would happen. But instead I'm going to have this, which means Branfman, I guess it'll just be it is what it is and everything is fine, but like, it wasn't great. It was just like it worked. But no, what if what if what you're doing now is working and the fact that it's still working, it's just you and yes. Sad for employees are gone. So you're still kind of you're back in the weeds again. But what you're doing you can do in your sleep. You've got a podcast. You got this guy who's bald with big eyebrows on your podcast right now we're talking about. So you've got at least a little bit of autonomy to do what you want. Right. So   Joe: Yeah.   Rocky: Both can be true. Continue with what you're doing and streamline, streamline, put it down, the process is squeeze it, systematize it as more than you already. I'm sure it already has, but make it even more so that we only need one employee to make up for the three we had last time to give by your time a little bit for you to have a little bit of breathing room to go. Both. I think I can have this and I think I can create the the depth of impact in every arena of my life. And I'm looking for. Because I think if we could you and me are our listeners, but you and me. If we could find the places where we recognize the depth of our impact was not only significant, but but it scratch the itch we had in ourselves and our own soul. We would think less about money. And listen, I'm a proponent for money, I'm trying to make money, I got a business, I want money and I got a business. Got what? I want some asking me how much I could make. I want to try to find it, make as much as I can. I'm all about money. I'm not. Let me be very clear about that. But when I go to my son's room. He says, hey, dad, can you play with me? I say, sure, what you want to do. He says, I want to wrestle.   Rocky: So Carlos Resum. And I am experiencing a moment in my own life that I. Hardly ever experienced. As the son in that engagement. I'm not thinking about how much money that I made. I'm not thinking about who did or didn't pay their invoice. I'm not thinking about it. I can I if I get enough money, you know what, I could wrestle as much as I wanted to if I made more money. Now, you know what? I can wrestle as much as I want to. That's the end of the statement. I want to challenge somebody asked me I did a bunch of along along here on Instagram with stories yesterday and a good friend of mine messaged me this morning, he was like, hey, this is awesome. Also, why does this matter? And he wasn't being a smart aleck. He was like, hey, I'm trying to help you to the expression to be fully known. He was like, what happens when you're fully known? Why is that good? Why does it matter? What do I get? Why don't I like hey, you're a really good friend because I don't want to talk about that much. I appreciate that. But I think our conversation today is kind of leading to that place to go. So. So. So then what, Rocky? You're just telling me to just do what I want. No, I'm telling you, friend, you're already doing what you want, but I feel like you don't want to do it.   Rocky: So I'm asking you to ask yourself the question. What do you want? Do you want to know the language that you need to have for yourself so you can find the freedom to be able to pursue what you want? OK, then let's do that. Let's figure it out. Why do you do what you do? How do you do what you do? What do you do? That's what identity mapping is. Identity mapping is a four hour process that you and me walk through one on one or me meeting a group of your team or organization walking around eight hours and you will leave, I can guarantee you 100 percent you will leave with a clearest language you have ever had about how you operate as a human being, not in professional, as a human. You will create 13 words in a piece of paper that are make impossible, it is mathematically impossible for anyone in the world who has ever been alive or currently alive. To choose the same 13 words as you know, put them in the same order, it's impossible. And we're not even talking about you, is it what you're doing? We're talking like 13 arbitrary words on a piece of paper. Some of us need language. That's step one. We need language because we we're not clear. We would call step one clarity. But clarity only comes when you can see something.   Rocky: If you don't have a language, you can't see it. So everything is a reaction. It is not as being proactive, as us being reactive. Right. So why aren't some of us need language, I just don't know I know what I'm good at, but I don't really know how to. OK, you need words. Some of us have words. And that's where we get calls. Like we have the words. I know why and how and what I know I've been doing a long time, but I just doesn't feel like it's good, you know, like I feel like I'm missing something. Well, that's that's comforting. Confidence is simply the ability to believe that it's good. You referenced earlier and we talked about self-love and self care and how much specifically for men. You know, I think men most men lack confidence. We make up for the fact that we lack confidence by trying to conquer something as opposed to cultivating something. We think if we could conquer it, then we win as opposed to cultivating in the last forever. Nobody nobody who conquered something has a good legacy there, Nazel. But every person you know, has a great legacy, cultivated something beautiful because it's still growing. That's what a legacy is. A legacy is not a marker of what you did. A legacy is the fact that what you did continues to thrive. Right, and   Joe: Yeah,   Rocky: So   Joe: It's powerful. Yeah.   Rocky: Some of us, some of us need clarity, some of us need language, we get the language, then we need clarity. Can we see it right can as it makes sense to us? Yeah, OK. Do we have confidence? Can we look at that and believe it's good self-confidence, the ability to look at yourself and say that is good. OK, got it cleared, economists break what's next? Do you have the courage? Courage is the ability to move forward at any pace, even in the midst of fear and unknown, are you willing to every day move towards the thing that you really believe? Yes, I am. Great. And you did yesterday? Yep. Today, yes. Great lasta conviction. Do you believe that thing in your soul enough? That it is a deep seated belief you are unwilling to waver from or jeopardize. No matter what comes your way. Motivation is still your mind, you can do it. Inspiration is telling your heart, you can do it. Conviction is telling your soul. You must do it. That's why Solasta takes a lot of work. And so some of us, we need language, some of us get the language and identity mapping, then we need clarity. That means you need help, you need a coach, you need somebody like that.   Rocky: And me, it could be anybody you want, but we need somebody in our life to go, hey, help me see what I can't see and help me have the confidence to believe that it's good. And then at some point, people are in my space, I would say at that point, hey, we did our thing, we got the words, we got the clarity, we got the confidence. We're ready. We're doing it. I need a plan. Great. I have a good idea. Ideas. You probably know somebody other than me to execute the plan, though, because I'm still trying figure out my own plan. I'm problematic, I should say, about your plan. Right. Like I know where my but where the stops and I'm ready to pass you on to the next man or woman who can really help you. And so I think for all of us, we find ourselves in any variable of any one of those places at any point in time. I think it begins by us acknowledging that what is that place and where am I at and. Am going to do with that.   Joe: Yeah, I feel like going through this process and and not only telling you this story on this episode, but having this conversation with myself, having this conversation with Joel and having it with other friends, that to me, it's the more and more I can talk about it. My hope is that the clarity will come because I have to like you said, it's super important. It's the language, right? It's how you you talk about it and it's saying more of what you want as opposed to more what you don't want. Right. Because what you think about and what you talk about is what ends up becoming more true. So you have to be careful about the words you use and the thoughts you think. That's why it's fun to talk about this with you, because the more and more I talk about it, I feel like it helps to my hope is that it helps to bring clarity at some point and say this is what you were here to do. And the cool thing is that you hit upon us. Don't throw away the baby with the bathwater, like you've already done a lot of cool things and you've helped people. But, you know, I think I'm in a different stage now. So what do I do with the remaining 40 years of my life if I if I actually reach that so.   Rocky: And I think and I think I think that's a great question to ask, and I think there's great opportunity for all of us to think about, to consider, regardless of our age and where we are in our career, our job, whatever language we want to use, there is great opportunity for us to be able to say today, I'm not going to talk about what I don't want. I'm going to talk about what I do want. And then I'm going to I'm going to look and say, do I think I have the words to identify that I don't ask for help? I don't either. My whole business is how many people have identity, purpose, understanding who you are, what that means and why that matters to be fully known. And you know what I did last week and I'm doing this week, I got three different people coming to my office to help me work through a process to really hone in my why what it is because I can't do it by myself. Doesn't work that way, humans, we're not we're not designed that way. Right,   Joe: Yeah.   Rocky: We have only we only have eyes in the front of our head for a reason. So we were made to have somebody behind this or maybe have somebody with us.   Joe: Yeah.   Rocky: And so I hope if you're listening today and you're joining us wherever you are in the car at home, and I hope you if I could leave you with anything, it would be that don't let fear of school and security. They all exist. They're all human. We all have them to say, you don't. You're lying. Yes, you do. Showing the crowd coming to the party. But don't let those things be the lie that we continue to believe that inhibit us from really pursuing the things that we love, the people we love, the relationships that we love. Daouda, sneaky man. It doesn't it's it's sneaky. It doesn't care about us. It is. It will wait. It is patient. And just the moment you think you have the guts to do it, it's going to remind you of some B.S. story that somebody told you at some point in your life. Don't don't let it win. It's work, it's work, digging, uprooting, cultivating, unearthing, it ain't easy. I can tell you that right now. Not easy, but it can be not easy and good. Both things can be true. Is it's only going to be one or the other. That's just not how it works.   Joe: Yeah, that's a powerful statement you brought up in this this episode. It's really cool that know the one line, the two truths, right? It's it's a cool thing to remember to keep that in your mind. And I. I like that a lot. It was really cool.   Rocky: Yeah, yeah, thank you.   Joe: So do me a favor. Let's talk about the book   Rocky: Yeah, yeah, so   Joe: Well.   Rocky: The book is called Kill Doubt, Build Conviction, and kind of under the premise of really what I talked about here just in this last part. So I'm kind of at a place where in my experience in working with individuals in my own life, I believe there are two stories that are at play in our life at all times. The stories that are told to us about us and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Those two stories hold an immense amount of weight. They become wildly impactful when they intersect. So I grew up people telling my whole life stories told to me about me. Rocky, too intense. You're too emotional. You're too this year, too. Right. And so when that story, I can't control that. Now, be very clear that if the story told to me about me, I can control that. But when the story I tell myself about myself is rockier, too intense, and you see their face, you see his face when you were talking to him, calm down. It's not too much. Now, what happens is those two stories collide. And upon that intersection, I believe, is where doubt, fear an obstacle is born. It's birthed in that moment. And every time those intersect again, it grows legs and grows feet and grows arms and becomes more active in her life. The book is a half one part workbook, one part my story, one part encouragement to you to go. Hey, how do we begin to unpack that? We lay out the concept of the two truths. We lay out each story and have you walk through that of your own life.   Rocky: We have you get to a place, you go now look for ones that are complementary. That doesn't mean they're good. It just means they match. Right. Rocky, you're too intense. Rocky tells himself, Rocky, you're too intense. That's a complementary story at that intersection. I need to identify my doubt, that is. I'm too much for people, the lie people will not love me if that's who I am, the truth, I am intense and it is good, right? And so the book is out as I process about seven or eight chapters where we walk through that that process. He let me lay out the concept. Here's what it looks like and then get to work. Start making your chart, fill out your story, find that out, finally find the truth. And then we kind of walk you with that through either email or text options we have that we ask you then of a chapter and they text me right now. Tell me what you just found out and then we're to make sure we follow with you to make sure that we can do that. And so the book killed out. Build conviction. You can get a copy. You can order one today. Rocky Garcia dot com. There's a link there or Iraqi Gaza dot com sketchbook and it should take you right to it. Order copy. And we'll we'll ship it out. There it is in editing slash printing right now. So they should ship sometime end of April.   Joe: Cool. OK, so are you only going to have it on your side or do you think it will eventually be up on Amazon or somewhere else like that?   Rocky: Yeah, yeah, so we'll see for now, it'll just be on our site,   Joe: Ok.   Rocky: One for it in full transparency, just for a traffic and final just to drive people to our site. I   Joe: Mm hmm.   Rocky: Go to a conference, they speak, hey, go get it. Go to our website and read everything else while you're there. And I think also just this is my first experience and writing a book I would have if you'd have told me I was going to write a book a year ago, I would have laughed at you. I'm a talker, not a writer. Come to find out, you can write books by talking. You just use dictation and talk and that pops up into a word. Documents. Beautiful. And so so we'll see, I think, as as more things come, you know, for those for those folks who have written books before I thought about it, you know, it's a very interesting process to publish self publish, go to the publisher and so on and so forth. And   Joe: Yeah.   Rocky: Right right now, Rakhi Gaza is not a name that any publishers like, hey, do we want you to write a book? So if that happens, I'm sure we'd go the Amazon route and put in there at some point. But for now, I just I want to help some folks and I think the best way to do that is to go to go get it at that place. So.   Joe: Perfect. What's the best way for the audience to get in contact with you, what's your preferred method of communication? So you have Rocky Gaza dotcom, correct,   Rocky: Yep, yep,   Joe: As your   Rocky: Yep,   Joe: Website   Rocky: So you could   Joe: And   Rocky: Yeah,   Joe: Then.   Rocky: You could check out Rajab's dot com for speaking, so I spent about a third of my time keynote speaking in workshops both for what I call external conferences meeting and individuals going to put on a conference for a group of people they can buy a ticket to and then internal conferences. So business and organizations hire me to come and speak to their staff. A third of my time is kind of spent in the team space working directly with teams and organizations in a smaller format, more intensive identity mapping for teams, basically, and then about a third of my time with individuals. So doing one on one coaching, we've got a 12 week program that folks can jump into. It includes a four hour identity mapping session. And then we meet once a week every week for 12 weeks to really help people get to that stage lifecycle. Hey, you're clear and ready to be handed off to kind of jump into that next arena. So, yeah, hit me up on Instagram, clubhouse, Facebook. There's not a lot of rocky ghazi's out there. And so I try to be the first to grab those names. So it's just at Rockie, Gaza, on every platform that you could want to find me on or that I would want to be on. I'm there not a tick talker, but Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and website, also clubhouse. You can catch me on any of those.   Joe: Right. All right, man, well, I appreciate your time today, I appreciate going through this this exercise with you. I hope it was helpful to the audience and I love the work that you're doing. It speaks to me, as you can tell. I'm going through the process myself. And it was really it was an honor to have you here and to talk this through with you. I really appreciate your time.   Rocky: Yeah, thank you so much, Jim, I appreciate it was great to connect on clubhouse. Thanks for having me on the show and I look forward to talking to you again.   Joe: Yeah, my pleasure, man, you take care. OK.   Rocky: Thank you so much.

The Joe Costello Show
Personal Growth - Ontological Coaching With Kristina Crooks

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2021 39:19


I had a conversation with Ms. Kristina Crooks, a certified ontological coach to learn more about what ontology is and how it's used in personal development through coaching. It was interesting to learn that unlike coaches that work with you on one piece of the puzzle, an ontological coach works on all aspects of the human being. Thank you for watching! Enjoy, Joe Kristina Crooks: Founder and Owner, Empowered Human and Ontological Performance Coach Website: https://www.kristinacrooks.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empoweredhumanglobal/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristina.crooks.7 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-crooks-42b41124/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVY40i4eM2wAXWQqSNh6iEQ Contact: https://calendly.com/kristinacrooks 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: My guest this week is Christina Crooks and ontological performance coach Christina and I met on Club House and I joined a couple of her rooms and I found what she does. Very interesting. Ontological coaching takes an in-depth exploration into who you are being. Part of her process is one, where are you currently to define your short, medium and long term goals? Three, what are you committed to for what needs to be added to remove or transform, to align you? Being with your doing ontology is the art and science of being a human being. First coined by Aristotle with Christina, she will help you create a design life where your vision becomes your reality. Christina uses what she calls a five point star concept, which targets your spiritual, emotional, mental, physical and financial aspects of your life. I very much enjoy this interview and I hope you do as well. Once again, thank you for listening. Now enjoy this interview with Miss Christina from.   Joe: Everyone, I want to welcome my guest today is Christina Crookes.   Joe: Christina and I met on the new app called Clubhouse. Some of you may be on it. Some of you may not be yet. But to be honest, I don't know how I landed in one of her rooms, but she invited me on stage.   Joe: We got the talking and we had a little conversation a couple of days later through Zoom just to get to know each other. And she does oncological coaching. Right, that I that I see that right. OK, got it correct. And and then when I was in one of your groups, I saw there was a bunch of people in there that are sort of part of your family in the same coaching arena. And I went and looked it up and and I don't totally get it. So I'm glad you're here to explain it to me.   Joe: One sentence I read said, some have said that ontological coaching is coaching to the human soul. You can take it from there and run with it. But I'm very interested in what it is that you do and how you help people and how you got into this. So actually, let's start there.   Joe: Why don't you give me the backstory on how you got into the coaching that you're now doing?   Kristina: Awesome. Yeah, thank you, Joe. I got into it because I've always been a student of personal growth and I've always been interested in the brain and how human beings work and understanding our psychology and our behaviours. So I've I've consistently, over the course of my adult life, sought out different ways to learn that.   Kristina: And I think it probably really started when I was in high school Learning about Choice Theory by Dr. William Glasser. And it's very similar to the hierarchy of needs. And I found it fascinating. So we would teach this to teachers and administrators.   Kristina: And it was it was a way for them to understand their students and understanding that they were trying to meet their needs and however they behaved or performed in their classrooms. And so it started in education. And I thought, I love this. I love this kind of work and what this is all about.   Kristina: And then fast forward several decades. And I was always looking for new understandings and new ways to put into place. And then I started going to something called Wisdom 2.0. It's a conference that happens in San Francisco, in New York every year.   Kristina: Last year, I think, was probably the last live when they'll do for a little while and this year it's happening virtually and I started meeting all kinds of different people and I started putting more connecting more dots, more and more and more.   Kristina: And then I started doing and then I started coaching on my own. But I was I was not yet trained for it. And I knew there was something missing. So I was searching and searching. And I had met many people through Facebook and Facebook lives and things like that. And I came across a friend of a friend that he posted. Something that it said something like, my coach advised me to share all the growth I've had in the last 20 something years of being a coach, and he shared all the things he was free from.   Kristina: And I realized that the entire list he had were things that resonated with me. And some of them I had worked through and some of them I was still working on, and then others were blind spots I hadn't identified yet. And but they resonated and I went, I need to know I need to know this man. So I reached out to him through a private message and I said, I want to know you.   Kristina: Can we have a caller? Can we meet? We only lived forty five minutes from each other. So we said, yeah, let's let's meet. How do you want to do that? And I said, let's go for a hike, which is really funny because he actually told me later he hates hiking. So it was just hilarious. But he said yes to something he's not a fan of.   Kristina: But come to find out, meeting him a couple of times, he had at that point he had been a coach for nearly twenty seven years, was one of the founders from a coaching organization called Accomplishment Coaching. There's two that teach ontological coaching. And I didn't know what it meant either. I just knew it was interesting. And I liked him and I wanted to know what he knew. And I hired him as my coach. I worked with him for almost two years. And the beauty of working with a coach every week for that length of time in the in the many layers we worked together was that I learned what was missing in how I was coaching people. Firstly, I was vastly under trained and under skilled as a coach. And there's a very low entry point for coaches. Lots of people can call themselves a coach without knowing what they're doing.   Joe: And I was one of them is one of them. And the market is flooded with those people right now.   Kristina: It is. It is. And so it's funny because now I find myself I have to catch my own intolerance for that and have compassion that they really want to help people. But I encourage I encourage people all the time. If you're interested in being in that field, please go get trained. Please find a good coach that knows what they're doing. They can guide you through that process because you will be your first student and your first coach. That's the right term. And so I was I began working with him and it was really funny because when I started working with him, I wanted to know all of the philosophy because the philosophy of ontology goes back to Aristotle. And he he was it was really about understanding your relationship to the world around you and asking good questions. And that, for me, checked the box of having gone seven years ago when I was going through my divorce to a place called the Option Institute on the East Coast. And it's part option institute and part of the Autism Centers of America. And I have several friends whose children are autistic and they go there regularly. But I wanted to go for option institute. An option was very much a philosophy on life and how your environment can change when you see with different eyes and you look at it differently and change your relationship to it and your context that you're identifying things and and discovering. And so that that was in alignment with choice theory many years before. And then when I found my coach, it was in alignment with Option Institute, all all around options and choices and how we choose to show up for our life.   Kristina: And then I went through Landmark of what Landmark Worldwide, which is very much based in ontology. And they they do it in a much more masculine way and a little bit more aggressive way than I do. But or even my coach is incredibly gentle. And I started working through all these things that I had noticed. I had been blocked for me. And one of my things was that I know I love to have the answer. And there's actually neuroscience that backs that up. We get a hit of dopamine and adrenaline and maybe a few other neurotransmitters that reinforce us being right and people telling us, oh, you're right. Oh, you're right. So I was addicted to that and I still love it. But by talking about saying that I love it, I can I can identify when it happens so that I'm not stuck in that pattern. And I I consistently put myself in spaces where I'm not the smartest person in the room by design. So working with him and being professionally trained as a coach changed the game for me. And it changed my life not only how I found and operated with clients and discover new clients, but how I operated in my own life with my partner, with my relationship with time, my relationship with money, my relationship with how I worked for others, and how I worked with others. My relationship with failure. All of those things, and at that same time, I was working at a small special needs school, doing all the business development, so I was applying it constantly with the kids I was working with.   Kristina: I was applying it with the the California Department of Education and how I operated in that and noticing when I was in resistance and frustrated with how the school systems work. And I was able to constantly change my context. And that doesn't mean it was always simple and easy. But I had different tools. My toolbox was growing. And I think the biggest thing that shifted in that process was I kept going back to what is the difference between a really good a really good friend that can operate with you on all these different levels and a coach, because I was having great conversations, but it wasn't necessarily leading to an outcome. And that's action, being able to take purposeful and intentional action every day and being able to supply them with concrete actions that I can say to them, how about how about we try this? What do you think about this action? And I used to ask it that way. Now I just give them actions based on what I know about them. But it's never homework. And people can then get on the court of their life and go and apply the things they're learning, regardless of whether it's perfect or not. That's not the goal. The goal is to be in action with your life so that you're constantly in a yes and conversation with the world around you and identifying what works and what doesn't work. And so ontology is really about our relationship with everything externally, being in alignment with what's happening in terms of, wow, OK, that's a lot.   Joe: Yeah, it is.   Joe: And it seems like a really good time for you and I to talk in my own life. You know how things just show up, right? I assume they show up at the right time. Right. That's the hope is that all of these things show up at the right time when you're prepared for it or you can handle it, or it's time for you to take the next step or whatever the case might be.   Joe: And I'm going through I'm beyond a midlife crisis because, you know, it's like I just had my fifty ninth birthday. So next year is a big one.   Joe: When I do things, I do them well and I'm hard on myself and I want to do want to be really, really successful with all that I do. So I'm going through a lot of things right now on my own. I'm trying to say, OK, well what is it that I, I want to offer the world?   Joe: How can I serve? And at the same time. The financial piece of it is a large portion of it, and I heard someone say the other day, I watched the video and how we're almost internally programmed right at a young age and whatever that means for each person. And so you literally could have. The Matrix is set up where you need to break out of certain habits that have been formed internally through your system. However you're wired, however, I forget how it was played, but really well. But it's like you might have adversity to financial freedom. There might be something internally that you just keep blocking. But the fact that you can't go out and become very wealthy and help to serve others. And if we just talk about money for a second, because you mentioned it in, there were different aspects, right? You mentioned money. And and then like three other things, I forget what they were, time, money, time and my relationship with others. OK, so let's just talk about the money for a second, if you don't mind. So I don't mind. OK, so I don't know where it comes from, but we think of maybe making too much money or wanting to make money or wealth or all of that in in a, in a it's like a dirty word. And I don't know where it comes from. I don't know how we get it. So maybe you can if you've dealt with this with clients and even dealt with over time.   Joe: Ok, so let's pick that apart, because I think that's a big that's a big thing. And and I'm interested in knowing who would come to you and need that sort of help. And I would assume pretty much everybody, because we all seem to have problems.   Joe: Everyone's got funny money stories. Yeah. So Zoom story around money.   Joe: So I'm going shut up and let you talk about what you do with that sort of thing.   Kristina: Yeah. And you're good. That's that's awesome. There's two things I'd say to that.   Kristina: One, I've picked up a new saying recently that I learned from a new friend of mine named Glen. And he he has spoken of this this phrase that I is part of my toolbox. Now, if you don't know why you believe what you believe, those aren't your beliefs.   Kristina: If you don't know why you believe what you believe, those aren't your beliefs. And so often we pick up things from our families and things from culture and things from society that we feel we should believe that we take on into our beingness. And things like money is money is bad or money is dirty. Or if I especially for healers and people in the space of healing that if I charge or if I charge a certain amount now I'm just manipulating people. Now I'm just taking advantage. That's a really common belief set of if I'm going to do this, I should just give it away and do it for free. Well, when when people are in the healing profession, what I say a lot of times is you do a disservice to people when you don't get them to put their money where their mouth is because they won't show up the same way. If you and you can think about the times that you pay for something versus go to a free event, if it's a free event, you think it's not a big deal if I don't show up. But if you pay for it, you're going to be in that seat or on that call or in that conversation because you've paid for it. You want to get what you paid for. So it's that there's a transaction that happens in that. And when people are very relationally based, they don't want to mix the transaction into it. It feels awkward. It feels awkward because it goes against a lot of the belief systems that are one of the pillars for that category of people.   Kristina: There's nothing wrong with it, just identifying that it's a blind spot and it's something that's keeping you stuck. So I see wealth as a five point star and I see wealth as spiritual, emotional, mental, physical and financial. And if your financial health is out of whack, it's going to send off bells for your wellness. Because when you're doing something that is a paid service, that when one exercise I use with clients all the time, that seems to be helpful, which is good because I love it. I love using it. So I'm glad it helps them. Think about the last time you paid for something that you loved paying for, whether it was a massage or a plane ticket somewhere or an experience or a coach, whatever that thing was. I loved being able to pay my coach. I loved being able pay to go to Wisdom 2.0, even though it was several hundred dollars. So and there's other events that I've been to that have been much more than that. And and I was so grateful to do that. Well, if if you've done a lot of things that you were regretful of, that may be impacting your own money story. And most of the beliefs that we form happened around seven to ten or somewhere in there, because that's when as children, that's when we start to identify that we are separate from the world around us at seven years old.   Kristina: And so we start identifying what we need to do and what we need to say to be part of our communities and get connection because it's a natural ingrained human need to connect with other people. So we do things that. Leave us feeling connected if we come from a family like I came from a family that didn't that was incredibly judgmental of people that were really wealthy and felt that it was they were vapid and all these different things. So it's so for me, it was difficult to address the money story because I felt the same way that a lot of people that are healers who come to me feel. I have felt that I've stood in that place and there was a switch that happened where I went, Oh. In order to get their full commitment in the work we're doing and then be committed to themselves, they have to make this investment. It's a high quality investment. And I had a client say that to me in the last year. I said, what made you decide to invest in coaching specifically with me? And he said, you're high quality. And I wanted a high quality investment as well. But then I put that I backed it up. I it was it's not about me. So even though that feels good, like I just rub it all over my ego, it's at the same time it wasn't about me. It was about this person making a budget for something that was for them.   Kristina: Most people don't have a budget for coaching or personal growth, so it comes out of something else. They have a budget for their car, for their house, for their bills, for their kids. But they don't create a budget for them. And the core of everything that I do is self-love and and being in alignment with yourself so that every choice you make, every action take is based on this alignment with self-love and self-respect and self esteem. And if you're out of whack inside, you're going to make choices that are out of whack and you're going to see it reflected back to you and your environment. You're going to have a breakdown in relationship breakdown, in communication, breakdown in your money. There's going to be something that is not working. And that's how you know. But Breakdown is the predecessor to break through. So when you're able to look at that from a place of non judgment or just be aware that you're judging the crap out of it, either one works. But be curious about what's happening. Like, ha, I'm trying to do this outcome. But the key word is trying because it's not happening. I'm not having this outcome yet and I'm not being this outcome and I'm here and I want to get there. So how do I close that gap? And the gap is in baby steps. Baby steps are still steps. And there's a great quote by Luisa.   Kristina: That says a thousand mile journey begins with a single step, and so when it comes to reprogramming ourselves and looking at new belief systems and taking on a new way of being, it's a collection of small steps that we've taken.   Kristina: And a lot of times when people are addressing something large, like how they relate to money, which is a large thing, they they think, oh, if I if I change my beliefs, it's all going to work out. Right. Well, you can change how you think, but then you have to put it into action. You have to practice it. You have to fall down many times and done is better than perfect. So you you. Take on a new belief and replace a new belief, you start trying it out, testing it out and see what works and what doesn't and observe yourself. And so in talking about money, the other thing is that people can go the opposite where they charge a vast amount of money, make a lot of money, but it's not fulfilling because they're, again, not in alignment. So they're using someone else's system or they're doing it in a certain way that maybe does killing people or does do something that's just out of alignment with what's true. And so they're making a lot, but they're unhappy because that happens to people can be wildly financially successful, but their relationships are falling apart or they're they're not in a good relationship with their children or their partner or their friends. And so they're running this racket of their life that looks like they're successful, but they're not because their relationships are a shambles. So in order to be truly wealthy, you really have to have all five points. That's a really big, long answer.   Joe: No, no, it's it's great. And. I think you hit a good point, because we hear so much these days, the conversation is mindset, right? And it's mindset. It's asking the universe and letting the universe know that these are the things that you want and then stacking on top of that. Telling the universe, thank you, I'm grateful for what you did deliver, and so the more you're grateful about those things, the more those things will come your way.   Joe: So I know all of this sounds fufu, but lately I've been really trying super, super hard to change my mindset about stuff. And I've always been grateful. I've never had a problem with being grateful about stuff. I mean, you drive by a homeless person and I come home at night and go, oh, God, I get to sleep in a bed and I have a roof over my head and I can go to a refrigerator and pull out food when I'm hungry. And so all of those things go through my mind all the time.   Joe: And by no means am I in any sort of financial distress. I make a great living and I'm happy. My ultimate goal would never to even be thinking about money like I have enough of it that I just don't ever have to think about it. That is kind of like this pie in the sky for me, where not only do I have enough or I don't, but what is enough? I that's right. It's a relative term. Yeah. So I don't that's, that's not a good term but. I never want to think financial freedom. Yeah, I just never want to think about it. That would be awesome to be able to have that amount of money, to not think about it and be to help family and friends and then charities and all of those really cool things.   Kristina: So when it comes to when it comes to that kind of financial freedom, there's there's a line between. A couple of things that you mentioned, there are certain weak words that we have a vibrational words, but then there are ones like hoping, wishing and wanting. And if you're hoping for something, you're just going to get more hoping. If you're wishing for something, you're going to get more wish. If you're wanting something, you're going to get more need and wanting. So the mind set piece is absolutely there. The key is to not end up in a place of denial and to be aware of where you currently stand in your financial status. What are you doing? What are your current behaviors? Taking inventory of that. And when it comes to mindset mixed in with that. There's one phrase that totally drives me crazy. And people say all the time positive vibes only. And they say that in context to a lot of things. But it can be around money to positive vibes only. And what it does is it's a toxic positivity, as though you're not supposed to talk about at all the things that are challenging for you. The key is to absolutely talk about the things that are challenging for you and do not stay there, recognize that's where you are and that's what's happening and that's what you're doing. And that a part of you is created the reality that surrounds you without turning that into total blame and shame storm.   Kristina: And so recognizing where you're at and then being able to go. OK, so what do I need to add, remove or transform in order to get maybe what are my liabilities and what are my assets? What do I currently have outgoing and what do I have incoming. Where is their block? Is it my my management of money that it just can't I just can't hold on to it, or is it my ability to generate. Am I having a problem generating or is it not having work like am I, am I having problems working with people and I'm changing jobs all the time. Like what is it, what, what are some of the bottlenecks that are keeping me small and keeping me hold back and what am I afraid of? So if you start and that's what ontology is all about, is looking at what are the best questions to ask to move this from judgment? Because judgment is a brick wall. It's just this is the it's a right and wrong thinking, black and white thinking that keeps you stuck in an old pattern. But if you can transform that into curiosity without asking yourself the right questions, you can start to move that energy in a way that is more playful and fun, even if it's a hard topic.   Joe: We talk about mindset, but you made a really good point is that it's not just mindset, but it's action.   Kristina: You can sit here all day long and think of all unicorns and rainbows, but unless you do something and put one foot in front of the other, it's never going to never going to materialize. Right. So that's the other key point. You people sit around and think happy thoughts and. Absolutely. Yeah. What are the type of people that come to you and want to work with you?   Kristina: It tends to be creative leaders, OK? People that come to me tend to be creative leaders and creative entrepreneurs that are either running a team in their company or just background is in sales and business development. So I understand that realm and now I apply it to what's happening internally and how do we get into action, because if you really want to simplify it, the key points that I always hit on with people are what are your beliefs? What are your intentions? So what's in the past? Where do you want to go and what are the actions that we're taking to close that gap? And that's that processes with every growth mindset rather than fixed in the way of being lifelong students and learners. And they're curious on how they get to their next big leap and their next level and how they can live into their zone of genius. And so my job is that if I see people as balls of yarn and it's a matter of teasing away the yarn that is covering up the beautiful sculpture underneath, and once we can tease all of that out, now you get to operate from your truth and from who you really are and what lights you up. And it means you're going to risk you're going to risk being seen. You're going to risk showing up. And there'll be days that you have to be disciplined in the actions that you take and the movements that you make so that you can close that gap because it won't just happen to you. It's in co created relationship with you and the world around you.   Joe: So if someone was to pick. A coach, and they say that most people just think when they when someone says to them, hey, you should be you should be being coached by someone, you need a business coach. Right? You need a personal coach. You need something. How do people choose? The type of coach that they would work with, you specialize in something, the work that you do, it's just you're not a generic coach, right? So how do people understand that they need to come to you as opposed to just picking a business coach?   Kristina: Yeah, that's a great question. OK. Always when I'm trying to.   Kristina: Yes, it's a great question and it's always when I'm trying, I work with a lot of creative people that have a lot of tricks to go with the things. They're high performers. They've had successes before. So they know what that feels like. They have that historical data that we can we can push on for future endeavors and a set of tools that they've already built that I can help them apply that to other arenas. So to distinguish who I am, since a lot of people don't know what a what ontology is or what an ontological coaches' that helps you really get in on your performance. So if you know where you're going and you have a clear vision of what that is, what you're trying to identify, what the steps are to get there. I'm not. My job is to not be the expert of you. Your job is to be the expert of you. So I'm just reminding you that you're the expert of you and your life and we're just teasing it out and going, OK, what works? What doesn't, what works, what doesn't, what works, what doesn't? Where where is your zone of genius and where is it not? Where is the inspiration and where is the obligation and how do we identify the differences of those things? Because people come to me for a whole host of different reasons. Then life shows up.   Kristina: When you have a very specific coach that is niched, they don't always operate at all the speeds. So they they're very good at maybe writing a business plan or doing the business stuff. But then if you have a breakdown in your relationship, they can't they can't support you. They're wanting someone that could operate at those levels and could move with me because I move in all those different arenas because I'm a human being. Last I checked, all of those things happen at this time. So I. So when I work with someone, I work with the whole human being. And we work on their business. We work on their relationships. We work on how they're relating to their lobby, because when that is in alignment, anything is possible. The rest, you can go find someone to help you with a business coach. If you want to be more specific, if you need someone that's just working on energy work and you want to go find an energy coach or an energy intuitive, you could do that. If you need a naturopathic doctor, you go find that. So those are definitely niching into specialties, but mine is the whole human being in front of me. And how do we get you solid so that no matter what you're approaching, you have a regex into the world? That's my my every so and my Zoom genius.   Joe: You help. Anyone that is completely confused about their purpose. Does that ever come into play in what you do?   Kristina: I can support people in that, but I typically don't bring those on its clients because it's it's a long road and there are coaches that work with that. More specifically, I I want people that know their vision and know where they want to go. They're just having trouble identifying what the next steps are. That's because that's my my lane, that's my zone of genius. So I can support people with answers or questions or exploring it here and there, but I usually don't bring them on as a long term client. Perfect.   Joe: That makes sense. And that's what's cool is that you have a lane and you stay in it. And that's what makes your coaching so good, is that you're not trying to be everything to everybody.   Kristina: Right. And I think sometimes people, they think they don't know what their vision is actually. Do they just have multiple visions and they're not sure which one to focus on. So it's actually pretty rare to find people that are floundering and don't know what their vision is. Those people don't tend to gravitate to me because they're looking for an external answer of someone to fill a void in them. And I will not speak to someone smallness. I will only speak to their greatness. So if they they learn pretty quickly that if that's something that's offensive to them, they don't want to hang around me, I won't reinforce someone's smallness. That's perfect.   Joe: So there are three things that you brought up earlier. It was the financial, the time and personal right. Relationships, relationships. OK, so we talked about financial. What about time?   Kristina: So when it comes to time, people are either overly rigid or always late and then there's everything in between. But I used to very frequently fall into the always late category and and it was to keep it PG for people watching. My coach said to me, when you're always late, you're either flew to the other person or a few to yourself. And it was so shocking to my system for him to put it in that kind of. So that's how it's being, how it's showing up. I need to look at my relationship to that. And what I was doing was I was overcommitting to so many things. I was missing things all the time and or I was getting too absorbed in one thing and then being late to something as I am surrounded by a lot of people that take their time really seriously. And they're they're very integrity with their time. And if I was late to them, it was offensive. And that's understandable because now I'm on the opposite end and I could notice myself feeling that if people are late for me or they miss a scheduled time and they've blocked time on my calendar, it's super disrespectful. And when you take responsibility for your beingness in time and space and how you're showing up, it changes the game. And it's and I say that in. Whenever I say changing the game, I just what I'm really saying is it changes the full context and how you relate to the world and when you're clean in how you operate in time, you start attracting other people that are clean and how they operate in their time and their own integrity. So if they say they're going to be there, they show up and they're there. If they say they can't, then they are. If they're if they can't, they say they can't. So you start operating at a much higher vibration where people are true to their word and being whole and complete in who you're being, which is taking full accountability for your behavior and your actions.   Joe: Perfect and loved how you explain that. Perfect. So the other piece is relationship awesome. Yeah.   Kristina: Relationship in the context of the people and the things that we're committed to. So not just relationship like an intimate relationship, but it's it's really it's too thick. Two different things that people run into all the time, their relationships, their actual relationships with other people and then their commitments to different things. And all of these these four things, money, time, commitments and relationships, they all bleed into one another. And if you're out of integrity or if you're in break down in your relationships, it's likely going to affect your time and your money. If you're out of integrity and your money, it's going to affect your relationships or your other commitments. So when it comes to relationships, recognizing your impact on other people. So, for example, in a clubhouse room, if someone comes in to they come on to speak on a stage, but they're going to the moderators are going in order.   Kristina: And that person launches into say something, say, hey, can I just jump in? And they don't wait for an answer. And then they launch into a 15 minute story. It's impactful on the rest of the room. And now you're you're you're basically saying, I don't care what anyone else has to say. I only care about what I have to say and the sound of my own voice, because you didn't even wait to find out if that's OK. So noticing in your impact on other people around you is what I what I'm usually referred to when I say relationships.   Joe: Yeah, there's a lot of that going on. Yes. Yes. So is there anything that I miss that you want to talk about?   Kristina: No, I feel pretty complete. I mean, I can I can talk all day long.   Joe: So if someone would like to work with you, how what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?   Kristina: So the easiest way is probably just go to my website, Christina Crookes, dot com, and you can book a call right on there. You can book a complimentary coaching call and experience what that's like. And you can iman all the social media platforms. They can send me a message that way. So find me on Facebook and send me something through messenger. You can find me on Instagram and send me a message that way. But the easiest is to get on my calendar and we'll have a conversation and talk further about what's what's happening. OK, perfect.   Joe: I appreciate you being here with me today. And it was fun for me to learn more about what you do. And I hope that you continue to change lives with your coaching and help people get through various stages in their life. And I guess the key is to love themselves to self-love is super important. I think we're finding that more and more each day. So I appreciate your work on that. Totally. Thank you. Kristina Crooks, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I appreciate you. Glad I met you. And Clubhouse, we will continue our conversations there. It would be awesome to have another conversation, but thank you again for being on the podcast. Thank you.

The Joe Costello Show
Jotham S. Stein

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2021 55:43


A conversation with the principal of Jotham S. Stein P.C. about his recent book called "Even CEOs Get Fired". This is an easy read for any entrepreneur, C-Suite executive or investor on the tips and tricks in today's high stakes business world. It's probably safe to say that most people who want to make sure they are protected in their work environment whether you're the CEO or you work for a company, should definitely read this book! Enjoy this very educational conversation with Jotham Stein. Thank you for listening! Enjoy, Joe Jotham S. Stein Principal - Law Offices of Jotham Stein P.C. Website: https://jotham.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jothamstein/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jotham.stein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jotham-s-stein-7b92474/ 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: Jotham Stein, welcome so much, I'm glad you join me on the podcast. I'm looking forward to this. I don't do a lot of things that dig deep into legal conversation. So this is going to be very educational for me and I know for my audience as well. So thank you so much for joining me.   Jotham: Thanks for having me on your show, Joe.   Joe: Yeah, absolutely, so we're going to definitely talk about your new book, which is ""Even CEOs Get Fired"", which is very interesting because I've been a CEO my whole life. So it's kind of scary to think about that I would get fired from my own company first, get a little back story about you from the interviews that I heard. I know that you and I are both New Yorkers. So I grew up a couple hours north of New York City. And you grew up on Long Island. If I if I remember correctly.   Jotham: That's true. I'm proud graduate of high school, Syosset, Long Island, New York City, Nassau County, sort of almost all the way to something closer to north and south shore, but pretty much in the middle.   Joe: And do you still get back there or you're not there, right? Do you live in California now?   Jotham: Yes, I live in Half Moon Bay, California, three blocks from the beach, so when I was growing up in high school, I used to love to go to the beach. That's where you go, you know, all the time in Jones Beach Those   Joe: Yes.   Jotham: Beaches, even Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island, you go there, too. Now, I live three blocks from the Pacific Ocean and   Joe: That's   Jotham: Happened back.   Joe: That's awesome. I saw a kiss at Jones Beach. Of all Kiss and Aerosmith all in one night.   Jotham: In one night, wow,   Joe: One.   Jotham: I think you have the theater there, like in the bay. Oh,   Joe: Yeah,   Jotham: That's cool.   Joe: And I where I went to college, I went to New York State University and pretty much the entire university was Long Island resident. So I have a bunch of friends that live out a lot. So it's near and dear to my heart. Can you give me a little back story about you, like how you decided to get into law? You know, just I like my audience to know who you are, and we just don't launch into, like, who you are. Now, it's interesting to know the person and then we get into what's going on today.   Jotham: So after high school, I went to college at Princeton in New Jersey, and I was actually interested in public policy. So one of the things people are interested in public policy do is they go to law school. So I wound up I never really been to California only one time in my life. So I was fortunate enough. I applied to California schools, got into Stanford and and went to law school at Stanford, which is right in Silicon Valley, as it turns out. So I got out of Stanford and I went to work for the big Silicon Valley law firm for two years. You know, the firm that probably I think started Apple are famous in this area. Not that I have anything to do with Apple, but but I went to work for that law firm for a couple of years and then left and traveled the world. I hitchhiked around quite a bit. I've been in quite a few countries and that I eventually hung out my own shingle in Silicon Valley and people knew that I was. I started out in litigation, meaning when people are individuals or companies to each other. But after a while, a lot of the local lawyers figured out that that I could probably write a contract to protect people as best you can from getting into lawsuits.   Jotham: So that's how it started. And eventually, I'm an entrepreneur myself, so I like meeting a lot of entrepreneurs and executives of people. So I'm a lawyer that has a lot of people as clients, real people that have different issues. And so I like meeting them at all that show. When you start doing a good job with one entrepreneur, they refer you to other entrepreneurs. Lawyers refer you to other entrepreneurs. I ran an advertisement I talk about in my book, "Even CEOs Get Fired", which is sort of named after an advertisement ran 20 odd years ago and no longer existent magazine called Red Herring, which in those days was the hot Silicon Valley magazine. And it was titled "Even CEOs Get Fired". And you would not believe who called me off this advertisement because people have all sorts of problems at employment at every level. My book is for everybody from the entry level individual to the mid-level manager to the CEO. And all those people called me off that Ed. And and one thing led to another. And here I am. Now, I, I know a lot about protecting executives, entrepreneurs, mid-level employees, starting out employees, somebody with a new business and so forth. So that's that's the background.   Joe: Perfect. And so I notice that you have not one, but three officers   Jotham: I   Joe: Said true.   Jotham: Do. That is true.   Joe: How?   Jotham: How do you get to ask me how I wind up having three offices? So.   Joe: Well, because it's like I know even when you were with David Meltzer on that interview, it's like, why? What was the first thing that came to your mind when you said, hey, I'm going to break out on my own, get out of the safety net of working at a firm? Right. You don't have to think about much of anything but what you're responsible to do. But then you break out you open up not only one office, but you have three offices. So I was looking going, OK, man, he really went for.   Jotham: So that's the story of those offices, of course, that my longtime office has always been in Silicon Valley, in Palo Alto, although these days with covid you can work anywhere, we could work anywhere anyway when you represent as entrepreneurs do not care where you are in the world, as long as you're giving them excellent advice. And many of them won't even come to visit me in my Palo Alto office because time is money. They'd rather be doing whatever they're good at with the mobile games, whether it's by a pharmacy, but it's a Wi-Fi, whether it's security, whatever they're great at, they don't want to come visit their lawyer maybe once. So I could really work anywhere. But I had an office and I now have an office in Chicago land outside the Chicago suburbs, in part because I live there. And I can say that living near Lake Michigan in that area and those lakes out there is not the same as living by the ocean. We grow up along Long Island by the ocean, and it has to smell like salt. So I now moved back to California and I have an office in New York on Long Island as well. And that's actually because you're supposed to have an office in New York if your practice law in New York, and I'm licensed in New York, in Illinois and in California, Colorado and the District of Columbia. So that's   Joe: Perfect.   Jotham: How got.   Joe: All right, well, good. Can I can I break down what your firm and what you do, like what's the specialty before we get into talking more about the book?   Jotham: Look, the thing is, it's going to really help you, you know, the CEO, but it's also a breezy read. This is easy to read in the story. In the book, about 40 percent of the book is there. Fifty nine stories there that are fictional. They're the repetitive stories of genres of stories that happen, but they're not any specific story that made them up actually to Peet's Coffee in Half Moon Bay here. I wrote the I wrote all of those there. And so you might find out, hey, that happened to me or or it happened to somebody. I know. But it's because it's a kind of repetitive story that happened. So it'll be a really easy read for you. You can read it on a plane, you can read it on a train, you can read it at your house, you can read it on the beach or wherever, or you can read it, you know, looking for very straightforward advice about how to negotiate a contract and how to protect yourself.   Joe: I think it gets confusing with people who don't understand the law and don't understand when they might need an attorney and when they don't. What would you say if you had to put down the bullet points of what your firm does? What do you specialize in? So if somebody said, hey, they hear this and then they eventually see this YouTube video, they say that's one of those is exactly what I need. And they reach out to your firm. So it'd be nice if we knew exactly what you could help a CEO with or someone who is working for a company at a high level, at sea level position, any of that.   Jotham: So the first thing I have to do is be technical here and say that in California, you can't say you specialize in something, you have to say focus on it. That's some ethical obligation. So I don't want to mess it up for anybody who's from California listening to this. So what we focus on, I guess, is I've got I've got to turn that question around on you just to say that sorry about that,   Joe: No,   Jotham: Because,   Joe: That's perfect.   Jotham: You know, every every state has their own bloody rules. And so I pay attention to them 100 percent. And so I want to make sure it's focused. So what we do is what if you want one word is we help individual, whether they're the whoever they are, to protect themselves in the employment and personal relationships. So it could be a relationship with your boss, could be a relationship with your company, could be a relationship with your investors. That's typically what we do. So and we represent actually in their individual world, we even represent investors, professional investors like private equity partners, a private equity companies. Those are the venture capital or venture capitalists. We represent venture capitalists typically in their own deals. So when they're protecting themselves, when they're doing deals with other venture capitalists, for example, so with a CEO, for example, we would give us their contracts and they say, well, we should should we sign this? And I said, well, are you protected? Are you protected in your severance? Do you have a profession, what we call a professional prenuptial agreement, which is nothing more than a severance agreement negotiated on day one. So for the executive, that may be, you know, severance and equity protection may be protection for COBRA payments down the road for an individual like an engineer just starting out if they have any leverage at all. And honestly, many don't. But if they do a one line sentence, if you fire me without cause you've asked me six months of stock and and you pay me three months of pay, for example. And so that's what we do. Those kinds of contracts can be not just employment like you're thinking about, but they could be equity contracts.   Jotham: So how not to for an entrepreneur, how not to get screwed by your own investors for yourself. It's your own company. Let's say let's just say you taken capital invested. You have an investor, right? So they invest in your company. Suddenly they have 20 percent of the company, suddenly have 30 percent of your company. How do you, Joe, as a CEO, protect yourself vis a vis those investors? Now, like I said, sometimes those investors, the professional investors come to us because they want to be protected against their own investors when they do a deal. So with their own investors. So what they are doing is becoming limited. They're becoming general partners or having some sort of arrangement. So we review contracts and give straightforward advice about how to protect yourself and honestly what the risks are if you don't, because people and businesses take risks all the time. You as a CEO have to be taking risks in your business. So you need to be fully informed about that. And so that's what we do on the individual level. We do represent companies as well. And we are some of our CEO clients have have us, for example, representing their company because they thought we did a good job for them individually. So we do a lot of that also on the separation side, too, and I've described the employment side, protecting, protecting the CEO, like your question was on the front end. But the back end is we helped negotiate separation agreements all the time so that somebody has sort of a smooth landing and can then professional reincarnate themselves.   Joe: So I used to share office space with a what are called a placement agency. They were finding jobs for people   Jotham: Brian.   Joe: And some of these jobs would be at a high level and   Jotham: Right.   Joe: Really look fairly large salaries if the negotiation of that employment is is carried through the placement agency with the people at the company that are hiring and all of that stuff gets done. How can someone fit in, someone like you or your firm in the middle of that negotiation and make sure before anything gets signed and they get employed that they've been taking care of?   Jotham: So   Joe: That's   Jotham: If   Joe: Kind of tricky, right? It's it's.   Jotham: It's very tricky because the employment agency is working for the company and the employment agency typically gets paid only when the person is place, so the employment agency has a very that's not always true. Some employment agencies get paid straight salary or commission or something. That's not per person. They're just given a job or a project. But often they only they only succeed if they place the person. All right. So if you're talking on a lower level of employee going into the company, they often don't want to take the risk of going to get a lawyer because I could create a real problem, frankly, in getting their job. If you're talking about a senior executive being placed by an agency that is there, the really best placement agencies that really care about their clients that they're placing, even though they represent the company, will say go get a lawyer, but almost all of them do not even at the highest level. So it's incumbent on the on the on the executive, whoever they are, or entrepreneur. But in this case, employment agency is going to be executive to go and to say get get their lawyer. So once they get a lawyer involved, then the employment agency sort of out on the outside and some liaison between the executive and the company and using us often as shadow counsel. So we don't even appear until the end to work on the contract. But, you know, if you're going into if you're a senior senior level person, you want to know what your downside risks are, what your recommendations are from from somebody who's seen it hundreds and hundreds of times, maybe a thousand times before. So.   Joe: For someone who's listening to this, that is at that level that hasn't thought about that, step back for a moment. Take what you've been offered. Find someone like your law firm and say, I need you to review this contract to make sure it's in my best interests so that once I sign, I'm being taken care of all in there. And I have some sort of exit strategy that makes sense. That's fair on the way out.   Jotham: Absolutely, 100 percent, I couldn't have said it better myself,   Joe: Well,   Jotham: So,   Joe: I'm learning already.   Jotham: Yeah, it's great you're learning and it's just to maximize the return, the person   Joe: Right.   Jotham: That's listening to the podcast. So they want to maximize their return. Why in the world would they sign a contract without being fully informed? And the only way to be fully informed is to come to someone like myself who's done it hundreds of times. I can tell you we've had the most shrewd executives, some that have been so successful in their lives, and they come to us after they get screwed and they say, well, what happened? And I say, well, if you talk with me before you sign the contract, either you wouldn't have negotiated this and you would have protected yourself or you would have said, you know, Jotham, thank you very much for that great advice. I'm going to take the risk. I hope I don't call you to tell me to tell me meaning, Jotham,   Joe: All   Jotham: The person   Joe: Right, I told,   Jotham: That you told me so.   Joe: Right, exactly. Let's take me, for example, as a CEO of a company and like I had mentioned, I have I have had three or four companies up till now. Do you if what I ever come to you and say, I need help protecting my personal assets, I need some way for you to look at my business and look at my personal assets to make sure that as as an LLC, which I am an LLC with an escort on the tax side in my protecting myself, is that another thing that you would help someone do or that's just different? That's a different.   Jotham: That's actually a complicated question, so I certainly read the operating agreement because many, many people start it depends on how you're asking the question of it's called context dependent. If you're asking me how can I set up a corporate formation that I'll best protect myself with trusts and estates, I'm not the person to do trust estates. Right. We send that out to lawyers we know all the time. That's a special area if you want to set up. Like I said, I trust the estate and lawyers in the legal world. They call that trust the state's law. If you come to me and say, how best can I protect myself in the corporate world by setting up an LLC, we certainly could set up an LLC have done that. We also work with other firms or give advice all the time to our entrepreneurial clients. I mean, I'm like a secretary or just just have been secretaries of companies before for our clients. But we might work with with another law firm if, for example, they had doing a sophisticated security transaction by selling stock or something. But so we could we give advice on that. And at some point we'll stop and say, no, you need somebody else.   Jotham: If you're if you're talking about how you Joe, who has an LLC, can protect yourself vis a vis other investors or vis a vis partners, you might have strategic strategic partners or even vendors or contractors. Yes, we do that all the time. Then you would come to me. So basically we have client exactly like you're describing somebody who just starts a business. There's a bit of serial entrepreneur and they get most of their advice from us and we say, no, we're not giving you advice. For example, tax law. I never give advice on tax write. I know the lawyers who give the advice, but and I recommend our clients that to that. But I have I have clients who want me to give them advice on tax law. And I'm like, absolutely not. Let me let me let me tell you where to go. And, you know, most most people who are in business and and are will say, OK, well, my lawyer's telling me he's not the right person. We find them the right person. That's just an example. So your question sort of involved a number of possibilities. And   Joe: Sure.   Jotham: Without knowing the facts, I can't really answer 100 percent, but.   Joe: Yeah, and I'm just trying to drive to the fact that if I was listening, like I listen to a podcast of the chat and things will pop out during an episode where I'll say, oh, that is something I've been thinking about or something I to get an answer for. So I'm trying to make sure that everyone knows who's listening to this and eventually will watch it, know the things that you can do for them in case something pops up. I'm trying to ask the questions that if I was listening to this, I wonder if he can do this for me. It's that kind of thing. I'm just trying to make sure that if there's something you can do, I want people to know you can do it for them.   Jotham: Oh, yeah, I mean, you want to start a business, we knew that you want to get investment, we protect you, you want to do employment, work on any level, we could help you protect yourself. You got a strange sort of possibility for your next job, for your next business deal. You come to us, we give you straightforward advice, and that's really the key. And we give great business advice as well as great legal advice. And you'll see if when you read the book, "Even CEOs Get Fired" half of our work. Is that so? In other words, since we've seen so many different possibilities, people in the gym don't not going to see that the hair on my head on your YouTube channel. But but I've seen all these all so many different possibilities that go right in that go wrong. And sometimes they go right. The person's thirty third business, they say, oh, business one, that business do they reincarnate and they and they maximize their returns and they make it on the third go. But we have lots of people sitting there doing that on the bikes or in the gym and maybe on the rowing machine.   Jotham: A row or so do rowing machines, you know, just because it's they've succeeded twice before and they're going to their third job doesn't mean that they don't have tremendous pitfalls in their deal, whether it's their equity deal or whether it's their employment deal, whatever the deal is, whether it's a deal to to have your perks, for example, cars, for example, to drive around, it doesn't mean that because you've been OK the first two times, there isn't some gigantic problem that might rear its ugly head the third time around. So if you're going in as an entrepreneur to a company or starting a company or as your executive or anybody with leverage in employment, it's always a question. Do you spend money on a lawyer? But if you want to protect yourself or want to see what your downside risks are, want to be fully informed. I want to have either the opportunity to maximise your personal returns, whatever they are, or know that you're taking risks in that attempt to maximize them. You would come to me or my law firm or or a lawyer who does similar type work wherever that person lives.   Joe: Great. OK, so to lighten things up a little bit,   Jotham: Ok, it's.   Joe: So I thought about this when I heard you talk about there's fifty nine fictional stories there, actually there are real circumstances, but you've you've obviously protected the people by not naming names and naming companies or whatever. Right. So is that what you mean by those fifty nine. These are actual things that occurred, but you just created them to not name companies or names or anything specific.   Jotham: More like they're not they're not individual to any individual story, I've had it just happen so many times over and over again. And so it's like, OK, I get something that happens. An entrepreneur walks in and I'm like, OK, this is like 16 other times it's happened. It's new to the entrepreneur, but to me it's happened a lot of times before. So that's what I mean by it's fictional, but it's based on my experience. So I literally wrote them at a Peet's Coffee. Right. And so, I mean, let me take one, for example.   Joe: I was going to ask I said I was going to put you on the spot, say I love story, so I need you to tell us why.   Jotham: Ok, so there's one in my book, I actually spoke just briefly about it with David Meltzer. It's one I like. OK, here's a perfect example. There's a very successful woman as a number two at the company. Essentially, she is also a biathlete. So I like athletics. I never did biathlon, but it's people who do cross-country skiing and shoot at targets. Right. OK, she's very successful. She has a doctor. She is a doctor. But like some doctors that you never think about, they go into business. Right? All these biopharma companies, a lot of these are ends. They never actually practiced. But I got clients who I have clients who are MDs at practice and those that never practice. They get their degree and they go right into business. So this this character goes into business. And her CEO, she's doing really well after four years of this company and her CEO gets changed out the prior CEOs to lead. This happens all the time. New CEO comes in and this character is as good, as honest as the day is long. And the new CEO wants a yes person.   Jotham: So, you know, yes man, a yes woman. And she is not a woman at all. And so he decides he's going to push her out. OK, this happens all the time. So he makes her life miserable. But being a biathlete who's well trained, she's she's able to stays there and continues to work like we see so many of our executives and entrepreneurs, they think because they work harder and they do a better job, that the board and the CEO are going to somehow like them more. And that's not the way it works. If somebody who wants a yes person wants to get rid of you so or in a different world, very similar corollary genre. A new CEO comes in, wants to bring in their old team. They're going to fire people below them. And the literature is actually you should do it within 60 or 90 days. So it doesn't matter how good those people are. Anyway, she's a straight shooter. That's what I say in the story, right? She's a straight shooter at two hundred yard   Joe: Right.   Jotham: Shooting a rifle and she's a straight shooter. The CEO and the CEO finally can't take it anymore. And he fires her. He gets the board to approve the board votes. Five, nothing to fire after nine months. Maybe it's maybe I don't even my story. Right. Maybe it's ten months. Maybe it's seven months. But it's something like that.   Joe: Ok.   Jotham: This happens all the time. I've never had a biathlete as a client. I've always admired biathletes when I watch them on TV. I did spend time in Lake Placid while I was doing Lugt, a different sport   Joe: Oh, nice.   Jotham: So I could talk about that anyway. So what's the story? So this thing's all made up, but what happens after she's now out? She gets a severance agreement, she leaves, she's at the firing range, practicing at two hundred yards and she gets a text. Who's getting a text from she's getting a text from the investor of that company who sat on the board who voted to fire her was five nothing, remember? OK, the investor says, as so often happens in Silicon Valley entrepreneurial world, the investor says essentially this is all by text now. So I'm paraphrasing my own writing. So now north of our paraphrasing what I wrote and the investor says, well, why don't you look at two of my other portfolio companies? And she text back the character, text back to the investor and says, well, I don't understand. I got a great severance agreement. You fired me. Vote was five nothing. Why are you contacting me? And he says, well, it didn't work out so well at the other company, but one of my portfolio companies here might be a better fit. OK, that's a story that's happened multiple times in Silicon Valley, multiple times in the entrepreneurial world. I have no, that's what I mean. I created them. That's a genre of a story. So I could have a client come in today after our podcast, they could tell me a similar story and I'd say, don't burn the bridges with those people sitting on the board that you all those board members almost always invest in startup, not always, but almost always back the CEO until the day they fire the CEO. But you've just been fired. You're the EVP or the SVP or the VP, whoever you are, that board member sitting there who's a shrewd investor, the only thing they care about really is all of their other portfolio companies they're taking care of. Right. And so they may call you to offer you a job. So you don't know that. So what in this story comes in in a part of the book, which I guess I should show again,   Joe: Absolutely.   Jotham: "Even CEOs Get Fired". There's a chapter on professional reincarnation. So and this happens all the time to somebody just like this character gets fired. And so they reincarnate themselves in the next job. That's a very, very, very common circumstance. I often have clients. It's a terrible separation. They're having like this particular executive I described in my story, nine months of being beaten. I mean, it's a miserable place to work. But a lot of these a lot of these people soldier on. They've always been they think that they work harder. It's going to get better and often it doesn't. And but I often tell people six months later, you're going to call me and tell me it's the best thing that ever happened to you got fired.   Joe: All   Jotham: And   Joe: Right.   Jotham: Many of them, if they have protection, you know, they. They call me six months later, they say, hey, it's the best thing that ever happened to me, I got fired to have a better job. I have a better life at home. Whatever it is, I'm doing sports more often. I'm getting paid more. I get better equity, whatever.   Joe: Right, so there was two takeaways from that story for me. One was that potentially that smart woman had you look at their contract. And so when they did finally get removed from the CEO position, they walked away with a nice severance package. It didn't have to fight to get anything. And the second thing that you mentioned was that they left in good terms, at least with the board, which showed that they could then potentially get more opportunities down the road by not having this giant blow off at the end of it.   Jotham: So the I should say with what you just said, the second one is absolutely true and there's a part in my story where I talk about burning bridges and you should and I say, listen, sometimes it's the best thing personally, mentally to burn the bridge, to strike back. OK,   Joe: Right.   Jotham: I got that. But I what I talk about in the book and what I try to tell all my clients and the people on the podcast that are listening to everything in business coldly and calculatingly, if you're going to lose your crap in somebody and you're going to start yelling at them because they fire you and you're never going to talk to them again, that's fine. And but what I say is do it coldly and calculatingly, at least understand what you're doing. So in this in this case, and what I often talk about in the book is the character did not burn their bridges. It's true. They left the first part of your what you took away was that they had come to us for a employment agreement. Actually, in this case, two things. One is they got a great separation agreement even with the person who didn't like them and forced them out. They got a good separation agreement. So they negotiated that on the back end. And the other thing I should say is, as I say in the book, I am not into stories. It's modeled after the advice I would give. But I'm not in the story because the story is totally fictional. But it's as important to get a good separation agreement and be professional on the back end as it is to get an employment agreement on the front end.   Joe: So this has been bothering me, like, why did you stop? Fifty nine and I go to sixth. Why did you go past fifty five to fifty nine?   Jotham: The truthful answer is I didn't count them up until the end, so I didn't know how many I wrote,   Joe: Ok.   Jotham: But there is there is a story there's two stories in my acknowledgments, one with a colleague who's worked with my law firm a long time. I thank her for reading many versions of the book. And I tell a story there. And once for the four people I dedicated the book to, I tell the last story in the book and that actually involves for four Long Island guy going to the beach, Jones Beach. And so it could be 60 one by.   Joe: Perfect. OK, I just it was something that I wanted to ask,   Jotham: The.   Joe: So just so with the way the world has changed it actually let me let me back up in the dotcom era. Right. But like when everything was all about equity, how   Jotham: Right.   Joe: Much has that changed now? Because I remember when that was going on, like, I literally this is going to be funny. You're going to. But when I was working for a software company before I opened my first company and I was working in New York, we were actually teaching corporations how to use a Web browser. I was literally at the beginning of the Internet. So I remember just companies starting and going come in and work with us. The pay is going to be low to nothing, but we're going to give you equity in the company. And it was just all over the place. Every company was giving shares away. Right. That's the that was that whole era of the dotcom portion of the world. How has that changed now?   Jotham: It's exactly back to the way it was   Joe: Really?   Jotham: And absolutely there are hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people running around in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Remember, I've license a license to practice multiple states. So we have clients all over the country. They want equity. It's all about an equity play. Now, having said that, there are many, many companies who don't really give equity to anybody but their senior officers. And there's many places in our country, in America, where you only get a salary. And there are many, many kinds of many salespeople who care about equity, but mostly what they want is commissions. And, for example, an uncapped commission plan would be there, their their golden golden goose. They don't want to have equity. But if you're talking about the old dotcom days, because I was there then, too. And now if there are many people whose deals is all about an equity play, they get less pay than they could on the market for whatever they're doing. They take the risks and and often, especially for those starting out, coming out of college, they may go to two or three startups which will fail. And then the fourth or fifth one is the one that gives them, you know, a tremendous upside so they can go buy their next their house or whether the house, multiple houses, whatever it is. So it's really the same as it was when you were doing that in the dotcom era.   Joe: Was was there a lull at one point after the dotcom where everyone felt so burned about equity and all of that, that for a while it wasn't even on the table or.   Jotham: I think there was a guy there was like it never went away for everybody, but yes, there was definitely a period of time when I remember the stock market was in, that was way down and there weren't so many IPOs and people wanted that was all about salary even before the start ups or upside bonus upsides. If you did a good job after a year, even though you got a lower salary. And so it did it did desire for equity and equity plays slackened? I would absolutely say that there was like a trough like this, but now it's back to the way it was in my view. And it's that way not just for the entry level person coming out of college, wants to get some equity in the company and not just for the mid-level individual who's moving from one company to another, but also all the way up to the CEOs who want more equity and and give up salary or bonuses. Now, at the largest companies that you hear about the fortune, one hundred companies, those executives are getting equity and very high. So and bonuses and what's called long term incentive plans. So it depends on where you're what you're talking about, what company context you're talking about, what region of the country. But in terms of the startups of the world, the smaller companies in the world, the equity play for everybody from from the person who takes out the garbage all the way to the CEO, it's it's it's the way it was.   Joe: That's incredible, and you would see a lot of that where you are in Palo Alto, where you're know Silicon Valley right here.   Jotham: All the time,   Joe: All   Jotham: And when   Joe: The   Jotham: You   Joe: Time.   Jotham: Think all the time and when you talk about that, if you're getting stock in a company and it means a lot to you, you better figure out or you should figure out how to protect yourself with that stock. So, for example, many times companies give out shares over four years, let's say, or five years, they vest over time. And in the first year they have what's called a cliff. So you got no stock, you don't get any stock, you know, right. To stock until the end of a year. What happens if you're fired at 11 months and 30 days just before the year the contract says you get nothing. So do you want to protect yourself against that possibility? Because that happens a lot. Right.   Joe: That's crazy. Wow. All right, so I grew up in a large Italian family that owned a restaurant business   Jotham: Ok.   Joe: And I literally I partnerships for me make me cringe. Just just the word makes me cringe.   Jotham: Right.   Joe: And and I saw my own internal family fight and I saw my my father, who has since passed by his brother, is still living. But I saw that literally just separate and not talk to each other for years and the rest of the family hating each other. So that's just the lead in to the question of partnerships. Is there a part in the book? Again, the book is "Even CEOs Get Fired". Is there a part in that book that talks about partnerships and talks about what to look for, red flags, things that that seem to always go wrong in partnerships, any of that sort of advice?   Jotham: So there is a little bit, but it does not heavily focused on partnerships because but but the teachings in the book on how to protect yourself, maximize your returns, put everything in a clear contract. That's very clear. There's two sort of parts of the Italian family having the restaurant business and then a fight among family members. OK, and and that is discussed in the book in a different way, which is, you know, make sure, you know, you're going into business with. But part of the problem is I can't protect you from a fight among man family members who are fighting for many other reasons and historical reasons. Right. I mean, they just weren't family members in the business. They had had a family history. Right. They grew up together. They had uncles and aunts and grandparents. And so that's that's a personal sort of a personal concern. Those people that's that that a lawyer can help you with, although we turn out being a psychologist all the time. So we might have been able to help. For example, somebody comes to us and this happens all the time to partners in fighting and we say, well, why are you fighting? You know, maybe it's better you break up. And before you have a fight about this, do you really want to sue each other? Because you wouldn't believe some of the lawsuits that are fought between family members of former friends. It's terrible.   Joe: Well, yeah, and I was going to say this was a push out, my father got pushed out, so this was a thing where he worked there all the help build this business his entire life. And in the end, this could happen and he got pushed out.   Jotham: So the worst part of those kinds of push ups that happens, and I'll tell you another one of my stories that repeats itself all the time, the worst problem of those stories that I hear about you're telling me about is the personal the personal suffering. Right, with getting getting kicked out of your own family business, getting stabbed in the back by your own brother or uncle. That worst part of that isn't the financial loss, although that can be terrible. The worst part is the personal loss and the personal relationships that are lost and the suffering that happens on a personal level, that sometimes people need psychologists for that to help them there rather than a lawyer. The second part of that is the financial potential loss that we could have helped to protect himself. Because if you have a contract and we've had some of these where nobody can fire the other person, contractually, you can't fire them. So they have to do a deal. Or in a typical family situation, somebody passes, you have a buy sell agreement. But imagine having a contract that we've had these with really sophisticated investors. So imagine like your manager, whoever pushed out your dad, not having the legal right to do that contract says the business is 50 50. And one or even the contract could say uncle gets 70 percent of the business. I get 30 percent of the business. But you can't fire me and you've got to keep paying me or well, if you fire me, at least you got to you've got to continue to pay me my exact same salary with a cola cost of living increase. You know, there are ways to help to make sure that it's negotiated out as opposed to a coup. Now, the story. You want to hear this story from the book.   Joe: A   Jotham: That's   Joe: Totally.   Jotham: All right there. The repetitive story that happens a lot. And again, the worst is just like your dad. The worst is the personal cost is the person who gets the entrepreneur who gets stabbed in the back and is forced out of their own business. The palace coup, the leader or not necessarily always the leader, but the person who following along, enjoying in that palace coup is a person who stood up at their wedding. And the wrongdoer is the person who stood up in the wedding. And so when the client comes to me with the story and it's happened many times, multiple times over the years, and the worst thing you feel both terrible about is the client here is now telling this story. They made a lifetime of decisions to have the wrongdoer stand up at their wedding and they believe that that person was their loyal friend. And the destruction of that friendship and and the and the new clients recognition that they got it wrong on a personal level, that's even worse than the the financial costs and the financial cost can be great. Being stabbed in the back by the person who stood up at your wedding stories only happened when money becomes involved. And the startup world, that's usually when equity suddenly becomes it goes from a penny a share and suddenly it's worth fifty dollars a share, twenty dollars a share. And by the way, unfortunately, I have to report that the wrongdoer can be a bridesmaid just as much as it can be a groomsman.   Joe: Wow. OK, so here's the question I have based on the circumstance we just talked about with my father having that business and it goes for any any business. If you start to think something's going bad, is it too late then to try to figure out a way to protect yourself?   Jotham: Maybe, but the first thing you should do if you get if you get concerned that something is going wrong is not wait around, it's go find a lawyer who knows what to do and might be able to help you. So this is something I do talk about in the book. If you get a lawyer while the things are going wrong and he or she acts as your shadow counsel, they can often help you, first of all, react in an appropriate way, in a way that protects yourself, maximize your protection while things are going downhill. But for example, in the email wars that might happen where somebody else is trying to paper file and and, you know, something's wrong, but you don't know what they're doing, you can paper that file to protect yourself. And so that's really important since actually what you just described. I've had that on my website. My my professional website, which is not the book's website, is "Even CEOs Get Fired" dotcom. So   Joe: Perfect.   Jotham: If you want to learn   Joe: I was   Jotham: More   Joe: Hoping   Jotham: About   Joe: You   Jotham: It.   Joe: Would say that.   Jotham: Yeah. Even see, it's one word, "Even CEOs Get Fired" dotcom.   Joe: Our.   Jotham: But even before that, I had a professional website being a Silicon Valley very early on and it talked about exactly what you just described as something you feel something's going wrong in business, in your job, in a relationship with an investor, whatever it is, call an experienced lawyer, not necessarily the your friend, the lawyer, not necessarily the person who did your your will or your trust, somebody who does entrepreneurial and executive law. And they've seen it before. And they can give you really good advice and you can really keep yourself from being really financially harmed if you do that.   Joe: And when something like that happens, like my my brain initially went to, OK, if I felt something was going wrong and I was in a partnership or some sort of partnership, but any circumstance where there are other people involved, because I'm lucky in my case, it's just. I don't have to deal with anything. But if I was in that circumstance, do you have to get the other party to sign? Like, if I came to you and said, listen, something's going wrong, I need to start protecting myself. We need to write up some documents. Are they not official until the other party has seen them or sign the.   Jotham: Now, you've asked me a complex question,   Joe: Good. Now, here we go.   Jotham: You could have an oral contract, right? Many   Joe: Ok.   Jotham: People have law contracts. You could have an oral contract evidence by a course of business doing business. So I really have to know more. That's something the first thing we ever do when somebody comes with a sort of a fact pattern, you just ask me is we want a full chronology of events. So if you come to a lawyer who's seen a lot of it before, they'll be able to figure out where you might have protection because you have an oral contract, for example, as one example, because the other side has it doesn't have anything in writing, even though they're trying to force you out. But I don't want to go back, if I can, to your father getting pushed out,   Joe: Mm   Jotham: If that's   Joe: Hmm.   Jotham: All right. Like,   Joe: Yeah.   Jotham: I don't know what happened. I never heard about it. So you just told me. Tell me now. But it's likely that your father groused a lot and was worried about it with his own family and didn't do what I just described, which is go find a lawyer who's shrewd and maybe unable, able to help him protect himself from the Paluska that that happened. And so it happens even in a small family business, you know, and now it's I'm going to a lawyer. You go to a lawyer and and you and you tell them the fact pattern. If they're good, they'll give you advice. And some of the advice might be, don't tell me I'm have a lawyer. Right. Just go along. You know when to disclose. You have a lawyer is it's a business decision and you want to maximize your return when you do that. So now that I went back to your father, I might have forgot what you just asked me. So   Joe: No,   Jotham: I have a question.   Joe: No, that's OK, I just I didn't you you alluded to the fact that it could be an oral contract. I didn't even know there was such a thing. I thought that in the eyes of the law, everything had to be written and signed. So I don't know what you mean by an oral agreement.   Jotham: So so OK, because you have listeners, I assume, across the country, I have to say, I'm not giving specific legal advice just so they understand   Joe: Yep.   Jotham: In every jurisdiction is different. And if you happen to live in Alaska or Louisiana, particularly Louisiana, it's really different. So, you know, if you're in North Dakota listening to this or you're in Illinois or wherever you're listening, you have to go see somebody in your own. And wherever you are, your own fancy word is jurisdiction, state, whatever. But in most places, they're an oral contract is equally as enforceable as a written contract. If two people come to a meeting of the minds literally about a contract and there's consideration and it's oral, depending on what the form of the contract is, you can have an enforceable contract. Now, they're in every state. There are certain contracts that can't be formed orally. A classic example in many places is you can't have a contract for land that's oral, but in most other places in all contract is enforceable. Is a written contract actually now a written contract is easier to sort of prove in some ways because you have it in writing. And if you ever have to go to a judge or a jury, you put that thing up on the screen and it says, look, you signed it and there it is.   Joe: Right.   Jotham: But it's equally enforceable, dependent, you know, there are always limitations on oral contracts that every state might be a little different, but absolutely. And so then there are other fancy things in the law, oral contract evidence by writing. So, you know, if you can prove it, you have an oral contract and you sent an email and that's your writing. So that might be a little different. An oral contract evidenced by a course of dealing. We always did this for the last 10 years. So that shows that we had an oral contract to always do this in the future. That's a possibility, too. So now I recommend in the in my book, even the CEOs get fired. You sign clear written agreements because that reduces your chances of getting into a fight. Right. If it's in writing and it's clear, even if the other side's a wrongdoer, you know, it's clear they're realize they're going to try to work around the clear language and and or what happens off to the business. If you have a really clear contract and they don't want you, they buy you out. The classic example being a separation agreement, they fire you, but they give you a good, good exit package.   Joe: So I had no idea so that it's a huge light bulb went off that I thought if it wasn't written and it wasn't signed, if both parties didn't sign it. Both attorneys didn't review it. It doesn't if it's not done in writing and signed, it doesn't exist. So this is.   Jotham: If you've had a meeting of the minds so so typically the kind of contract you're talking about in writing where it goes back and forth, back and forth to the lawyers and everybody, there is no meeting of the minds until the contract is signed. But, you know, now you're going to think about this. Well, have I ever had an oral contract with somebody else who might have something against me? So but yeah, sure, it could happen. So perfect. I'll give you an example. In your business, you're a CEO of your own companies. Imagine you. I don't know you. You met a successful person and you said, hey, I'll give you twenty five percent of my business if if you tell me how to increase my market share, using that as an example by by one hundred and fifty percent in the next two months. And that person then connects you that connect you with, I don't know, the great guru of market share. And suddenly in a month you've you've increased your market share by one and a half times. You might owe them 20 percent of your business as an example,   Joe: Yeah.   Jotham: Keep you from going out, making those promises.   Joe: Plower.   Jotham: So think of it this way. If you make an oral promise, you promise somebody something and they're giving you something back. I'm not talking about, you know, a family member or something, although it could be a family member. Lots of crazy disputes that way. But you promise somebody something in business and it's something to do with your business. And you say, for example, I'll give you twenty percent of my business if you do X, Y and Z. And the other person says, I agree, if I do it in the next two months, you might have an oral contract depending on what state you're in and depending on what it is you promised. Again, if you promise to to sell your property, not likely in most states, but   Joe: Right.   Jotham: If you're selling your securities 20 percent of your LLC, you might.   Joe: It's crazy, I literally it's an eye opener for me. I had no idea. So I'm glad we talked about OK, real quick, because I know I have to let you go. I wanted to ask how covid has has either as it happened with all the things that were going on and what you expect to happen once we reopen up, because, you know, there are these circumstances where people are furloughed. But what does that even mean? Like some of these people are furloughed. They're not getting paid. They have no insurance. It's just like, yeah, we might bring you back. I don't know. Legally, it doesn't seem to mean anything. What happens with people that are taking home equipment from the companies to use it to work from home? The the security of that data, it's no longer within the premises of the company, through their secured network. I mean, all of these crazy things that are going to going to open up as time goes on is is are you starting to see some of those effects or work on those types of cases or any of that sort of stuff?   Jotham: Sure, I mean, your question, we could spend another hour   Joe: I know, I know.   Jotham: Because it involved so many different things, right? I.P individuals coming back from furlough and so forth. So just as a general matter, covid obviously a lot of people working at home. And so there all those things that you just talked about are we get calls about both from the individual side and from the company side as well, because the IP sitting at home or on somebody's computer and not in the location because they're working at home, all of these things are really critical and they've happened since covid shutdown. And now what I think about coming back is some of those businesses wanting everybody back and people don't want to come back yet. So that's a big problem. On the other hand, some of the business want to keep people at home. They're like, OK, it worked really well, let's keep it at home. They don't need to be in an office lower overhead. And actually, sometimes they realize there's more efficiency at work because there aren't anybody to talk to when you're at the house. So it goes both ways. And then there are issues about how to come back from covid and what to do. So we've literally had calls and given advice on many of the things that you just discussed. And they're completely different, right? They're just issues that came up that nobody ever thought about before. I mean, they always thought about what they thought about them, but it didn't happen. Didn't happen. Like a whole country got stuck at home. And now there are all these issues. So happy to talk to you, Morna, in another podcast and we're coming to the end about it. But   Joe: Yeah.   Jotham: You just raise like so many issues. And one question.   Joe: Yeah, I know it's a it's and I was just and for the listeners, it means intellectual property says I want to make sure they understand what we're talking about, what we're talking about that. But, yeah, I'm sure it could be an hour long. Just talking about it real quick for any new laws created because of covid-19 and all of that. Have you dealt with new laws?   Jotham: Oh, yeah, there's a huge number, I mean, for example, the stimulus package that happened because of new laws, right? So there are other other laws associated with that. There's been a whole bunch. The legislatures, you know, have done done various things, but there's been three stimulus packages. That's just a one example.   Joe: Yeah, yeah, OK, perfect. Can you do me a favor and show the book again, "Even CEOs Get Fired".   Jotham: Even   Joe: It's a.   Jotham: Ceos get fired, you can get it on Amazon, so if you if you type in, "Even CEOs Get Fired", separate words like you're targeting in the words of a book, then you can get, you know, come up on Amazon right away. If you type in my name in the book, you know, do a Google search, it'll come up. The website is "Even CEOs Get Fired" dotcom. But it's one word. You have to type it all together. There's no spaces. So, yeah, like I said, I it's a really breezy read, so I recommend it to you whether you're at the beach, whether you're whether you're in the gym, like doing a bike and you want to, you know, wanted something to read while you're or something. And one of the other things at the gym or   Joe: Hmm.   Jotham: Whether you're on holiday, it will not bother you at all. Like those 59 stories. If you add the two at the end 60, what I think you really enjoy the read.   Joe: Perfect, Jotham, I really appreciate you coming on. It was a pleasure to meet you. It was a pleasure to talk about this is a subject that I have very little knowledge of. And every time I get to meet someone like you and talk about something this in depth, it makes me feel like a better CEO, even though I probably should know more about this than I do. But I appreciate it very much. I wish you all the success with the book. I really look forward to reading it.   Jotham: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on your show, Joe.   Joe: You're welcome. Thank you.

In The Garden
Host-a-Hive

In The Garden

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2021 12:13


Keith:   I want to talk to everybody today about our host of the hive program and bees in general. We've been doing this host-to-hive for two or three years. It's a perfect introduction to beekeeping. It's a way to keep bees long-term without having a hive in your backyard.[00:00:55]Some people are allergic to bees but are interested in and want to participate.  It's more and more of a struggle to keep bees alive anymore. There's colony collapse, and there are a few different insect problems, and there are few different viruses that bees get. Yet they're absolutely a must for the pollination of certain crops.[00:01:13] Many of the crops that we get at the grocery store need bees to pollinate those crops. We must keep raising bees and then keep splitting hives and maintaining the population we've got currently.  If you're thinking about keeping bees, I feel like it's important to start with two hives.[00:01:32] There are years when we have 40% losses, and commercial beekeepers, in general, will have 40% losses. So it's getting harder and harder to keep a hive. It used to be that. You can set a hive out, and you'd have an 80 or 90% success rate. Now we're closer to 50 50 success rate.[00:01:51] If you're not willing to keep two or three hives and study bees and really understand bees. Then host a hive is a there's a great program. You can paint the beehive, make it personal. And then we keep the hive, and we move them around to different nectar sources.[00:02:08]That's one of the issues with bees in North Carolina is the nectar sources are mostly in the spring and then very light in the fall. So you end up having to feed the bees in between to keep them healthy and happy. What we try to do is we'll put 12 hives on a trailer, and your bees go on vacation, basically.[00:02:27]We'll take them out to Asheville, beautiful view great nectar source. It's probably one of my favorite things about beekeeping is finding the perfect window. We have to close the bees up at night when it's cool. And then we have to make that Trek. And get there before the sun gets on the bees, and the bees are ready to fly, and it's too hot for them.[00:02:50]Tends to be by the weather last-minute scenario. You know where you've got a schedule and many things that you can control in your life. This is not one of them. So I'll look ahead at the schedule, and then I'll figure out a time. It looks like Thursday morning is going to be the time.[00:03:05] to move the bees. So we'll prep them on Wednesday night. And then I get to be chauffeured to, to Asheville. I'll jet out to Asheville, to a friend's farm. We'll set the bees up. We give them bear protection. Bears love both the larva from the bees and the honey as a protein source and sugar source.[00:03:25]We'll put an electric fence up around to protect them from the bears. And you get to spend the day in Asheville or the day in the night in Nashville. And then you. Head back. So how exactly [00:03:34] Joe: does the host of the hive program work? You're going to take the bees that I'm hosting out to Asheville, right?[00:03:41]What are the benefits for the people that are hosting the [00:03:43] Keith: hive? We have highs locally at the garden center and in various locations around the triangle. So if your hive is in Nashville and you want to see it hive open or want to participate in a hive?[00:03:56]We'll open it, we'll schedule a time, and we have you come out. You can either gear up, or you can match from a distance. Sometimes we'll do group events where we do a screen room. And pop a tent up. They can stand in the screen room, and we'll, we're suited up on the outside, and we'll open the hive up and, we'll do educational things with kids.[00:04:16] We'll show them the queen. We'll show them what brood is. Show them the difference between brood and honey in a frame. And it's a good way to get your feet wet if you wanted to keep bees down the road too. So you're slowly learning the process of opening the hive and how you go into a hive, and that smoke relaxes the bees and gets them to start gulping up honey in a kind of a survival instinct and make some really easy to work with.[00:04:41] So we'll give them a little puff of smoke. You don't have to give them a lot of smoke and then. And then open a high for the person that sponsored a hive to pull stuff out and, and then other people want to be a little bit hands-on, and we'll have a day where they can actually go into a hive and pull the frame out themselves.[00:04:56] I always say beekeeping's like putting your hand on a hot stove. It's you're not supposed to do it, but you're going to go ahead and test it. You know that glass unit. To make sure it's off, why would you do that? You've been burned before. Beekeeping is much the same. You're going to get stung.[00:05:11] It's inevitable, any beekeeper that keeps bees has been stung, we get nucleus hives, which are five complete frames with the queen, and we'll buy those in the spring and unload three or 400 of them.[00:05:23]There was a day that I was stung a hundred times. It's funny that when you've been stung by something. You think everything that flies stings is the same, but honeybee stings or a quarter or a half of what a hornet or a yellow jacket, or a lot of these other flying things are.[00:05:39] So they don't hurt that much. And if you're not affected by a bee sting, they don't really bother you. Once you get into the hive and you get comfortable, You'll find yourself just mesmerized by what's going on. Probably two years into keeping bees, I would find myself open a hive and pulling a frame out and just leaning on the hive, and the bees are flying all around me.[00:06:03] I dive, and almost as if you're looking at a piece of coral. A million things live in there, and they're all doing different things at different times. You can sit there and stare at that one piece of coral for 15 minutes, you can't believe that something, this new thing, just popped out of that space, and it's changing colors, and different things are going on.[00:06:25] Same thing with bees it's when I was growing up, they would, you could buy an ant colony. And you sat there and watched the ants lay eggs and move the eggs around and tunnel, and bees are probably one of the most complex insects out there.[00:06:40]It's similar to ants. They're just fascinating to watch, inside the hive or outside of the hive. When I first started keeping bees, people would say, they're so relaxing. I go out there with my coffee every morning, coffee or cocktail, and it's, and I'm like, I don't think I'm going to be drinking coffee or cocktails with my bees.[00:06:57] And sure enough, a month in, I'm standing there; I can't wait to see what's happening today because the weather's warmed up or the hives are really doing well. And you want to get a quick visit in, so you're drinking your coffee and watching the bees. Something about that[00:07:11] hum of the hive is like the yoga home. It's very relaxing, and you'll find yourself mesmerized by them. [00:07:18] Joe: So if somebody [00:07:18] wanted to host a hive with Garden Supply Company; what does that look like? What does it entail? [00:07:22] Keith: They go onto the website or come into the store, and they sign up; it's $295 a year. And then we provide them with a hive body. They can take it home, paint it. Personalize it put their kid's finger and handprints on it, or we've got some excellent artists that you bring back, amazing paintings on the hive box.[00:07:43]And then we set the hive up, usually early spring. We'll set the hive up, and then they get pictures of their hive. They get these open visits to their hive updates on where the bees are going. What's going on with the hives[00:07:58]during that time a year. What kind of nectar are the bees going after? Because bees will be very selective about where, what they're going after, or what they like. And so early spring, you'll see bees all over the flowers at the garden center, and you'd come out, and there are bees, honey bees buzzing around all these flowers.[00:08:16] The minute the tulip poplars open. Whether they're because they like tulip Poplar more or because it's an abundant nectar source, the bees all moved to the trees.  You won't see a bee anywhere. They're all just hauling nectar and as fast as they can and producing honey.[00:08:33] So that in North Carolina in our, in the triangle tulip poplars are probably the number one nectar source. Redbuds are a good early one. Maple, and then later in the year, more towards the mountains black locus will produce almost a water clear honey.[00:08:52] It's beautiful honey and, and then Sourwood is probably the most sought-after honey.  It's elevation sensitive.  They don't produce well like we've got sour woods here in the triangle, but the bees will go there, and they'll get nectar, but they don't get enough nectar.[00:09:06] And there are too many other things going on that they'll get some Sourwood and then a little bit of everything else. And. [00:09:12] Joe: So what happens with the honey from the host to hive program? So [00:09:16] Keith: we harvest the honey, and it's a great program from that sense because we provide each one of the people that participate with 10 pounds of honey.[00:09:25] So you'll have 10, one-pound jars of honey which is more than. Most families would consume Winnie the Pooh. Yeah, exactly. It's honey, and you can share with friends its local honey. Having local honey is an absolute health benefit. You're getting a taste of every pollen. We screen the honey, but we don't filter it.[00:09:46]There's pollen moving through with the honey when we harvest it. So you're getting exposed to every pollen that you would find in North Carolina. So if you've got allergies, it really does benefit from having a microdose kind of that type of pollen with your coffee or your tea in the morning.[00:10:03]Joe: How many people can be part [00:10:04] Keith: of the program? It's limited to about 200 people. And we're getting close, close to the end, and this year, it. [00:10:11] Joe: sounds like it'd be great for families like [00:10:13] Keith: really educating. Yeah. It's perfect. And it's beekeeping, in general, is like beekeeping is more like keeping an aquarium if everything's going well.[00:10:21] It's effortless. You walk out and take a look at it. If it goes awry it's, you must fix that situation quickly. [00:10:30] Joe: It's like a gateway drug into beekeeping. Cause you can get involved as a family, but you don't have to have that thing in your [00:10:34] Keith: backyard.[00:10:35] Exactly. And you're not, it's a way to, it took me six months to. Feel comfortable walking up to a hive, popping the top, not worrying about being stung if I got stung. So it's a way to get, to get exposed to bees and to do something great for bees and do something great for pollinators in general, it's that's the other thing that you can do, besides a host of hive program is planting pollinator gardens and planning, nectar-producing trees in your landscape throughout the year, but particularly in the fall, things like goldenrod. Adding goldenrod to your garden is a really great thing.[00:11:11] Or adding Clover to your lawn because our nectar season is so short, and the triangle it gives extends the season. [00:11:18] Clover's a beautiful backdrop to just about anything. It's good for turkeys. It's good for the deer. And then the bees white Clover, any clever the bees get a lot of nectar and pollen from it. Where can people find out more so? On our website, which is GardenSupplyCO.com, They can sign up there.[00:11:37]They can call the store it's (919) 460-7747. Jason, we've got a full-time beekeeper. If you ever want to keep bees, or if you ever want to sign up for the Host-a-Hive. You can email him at jason@gardensupplyceo.com.[00:11:55] 

The Art of Accomplishment
Authenticity over Improvement — AoA Series #7

The Art of Accomplishment

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2021 50:14


When we consider how we want life to be in the future we often create a list of things that we have to improve about ourselves. Yet we rarely consider that we could succeed in “improving” every aspect of our lives, and by doing so, completely lose touch with who we are and what we want. What if learning who we are creates a future far better than what we think we want? What if it creates a future better than we could imagine?"I will watch people and if they are just following their intuition, they will just pick the next thing. This is what we do, when we are just following our nature. My nature, my authenticity improved me in ways I didn't even know were happening."When we consider how we want life to be in the future, we often create a list of things that we have to improve about ourselves. Yet, we rarely consider that we can succeed in improving every aspect of our lives and by doing so, completely lose touch with who we are and what we want. What if learning who we are creates a future far better than what we think we want? What if it creates a future better than what we could imagine? Today's episode is about valuing authenticity over improvement. Brett: Joe, let's talk about authenticity. What is authenticity?Joe: Authenticity is an endless spiral in one way and the fact that it's evolutionary by nature. We think that there is an authentic self and it is the solid thing, but it's not. It's as we discover ourselves, there's always more to discover. As we discover ourselves, we transform. Authenticity is really a path more than a destination. The way that you can identify when you're on that path of authenticity is, it's always about the process. It's never about the reward. It's never like a means to an end. It's like a river. It's very much like a river in the fact that there's a way that a river wants to run and that's the natural flow of the river.Next year, you'll come back and that river will run a different way. Authenticity is constantly changing, but there's just this natural flow to it. In Daoism, they call it the way. It's a very natural course. They call it self-discovery. They don't call it self-building. We're not building ourselves, we're discovering ourselves. That's why ultimately the path of authenticity is a path of self-realization. It is finding out the truth of who you are. Somehow, for some reason, the more we discover who we are, the more that we evolve, the more that we change, the more that we show up in a way that is far more gentle, or loving, competent, capable and strong.Brett: Can you talk a little bit more about self-realization?Joe: Yes, self-realization. There's a story of, I think it's in the Upanishads. I can't remember which tradition. So many times traditions have really similar parables. There's another parable very much like this about a tiger, but this one's about a musk deer. This musk deer is moving along one day. There's a smell and it's like, "What is that smell?" It just feels like a memory. It feels like a calling. It's like something gets opened up in this musk deer. His impulse is like, "I need to follow this thing. I need to follow it."It goes searching for the place where the scent emerges. It wants to find the origin of that scent. It looks and looks and looks and looks and it's almost upon its death, still looking for the scent and falls off of a cliff and punctures its stomach. It realizes, at that moment of death that, "Oh, the thing that I've been searching for comes from me. That scent emanates from me." That is the movement of self-realization. The thing that we're looking for in all the self-improvement, what we're actually looking for, is ourselves.Brett: How can you relate the story of the deer following its own scent to our path of self-realization? Joe: The search of the deer looking for the scent is the self-improvement. It's like, "Once I eat the right diet, then I'll be good enough, or I'll be awake, or then I'll be loved. Once I look pretty, then I'll be good enough and then I'll be loved. Once I lose enough weight, once I meditate enough, once I have no more negative thoughts, once I stop thinking," whatever it is that you think you have to do, become rich enough. Then you'll have it and you'll find the scent that you're looking for. The scent you're actually looking for is you, it is to understand yourself.It's the only thing that really solves the issue. It's why you see so many executives and I've worked with so many executives who are at the top of their game. They've made a successful billion-dollar company and they're miserable. They did everything that they thought they needed to do to improve themselves, so that they will be loved or that they would accept themselves and nothing's really changed. As soon as they start on that path of self-realization, as soon as they are looking for their own authenticity and they no longer are willing to sell that authenticity or bargain that authenticity for a result, when it stops becoming a means to an end-- it just is like, "This is my authentic expression." Then their life starts unfolding in happiness and joy.Brett: Let's talk a little bit more about that scent trail then. How would you define improvement?Joe: Yes. Improvement is basically,  “If this, then this”, in terms of the self. It's like, "If I get sexy enough, then I will have the lover that I want. If I lose enough weight, then people will like me. If I have enough money, then I'll feel secure." Improvement is thinking that you're going to get a result from it. Authenticity is the opposite. It's, "This is what I'm going to do despite the consequences, because it's my authentic truth." That's basically what improvement comes. It comes from the idea of ways that we don't want to be who we are. The other way to look at all the ways we think we need to improve is all the ways that we don't love ourselves just as we are.Any point where you can't unconditionally love yourself, whether that is because you yell, because you don't work hard enough, because you're lazy, because you're a pessimist, whatever it is that you are telling yourself that you have to change, they're just ways that you're not loving yourself. They don't typically change. We just keep on telling ourselves that we don't love that about ourselves and we keep on telling ourselves that we have to improve it. When we actually accept our authenticity, those things just naturally move. They just shift.Brett: Reminds me of a quote that I've heard before, where somebody is speaking to somebody as though they were a child. They ask the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Instead of thinking to ask, "How do you want to be when you grow up?"Joe: I have never heard that. That's beautiful. How do you want to be when you grow up? The other way to think about self-realization I think it's a Pema Chödrön quote. It's basically to constantly offer yourself up to annihilation, so you can find out what's the part of you that can't be annihilated.Brett: What are we annihilating, these built up ideas of who we are?Joe: That's exactly it. The things that we think we are that we have to defend, you can tell them because you're defending them. It's like when someone's like, "You didn't do that very well," and you go, "er." Then you are defining yourself as somebody who's competent. You're not able to love the incompetent part of yourself. Authenticity is, "This is how I'm competent. This is how I'm incompetent." Being able to own that. Then in the owning of the lack of competence becomes more competence. It's this thing where, oftentimes, with executives, helplessness is this big thing where they feel it. Authentically, they feel helpless, but to allow themselves to feel helpless is incredibly difficult because the fear is, "If I allow myself to feel helpless, then I will become more helpless." But if they authentically own their helplessness, then they become less helpless. Brett: I think there's also a fear of being seen.Joe: Yes. That's right.Brett: Fearing that there will be consequences to that.Joe: Yes. That's how you know that part of yourself that needs, wants, to be destroyed. It's the part of yourself that doesn't want to be seen in that way, whatever that way is. "I don't want to be seen as blank, a hypocrite. I don't want to be seen as helpless. I don't want to be seen as greedy." Whatever it is that you don't want to be seen. "I don't want to be seen as weak." Brett: How would you separate improvement from growth? Even in this process of finding your authenticity, you can get better at it. What is that if not improvement? Don't we need some form of improvement, whether we're tracking our growth in some way to see where the trajectory is going?Joe: The question is, what would make you need it? What will happen if you don't have it? I think that's where the key is. Does growth happen? Absolutely. I always use this metaphor of an oak tree because when I look out my window, there is an oak tree. The oak tree grows. The growth happens. Does it need to? No. Is it looking to improve itself? No. It's nature. Another way to think of our authenticity is our nature. Our nature is to grow, our nature is to improve, our nature is to learn. If you take a little kid when they're babies, they can't even walk. One of the things that they smile most at is when a face comes at them sideways, not when a face comes at them straight up and down. Straight up and down face is the face that they see right before they feed. That doesn't make them smile as much as a sideways face, which means, "Oh, we're here to play." Play for a kid is learning and we have this natural desire to learn. It is authentic in us. We have a natural desire to grow. It's authentic in us. This just all happens very, very naturally, but it's when you think you have to improve to be good enough or when it's not just the nature of your life. You look at a six-year old kid, they're constantly wanting to learn and grow and it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop unless someone has kicked the love of learning out of us, it just keeps going. I don't think we have a need to do it. I think the thing is, that improvement is just happening naturally and that's authenticity. But if you are looking to improve yourself, then you are putting the brakes on the process and you're often going in the opposite direction of the river.Brett: How do we address that fear of becoming stagnant if we don't improve or just to be measuring? Measuring where we're at and then measuring that according to some scale of value that we've created.Joe: That's a great question. First of all, question your scale. That's the ultimate thing. It's easy to play a game when you have a measurement. It's hard to play a game when you don't. If your measurement for life is how much money I have in the bank, then you can play. If the measurement is how kind I am to people, then you can play. Then you have something to measure to. If you start really questioning those measurements, what do you mean by kind? Do you mean having the most positive impact? How do you measure positive impact? What's the difference between kind and nice? What if I was deeply truthful, but I wasn't kind? Why is kind more important than truth? These questions, as soon as you start really looking at the end, if you really deeply look at the end, then it gets really scary. That's when the stagnation fear really shows up and you're like, "Oh, all the progress that I thought I was making might not have been to the right end. Maybe there's no end." This fear sets in and it's almost like this fear, like it's going to be nihilistic or something like that. Even the idea that it's nihilistic is just another way of trying to create meaning out of a situation, but the nature of life doesn't really require meaning. There's no other part of life that requires meaning except for humans. Life wants to evolve, it wants to grow, it wants to improve. It seems, as it turns out, most humans, when they understand themselves more and more, there's a deeper and deeper compassion that shows up. There is a deeper, deeper amount of empowerment that shows up. What you find is, the things that you think are opposite, such as love and being empowered, they turn out to be the same thing. That the pinnacle of loving is empowerment, that the pinnacle of empowerment is loving. You can feel this. If you just stop for a second and close your eyes and you feel what it would be like to unconditionally love the world. You just let that settle in your body for a moment. Your love is so big and so great that it expands everywhere. It's not weak love, it's not love like I'm going to let people abuse me. It is the kind of love that a mother has, that's a great mother. They have boundaries. Then you let that go for a second and then feel what it's like to be completely empowered. Feel what it would be like to not have to worry at all about the future, to not have to prepare, to not have to plan, to just know that you are capable of handling any situation, to be like Superman on a mountaintop with no Kryptonite in the world, or Superwoman on the mountaintop with no Kryptonite in the world. Nothing can touch you. That feeling of empowerment. Then just feel the two next to each other. How are they different, if at all, this full empowerment, this full love? That's how it moves. The fear of stagnation, the fear of, "Oh, there's no meaning. There's no place to go and therefore I'll stop moving," it hits the human psyche for sure. It's definitely a part of this human psyche, at least in the modern world, but life doesn't require any of that stuff. Life can't stop moving. Try to not improve for a week. Take two weeks and do your best to not improve. Don't learn anything, don't grow, don't have any realizations, don't have any recognitions. Try that for two weeks. [laughs] I told someone to do that once and they were like, "Oh my God, so many recognitions, so much realization," because they stopped trying. We feel this all the time when we're on holiday. You have two weeks off and then you come back and you perform better. It's smoother. The whole thing works better. You make better calls because you weren't actively trying to improve for two weeks. It's just the nature of life. We, by our nature, learn and want to grow.Brett: Something that came up for me in the exercise that we just did, was that both in the unconditional loving the world state and the feeling fully-empowered state, there wasn't any fear. But the concern of stagnating is just fear. The fear of stagnating is the thing that I know for me, in my life, I have spent a lot of time in the fear of stagnation. That has constricted me in those times and led to-Joe: Stagnation. Brett: -stagnation.Joe: Exactly. That's how it works. We invite the things that we're scared of, that's our nature. Our nature is to invite. If we have a fear of something, we're inviting it in, because we want to. We want to learn and grow from that experience, we want to face that fear. The fear of stagnation invites stagnation, the fear of loss invites loss, the fear of abandonment invites abandonment.Brett: Let's try to bring this back into more concrete examples to make this real.Joe: Yes. I'll do a couple of them. One way to look at it, is kids and their learning. Kids, we were just talking about, their nature is to learn, they're curious, that's what they're genetically programmed to do. All humans are. Somehow or another, we can put them into a school system, tell them that they have to improve and get A's and then they stop wanting to learn. It actually happens to something like 47% of highly intelligent kids fail high school.Brett: Yes, I did really great in school up until I got an IQ test that told me I was smart and then I got my first B+. This was like fourth grade. Then it was just like, "Screw it."Joe: Yes, you stopped trying.Brett: To hell with this whole thing.Joe: There's a great psychological test on this, that basically if you tell a kid they're smart and then they try and they don't succeed, they'll stop trying because then they will prove that they're not smart. They'll just stop trying, so they can maintain the identity of smart. It's some fascinating work. That's an example of it. Now if you take kids who've been unschooled, I think it's called non-schooling or unschooling or something like that, where kids have been somewhat traumatized in their school situation, so their parents pull them out. They say, "You can't watch television. You can't do things that are destructive, but you can not do any work until you're ready."They often times don't do any work for three months or six months. Then all of a sudden, they're like, "I want to work." Those kids, when they want to learn math, they can learn basically fractions to calculus in something insane, like three months or five months or something like that. You can read the studies on it, because they want to learn, because it is their desire to learn in that direction and they want to do it and they will do it. It's like one is moving with the authenticity of the situation and one is telling the kids that they have to improve to be good enough. It's like a punishment and reward situation, so that's one aspect.Another way is a personal story from my life. I was in high school and I started smoking cigarettes. I was socially awkward at the time. I had issues. My upbringing had some turmoil in it. I was constantly telling myself I should improve by not smoking. I was constantly telling something that I needed to improve in. Then just by nature, I got drawn into hacky sacking. I just started to hacky sack all the time and I just really enjoyed hacky sacking. It just became this thing. Then about 10 years ago, I was with one of my daughters. My daughter's having some problems in school and this occupational therapist came to us. Then said like, "Your daughter has something called sensory processing disorder." It just basically means that the neurology isn't really melding the way it would with other kids and it makes you very sensitive to stimulus through your senses. I said, "How do we solve this thing?" She was like, "The way you solve it is through doing exercises across the midline that require coordination," et cetera, et cetera. Hacky sacking would have been a perfect example of that. If you look at me, before hacky sacking and after hacky sacking, I became socially more fluid. I became less sensitive.When you have sensory processing, it's a bit of like a nerd's disease, more likely to wear glasses, you're awkward and clumsy, you don't do as well socially, that kind of stuff. All that changed with me hacky sacking. My nature knew what I needed, knew what was needed next and did it without anybody telling me to, without anything happening. I watched this happen all the time with clients. I watched clients all the time. I know basically the dance steps of transformation. Everybody does them a little bit differently.Sometimes chapter three comes before chapter one or whatever, but I will watch people. If they're just following their intuition, man, they will just pick the next thing and I would be like, "Oh my God, they picked it perfectly again." This is what we do when we're just following our nature. Then smoking, for me, on the other hand lasted until I was in my 30's, as a perpetual habit into my 30's and that was all the ways I was supposed to improve. My nature, my authenticity improved me in ways that I didn't even know were happening.Brett: That's fascinating. I can think of a lot of experiences in my life that are a lot like that. One of them being joining a 18-month course where I felt like an intuition. It felt like a lot of money at the time. In retrospect, it was very little. It was just like, "Man, this seems like my kind of thing." I don't even know what it is and I didn't. When I got there, I was like, "Wait, this isn't really all that."Joe: Yet, it transformed your business too, which is the insane part. That's the other thing.Brett: Yes, but more than that in my life.Joe: Exactly. That's the insane part. That's a great example of it as well. It's when people come, because they often come to me, because they want to transform their business and we transform their life by them taking their natural steps and their business naturally transforms. If they would have just focused on their improvement, their business may or may not have transformed. In this way, the reason I use this methodology of working on personal stuff is because that always transforms the business. It has a hundred percent success rate as the person transforms their attitude towards, their business will transform and so will their business. Brett: Let's relate all this back into the concept you were talking earlier about self-realization and self-discovery.Joe: That's good. If you look back to my journey, let's hear it from my journey for a second. For the early part, I got really deeply into awakening, enlightenment in the non-dual sense of the word, not like woke culture. I'm talking about like the Christ consciousness or enlightenment, whatever religious tradition you have, has a word for it. At the beginning of that journey, I thought it was improvement that would get me there. Once I ate the right diet, or once I did the right exercises, or meditated hard enough or blah, blah, I would become enlightened. That was the improvement side of things. It's a slow, arduous, painful process. It luckily moved enough for me to realize that it wasn't about improvement. It was just about the recognition of who I am. When that happened, this question appeared to me, it was, "What am I?" I asked that question for 10 years, maybe 10 times a day, I would ask that question. That is really what transformed everything for me. Just being in that question for that long with that level of wonder transformed everything. It was funny. I was seeing a guy at the time. I was reading every non-dual teacher I could find. The only guy that I had met personally, who I thought, "Wow, this is a person I would want to learn from," was a guy named Adia Shantay. I got up and asked him a question once in front of this big auditorium of people. I said, I keep on asking this question, "What am I?" All I get is silence. Some dude in the back just started laughing and I was like, "That's not funny?" Adia smiled and I can't remember what else happened. I remember about three years later, I was at a meditation retreat when that question, what am I, faded away. The question never gets answered. It just expires and then it expires like a firecracker, but it expires. I was in the back and somebody got up in the front and asked the question, "What am I and nothing." I just started laughing hysterically, as if that nothing wasn't the answer and that's what it turns into. That recognition of self is something that just unfolds into nothingness. That nothingness is incredibly free and incredibly potent and capable.Brett: So, who are you now?Joe: [laughs] Yes, that question has expired. There's an exercise on this, just to go back and forth and ask somebody, "What are you?" Over and over again, "What are you? What are you? What are you?" See what happens as all your answers expire. But if I had to put, what am I, in words right now, which is an exciting thought process, I would say, "What am I? I am infinitely you. I am everything and nothing in the silent vastness that everything arises in and so are you."Brett: Then what happens once that question expires? It sounds like there could be a trap here in thinking that, "This question of who I am has expired. Now I don't have to prove myself and there's just nothing to do." What am I going to do to just stay in that cave and meditate until-- ?Joe: Yes, there's a thought that says that that might be the case. In fact, some people go through that for a while. I think it's because they're like those kids, who needed to be unschooled for a while, when they have that recognition of their essential self in that way, that there is this need to just sit there for a while and do nothing. It becomes a bit dissociative. Eventually, it's no longer satisfying. We just become more and more human. We like to play. We like to learn. We like to grow. It's our nature. It's our authenticity. Once we have been let out of school, we realize there's nothing that we have to do to improve ourselves, because our essence is unbelievably beautiful, miraculous, a dream that we never thought even possible coming true, that we couldn't even have thought of coming true. There's this natural desire to rest for a while, potentially. But eventually, you want to move, you want to dance, you want to play, you want to be alive. Then the journey turns into, "How do I be alive? How does my authenticity really want to be alive? How fully can I embrace this life?" There's a book called The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I don't even know what it's about, but the title is amazing. That's what it is. Life becomes, "How do I allow myself to be more and more vulnerable to the unbearable lightness of being?"Brett: I love that. Both of us are the kind of person who would recommend a book or reference a book that we haven't read just because of its title.Joe: [chuckles] The title. I highly recommend that title. Brett: [chuckles] The title.It seems like there could be another trap here where we have somewhere where we want to go and we're like, "Maybe improving myself along the particular metrics that I have in mind right now, maybe that's not the best way to get there, because authenticity is the best way to get there. If I just get more authentic, then I'll become this thing that I want to be and get to where I want to go."Joe: Yes, that's right. That is a real trap. It's like, you'll see this happen oftentime in tools. You get this tool that you start working with and in the realm of self discovery and you get this tool, it works really well for a while and then it stops working. Some of the times, it stops working, because you're using the tool to change yourself instead of loving yourself, so it stops working. Some of the time, that tool stops working, because you've co-opted it into improvement, instead of recognition. It's really the same thing, to improve yourself isn't to love yourself as you are. To find the authentic expression of you, is to love yourself as you are and to know that that authentic expression will naturally change you, just like the natural flow of a river changes the river.Brett: That could mean your goals will shift.Joe: Will shift. Yes. I've seen a lot of things not change as people go through this journey and I've seen a lot of things change, but I've never seen the goals of a person not change through the journey. That always changes. What's often interesting is, the goals that they used to have, just get met naturally without any effort or thought process, because they become just a step in what's necessary for them to evolve into their authenticity. I had a goal for years of having enough money to blah, blah blah. Somewhere along the line, I just didn't care at all about money. Then money just started rushing in. That's a really typical story. Not always, but it's a very, very typical story.Brett: We've talked about how wanting something is good. We just had a whole episode on what you want, how wanting itself is critical. Then we're just talking now about how wanting something from ourselves or wanting something in our future can lead towards this constant improvement process and away from our authenticity. What do you have to say about that?Joe: Wanting is critical, what you want is really inconsequential. What you want is directionally correct, but it is not the end all be all of anything. That wanting is what pulls you. That wanting is the natural pull of evolution, of authenticity. That's what it is. What you want is a strategy to get there. There's 10 or 20 strategies. What you want is inconsequential and there's no reason to attach to it. It is to follow your wanting and then to watch how you're wanting changes and watch how what you want changes. Brett: What happens if you're going through this process and the things that you want just change so rapidly that your life starts to feel disconnected or disorienting?Joe: You're very fortunate. You might feel disturbed depending on your personality type. Some folks will find that to be a beautiful free ride and some people will feel like-- there's that quote, that sometimes falling feels like flying for a little while. People will be like, "I'm flying, which means I must be falling." In actuality, as they say, the bad news is you're falling, the good news is there's no bottom. That is part of it. Rumi called it, a Sufi poet, he calls it a holy confusion, that not knowing. It's called the mystery for a reason.It's absolutely what happens and the goals shift and then the goals disappear. Then there's like no goals for a while. Then after there's no goals for a while, there's very specific goals and then there's just this movement that's like-- how did I describe it? The goal is to live principled, because you know, that living principled will make you happier than any goal that you could ever achieve. Brett: That's something that's entirely within your power too?Joe: Yes, it becomes choice-less at a point, it becomes outside of your power. At some point it's like, "I just can't not live with principled, because it's too damn painful."Brett: Give us another concrete example of how that works, when what you want is inconsequential, but the wanting itself isn't. Joe: I can give you a funny one. I'm sitting with my godson and his father and he has been a friend since high school. This story is going to be one of those stories that lets you know, maybe you don't want to have me as a friend. We're sitting there and we're having lunch together at this restaurant and my friend tells me about how his son stole $50 from him, bought a vape pen and was vaping in the classroom. I'm just listening. Son is in those teenage years. All of a sudden, five minutes later he's like, “The problem with my son is that he just doesn't have ambition. He just doesn't want to do anything.” I was like, “What? Of course he wants to do something. Do you know how hard it is to do what he did? Stealing $50, he planned that stuff out. That's ambition. Then he went and did it. Then with the knowledge that he could have gotten caught, which is totally ambition and then he figured out a way to go buy the vape pen. Then he had so much ambition to do it that he did it in a classroom and got caught. That is some CEO level ambition. What are you talking about?” [laughs]At this point my friend is just looking at me like, "Shut up, Joe, shut up." His son is looking at me like a smile, "Oh, wow, I didn't know. I should have visited my godfather more often." I was just saying, “There's clearly ambition, it's just that you want him to be ambitious in one way, but he's ambitious in another. Let's look at how he's ambitious.”  I started talking to him. "What is it that you want to do?" He wants to play this particular sport that requires some money and you got to get these guns or whatever. It's like a laser tag type thing, the next version of a laser tag. He's telling me about it and I'm getting into it with him.Then I'm like, “How are you going to afford this?” He's like, “Maybe I have to get a job.” “What kind of job do you want to get? This kind? You don't make a lot of money.” Then, “How are you going to get there?” We just went through this whole thing and he was clearly eager to do all this stuff, so that he could do the thing that he wanted to do. I was like, “How can your dad help?” He is telling his father what his father can do, to help him be ambitious and get things done. That's the difference between,  “You should improve”, to  “What is the authentic expression?”The thing is, that we do that internally as well as externally, meaning we're usually like the father in that story, rather than the godfather in that story to ourselves. We're telling ourselves what we have to improve, what we need to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, instead of just paying attention to what the natural thing is. If we follow that thread far enough down, it has far better results and moves much quicker.Brett: It's fascinating. By that measure, I was extremely ambitious and barely passing any of my high school.Joe: Exactly. It's because it couldn't hook on to your authentic-- most schooling doesn't hook on to a child's authentic desire to learn.Brett: In my case, that presented a lot of different tracks and opportunities all of which just didn't quite hook.Joe: It's really hard to hook, when you're grading people and say you need to improve. That's not hook-worthy.Brett: It's like a culture of constant improvement.Joe: We don't listen to songs that tell us that we need to improve. "Wow, a triple platinum song by Jay-Z called, “Boy, You Better Workout More." It just doesn't happen.Brett: Let's talk a little bit more about how this works in companies and in a more general sense, in cultures of self-improvement or just not even self improvement, just cultures of everybody needs to improve to get better.Joe: The constant improvement culture. It's not assuming that people want to improve by nature is what happens here. A great example of this is in that book, Reinventing Organizations, there's a nursing company in there called Herzog. Basically what happened, it was in Holland, what happened is, there's these community nurses and they got privatized. It just became all about efficiency. It all became: improve, improve, improve, improve and it was like, "This is how long it should take you to get there, this is how long it should take you to administer the shot. This is how long it should take you to get back. That's how much time you have. That's how much payment you're going to get."Everybody was going for the improved nursing efficiency. This company came along and it did a lot of really cool things. One of the things it did is it said, "You know what, our job isn't to be as quick as possible. Our job is not to improve our process in that way. It's to make it, so that we help people become self-reliant." Through figuring out how to get to that home and make the person self-reliant, instead of administering the shot, they became 60% more efficient than their competition or something like that. Maybe it's 40%. I don't remember the numbers exactly, but it was a tremendous amount more efficient.One had that natural hook, because we naturally want to help people. That is part of our nature. All mammals, that are community-based mammals, have altruism as part of us. They hooked on to that natural thing and then that led to natural improvement, but they weren't trying to improve in some unnatural way. The interesting thing is, as soon as I say, it's our nature to be altruistic, somebody will say something like, "It's our nature to be self-interested." I say, "I agree, it is." It's our nature to be altruistic and it's our nature to be self-interested and it's our nature to want to be rewarded and it's our nature to want our team to win and it's in our nature for us to win. Companies that are really becoming the most efficient companies, are hooking on to all of that. If you think about that nursing company, their team won and they had individual reward for the performance. As it turned out, people got to decide their own reward. Also, they got to help. They're hooking onto all of these natural things in us.If you look at the great products of our day and the great nonprofits of our day, they hook into a natural, authentic desire in people. Sometimes it's drug-like, like Facebook or coffee and sometimes it is not drug-like. Sometimes it is just our nature to want to communicate. That's what it means. Not only does your product-- but your culture needs to--if you want to be highly efficient, it needs to hook into that nature of people, our authenticity.Brett: Another one of our ESF group was recently telling me about a company that they're applying for. It's a debt collections agency that operates on transparency. Instead of trying to be as efficient as they can, milking the most money from people as possible and buying the debt for the cheapest possible whatever, they're optimizing for really being in connection with people. They purchase debt and then they're transparent. They're like, "Hey, we bought your debt for this much. We have this much of it. We expect to get a certain percentage of it paid back from various places. What can we do to get this paid off?" With that transparency and working closer to their customers, their debtors, they actually get across this sense of actually caring. They're able to come up with much more creative solutions which actually results in-- this is a new company, but it seems like it's resulting in getting much better results for them. Also they're getting just swathes of testimonials from customers that are like, "Wow, I wish all of my debt had been bought by this company. This is amazing. They're actually people and they talk to me like a human."Joe: You can see this in sales processes are more effective, when there's a real relationship, real connection going on and that authenticity is there. People think they have to compartmentalize themselves to do business and that compartmentalization, that inauthenticity, it absolutely makes you less efficient. It might make things easier to do in the short-term, but absolutely harder to do in the long-term. It makes you less efficient, because you're basically asking anybody you interact with to compartmentalize themselves that same way. A debt collector compartmentalizes their heart and they go in hard. Then their customer compartmentalizes their heart and they respond hard, or they respond like a victim or whatever it is, but they're going to match that more on average.Brett: If we focus on finding the authentic movement, then--Joe: How do I collect debt in a way that feels good in my system? How do I nurse in a way that feels good in my system? How do I produce a social media app that feels good in my system? All of those will be a more efficient product.Brett: Then with that continual asking, "What am I?" Like, "What am I? Am I an efficient debt collector or am I a human?"Joe: That's right. "If I am them and they are me, then how do I want to behave here? If I feel my natural authenticity and my desire to learn and my desire to be of service to people, how do I collect debt in a way that's of service to people?" It feels horrible to not pay your debt. To help people feel that they are standing on their own two feet and have achieved paying off debt, that can be a real deep service for humans.Brett: I wonder how many other industries can be rethought that way.Joe: Every one of them. It's endless. It's just like there's always more money to be made. There's always a way to become more authentic and each one is an efficiency.Brett: It sounds like there's a lot of faith in this process because with each layer of authenticity you find, you really have to let go of what you valued or what you thought was important, entirely to find what's beneath it.Joe: Yes, that's true. It feels like faith, until you get used to reading the river in some way. It's the same faith that maybe a basketball player would have that's going into a game. It's like you can't plan out the whole game. You can't plan out everything. You're basically choosing,  “I am going to plan out my entire basketball game”, or “I'm going to learn how to read a river” and “Learn how to read the field, learn how to read my opponents and so that I am competent in every situation where I'm in that basketball game.” Then you start having faith in your capacity to handle situations.You become excited, but you can't handle them, because it means you're getting to learn something and it makes you more capable next time. It's the same thing. It's like if you've learned to read a river to go down that river and get to the mouth of the river, it's not an act of faith anymore. It's just what you do. You're watching other people build canals and that makes them feel secure. Like, "I will just take a canal the whole way, but I have to build the whole canal." It's a lot more effort. It's very much like that. Once you start realizing, that your authenticity naturally brings you to the next level over and over again and that improving yourself is like building a canal. It's like this idea of safety, that it takes a tremendous amount of effort and is really not that safe, because lots of people die building canals. That's how it works. It feels constantly, like you're taking faith, that you're taking the risk. Then at some point, you're like, "Oh, no. It's more risky to do the other thing. It's more risky to be 60 years old and all my dreams have come true and I'm miserable," which is where that typically leads.Brett: I think we often over-index on the cost, the perceived cost of stopping doing things the way that we're doing them, but forget about the opportunity cost of continuing to do the same thing.Joe: What's interesting is, that's also part of our nature. It's also part of our nature to stay with something that feels safe.Brett: Predictable is safe.Joe: Yes, that's right. That's exactly right. Luckily, as authenticity matures us, as we evolve being authentic, we become more and more sensitive. That stuff becomes more and more painful, where we're naturally kicked out of those cycles because we just can't handle them anymore, because they're just too painful.Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment podcast.  If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe. We would love your feedback, so feel free to send us questions and comments. To reach us, join our newsletter, learn more about VIEW, or to take a course, visit: artofaccomplishment.comResources:Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations, https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/

How I Built It
Why Having a Personal Brand is SO Important to Your Success with Michelle Knight

How I Built It

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2021 49:22


Have you ever wondered why your product or service didn’t get much traction on social media even though you post all the time? According to Michelle Knight, it’s all about your personal brand (or lack thereof). Maybe you’ve heard the term before, but what does “personal brand” really mean? Luckily, Michelle has us covered! She’ll tell us all about why you need a personal brand and how to craft one. In Build Something More, we talk Star Wars in the pre-show and social media dos/don’ts, traveling, and schooling in the post-show. This has been one of my favorite conversations so far this year! (more…) View on separate page Transcript Joe:Real quick before we get started, I want to tell you about theBuild Something Weeklynewsletter. It is weekly, it is free, and you will get tips, tricks, and tools delivered directly to your mailbox. I will recap the current week’s episode and all of the takeaways, I’ll give you a top story, content I wrote, and then some recommendations that I’ve been using that I think you should check out. So it is free, it is a weekly, it’s over at howibuilt.it/subscribe. Go ahead and sign up over athowibuilt.it/subscribe. Intro:Hey, everybody, and welcome to Episode 210 of How I Built It, the podcast that asks, How did you build that? Today’s sponsors areMindsize,Restrict Content Pro, andTextExpander, who you will be hearing about later on in the show. Now, if you are aBuild Something Clubmember, if you’re subscribed to Build Something More but you happen to be picking up the normal feed, definitely get the Build Something More feed because we, Michelle and I, had a fantastic pre-show conversation, which is a show first. I’m sending out the pre-show because it was really good. Speaking of, my guest is Michelle Knight. She is the personal branding and marketing strategist over atBrandmerry. Michelle, how are you today? Michelle Knight:Oh, great. Thanks for having me. Loved our little pre-show chat. Joe: Likewise. Likewise. Thanks for joining me on the show here. Thanks for joining us. It was a lot of fun and nerd culture and WandaVision. First of all, if you’re not watching WandaVision, you should watch WandaVision. I guess by the time this comes out, we will actually be behind. So, if you haven’t seen it, spoiler alert. But if you’re all caught up, you know, don’t tell past us what happened. That’s what we’re talking about today. We’re talking today about how to market your business without relying on social media, which I’m really excited about. I was looking at your website, again, personal branding consultant. I think this is a really good topic to talk about because I feel like I was telling my students about this like 10 years ago. I was teaching at the college level, college freshmen a computer literacy course, and I’m like, “You need to have a personal brand.” And they’re like, “Who cares?” But now fast forward to 2021, I feel like that’s even more important. So before we dive into the kind of social media stuff, I suspect having a strong personal brand will help with that. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about what you do there? Michelle Knight:Yeah, absolutely. I founded my companyBrandmerryright after my son was born in 2016 out of just the need to be home, to just not want to commute to work anymore. I had a background in PR, background in communications and I dove headfirst into creating my online business with really kind of wearing this coach consultant hat. I struggled a lot. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like I was mimicking everybody else. I spent months creating a website that then didn’t look like or sound like me, which is highly relatable to a lot of people. About nine months into it, when I was planning on leaving my nine to five, I was like, “Something needs to shift.” So I started to do more and more research outside as well as some internal research to figure out who I was and what I really wanted to build a brand around. And everything really started to shift for me at that point in time. I started to show up in a different way, I started to really express myself, I did more live videos and I started to share more stories. And instantly, I saw connections start to happen. The same people who had been in my community for months were buying from me suddenly. And I didn’t change the offer. All I did was change how I was showing up and creating a brand that was a representation of that. So that’s what I really fell in love with personal branding and storytelling, and I spent, the next three or four years really focusing on that aspect, teaching entrepreneurs specifically how to figure out, number one, who they are and how they want to show up online and then creating a brand and a product suite that’s in alignment with that mission. And then I’ve moved in the last couple of years to focus on, now, how do we market that? Because you realize really quickly that you can have an amazing personal brand, you can have an amazing product, but if you don’t know how to effectively market it, then nobody else is going to know about it. Joe:I love that. And it’s so funny that you mentioned that because I feel like between the pre-show and this you must have been listening into the solo episode I recorded right before this, which wasEpisode 205, where I talked about my failed Patreon experiment. It’s the same thing. I started this podcast in 2016. I went self-employed in 2017 after my daughter was born, and I thought, “I need to launch memberships. I need to launch a membership for my podcast.” And I just copied everyone else’s benefits, everyone else’s levels. And I’m like, “How come no one’s buying?” And then I came to realize I’m just promising a bunch of stuff that I don’t even know if I can deliver or not. So I took that down, and I’ve changed directions. Well, now people are actually buying my membership because it reflects me and what I can offer. So I think that’s fantastic. Michelle Knight:Well, I tell people all the time that people don’t buy the product or the service, there’s a million products and services that are exactly the same across the board. If people really just focused on that, then they would just buy the first thing that they see. But it’s about that connection, it’s about that relationship. And that’s why personal branding is so important. Joe:Yeah, absolutely. As people listen to this, I know that’s something I struggled with early on when I was freelancing and making websites for people was, how do I write my copy? Do I write “I”? Do I write “we”? Who is this? Is it the royal we? So maybe we can start there? How you present yourself, as you said, is so integral to connecting with customers, with selling more products and services? I or we? Michelle Knight:I think it depends. I think when you’re starting a business and you’re the sole CEO and face of that business, I always recommend going with “I”. Primarily because, who is the “we”? You and your imaginary team, probably not in the beginning. You’re the decision-maker at that point in time. The “I” allows for more of that personal connection. If you’re working with a company, I think you go back and forth. If we’re speaking on behalf of the company, I have a background in nonprofit management, if you’re speaking on behalf of the nonprofit and the work that they do, it’s a “we”. But if your CEO is stepping out and saying something, sharing their story, sharing what they’re doing, it’s an “I”. And then I guess as your business evolves, and I see this a lot, especially as someone who has added more team members and is moving more into a company role, I go back and forth between the two. If it’s me, I’m showing up, I’m sharing a story, I’m focusing on connecting, I’m the one telling the story. But if I’m talking about the team as a whole and we made this decision, then I can share that. So right out of the gate, I say default to “I”. As you grow, incorporate the “we.” Joe:I think that’s great. And that’s generally the advice that I’ve recommended as well just because, you know, there are benefits to working one on one with a freelancer. And maybe they’re not available 24/7 but they are there to fully understand your business to be invested in a way that some giant agency can’t be. Michelle Knight:Totally. Joe:Awesome. So when it comes to building your personal brand, we’re not just talking about website copy and “I” or “we.” What are we talking about? If I wanted to start investing in more of a personal brand for me, where would I start? Would I look inwardly? Would I do some research into things I should consider? What does the process look like? Michelle Knight:It’s kind of all of that. I like to say that branding as a whole, and I think it’s important to say, is an experience. I think very old school and what I thought even just five years ago was like, “Let me get my website up. Let me choose my colors and my fonts. If I do that everything will be fine.” And we’ve really learned. And now that information is so readily available to us, that it’s not about those things. It really is about the experience that we’re creating. And those things can help with that process, but at the end of the day, it’s that voice, it’s that mission, it’s how we’re carrying through everything that we’re doing, from website design to coffee to our products and our offers. The method that I teach is first to look inward because as a recovering perfectionist, I have a tendency to go outward, and say, “Oh, what are you doing? That seems to be working. Let me just copy that.” And that’s what happened in the beginning of my business. So I recommend going inward first. The first practice that I love to guide people through is just what’s your story because one of the first pieces of copy that everyone should really write is their brand story. And it’s one of the most fun things that you can create in the beginning. So going inward and saying, “What is my story? What has led me to where I am today? What’s the purpose behind me wanting to put my work out in the world?” As I mentioned before, I’m from a nonprofit background. So I always recommend my clients establish a mission for their brand. What are your values? These are the things that you want to identify right out of the gate so that you can make sure that you’re always showing up in those pieces—your brand is always showing up. Then the second piece of this is, all right, now, who do you want to attract? A lot of people forget this step of the personal brand, and then we start showing up sharing content and stories and it’s not resonating with people because it’s just about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I, when what we share needs to resonate with the people that we want to attract. So, you’re not showing up and just like writing your biography online. You’re building a business. So the stories that you share, the content that you share, even the colors that you choose needs to come down to, you know, how do I want my audience to feel? What are they seeking? What are they looking for? What’s happened in their life? That portion of it is where we get more into research, you know, the dreaded ideal client research that everyone hates. But I swear you have to do it. I personally love it. But that’s where that piece comes in. So then you combine those two things together, and you say, “All right, now let me decide what offer can I create based on my expertise that my audience absolutely needs? Because I know them so well at this point. What types of messages can I create that showcase my expertise and my strengths that resonate with my ideal customer. And so everything then kind of pulls on those two pieces as you build your business. Sponsor:This episode is brought to you byRestrict Content Pro. If you need a fast, easy way to set up a membership site for yourself or your clients, look no further than theRestrict Content ProWordPress plugin. Easily create premium content for members using your favorite payment gateway, manage members, send member-only emails, and more. You can create any number of subscription packages, including free levels and free trials. But that’s not all. Their extensive add-ons library allows you to do even more, like drip out content, connect with any number of CRMs and newsletter tools, including ConvertKit and Mailchimp and integrate with other WordPress plugins like bbPress. Since theBuild Something Clubrolled out earlier this year, you can bet it’s usingRestrict Content Pro. And I have used all of the things mentioned here in this ad read. I have created free levels. I’ve created coupons. I use ConvertKit and I’m using it with bbPress for the forums. I’m a big fan of the team, and I know they do fantastic work. The plugin has worked extremely well for me and I was able to get memberships up and running very quickly. Right now, they are offering a rare discount for how I built it listeners only: 20% off your purchase when you use RCPHOWIBUILTIT at checkout. That’s RCPHOWIBUILTIT, all one word. If you want to learn more aboutRestrict Content Proand start making money with your own membership site today, head on over tohowibuilt.it/rcp, that’showibuilt.it/rcp. Thanks toRestrict Content Profor supporting the show. And now let’s get back to it. Joe:This is the exact thing that I said, again, in that episode I just recorded. “I made the Patreon copy about me and I started my own business and I want to make content full time. And you should give me money so I can make content full time.” And I just read it back recently and I’m like, “What was I even thinking?” Who cares? Who cares that I want to make content? People want good content, and they will support good content, but they’re not just going to give me money to create it because I want to create, I should say. Michelle Knight:Exactly. Unless you’re a celebrity, and then maybe they’ll be so obsessed with you and your life that they’re like, “Yeah, sign me up to watch behind the scenes.” But the majority of us are not there. And I think too, just circling back to what you said, everyone wants to know what’s in it for me? What’s the benefit? So even if you are at a stage where maybe you’re sharing behind-the-scenes stuff, why should someone pay you to see that? What’s the benefit to them? So no matter what you’re doing with your copy with your content, even with storytelling, where you might be saying, “My son was one month postpartum when I started my business,” you still gotta turn it back around to your audience and provide value to them so it’s not like a talking head situation. Joe:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that’s fantastic. And then looking inwardly, I think that’s really important. A book that has just resonated with me ever since the day I read it was “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek. And it’s what you said there. A lot of the same things. It’s figure out why you’re doing something. Establish your mission. And then everything should focus around that. Now, a lot of the listeners here are small business owners. A lot are in the WordPress space, but a lot aren’t. I guess that was a weird thing to say. That’s redundant. A lot of people are definitely small business owners who maybe don’t have the time or resources to fully invest in something like this. Are there one or two things that they should really focus on first and then maybe build out over time? Michelle Knight:Yeah. What I always recommend is get super clear on those two pieces that we just talked about. You understand, like I said, your mission, craft, understand what has led you to where you are. Because doing that story work allows you to pull on the strengths and the experiences that you’ve had, which then you can share through your copy and your content. And then you’ve got to do the ideal client research. Don’t tell me you don’t have time for it, because you’re going to suffer. People come to me and they’re like, “I don’t know what content to share.” And I’m like, “Do your ideal client research.” “I don’t know how to write a better copy.” Do your ideal client research. We always want to think there’s some mystery formula that we just have to follow. But it really is just like do the work, do the dirty work and you’re going to be set up for success in your business. I call it the foundation. One of my first coaches was like, “You shouldn’t use that word. It’s not sexy.” And I was like, “I don’t care.” It’s legit what I’m teaching. You build a foundation like you would a building so that you continue to add to it. And it just topples on top of itself. So those two pieces are key. I tell entrepreneurs all the time you don’t need a perfect website. You don’t need… Designers don’t come at me. But you don’t need to hire a designer in your first year of business. There are so many tools out there. Go into Canva, put some colors in there, and make a logo. You don’t even need a frickin logo, which branding people always come at me for that too. It really comes down to your copy and your messaging. If you can write clearly to your ideal customer, you can have a white background on a sales page with black copy and a photo and a button and you will still make sales. Joe:Yep, absolutely. What you said there really reminds me of like, get super clear on your mission. If you don’t do the ideal client research, you’re wasting your time. It reminds me of just last night, I woke up in the middle of the night. My son was hungry, he was crying. I didn’t want him to wake up my daughter. So I ran downstairs and I pulled a bottle out of the fridge. Now I knew I should have warmed it up. Because he doesn’t like cold formula. But I was like it’ll be fine. And I tried feeding him for like 10 minutes and he kept rejecting it and then I had to go back downstairs. And then he drank it all. But I wasted probably 20 minutes there. And I knew. So don’t serve your business cold formula I guess is what I’m trying to say. Michelle Knight:I love, love, love that analogy. And you wasted 20 minutes, but entrepreneurs waste years. Joe:Me too. I’ve done it. Michelle Knight:I start working with entrepreneurs and they’re like, “I have a website. I post every day on social media. I’m doing the things.” And when we nearly get down to it, there are gaps in their foundational pieces. That small tweaks fix and then suddenly it’s like, “Oh, sweet. Now I just need to show up and keep running with this and scale my business.” Joe:Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned social media. Part of the reason that I had you on the show, which by the way, Brittany Lin, and I know I’ve mentioned her on the show before, she’s helped me out. She’s helped me figure out my kind of ideal client stuff and the niches I want to be in, connected us. And the thing that caught me the most was how to market your business without relying on social media. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say, “I learned a long time ago that if you build it, they will come. That field of dreams marketing does not work. As a developer, that was a very hard lesson for me to learn. But then I just moved on to another fallacy, which is if I tweet it, they will come. I thought if I launched a course, if I tweet that I launched the course, people will see it’s great and they will buy it. But that’s not really how it works. Michelle Knight:No, unfortunately. I mean, fortunately for me because I teach the strategies, but unfortunately for us as entrepreneurs. Like I said, I was right there too. I spent eight months with my husband trying to figure out this whole website thing. And then I launched it, like full champagne toast video on Instagram, like full thing, nobody came. My mom maybe. And that website even sat there for months and months and months and wasn’t getting consistent traffic. So, I think like you were saying, one of the first things is that we build a website, and then we’re like, “All the people will find my website.” But it doesn’t work like that. So then we go to social media, which is really the first thing that we’re taught when we want to start a business. “Just post on Facebook, post on Instagram, post on Twitter, and people will find you.” But the reality is that people are using those platforms to find things. They are using those platforms for connection. So a lot of entrepreneurs use social media solely as the top level for getting in front of their cold audience and attracting that. The brand awareness stage basically. When really social media at emphasis should be more on that connection stage, moving your audience through the buying process, the personal branding aspect, then watching you on Insta stories. Are you making a funny reel? Are those different things? That’s where it should be. But so many entrepreneurs were focused on it to find new people, and then build their email platform. And then they grow by like five people every two weeks, and they get frustrated, when there’s actually a better way as I have come to find out. Joe:Yes. We’re going to talk about that. Perhaps in Build Something More we can talk about maybe effective social media uses, right? Because like you mentioned reels, and I’m like, “I don’t know how to use reels.” Somebody just invited me to Clubhouse today and I don’t know what I’m doing there. In Build Something More, we’ll talk about specific social media platforms, what to do, what not to do. But you have a better way besides just tweeting or writing on Facebook, “Hey, my website. Come check out my website.” My friends and family don’t care that I sell podcast courses. They don’t really know I have a podcast. Michelle Knight:It’s not that I hate social media. And I tell people this, I actually love it. I love hanging out on there and having fun. But it should not be what we rely on to build our email list, to attract consistent leads, and convert to sales. You think of a triangle, an upside-down triangle, we’ve all seen it like a pyramid, you’ve got that cold traffic coming in the top. That has to be consistent. Otherwise, the bottoms just going to dry up. You’re not going to have anybody moving into a paying customer. So these more evergreen strategies that I love to teach are the strategies that allow those consistent leads to come in without requiring you to consistently create new content every single day. Joe:I was going to say you’re speaking my language because my wife, and listeners now, my wife’s a nurse, she works three 12 hour shifts a week, which means on those days I’m watching my kids. So I’m not working. I don’t have time to create that kind of new content. Evergreen strategies sound like exactly what I need. Michelle Knight:This came about for me on accident really, because I had done the things, as we’ve talked about, I built the business and I did hit six figures in my business in a year through a lot of exhaustive hustle. I was raising a baby, I was working nine to five for the first nine months. So I was optimizing my strategies, I had some systems in place, but I was like, “There’s no way I can grow past this, and maintain this same idea.” So that’s when I really started to look at things like Pinterest, search engine optimization, the power of Google and blogging, YouTube video, or more of the search engine platforms where people are seeking out support in these areas, getting them, hooking them and then nurturing and building my community through fun content. Sponsor:This episode is brought to you byTextExpander. It’s a new year and you can start off on the right foot by reclaiming your time. WithTextExpander, you can save time by converting any text you type into keyboard shortcuts called snippets. Say goodbye to repetitive text entry, spelling and message errors, and trying to remember the right thing to say. WithTextExpander, you can say the right thing in just a few keystrokes. Better than copy and paste, better than scripts and templates,TextExpandersnippets allow you to maximize your time by getting rid of the repetitive things you type while still customizing and personalizing your messages.TextExpandercan be used in any platform, any app, anywhere you type. Take back your time and increase your productivity in the new year. And let me just say that snippets is not all it does. With advanced snippets, you can create fill-ins, pop up fields, and much more. You can even use JavaScript or AppleScript. I can type out full instructions for my podcast editor, hi, Joel, in just a few keystrokes. Another one of my favorite and most used snippets is PPT. This will take whatever text I have on my keyboard and convert it to plain text so I’m no longer fighting formatting. Plus, if you have employees or contractors, you can useTextExpanderto manage and share snippets with them so you all get it right every time. I’ve recently started sharingTextExpandersnippets with my virtual assistant. This year, How I Built It is focusing on being productive while working from home.TextExpanderis the perfect tool for that. Plus, they’re providing resources and blog posts to help you make the most of their tool and be productive.TextExpanderis available on Mac OS, Windows, Chrome, iPhone, and iPad. If you’ve been curious about tryingTextExpanderor simple automation in general, now is the time. Listeners can get 20% off their first year. Just visittextexpander.com/podcastand let them know that I sent you. Joe:Maybe let’s pick one. Maybe let’s do YouTube, right? Michelle Knight:Okay. Joe:You said that you found YouTube as… that’s the number two search engine in the world. Google is number one, and then Google owns YouTube is number two. People go there to learn things. So if I’m trying to develop an effective strategy for building an audience through these evergreen strategies, is YouTube a good channel for that? Michelle Knight:It is. I always tell people to really think about how they like to create content. So some people love video. I’m one of those people. And I love video to be my core piece of content. So one of the things that I teach is repurposing. And people call me the repurposing Queen because I can take one piece of content and I can turn it into like 32 pieces of content. Joe:Awesome. Michelle Knight:So some people like video, some people write and so they prefer blogging. Truly the strategies are the same across the board. So that’s what’s cool. I mean, the way you upload your title, and maybe your keywords is different placement but the process that you go through is the same. And the reason that these all work, again, is because there’s search engines. Same with Pinterest, which a lot of people don’t think about. But Pinterest is where you go, you type in the search bar, it’s all keyword optimized and so people will find your content. I don’t know about you, but I don’t search for anything on Facebook. No. So when you’re thinking about these different platforms, and I’m happy to share some of the steps on that, but what I really want to drive home to is that you’re hitting people at every single stage of the buying process. So rather than just attracting somebody who’s maybe looking for content, we’re also attracting and getting in front of people who are ready to buy. So there’s the stages of the buying process. Someone understands they’ve got a problem, and so they’re looking for options to solve their problem. Then they move into the research stage, which is where people are googling and looking on YouTube and stuff like that, then they’re aware of a solution. So now they’re trying to explore, like, what’s the best solution for them. They’ve figured it out and now they’re shopping around to figure out which one they’re going to buy. And then they become a buyer. There are people who are at stage five, who are like, “I have my money, I want to give it to someone.” I’m telling you, they’re going to Google, they’re typing in what they want, and then they’re hitting up the first 30 people. And I know that because that’s where most of my clients come from is just searching in branding coach, and landing on my website, strong personal brand, investing the money. That’s what’s so cool about the whole concept of evergreen SEO optimized content is you’re able to get people in every single stage, whether they’re just looking for help with three tips to write a better story, they might land on a blog post, or they’re just ready to pull out their credit card. Joe:I think that’s fantastic. And it’s so funny that you mentioned Pinterest because I hadChelsea Clarkeon the show a few episodes ago and that was her trade secret. Michelle Knight:Yes, mine too. Joe:She was like, “Not enough people are using Pinterest.” So I think that’s so funny. I told Chelsea I would look into it now. I definitely will look into it. That’s incredible. This is really interesting that you say that. Because again, the conventional wisdom says like, “You need to get people at the top of the funnel and you introduce yourself. And then you get them on your mailing list and then you market to them for like 14 years and then maybe they’re right on. But people who are ready to spend money, those are probably the best people to directly market to in the short term. I don’t want to say that the nurturing is bad, obviously, because it’s great. But if people are willing to spend their money, they might as well spend it with you. Michelle Knight:Totally. The nurturing part is so fun. I’ve had things where I’m like, “Oh, you’re cool. Let me just see what you’re about and I’ll buy down the road.” But I think as a business owner, it’s important to understand that your ideal customer could be at these different stages. And when you create this evergreen type of content, you’re able to show up and pull them in no matter what stage they’re at, rather than social media, which is totally different. Not to mention actually getting it in front of people who are searching for it is near impossible. So that’s why these strategies are so helpful in sustainably growing your business, getting those consistent leads, and making that consistent sale. Joe:I think that’s super important. Again, if we’re talking about YouTube, just, for example, people are finding that evergreen content. I know because I see the comments come in on my YouTube videos, the most popular ones, and it’s like, “How to do separate audio tracks with Zoom.” Or my friends are like, “Dude, I searched on YouTube and you were the first one to come up. Great video.” How do I… how does one… I don’t want to make this seem like it’s about me. I was always that guy in class who raised his hand and asked a question because I knew I had that question but I assumed like half of the class also had that question. Michelle Knight:Totally. Joe:How do I get them from YouTube to mailing list? Or is from YouTube to mailing list even the right move? You say all these people are at different stages. What’s my call to action post-YouTube video? Michelle Knight:I always recommend email list. Because I always say an email is the first investment that someone will make in your business. And when we start thinking about email addresses as currency, everything changes. It pains me when people are like, “Come follow me on Instagram.” Or like, “Just like this video,” and that’s it. It’s like, no, if someone’s watched the end of your video for YouTube specifically and they’re engaged, they’re ready for the next step. So give them that opportunity. So across the board, no matter what you do, I always recommend some sort of lead magnet, some way to get somebody on your email list. And in service base, that’s typically something free. A free guide, a free video free something. But it can also be product-based. A coupon. Take a quiz. There’s all kinds of different things that you can do. But that’s really important because people are typically like, “This is great. I want more of this.” And we want to get them on our email list. Because although your email list is maybe on a platform that you don’t control, the reality is you do have more control over that information than Facebook or Instagram. If Instagram went down, and that was all that you were using to get in touch with your community, you would be screwed. But if you have an email list on the back end, you can download that spreadsheet, move to a different platform email, get really creative with it. So across the board, I recommend that. And because these pieces of content are evergreen, I very rarely recommend pitching a product or a service unless it too is evergreen. So if you have a course that you sell all the time or a membership site that people can join or even something that opens multiple times a year, and you’re just saying hey, “I offer this inside of my program, go here to learn more.” And then if they land their doors are open great. If not, they can join a waitlist. But yeah, across the board, always, always email list. I’m a firm believer in that one. Joe:Awesome. I’m really glad to hear that because that’s also what I’ve been preaching. I’m like, I’m a guy I know some things, but it’s always good to hear from the experts. But also I haven’t been good about that. I always end my YouTube videos with “like” and “smash that like button.” I’ve never said that for real. Michelle Knight:Thank you. Joe:“Like and subscribe,” and then my tagline. I’ll have like a card right so people can go, or the icon on the end screen. I’ve put a lot of time into my end screens, but saying it verbally in the video is super important, right? If you like what I’m talking about, get the free guide for whatever, 5 Zoom tips that’ll make you look even better. I just thought of that lead magnet now… Michelle Knight:I like it. Joe:By the time this comes out… Michelle Knight:It might be really valuable for a lot of people today. Joe:Yeah. I think that’s really important. And I really needed to hear that because at first, I wasn’t sure. But you’re right about owning your platform. I export my subscriber list like once every six weeks, which makes me sound like a crazy person. I use ConvertKit and I assume they’re not going anywhere because they’re really great. But if they disappear one day, I’m losing a bunch of email addresses. Michelle Knight:I use ConvertKit too. We do the same thing. We’re really adamant about our email list over here. I say we now because my team member actually does it. I don’t have to do it anymore. But we not only download but clean our list quite frequently. We get a lot of subscribers every day and I invest in advertising and some of those different avenues as well. I want to make sure that the people who are there actually want to be there. So we frequently like to clean our list to help with that as well. So there’s a little bonus tip for those of you. Sponsor:This episode is brought to you byMindsize. Look, it’s super important for stores to have an online presence these days. If customers can’t buy online, they might not buy at all. And while doing eCommerce fast has gotten easier, doing eCommerce right still has its considerable challenges. That’s whereMindsizecomes in. They are a full service digital agency that focuses on WordPress and WooCommerce development. But that’s not all. They work with Shopify, big commerce, and more. And they’ll work with you to create the perfect strategy and website for your business. Already have an eCommerce site and want to make sure it’s up and running in tip-top shape? Their flat-rate site audit is exactly what you need. Over the course of two weeks, they’ll dive into every aspect of your site and deliver a prioritized list of actionable recommendations to make your site even better. That means more sales and engagement for you and your store. Or if you’re a freelancer or agency who feels in over your head or with an eCommerce build, their agency support plan is built specifically for you. There were a few times in my career where I really could have used that. They’ll take a high stress situation and help you relax while still delivering for your client. So check outMindsizeover atmindsize.comtoday. They will help you make more money, whether you need an eCommerce store, whether you need to improve your current eCommerce store, or if you build eCommerce stores for others. That’smindsize.com. Thanks so much toMindsizefor supporting the show. Joe:We are moving into the tips for listeners segment of the show. You’ve given us so much. But let’s say that somebody have taken your first two pieces of advice. Look inward, what’s your story, figure out your ideal client. What’s the next step? What should they do from there? Michelle Knight:I think from there, it really becomes creating content, we want to wait to create content until… I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, right? …we have the website up or the thing. But if you want to sell you need to have people to sell to. One of the best things that you can do once you’ve got a little solid ground with “Who am I? Who do I want to attract? What’s my mission? What am I offering?” then start putting content out there so that you can start building your audience. The first thing that I recommend is focus on quality content. Focus on things people are searching for. I’m holding my eyes right now—people can’t see me—because I’m trying to meditate. People always say, “What do I talk about? What do I create content about?” I’m like, “Go Google. See what people are searching for.” If you really want to show up, go into your niche and figure out what people need help with. There are so many free tools out there. I’m going to tell you some of them now.AnswerThePublicis an awesome free tool. All of these give you a limited amount of searches every day, but still just go do it every day for like five days, and you’ll be solid for 90 days.AnswerThePublicwill tell you the top questions being asked on Google. And you can type in your industry, you can type in your ideal customer, you can type in pain points, and they will tell you exactly what people are asking for. You can use a tool called Keywords Everywhere, which is a small investment but amazing when you’re wanting to do SEO. It’ll tell you how many monthly searches keywords get. You know you might be like, “This is great,” and it gets zero searches a month. It’s really going to help you. You can change even a little bit of the language, you can get thousand searches a month, and that’s amazing. You can even use YouTube specifically because they will autofill for you. So go to the search bar and type in something relevant to what you’re offering and let it tell you what the top searches are. So doing research and having that strong strategy in place to create content that people are actually searching for is important. And then you put your spin on it. I did a podcast episode the other day on morning routines. It was like pulling teeth from my team to get me to do this because I was like, “I’m not doing fluff content.” And they’re like, “Everyone keeps asking for this. Everyone wants this.” So I put my own spin on it. And it’s been a huge download. And I’ve gotten tons of messages that are like, “Oh my gosh, I love this.” You get to put your own spin on it, but you gotta make sure you’re getting in front of people. It’s the same with subject lines. If your subject line isn’t amazing, no one’s going to open your email, and no one’s going to know about all the goodness that you have. Same with titles of your content. So number one is focus on creating high-value quality content that people are actually searching for. Don’t just pull it out of thin air and be like, “This might be nice.” The good news is, you’ll have a lot of that information because you’ve done the ideal client research. Joe:I have been reminded… because I just do things I think are good ideas. I have been reminded that I am not my ideal customer. It’s something important to remember. This is great advice.AnswerThePublic. I’m definitely going to check that one out because I’ve never heard of it before. Really excited about that.Jennifer Bournwas on the show early on this year and she also talks about joining Facebook groups and even paid communities where people are asking questions of like… communities for your ideal customer, not communities of whatever you do professionally totally. Michelle Knight:Totally. And that’s what reallyAnswerThePubliccan also point you to forums and like Reddit and stuff, so then you can read through that. Full disclaimer. I actually hate Facebook groups. So I love them for paid stuff. Joe:Me too. Michelle Knight:But I don’t have my own account. I just stopped that a long time ago when I learned about evergreen content. But I will go into Facebook groups and just use the search function and just see what questions people are asking for support on and then write a blog post about it. So you’re totally right. It’s a great tool for ideal client research. Joe:That’s awesome. And then one more tool based on YouTube is vidIQ. Have you heard of this one? Michelle Knight:Yes. I love vidIQ. Joe:I think it’s really been helpful for me. I’ve only kind of used it superficially. Just like when I create a video, the extension in Chrome is there, and it’s like suggesting keywords. I really need to dive deep into it, though, because I think that it could be a really valuable tool for me. My channel is monetized now, and the amount I make is more than what they charge monthly. Michelle Knight:There you go. Joe:I think it’s a good investment. Michelle Knight:Well, it’s funny, because that actually is tip number two, which is to actually optimize your content. So you’re creating a high value content, you’re creating content that people are searching for, and then make sure that you’re actually optimizing that content. So no matter what platform evergreen platform you’re choosing will focus on YouTube, specifically, there are tools out there to tell you and give you tips on what keywords to use. Think about optimizing the title for search. The title, for instance, I might write a blog post that has a different title than a video of the same content that I put on YouTube, because I’m really paying attention to optimizing it for each of the platforms. Your thumbnail, right? Like making sure that these pieces are in place because they play a huge role in your content actually getting seen. We think like, “We’re going to have an amazing video, and everyone’s going to find it.” It really comes down to title and keywords and first impression. And that’s it. Those could be great and your video could suck and you’ll still rank as number one. We want it to be great all across the board so people want to hear more from you, but make sure when you’re creating this content, you’re taking the time to optimize it. Whether that’s SEO for blogging, writing your description, making sure your title and your keywords and your headers are in there. Same with Pinterest. Same with YouTube. Joe:Awesome. The YouTube thumbnail super-duper important. Michelle Knight:It’s crazy. Joe:I never thought about it until I noticed that all the people who were making similar content to me had them making a face and then pointing. Michelle Knight:It’s like a whole thing right now. Joe:It’s usually a screengrab of me that I like cut out and put but I just can’t… I saw one where I was like one finger up and looking like a teacher, and I’m like, “You look so unnatural.” But I’m doing my best. vidIQ is cool because it’ll show your thumbnail embedded with other thumbnails too in a search. Michelle Knight:Well, now you can do like gifs thumbnails. Joe:What? Michelle Knight:Yeah. You can do moving thumbnails. Joe:Breaking news. I did not know that. Michelle Knight:Breaking news. Joe:Awesome. I’m going to look into that too. I got a lot of homework for this episode. Michelle Knight:Sorry. Joe:Michelle, this has been so much fun. I do need to ask you my favorite question, which is, do you have any trade secrets for us? Michelle Knight:Oh, man. I’m going to bring it back to the beginning on the storytelling piece. This is my secret. This is my secret. Not enough people do it. I’m going to challenge you that every piece of content that you create has a micro-story in it somewhere. Now that micro-story can be in the introduction, where you introduce what you’re sharing, and why you’re sharing it. That micro-story can be in the actual education piece of it. It can be at the end. But the thing with storytelling that is so amazing is the effect that it has in our audience’s brain. So when you incorporate even just one single sentence of storytelling in your content, your audience is 22 times more likely to remember it. I don’t know about you, but I want people to remember my stuff. So even just that simple thing… There’s neural co… I nerd out on this stuff. But there’s neural coupling that happens when we hear other people’s stories. So our brains are activated, dopamine is released. We feel good. And it doesn’t have to be an earth-shaking story as I like to say. It’s so small relatable moments. So that has been my secret. Every piece of content that I create, every podcast that I’m on, everything that you will see for me has a tiny little bit of storytelling in it, whether it’s mine or my ideal customer’s, or what I like to call future casting, which is like a pretend made up kind of figurative story because it’s so, so powerful, and will serve you on both branding and the marketing level and selling honestly. Joe:That’s awesome. Micro story. I love it. As you say that, something has clicked for me. Because one of my most popular pieces of content right now is a blog post that’s titled “Why Gear Matters Least when You’re Starting a Podcast. I tell a story about how growing up my favorite baseball player was Paul O’Neill and I wanted to bat like Paul O’Neill, but me trying to mimic him and look and sound like him, quote-unquote, didn’t work for me because first of all, I’m not a lefty. Second of all, he’s very tall. So I just think that’s great. Challenge accepted. Michelle Knight:All right. Joe:As I write more blog posts, I’m going to include a micro-story in each. I’m glad you said in the educational piece or at the end. Mine was towards the end. And I was questioning that. I’m like, “Should I put it up front to hook the reader?” But I think the headline hooked them enough to keep reading. Michelle Knight:It always depends on what you’re presenting. Sometimes if you have to give a backstory, especially like we talked about, educational content does really well because that’s what people are searching for. Sometimes you want to set that up. If we’re sharing a misconception or mistakes or how to do something, we might want to share our journey with that. But sometimes you can just hook by asking questions or speaking directly to your ideal customer. But yeah, no matter where, put that story in there. I don’t care where it is. Joe:Awesome. Michelle, this has been an absolute pleasure. If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you? Instagram? Michelle Knight:Yeah, definitely find me on Instagram. You can go to my website, which is fully optimized. It’sbrandmerry.com. There’s links to all the things, tons of blog and video content on there, a freebie so you can join my email list You know, all the things. Joe:All the good stuff. Awesome. I will include that and all sorts of links that we talked about in the show notes over athowibuilt.it/210. If you want to hear Michelle and I talk more about the do’s and don’ts of specific platforms, maybe a little bit about travel because you mentioned something interesting in the pre-show, you can sign up for theBuild Something Clubover andbuildsomething.club. It’s a paltry $5 a month, and you get lots of really fantastic content, and a custom member chip—it’s a poker chip with a podcast logo on it. I love it. But in any case, Michelle, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Michelle Knight:Thank you for having me. Joe: And thanks to our sponsors: Mindsize, Restrict Content Pro, and TextExpander. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, get out there and build something. Joe:Real quick before we get started, I want to tell you about theBuild Something Weeklynewsletter. It is weekly, it is free, and you will get tips, tricks, and tools delivered directly to your mailbox. I will recap the current week’s episode and all of the takeaways, I’ll give you a top story, content I wrote, and then some recommendations that I’ve been using that I think you should check out. So it is free, it is a weekly, it’s over at howibuilt.it/subscribe. Go ahead and sign up over athowibuilt.it/subscribe. Intro:Hey, everybody, and welcome to Episode 210 of How I Built It, the podcast that asks, How did you build that? Today’s sponsors areMindsize,Restrict Content Pro, andTextExpander, who you will be hearing about later on in the show. Now, if you are aBuild Something Clubmember, if you’re subscribed to Build Something More but you happen to be picking up the normal feed, definitely get the Build Something More feed because we, Michelle and I, had a fantastic pre-show conversation, which is a show first. I’m sending out the pre-show because it was really good. Speaking of, my guest is Michelle Knight. She is the personal branding and marketing strategist over atBrandmerry. Michelle, how are you today? Michelle Knight:Oh, great. Thanks for having me. Loved our little pre-show chat. Joe:Likewise. Likewise. Thanks for joining me on the show here. Thanks for joining us. It was a lot of fun and nerd culture and WandaVision. First of all, if you’re not watching WandaVision, you should watch WandaVision. I guess by the time this comes out, we will actually be behind. So, if you haven’t seen it, spoiler alert. But if you’re all caught up, you know, don’t talk past what happened. That’s what we’re talking about today. We’re talking today about how to market your business without relying on social media, which I’m really excited about. I was looking at your website, again, personal branding consultant. I think this is a really good topic to talk about because I feel like I was telling my students about this like 10 years ago. I was teaching at the college level, college freshmen a computer literacy course, and I’m like, “You need to have a personal brand.” And they’re like, “Who cares?” But now fast forward to 2021, I feel like that’s even more important. So before we dive into the kind of social media stuff, I suspect having a strong personal brand will help with that. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about what you do there? Michelle Knight:Yeah, absolutely. I founded my companyBrandmerryright after my son was born in 2016 out of just the need to be home, to just not want to commute to work anymore. I had a background in PR, background in communications and I dove headfirst into creating my online business with really kind of wearing this coach consultant hat. I struggled a lot. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like I was mimicking everybody else. I spent months creating a website that then didn’t look like or sound like me, which is highly relatable to a lot of people. About nine months into it, when I was planning on leaving my nine to five, I was like, “Something needs to shift.” So I started to do more and more research outside as well as some internal research to figure out who I was and what I really wanted to build a brand around. And everything really started to shift for me at that point in time. I started to show up in a different way, I started to really express myself, I did more live videos and I started to share more stories. And instantly, I saw connections start to happen. The same people who had been in my community for months were buying from me suddenly. And I didn’t change the offer. All I did was change how I was showing up and creating a brand that was a representation of that. So that’s what I really fell in love with personal branding and storytelling, and I spent, the next three or four years really focusing on that aspect, teaching entrepreneurs specifically how to figure out, number one, who they are and how they want to show up online and then creating a brand and a product suite that’s in alignment with that mission. And then I’ve moved in the last couple of years to focus on, now, how do we market that? Because you realize really quickly that you can have an amazing personal brand, you can have an amazing product, but if you don’t know how to effectively market it, then nobody else is going to know about it. Joe:I love that. And it’s so funny that you mentioned that because I feel like between the pre-show and this you must have been listening into the solo episode I recorded right before this, which wasEpisode 205, where I talked about my failed Patreon experiment. It’s the same thing. I started this podcast in 2016. I went self-employed in 2017 after my daughter was born, and I thought, “I need to launch memberships. I need to launch a membership for my podcast.” And I just copied everyone else’s benefits, everyone else’s levels. And I’m like, “How come no one’s buying?” And then I came to realize I’m just promising a bunch of stuff that I don’t even know if I can deliver or not. So I took that down, and I’ve changed directions. Well, now people are actually buying my membership because it reflects me and what I can offer. So I think that’s fantastic. Michelle Knight:Well, I tell people all the time that people don’t buy the product or the service, there’s a million products and services that are exactly the same across the board. If people really just focused on that, then they would just buy the first thing that they see. But it’s about that connection, it’s about that relationship. And that’s why personal branding is so important. Joe:Yeah, absolutely. As people listen to this, I know that’s something I struggled with early on when I was freelancing and making websites for people was, how do I write my copy? Do I write “I”? Do I write “we”? Who is this? Is it the royal we? So maybe we can start there? How you present yourself, as you said, is so integral to connecting with customers, with selling more products and services? I or we? Michelle Knight:I think it depends. I think when you’re starting a business and you’re the sole CEO and face of that business, I always recommend going with “I”. Primarily because, who is the “we”? You and your imaginary team, probably not in the beginning. You’re the decision-maker at that point in time. The “I” allows for more of that personal connection. If you’re working with a company, I think you go back and forth. If we’re speaking on behalf of the company, I have a background in nonprofit management, if you’re speaking on behalf of the nonprofit and the work that they do, it’s a “we”. But if your CEO is stepping out and saying something, sharing their story, sharing what they’re doing, it’s an “I”. And then I guess as your business evolves, and I see this a lot, especially as someone who has added more team members and is moving more into a company role, I go back and forth between the two. If it’s me, I’m showing up, I’m sharing a story, I’m focusing on connecting, I’m the one telling the story. But if I’m talking about the team as a whole and we made this decision, then I can share that. So right out of the gate, I say default to “I”. As you grow, incorporate the “we.” Joe:I think that’s great. And that’s generally the advice that I’ve recommended as well just because, you know, there are benefits to working one on one with a freelancer. And maybe they’re not available 24/7 but they are there to fully understand your business to be invested in a way that some giant agency can’t be. Michelle Knight:Totally. Joe:Awesome. So when it comes to building your personal brand, we’re not just talking about website copy and “I” or “we.” What are we talking about? If I wanted to start investing in more of a personal brand for me, where would I start? Would I look inwardly? Would I do some research into things I should consider? What does the process look like? Michelle Knight:It’s kind of all of that. I like to say that branding as a whole, and I think it’s important to say, is an experience. I think very old school and what I thought even just five years ago was like, “Let me get my website up. Let me choose my colors and my fonts. If I do that everything will be fine.” And we’ve really learned. And now that information is so readily available to us, that it’s not about those things. It really is about the experience that we’re creating. And those things can help with that process, but at the end of the day, it’s that voice, it’s that mission, it’s how we’re carrying through everything that we’re doing, from website design to coffee to our products and our offers. The method that I teach is first to look inward because as a recovering perfectionist, I have a tendency to go outward, and say, “Oh, what are you doing? That seems to be working. Let me just copy that.” And that’s what happened in the beginning of my business. So I recommend going inward first. The first practice that I love to guide people through is just what’s your story because one of the first pieces of copy that everyone should really write is their brand story. And it’s one of the most fun things that you can create in the beginning. So going inward and saying, “What is my story? What has led me to where I am today? What’s the purpose behind me wanting to put my work out in the world?” As I mentioned before, I’m from a nonprofit background. So I always recommend my clients establish a mission for their brand. What are your values? These are the things that you want to identify right out of the gate so that you can make sure that you’re always showing up in those pieces—your brand is always showing up. Then the second piece of this is, all right, now, who do you want to attract? A lot of people forget this step of the personal brand, and then we start showing up sharing content and stories and it’s not resonating with people because it’s just about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I, when what we share needs to resonate with the people that we want to attract. So, you’re not showing up and just like writing your biography online. You’re building a business. So the stories that you share, the content that you share, even the colors that you choose needs to come down to, you know, how do I want my audience to feel? What are they seeking? What are they looking for? What’s happened in their life? That portion of it is where we get more into research, you know, the dreaded ideal client research that everyone hates. But I swear you have to do it. I personally love it. But that’s where that piece comes in. So then you combine those two things together, and you say, “All right, now let me decide what offer can I create based on my expertise that my audience absolutely needs? Because I know them so well at this point. What types of messages can I create that showcase my expertise and my strengths that resonate with my ideal customer. And so everything then kind of pulls on those two pieces as you build your business. Sponsor:This episode is brought to you byRestrict Content Pro. If you need a fast, easy way to set up a membership site for yourself or your clients, look no further than theRestrict Content ProWordPress plugin. Easily create premium content for members using your favorite payment gateway, manage members, send member-only emails, and more. You can create any number of subscription packages, including free levels and free trials. But that’s not all. Their extensive add-ons library allows you to do even more, like drip out content, connect with any number of CRMs and newsletter tools, including ConvertKit and Mailchimp and integrate with other WordPress plugins like bbPress. Since theBuild Something Clubrolled out earlier this year, you can bet it’s usingRestrict Content Pro. And I have used all of the things mentioned here in this ad read. I have created free levels. I’ve created coupons. I use ConvertKit and I’m using it with bbPress for the forums. I’m a big fan of the team, and I know they do fantastic work. The plugin has worked extremely well for me and I was able to get memberships up and running very quickly. Right now, they are offering a rare discount for how I built it listeners only: 20% off your purchase when you use RCPHOWIBUILTIT at checkout. That’s RCPHOWIBUILTIT, all one word. If you want to learn more aboutRestrict Content Proand start making money with your own membership site today, head on over tohowibuilt.it/rcp, that’showibuilt.it/rcp. Thanks toRestrict Content Profor supporting the show. And now let’s get back to it. Joe:This is the exact thing that I said, again, in that episode I just recorded. “I made the Patreon copy about me and I started my own business and I want to make content full time. And you should give me money so I can make content full time.” And I just read it back recently and I’m like, “What was I even thinking?” Who cares? Who cares that I want to make content? People want good content, and they will support good content, but they’re not just

The Joe Costello Show
Brad R Lambert - Producer, Talent Manager & International Speaker

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 24, 2021 76:01


My conversation with Brad R Lambert was a complete joy. To see someone so successful living in a town where egos can definitely get in the way of being human, Brad is a shining star. We had a real life conversation involving real life circumstances and in the end, empathy, love, comparison and the want to help others, trumps all. Success has not ruined this young man and he is an example of what is very right with the world and how he plans to love his life and leave his legacy. Enjoy, Joe Brad R Lambert: Producer, Talent Manager, International Speaker & Author Website: https://www.bradrlambert.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradrlambert/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebradrlambert LinkedIn: https:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradrlambert YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BradRLambert/ Email: brad@bradrlambert.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: Brad, thanks so much for joining me on the show. I really appreciate it. I'm so looking forward to this conversation with you, Matt. Brad: It's great to be here, thanks for having. Joe: So I want to start I always like to get the back story, because I really think it helps people know the person and become more familiar with where you came from and where you are today. And so if you don't mind doing that, that would be awesome. Brad: Oh, of course, I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so I'm actually from the East Coast, was born and raised in the Steel City, spent some time in North Carolina as well in Charlotte. I went to college at NC State, but I started really working, working when I was like 16, 17, 18 years old. You know, I had the traditional jobs of, you know, working at a sandwich shop or a movie theater. Like I worked at a movie theater all through high school and college for side income. And that's why I really fell in love with movies. So we'll get to that. But working working wise, I really found my entrepreneurial self at that age. I was very passionate about sports, so I wanted to be a part of the sports industry in any way, shape or form. Specifically, I wanted to work directly with my athletes, the guys that I cheered on Sundays and Mondays, now Thursdays, you know. So I wanted to provide whatever value I could for those guys. So I was able to get connected to a few of the Pittsburgh Steelers. And at that age, I was, like I said, still in high school so that the age gap between me and a lot of these athletes was pretty significant. So the disconnect was there, but I had to prove myself and build that trust and credibility through my actions. So I learned very quickly how to connect with high level people at a young age, and that was by building genuine relationships and adding whatever value I could to benefit them both personally and professionally. So, you know, simple things like, you know, later on down the road, it would be like, hey, man, I'm in Arizona training. Can you swing by my house and move my car for me? Yeah, dude, I'm around whatever Joe: Right. Brad: You need, you know, or, hey, help me with this massive campaign endorsement deal, whatever. So I had a range of things that I did for these guys. But at the start of it, it was at the the initial beginnings of Facebook and social media. So these guys didn't understand how to utilize social media to benefit themselves. And I had been playing around with it for a while. So I saw the opportunity. So I was able to then bring that knowledge and expertise to the table to help establish these guys on social media, help with content creation strategy, etc.. So through high school, I worked with these athletes and some agencies just do my own thing. Then all through college, I actually worked with a marketing agency while I was at NC State. So I was basically full time with the agency and doing school at the same time. So it was such a great experience because I had, you know, got in at the right time with this agency, proved myself and that I was going to New York City almost twice a month, sitting down with Fortune 500 brands in these, you know, Penthouse suites in New York City. And it was my job to sit there and be quiet, that that's what I was told. And that at the time made a lot of sense. So I would just sit there and soak up the room, all the knowledge, all the exchanges, everything. And a funny nickname I had was these guys were just so used to me sitting there very stoically and just listening. Now they're like, who's this silent assassin? Like, who is this? You know? But I was just following directions, you know. But now, obviously. Joe: And what what year was this? Sorry to interrupt, I just want Brad: No, Joe: To get the timeline. Brad: Not a problem, I mean, freshman sophomore year of college, I was working with this agency, maybe even through junior year, I'm not sure, Joe: Like Brad: But I was young. Joe: What year, what year, like. Brad: Oh, I. She's 20, 21. Joe: That's how old you are. Brad: Yeah, so I was 2009, 2010, maybe, so I was I was young and it was started college for me, so I was, you know, doing school work and then doing work, work and then traveling and doing both. And it was just such a great experience for me because it got me ahead. It put my feet to the fire and challenged me at early age, which I love. Like I'm fearless in that regard. I'll try anything. I'm not afraid to fail. At worst case, I learn one. I'm not good at it, or I learned how to do it a different way. So, you know, I'm not really caught up in those elements of what if I fail or, you know, I'm like, screw it. I'm just going to try. And if I fail, so be it. I'll learn and move on, you know, and be better because of it. So, you know, with that experience, man, like, fast forward to, you know, after school and I moved back to Pittsburgh to work with a sports agency. And then eight months later, I was out in L.A. working with Robert Downey Jr. and his team. So those elements of that experience from high school to college, where I was working with high level celebrities and professionals and entrepreneurs and things like that, it didn't bother me. Brad: So, you know, being in the same room with professional athletes or celebrities or talent like Robert Downey Junior, it doesn't bother me like they're just like us. They're just normal people. They just have high profile jobs and lives in general. So I'm able to build that trust and that credibility because, one, I'm not a fan girling, you know, in front of these guys and to it's it's all business. I want to have a genuine relationship with these people. So it's not about, you know, hey, what can you do for me? It's about what I can do for you. And my scale of giving and receiving is so far skewed and giving. And I'm not complaining. I'm just stating a fact. That's how I live my life. And I'm so happy because of it. The relationships I have are just mind blowing. I mean, just from status and success and, you know, credible people as well, as well as just good people. At the end of the day, that's all that really matters to me, is like you could be the most famous successful person in the world. But if you're not nice or kind to other people, I don't really care to associate with you. And I've had to cut off some big fish, but I don't care. Brad: Like, I really don't want to surround myself with that negativity, that ego or that hate. So my circle is very specific about who I associate with and who I call a friend and family and so on and so forth. So. You know, I moved out to L.A. and got my feet wet in the entertainment industry and going back to what I said earlier about working on a movie theater, I was the guy rep and tickets and cleaning up popcorn and stuff in high school. And I fell in love with that, just going to the movies. And, boy, I can't wait to go back when it's safe to do so. But, you know, that's where I fell in love with all the different genre of film, because before I worked at the movies, I was like, oh, just action, you know? But then that opened up my palate, rom coms and dramas and the horrors and literally everything, thrillers like thrillers. So now I have an appreciation for all different genres of film and that whole process. So coming out to Los Angeles, I wanted to pursue film, TV and entertainment as a whole. I never wanted to be the the actor, you know, BSR. That was not my my goal. I always wanted to be involved at whatever capacity. Brad: So I brought my marketing, my business background out here and that's what got my start. And I really started to find myself out here. After working with Downey, I went to Warner Brothers and I was managing the marketing campaigns for TV, film and catalog titles. So that experience really helped me find the producer in me because I was given task with large budgets. I had to collaborate with different agencies and teams and then flex my creative and business muscles to get stuff done. And that was me managing those very high level campaigns for Warner Brothers. So for me, that was like as a producer, you have to have a good balance of business and creative. And that that was me and I really was like, wow, I can do this. So I actually went on to executive produce my first film, which was a horror film I helped raise. I think it was between three to five million dollars, which I'd never done before. So that was just I was grateful to be a part of that project. And just once again, someone threw me an opportunity instead of being afraid of failing or oh, I don't know how to do this. I was like, give me a few days and let me see what I can muster up. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Brad: I'll figure it out. And I ended up making a bunch of calls and connecting dots, and we were filming a few months later. So it was just to be a small part of that project and kind of have that experience now moving forward with the other stuff that I'm doing from music videos to commercials to I have a full slate of films right now that I'm working on getting funding for because they're all independent. I'm taking calls with voices and, you know, investors and things of that nature. So once again, that early experience. Pays dividends, you know, so waiting for the perfect time to to try things is not always the best route to take. You know, if you can start early while your competition is not, I think you'll really get an edge for yourself. And I am by no means you know, where I want to be yet. But the progress I've been able to make, and I'm only thirty two. So I'm I'm I feel the momentum. I feel myself coming together and who I am and what I'm about and the people I surround myself with and I'm just grateful for. And they inspire me and they need to be better each and every day. And I couldn't ask for anything more. Joe: That's incredible. So you're going to have to forgive me, because I know the part about this that means a lot to me is helping to educate the audience on how you become the type of person that you are that a lot of people want to be where they have to put one foot in front of the other and actually go through the stuff and not overthink it, not over planet. So I'm going to pull you all the way back to high school because I know what I was like in high school and I just I played soccer. I was interested in girls. I, you know, whatever. I never had the focus that it sounded like you had. So my first question is, did this come from your parents? Was there something that they instilled in you to say, hey, Brad, you can go out and do anything you want, just go and you just going to ask, how Brad: Yeah, Joe: Did that happen for you? Brad: Well, it's funny to ask that is so spot on, you'll laugh, but my mom always said if you don't ask, you don't get. And that has stuck with me from day one. She she's always been my biggest supporter. I love her to death. Obviously, you were a part of the Growth Now summit, but she was there. So Joe: Yeah, that's right, it's. Brad: In one of my she's my biggest supporter and I love her to death. So she's inspired me in so many ways. And, you know, so, yeah, she definitely pushed me. But I would say, you know, I was wired differently, you know, just in a sense of I was a dreamer man. Like, I, I always swung for the fence, whether it was asking out the the hottest girl or, you know, trying to get the biggest opportunity or whatever, you know, I didn't care. I was like, you know, my standards for what I wanted. You know, I didn't want to talk down to myself or limit myself of, oh, I could never accomplish that. Like, what kind of mindset is that? You know, I would say if you're not challenging yourself, you're never going to know what you're truly capable of. And each and every day I'm constantly stepping into something that I never thought was possible. Like I just got approached with an opportunity that wasn't even on my radar, not even remotely maybe down the line, but it was thrown in my face three weeks ago. And I've had to be scrappy and jump on the opportunity. But I wasn't planning on it. But I also was not going to be like, I'm not ready for this or now talk to somebody else. I'm like, I'm going to give it my all and it's either going to happen or it's not, you know, and that's how I look at things. So, you know, I'm fairly confident in that. And that project I was just mentioning, it's come along nicely. But what's cool about that project? I'm not going to dive into details, but I was approached for me. Brad: Get this done, but instead of looking at it like me, me, me, lalala, I was like, you know what, I'm going to bring in some heavy hitters and we are going to win together because including then we'll take away some stuff for me, but everyone will benefit and the project will be that much better because of it. And I want I want that to be very clear, I could have done this by myself as I. I could have done a good job, but it wouldn't be what it is right now if I didn't include these other heavy hitters, so it's having that selflessness to step aside, right. And say, you know what, this is what it is, I'm going to I'm going to bring in people I care about, people who I have a lot of respect for, who are so talented in their own right that are going to really complement what we're doing or what we're trying to do. And man, the the the masterpiece that we've kind of put together for this project, I'm so excited about it. But once again, I could have taken the ego approach to made it all about me. And I was like, no, I'm going to bring in the squad and we're all going to benefit and when because of it. So it's just that kind of approach where it's like, you know. Am I trying to just get it done or am I trying to go overboard and do the best job possible? And a lot of people want one hundred percent of the credit, whereas not many people are OK with 12 percent. Joe: Something great, as opposed to one hundred percent or something semi, you Brad: That's Joe: Know, Brad: Nothing Joe: I mean, right, Brad: Once one hundred percent of nothing. Joe: Right. Brad: I mean, that's that's the reality of it. So a lot of people only want to think of themselves or they want all the limelight and they want all the shine and credit. And it's like, look, at the end of the day, nobody gets anywhere by themselves. And people who say otherwise are either insane or they're egomaniacs to the point where it's like there's no talking to them. They just they are who they are. So for me, it's like I never want to be put in that category. I think ego is one of the biggest turnoffs up in general and to it's one of the biggest inhibitors to success, growth, relationships, period. And being in Hollywood, I'm sure you can imagine the egos that exist here. And it's funny from people who have no right to have egos here have egos. So it is it's fascinating to me where, you know, I'm from Pittsburgh. It's a blue collar town. It's a hardworking town. It's a good town. The people are kind. They're giving, they're generous. And, you know, so coming out here, I was very much an alien in a way because I didn't subscribe to the norms of L.A. and the behavior and the competition and the wild, wild West nonsense. And, you know, I didn't get along with people who who played that game because I'm not going to play that game. I'm not going to cut somebody's legs off to to win. That's just not who I am. So that's what allowed me to kind of separate myself and find myself and find my lane. Brad: And, you know, there are consequences to your actions and how you treat people. And in this business, they always come back around the person you screw over. Now, I guarantee you you'll see them in five years. That's just how the business is. Unless you leave the business because it's not for you and you fail, you're going to see him again. So you need to treat everyone with respect and kindness. You may not like them, but that's not a requirement, right? Like there are a lot of people I don't like in this business, but I still will treat them with respect and kindness. I don't have to like them. You know, I wouldn't have to be friends. We can be acquaintances, professional. Relationship, but aside from that, like we're not going to be grabbing a beer, watching football, like that's just, you know, that's not. But everybody, once again, they're still like this with so many aspects of their life, just like this, where you need to widen. That view and why, in your mind and your horizon to the possibilities of not just what you're capable of, but looking at situations differently, like I try to plan five to 10 moves ahead if I do or say this, this, this and this is going to happen, you know? So it's it's it's mental chess in a way of understanding how, you know, things move, how things operate, how people move and how people operate and everybody's different. Brad: But if you can understand, you know, interpersonal communication and kind of get a good read on somebody, you can understand the ebb and flow of conversation and their actions. People are very stuck to patterns. They behave a certain way and they rarely change. So if you can identify that pattern and how they move and how they speak and things like that, you're able to kind of ride the wave in a way of like, this is how this person is. I got to kind of change chameleon wise to to be able to deal with it and make it successful because we can't just stay the same core values. Yes, stay the same. But in regards to, like, how you communicate with certain people, some people, you got to have the most amount of patience in the history of time. Other people, it's like it's so chill, like it's a chill work environment. Whatever other people you have to really kind of be on them to to make sure they're getting whatever tasks done. And so everybody's different. But you have to you can't just stay the same person with everybody. You have to understand that each each everybody's different and you have to kind of change to best suit that like a puzzle piece, because if you don't. That's where the issues happen. You know, you're not the way I want you to be, Joe. So we're going to have problems Joe: Ok. Brad: Like that. That's not how it works. But put a lot of leaders are like that where it's like you don't fit what I want. You're out of here. You're not a brainwashed zombie. You're out of here. And trust me, I've had so many experiences like that where it's like if you have an opinion, if you're your own person and it's the way the business is, it's the wild, wild West. And I will say this, those people make it far very quickly, but long term, you know, fall on their face. Joe: So and that's what attracted me to you in that that Growth Now summit. I heard you talk and then I started looking at all that you've accomplished at the ripe old age of 30 to Brad: Thank Joe: Like Brad: You. Joe: I was like this. He is the most humble person that I've seen with the accolades that you have. And I just was like, got to have to talk to this guy because I just turned fifty nine. And there's many things I want to do with my life. I didn't do all of the things the way. I mean, I don't like I don't want to say regret, but I definitely feel like I have some regret because I just didn't if I don't know, I've always had really high goals. Did I work as hard as I should have on all those things? Probably not. So I take all of the blame. But I just think that I want to surround myself with people that even now, like, I could just say, well, you know, it didn't work out. I'm just going to just going to do it constantly. I think a big motivator for me with this podcast when I started it almost a year ago was I want to be around people that are successful, people that through me and these conversations can spread the word of what they did to make things like this happen. And so, yeah, you you definitely had to be wired different. The fact that a in high school, you were doing all that you were doing and then again in college, college is like, wow, I'm finally out of the house and I'm just going to I'm going to do as little work as I can and I'm going to have a great time. Brad: Look, Joe: It's just Brad: I Joe: It's. Brad: Don't think I went to one party in college, I'm Joe: I Brad: Not Joe: Know Brad: Getting. Joe: It doesn't surprise me. It sounds Brad: I Joe: Like. Brad: Just I had no interest like the the one to one exchanges and the nonsense now I had fun in my own way, but like I just that college, like it just didn't it didn't appeal to me. But I was also so busy on the other things that I was trying to do. And I saw the potential and the benefits of the things that I was doing. I actually stepped away from school for a year because that marketing agency opportunity was thriving so much. Where I'm in these boardrooms at Fortune 500 companies, I'm like, why am I still in school? You know, like and so I took a year off and I went all in on this marketing agency and the experience I got out was crazy. And I ended up finishing school online. But it was like that's the kind of real world experience that, you know, I had a conversation with the young lady the other day in Canada. And she's like, how do I how do I get to where you are? And I was like, what are you doing right now? You took the time and the effort to to follow up with me on LinkedIn. And we finally found a time to talk. And I'm giving you 15, 20 minutes to talk. And however I can help you, I'm going to do it. And she was just very laser focused, right, on what she wanted to get out of this conversation. And I was like, your hustle, your focus. Like, that's going to get you really far. Brad: And now you just have to act on it. You can't worry like it's like sales. You're going to knock on two hundred doors and you might get one or two answers. But the second you're about to quit that next door might be the one that changes your whole life. So that's why it's like you just got to keep going. You've got to ignore like there are things where I have an opportunity, biggest opportunity ever and I'll just like I'll do what I need to do. But then I move on. Like, I'm not waiting or dwelling, I'm just like next, you know, that's not something that I, you know, I don't want to waste time because it's out of my hands. Once I do what I need to do, I hand it off and then what will be will be right. So I'm not going to sit here and and be kind of bent out of shape of, oh, my gosh, I haven't got one. Yes. Like I've got so knows I've lost count. But that is what we need to do. Like we have to persist, we have to keep going. And that's something that a lot of people aren't like. Some people can't handle failure and I get it. But at the same time, like you're capable of more than you think, you just have to rewire how you look at things. Once again, it's not you're a loser, Joe. You failed. It's that opportunity wasn't meant for you. And what did you learn out of it? Well, that changes the whole game like that, I don't feel like a loser, right, because I did it when, you know, when I win, I learn. Brad: When I lose, I learn. But I don't look at it is like, wow, I failed, you know, just like look. And if anything, it's another chip on my shoulder, right. Somebody passed on me. The opportunity didn't work out, whatever. But like a great example is what's right behind me right here. This this poster of Avenger's, a game that's signed by the entire cast. OK, I'm a huge nerd. I love pop culture. I love film. I love TV. I love comics. I grew up with these characters. So to be able to work with a guy like Downey, you can imagine how awesome that was. So I wanted to work for Marvel after Downey. I went to Warner Brothers and at Warner Brothers, I was working on all these IPS and campaigns and titles that I loved. And I was like, this is so much fun. I would die to, like, go to Disney and do this for Marvel. I have to do this for Marvel. So I tried. I tried it, tried even it down. I tried to get a job at Marvel and I came second place. And then when I was a WB, I had, I think, two tries where I came second place. And I was just like, oh, it's not it's not working, you know? And a lot of people would have just given up on that dream. It's never going to happen. Brad: I'm never going to work for Marvel, never going to work for Disney. It's just not meant to be. All right, fine. So I'm going to create my own path. That's why I did I was doing my own thing. I was producing, managing, consulting, and I brought value. To Marvel and Disney put this collaboration together with one of the biggest artists on social media, and he designed this incredible artist, so freakin talented, but the goal of working with Marvel and Disney right there. So I went from failing multiple times, not giving up and then working on the biggest movie of all time, being a very small piece to that campaign. And that's something like like I said, it's signed by the entire cast. And that's a living reminder every single day where it's like. You know, I got this tattooed on my arm, if you say a tattoo right here says whatever it takes and that's a line from Avengers and game, whatever it takes to get it done, whatever it takes, make it happen. And that's that's right there, Sam, with this one, like it's like I, I don't set limitations for myself and I will fail constantly, but it's, you know, getting hit, getting back up and keep going and trying again. And what's the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Right. So when something's not working, you got to create a new path or try something else. And that's what they did. So to fail as much as I did trying to get that job with Marvel and Disney, those opportunities didn't work out. Brad: I went out, did my own thing, created my own path and ended up working on Avengers and being part of that marketing campaign. And then I followed that up with working on Spider-Man Far From Home with Sony Pictures. And I grew up with Spider-Man. So that was an unbelievable experience for me. So once again, like chasing your passions, adding whatever value you can around those passions and staying consistent and persistent with that approach. And that was my goal, like Disney, Sony, Universal. What value can I bring to your campaign to make it the best campaign ever? Like and that's how I looked at things. I look at things from a broad standpoint of, OK, there's an opportunity here. I'm going to try to fill that hole with Zouliou. You know, but a lot of people are like, I need you to tell me. What you need to do, as I know you've got to be scrappy and self starting in that regard where it's like. I followed this artist for so long, I know I knew what he was capable of, I knew he had a huge following. So working with WB, I knew I paid creative agencies a lot of money to create assets for campaigns and then they would deliver the assets and that would be it. So I was like, why not pay an artist who has almost a million followers? To do art with a demographic that's your target market, right, so the value there was way more than what it would be with a creative agency. Brad: The value was the creative agency doesn't have a million followers that they'll post and push it out. So not that Disney needs the extra million followers, but if you're going to pay for it either way, why not be smart about it and get the most bang for your buck? And that was the approach I brought creatives influencers talent to the table who could add a unique twist to these campaigns where, you know, working on them as much as I did for two years would be a lot of the content looks the same, the same countdown images, Meems, quote, images, static images, trailers, same thing. So what can we do to make it different? That's how you make it different. So it's finding those opportunities and trying to be self starting in a way of I recognize talent. I'm going to go out and get that talent and do whatever I can to help that person. So win win. Right. And that's, you know, I'm going to bring value, you're going to bring your talents and we're going to win together, that's it. You know, and that. It's that simple, but a lot of people once again, they want all the light, they want all the credit, and those are people that are really shooting themselves in the foot because at the end of the day, that's where ego comes in. And once you get sucked into that big fat ego, you're done. Joe: Yeah, again, on that that call that we did or that video that you were on, I was like, how is this guy so humble and down to earth? And it was a total attraction to me because I mean it from my heart. I grew up just a couple hours north of New York City, and I spent a good 12 years there as a musician. And I've been to L.A. doing auditions where I was the guy from out of town. And I've seen the egos on both sides of the coast and I get it. And for you to to be the way you are and be in this business for as long as you have been and still you are who you are, that's that's a you know, you should pat yourself on the back for that because that's a big thing. So. Brad: Well, I a big thing is, you know, your reputation is everything. So when you let ego come into play. You're really once again shooting yourself in the foot and your reputation will take a massive hit because of it, because at the end of the day, man like especially in a business like this, like nobody cares, like they want whatever it is done, they don't care how it gets done, just get it done. You're not as important as you think you are. That's just the way it is. So, like, why have an ego? And plus, I'm not where I want to be. You know, there's a million people better than me. Like, that's just around. I'm 32 years old. You know, how can I possibly have an ego when there's a guy like Elon Musk walking around? Right now, I'm serious, Joe: I know. Brad: I'm serious. It's like, you know, how can I have an ego when you know a guy like Gary Vaynerchuk taken over the world? You know, like but Gary is a friend, you know, so like, where's the ego come into play? To me, it's like I have so much more room for growth and learning and just continuing to grow in that regard where it's like, how could I possibly have an ego? But I also don't want the people who I'm friends with in sixth grade to be like, wow, you really turned into a jackass. I don't want that, you know? But, you know, the guy who is on the growth now said the call was my best friend in elementary school and middle school. He was in that room. And I hit him up afterwards and thanked him for I didn't know he's going to be there, but he was there and he he thanked me profusely for acknowledging his existence in the room. And he was like, you're a good dude. My best friend from elementary school and middle school Joe: It's crazy. Brad: Just said I was a good dude after all the time had passed all the experiences I've had, but I'm not perfect. You know, I make mistakes, but it's never done in a I'm better than you, you know, way. I just I don't believe in that. We may have a bad exchange. You may catch me on a rough day. We're human, but there's a difference between. A mistake and an exchange and just being a pompous ass, right? Huge difference. And there's if you look hard enough, you'll see the difference. But I try so hard to make sure every interaction that I have is a good one. And it's not just about. I got to make myself look so cool in this chat. It's like I want Joe to really enjoy this conversation and have good things to say about me, hopefully on the end. That's my goal. But if I'm here like Joe, you are a worthless dude. Like, I mean, come on. Like, it's just like Joe, you wouldn't understand. I'm in the big leagues, Joe: Right, Brad: Bro. Joe: You're right. Brad: It's just I don't it drives me crazy because I've experienced it so much with with egos on the people that I've interacted with. And it's such a turnoff where you're just like you won't even look at me in the face or you won't talk to me enough to talk to me through somebody else. I just like I don't care. I don't care who you are. I don't want to deal with that. I'm a human just like you. You're in a high profile position. That's the only difference. That's it. So, yeah, I mean, there's nothing to have an ego about. Like I'm nowhere where I want to be. Yet I've done a lot of great things I'm grateful for and and I'm continuing to build in that regard. But yeah, there's there's absolutely if you're making others feel little. Unless then you're a pretty shitty person and I don't ever want to be a person that makes somebody else feel less than ever. Joe: Well, like I said, I could tell it's just so natural for you and I'm thrilled to be here with you. So I again, I'm going to drag you back to my school. So forgive me, but I want to understand what the pivot was from you starting out with sports, which seemed like a natural thing for you to do because it's such a heavy sports town. But you so you did this, but you also mentioned that you've worked in a movie theater. So was your first love, the whole movie thing. But sports, how did you transition and are you still involved in sports? Brad: Yes, I'm so very involved with with my guys specifically on the Steelers and the Penguins, I want to I want to be a person of value to those guys, whether it's personally, professionally, whatever they need. Like I said, hey, move my car. Hey, you know, how do I get this done? Help with an endorsement deal, whatever it is. So I I'm very much still involved with sports. I love sports, but I'm a two sided coin, right. When one side sports, you have those entertainment. So I dabbled in sports initially. That was my my first thing. And I got to the point where I was like, man, I'm like 24, 25 if I don't pursue this other thing. I might miss my window, and that's when I. Had the opportunity to move out here and work with Downey and his team, and that's where I went heavy into entertainment. So but what's great about entertainment is like you could very well pull sports into it, like sports is under the entertainment umbrella. So I don't really look at them separate. Obviously, I started in sports initially, but, you know, once you're in entertainment, fashion, gaming, TV, film, music, sports, I mean, my goodness, you could everything falls under that. Brad: So it's that's what's exciting to me is when I was, you know, in a smaller town like Charlotte, I knew a lot of people. And then when I went to Pittsburgh, I really. Built a lot of crazy relationships, and once again, this is not networking, I want to be very clear, it's actually building genuine relationships with people, whether they're not famous or famous, like it's it's the same. It's consistent, but it was more of like, how can I build how quickly can I build in a bigger city like Pittsburgh? Right. And eight months I i from the top of the Steelers organization to the to heavy hitters and the Penguins organization to, you know, Lynn Swann like huge, huge names. And we're talking like personal relationships with these people. And that showed me, like, if I ever go to a big city and live in New York or L.A., I could really get stuff done. So when I came out to L.A., that was that was my goal. What can I accomplish in L.A.? Who can I get connected to and build relationships with and what could we accomplish together? Right. And I moved out to L.A. and started with Robert Downey Jr. and Joe: So, Brad: Then from there. Joe: Yeah, so before we go there, because I want to ask how that happened, and I think it's it's driving my mind crazy because I want to know how someone gets their first gig out there in a sense. And I'm not sure if that's true, but if that is true, then I really that's incredible. But with the sports figures in Pittsburgh, when somebody hears you tell this story, it's like, well, what does that mean? Ditcher, did someone in your family know somebody and allowed you to stand on the sideline what they were like? How do you get in front of these people? What's what's the connection that you used to kind of stack on all these people Brad: Yeah, Joe: That you would meet? I mean. Brad: Well, stacking on is a good way to put it, because at the end of the day, we are our own brand right now from me, starting at 16, 17, 18 years old and working with professional athletes and the Steelers. I've been around that organization since like 2005, 2006. Consistently, it's twenty twenty one, so that's a long time being around the team, the players, the ownership, the coach like. Joe: But how how did you do that, like what Brad: Well, it Joe: Does that mean, because I am Brad: Once Joe: In Brad: Yeah, Joe: Love, I have never seen it. So I go to the Cardinals games, Brad: Once Joe: But. Brad: You get once you get connected to one and back when I got connected, it was I literally was able to connect through the phone book like it was that kind of scrappy thinking that I was able to at the time. Phone books were still a thing and one thing led to another, got connected to somebody else and that was it. But, you know, now it's Deanne's or introductions through contacts, but you have to be able to introduce yourself and a wow manner. Right. So I've been building my brand since 16, 17, 18 years old. So when I run into someone or I'm at an event or I'm at training camp and I have the opportunity to say hello, I'm not saying, hey, can I have your autograph Joe: Right. Brad: Or hey, can I have a picture I can't write? Brad Lambert, you know, I've been around the team since 2005. I would love to connect any way I can help. Let me know. I mean, what more could you ask for that? That's an elevator pitch. Home, right? Right. So that was how I handled it, and it was like, yeah, I'm friends with Willie Parker, I know Hines and all the guys, you know, and, oh, OK. You know, once you have that credibility where you can attach your name to somebody else in a way that I'm friends with so-and-so, that wall of defense goes down. Goes away. Immediate because a lot of people are like, who are you and why are you talking to me when you say something like that? That wall comes down now like, oh, what's up? You're just a normal person. You're not a crazy fan. Right. And that is how you separate yourself by not acting like crazy fan. And the best example I could give is I went to training camp a lot back in the day and I used to bring a bunch of my friends. We would go and we would be on the field because of my relationships, be on the field during practice, which is amazing. And then after practice, everyone would scatter and get as many photos and as many autographs and we'd all come back like half hour later when everybody left. And would you get what you get? How'd you get that? And everyone would be like, Oh, I got so-and-so this, not this and that. And then Bobby Brown, would you get I was like at zero. No, like you had 30 to 40 minutes to get as many photos and autographs as possible on the field with all these guys. And you got zero. I was like, yeah, but I got seven phone numbers. And they're like, oh, Joe: Yeah. Brad: That's how different we were wired, right priorities, man, like I'll get autographs and photos later when I'm hanging out with them at their house. I don't care about that. Like, I want to build a genuine relationship. And you're not going to do that when you start by asking for photos or autographs. It's just not going to happen. So like Downey, for instance, I've known him for six years. But I didn't get my first picture with Downey until like 20, 19 Christmas right before the pandemic, I was at his Christmas party and it was like a five year. Window was like, it's been five years, like, can I get a photo? I would love to just close that Joe: Right. Brad: That loop. And and he was like, get over here, man. Of course, like that. Don't be ridiculous, you know? But once again, if I the first time I saw him, I ran up and was like, can we get a selfie like that? That's so annoying. The first time I saw him, I walked up to him and I introduced myself and I said, thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to working with you. You know, but Joe: Yeah, Brad: That's Joe: Yea. Brad: That's the difference. Joe: And you're very wise for your years of being, because I I was that person because I was so starstruck as like I wanted to be this touring drummer, that was my goal. I went to music school, which that's another question I'd have to ask, but I can't forget that. I have to make sure we talk about that quickly. But so anytime I went to see someone, I don't think I was obnoxious, but I was definitely starstruck. And it was it wasn't I never was thinking of, hey, I know you're in town. If there's anything I can do for you while here, let me know. Like, if I just said that whatever and walked away, that would have been. But instead, I know that I gushed and Brad: It's Joe: So Brad: Normal. Joe: And so I wasn't wired like you. But my it's changed for me a lot. So even where I am now, now it's just like, listen, I'm just trying to do good in the world and the people that can see that through me. Great. And so things have really changed in the last, I would say, a couple of months for me just because I changed my mindset. And it's a shame it took me this long to figure it out, but at least I figured it out before it's too late. So. Brad: Everybody has their own their Joe: Yeah, Brad: Own time and Joe: Yeah. Brad: Their own their own path, their own way of living. I mean, it's not a competition. I mean, I you know, my way of thinking wasn't always right, you know? I mean, it's just the reality of it. I missed out on a lot because of the way I was. I've been wired and I wouldn't change it. But it's not all rainbows and unicorns, you know what I mean? It's it's just it's tough, you know? So it's I don't want you to or anybody, for that matter to think, oh, I don't think like Brad, I failed, you know, or I waited till I was fifty nine years old to get this. It's like it's not a competition like, you know, so I don't I don't subscribe to that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean it was the relationships are what matter. And when you deal with high level people, they don't really have genuine relationships. Because they're high level people, a lot of people want stuff, so when you come at it almost obnoxiously like, what can I do for you? How can I help? They're like, wow, this is refreshing. You know, how are you? Like, how are you? Like, who's asking then that, you know? But that's the difference, you know? And that's at the end of the day, these are normal people and they just want to feel normal sometimes. Brad: And that's what I try to give. You know, it's like let's go back to the house and play that. And till our eyes bleed, like, that's that's the kind of like normalcy I want. These guys, most of them are young man, like twenty, twenty one years old. I'm the old man now at thirty two when I was 17, 18 when I first met these guys. Now I'm the old guy so like you know, but that, that trust that I have and you know, just try to help and give them opportunities and keep them away from certain things early in their career. You know, some of them don't want to hear it. And I've lost relationships because I've been brutally honest from a professional standpoint of like, yo, this is not this is not a good move for your brand and your business moving forward. And some of them like see you later. OK, but at the end of the day, it was all love. You know, I didn't get anything out of it. So it's it's been honest and transparent and truly having their best interests in mind. And just anybody I work with, I try to have really, you know, care and show that I care. Brad: But the one thing, too is, is empathy is so important. A lot of people aren't empathetic enough. They don't look at people and read that they're sad or they're stressed or they're anxious or whatever and then react accordingly. They only care about themselves and what they want out of a situation, and that's it. But you have to acknowledge these things and you have to care about how other people are feeling, because if you can identify. Oh, wow, look at look at, you know, Joe, he looks like a little down today. I'm going to hit him up, you know, makes a difference. I've had people on Twitter just. Oh, my life sucks, I'm having a horrible day, getting out of bed is hard. I call him. How are you? Talk to me. I'm here. I send my message, hey, sound good vibes. I'm here if you need to talk. You're not alone, your loved. Whatever everybody's going through, man. But if you just say about yourself, you know, and one person that I did do that to recently hit me up like that meant a lot to me. Because I was struggling. And that little text that you sent me a text, Joe, you know how long it took me? Joe: Right, right. I Brad: But Joe: Think Brad: Once Joe: You Brad: Again. Joe: Brought that up on the call on Brad: Yeah, Joe: The summit. Yeah. Brad: But that's that's a difference, it's like a lot of people think they're too important or too busy, too arrogant, too ignorant to do these little simple things, or in reality, if everyone did a little extra, the simple things that we overlook or don't want to take the time to do the world would be a much kinder, happier place. But that's the issue. And that's like, you know, naive of me to think. But I'm trying to make that the norm. I'm trying to show people that those little things that you do mean something and and it matters, especially when everyone's dealing with a global pandemic. So, you know, I think hearing that someone appreciates you or like you reaching out to me after the event like that was awesome. That made my day. Like anybody who wants to hear me speak, I'm like, wow, OK, cool, thanks. You know, so it's but that's it's the little things, you know. And a lot of people don't care to acknowledge those things or give those little things that you do. And I think that's where the problem lies. Joe: Yeah, I agree with you so much. OK, so you get on with college, you what is the catalyst in the plan like what groundwork was laid so that you literally could move to L.A. and hit the ground running? And not only that, but work with somebody like Robert. Brad: From a very young age, I was trying to surround myself with people who I admire and who inspire me. That's like just not because I wanted anything other just to be a part of their lives, like and that's what I constantly did since I was young. And I build genuine relationships because of that. Like, I it's not I need something better. And when I don't get what I need, I'm now like, that's not what we're talking about. People like we're talking like. And her relationship, genuinely, you're not expecting anything if you get something great, hallelujah, good for you. But if you don't get something that doesn't mean you're bailing and you're out of there and you never talk to that person again, that that's not a genuine relationship, that that's what you're doing. Period. So I've constantly tried to surround myself with people who I admire, they could be massive celebrities, they could be professional athletes, it could be someone who works at the grocery store down the street. They're a good person. Or they could be an artist who's just so ridiculously talented. It blows my mind like I don't have ulterior motives. I just want to surround myself with amazing good people, period. So with that mindset, my network is pretty robust and I have some pretty incredible people in my life. And I got connected to someone and he opened the door for me and that that was it. That's how I got to Downey at. Joe: When did you move? What year was that? Brad: A 15, I think, yeah, because I've been in L.A. six years, so it was February Joe: So Brad: 2015. Joe: And when you moved out there, you literally had this gig ready, you hit, you just landed, got an apartment or whatever, and you started working with Robert. Brad: Right away, hyp. Joe: That's incredible. Brad: But that's but that's that's an example of some of the amazing things that can happen when you lead with kindness, you add value, you build genuine relationships, and when all those things add up and it gets to a point where people are like, all right, you've done so much for me, what can I do for you? You know, like it. Unless they're the worst type of person, they're probably going to say that to some extent. Like I said it last night to somebody, somebody has helped me out with a project like what can I do for you? How can I help you? Any phone calls, emails, whatever. I'll do what I can. No promises, but I'll try to help you. It's just human nature, like we all have the ability to help someone, but if you don't ask, right, going Joe: And. Brad: Back to the start of this conversation, you don't ask, you don't get. So that's that's the whole thing where it's like, you know, some people are too afraid to ask. Some people are too in their head about asking. But it's like if you ask them, then they feel more comfortable to be like, you know what, they're really struggling with X, Y, Z. Like that young lady who reached out to me on LinkedIn. Can I talk to you for 15 minutes, please? Who the hell am I? Yeah, of course we did it, you know, and she emailed me in the next morning. It was like I'm so driven and motivated from our conversation of email. Two hundred people today. The good. You've get it. You know, but that's the. I want to have an impact. I want to be a source of positivity and kindness and, you know, people are going to talk crap about you one way or another, but make them look really stupid to talk crap about someone who's doing that kind of stuff. Right. Like, are you seriously having this conversation about that person right now? All the all that they're doing? Really. OK. Good for you, but that's that's the thing, it's everybody's going to have their opinions, they're going to hate, you know, the peanut gallery is very large, but that's the thing. It's like those people are unhappy with themselves, their lives, and they feel better about themselves by talking crap about other people. That's not my thing. I don't do that. I don't care to do that. But those people are broken and hurting in their own rights and they'll do what they do. But you can't let it get to you. You got to keep just doing your thing. But once again, if you're meeting with kindness and value and you're trying to make the world a better place and make somebody's life better, you know, I've got messages like you saved my life. Joe: You just need one of those and then you go. All right. I know what I'm doing. Brad: But that's Joe: I'm doing. Brad: That's my that's like some bigger people would look at this podcast, be like, this isn't Joe Rogan, why am I going to waste my time? It's like if I impact one person, even if it's you, Joe, with this conversation, it was worth my time. Joe: Well, it's so funny because you're probably going to be the only guest in this whole year that I've done this, that I was going to ask, what made you say? Brad: That's it, like I look at this, I try to do as many of these as I can and yeah, I'm busy, whatever, but like once again, what's 15, 30 an hour to to do a podcast that will live forever on the Internet. So I could impact someone ten years from now or I can impact someone today like, like that. That's the once again broader. Mindset, looking at the big picture, because I have people from different continents, like places I've never even heard of who found me on social media, who follow me, and then literally what one guy in particular is his name's Yassir and he listens and watches all my stuff. And then he sends me these beautifully written messages of his thoughts and all of these, like what he got out of it. And I'm just I just sit back every time, like, wow. Like this guy who I've never met before and I'm in a place I've never been to like. We're not connected other than social media. He found me and he's a he appreciates my stuff so much that he takes the time every single time to listen and watch my stuff when it comes out. So he watches and he'll he'll hear me talking about him and stuff. But Joe: It's Brad: That's Joe: Called. Brad: But that's like that's why I do this man. It's just like he's so impacted by what I have to say. And that's a mind blowing thing to say. Like for me, like I'm just trying to be honest and tell my story and hopefully it helps impact somebody else in a positive way. But but when you really get in that group of hearing from people and and you motivated them or you inspired them, like I spoke at Columbia College, Hollywood about a month ago and some of the responses afterwards from the students were like, you gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams. Joe: That's powerful, Brad: Are you kidding Joe: Yeah. Brad: Me? Like like how selfish would I have to be as a human being to not do what I do? If that's the response I'm getting, even if it's one person. Joe: Yeah, it's Brad: How Joe: Incredible. Brad: Idiotically selfish is that, but once again, I'm not here saying, Joe, if you do, you'll be a billionaire. Like I'm not that person and I'm not trying to hawk a class at you or get you to pay like I'm trying to. I'm trying to teach foundational skills that have been completely lost in this generation, completely lost and GenZE. They're even worse, like they have it off worse. So I'm trying to fix this and also instill this into the up and coming generation. I'm even writing a children's book right now to instill these core values at a very young age. So it's I'm trying to trying to get this back into where the world was. You know, it's not such a hateful and nasty place. Like I had someone said to my dad the other day and just say the nastiest shit to me. And I was just like I was like, how am I going to respond to this? And I responded with thank you so much. I appreciate the love and with like a flex emoji. Right. And that person laughed with a bunch of emojis and I haven't heard from them again. So I gave them the attention they were looking for. And I also probably shook them to their core because they wanted a shouting match. And instead I like self-destruct in their brain because I hit them with that. OK, you know, I've had people do that where I hit him with kindness, kill with kindness, kindness to do that, and you do that and they're like, oh my gosh, I love your content. I'm like, well, what happened to Joe: Yeah, Brad: The Joe: Right, Brad: You know, or they follow me right after. Joe: Right. Brad: They follow me right after, like, oh, my gosh, you know, but that's that's like once again, these people are just broken, you know, and they they're hurting. And I feel for them and I hope they can find their happiness in their path. And but it's not by being hateful and nasty to other people. If if you're actively going out of your way to sabotage and bring other people down or make other people feel less than you are broken. And you need to do a lot of soul searching because whatever you're doing is not working, and I promise you, you're not going to get to where you want to go by going down this path, you may feel really powerful and cool about yourself, but at the end of the day, nobody else thinks you're cool and nobody else likes you. That's the reality of Joe: Yeah, Brad: It. Joe: It's just so I want to respect your time, because we're getting close and I literally could go on and I have so much that we never got to, but I want to thank God so much. We didn't get to I want to talk about your book because you mentioned it on the summit. And so is that something different than the children's book or. That is the book. Brad: Now, that's that's the book I'm starting with a children's series partnered with a phenomenal artist in Sweden that I found years ago on social media. Once again, I try to surround myself with people who I admire and who inspire me. I found her work two years ago, and I knew from the onset of finding her, I was like, there's there's something there and I'm going to figure it out. She's just phenomenal. And here we are right now, and she's doing all the illustrations for the book. So it's just one of those things where it's, you know, she'll love, support other people and good things happen. And if they if something doesn't happen, you're still OK because you're connected with that person and you have those conversations and the happiness exchanges, that that's what makes life worth living, you know, and that's a lot of people want the transactional stuff. And yeah, it's great. But at the same time, it's not everything. You know, so many people have the transactions, but they have no soul. So what's what's the point of that? Joe: How much can you share about the book, like whatever Brad: Yeah, Joe: You want? Brad: It's pretty straightforward, I mean, it's a picture book for kids, so it's a very entry level in that regard. I want to kind of put it in the same category as like, you know, a Dr. Seuss reading level. Like, it's very basic. It's not a crime book, but it is very basic in that sense. You know, I'm not a professional writer or anything. So for me to put my words on paper and do this is once again, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone to do this because I feel like I could hopefully potentially impact someone in a positive way. So I've created this little universe with, you know, my my dog is the main character champ, and he's a boxer and he's my my child. I love him to death. So he's he and his friends are going to be teaching is valuable lessons to whoever reads the book and the first books about kindness. So it's going to be champ giving examples of how to be kind. And we're talking basic stuff like helping someone in need, you know, complimenting someone, defending someone in front of a bully. Very basic stuff. No one's asking you to move mountains. Basic stuff. Give someone a gift. Like it's just basic stuff. And that's, I think from that digestible level of those basic tasks at a young age, people will get that compliment. Someone I like your shirt. Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. You know, or. Oh, my my kite is stuck in a tree. I wish someone would help me. Oh, got you on there. You know, but that's the thing man. A lot of people look the other way and that's that's the problem. So if I can you know, the artwork she's doing is so incredible. It's like I compare it to like the likes of Pixar and Disney. Like, she's just so amazing. So the illustrations are going to be out of this world. So as long as I don't screw up the basic story, I think we'll be OK. Joe: And when's it due out? Brad: Man, I'm juggling so many different projects. I'm trying to get it done as soon as possible. You know, she has a lot going on, so we're all kind of just doing the best we can with the time. I'd love to get it out in the next three to six months, but once again, I'm hoping for a series where you'll see all these different characters and multiple books. And it's been cool because I've incorporated my previous pets into dogs that are no longer with us. For me, I have pets of dear friends of mine that are basically family that passed away, that I put in the book out of love and respect for them so they can live forever. So it's just really cool to to have that control, to tell my own story. And everybody plays a role. There's a significance to every character in the book. And I think it'll be fun for people to to enjoy these unique characters and illustrations and really bring them to life. And that's I can't credit her enough for names in the arts on Instagram. She's phenomenal. Brad: Her real name is Hedvig and she's in Sweden and she's amazing. So any updates I get from her always puts a smile on my face because she's just talented. And that that's one thing. As a manager, as a producer, I'd like to think I have a good eye for talent, whether it be for sports or music or anything. I just have a good grasp on that because I look at the big picture, whether it's from your brand or your talent in general or in a potential, you're being underutilized or whatever. And she's definitely one that is just so gifted and talented in any way. I can help her grow and win like we're winning together on this book. So it's it's a cool project. I'm excited. And like I said, if one kid reads it. And get something out of it, I've done my job, but it's also cool to to do it for my dog champ and to see him as a cartoon character is is pretty cool. So I'll send you some images offline and you can get a first look. Joe: I would love it. I would love it. All right, cool. So, again, we're right Brad: You Joe: At Brad: Had Joe: The. Brad: You had one question, you said, I can't forget. Joe: I know, but I don't want to keep you because Brad: I'm Joe: It's Brad: Good at Joe: Ok, Brad: It. Joe: So OK, you promise? Brad: Yeah, yeah, I'm good till one Joe: Ok, Brad: One 30. So. Joe: Ok, so I wanted to get to the school thing about you went to college and took the year off, you finish on line. I love Gary Vaynerchuk. I spoke to him once on the phone for like maybe two minutes tops. It was it's a story I'll tell you at another time. But he talks about you have to make that decision. And and if people are listening to this that are younger in high school or college right now, what is your opinion, if you don't mind, on doing what you love and just getting out there and doing it as opposed to going to college? And I know it varies on the circumstance, right. You can't you can't go out and walk into a surgery room and say, OK, I'm here to learn. And certain things have to happen that way. But certain things which I'd like to know what you think about that. Brad: For the parents out there, I would always say, you know, academics are important, I would I would go to college if you can. But I would also say on the flip side, if you're in a situation where you're getting good experience. In the streets and on the ground and real world experience, in my opinion, that's something that is far beyond anything you'll ever learn in school. And I can say that wholeheartedly. My on the ground in the street work that I've done since 16, 17, 18 years old, that's what made me who I am. School had a part of that, obviously. But it's you know, you can't adapt to to situations in a classroom, whereas in the real world, like, things come at you quick and you've got to be able to adapt and react accordingly. And that experience that you challenge yourself at an early age, I mean, there are high school kids where I'm like, get out there. Like, what are you waiting for? Start like now has never been a better time to do your own thing because you have Google, we have YouTube, we have all of social media, you have master class, you have all these tools that you can leverage to do your own thing, whether you're consulting, whether you want to be a music artist. Like there are so many tools that like with our iPhones now shooting for K, you don't even need a crew anymore like it. It literally is so easy to do your own thing. Brad: So now I would say if it makes sense for you and you have support around you financially and good people who are going to help you when you fall, give it a shot. But if you don't. Go to college, do what you need to do, get your degree and move forward, but like some people truly are wired for entrepreneurship. And I was that person and when I put myself in nine to five,

The Art of Accomplishment
Embarking on the Journey — AoA Series #2

The Art of Accomplishment

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2021 48:57


When we are ready to embark on the journey of self-transformation we want to make the most of our time in an effective and progressive way. For this, as with all journeys, it helps to have a compass and a clear map.A clear map tells us four things about the journey: the necessary conditions, the best approach, what to expect along the way, and impediments where we might get lost. The compass that keeps us on track—our constant reference along the path—is enjoyment."There is no way of getting it right. There is no complete. There is no finish line, no done, there is no “I'm going to get it.” There is just “What's the next experiment?” “What's the next adventure?” “What can I learn from what just happened?” There is just play."Brett: Today we're going to talk about everything you need to know about embarking on a personal transformative journey, conditions for transformation, what happens on the journey, what we can get excited about and what will get on our way. Joe, tell me what does someone need to know about embarking on a transformative journey?Joe: There's a way to look at it that we can dissect it into all the parts of it and let's do that. Before I even start there, the most important thing that someone should know about in deciding lik, "Hey, I want to do something that transforms my life," is that it's a process to be enjoyed. Not only is it a process to be enjoyed because that's nice, but it's because it's more effective.The only thing to tweak about that is that enjoying yourself is a little bit different than maybe how you're thinking of it. Most people think or a lot of people think, if someone says, "Hey, go enjoy yourself." They think, "What am I going to do?" For example, I'll go play golf or I'll go and have a conversation with a friend or I'll go get high on heroin, whatever their idea of enjoying themselves is. That's not what I'm speaking to. What I'm speaking to is how do you allow yourself more enjoyment in everything that you're doing. That's what I mean by enjoy yourself.If it means that you're in a satsang listening to a guru, how do you enjoy yourself in that? If it means that you are listening to this digital recording, even if you notice that you're criticizing yourself, how do you enjoy criticizing yourself? That's the question. The question isn't how do I do the things that I enjoy? The question is how do I enjoy the things that I'm doing. That's the golden mean of the journey, that's where you guide your footsteps by and then everything else is a technicality that revolves around that sun. It's like the gravitation, how do you enjoy yourself?As far as the details, I think you can clump them into four parts. One part is, what are the conditions that need to be set for transformation? There's an acupuncturist who once taught me this idea of conditions for healing. I was like, "What do you need to do just so that somebody can potentially heal if you're treating them."It's the conditions that need to be there for transformation to be possible. Then there's a question of approach, how do you approach it because at the end of the day, you're responsible and your approach is going to make a big difference in the alacrity, the enjoyment and the depth of transformation.Then I think you can also talk about what to expect on the journey, because when you really got to get into it there's certain things that happen over and over again and they can fool you and they can also, when you see them in a slightly different light, they can really propel you. Then I think then you can also talk about what gets in the way? What are the impediments of the journey? That's how I would break it down.Brett: Let's get started on it. What are the conditions that we would set in place for us to enjoy our transformation?Joe: The most important thing is you need to feel safe. And safe is misused often in today's world. We've got a lot of times people use safety as a way to control. Like, “I don't feel safe.” It's not actually a lack of safety, it's a way that they can control their environment, but you have to feel safe. Fear reduces your capacity to learn. Here's something that you've never seen before.You've never seen two people in a yelling match, where one person going, "You son of a pa-pa-pa-pa and you mother, ba-ba-ba-ba." The other person say, "Oh yes, you're right. You've got a point there." It doesn't happen because it's neurologically impossible. Feeling safe is really critical to being able to learn. That's important and it's really important also to understand the difference between whether you feel unsafe or whether you feel defensive.There's a great trick to doing that. Take a moment, pause this or whatever, but feel in your body what it feels like to feel unsafe. When you really felt like your life was threatened or that you were threatened and then feel what it's like when you were really defensive. Your body has two different signals for that defensiveness and safety and they get confused sometimes. To know the difference is really important.Brett: What are some examples of what that might feel like in the body? I remember early on going through your courses, a lot of the instruction were like: “How does that feel in your body?” A lot of times it would just be dissociation. I couldn't quite feel, like, "What do you mean in my body? I'm thinking. This is a thought.” Joe: [laughs] Oftentimes safety is felt more electrically in the body. It can be felt in the shoulders and in the belly often, but it's different for everybody and it's really based on, when you feel unsafe, if you go to fight, flight, or freeze. Your body's literally going to feel one of those ways. Defense is a hardening. It's usually like a more increased rigidity in some way.Brett: Muscles tightening.Joe: Tightening, yes. It doesn't always have to be that. It's very different for each person. Those are some of the signals to look for, such as how much electricity is moving through, what feels like electricity or energy is moving through your body. How rigid your body is, what part of your body lights up? These are the ways to know the difference for you between safety and resistance. Great question. Then, another thing that's the condition needs to be set, there needs to be trust. If you don't believe that you are going to transform, you are at a severe disadvantage.Trusting a teacher if you choose to have one is really important. Trusting yourself is so critical. Trust is a really important thing. The belief that it's possible to really know that that transformation is there-- there's this thing called the placebo effect. The interesting thing is, that it's always seen like it's a glitch of science. We can't really test it, because some people just think that they will get better and so they do. [chuckles] In this work, the placebo effect is a feature. It's not a glitch, it's not a bug. It's really important that you think that it's possible.I don't mean to do it in a namby-pamby kind of way. [chuckles] I'm talking about doing the research, do what you have to do to find out that it's possible. Talk to people who've been in the course or know that it's possible. The truth is we have a great success rate in our courses. We've had great studies done and we have a consistent shift that's measurable, but the main part is the belief that that's possible.The other thing to see is that some people don't change. Occasionally, you get someone who goes through who doesn't change. One of the things that you can always know about that person is they never came in with the confidence that they could change. They were resistant right from the start to the whole thing. If you're that, just don't do it. It's a waste of your time and it hurts the other people that you're on the journey with. That's really important.Another really important thing is seeing beyond your intellect and knowing that your thoughts are only part of the way the transformation happens. Do your research if you need to, to know that there are things like mirror neurons and mirror neurons don't register in the intellect of the brain. They're just some way in which we know that our body has an intelligence that if you move differently, your thoughts will be different.Research things like Sensory Processing Disorder where we know that kids who do not get to inhabit their body in a full way have a different brain function than kids who have inhabited their body in a full way, who have an understanding of where they are in space, they have appropriate perception issues. We know that the way that we move changes.Our body has an intelligence, our emotions have an intelligence, our intellect have an intelligence. If you are trying to do all of your change through the intellect, you're going to be screwed. It's going to be slow. You're going to be able to describe everything that's wrong with you, but very little is going to have changed.Brett: I've experienced that myself.[laughter]It took some time to realize that, while I could logically create a framework around everything that I was experiencing, I wasn't able to actually transform until I let the fuzzier logic of emotions and the body make movements that I didn't have to intellectually understand.Joe: Yes. For me the journey was similar. It was slightly different, I just deconstruct it. I spent almost 10 years deconstructing all my thoughts so that I could be free enough of them to trust the other ways of knowing. It's so apparent, it's just to ask somebody who's a great gymnast, how they did it and they're not going to give you an intellectual explanation. There's knowledge that happens that the intellect can't describe, muscle memories, examples like emotional memory.Brett: The endocrine system has its own memory.Joe: Exactly, hormone systems. Right. Exactly. Nervous system. All of that is very hard to describe. Another really important thing is vulnerability. It's really hard to have a transformational journey if you're like, "Yes, I got it. It's cool. I'm good. Yes. It's not that bad. Yes. There's some something that could be done there, but, it's not that big of a deal."If you're coming at it with that approach, you are not going to have that much transformation. It doesn't mean that you have to think there's something wrong with me either. It doesn't mean that you have to say, "I'm broken. Fix me. I'm broken. I have to fix myself. I need to be healed." You don't have to have that attitude either.Brett: You could create that entire model of yourself and stay in that for years too. [chuckles]Joe: Exactly, but if you can't explore the depths of your pain and your constriction and express it to other people, then you're not going to be able to approach it. You're not going to be able to do anything about it. You're not going to be able to understand it better. You know? It's like unless your attention can go to the discomfort, then your system can't do anything about the discomfort.A lot of people have learned how to just not go to the discomfort. Obviously, it builds up. Other things happen. It's a painful life. That's a really important thing. I'd say finally and I think I've stated it before which is just, if you're not willing to take full responsibility for your journey, if you start blaming the teacher, if you start blaming your wife, if you start blaming your mom and dad, you have to take full responsibility for the journey.It doesn't mean that you shame yourself, it doesn't mean that you blame yourself, but it just means you don't shame or blame anybody else. You have to just say something like, "I am exactly where I need to be. I am responsible for this." That is incredibly important in the journey, because every time you blame somebody else for where you are, including blaming yourself. Anytime you are blaming anything for where you are, you are slowing the process down tremendously.Brett: It seems like each of these is, there's a catch-22 because they're both conditions and also the effects. For example, with trust, many people might approach personal development, because starting with a position of that they don't trust themselves, they don't trust their own goodness or they don't trust teachers or they don't trust the process and that's something th at they're working with. What advice would you have for somebody who wants to embark on a personal transformation journey but is worried about being manipulated or controlled by a guru or ending up in some woo-woo backwater?Joe: I would say maybe two or three things there. The first thing is I get back to the first principle, right? It's enjoying yourself. If you are not trusting somebody, how do you enjoy that movement of non-trust? It's clear that if you feel safe, there's a deeper level of enjoyment. If you feel trust, there's a deeper enjoyment in being vulnerable than there is in being protected.Brett: Do you have any tips or exercises for anybody who's embarking on this and finding that they're having that difficulty with say, trust or vulnerability? Some way to help them just enjoy feeling what they're feeling rather than trying to change it?Joe: Yes. Let's say you are with a teacher and you're not trusting them or you know that you want to sign up for the course, but you know you're going to have trust issues; the best thing you can do is just go to the person and say, "I don't trust teachers and I want to. How can we work together so that this isn't a burden for you and this isn't a burden for me." That would be taking responsibility, being vulnerable and trusting.Even in saying that, you're trusting yourself, which is the more important thing than trusting the teacher. In saying all this to your teacher, you're giving them trust in that moment. If they react in a way that's just like, "Well, if you don't trust me, motherfucker," [laugh] then you pretty much know it's not the right teacher. Or if they go, "This is all about just letting go into my words," then you know you don't have a great teacher there and that maybe that you shouldn't be trusting them.Brett: It's a good litmus test. A teacher should be able to receive that mistrust. [chuckles]Joe: Yes, should be able to receive that mistrust, especially if you're taking ownership; and if you're not taking ownership and they point to the ownership, then also a teacher worth trusting. Yes. That's an easy way to look at it. Yes, you're right that to some degree, all of these things are the things you're working on as well as the things that you need to be successful at it, so then it's just an order of operations thing. It's make trust your first thing to work on. Don't make your mommy issues the first thing. Make trust the first thing. It's probably relates to your mom issues or your dad issues, but make trust the first thing and really focus there. Yes.Brett: Another feature of this is that it creates a positive feedback loop. The safety, trust and vulnerability and seeing beyond the intellect, maybe are the things that are initially holding you back, but then as you work on them more and more, the speed of your development increases.Joe: Yes, that's exactly right and it becomes more enjoyable, which is the speed, it becomes far less important than the enjoyment. If you enjoy your entire developmental journey deeply, who cares how fast you're going and who cares when you're going to get there, you know?Brett: Yes. You start to get to that point where you feel that restriction: "Oh, I'm interviewing Joe, I'm feeling restriction now." Then you're like, "Oh good. This is something to work on." Instead of, “No, I want to go away." [chuckles]Joe: Yes. That's a beautiful pointing. That's a great way to think about all of this stuff is, that there is a point in that path, where everything that's uncomfortable, you trust. That uncomfortable thing approaches and you say, "Oh, I can trust this thing because it's going to teach me something. I just have to be vulnerable in it and take full responsibility." Yes. Beautiful.Brett: Tell me more about how to approach this?Joe: How to approach [crosstalk]?Brett: How to first set those conditions and the spiritual path in general.Joe: Approaching the spiritual path-- what I mean by that is, what's the best way to be on the path, right? If those are the conditions that are important for you, make sure they are met before you even are packing your bag. That's the tent and the food stores. This is about, how do you walk down the path? When I say, "The approach to a path," that's what I mean. It's like, how do you walk down it? How you walk down the path is-- you know some of this stuff, because of the 18-month course you did, but I have it as to five principles of how to be on the path.One is loving accountability, which basically means that you're honest with who you are and what you've done without shame. It means that you can apologize to somebody, that you can take an honest inventory of yourself, without shame. That you can look at yourself directly and not feel like you have to be any different. That's loving accountability and it's approaching life in that same way. It's asking those around you to meet you in that place.An example of that would be to say to the teacher, "I'm having trust issues and I don't want to be having trust issues." It's kind of loving the accountability to say I have trust issues because that might be making them responsible. That full loving accountability is that I have trust issues and I don't want to have them. I want to be able to trust life, I want to be able to trust people. That's full loving accountability. Then embrace intensity is, it's not creating intensity, which I think some people mistake it far often, but it's embracing intensity.It's a business theory as well. It's like being a great CEO, one of the biggest things about it is just making sure the right amount of attention from the organization is going to the right parts of the organization. Are we being attentive to our problems? Are we being attentive to being proactive? Are we being attentive to our culture? Are we being attentive to our customer? How much attention is going where and the most--Brett: And where there's intensity, that's generally where that attention needs to go. [chuckles]Joe: Correct. That's right. Just like in the body, if there's pain, it's that pain is telling you, "Hey, this is where you pay attention." If you want to take care of yourself, pay attention to the pain. It's the same thing. I call it intensity because it's not all pain because it can be pleasure. Often what we avoid more than pain is pleasure. People have a hard time seeing that, until they see it and then they're: "Whoa." I always say it's subtle till you see it. In that moment when you actually notice: "Oh, it's more intense for me to be in deep pleasure than it is for me to be in pain," that's a moment. That's embracing intensity.The other principle is everything is an iteration. It just means that there's no way of getting it right, there's no complete, there's no finish line, there's no done, there's no I'm going to get it, there's just what's the next experiment? What's the next adventure? How do I learn? What can I learn from what just happened? There's no blame, there's no shame, there's just play.There's just moments of, "Let's do it this way, okay now let's do it this way." There's just a trust that you're going to keep on iterating and it's going to keep on getting better and you're going to learn and there's no need to think of anything that you've done as right or wrong." I can hear the brains out there already going, "But if you kill somebody that's wrong." I would agree that killing somebody is not how we want to behave.If there is a person out there, who has killed somebody and they're not going to be caught, my hope for them would be that their mindset is that of iteration. That their mindset is for example, "Okay, well that felt shitty in my body and I feel horrible and I'm still thinking about this thing and my guilt is creeping up on me and my life has gotten worse and it didn't make me any happier and it didn't solve my problems, so let's do a different iteration next time I have a problem with somebody." That's what I would hope that they would do. Brett: That brings up a great point because a lot of what happens and soldiers that come back from war with PTSD, a lot of the PTSD isn't around what happened to them personally but it's perhaps around the fact that they killed somebody and they did it in anger or rage in the intensity of the moment and that they actually enjoyed it or just something about having done it makes them feel like a monster. They think that that's just some core part of themselves that's unchangeable and makes them bad. Then holding that core belief, just causes so much more suffering and pain in their lives and the lives of those around them.Joe: Yes, that's right. That's exactly it. We are never finished. There is no moment of perfection; and we are reacting to an environment and we're iterating-- that same person-- never going to Iraq or Iran or wherever people are fighting these days, that same soldier, if they hadn't hit that environment, what would they be thinking about their core selves? It's a very iterative thing and I think it's really important to have that mindset and that change not only can happen, it's the only thing that you know will happen. Yes, so that's it.I would think being curious is really important as well, that's the other way of approaching the path that's really important is being curious. This is one of the most enjoyable ones. Let's take that person as an example who feels like, "I'm a bad person because I killed people." What if you're curious about that? What are the questions that actually come up? Instead of knowing that you're a bad person, what would be the most curious questions about it?Brett: What was I feeling, that led me to take that action?Joe: Yes. What makes me not want to kill everybody right now? If that's who I am, what's stopping that in me right now? If that's who I am, what's making me keep on beating myself up over it? What's the part of me that's beating myself up over it, if it's essentially who I am? If it's essentially who I am, what makes me not go to the grocery store and kill a whole bunch of people? There's just curiosity and it frees it up because your fear and curiosity can't exist at the same time.If you imagine yourself running from a tiger. Really, close your eyes for a moment. You're running from a tiger, this tiger is fast and it is hungry and you are running and feel the fear coursing through your system and you're moving as quick as you can and it's catching up on you and you can hear its breath and it's going to get you. You can feel that fear in your system and now wonder how much does the tiger weigh? [Brett chuckles] All the fear goes away. You can't operate from fear if you're curious.It doesn't just operate in the way that I can be curious if I'm not scared. It's why safety is so important from earlier right, because you can't learn, when you're scared. You can also just turn on curiosity and it just reduces fear, just like if you turn on fear it reduces curiosity. That's a cool one. Then the last one and I'd say the most important one is connection. That it's really important to stay in connection, in connection with each other, in connection with yourself, in connection with your body.Brett: What does that mean?Joe: It means being in contact with. It's being in contact. Like you were saying earlier that before when you're thinking about emotions, you're like, "Well, I don't know how to be in my body, all I have is disassociation." A contact means literally like touching. It's to have that point of contact.Can I just touch into the emotion? Can I just touch into the pain? Can I just touch into you? Can I just touch into me? Can I touch into that part of me that I don't want to see? Can I touch into that part of me I'm not proud of? Can I touch into that part of me that is proud?It's connection. It is what allows the tree to evolve, it's what allows us to evolve, is a connection.Brett: Tell me more about how embracing intensity or being curious about the lion that is about to eat you, how is that enjoying yourself? [chuckles] How does that help you get away from the lion?Joe: Yes, that's a great question. On the lion part. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that you should wonder how much a lion weighs or a tiger weighs if they're chasing you. Our system isn't curious when we're in fear for a reason. If you are in fear over something else, like what color of car you should buy or if you're going to get fired, yes, being curious is far more enjoyable than that. Being curious about being fired is far more enjoyable than worrying about being fired.The curiosity is-- you can just feel that in your system. If you just take a moment and you can pause here; and just feel what it's like to know shit and you say "I know, I know what you are, I know what I am," and then to be curious about who you are. You can just feel there's more enjoyment in the body.Embracing intensity is a little bit more complicated as far as enjoyment goes. It's the embrace part of it that makes it enjoyable. Intensity happens, you can't stop it. The Buddhists talk about it and they say, "Pain occurs, suffering is the choice." It's the embracing of the pain that prevents the suffering. The enjoyment is embracing something that you can't avoid or that if you avoid, it's less enjoyable.Meaning if you're a heroin addict, you can avoid the detoxes, you can avoid withdrawals, but it's not going to make an enjoyable life. At that moment, you want to embrace the intensity of the withdrawals. Part of it is the embracing of it when it needs to be done or when it's unavoidable or when it's just better to face the intensity than not, which is almost always. Sometimes we create intensity which is not necessary, but if we're not creating it in a conscious way, then embracing it is great. In fact, embracing intensity is one of the great ways to stop intensity from happening in our lives.Brett: Got it. In a way you let it move through you and change you. Then you learn the lesson in the intensity.Joe: Exactly. Yes, that's exactly it.Brett: Tell me more about what happens on this journey? What are some of the pitfalls, or some of the things that might be surprisingly enjoyable?Joe: Being on the journey, the pitfalls in my mind are slightly different but the being on the journey is there's just some things to know about it. One of the things to know about it is that the way human beings learn is a back and forth nature. It's a pendulation, is the word. I don't even know if it's a word, but it's the word I made up or I'm using depending on whether you can find it in a dictionary. There's a back and forth nature to it.If you look at a baby and a baby learns to walk, they don't just crawl, then one day stand up and walk and then never crawl again. That's not how we learn. We don't learn all at once. We learn by going back and forth. In fact, what they know is that when that back and forth doesn't happen, particularly in babies crawling, that their brain develops differently and it's not a good thing. If you pull a butterfly out of the cocoon, it won't be able to fly. What we think to be struggle or friction, that pendulation of going back and forth, is really a necessary part of the learning process.What you'd normally hear people talking about when they're on the journey, they say for example, "Man, it was doing so good and now it's all gone." Or something like, "Man, I was feeling so blissed out and now all that's gone. How do I get it back?" The other way to look at it is to say, "Oh, cool, that's gone. I'm in the learning process. This is how learning goes." There's a way of looking at it that says, "Oh, cool, it's gone away," which means that I am as much in the learning process as when it's there and I am getting closer; because it's gone, I'm getting closer to a life where that's fully understood and fully recognized. That's a really important thing.Brett: That relates to something else I've seen when somebody starts going through this journey and then all of a sudden they start feeling more emotions that they label as negative and they're like, "Oh, no, I had done all of this work and now all that work is undone and I'm a total mess." [laughter]Joe: Right, which is not. That's beautiful. It's not at all the case. One of the things that could be happening is they're just recognizing that they're having the emotions instead of just taking them out on people when they didn't recognize it before. That's common. The other thing is that they're able to handle them now. One of the things that I'll talk about often, is that we'll do a lot of exercises, where people really increase their love and you'll just notice this happiness.It's like when people can love themselves, then every part of themselves that was unlovable, comes to the surface to be loved, or the next wave of them. It's like shining a light in the water at night to attract cuttlefish. The more work we do, the more attuned we get. If I make an album, which I did in my 20s, I made a Rock 'n' Roll album, I can't listen to songs the same way before and after, I'm so much more sensitive to it, but that allows me to understand and enjoy music in deeper and deeper ways. That's the same thing. There's that sensitivity. That's a beautiful point.Another thing to understand is that when you have big jumps in development, when these big moments happen, there's a natural step that happens which is, things go from unclear to clear to being able to affect the change. Easy way to look at this is with kids. The first thing infants-- they don't even know it's their hand, it's hitting them, it's scratching them, they don't even know it's theirs, then they recognize it's theirs, but they can't control it and then they can control their hand.Piaget calls this primary, secondary and tertiary circular reaction I think is the terminology for it. That doesn't happen just for the use of our hands, it happens when people fully access for the first time, let's say, their emotional intelligence or their somatic intelligence or their awareness. If they're finding that moment of seeing that they are their awareness. Oftentimes, they can't even talk. They're say, "What's going on?" They try to reconstruct their life, because they're like, "Everything I believe is gone, what the hell is going on?" That's the way it works.It's as if they've walked into this new world that they can't control and they can't even identify the parts of. Slowly, you just hang out in the world and everything takes care of itself, just like it does with an infant. If you don't get scared about it, then you're just, "Okay, yes, I don't know anything and I don't have to reconstruct anything." Pretty soon you're talking from that place. That's another thing to know.Development moves like a corkscrew, that's really important. If you think about a corkscrew or stock market, you're moving up into the right, in human development, just like a stock market, you're moving ahead. It's like a corkscrew. Every time you're at the bottom of that corkscrew, it's like daddy issues and every time you're at the top, it's mommy issues. Then you can have abandonment issues or whatever.You have these core things going through your life and you're refining them and they're becoming more and more subtle and more and more different as you become more and more sensitive, that you can notice more and more of the pain and agitation that you're feeling. What people often say is, "I thought I dealt with all my dad issues." It's like before awakening dad issues, after awakening to dad issues.Brett: I was just going to say there's that one meme, where it's like before awakening and there's a child with a boot on his face. Then after awakening, it's the child with the boot on his face, but you can see it's zoomed out and he's holding the boot to his face.[laughter]Joe: I haven't seen that. That's funny.Brett: That's great.Joe: I would say after awakening, he's loving the fact that he's putting his own boot on his face.Brett: It's the unclear to clear part saying, "Oh, I'm putting the same boot on my face." Then the corkscrew is like, "Oh, these are all the different ways I put the boot on my face." It's the same way each time around, but I just keep finding more and more subtle ways to heal it.Joe: Yes, that's exactly--Brett: That comes back to that pendulation, which is, "Wait, I thought I dealt with all this before. How am I--" Sometimes you're just seeing a new spin, the new turn on the corkscrew. Joe: Right, a television show isn't enjoyable if it's just everybody's celebrating the whole show. If you can enjoy being in the not clear as well as the clear, if you can enjoy the corkscrew-- there's this great metaphor and truth, it's not a metaphor in a way. They know that if two people are on a roller coaster and they're going down, same exact experience and one of them is like, "Woohoo," and one of them is, "Oh my God, I'm so scared."You go into their neurochemistry, what they know is that the one, that is scared, is releasing carcinogenic chemicals into their body and the other one is releasing anti-carcinogenic chemicals into their body. The exact same experience can be used to destroy somebody or to heal somebody.Brett: It's the same as learning neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine.Joe: Yes, that's right. The cortisol is carcinogenic if I recall correctly. That's what it is. It's, you're going to be on the roller coaster ride. How do you enjoy it? That's the question. How do you allow enjoyment to happen? That's the real question. The last thing to think about on this is, that we have our three brains. We can call them the head, the heart and the gut, or the human, the mammalian and the reptilian, or the nervous system and the emotional and the intellectual. They limit each other.Even though they're really all one, if you're really developed on your intellectual side and you're not developed on your emotional side, it's like having three pencils attached by rubber bands. One can get only so high if one is so low. The most bang you're going to get for your buck is to move the low one higher because it gives everything else the most flexibility. It's just important to know that, if the path that you're working on has stopped working, you probably neglected one of the sides of yourself, one of the parts of yourself, so that's a really important thing to know.Brett: Tell me about enjoying those things? Because this process we've just discussed is that there's going to be pendulation, you're just going to go from, "Oh, I'm healed to I'm still a total wreck." Of course, going through the same problems over and over in different ways, spending a lot of time feeling unclear and then playing whack-a-mole with these three [chuckles] parts of our nervous system. How do we enjoy this process?Joe: A good story from my life was that there's this time when we got kicked out of the house for and at the time I felt like very unjust reasons in retrospect, it wasn't a match. It was a long time ago. Every time I saw the people involved or the house, it just like this knot in my stomach just was so there. It would come and go, as all emotions do, they come in waves. At some point, I'm: "Oh, cool. There's something there that I get to learn from."It got to the point where I would literally drive by the house to hope that that feeling would come back so I could be with it and I could love it and I could spend time with that, I get to attend to it. That's what I did. I learned how to enjoy the thing that I felt was uncomfortable. That's critical and that's what it is, it is to not buy in--Even this story is a way to help you enjoy it because if you buy into the pendulation that you've lost it, then it's very hard to enjoy. If you realize it's a learning process, then it's very easy to enjoy. If you are enjoying it, the learning happens quicker. It's like a virtuous loop. The more we enjoy it, the more we want to approach it and the easier the whole situation gets.Brett: A feedback loop that we were talking about earlier.Joe: Yes, that feedback there. Exactly. Clear to unclear is another great example of it. It's really easy to enjoy not knowing. [chuckles] It's really easy to enjoy being taken. Get in a car with somebody and ask them to drive you somewhere, but not to tell you where they're driving you and not to tell you how long and just see, that can be just as enjoyable, if not more enjoyable. It's really how do you let the enjoyment in, is the question in all of this stuff. That's really the key to preparing for the spiritual journey.Brett: That's great, something to be curious about the entire way.Joe: The entire time, yes.Brett: Now, before we run out of time, I would like to get back to touching on these impediments and pitfalls. What kind of things can happen that can block this whole process?Joe: There's so many little ones that I'm thinking about categorizing them in big ones. One of the pitfalls is thinking that you should do anything. That's a pitfall. It's like finding the wants behind your shoulds and letting your wants motivate you instead of your shoulds motivate you. In essence, the journey of self-development is the discovering of the self.It is self-realization, it is self-awareness and a should in its nature is saying that you need to be controlled, that who you are in general needs to be managed, controlled, modified. Your wants are there is a general trust in who you are. If you think about it in a developmental perspective, an infant from zero years old until seven, they don't have any shoulds, there is no should in their brain. I don't know for sure, but I bet there's a culture where there might not ever be shoulds ever.In that time period, they develop more than any other time period in life. They just follow their wants. Following your wants is really the most effective way to transform and following your shoulds is the least effective way and to make it a should is really just a doubt of trust of who you are.The other crazy thing about wants that I think is really important is you take a five-year-old and they want something, they shout, "No. No. Yes. No," and they throw a temper tantrum.Obviously, when we get older, we don't want to throw temper tantrums, so we say we shouldn't throw a temper tantrum instead of getting in touch with the fact that we don't want to throw-- we have iterated, we have evolved, we now want something different, but we turn that into a should, we change that natural impetus inside us into something that we should do.Resisting resistance is another big one. People don't embrace the resistance, they don't embrace that intensity of resistance. There's a great phrase that just says, "If you can't love it, love the resistance to not loving it." That's really an important thing, is that don't fight the resistance, that's just more resistance. Another one is--Brett: How do you not resist that resistance without creating a new resistance around that? [chuckles]Joe: Yes. Right, exactly. In a war with yourself, who's going to lose? Exactly, yes. There's no way to do it, but to drop it. You just have to just stop. It's the only way. I remember that, I think it was the first time, I was about 24 years old, I went out into the woods to fast. I was looking over this ridgeline and I was noticing that I was fighting myself. Then I was noticing that I was fighting myself to stop fighting myself. Then I was noticing I was fighting myself to stop fighting myself to stop fighting myself. I was just ending up saying, "Yes, this isn't going to work."[laughter]Joe: I just stopped. That was the first moment that I realized that it's not a matter of effort, it's a matter of acceptance, it's a matter of not efforting, it's the stopping of the trying, it is the trust. That's important. Another piece that's important is skepticism. There's two forms of skepticism. One is important, one sucks for the spiritual journey.The important one is, hey, if it's not true for you, you should know it's not true for you and you shouldn't think that it's true for you because some guru said it or because some Bible said it. If there is a truth, then that truth will be apparent in you and it will resonate in you and you will know it. Being skeptical of truth until you understand it and fully feel it, is important. Being skeptical prevents you from trying, preventing you from experimenting, preventing you from being open enough to see a truth, that level of skepticism, it's getting kneecapped. It's like getting your legs cut off in a race. Then spreading that to other people is violent. That's that. Another important one is just notice when you're future or past living.One of the biggest impediments is somebody who's either future living by state-seeking like, "Oh, I want to be in that experience of state again. Oh, I want to enjoy again. Oh, I want to be awakened." The opposite of that future living, which is, "This is going to be so hard. Oh, my God, I don't want to have to do this work. Oh, I have to feel my emotions again. This sucks." Like that. Oh, boy, both of those things, it's not enjoyable. [laughs] It is not enjoyable.Brett: Just having an idea of what you're going to look like, who you're going to be once you've transformed.Joe: Yes, exactly. Not enjoyable.Brett: Projecting your current self onto your future self, "Oh, if only I was perfect in all of the ways that I currently think I should be, then I'll be done." [chuckles]Joe: Yes, exactly. [chuckles] Not enjoyable. It is like the moment is far less enjoyable when you're thinking about how you're going to end up than [laughs] enjoying this moment. If you think about the moments that you've enjoyed yourself most, you probably weren't thinking about your conclusion. [chuckles] Some of the times we enjoy ourselves most is when the proposed conclusion just happened and so there's just nothing to strive for in that moment. Then, you come to the conclusion, "Ah," and then you create something to strive for and then you don't enjoy yourself anymore.Then there's the future and past living in the past. Comparative mind is a form of this, of who's better and who's worse, it's like that requires future and past living to be able to do that. Anything like that it's also, they're big pitfalls, they're stalls in the journey. Then, the last thing about the journey that I think is really important--This is the one that gets the most is that there's this natural cycle that happens that people go through and I'm sure you can recognize it. It's, you think to yourself, "Oh, I really want to--" I don't know, we'll pick anything. "I really want to stop smoking." We'll pick an easy one, "I really want to stop smoking." Then, "Okay, I got to do it. I got to really do it. You should do that. You should do that. You should do that. Why aren't you doing it? Why aren't you doing it? Okay, I'm good." Then, you do it.Then as soon as you do it you're like, "Oh, okay. I hope this lasts. I hope this lasts. I hope this lasts." Then it's, "Oh, it's already going away. I already noticed that I'm wanting cigarettes again. Oh, shit, I had a cigarette. Oh, it's all over, I'm going back into-- Oh, crap, fuck, now I'm smoking again. I got to quit smoking. I got to quit smoking." That's the routine.All of them rely on each other and you can cut it off at any other point but one of the easiest places to cut it off is when that moment when you actually have quit smoking or you have stopped yelling at your wife or you have stopped being a victim, is to appreciate it, is to actually just appreciate that moment and to keep on appreciating it. Instead of trying to hold on to it.Brett: Right.Joe: The idea that it's going to go away, it is the thing that creates it going away. The only thing that's really there to do is just to enjoy this moment. Enjoy that it's gone and the same thing can be said when you're smoking. If you're in the middle of smoking a pack a day, how do you enjoy each cigarette? How do you enjoy the hell out of yelling at your wife if you're going to do it? Because nobody really enjoys yelling at their wife. If you can really enjoy yelling at your wife, I bet the way you yell at your wife will change. It's not going away.Brett: That circles back to a lot of the goal isn't for things to go away, it's to just watch how they shift and how they change. What is the impulse behind the behavior? Trying to be, rather than what our resistance changes it into. All of these impediments that you've just listed, all seem like different forms of resistance and so to wrap this up, since we're running out of time, I just want to ask you, how can you enjoy resistance? [chuckles]Joe: You just pointed to something which is really great, which is if you want yourself to change, it slows down the process. Want is the wrong word. If you're getting angry and you are trying to change the fact that you get angry, that is a slower process, than if you love your anger and you invite your anger in and you welcome your anger. That is a far quicker process.Brett: How can we do that without hurting people?Joe: Wait. Unless you start doing it to try to make it go away, for example “I'm going to welcome my anger to make it go away”, then it doesn't work anymore. I'm not saying welcome your anger at people, I'm just saying welcome the experience of anger that one feels when they're angry. I'm not suggesting to go and be angry at people, but to welcome your anger, to accept it and to love it. To express it in a way that's safe, it doesn't create more shame.I just want to point that, what you said was brilliant and then I think your question was, how do you enjoy resistance? That goes back to that statement of, if you can't love the thing, if you can't love the anger, love your resistance to the anger. How do you enjoy resistance? How do you love your resistance? This is the whole question of the spiritual search and the whole way to prepare, is how do you enjoy this process?Brett: That's great. This has been amazing. I think we're running out of time now.Joe: What a pleasure.Brett: Yes, this has been amazing.Joe: Awesome. Well, I look forward to the next time and it was good talking to you. More to come.Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment podcast.  If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe. We would love your feedback, so feel free to send us questions and comments. To reach us, join our newsletter, learn more about VIEW, or to take a course, visit: artofaccomplishment.com

The Art of Accomplishment
Connection over Perfection — AoA Series #3

The Art of Accomplishment

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2021 51:08


We are taught from a very young age that doing things perfectly will get us where we want to go in life. But what if doing things in connection is far more effective? What if being in connection with your customers gets better results than trying to make a perfect product? Or being in connection with your spouse makes a better marriage than trying to make it perfect?"If you close your ideas and you think of the things that you feel are most perfect in the world, those are also things that are deeply connected. We think of a flower. We think of a scene. We think of God. We think of an amazing product. What the human population sees as perfection, they are all deep expressions of connection."What is perfectionism? If having clear goals can be so helpful in life, how could it be that the simple act of measuring ourselves up to them so often holds us back? Today we are going to explore why our quest for perfection never seems to satisfy us and often only slows or impedes productivity, while seeking connection tends to result in better output, better products and a better life. Brett: Joe, what makes this such an important topic? Joe: Oh man. That's a great question. There's so many reasons why it's important to me. The one that comes to mind right away is an experiment they did. It's the dried spaghetti experiment. It's basically you give a group of people 25 or so hard pieces of spaghetti and a marshmallow and some masking tape and you say, "Build the highest structure you can build."It turns out that kindergartners, a group of five kindergartners, will beat a group of five CEOs on a regular basis. The reason that the people who are doing the experiment say that that's the case is, because the young kids are iterating. They're just trying stuff out, trying stuff out, trying stuff out. Then when the time's up, they've tried like three or four models and they've got something. Whereas the CEO's are trying to make it absolutely perfect. Then they'll put that marshmallow on at the last minute, the whole thing will collapse. They didn't iterate. They didn't try. They tried to make it perfect and so it didn't work.One of the things about this experiment, which is so cool, is that if you get those same five CEOs and you add an administrative assistant, they will outperform the kindergarteners. Just somebody who can connect them together will immediately change it. On that level, that's a great example of how just connection, connecting with the tools that you have experimenting, iterating, that's a form of connection. Connecting with each other, like with the admin, all of that produces better results. That's one of the main reasons why it's so much more important. The other more important thing is that our neurochemicals do not propel us to be perfect. They propel us to connect. It's in our nature. Connection is in our nature. When you're working with humanity, prioritizing connection makes it better for you and everybody you're working with. That's part of the reason you get better results is that people don't want you to be perfect. The idea of you being perfect is going to be different from person to person. What they want is to feel connected with you. What you want is to feel connected to them.That's what we are genetically programmed to do, is to have this sense of connection. You get a deeper level of results and you get deeper satisfaction in your life. This is everywhere, even in the places where you don't expect it. For example, sales. There's one way of selling, which is the way most people sell. They try to write the perfect pitch and then present the perfect pitch in a perfect way. That just doesn't work as well as asking a whole bunch of questions, whether that's question-based selling or whether that's challenger-based selling. It's just asking a whole bunch of questions and talking to the person and finding out what's important to them. There's a great book on this called Ready, Fire, Aim. Is it Fire, Ready, Aim? Aim, Ready, Fire. It's basically saying that the job isn't to get a perfect product and put it out there. The job is to sell the thing before you build it so that you know what people will buy, which means that you're more connected with your customer.Brett: Then you're building what people will buy rather than what you planned or what you thought they would buy.Joe: That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is that you're prioritizing connection. You are saying, "I am going to connect with my customer and see what they really want, to see what it is that I can really serve them by providing," instead of, "I have this cool idea. What will make you buy it?"Brett: Let's define our terms here to discriminate between what is perfection and connection. Let's start by defining what is perfection.Joe: The critical parent's voice in your head is what it is for most people. We have this exercise in one of the workshops that I do, which is a triggering exercise, where people are to trigger one another and people hesitate to do it. We don't do it because we want to see people triggered. We do it, because we want people to figure out how to handle it when they are triggered. There's a group of people I can just walk up to and I can trigger people really easily because I can read what will trigger them pretty quickly. One of the things I can do is--Brett: Yes, you are great at that.Joe: [chuckles] One of the ways that I'll do it, I can just like, see who the perfectionist in the room is and I'll say, "You're a perfectionist." It'll trigger them because they're immediately in this headlock with themselves, because part of being perfect is to not be a perfectionist. It just messes with them all ways.The way I pick those people out is because I can see which ones of them had supercritical parents and you can see it in everything that they do. At some level, perfectionism is just trying to make the critical parent pleased. Since the critical parent could never really be pleased, it wasn't about you. It could be the critical teacher or the critical grandparent or whatever.Brett: How does that perfectionism show up? What do you see in people in their lives or the way they carry themselves, or even just briefly in a workshop when you've just met them?Joe: How do you see that? It's the amount of rigidity in the musculature, the amount of precision that they operate with, how much they're second-guessing themselves, how stunted their tones are, the way that they speak. Basically, all it really results to, is rigidity and hesitation inside the person when they're trying to be perfect.Brett: That hesitation part is really interesting. Because for me, I've always had identified or been diagnosed as ADD or ADHD. If I really pay attention to it, the moments where I get Teflon brain and it skips off of my task. If I really look at what happens often, it arises from a perfectionist pessimism.I sit down to write an email and I'm like, "Oh, I'm just never going to get this right. I'm not going to get it right. At least not right now, so why even bother?" Maybe some other time the conditions will be perfect and I'll know what to do. Let's go see what's in the fridge right now.Joe: They call it attention deficit disorder. The idea in the label is that your capacity to pay attention. If you reverse it a little bit, it's like how much attention was paid to you. It's the attention deficit disorder. Does that mean that you can't pay attention or does that mean that there was a limited amount of connection that you got? That's what actually creates it.I've noticed that. That's on the other side is that connection feeling, that the idea that you can do it perfectly is also just simply inane in the fact that what I think is perfect is different, than what you think is perfect. There's always someone thinking that you're not doing it perfectly, including you, always.The other thing you said, what is perfection? It's something that doesn't exist. It's just the point of view. If you are being absolutely perfect, somebody is seeing you as being rigid or imperfect or hesitant or whatever it is. That's how I describe it. If there's no such thing as that, the only way to describe it is trying to satisfy some critical voice in your head that is never and can never be satisfied.Brett: Having goals and vision and striving for perfection is good, right? It allows us to structure ourselves and structure our minds so that we can achieve something. How does that interact with this idea of perfectionism? Joe: Having goals and intentions, those are fantastic. Obviously, it allows us to focus. It allows us to decide which way we're going to walk. We have thousands of decisions to make a day. If we make them based on a goal, then we are far more coherent and unified, especially if that goal is coherent and unified.I don't know if that has anything to do with perfection. I don't see that as being perfect. None of our goals are perfect even. As long as you don't believe that there is some perfection you can get to, then the goals are really useful. As soon as you think there is a perfection that you can live up to, then the goals become less useful.To be specific about that, that doesn't mean that you're not 100% confident you're going to get to the goal. It's just the belief that there's some level of perfection at the end of the rainbow. That just doesn't happen. The other thing is that the best way to get to what we think is perfection-- I'd even say, if you close your eyes and you think of the things that you feel are most perfect in the world, those are also things that are deeply connected. We think of a flower. We think of a scene. We think of God. We think of an amazing product. We think of a person who inspires us. Then an ecosystem.Brett: An ecosystem, a metabolism. Joe: It's all also far more an expression of connection than it is a perfection. Even what the human population sees as perfection, they are all deep expressions of connection.Brett: It seems related to the idea of utopia being a dangerous idea. The idea of iterating towards better than what we have now is just the natural state.Joe: Which is the coolest thing too, because iteration is far more connected than perfection. If I'm just iterating and I'm learning and growing, that is a connected experience. That's what life does. It evolves. It doesn't evolve to a perfect end. If you see yourself as trying to evolve to a perfect end, then you're no longer in the flow of life. You're not using all the natural energy, all the natural ways of being that we were designed with to be productive.Brett: This is all reminding me of the book Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse. Have you--?Joe: I haven't. What is it?Brett: It's a fascinating and quite short read actually. It's quite poetic. It just describes this one very broad concept across a bunch of different domains and short prose about how there are games that are finite, where you achieve something and you get the title. You get the diploma. You get the trophy. You get the money. Then there are games that they're not meant to be won. The goal is not to win and end the game, but the goal is just to keep playing.Joe: Yes, which is right. I think that's a beautiful way to describe why connection and perfection work the way they work in our systems is that life is the game that you just keep on playing. Therefore, connection is what works. When you have a game that has a finite end or you've created an imagined finite end to it, then perfection is there.That's the other thing about it, is that fear creates a finite end in people. The idea of perfection is really a fear-based idea. The idea that you have to be perfect, that you have a right answer, that there's the right way to do it, that's all fear-based. Fear does not make great decisions.Brett: That's interesting. A lot of ideals of perfection are this belief that we can get rid of everything bad and that we can reduce all error. There's a fear of like, "Oh my God, what if this happened? What if this still exists in the world? What if there's still imperfection? What if I still have to feel whatever this is that I don't want to feel? What if I could just cut all that out? That would be perfect."Joe: The CEO of Netflix has a great example of this where he talks about his first company. He basically made it idiot-proof so it couldn't be broken and then he only had idiots working for him as he describes it. Then they couldn't really adjust their company to the new times. In his company now--Brett: Rigidity.Joe: Exactly. He has a system that's in place to create a certain amount of chaos so that he can create an environment where smart people love to be and where it's far more flexible.Brett: Where flexible people like to be.Joe: Exactly. That's where connection happens. In one, he prioritized getting it right and perfecting. The other one he prioritized being connected with these people.Brett: Then let's get into the definition of connection then. How specifically would you define that as relative to this idea of perfection?Joe: It's a measure of capacity for you or for anybody, anything to meet and accept things as they are in the moment. If I'm connecting with you, I'm not asking you to be any different right now. The more I ask you to be different, the less connected we're going to feel. If I'm looking at a landscape and trying to adjust it, telling myself this is the good part and this is the bad part and comparing it to other landscapes, I am in less connection than if I am in just full acceptance of what the landscape is at this moment.Connection basically is like the surface area of our awareness. We take away surface area, when we start looking for things that can be better or things that are different or any way in which we're calculating creates distances to that connection. If you are a CEO and you want your customer to be different, you are not in connection. If you are a product manager trying to get a different answer from your customer, then you're not in connection. If you are a husband wanting your wife to not nag as much, or a wife wanting your husband to not nag as much, then you are not in connection. Connection is the acceptance of people and things as they are. That's what it is.Neurochemically, it is oxytocin and serotonin. Mostly it's oxytocin, which is the drug that is felt when we're in deep connection, mothers feel when they're breastfeeding and we feel it when we're hugging and we feel it during sex. That's oxytocin. Serotonin is more of a pride, proud of each other drug and something that you would feel like if you were watching a friend have a great moment. You had a lot of pride in what they just accomplished. Those are our connection neurochemicals. That's the other way to say what connection is.Brett: One thing just pried, it seems serotonin is also involved in meaning and satiety.Joe: Yes. That's right. Exactly. The way to think about our ability to have connection, it's really our ability to love ourselves and accept ourselves as we are. The more I can love every aspect of myself, the more I can love every person I come across as they are. You can hear there's somebody's mind out there listening to this right now and they're like, "If I accept myself as I am, I will be horrible. I will drink beer on the couch, or I'll just say the same as I am right now."What's interesting is, that doesn't actually happen. If you look at any system that is deeply connected and change is inherent, it's natural. Evolution is part of it. It's when people get rigid, when people try to do it perfectly, that change stops happening. It's just that you don't get to control the change. It's just that you have to trust the deeper intelligence in yourself, your deeper intelligence, your nonintellectual intelligence to drive the change.Brett: It seems like this comes up pretty frequently in so many other aspects of the work that you do, or that we've been doing. For example, the victim story that people have around client relationships. It's like, "Oh, man, all these clients, there's so much wrong with them. If only they would see things the way we see it, we'd be able to do great work."Joe: Yes, or fathers or mothers or girlfriends. Exactly. That's right. The way to think about it too, is just like think about the people who really make it so that you feel seen, that really make it so that you feel understood. Feel that. That is connection. Those people are seeing you for what you are. They're not trying to fix you or manage you. If you think about what's so important about connection, what makes it important is, think of what you would do for those people. Think of the people who make you feel most seen and most understood in this world. What would you do for them? What would you do for yourself, if you really saw and understood yourself deeply? If you really felt understood by yourself.There's people listening to this who haven't quit eating sugar or haven't quit smoking. What would you do? There's a way in which you're disconnected with yourself. If you felt deeply connected with yourself and you weren't trying to change yourself, the things that you would do for yourself are far more outstanding than things you're actually doing for yourself right now. You tell yourself you should do them, but you're not doing them.Brett: Yes. That brings me back to that ADD example I described earlier. It's like the difference between sitting down to write an email and being like, "Oh God, I'm just so procrastinating today. I'm just never going to get this done. Oh, I suck." That's telling myself how I should be. Then the connection version would be like, "Oh, wow. I really want to get this right because this is important to me. Oh, man. Whatever I do it's never going to be. There's always going to be something I could have done better. Wow. Okay."Joe: Yes. How about just be authentic, do it the way that I want to do it and then look at it and see if that works? Exactly. That connection is staying. I talk about what it means and I say that it's like accepting how things are in the moment. The moment changes. So you just keep on accepting, because it keeps on moving. It keeps on changing.Brett: Yes, because the moment you accept something, you can also then turn that acceptance into a new model of perfection. Joe: [laughs] Yes. I'm going to connect to you perfectly. It's so amazing. It's like, "Hey, I want to connect with you." You can just feel that in your system. "Hey, I want to connect with you. Hey, I want to connect with you perfectly." It just immediately takes the connection out.Brett: I've experienced that in relationships so many times, where suddenly I'll have a new idea of like, "Oh, wow, this is connection. I wasn't doing connection before. Now I know what connection is." Then suddenly that can become a new perfectionism, where I'm like, "Oh, man, I could call my brother and reach out and talk right now, but I haven't talked in so long and that's been-- Oh." Then just find ways to make it not okay somehow and then procrastinate it.Joe: Exactly. That's the amazing thing too, is that we have all these impulses inside of us that are just popping up like, "Oh, I want to work out or I want to exercise or I want to move my body." Then that impulse, which is the deep connection, immediately gets turned into a perfection of, "I should work out." Then it's completely unmotivating.Brett: Then here's my workout plan that I'm going to hold myself to and shame myself and judge myself when I miss a day.Joe: Exactly. You watch the little kids and they just follow that impulse and there's no idea of perfection. As they get older, the bigger the perfection, the more they're stilted, the more they're stunted. If you look at the people who have the deepest level of depression that feel most stagnant in life, their brain is telling them that they're not perfect and they need to be perfect all the time.Brett: Yes. They're just experiencing that delta between them and their model of what they want to be.Joe: Yes. I'll give you a little trick that I do with people. The most recent is with my guy who cuts my hair, a great guy. He's an artist and I love his art. It's good work. He was just having a hard time getting people to buy and represent him and everything that. I'm "Hey man, I've got a job for you. If you do it, if you do this job successfully, I'll give you whatever 1,000 bucks," or whatever it was. He's like, "Okay, well, what's the job?"And I said, "I need you to get 30 rejections. I need you to go out there and get 30 people to turn you down. If you can prove to me you've got 30 people to turn you down in a year, I'll give you 1,000 bucks." I came back two months later, I don't get my haircut that often, or I had one and we didn't talk about it. Then I was like, "How's it going? He's like, "I've got three representations and I've sold 12 pieces." It was the difference between trying to get sold and trying to get rejected because his mindset moved from perfection to connection.Brett: Speaking of moving that mindset, how can we consciously shift from a mindset of measuring ourselves up to some perfect ideal and rather focus on cultivating connection? What is the practice here?Joe: That question in itself implies perfectionism. It's like how do I perfect myself in this way? Even that question becomes a little bit less effective than another question. The other thing to say is that there's also no such thing as perfect connection. It's asymptotic, meaning that you get closer and closer, but you can never actually arrive.There's no place to get to, that you're going to ever get to. There's just proximity and feeling more and more and more and more and more, more connected. I think it's important to say that if you choose that, if you say, "Hey, what I'm after in life--" Every company has a bottom line. For most of them, it's the financial bottom line, but there's other kinds of bottom lines that people have.What I've noticed is when people change their life to having a bottom line of connection, they have incredibly happy and productive lives. If they can measure their level of connection on a daily basis and their job is just to feel more and more connected every day, that visceral sense of connection, it has a very, very deep effect on people. I just think it's really important to say that, but the trick is not to try to get there because trying to get there is a form of disconnection.Brett: There's no there to get. It's an iteration.Joe: Right. It's really more of an allowing. Connection is more of an allowing. If I'm not trying to change anything, if the definition of connection is not trying to change anything, not wanting-- It's not quite that. It's not wanting things to be different. You might want to change stuff. That's fine. It's important to change stuff, obviously. It's more about accepting it for what it is even if you are trying to change it.Brett: Which is in a sense allowing imperfection? Allowing the error signal, allowing the pain of things not being as good as you could imagine them being, which breaks through denial. Because what is denial other than just having this vision of how things are and no, it has to be perfect, so this information that is inconvenient?Joe: Yes. Also, it's your imagination. It's imaginary. Perfection is again. Yes, exactly. That's beautifully said. How do you have deeper levels of connection in your life and how do you, I would say, allow deeper levels of connection in your life? It's interesting. One of the things that's a really important principle behind it is, to go into difficulty is one of the ways that you get into-- when I say difficulty, I mean discomfort or vulnerability.That really creates a sense of connection in folks. If you've ever seen people who fought together in a war, it doesn't matter if they haven't seen each other in 20 years, their bond is ridiculous. It's such a strong level of connection and they've just gone through the shit together. I build my courses so that there's difficult moments so that people can start feeling bonded to one another.There's something about going through difficult things together that creates a bond. Same with yourself. If I have my little kids and I have them do tasks that are hard for them and challenging for them, they feel more connected with themselves and more connected with me. They talk about how to build self-esteem. One of the ways you build self-esteem is by giving hard things to do. Then that's how they build self-esteem. It's not to take that away from them or to try to make it so they're successful. It's the same thing internally and externally. Then the other main way that I talk about this is VIEW. I talk about something that I termed as VIEW, which is how we relate to ourselves and how we relate to other people. That's very operational, so that if you practice this state of mind, it just leads to deeper and deeper levels of connection internally and externally.Brett: Can you explain VIEW?Joe: Yes. The most important thing is, it is a state of mind. It's almost even beyond a state of mind. I think it is a state that's beneath all states of mind is another way to think about it.Brett: Metastate.Joe: Yes. It's a metastate. A stateless state, I've heard people call it. It's good for internal and external practices. It's basically V stands for vulnerability, I stands for impartiality, E stands for empathy and W stands for wonder. It's walking around the world willing and feeling vulnerable, impartial, empathetic and full of wonder.This is not just like how I interact with you. As you know, we have these conversations that are in VIEW and we do a lot of work in here. It's also meditative, like if you're sitting and being with yourself quietly, how can you be more vulnerable with yourself in that moment? How can you be more impartial with yourself? How can you have more empathy? How can you have more wonder?We're constantly telling ourselves, "I should lose weight," but we're never really going, "What is making it so that I've been saying that to myself for 20 years and nothing's happened?" We're constantly telling ourselves how we should feel or how we should not feel or how to avoid them, but we're not really actually just being empathetic with ourselves and being with the feeling.We're constantly telling ourselves how to do shit, what to do. We're editing ourselves all the time, but we're very rarely just ever being impartial with ourselves like, "What's actually happening? Let's just look at this thing with a watcher's eye, an observer's eye instead of a manager's eye."Impartiality is amazing because people often say, "If I don't manage it, it's not going to turn out right," which is clearly not true when you just think about most of the major decisions that have changed your life are not things that you decided. Like did you really decide to meet your wife on a Tuesday at a bar or did you really decide to even take that job or apply for that job or did you just apply for 20 jobs?The decisions that actually make our lives are often ones that we don't have any control over anyway. More importantly, it's like the best change agent for things is awareness. It's not management. Just being aware of stuff can change things dramatically. We put a whole bunch of management on it, thinking that that's necessary, but it usually slows down the progress.Brett: Relationships are a really great example, because you certainly can't connect the dots in advance how you're going to meet a person or a client, or you can try to arrange your life so that that thing happens with higher frequency. Really, there's a state of mind of being open to it, of allowing it, of allowing those synchronicities.Joe: The more that you recognize them and allow them, the more that they happen. I'm not in any way speaking out against, "Hey." Sometimes it's important to say, "We're going to get to this goal." I think goals are fantastic. I love them. The question is, can you hold that with an impartiality as well as a determination? It's incredibly easy to do when you look at nature, like an oak tree that grows to be 5 feet wide and 40 feet tall. That's determination and it's also very impartial. It's just in the flow of things.Impartiality is the hardest one for business people, particularly to really grok and understand. One of the metaphors I use for impartiality is you're on a boat going down a river. It's important to row the boat, but it is more important to read the river. If you are partial and reading the river, you're not reading the river. That's the impartiality part. Then vulnerability, obviously, is doing the things that are just a little bit scary, to let the little parts of yourself that you judge out into the world to find out that nobody else is judging them. They're just you.Brett: Or to find that they might be judged and that's okay.Joe: Yes and to find that they might be judged and that's okay, right. The thing is we don't really care what people are judging us. All the things that you're proud of about yourself, all those things that you think are just fricking awesome about yourself, I guarantee you there's people judging you for them. I guarantee you and you don't care. The things you care about are the things that you're judging yourself for. Exactly.Brett: We've got vulnerability, impartiality, empathy and wonder. We've talked about impartiality quite a bit. We've talked about vulnerability. Let's talk a little bit more about wonder. Joe: Wonder is curiosity without looking for a solution. Wonder is curiosity with awe. It has a certain level of awe to it. It has a certain amount of amazement to it and it is in the question. We think that being in the answer is more productive than being in the question. Being in the question is incredibly important. Just as an example, you can have three different questions arise. One question is, how do I have the perfect relationship? The second question could be, how do I have the most connected relationship? The third question could be, how do I have a relationship that lasts 40 years?Brett: Then ends exactly at 41.[both chuckle]Joe: Probably. Those are going to lead to three different relationships. What the question is, is far more important than what the answer is. Living in the question is an amazing experience, to be in the question without needing that resolution, to just be in the wonder of life. It just provides answer after answer after answer, but to be in the knowing, you only get one answer. I'd much rather have many answers than one.Brett: It's like seeing an animal be like, "Whoa, that's a giraffe. Cool, giraffe," or being like, "Whoa, look at the spots on that thing. How tall it is? The little eyelashes, Oh."Joe: What? It has the same amount of neck vertebrae as I do? What? What? How on earth? Exactly. It's that feeling of just question after question. Answer after answer. One thing about vulnerability that I'm not sure if I hit is, that everybody's vulnerability is different. It's like, I see people often say like, "Oh, that guy's not vulnerable." You have no idea if that person is being vulnerable or not because vulnerable for you and vulnerable for me is different. I could tell you all about my childhood and all the mishaps and drama and you'd be like, "Wow, man that was super vulnerable. Your dad did what? Your mom did huh?" I would be like, "Yes, that's not vulnerable."To me, I've said it 1000 times. I've been in rooms and Al-Anon meetings and groups for years of hashing through that stuff. There's nothing vulnerable about it for me. That's the path of vulnerability, is that you're constantly showing up with that thing, that's a little scary and all of a sudden, it's not scary anymore. Then you show up with the next thing and you show up with the next thing. Then it ends up leading you into authenticity, because all those vulnerabilities are really just ways that you're judging yourself and preventing yourself from being what you actually are.Brett: Vulnerability could even depend on role as well, like an overbearing manager screaming is like that's somebody not being vulnerable. An employee showing their anger to a manager that they've been hiding for so long and just resenting, there's something really vulnerable in that.Joe: I would say something vulnerable in both actually. Basically, the manager who's yelling and is basically saying, "I feel out of control. I feel alone. I feel out of control. I'm going to go and beat myself up for yelling in a couple minutes. I feel ashamed and I don't know what to do to actually fix this situation. I'm yelling, because I hope that it'll make me feel like I'm in control for 20 minutes."Brett: To a third party observer, as you were saying, like our idea of what is vulnerable is different. A third party observer might observe the manager as being invulnerable and their anger in the employees as being vulnerable. I see this in movies, for example. There's so many examples where finally that person stood up for themselves. That was such a vulnerable thing to do.Joe: The important part is, are you being consciously vulnerable? Yes, if you're getting angry all the time and yelling at people, obviously that level of vulnerability, though it's vulnerable for you, you probably don't recognize it. Other people don't recognize it. It's not really going to have the same effect as being vulnerable in a way of like, "Oh, I'm going to go stretch myself here." What is very useful is when somebody is yelling like that to see it as a vulnerability.Brett: Or, "I'm sorry. I keep yelling at you and I don't want to be yelling at you. I apologize."Joe: Yes. That's the vulnerability that the person yelling it's going to really benefit them. To see them as vulnerable when they're yelling just to be able to look at them and say, "Hey, you're not alone in this. This whole team wants to be successful with you." It will immediately change the yell. It just will, because if you can see it as vulnerability, that's great. For that person to have the benefit and this modality of VIEW, the important thing is that you're choosing vulnerability. You're choosing the thing that's vulnerable to you.I think that the one piece that we haven't quite talked about is empathy and I think it's an important thing. Empathy is just allowing yourself to feel the other person. It doesn't mean losing yourself in the other person. It doesn't mean going into the other person. It doesn't mean confusing your emotional state with their emotional state. It just means allowing yourself to be with the person while they are feeling stuff, to be there with them in it. That's just an important piece on the empathy. Brett: Again, vulnerability, impartiality, empathy, wonder, VIEW. How does one practice VIEW or cultivate this state of mind or meta state?Joe: You can do it internally and you can do it externally. If you're a meditator, if you just  contemplate quietly, just do some experiments. See what it's like to be vulnerable with yourself and then see what it's like to be non vulnerable with yourself. See what it's like to be partial with yourself. Have a really strong agenda for yourself and see what it's like to be impartial with yourself.Brett: What about an agenda creeping into meditation? Like I'm going to meditate into this particular state of mind that I want to be in and that would be perfect.Joe: Exactly. That would be very partial and so would be saying I want to be impartial right now. This is the thing about true meditation is having no agenda, having no management. It's more like sitting on the beach and enjoying the wind across your face. Oftentimes, when I'm talking to people about how to meditate, I talk about, it's just non-management.The level of management is also asymptotic. It gets finer and finer and finer and finer. Maybe you start with just a simple agenda, which is to be agendaless. Maybe you start with a really simple agenda of being aware of your body. The idea is that eventually, the agenda goes away and you become the passenger. You are being taken for a ride. You're not driving.Brett: How do you bring that into your life when you're in a meeting or an argument or working on a podcast?Joe: That's actually a little bit easier for VIEW. Wonder means you're asking open-ended questions. If you're really curious, you're asking questions that are going to give you lots of data. How, what, where, when questions. Not can do, is questions and why questions are usually judgmental. Wonder is just asking questions. Empathy is not trying to fix people's emotional states, not trying to change their emotional state and to let them know that you're with them.Brett: That sounds like impartiality.Joe: It is and it's on the emotional level. They all are the same thing. When you start really getting into them, they're all the same thing. Impartiality, I use that more on the logical level and the empathy is more on the emotional level. It's to call it out because I think that most people don't recognize or it takes them a long time to recognize, that they are constantly wanting their emotional state to be different, that they're constantly trying to get to some state or trying to get away from another state.Brett: We've all been taught in some way or another that happy is good. Some parents are like, "Oh, I will love you if you're successful." Other parents are like, "I will love you if you're happy," and that's almost as just as bad in some cases.Joe: Yes. It's not loving them for what they are. It's not loving your kid for what they are. The crazy thing is, is this idea is like, "Hey, if I love you for throwing temper tantrums," and you're going to just keep on throwing temper tantrums, that's just not true. It's like once you love that part of yourself, it changes.Just like if you put awareness into something that changes. There's this principle in business, it says how do you fix a problem? The thing you do is you put attention towards it. Just the simple act of putting attention towards a change is the situation and creates a solution. It's the same thing that awareness just changes things and so does love. Love just changes. If you can love every emotional state that you have, they change. The friction of most emotional states is your resistance to them, not the state themselves. If you're resistant to bliss, which oddly most people are. Bliss is very overwhelming. There's this great quote that says fear is excitement without the breath.It's just saying that excitement, if you forget to breathe because you're resisting it, is fear. That's what empathy is all about. We're using different parts of the brain and empathy and impartiality too. One is mirror neurons and one is opening our heart. The feeling of opening a heart and the other one, impartiality is dropping the strategies, dropping the agenda.Brett: Another thing about fear and excitement, in base jumping through the phrase similar to this was just excitement is the other side of fear. Getting into it more subtly, fear is when you feel something is off and inauthentic and excitement is when you feel like you're ready for it. Whatever cliff you're about to jump off of, if you feel like your equipment is in line and your mindset is in the right place and the conditions are right, then it comes through as excitement.If there's a part of you that knows something's wrong, you know that you feel peer-pressured into this to be cool, or you know that the conditions are off but you're just avoiding hiking down because that would be annoying, then there's a constriction there that turns into fear. Listening to what kind of fear you're feeling can be a really good indicator.Joe: Yes. Absolutely, that's a beautiful thing. I think what it all requires, fear, excitement, breath, no breath, is to feel it. It's to actually feel which is what empathy is saying. It's to actually allow the emotional state to move through you and to flow without resistance, because you're never going to get the intelligence of the emotion while trying to control it. You're not going to get the intelligence of your people in a business if you're trying to control it.Brett: It seems like a form of being receptive to information rather than just drawing a conclusion.Joe: That's exactly right. That's the whole thing. That's the VIEW. If you're practicing it out in the world, it's like wonder is asking questions. Empathy is being with people's emotions. Impartiality is not trying to drive them to a place.We had this great experience, where we did these workshops, where it was these two day practicing VIEW. That's all we did. Just practice VIEW for two days. This is like deep stuff. People will call me two or three years later. I remember one guy and it's more than one guy. There's multiple people where this happened, where they basically at some point in the two days looked at me and said, "Wow, I've never asked an impartial question in my whole life." All my questions, everything I'm saying is trying to get somebody to do something.The people who are going to have that recognition the most are the people who are most disconnected, are the people who feel most lonely, who feel most disconnected is because they have this incredibly strong agenda for themselves or for others.Brett: Perfectionism.Joe: Yes, exactly. Vulnerability is just saying things that are vulnerable or asking vulnerable questions or asking the question that might get you fired or asking the question that might make your boss angry at you, but it's your truth. That's the thing about vulnerability.Vulnerability is you don't do the scary thing because it's scary, you do the scary thing because it's your truth. You ask the question because it's your truth or you say the thing. Even the work that I do, when people see me do one-on-one work, they're like, "Holy shit, how did you ask those questions?" It happens to me too. I'll feel it. I'll be like, "Oh my god, I'm going to ask that question. Oh shit." You've seen it happen. Those are usually the most powerful, most impactful questions are the ones that are really scary.Brett: That's when my sphincter is clenching hearing you start to ask the question.Joe: Exactly. Mine, too. It's like, "Whoo." That's when life just becomes really alive and opens up. That's where the most important stuff comes. Maybe some people are going to join you. Maybe some people aren't. That vulnerability really makes it so that you get the life that you want to live, because you're showing up as yourself in your truth, no matter the consequences, no matter what someone thinks.That just drives the people who want you for you into your life and drives the people who don't want you for you out of your life. It's a lot easier. Then we have this whole technique of asking questions and having how to have you VIEW question and answers and all that stuff will be explicit in other materials.There's all sorts of ways of using this to do sales and you're doing this to do management of people, or doing VIEW to do product development or doing VIEW to talk to your father who you haven't spoken to in 20 years. When you hear people have these conversations, it's amazing to see. We'd give these homework assignments and VIEW. They would in the VIEW course and they would go out and talk to their dad and then parents, siblings haven't spoken, getting back together. Husbands and wives realizing, that they have the same thing. All beautiful things happen. Bosses and employees changing the way that they work together. Co-workers changing the way they work together from 15-minute conversations, because you do this with executives.I do this with executives and typically the executive is like, "Wait. I need to be partial. That's how I've made my living and I can't be vulnerable." I'm like, "It's just an experiment. Let's do this for 15 minutes." Then at the end of the 15 minutes, I always say the same thing. I'm always like, "Hey, so have you ever had a more productive 15-minute conversation?" The answer is almost always no, because when you're that way, it's an incredible form of productivity, because you get to see and learn and grow so much. CEOs start to learn like, "Oh, I could--"There's this great in the book that I love Reinventing Organizations. There's this example of a CEO going to his people and say, "Hey, we just lost the biggest contract. We do not have enough money. Tell me what we should do." The whole organization said, "You know what, we're all going to take a pay cut and we're going to try to get another customer." The people who are trying to get the other customer, obviously, we're completely motivated because they saw everybody do this pay cut. They themselves had a pay cut and the CEO didn't dictate a pay cut, but people decided this is what we're going to do.That's an expression of vulnerability in a business and there's thousands of those expressions. There's a Harvard Business Review case of a woman who basically had no money. She had a company and she had no money to keep on going and her employees stayed with her. It was all about her vulnerability with the employees.It's so incredibly apparent when you get out of the mindset that people do things for money. Some people do things for money, for sure. We all do some things for money for sure, but most of what we do in life is not for money.Brett: Getting beyond carrots and sticks.Joe: Yes. Getting beyond carrots and sticks and having some faith that most people and the people that you should have hired and the people hopefully that you're married to, are people who want what's best for them. They want to contribute. They want to be a part of things. They're motivated. If there's no money, people wouldn't just all sit around and go, "Okay. I'm done. No more money. I'm finished." If everybody had food and shelter, then everyone's like, "I'm finished. I'm done."Brett: This example of the CEO reminds me of something that you've said before where the position of the CEO often feels like the most lonely position in the company.Joe: Yes, for sure.Brett: What would you have to say just to wrap this episode up neatly into a perfect conclusion, cherry on top? What would you have to say to that CEO that feels that distance and wants that connection but feels like, "No, no, everything would fall apart"?Joe: I would say, I know you had to be resourceful and you had to be self-reliant. You were alone as a kid but you're not alone now. If you're looking for evidence, look around at all the people who are trying to make you successful. They might not be able to live up to every one of your expectations, but it's probably impossible to find anybody who's not trying to live up to your expectations, who's not trying to make it work for you and for them. Take a look at that and then apologize to them for not recognizing it. That would be the vulnerable act. Then see how much more inspired they are to be there with you and to show up with you because they see your humaneness instead of being scared of you.Brett: Beautiful. Joe, thank you for a perfectly imperfect episode.Joe: That it was. Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment podcast.  If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe. We would love your feedback, so feel free to send us questions and comments. To reach us, join our newsletter, learn more about VIEW, or to take a course, visit: artofaccomplishment.comResources:Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations, https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games, https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Finite-and-Infinite-Games/James-Carse/9781476731711Michael Masterson, Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat, https://www.waterstones.com/book/ready-fire-aim/michael-masterson/9781119086857

Strength and Scotch Podcast: Training / Nutrition / Health / Fitness / Scotch
SS 295 - How to Keep Your Muscle When Running More

Strength and Scotch Podcast: Training / Nutrition / Health / Fitness / Scotch

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2020 45:33


In this week’s episode Grant and Heavey answer a question from listener Joe: How to keep your muscle when increasing running.   Heavy shares his tips on strength training to maintain muscle mass as well as nutrition strategies to keep that hard-earned muscle.   Grant also shares his new infatuation with gaba rice (germinated brown rice) and the boys discuss their favorite Thanksgiving dishes… and Grant’s disgust of casseroles. If you like Heavey's take on health and fitness be sure to subscribe to his weekly emails where he shares his favorite tips and tricks. And if you enjoy nerding out on health and fitness with Coach Heavey, be sure to check out his main project, Evidence Based Athlete.   2:50 www.strengthandscotch.com/plus 3:15 Three whiskeys on the table 6:20 Hiding whiskey 6:37 Question from listener Joe: running without losing muscle 9:07 Running and muscle gains 10:05 How many days a week in the gym to maintain gains? 11:45 Prioritizing compound movements 13:15 Five categories of movements 15:53 Recommended rep schemes 19:00 Adding unilateral training 19:44 Nutrition for muscle sparing 21:47 Grant Guzzles 24:02 Gaba Rice (germinated brown rice) 30:31 Benefits of gaba 35:09 Preparation of foods affecting absorption 36:18 Shoot the Sh*t 39:50 Have to have stuffing 40:42 Worst mistake of my life

The Art of Accomplishment
Impartiality — VIEW Series #3

The Art of Accomplishment

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2020 51:24


In today's society, we have an archetype of the successful leader as a commander; someone who knows what they want and bends the world to their will in order to get it. But so many of us end up elbowing our way into loneliness or controlling our lives into a place we later realize we don't want to be.How can we have clear goals and desires while staying in flow with reality?What if accepting the outcomes we're avoiding makes our desired outcomes more likely?On today's episode, we'll be discussing Impartiality -- the I in VIEW."Recognizing something that's right and going with it rather than trying to get it to be your version of right is the practice of impartiality in business, and it is incredibly, incredibly useful."Welcome to the Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease.My name is Brett Kistler. I am an adventurer, entrepreneur and a self exploration enthusiast.  I am here with my co-host, Joe Hudson. Joe is a business coach who has  spent decades working with some of the world´s top executives and teams developing a unique model of human patterns that underpin how we operate with ourselves, each other and the world. A good entry point into this model is a mindset called VIEW, vulnerability, impartiality, empathy and wonder.  Through understanding and cultivation we learn to easefully drop into the VIEW state of mind, deepening self awareness and increasing our connection with the world around us. To learn more about this podcast or courses, visit artofaccomplishment.comBrett: In today's society, we have this archetype of the successful leader as a commander, someone who knows what they want and bends the world to their will in order to get it. Many of us end up elbowing our way into loneliness or controlling our lives into a place we later realize we don't want to be. How can we have clear goals and desires while staying in flow with reality? What if accepting the outcomes we're avoiding makes our desired outcomes more likely. On today's episode, we'll be discussing impartiality, the I in view. Joe, describe what you mean by impartiality.Joe: Yes, my 11-year-old girl yesterday asked me that question. It was cool because it gave me a very different answer explaining it to an 11-year-old. The answer that I normally give is, it's to not have an agenda for another person, at least in the VIEW modality. It means that when you're having a conversation, you're not trying to get the other person anywhere. That's what it means in that way, but the way I explained it to my daughter was, it's saying, "I trust you. You know what's best," when you're talking to somebody else, right? You're saying, "I trust, you know what's best. I'm going to follow your lead. I think you know what you need better than anybody else could know what you need. You have more information and data to know what you need and I want to explore that with you." That's impartiality.Most of our conversations are very partial and it would be things like, "I know what you need. Let me give you advice. I want you to be better, I want you to be healed, I want you to be different. I want you to feel like I'm valuable in this conversation." That's the partiality instead of the impartiality. That's what I mean. Particularly in these kinds of conversations, there's other ways to think of impartiality generally and that are really important in one's journey. We may or may not get into that, but for the context of the VIEW conversation, that's what it means.The reason on some level that this is so important is, because the subtle message behind partiality is, that you think that you're smarter than the other person. I know what's best for you if I can give you advice. You think you know what's up. That's basically agreeing with the essential myth so many of us live with. It's the essential myth that we're not good enough. If you're telling somebody that, you're also making that true for them, whereas if you are looking at them and in the conversation, you see them as wise. You speak to the wise part of them, the part of them that knows and that's the part that's going to come out and meet you. That's what you get in that conversation instead of the helpless person you get on the other side of the conversation, somebody who's wise, because that's the part that you're asking to talk to and that you're talking to.Brett: Let's dig into that not good enough part a little bit more. What is impartial about that?Joe: Yes, there's this correlation between thinking that you're not good enough, and let's call that shame and that there's actions that prevent you from being happy. It's like, you think you're not good enough because you haven't worked out. You think you're not good enough because you still get angry. You think you're not good enough because women don't like you and you think that if you do all that stuff, if you work out enough and women like you or enough men like you or whatever it is, then you're not going to have shame and then you're going to be happy, but the causation is actually the opposite of what people think.It's far more that shame causes the actions, than it is, that the actions are what caused the shame. Meaning if you remove the shame, then it's very easy for the working out to happen and for people to want to be with you and all that stuff. Shame is kind of like the locks that keep the chains of bad habits in place. I think there's a guy, Adia Shantay who said that. That's what I mean. It's the shame that holds the bad actions in place. I don't want to call them bad, but the actions that prevent us from being happy.Brett: I like this dual direction of causation. I think it'd be interesting to see it as a loop as well. Our actions and the consequences to our actions can create shame and they can also heal us. But if we're waiting for the impact of the world to do that to us, then that's sort of disempowered when we could actually work on the other side of that loop which is working on our-- seeing our own goodness, seeing that we're good enough as we are and letting that shame dissolve, which then changes our actions to be less producing of consequences that would lead to shame.Joe: Yes, it's absolutely a dance. It's absolutely a dance. They definitely can feed off one another. What I noticed in the mind of most people, they're not saying "Maybe I should stop being so shame-oriented, I should stop shaming myself." I think that's the most important part to call attention to. Yes, absolutely a dance.Brett: What is the benefit of being impartial?Joe: [laughs] It's like a CEO asking the CFO, "What's the benefit of revenue?" Yes, so many benefits. You don't shame people, for one. You're teaching people how to fish, not feeding them fish. You're empowering the people in your organization. You're empowering your husband, wife, kids. You don't have to save anybody anymore. You don't need to be valuable anymore. People are more likely to trust you because you're not trying to fix them, you're just being with them. Deeper levels of connection. Just keep on going, there's so many benefits from it. There's only one perceived loss that people think they're going to have, is like, if I stopped being partial, then I'm not going to get what I want, [laughs] which is hilarious, because if they were paying attention to some degree, they had realized they've been partial their whole life and they're still not getting what they want in many arenas. Obviously, you're going to get what you want and not get you what you want with partiality. But what I would say is that look for causation, even look for correlation. I find people get what they want far more when they are being impartial and owning their wants.Brett: Yes, fascinating. I think it's intuitive to us that being partial often, being overly partial, it doesn't end up getting us what we want and so we learned some weird form of impartiality, which is really just like-- we use it as a way to be non-threatening in a conversation. If we were to turn the partiality all the way down to zero, our behavior would approach random chance and we wouldn't be going in any particular direction at all. How does being impartial help you have productive conversations and achieve goals and get what you want?Joe: Yes, yes, okay. There's no way I think any mammal, but definitely, humans can be completely impartial. It's asymptotic, meaning that you can dissolve more and more of your partiality, but there's always some partiality. You see this in acting. A lot of the great directors, the way they direct actors is they just ask them what do you want in this sentence or this scene or this moment. It's how we do it.If you really want to take it apart, every single sentence you have, has some want underneath it. It has some desire. It's a great exercise to-- Every sentence then says, what it is you wanted to achieve in that sentence. There's no way to get rid of partiality. It's as human as breathing or having emotions. I think that's a really important part. I don't think there's any fear that we'll walk around aimless.I've never seen that in a person. I've seen people stuck, which is different, but that's not partiality. Everybody that I know who's really walking around looks aimless but it's really stuck, they're very partial about trying to get unstuck. The other thing is that goals are fine and wants are fine. That's not what we're saying. We're saying that in a conversation with somebody, you let them have their wants and goals and you have yours and you don't try to influence theirs.It's kind of like saying, it's like looking at a river and if you're having a conversation with one person and you're looking at the river one way, then you're like, "I want to bend the river to the left." [laughs] A lot of effort and it's a lot of work and it's probably not going to work. It's only going to work temporarily. Whereas if the other one is "Where does the river naturally want to go and how does that work with me?" Or "How is it important to me not to work with that?" is the other way to look at that conversation and being impartial is far more like that.Brett: What are a few more examples of that, of that metaphor in real life?Joe: Hiring people. Earlier in my career, I would hire people and I'd be like, "Oh, they're talented. I want to try to get them on board," or I had a vision for somebody and I'd be like, "Okay." I think I took it to the other extreme for a while, which was like, I would just ask people what they want to do, and if it wasn't exactly what I wanted, then I wouldn't hire them. I would far rather work with somebody who is wanting exactly the role that I have to offer. It's another way of looking at the impartiality is, I'm not trying to convince anybody who's talented to come and work for me. I'm just saying, "It's my reality. This is my world, do you want in? Is this something that inspires you?" Then I know I have them. I don't have something I've convinced to show up.Also saying no in sales is another great example. The best salesman will challenge, ask difficult questions, will even look at a pipeline and try to get to know as quickly as possible. For instance, I worked with this artist who was having a hard time selling his stuff and I said, "Look, your job is to go and get 50 rejections. I need you in the next six months to get 50 rejections."After the 10th call that he made, he was in three galleries. Because as soon as he could drop that partiality of trying to convince them, then he was successful at being himself, which is what they wanted, especially particularly from an artist. Anybody who's done a good sales program, they know that getting to a no is just as important as getting to a yes for time, effort and energy.Here's another way to think about it. Think of your best bosses. Think of the people or clients if you've never had a boss. Who are the people who have been responsible for your paycheck and have been the best to work with? You'll notice what they are is, they're incredibly clear with their wants, this is what I want, but they're not self-serving.Brett: What do you mean by that?Joe: It means that they're being impartial. They're saying this is what I want and they're letting you have the autonomy to do the thing. They're not cajoling you or manipulating you or being partial about how you do it, or even partial about what you do, they're far more like, "This is what we need to do. If you don't want to do it, then maybe you shouldn't be here and maybe we can get someone else here."If you think about those bosses, you just don't feel them as self-serving. What happens in partiality is that when you're not being impartial, the thing that comes up is, you look often political and you definitely feel self-serving to the people around you. Whereas if you just own your wants clearly-- The way this works in, say, a VIEW conversation, is, you can just own your partiality in the middle of the conversation.It's a very vulnerable thing to do and say, "Oh, I noticed that I'm trying to fix you and I'm so sorry." If you think about it even crazier than that, imagine if you're in the middle of a conversation, you notice someone's trying to give you advice, trying to get you somewhere and they say to you, "Wow, I noticed that I'm giving you advice. I'm trying to fix you. How do you feel about that?" [chuckles]You think about that for a second. Most people, most of the time, are going to say "Yes, please don't." Yet, we're freaking doing it all the time. That's how it builds trust and connection.Brett: Yes. Speaking of being political, people all the time, all of us do it. We manipulate by hiding our true intentions and subtly nudging a situation in the direction that we want it to go. This could sometimes be confused with impartiality, but I don't think that that's what you're getting at. What's the difference between actually being impartial and just acting the part in order to manipulate. And how do we tell in the moment if that's what we're doing?Joe: Yes. You're correct. They're not the same thing. It's true that there's a body sensation that goes with each one of them and impartiality, like VIEW, is really a state of mind, state of being. You know it, when you feel it more than you know it, if you're doing it intellectually. I would say the difference is, it's the same difference as hitting somebody in the face and or hitting them in the back while they're not looking. If you're subtly nudging or trying to, and you're not owning your partiality, if you're not owning your wants in that situation, then you're not being straightforward with them and it's a subtle form of lying.The other thing is that most people know when you're doing it. Most people-- You know when someone's doing that, most of the time. We kind of have this social contract that says, yes, everyone kind of does that, so I'm going to put up with it, but none of us like it, and none of us like doing it. That's one of the other things is, that if you want to know how it is in your body, it's uncomfortable, [laughs] it's uncomfortable. People can feel it and you can feel it in others, and of course, there's some folks who are intentionally duplicitous. It's definitely not the majority of people, which is a misunderstanding. A lot of people who see someone who's duplicitous, they feel like, of course it's intentional. I find that often it's not, it's like a blind spot of narcissism and other things.Brett: Lack of awareness?Joe: Yes, exactly. It's like the only time we really believe those people is, when we want to, when we are trying to fool ourselves anyways. That's the other thing, the thing that you notice about people who are duplicitous intentionally, it always blows up in their face. Sometimes it takes five years, but it hardly ever takes more than five years to do that. Whether you see this on a large economic scale or in relationships, it eventually blows up on you, which is interesting, because you can see people who are not scrupulous, you can see people who maybe do morally questionable things, but they're straight forward about it, and they can actually do it for a long time. When they're not being straightforward about it and almost always blows up, which isn't really a particularly interesting phenomenon.As far as how it is in the body, it's different for other people. Each person, their body registers things a little bit differently, but all you have to do is feel like right now going into a memory of when you were being subtly manipulative or not subtly manipulative and feel how that felt in your body and then feel how it is when you're being straightforward with your wants. Even if it's scary, you can feel it and that's going to inform you. Your body will know it much quicker than your mind will.Brett: I feel like a lot of the times that I've done that in the past, it's been more just like an avoidance of even recognizing, that that's something that's in my awareness, but there is a part that's aware of it and it gets filtered out because it's inconvenient for my ego.Joe: Yes. That's beautifully put. Yes. It's exactly like, even if we don't make the ego the enemy, but there's something that we'd have to feel or look at if we admit that to ourselves, which is, I think, typically the case when we're being manipulative. We have a want that we don't even-- Oftentimes we have a want that we're ashamed of having. We're trying to get our wants met without having to admit that we have them.Brett: Yes. That points to this whole practice being a state of being, because if you're doing this logically and you're trying to meet the end point of, "Oh, I should be impartial. Impartial will get me better sales, will give me better relationships," and then you're constantly filtering for whether or not you look like you're partial or impartial. That ends up coming from a completely different place, than if it's the state of being.Joe: Yes. If you want them to see you as impartial, then you're definitely being partial. It's going to be seen. Absolutely.Brett: Which begs the question, if true impartiality actually requires this state of mind, that is actually impartial and that meaning okay with any outcome, then what can we do to cultivate that true impartiality when we are actually, in reality, afraid of so many things and so many outcomes?Joe: Yes. I've been just focusing on this a lot, this question of fear of outcomes. Here's my new approach at thinking about this, which is, I don't believe in outcomes. The only way you can believe in an outcome is if you believe time stops.Brett: What about a snapshot? Believing in an outcome being some lossy snapshot of the future?Joe: That's exactly the point is, that it had to stop. Reality has to stop for there to be an outcome. It's like this age-old problem of, "Hey, I wanted to see what my future is," and someone shows you your future and you're happy and have a lot of money. Then you get there and two days later you're broke, miserable. Where's your future? Is it the moment where you're happy? Is it the moment that you were sad? What's happening there? I don't believe in outcomes, because outcomes is the idea that there's some end state and there isn't. With that said, I understand we have our fear, and our fear creates the idea of outcomes. What do you do there is the question.Brett: What if you're afraid of being in an eternal process of misery that continues? It's not a snapshot.Joe: Yes. Even that as a snapshot, because it's eternal, what is it-- Is it you've just hit zero baseline. There's no movement ever. Anyway, yes, so one is, there's a tradition that's the Stoic tradition, the Tibetan Buddhists had it, Samurai had it, which is visualizing your own death over and over again to undo the fear of death. You can do this with anything. If you're scared of getting fired, go visualize yourself getting fired over and over again, every step of it before, during, or after. Feel everything that you would have to feel if you got fired, because our fear really isn't about the thing happening. The fear is what we will have to feel if the thing happens. If someone was like, "You're going to get fired, but you're going to absolutely blissed out the entire time. You're going to find out it's like an absolute joy and pleasure, and then you're not going to have enough money, but that's okay because it's not going to even dawn on you that you don't have enough money. You're just going to be in this place of absolute- loving the situation as it is. Then money is going to come and you're going to be not attached to keeping it." I was like, "Wait, I don't have any fear of the future. The fear is all in the emotion." Going through the situation in your mind and feeling all the emotions can really free you of the fear, because all of the emotions can be enjoyed, can be welcomed, can be loved.Brett: That brings up something really interesting. In my experience base-jumping, often before jumping off of a cliff, you visualize the jump and I frequently find myself visualizing all of the ways I could die on the jump, visualizing pushing off in the wrong way. The thing that I ended up actually visualizing was the moment of terror, when I realized that fucked up and had gone past a point of no return, out of control. By doing that visualizing and encountering that point of terror where I'd fucked up, it made it so that if something went off-axis or off of the plan, that I didn't have to feel the terror when that happened. I'd be like, "This is actually much less off the plan than all of my visualizations were, so it's salvageable. Let's work with this."Joe: Yes. That's a beautiful metaphor. One of the principles that I work with often is, that the thing that we fear is often something that we are unknowingly, subconsciously inviting into our world because of things that we do to avoid the thing that we fear are often the things that bring them to us. What you're describing there is that you visualize the worst possible thing happening so you're not scared that it's going to happen. If I think about two people who are about to base-jump and one is petrified that they're going to screw up and one is okay if they screw up and they jump off. I can tell you which one of in my experience is going to have the higher chance of fucking up.Brett: Yes, likewise. I've had a lot of experience in that realm.Joe: Yes, which I'm sorry for, because I know the consequence of that. Yes, that's exactly how it works but it works with getting fired too. It works with every aspect of our fear. That's the other thing you can do is, just grieve the loss which is another way of feeling the pain in advance. The other thing you can do is just call yourself out for being partial, right. Somehow or other just saying, "Oh, this is the outcome that I want," can relieve you of that want for the outcome.Brett: How does that happen?Joe: It's like, "I'm sorry. I notice that I really want to be valuable to you, and that's not the best way that I can respect you or this conversation and I apologize for that."Brett: Another thing that happens a lot, all of us, we've been in some kind of tense discussion or negotiation where somebody just throws up their hands and they say, "Okay, whatever, I don't care," which is sort of the opposite of a thing you were just getting at, which is like owning a want and then letting the partiality for that want dissolve. It is completely disowning the want, and it's a way of disconnecting. What's the difference between impartiality and this sort of impartial apathy or avoidance?Joe: [laughs] I'm holding back my laughter so I don't interrupt your question. As soon as you asked that question, it hit me. I remember my daughter, I think she was eight or nine years old. At that time, kids are always like, "I don't care. I don't care. I don't care." She comes home and she goes, "Dad, I think I know what I don't care means." I'm like, "Really, what does it mean?" She says, "It means I care." I just laughed and I'm like, "Yes. That's my experience of it too is, that when people are saying that I don't care, they're saying I do care, but it's hurting so much that I don't want to care."Brett: "I don't want to feel this."Joe: "I don't want to feel this." Yes. “I don't care”, to me, is just a strategy. It's either a strategy to get what you want. Like to say, "I don't care," so that someone chases you or to get out of the responsibility or the feeling. That kind of apathy isn't really-- We call it apathy, but it's not the kind of apathy which is like if a stranger came to me and said, "Should I get a BLT or should I get a veggie sandwich today?" That would really be like, "Meh." They would be no desire for me to have that end up one way or another, but I wouldn't be apathetic about it.Apathy is really just about people not wanting to be hurt from having a want. If you are impartial, you may stop a conversation right in the middle of it and say that it doesn't hold any juice for you. That would be a thing, which isn't particularly apathy either. It's just saying, "Oh, wow, I notice that this isn't inspiring me. How is it for you?"Brett: Imagine receiving that. If you're trying to sell to somebody and the customer just does that and they are like, "Here's the information about what I'm actually interested in. All that presentation that you were just doing. I don't care."Joe: Yes, there's a story. There's a guy named Mikey Siegel who has said this. It's on the internet. In our first meeting he was pitching me something when I was an investor, and we were just having a nice connection time and then all of a sudden he got into pitch mode. After about a sentence I looked at him and I said, "I notice my entire body is getting tense right now." That's owning where I am. Having no idea what he's going to say or the consequences. Is he going to be mad at me? It just created such a deep level of connection between us and our friendship lasts. It has been years of close relationship. Brett: I've seen him tell that story and the recreation of the mind blow on his face at hearing that from an investor and realizing that, "Woah, I'm actually really, really trying to get something right now and it's obvious."Joe: Yes, and when it went away, we could actually connect and the benefits that came out of our relationship are far beyond whatever the hell he could have gotten that he was after. For me and for him. I hope for him. Apparently, that seems to be the case.Brett: We've worked through a lot of what impartiality is and what it is not. What are some of the benefits to practicing impartiality with intention?Joe: It's a much deeper peace of mind. You're more likely to be in flow with a person and hitting that flow state is something we all want. That creates deeper connection. You also find out that, if you don't want to be with somebody sooner so you don't get stuck in a bad relationship as easily or for as long. You usually come up with better solutions. This is the thing that I have to talk to a lot of managers about because they're like, "Wait a second. Hold on. I'm getting paid good money to have a really strong agenda for my entire organization."It's the same thing, what you're saying is that the organization doesn't want to fucking do the right thing. If that's the case, fire them. Fire them. If they don't want to do the right thing, what the hell are you hiring, why are you paying them? What the hell is going on? There are people out there who want to do the right thing for your company. If you assume that everybody who is working for you actually wants to do the right thing, then it's just a matter of whether they're capable of it or whether they can see it. You don't particularly need to be partial to educate folks. You can just educate. You can just say this is my vision.Also, you're missing something. Guaranteed, I don't care if you're Steve Jobs. I don't care if you're Elon Musk. You're missing something. The great leaders know they're missing something. They want to be around really smart people. They want people in the room smarter than them. The only way you are going to find out what you're missing is, if you let go of your agenda for a minute. It doesn't mean that you let go of your goals. It doesn't mean that you let go of your wants. If you're sitting in a conversation and you're just trying to push people into a particular kind of action. More micro-management level or even macro-management on that kind of thing, what you're doing is you're not getting the best ideas.I'm constantly seeing, when executives get this idea of, "Oh, right, if we all have agreed on the goal, so I don't have to manage anybody to an outcome. If we've all agreed on that, really, truly agreed on that, then everybody can work together to come up with the best solution. My way is never the best way. It is a part of the best solution." Also, you're following data more. People when they're partial don't look at data the same way. They don't run the experiments the same way. You get to see what's real, which is a far better way to build a business or a relationship with what's real rather than what you want. Yes, all sorts of other ways.I think the other thing is that you won't have the same conversation with the same person 10 times. We all have that relationship or have had that relationship where it's just like I'm talking to this person about their bad marriage again. I guarantee you if you're in that, it's because you want them to be different. If you were impartial, that conversation wouldn't come back over and over again.Brett: Yes, it's like the only thing that could keep you in a stable loop in that way would be that you have some impartiality that is creating a confirmation bias, filtering your information to fit a certain story. Yes, that's really interesting. How do our personal lives and our professional lives change as we practice impartiality? What happens to us internally and what happens around us?Joe: You're going to find yourself surrounded by a lot less people stuck in victim scenarios in their mind. You're going to learn a lot more and therefore have better ideas, because you'll spend that time that you are trying to manage people, and learning instead of in management. You will have to draw more boundaries. That's a really important thing. One of the reasons people are so partial is, because they're not drawing the boundaries that they want or not explaining the vulnerable want that's in their system.Brett: What's a good example of that?Joe: It's easier to try to fix your friend, who's dating the same guy with a different name 10 times in a row than it is to say, "I don't want to hear this story anymore." Another example is, let's say, I have an employee and they're consistently not doing the things that they said they're going to do. I just have to hold a boundary instead of trying to manage them out of it and have partial conversations. I just have to say, "If this isn't happening, then I have to assume you don't want to work here because if you wanted to, you'd do it or you're not capable. If you're not capable, please let me know, right?"You're far more likely to have to draw a boundary and to say what you want directly. Imagine a manager who sits around the table and tries to get everybody aligned and another manager who starts off saying, "What I really want, what I really, really want is for us all to be aligned, rowing in the same direction with a common set of goals, how do we do that? I have some ideas. These are my ideas. What do you guys think?"As compared to, "I don't want to have to ask for that. I don't want to have to draw that boundary. I'm going to really want it to happen, but I'm not going to be outright forthright with it. I'm going to be partial in every conversation to try to make it occur." which is a lot of managers.Brett: Remind me in a relationship of when somebody gets angry about not having something done for them that they didn't ask for. Waiting for somebody to notice what they want and do it for them. Joe: Exactly. Right, because they don't want to be vulnerable in that want or vulnerable in the boundary. That's right. That's exactly right. That happens a lot less.  That kind of thing will happen a lot less in your story. Another good story that I have around this is that I was doing this workshop in Boston and Cambridge, I think it was. There was a man, he was an older man, had been a successful entrepreneur, had a lot of depression in life, but he was older. Somewhere in that, close to the second day of the thing, he just looked at me and started crying and goes I don't think I've ever had an impartial conversation in my whole life because he just had one. He just had his first impartial conversation in his whole life.Then he was crying and it was an amazing moment. He kind of looked at me and he goes, "I had no idea the level of connection that I was missing." I think that's the big thing is, that if you think about the people who always have an agenda for you when you talk, how close do you feel to them, how much do you want to be around them? Brett: How defended do you feel?Joe: How defended do you feel? If you're a parent, especially of an adult child, if they don't want to be around you, I guarantee you have an agenda for them. I guarantee it. You want them to be safe, you want them to be a doctor, whatever the heck it is. They might be around you, but they don't want to be, and you feel it, you feel unloved because of it.Brett: We've talked a lot about how this applies to relationships with others. What does it look like to be impartial with ourselves or in relation to something more abstract like our businesses or to a professional career?Joe: With the VIEW, all we're focused on is being impartial with others. I just say if you're in the conversations doing the course, using the framework, really just focus on being impartial about the outcome for the other person, where they end up. It's a deeply beautiful and powerful practice to be impartial with yourself. If you think about meditation, there's a saying that goes, most people who are meditating are managing themselves, which isn't meditation, it's torture. Meditation, when you're not managing your experience, when you're happy with whatever experience is occurring, that then it's just bliss, it's just joy.Learning to not manage yourself in moments is incredibly useful because what it is, it's basically saying I trust my inherent goodness, I trust my impulse, the impulse of life that moves through me. That's kind of the big benefit, because that is the path that leads you to deep self-recognition, but we all have expectations of ourselves that we cling to. They're painful and we're constantly revising them and we're constantly trying to get ourselves somewhere and it causes us a tremendous amount of pain. We have this voice in our head that's just often quite violent and abusive.A practice of impartiality with yourself is really useful. The impartiality with business is, it's again that really subtle thing about it's good to have wants, it's good to have goals, how you get there is where the impartiality can be incredibly useful. Again, with the film thing is, that when you're a director working with actors, if you tell the actor, "This is exactly how I want it, you're not going to get it," but if you can give them direction and then recognize something beautiful when it comes, you can get that easily and all day.Recognizing something that's right, and going with it, rather than trying to get it to be your version of right is the practice of impartiality in business and it's incredibly, incredibly useful. I've been in so many-- Everybody can relate to this. It's like, there's this business, it especially happens to big businesses. You get a big business and they say, "I want to do it this way, but I have to check with this person who has." Then another person has to be checked in, it's like six different things because everybody's trying to get to some perfect solution where nobody's going to be mad at them and they're going to be successful. It's like an ungodly amount of time and energy that would have-- It's so much more useful to do something, get some advice, make a couple of mistakes. It would have been a lot less painful and often a far better result if you can allow that level of impartiality and not try to have to make everything perfect.Brett: It seems to be maybe a scale or a spectrum of short term partiality and long term partiality. In this state, we're just trying to get what we want right now. In longer-term partialities, we're willing to be more patient and that allows for more slack and flexibility in the how and exactly what it ends up becoming.Joe: Yes, that's right. I think the short term partiality is far more fear-based than long term partiality. I think long term partiality is far more principles-based. It's like how do I want to be and what's the world that I want be in and what's my vision for the world. You're watching for how the world wants to provide that for you and taking advantage of those moments rather than trying to force the world to succumb to your will, which is, if it works, it's a lot more effort and a lot less happiness in it. I think that most of the time you can tell the difference, because when people are thinking about long term stuff, they're really not moving from a place of fear, or the same kind of intense fear.Brett: They're willing to go through a little bit of shit to get to a more global optimum.Joe: That's right. Yes, they're not less likely to avoid stuff. There's a CEO that I worked with, and he used to say, he had this thing called the kitchen drawer theory, which is basically there's that kitchen drawer that nobody wants to look at, because they're like, "Shit, that's the mess. I don't want to have to fix that" and he's like, "My job as a CEO is to find all the kitchen drawers and go look in them." If that´s your partiality, if your partiality is to do that, it's a very different thing, because it's not driven by fear that the short term per partiality. It's more of a principle. I have a principle of embracing intensity going into the mess because I know that that makes the life that I want.Brett: As you practice this, and let's say you're in a high-pressure sales culture, or some other environment where partiality is encouraged and accepted as a norm, what's likely to happen when one person in that group starts to relax their partiality as a result of this practice and what challenges are they likely to face and what tends to happen in those kinds of teams?Joe: Sales teams are the best for this because a lot of them are that way, so if it's not a short term sale cycle, if there's any relationship that can be built, the person who let's go the partiality gets better results typically because the person who--Brett: If there is space for the long-term partiality in a relationship?Joe: That's part of it. Part of it is that, if you're trying to convince somebody of something they can feel it, based on their mirror neurons and it's like being attacked on a cell level, so their brain turns off curiosity. They stop wanting to learn. We have all sorts of evidence that people when they're in fear or feeling attacked, they don't learn as well, so you can't educate them on your product as easily. If people see that you really care for them and want them to make a best decision for them and that you're following their wisdom, then eventually, you're going to make a lot more sales than the short term thinking.There's obviously some sales organization where that doesn't work, because it's like a phone bank, you just call people and so aggression works, because there's some people who will do what you say when you're aggressive with them. That's their personality type.Brett: In the long term, that might not actually be what's best for your company, because you attract a certain type of customer and then your product gets fit to a certain type of a market, and somebody else could do a better job of serving the customer in a more long-term way, and then wipe you out.Joe: That's actually happening right now. Of all places there's a company that's doing something like this, in credit, in buying bad debt and there's a company out there I can't remember the name but--Brett: Debtly?Joe: Say it again.Brett: Debtly?Joe: Debtly, yes, I guess that's it but basically it's the same thing where most of the debt is like, "I will intimidate you until you pay me," and these guys come in and they're like, "I want to work with you about this." Most people want to also relieve their debt and they get a much better result and it's just a perfect example of how that happens. If you have a phone bank, it's all a numbers game, make a hundred calls so that you can get three or four to work and then aggression can work, but long term it's a bad business model. Like I said, it lasts, generally, about five years at most.Also, if you start doing it, if it's a really aggressive culture the team will turn against you because they don't want to feel what you're making them feel. The person who does it often leaves, gets a better job, does something better in their life, becomes happy.Brett: And the person who does the impartiality?Joe: Yes, yes, they typically get out of that situation, find something that's actually life-affirming. Some people get off on the power of having that kind of intensity. It makes them feel powerful and they really need to feel that power, because they felt so disempowered in their life. If they start learning their impartiality, they just get out of those circumstances and find real empowerment instead of just the short term power. Occasionally you have a great team that has that kind of intensity and the whole team realizes it, but usually, you need a really great leader to see that.Brett: How can this go wrong or be taken too far? In what situations, if any, would too little partiality be dangerous or counterproductive? Or if somebody is working on their impartiality in a team like that, is there a way that it could be distorted in a way that's destructive?Joe: If you deny your wants, yes. If you try to pretend that you don't have wants [laughs] and then, yes, it's not good. So you got to own your wants, you got to own your boundaries and your wants. If you're trying to be so impartial that you don't have any wants and you're above your humanity, you start disassociating all this bliss and that kind of thing, which is true. It is all bliss, but if you're denying that your own wants and your own humanity, it'll sap all the joy out of your life.That's the one way it can go too far, and it can seem like it goes too far sometimes when you stop being partial and then, the savior or bully, the person playing the different roles around you might say like, "Oh, I don't want this relationship anymore." Oftentimes when people say, "Oh, wow, I'm not going to try to fix my friends or make them happy or try to be valuable to them anymore." Some of those friendships don't last, and some of them get transformed into something far more beautiful.Brett: Let's get a little bit more into the difference between wants and partiality.Joe: The main difference is, that wants are owned and partiality is not owned, so to own your wants outright in a conversation is quite vulnerable. It allows you to feel exposed, and you're telling people your actual truth and so there's a vulnerability to it. Being partial, you can hide all that stuff on some degree and not take a look at it, and so it becomes implied and I think that's the main difference between the wants and the partiality.The other thing is, that when you own your want completely, that ownership can actually make the want less intense and allow you to see what the world is like, especially if you add to an apology with it, which is like, "Oh, I want for you to be different than you are and I apologize for that.” It can really relieve you from that pole of trying to make them different and it puts you in yourself. It makes you feel empowered, because you realize that you want them to be different so that you can feel safe or that you can feel loved or whatever that is, whereas partiality is all under the covers. That´s the main thing between the two.The other thing is that the wants, because they're owned outright and you can see them, it becomes really apparent how your wants, their wants can work together, and you can find something that works best for everybody. The partiality is often not owned, so it can't really be seen as the thing that it might become, which is something that can actually work for everybody. For instance, if I'm partial that you have a breakthrough while we're having a conversation, that's really all about me. It's under the covers. It's not the thing that's best for everybody. If I see you as knowing, whether you want a breakthrough or not, it's a far more beneficial thing for everybody.Brett: To summarize all of what we've been talking about for us to practice the impartiality in our view conversations, what are some bullet points, some do's and don'ts?Joe: Yes. As far as partiality, it's easier to define them as don'ts. It'd be, don't try to fix people. Don't try to get them to a conclusion. Don't try to be valuable, or have them see you as valuable. Don't want them to be different. Don't try to get them to be different. Don't look to convince. Don't try to lead them to a solution. Don't want them to see things your way. Those are the big ones.Brett: What is an example of a time that you really felt yourself wanting to be partial or being partial, work your way through it, noted it, recognized it, and ended up showing up with impartiality in a way you hadn't before, and what was the result?Joe: Yes, it was pretty early in my relationship with my wife. I think it was in year four or five. She had invited me to come and do something with her that was really important to her. I had not seen how important it was to her, also didn't want to go, and she came back, and she was pissed. I remember she was all dressed up for it, so she was incredibly beautiful at that moment and pissed. She was yelling, and we used to yell a lot at each other back in those days. She was just yelling, and I really wanted her to not punish me. I really wanted her to see me for the loving person that I was. I really, really wanted her to know that I loved her.I really, really wanted her to stop being angry, which was typical in those fights, and there's something just clicked to me, and I was just like, "It's okay for her to be just the way she is." She just got angry and let it out. It lasted maybe like three or four minutes, and then she got angry at me for not reacting, that lasted for like a minute. It kind of wore off with her. She needed some alone time. It wasn't like this quick fix or anything like that, but for me, it was like freedom. It was like, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, I don't have to be-- I don't have to curb myself. I can be me here. I can be me in the face of this. I can love her, and it was love." It was like, "I can love her just as she is no matter what's happening." The freedom in that was outstanding. It was such a peaceful place to be in.Brett: That's a beautiful story. Thank you for it, and thank you for another great episode.Joe: Yes, a total pleasure. Thanks for making the time.Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment.  If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe & rate us in your podcast app. We would love your feedback, so feel free to send us questions and comments. To reach out to us, join our newsletter, or check out our courses at artofaccomplishment.comLinks: Mikey Siegel, http://www.cohack.org/Debtly, www.debtly.app

The NOT Your Average Joe Show
Turning Your passion Into a Hot Business Idea with Joey Repice

The NOT Your Average Joe Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2020 57:19


This episode is the start-up story of Joey's Hot Sauce, and how Joey Repice created an e-commerce hot sauce business that started as a love story - experimenting with his own all-natural ingredients in the kitchen for his wife, Lisa who suggested there should be a “healthy hot sauce” on the market. You'll learn how he started, how to overcome adversity, and how Joey's personal brand is his primary marketing weapon for selling his hot sauce. Visit Joey's Hot Sauce here: https://www.joeyshotsauce.com and use SOTO20 to get 20% off your entire order. Key Points: Authenticity and truth is Joey's brand. Funny nugget stories on how they named their hot sauce products (Joey's Hot Sauce, Pricilla The Creeper, Hella Raiser, Lisa the Truffle Queen) Launch, list building, and brand strategies from Joe How people magically show up when you keep your vision going forward Connect with Joey Repice: Website: https://www.joeyshotsauce.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joeyshotsauce Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joeyshotsauce

The Quiet Light Podcast
From Construction Management to a Seven-Figure FBA Exit With Amazon Expert Jon Elder

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 8, 2020 39:29


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.

Will & Ted's Excellent Wrestling WreWind
Joltin' Joe's Wrestling Radio Show August 27, 2020

Will & Ted's Excellent Wrestling WreWind

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2020 92:16


The Joltin' Joe Radio Show crew talk all things wrestling! Where's Joe? How did SummerSlam play out? Who had the best show in Wrestling this week?? All this and more! Follow/Like The Show on Instagram, Twitter, & FaceBook: @WreWindPodcast Follow Joltin' Joe on Twitter: @radionowhere903 Follow Joltin' Joe on Instagram: @joltin.joe Follow Tyler Peters on Twitter: @DustinTyler86 **Follow Safe Wrestling Collective on Twitter and Instagram: @SafeWrestlingCo **Follow Emily Mae Heller on Twitter and Instagram: @emilymaeheller **Visit the Safe Wrestling Collective Website: www.safewrestlingcollective.org Check out our new website: https://sites.google.com/view/wrewind... Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbt2... Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1W8O3Ca... Listen on Anchor: https://anchor.fm/wrewindpodcast Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... CCW Wrestling: www.coastalchampionshipwrestlingfl.com Check Out ACPW's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwKJ... Music: Slow Burn by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song... License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

The Quiet Light Podcast
Starting and Scaling an Amazon Business for Exit With FBA Expert Kellianne Fedio

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2020 33:35


On this episode of our podcast, we speak with Kellianne Fedio, an Amazon consultant. She discusses selling her previous business for seven figures and the creation of her new podcast. Her journey is long and interesting, with a lot of twists and turns. Here, she shares her entire story and offers great advice to those who want to follow in her footsteps. Tune in to hear Kellianne's great insights. Topics: When she stumbled on Ecommerce, she realized it was a good fit. How Amazon has changed since she started. Why outside funding sources are necessary. The importance of Mastermind groups. Living through rocky periods. Explaining rebates. Kellianne's consulting methods.   Resources: Kellianne on LinkedIn Kellianne on Facebook Digital Shelf Strategy Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com   Transcription: Mark: Joe, we know that first-hand experiences of people that have gone through the process of building a business, preparing it for sale, going through that exit, that tends to be some of the greatest stories and stories where we can get a lot of lessons back to us that we can apply and learn how to optimize our own businesses for a better exit. I know you had Kellianne on recently and she shared her story of building her business and going through that exit and now her current pivot where she's starting up a podcast on this very topic. Joe: Yeah, Kellianne is good friends with another good friend of ours, Paul Miller, who owns Cozy Phones and Kellianne had a seven-figure exit. Technically, I guess it would be early this year that she closed on the transaction; early 2020. And she's learned a lot through that process and now she's sharing that experience and the knowledge and the networking and the story of building a business on Amazon; all the resources and connections that you need to make in order to build it well and build it right with an eventual exit in mind. So she shares her entire story and gives real tips and advice from her own direct experience during the interview. Joe: Hey, folks, Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and the Quiet Light Podcast, Today I've got Kellianne Fedio and I had to say that out loud several times to make sure I pronounced it right. Kelly is a former attorney, Amazon seller, seven-figure exit that she's had recently. And she's going to be moving into helping people build their Amazon businesses for a stronger exit down the road. Kelly, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Kelly: Thank you so much for having me, Joe. I'm such a big fan of everything you guys are doing over at Quiet Light and have done for the past several years so it's a real honor to be here. Joe: I appreciate that. I did more of an intro just now than I normally do, but I didn't read from the script. But why don't you go ahead and tell us who you are and your story and where you came from and what you've done here? Kelly: Sure. So I started out as an attorney in a former life, and after having kids, getting married, I became very unhappy in that profession. That was just a lot of long hours, not enough pay at least for what I was doing, and I really wanted to be there for my kids. So I became a stay at home mom for a while and loved every minute of it. And then when my kids started elementary school, I was like, okay, what's my next chapter here? And I never would have guessed it would have been entrepreneurship. I was very traditional type-A personality in high school. I'm going to get all A's. I'm going to go to college. I'm going to go to law school. I'm going to be an attorney. And that was like my plan for the rest of my life. And so fast forward to several years later, after having practiced law for 10 years and now having kids and a husband and a wonderful family life, I was like what am I passionate about? What can I put out there into the world that not only is going to hopefully bring in income to our family but also that I could be excited about doing? And so I just knew it had to have something to do with online; being online and creating value online. And so, like a lot of other entrepreneurs getting involved in the online space, I tried a lot of different things, made tons of mistakes, had tons of failures, learned a lot, loved every minute of that experience, but sooner or later stumbled upon e-commerce and pretty quickly realized this is something that I really could see myself doing for the foreseeable future. And so around that time, Amazing Selling Machine had become pretty prominent in terms of the Amazon education space. So I was in ASM3 and of course… Joe: I got to ask, what number were you? The early ones were the good years. They're coming back around. They're doing good stuff again. I talked to them last week. Kelly: They are. They're always innovating, always doing new stuff so, I mean I always bring that out when I'm on podcasts or other interviews, because if it wasn't for that course my life would be a lot different. So I met an amazing group of entrepreneurs with the affiliate group that I joined. It was Ryan Moran and his tribe. I met a lot of amazing people. I'm still friends with them to this day, and really just dug in and had some pretty early success early on. So it was really, really exciting and I knew that this was what I was going to be focusing on, probably forever. Joe: How did you choose your first product? Kelly: I chose something that I thought I could build a brand around. So I'm very passionate about talking to other Amazon sellers about when they're thinking about how to start their business. You know, people always ask, well, how do you pick a product? First and foremost, you have to build a brand these days. When I started, you could throw up kind of anything and just with a little luck and… Joe: How many years ago was it that you started? Kelly: 2014. Joe: Okay. Kelly: Yeah, so it was a while ago. Things have drastically changed, right, in the Amazon space? Joe: A little bit, yeah. Kelly: Yeah, a little bit. And so even back then; and I had no branding experience or consumer product experience, but I knew that this first product, I could build a brand around it and actually wasn't a product that had a huge demand at the time, but it was a product that I knew that I would love and that I knew that other active women would love. So that's really what I built the brand around and just continued to develop products; not all winners, lots of failures… Joe: Additional products all within that brand, yes? Kelly: Exactly, that would serve a core audience and solve a problem or need. Joe: How many products did you launch initially, was it just one? Kelly: It was just one. Joe: And it was a success out of the gate? Kelly: Not right out of the gate. So I launched it in August but by that Q4, I had reached seven figures on top-line revenue so it was really, really exciting. Joe: Cool, very exciting. Kelly: Just with one product, one variation. Joe: And probably not working as many hours as you did as an attorney. Kelly: No, I mean, I definitely was working a lot because I was still in learning mode. I mean, the thing about Amazon and e-commerce is you're not only learning the platform itself, but you're learning how to source overseas, perhaps, and manufacturing and product design and advertising and marketing. So there's a lot of different skill sets you have to learn. So I definitely was really, really passionate about learning as much as I could. Joe: When you learn all of those things, do you think it's things you need to learn and then do yourself or do you think that there are certain experts that you can outsource certain things to like photography or listing creation or whatever it might be; importing from China, dealing with different things? Are there certain aspects to an Amazon business you feel that should be outsourced and things that you should do in-house as the entrepreneur that started the business? Kelly: Oh, absolutely. In the beginning, I think you should do everything with the exception of maybe photography. Super specific skill sets, like graphic design or photography certainly, you can outsource that early on. But everything else I would say you have to learn first and foremost yourself before you can effectively outsource it. And there are I mean, so many great service providers now that have obviously spawned in this Amazon industry not only software services but also other types of services, whether it's Amazon brand management or writing listings, things like that. So now it's all out there, but you should really learn the components and the strategy behind it first before outsourcing. Joe: How much money did you start with Kellianne? Kelly: I started with about $5,000. Joe: Okay, and did you have to borrow more to keep up with inventory? Because that's the story that I consistently hear. I started out with X and then when you dig deeper the business didn't fund the growth. Did yours fund the growth or did you have to go and borrow more? Kelly: In the beginning, it did. But yes, even if you reinvest all of your profits, there's no way you can grow initially without getting capital from outside sources. So about a year into it, I was able to get Amazon Lending so that was great. But before that, it was a lot of credit cards. And then early on, I actually was able to get a line of credit after the first year. But until then, it was really credit cards. And I wouldn't recommend people doing that but sometimes it's just a necessary evil to get where you need to go. Joe: Yeah, I was playing golf with a mentor years ago before I grab my head and one of the things he said to me was get a line of credit set up now; before you need it, get that line of credit set up because you never know when you're going to need it. And I see so many people that are struggling to keep up with purchasing more and more inventory for growth or developers if it's a SaaS business because they don't have the ability to stroke a check when it's necessary. They go hunting for that line of credit when they need it as opposed to getting it set up beforehand so I think it's great to get it set up beforehand. So you hit six figures you said by the end of Q4 your first year… Kelly: Seven figures, I was very lucky. Yeah. Joe: And did a million in revenue in 2004. Kelly: Mm-hmm. Joe: Don't you like how I could do the seven-figure translation to a million? That was really; okay, all right. Anyway was it all with one SKU or did you add additional SKUs as well? Kelly: By that next quarter of 2015 then I started adding more SKUs, but it was really just on one product. And so that talk about funding the inventory for that, I got to say it was just a lot of luck. I was able to forge a really strong relationship with my supplier very early on in China without ever having met him. And he gave me terms once he saw that this thing; and that normally doesn't happen that early on in the relationship. Joe: No. Yeah, I know. Kelly: He was able to give me terms. So that's another way that I was able to fund that growth so quickly that that first year. Joe: Yeah, if you can get to China, folks, we did a podcast with Athena Severi from China Magic and before that with Dan from Titan Network all about negotiating terms with your Chinese manufacturers, and it does exactly what Kellianne did, which was it gives you more cash flow for buying more inventory. And if you can get terms, it's a lot better than an Amazon Loan because the interest rate is very different. It's nonexistent in most cases. During that initial journey Kellianne if we summarize things so far, you took ASM3, you invested $5,000, you did a million dollars in revenue. Sounds easy, but I'm sure it wasn't, right? Kelly: It was and I know it sounds easy and like I said, there was a lot of luck in there too. I'm not going to like take credit that it was just all my superpower genius. But I did have tremendous tenacity because between the time that I launched the product in August, it was like pushing a boulder uphill; August, September, October, November. It wasn't really till November that it really took off. And I had the foresight and maybe just stupidity to order a bunch of inventory in anticipation of Q4 and early on recognize that I could market this product as a gift in addition to just the primary keywords that were related to the product. So that was something that I did very early on and that allowed me to scale too because I was able to secure top positioning for keywords such as gifts for women, top Christmas gifts for women, things like that, very early on. So all of that came from me putting in the hard work of learning and masterminding, I can't underestimate the power of masterminding as well. I found a small group of; there were all guys, actually, I was the only girl. They are all amazed… Joe: So you were in charge essentially, right? Kelly: Yeah, sort of but we just were kindred spirits and we became very close and we would meet once a week and we were all building Amazon businesses, others went on to build SaaS businesses and all other types of businesses. They're all super successful entrepreneurs and that really made a huge difference in making me feel like I could really do this because I had other people in my corner so that was all. Joe: There's nothing more valuable than that and it didn't cost you anything. It sounds like there are groups that can get together just to help share information or you can join more formal groups like eCommerceFuel or EcomCrew Premium things of that nature. Kelly: Exactly. Joe: I think it's incredible. So let's talk money; ASM3, launched million dollars in revenue within the first year, you must be rolling in cash flow, yes? Kelly: No, absolutely not. Joe: I knew the answer to that. Kelly: I wish. Joe: How much did you; other than distributions just to make you feel good to pay taxes that were going to be due, did you put yourself on payroll or take any money out of the business for you and your family? Kelly: No, not the first couple of years I did not. And I was again, lucky that I had a husband who had a full-time career and that's the money that we relied on to support our family. So starting this business, that wasn't the mindset that we were going to do this to support our family. This was hopefully something that we could build into something bigger and perhaps fuel some bigger investing goals and things like that. Joe: So you would not recommend someone listening quit their job and they've got $10,000 and they're going to do $5,000 to start the Amazon business and live off the rest until revenues start rolling; bad idea, right, because they're going to run out of money very fast? Kelly: Absolutely, I would never recommend somebody quit their day job. You really need to start any business, in my opinion, as a side hustle. I mean, even my husband and I to this day, like right now, I'm really getting into real estate investing and he's getting into day trading and we're going to wait until we become masters of that and really start making significant sums of money before he would ever consider quitting his job. Joe: Yeah, good advice. All right, so 2016 rolls around how do things go? Did you have any rocky periods where you thought this isn't for me or did revenue just continue to climb? Kelly: Oh, no. There was a lot of rocky periods. So back then there was no brand registry, there was no; just counterfeiters galore and the initial product that I had launched all of a sudden came on everybody's radar. I can't remember if by then there were tools such as Jungle Scout or things like that to look at what sales revenue these products were doing. But it definitely; people caught on and started copying my exact listings, the exact product. I mean, certainly, I didn't have any proprietary rights. The product was a private label product, but definitely, competition grew and revenue; I was able to maintain revenue because I diversified my keyword traffic and wasn't going with what everybody else is going for. Slowly but surely the market grew. But my market share also grew with it and then declined at some point because so many competitors came in. Joe: Did your margins tighten; did you have to drop the price too? Kelly: Yes, I did. I remember actually, so Q4 of my first year of selling, I think I sold that particular product at a price point of I think as high as $35. And now if you were to look at this product on Amazon it ranges between $10 and maybe $17 tops. Joe: Wow. Kelly: Yeah, and that happens. I mean you don't get to; that product was still a winning product by the time I sold my business but I knew that this couldn't sustain me forever. I needed to obviously continue rolling out products, right? Joe: And that's how you combatted it; you continued to roll out new SKUs? Kelly: Yes, absolutely. Joe: How did you determine what to do next in terms of SKU expansion? Kelly: I did make a lot of mistakes there. I launched a lot of products that failed. Joe: How many? Just out of curiosity. Kelly: How many failures? Joe: Yeah, after the initial launch out of the next 10, how many were successes, and how many were failures? Kelly: I would say I was probably at a 50:50 rate. Joe: That's good. Kelly: I would have liked it to be higher. And I think nowadays, with all of the tools that are available and with the mindset that you have to cut losers quickly; that was my biggest downfall, is it was so hard for me to give up on a product that I spent not only time but a lot of money on developing and then to just let it go. That was really hard for me. I was emotionally tied and that's one area that if I had cut those losers quicker, I would have freed up my cash flow and been able to expand and scale a lot quicker and more efficiently. Joe: Let's go into that a little bit further. Let's define a loser in terms of products. Is it one that is negative profit-wise or is it at 5% profit where the others are at 43% profit? How do you determine what a loser is and then what action do you take with it? Kelly: Well, it also depends on the time period. So when you're launching a product; everybody has their own time frame, but I kind of give it a three-month cycle of pushing it out, launching, ranking it, advertising, heavy on advertising so you're usually in the red. At least I was okay with being in the red at that point, but then it should start to pick up after that if it's going to be a winning product. If you've done everything right with your launch, and ranking strategy, it should just start to kind of take off on its own, really. Joe: A three month period is that what you're okay? Kelly: Yeah, about three months. Joe: Okay. Kelly: At least for me back then. I would say now it's probably a longer time window. I would say probably about six months. But there becomes this like intuitive sense of you're still continuously pushing a boulder uphill with your nose rather than it's starting to gain some traction and go downhill. And so you've got to know when is that point to cut it off and it definitely took me a lot of failed products and a lot of wasted money and time to finally realize. Even up until when I sold my business; I mean, the buyer who bought my business, there were quite a few SKUs that he was just like I don't want to continue with these because these are just not making enough profit. They were profitable but not making enough profit. So everybody has their own standards. Joe: So yeah, there's SKU balance that offsets risk. If you've got one SKU doing 60% or 70% of your revenue, some buyers will perceive it as more risk other buyers will perceive it as less work, and they like that. Kelly: Yeah. Joe: How do you; I mean, if you're at a six month period now in your assessment of really it takes that long to push that boulder uphill until it's profitable and then you determine whether or not you get to keep that SKU that you've worked so hard on or if it's not profitable enough and you move on. How often are you launching SKUs? It sounds like you're probably needing to launch them every couple of months just to keep up and stay ahead of the game. Is that the case or is that something you recommend? Kelly: Yeah, it definitely depends on your product mix and what your revenue goals are and what capital you have to work with and your cash flow; all those things. But ideally, if you could be launching a new product I would say at least every quarter but there are sellers out there that are launching products every week or every two weeks. It just depends. I did not have nor did I want to have some big, huge behemoth of a business where I had a million employees and I was doing all the product design in the beginning; myself, along with my manufacturers, maybe hiring some outside design people to create changes to existing products to make them better. That was always kind of my MO. And really, you have to have a certain amount of capital that is allocated to new product development and know where that line is because then you don't want to let your other product suffer either and that's what's bringing cash in and keeping the lights on, right? So there's a fine balance there and I really do think that comes down to cash flow management; knowing your cash flow. Joe: And that's something so many people fail at. I probably looked at 8,000 profit and loss statements over the last eight, almost nine years now, and I'll be honest with you, probably 70% of them are inaccurate; wrong cash accounting, not using Quick Books or Xero, but the audience knows that. I know that's my thorn in my side. Let's talk about favorite tools. I mean, you obviously have figured out the Amazon game. You must have used some tools along the way. Have there been any that have stood out that you kind of you think must have? I mean, you mentioned Jungle Scout a few minutes ago. What tools do you use in your Amazon business or recommend as you work with new Amazon owners now to help them fine-tune their business and get it ready to sell? Kelly: Well, I wouldn't say I would at this point in time recommend a specific tool because there's a lot of competitors in the Amazon SaaS space, right? But you want a good tool for first and foremost, keyword research and keyword tracking. So, for example, Helium10 is a great one for that. But there are many others out there that are very good. So I'm not going to say that Helium10 is the best. They are one of the best and I like that tool a lot. And then you're going to want to have a tool for launching and ranking. These days that's all about rebates and so I recommend Six Leaf. My good friend Joe Junfola created Six Leaf and he's got a very new and exciting rebate option in there now and I'm helping my friend Paul Miller with his business in using that. Joe: Really? He's my friend, too. Kelly: What's that? Yes, your friend too; our good friend. Joe: Our friend. Kelly: Yeah, and so if you don't have outside traffic that you can send to your listings and have like a system for that, you definitely are going to need to do some I would say giveaways but these days that means rebates. And so there are other platforms that can do that but that's the one I recommend for that. And then Helium10 basically has all the other components that I would recommend, such as product research and keyword tracking. There are so many different tools out there and they've all kind of evolved over time and they all kind of overlap and what was most frustrating to me by the time that I sold my company is I had so many different tools. And even though they did a lot of the same functions, one did one better than the other and so I felt like I just had a lot of bloat in there and a lot of things that I could cut out. And so I wish somebody would just like focus on one thing and just do it right. Joe: Yeah, because if you wasted a thousand dollars a month, that's going to cost you an awful lot in the sale of your business. Kelly: Yeah. Joe: Can we talk about rebates for just a second? I want you to educate me and educate the audience because a rebate to me; from a novice standpoint and I don't sell on Amazon, I did once upon a time but it'd be a conflict for me now as I see it. Plus, I don't ever want to import from China. Kelly: I don't blame you. Joe: Yeah, I don't want to; I was at Helium10 back when it was a man he had Illuminati Mastermind and I was at the event. It was in Cancún and somebody was up on stage and she was literally talking about importing from China, talking literally about the thickness of the corrugated box that your products have to be in. And I swear to God I felt sick three times and I thought never will I import from China. Rebates, you're giving something away. They're getting a discount back or they're doing a review and they're getting a discount. Explain how it worked because it sounds like it's definitely against terms of services depending upon how it's used. Kelly: Now, I don't think it's against terms of services. I mean there's a lot of rebate services out there now. Joe: What is a rebate? Kelly: A rebate is the purchaser gets to purchase the products and then they get reimbursed the full amount usually to be most effective or it could be some percentage of that amount. So traditional retailers have been doing rebates for years. I mean, it's a very common thing in marketing. Joe: So there's no hey, we'll give you 100% refund for review it's just buy it and we're giving you your money back and that improves the algorithm rankings; organic rankings. Kelly: It's a keyword ranking strategy. I would not use it as a review strategy; absolutely not. Joe: Yeah, okay the review strategy definitely gets against terms of services. Okay, thank you. I needed to hear that. Kelly: I mean, I wouldn't say it's necessarily against terms of service if you're asking for a review after the fact. But it just can be on that blurred line that you could potentially; and I haven't heard of anybody getting taken down for this but if you were to rebate a customer and then after the fact ask for a review then Amazon could potentially look at that as gaming the system. So you just want to be really careful and I would just recommend that sellers don't ask reviews for customers that they've given rebates to. Joe: What about is it cheaper or should it be a dual strategy of sending traffic from outside; buying traffic on Facebook that would drive directly using a keyword directly to the Amazon page, is that going to have a similar effect as rebates, cost less, cost more, or would you recommend a dual strategy of both of those or have you not sent traffic from outside sources like Facebook? Kelly: Well, that's a great question, Joe, but the rebate is just kind of like the end result of what the customer is getting but the traffic and the quality of the traffic is the most important thing. So a lot of these rebate services that are out there, they're just for using the same audience that they've built on Facebook over and over again. And Amazon now is so sophisticated they can tell that all that traffic is coming from the same source that's just this incestuous pool. So you really want to be careful of the services that you use. And ultimately, the best way is always to build your own list, to have your own audience whether that's a mini chat list or an email list or if you're a master of Facebook Marketing and you know how to target and you know what kind of audiences are really going to go and actually buy your product and if you have enough profit margin built into your product to do Facebook advertising. That's a whole another thing in and of itself. But for ranking purposes, you need to send high-quality traffic and a lot of these ranking or rebate services you just have to be careful of where they're getting their traffic from. Joe: Okay, so far we've established you as an Amazon expert; one that's been there, done that. I had to ask a couple of questions; dumb questions, if you will, to get us to where we are right now. Let's talk about digital shelf strategy, your business, where you're going to actually help Amazon sellers. If somebody out there in the audience is thinking that they want to exit their business someday in the future, or if they're just struggling and they're barely able to keep up with inventory demands, not taking any money out of the business and they're pulling their hair out, how are you going to be able to help them? Kelly: Great question. I started digital self-strategy when I was still a seller because I've over the years, I love Amazon. I live, breathe, eat, sleep, Amazon. I still do. And I would get questions from people anywhere from one-off questions to people wanting me to help them with their businesses. And so I have been very, very generous I feel like with my time wanting to help people. But sometimes if it needs to be a little bit more work or more time spent with somebody then I set up this agency just so I could have a way to work with sellers ongoing. And so between that and then another new business that I started with, Paul Miller, Amazing Exits, the consulting piece of that is really helping sellers with being able to look at their businesses holistically and help them figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses of that business. So kind of like a SWAT analysis and being able to help them with the things that are going to really move the needle and increasing the value of their business, whether or not they ever want to sell it because if you increase the value of your business, you're going to be spending out more cash flow. It's going to make you healthier in the long run. And then it'll certainly make it a lot more attractive to a potential buyer someday if you've got all your financials in order and you've got a really healthy profit margin and ROI and all the other things that go into having a valuable and sellable business. So it's a one-stop-shop, really, in terms of being able to look at a business, identify what are its strengths and weaknesses. For the weaknesses, we want to connect them with the resources that are going to help them fix those weaknesses and then ultimately be kind of their white-glove concierge along the way to a successful exit. Joe: And the Amazing Exits Podcast, that's where you're going to talk to people that have actually sold their businesses and have those resources, those experts on as well. Kelly: Yes, that's going to be both. I mean, we are looking for as many sellers as we can who have exited so we definitely want to have those as guests on. But we're also featuring top experts such as yourself to talk about exit planning. We're really trying to make exit planning sexy. This is what I say all the time and to really… Joe: Good luck. Kelly: Well, we're very passionate about it. And I think that if we couch it in terms of making your business more valuable now, like do you want more money now in your bank account and your pocket to feel your life, to feel your investments? Well, that's what it takes to build a successful business. And you might not ever want to sell it, but you should be building a sellable asset and realize why you're doing this. Joe: You're preaching to the choir. Making exit sexy again or sexy to begin with is; I had David Wood on the podcast and one of his visions was for people that are planning to eventually sell their business to imagine themselves on the beach doing whatever they want because they've got enough money in the bank to live off of and that's the sexy part of it. Or if you're building a better business, it's kicking off more cash flow. You are struggling less. You're able to do the things that you want because you've got the money and that part is sexy as well. Accounting makes most people's eyes bleed. It's the foundation of understanding cash flow and running your business successfully to get a strong exit. As you know, Kelly, anyone listening that owns any kind of online business at this time odds are that their business is their most valuable asset. Also, if it's an e-commerce business that's growing odds are that more than 50% of the money they'll ever make from that business will come the day that they sell it. All of that combined should kick start them into wanting to do more exit planning or coaching or training or things; whatever you want to call it, just getting in shape. As you want to work out and get your body in shape you should exercise your exit strategy muscles so that you're in better shape for your eventual exit because you will have a better path to it, a better exit as well, and be better off afterwards so that you can all go on to your next adventures, whether it be start another online business or do what Kelly is doing which is consulting and helping other people or where she was just a few years ago. Kelly: I couldn't agree more. That's so well said. And I would just add to that then, I truly believe, Joe, that one of the fastest ways to build wealth is to build a business and in this case an Amazon business and sell it. And that's the word that I want to get out to people, is that this is, like you said, your most valuable asset, most likely. And I didn't retire after I sold my business. I made a nice chunk of change and now I'm able to invest that into cash-producing assets but I will never stop being an entrepreneur. But I have so much freedom; clarity now that I didn't have when I was on that hamster wheel of running the business. So I want to just be able to express that to other sellers that there is another option to get off the hamster wheel and you can sell and do this again if you want so you'll have a lot more freedom and peace of mind. Joe: And cash in the bank throughout though. Kelly: Yes. Joe: Great. Kelly, thanks so much for joining the Quiet Light Podcast. I appreciate it. We'll put URLs up in the show notes for people who want to reach out. Kelly is there any other way that they can or should find you? Kelly: Yes, absolutely. They can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active over there. @KellianneFedio on Facebook and then they can also go toAmazingExits.com and sign up for our email list for when we get ready to launch the podcast later in August most likely. Joe: All right, she rolled her eyes a little bit here folks for those not watching. She's got a hopeful goal of August. I think it's going to be great whenever you launch it. If it takes an extra few weeks is not a big deal. Kelly, thanks for being in the Quiet Light Podcast. I appreciate it. Kelly: Thank you so much, Joe.

99th Episode
6th: Bad Buttons, Juggling Joes, and Drifting Dragons

99th Episode

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2020 67:58


We discuss Bad Idea's Button, G.I. Joe Classified and the fear of missing out, and the Drifting Dragons manga. Plus, we pack a whole lot more into the nooks and crannies of this episode. Tastes like it's got butter inside.Some Highlights:- The Button: We discuss the new click-demanding overlord- Ramon Villalobos was announced, and it was almost missed -- we didn't miss it- We detour into cancel-ville, and try to delicately navigate those roads- We relish in the art of some of our favorite Bad Idea illustrators: Lewis, Ramon, Juan... now give us Mico!- Our reading habits are smeared all over the place, do you have this problem?- The difficulty of getting G.I. Joe Classified figures, and the NES Classic- How do we handle that fear of missing out?- Paul is better at avoiding the Pokemon effect -- he doesn't have to get them all- Sean's Transformers/Wolverine rule for movies, and how it applies to G.I. Joe- How not to tell people what to enjoy- Umbrella Academy is some good stuff -- and strange- Drifting Dragons aren't your hobbit's typical dragon- Finding that New Thing is very exciting: we have recent examples

The Quiet Light Podcast
How to Negotiate a 3PL Contract with E-commerce Expert Jesse Kaufman

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2020 30:47


On this episode of the Quiet Light podcast, we have the opportunity to speak with Jesse Kaufman, the CEO and founder of Shipping Tree. Though Amazon sellers often use that company's fulfillment services, some people engage a third party. 3PL's can do everything from start to finish or they can merely be used as a prep center. Regardless of how you use a 3PL, there are ways to optimize your expenses. Tune in to hear our discussion about how to negotiate with a 3PL.   Topics: The typical Shipping Tree client. Deciphering quotes from 3PLs. The best integration models for 3PLs. How using a 3PL can save money. Commerce zones. Different types of Amazon seller accounts.   Resources: Shipping Tree Jesse@shippingtree.co Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com   Transcription: Mark: So within the world of Amazon FBA, a lot of sellers rely on Amazon's fulfillment services and simply ship all the product over there but there are other sellers who utilize a 3PL either to fulfill the product and do everything from beginning to end and there are also those that use it just as a prep center before sending it off to Amazon in a way to try and save on some of the fees. And I think we can all agree Amazon's fees for fulfillment are pretty high compared with a lot of other solutions out there. Joe, I know you had somebody on who owns a 3PL and you guys talked a lot about how to negotiate the rates with that 3PL and how you can optimize some of your expenses by using a 3PL as opposed to just sending everything carte blanche over to Amazon. Joe: Yeah, these are my favorite kind of podcast guests when they go on and they talk about everything that they do and give it all away for free on podcasts like this. He's not pitching their services. He's just like, if you're negotiating with a 3PL look for this, don't do this, throw that contract away, if you have recurring revenue shipments, this is how you save on your shipping cost. If you have a 3PL located in Southern California, here's the benefit; monetary benefit by way of example of shipping from Ohio and things of that nature. It was fascinating. We've had a lot of people over the years say hey can you recommend any 3PLs and that was the point of having this person on knowing that he would give it all away for free. I think it's going to be very helpful for those that currently have 3PL, very helpful for those that ship exclusively through FBA because it's convenient, and some of the benefits of having a 3PL for kitting, for doing so fulfill Prime to avoid what happened during the pandemic where there were delays from Amazon shipping because of shipping medical supplies first; all sorts of different things that I think will really help the current e-commerce business owners and those that want to buy improve their bottom line and improve their customer experience as well. Mark: Yeah, I think this is all about control, right? I think the pandemic is a great example. Those that were 100% reliant on Amazon often saw; many of those guys saw delays and disruptions in their supply chains and also their ability to fulfill orders. Those that were using 3PLs didn't because they had that outlet for everything. So this is an interesting topic and this is where a lot of ROI is made in acquisitions, is learning how to optimize the expense profile and especially on that Amazon side so I'm excited for this one. Joe: Me too and just as a teaser it gives away one example where I, based upon the numbers you gave me, probably added a million dollars in value to the company. Obviously a very large company but if it adds $10,000 or $100,000 in value just by doing little things that make a difference, it really adds up to the overall value so let's go listen. Joe: Hey folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and Quiet Light Podcast. Thanks for joining us again. Today we're going to talk about 3PLs, how to save money on shipping, all sorts of different things in that regard. And today, we've got Jesse Kaufman from Shipping Tree. Jesse, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Jesse: Thanks for having me. Joe: Good to have you here. As I said earlier, we don't do fancy introductions, so I don't have a big bio on you. No one knows you better than you so why don't you tell everybody listening who you are and what you do? Jesse: Yes, my name is Jesse and I'm the CEO and founder of Shipping Tree. A 3PL based in Los Angeles with facilities across the country. I'm Canadian and got my start in the fashion distribution business and quickly realized that the 3PL world wasn't where it should be, at least in North America, and that's why started Shipping Tree. Joe: And is your typical client an e-commerce client with lots of different SKUs like from your fashion background? Jesse: Yes, our typical client now are e-commerce direct to consumer-focused companies in the CPG supplement cosmetics space, actually. Joe: Wow. Okay, so lots of people picking, packing, and shipping. That's great. Jesse: Yeah. Joe: Okay, so let's jump into it. A lot of people; I've worked with 3PLs myself, I had a nutritional supplement company that I sold a decade ago if you can believe that; almost a decade ago, before I joined the Quiet Light team and I don't know if I negotiated the greatest deal with my 3PL because he was a friend of mine. Jesse: Impossible, yeah. Joe: We did recurring revenue shipments and the owner was a friend of mine and because of that probably either I got an amazing deal or I got a terrible deal; probably nothing in between. Jesse: You'll never know. Joe: I'll never know. No. And I was just going to go on the craziest side there but people do not need to hear that history. Let's talk about, first and foremost, what's the best approach to reaching out to a 3PL and not just simply accepting the boilerplate prices that you give or should they or is there a way that you can professionally negotiate so it's a really healthy deal for both parties? Jesse: Yeah, totally. So, I think most important in your 3PL search is kind of put as many feelers out there as you can, get your internal data together, and organize before you put out those feelers so you could give those prospective 3PLs the data they need to give you pricing quickly. Joe: What kind of data are we talking about? Jesse: It's really like shipment data. So like a pretty basic Shopify export of your orders that includes the dimensions and the units in the order. That should give any 3PL the ability to quote you really accurately. Then once you start getting those quotes back right away, it'll be pretty evident. Some 3PLs their quotes will have 30 line items. Others like mine and some of our closer competitors will have more in the neighborhood of three to five line items. So right away, all those 3PLs with 30 line items of potential charges throw those proposals in the garbage. There's no use even negotiating with those guys. The other ones with simple line items, three to five, maybe up to 10, those are the ones you want to focus on because, in my opinion, those are the ones that have the most merchant focused approach to the way they do business. And then areas where you can negotiate with 3PLs, in my experience, would be the initial processing fee on an order. So typically speaking, the most labor-intensive and expensive part of the work that we do are the individual picks. So 3PLs are rarely going to have margins to negotiate on the pick fees for your orders. Joe: And the pick is literally someone walking around and picking your product off the shelf and putting it on the proper conveyor belt to have the label put on. Jesse: Exactly. Joe: Okay. Jesse: Yeah, so you want to negotiate on the larger items on that list. So things like storage, processing fees, get rid of any minimums and stuff and kind of like frame your business as one that's even if you're just starting, it's ready to scale you're a smart team, you're going to scale it quickly, get rid of those minimums, focus on things like storage, processing, packaging, and you could kind of dwindle those down a little bit. Joe: Are there startup fees in most cases with 3PLs that I have to pay you $5,000 for the pleasure of doing business with you and that's just the setup fee and then it's going to be a monthly pack and ship fee? Jesse: If that comes across your desk, throw it in the garbage. Joe: Just throw it in the trash, okay. Jesse: Yeah, throw it in the trash. If you have really complex integration needs like an ERP system like NetSuite and a ton of different marketplaces, then there might be; you could expect some sort of integration fee and tech fees for that. But if you're just running like run of the mill, Amazon, Shopify, Walmart.com, maybe an accounting system; like all of that should be out of the box with the 3PL that you work with. Joe: Can you just dumb down what an integration fee is? Jesse: Yeah, so you're going to want your 3PL to plugin with whatever systems are running your business on the shopping cart side or the marketplace side of things and so you that you don't leak your sales channel. You want the 3PL to plug into there so data flows back automatically, your team has very little to do, that really is going to take the weight of shipping and fulfillment off your plate. And some companies charge for these integrations really like a setup fee, which isn't right because for Shopify, for example, we've built the integration already. We enter a couple of lines of code and the integration is done in five to 10 minutes so why would we charge you $500 for that? It's just not right. Joe: Good markup, $500 for five minutes of work. I like that. Jesse: I do like that markup, but we don't do it. Joe: Not if you want to keep the customer long term, I suppose, right? Jesse: Yeah. So, we've built out; and you want to find a 3PL that owns their tech stack. So what I mean is they kind of own their platform and they own the integrations. So we've built out these integrations so we've done the work upfront already and it's ready so we could just deploy it for the merchant. Joe: That makes a lot of sense because that's probably where the $500 charge comes from, is because they're using somebody else's software that somebody else is charging them and they're passing it on to the product owner. Jesse: Exactly, yeah. Joe: Is there a particular; I know that within Shopify, within the different websites platforms, there are different integrations for processing shipping. Is there a favorite integration that most 3PLs are comfortable with? And I cannot think for the life of me of a single one of them right now and I've used them before in the past but is there any particular integration that people like in terms of that processing of the order and having it ready to be shipped just to be shared with a 3PL or am I a little off track here? Jesse: A little off track. A little, so that's like if you just had a regular Shopify store, you would actually install the Shipping Tree app in your Shopify store. Joe: Okay, so you've got your app that you would install. Jesse: Yeah. Joe: Okay. Jesse: But you're talking about a product like Ship Station. Joe: Yes, that's the one I was trying to think of. Thank you. All right. Jesse: So Ship Station is great. We integrate with them also. Ship Station is great if you're selling on a ton of marketplaces like Etsy, Groupon; like if you're really marketplace heavy grand Ship Station is great because it brings all that in one place and then that's just one integration for us to run and manage. Joe: Okay, for people that are selling on Amazon is the largest marketplace and some of their own Shopify sales as well is there a benefit to using a 3PL to store inventory before shipping it off to Amazon, and do you provide those types of services? Jesse: Yeah, totally. So we do that a lot for our customers. We kind of run in parallel to Amazon like the verticals and the brands we serve and everyone needs to work with Amazon these days especially in CPG and cosmetics and supplements and stuff. So, yeah, our storage rates are generally cheaper than Amazon and more flexible. Joe: You can probably do kitting that  Amazon's not doing, right? Jesse: Yeah, so we could help prep your stuff to go to Amazon. So if your factory isn't putting the Amazon FNSKU barcodes on the boxes we could do all that work for you. Joe: And you happen to be in Southern California so if it's coming off a boat it just have to go very far, which is kind of a strategic location, I would imagine. Jesse: Exactly, yeah. Joe: I had a guy named Rocky Cliburn on the podcast in the last, I don't know, maybe it was a year ago and Rocky was just this great buyer in his 60s. He was a general manager of car dealerships, if you can imagine, for his entire life and then he bought a jewelry business; an e-commerce jewelry business from Amanda here on the team. And Rocky and his daughter ran the business and within months improved the margins by like $8,000 to $10,000 a month by working with their fulfillment center in terms of shipping rates and packaging and things of that nature. You and I chatted prerecording here about saving on postage in terms of improving the value of a business and so you understand we always talk about the value of a business and it's really based upon profit, which is actually called seller's discretionary earnings. It's not about topline revenue. It's about what you get to keep. And a lot of folks don't focus on the 3PL potential savings as they prepare an eventual exit of their business. So how do you end up saving thousands of dollars on your shipping and postage like Rocky did if you're working with a 3PL, what kind of recommendations have you implemented for clients of yours? Jesse: That's a great point; a great question. So there's two things there. One is choosing the right shipping methods and another is the packaging that you're choosing. So I'll start with the packaging and for example, a jewelry company they might have one standard box size for all their orders just to they think it's a good solution that's like a catch-all. Every order ships in the same box so it either might be too big or it might be too small. If you optimize that, especially for smaller weight items, every ounce is almost 20 cents with the Postal Service. So if you could figure out a way to ship in a smaller box, maybe a more efficiently sized box, even though you think it might be it's a bigger inconvenience to have to source two different sized boxes or whatever it may be, you're going to knock 5%, 10% off your postage just right there optimizing for box size especially for orders under a pound. Joe: How much do boxes really weigh I mean if we're talking about the size of a shoebox? Jesse: So a shoebox is quite like half; almost half a pound, I would say. Joe: Okay, so if you can save a couple of ounces, you might be saving $400 or $500 a month if you're shipping a thousand orders a month or something like that. Jesse: Easy, yeah. Joe: Back in the day, when I was doing what most folks do that are listening, we had a fulfillment center up in Maine, which is just crazy because I was shipping all over the country but that's where I was from at the time. But they had a subcarrier. It wasn't the US Postal Service. They had somebody else that was sort of a cheaper version of that that would take it to the US Postal Service and then the US Postal Service would deliver it for that last mile or so. I forget what that's called but is that something that a lot of 3PLs can utilize and how do you find out about it if you're working with a 3PL now? Jesse: Yeah, so those are called shipping aggregators or an aggregator service. A lot of the major carriers offer that these days. The FedEx one is called Smart Post, and then there's a DHL product called DHL E-commerce. So those guys would pick up from your 3PL, bring it as close as they can kind of to the customer, then USPS finishes it. So those are good and bad. They're great for saving money. They're bad for making first impressions. Joe: So they take a little longer to ship, right? Jesse: Yeah, exactly because there's more touchpoints. But I think what we spoke about was; like we have a lot of subscription-based companies. Joe: I think we did that. I think that's what we did, is did it on the recurring revenue aspect of it where it didn't need to be there in two days, you could get it in five. Jesse: Exactly. Yeah, so we could set it up. And always look for this in a 3PL to have flexibility with mapping your shipping methods. It's really important that they don't just like put all your orders like this is it, this is what you have to use because we work with all the carriers. We probably have over 100 available methods and we work with our customers to make sure they're using the best ones. So for a subscription-based company, that first-order should go out with like a fairly premium single carrier option like USPS Priority Mail or FedEx Ground or whatever it may be so that is quick and the tracking is seamless. And then once they get into that subscription funnel; the customer, you could set it up programmatically so that instead of the order shipping on the anniversary date, you ship the order like three days in advance and you use one of these slower and cheaper methods. So that way the order is going to arrive within one or two days of the correct window for the subscription renewal, you're going to save easily 30%, 40% on your postage that way, and yeah, everyone is happy. Joe: That could certainly add up, that's for sure. That subcarrier method, is there tracking with it as well or not? Jesse: There is tracking, but it's known to go dark the tracking sometimes. Joe: Okay. Jesse: It's not as reliable as a single carrier because yeah. Joe: Okay, do you have; actually location, does it really matter? As I just said a few minutes ago, my fulfillment center was up in Maine. I was shipping all over the country. Jesse: That might be the worst place, Sanford Fulfillment Center. Joe: Oh really? Okay [INAUDIBLE 00:19:30.4]. Why would that be the worst? Is it just zone wise is the best place inside of the country or is the best place in Southern California where you are? Jesse: Okay, so if you could only choose one fulfillment center or one location, middle of the country is best unless obviously, all your customers are west. Like, if you're a surf brand and all your customers are on the West Coast choose a West Coast 3PL. But if you're just a normal run of the mill brand and you could only have one facility choose something in the middle, that way shipments are never really going to go to the outer edges of the zone map. So if you just Google search a zone map, the country will be split up into kind of columns like a heat map with the further you go, the further the zone and it goes up to nine zones. If you're in the middle of the country, the furthest zone is like six or seven possibly. And so with Maine, the reason why Maine is not so great is New York, historically one of the biggest population centers in terms of e-commerce orders going to that area, that's a zone two or three for Maine. So you're not even getting the benefit of being that close to New York geographically and then everything in L.A. is a zone nine. Joe: Let's talk dollars, though. Jesse: Yeah. Joe: And you've seen this with clients that you've brought in. How much are we talking about? If somebody is; and I know it's hard to quantify, so maybe we're only talking percentages but… Jesse: I could give you an example. Joe: Please. Yeah. Thank you. Jesse: Yeah. So we opened our facility in Ohio last year and we had a customer; one of our better customers, the supplements company, they were shipping everything out of our L.A. warehouse, obviously. Right away they probably spent close to $100,000 a month on postage. Joe: Okay. Jesse: Or they did when we were; they still do it [INAUDIBLE 00:21:34.4]. Right away when we started shipping out of Columbus and Los Angeles; so now you cut it down to furthest the package is going is zone four. Right away they started saving $15,000, $20,000 a month. Joe: Holy cow. Jesse: Not changing anything and the shipping speed… Joe: I hope everybody is listening to this far just because in that situation, $100,000 a month, even if all you spend is $10,000 a month on shipping, you're saving 15% to 20%. Jesse: Yeah. Joe: Go ahead. Jesse: And your customers are getting their orders quicker. Joe: So they're happier too; you're getting no return rates, higher customer satisfaction. Jesse: Yeah. Joe: The value that adds to the company in terms of customer satisfaction is huge but the value in terms of the sellability of the list price of the company for that one spending $100,000 and it drops to $80,000 a month, that's $240,000 of real cash saved on an annual basis. Jesse: Yeah. Joe: The size of that business, I'm going to guess maybe it's at a four-time multiple. They just added nearly a million dollars to the value of their company by saving $240,000 a year. That's that net worth. It's pretty incredible. So as whatever, it's just shipping, I'm going to focus on revenue, just stop focusing on revenue alone and look at some of these other things, because it's just math and logic saves a tremendous amount of money. That's awesome. What other tips and tricks do you have here Jesse? Come on, keep throwing them at us. Jesse: Yeah, so splitting up inventory; that's a big one. So using multiple facilities and find a company that has a few facilities and if you could afford it, there's a lot of fulfillment consultants out there who aren't terribly expensive at all. But it could be a really daunting process for brands going through their whatever they use Excel or the ERP or their inventory systems and be like, how am I going to split up the inventory between two warehouses? I don't know where demand is, all that stuff. There's people out there and software tools out there that could help figure that out for you. Joe: It's not something that a 3PL will do when they've got multiple centers or you'd refer them on to these consultants? Jesse: Yeah, we could do it. For inventory planning, we're building tools for that. It's really complicated to do and to do properly. It's not our core competency. And it's a big responsibility to do that properly. We could totally look at your shipping data and tell you how much you would be saving by using Facility A, Facility B, or them in conjunction. Joe: Okay, so splitting up inventory to the right fulfillment centers you're saving like your client did 15% to 20%. Jesse: Yeah. Joe: Any other sort of immediate thoughts come to mind in terms of somebody that either let's assume that they don't even have a 3PL now what should they; I know obviously you want them to go to ShippingTree.co and work with you but if they're already in a relationship with somebody, how do they improve that relationship and any other tips that you can think of? Jesse: So always think of your 3PL partner not just as another vendor, but really as a partner and part of your business and kind of put yourself in their shoes when it comes to the way you send them inventory, the way you keep them in the loop on sales or promotions you're running. Like really consider them like an outsource or your shipping department that's just outsourced. So if you were doing your fulfillment, you wouldn't run like a flash sale and then call down to the warehouse 20 minutes after the flash sale launch and be like, hey, buddy you have 15,000 orders coming down the pipe. You would tell your people in your own company a few days in advance. So do that with your 3PL, help make their jobs a little easier, send them stuff that's barcoded, clearly divided. We deal with a couple of hundred customers and you could imagine how many different items we have in the warehouse. All our merchants are really passionate, but like, I can't tell the difference between print like bandana print 1 and bandana print 2 you know? Joe: Yeah, we always hear stories of Amazon messing products up. I'm sure it happens in 3PLs as well. It's not you. Jesse: It happens but there's things you could do to mitigate that. Like work with them as a true partner and if you sense any pushback in trying to improve the relationship, I would look elsewhere. Joe: Yeah. Can 3PLs do fulfill by merchant with Amazon Prime? Jesse: Yeah. Joe: And are you in that situation or is it not a 3PL, in general, it's more of the product at the 3PL, how does that work? Jesse: Okay, so fulfilled by merchants we could do no problem. And then there's Seller Fulfilled Prime, which is that is actually on the merchants. They have to get their accounts authorized for Seller Fulfilled Prime. Joe: Even if they're using a 3PL? Jesse: Yeah, so their specific Amazon seller account has to be authorized for Seller Fulfilled Prime. Joe: Is that a daunting task or something? Jesse: Yeah, it's at least 90 days, and yeah. Joe: And what's the benefit to that in your opinion? Jesse: So the benefit there is you get the prime badge on your Amazon listings, you kind of get all the benefits of winning the buy box that you'd get with using FBA but the package could be sent out in your own custom packaging. You control the whole process and generally, it's a little cheaper than Amazon; storage wise and stuff like that. Joe: You still have to abide by the terms of services I would imagine. You still don't own the customer, even though you've got all the customer data minus the phone number, I suppose. Is there any advantage to doing Seller Fulfilled Prime using a 3PL in terms of customer data that you get to keep versus just using FBA? Jesse: I don't think so. It's more like a flexibility piece. Joe: Okay. Jesse: So those sellers that were set up with Seller Fulfilled Prime when COVID hit and FBA stopped allowing shipments in, they didn't skip a beat, they kept their Prime badge, all that stuff. Joe: Yeah, okay. Jesse: It's a little bit more secure. Joe: Having control as opposed to letting Amazon have full control of it, yeah. Okay. This has been great. We're up against the clock here, but this is fantastic stuff. I think that anybody out there listening needs to dig deeper into their expenses on the 3PL side. If all you're doing is fulfilled by Amazon, you might want to look at at least a 3PL like Shipping Tree to do kitting and prepping and getting it shipped off to Amazon so you're not paying exorbitant storage fees at Amazon and then as your offline Amazon sales grow running a Shopify side so on and so forth, I think is great to do. So any last-minute thoughts in terms of other things that people could do to benefit themselves with 3PL negotiations and working with them before we wrap this up? Jesse: No. Just be aware of this. Like I said I think the biggest red flag are those proposals you get back that are like two or three pages long with a ton of line items. That's going to be a headache of a relationship for you to manage. Find someone that keeps it simple for you. It's a complicated process. It's my job to simplify that for our merchant customers and find someone that will do that for you. Joe: I got you. Okay, how do folks reach you and your firm, Jesse? Jesse: If you're going to reach out you could email me directly Jesse@ShippingTree.co or go to our website and fill out the form there. Joe: Awesome. I appreciate your time. We'll look forward to a lot of folks reaching out to you as well. Jesse: Cool. Thanks, man. Take it easy.

The Joe Costello Show
A Conversation with Jazz Great, Papa John DeFrancesco

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2020 47:29


  I sat down with my dear friend, the great Hammond B3 organist, Papa John DeFrancesco. When I first starting exploring the music scene in Phoenix, AZ after moving here in 2004, I came across this cool club called Bobby C's near downtown Phoenix. On Sundays, they would serve the most amazing Southern food and they had Papa John and band playing jazz that I hadn't heard since I left New York City. Papa John, if you haven't already guessed, is the father of the great organist Joey DeFrancesco. Papa John and I took to each other right away and he used to let me sit in and we became life long friends. When the drum chair opened up with his band, I got the call and we've been playing together ever since. I hope you enjoy this conversation with this beautiful person and amazing jazz organist. He's a treasure and I'm honored to call him a friend and mentor. Connect with Papa John DeFrancesco: Personal Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/john.defrancesco3 Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/Papa-John-DeFrancesco-101631944618/ Papa John's CDs: "Desert Heat" - https://amzn.to/2BXx9JF "All in the Family" - https://amzn.to/39V5aH2 "Comin' Home" - https://amzn.to/3ibVnj4 "Big Shot" - https://amzn.to/33oo5sJ "A Philadelphia Story" - https://amzn.to/2XrsFm6 "Hip Cake Walk" - https://amzn.to/3fC4nfH "Walkin Uptown" - https://amzn.to/3keUMyz "Jumpin'" - https://amzn.to/33ooiw1 "Doodlin" - https://amzn.to/3ftpmB2 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 Papa John: Right now, I'm praying. Joe: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Joe Costello show. I'm really happy that you're here and you are giving me your ears and listening to the podcast. I have a very special dear friend, special guest, amazing jazz musician, my dear friend, Papa John DeFrancesco. Welcome, Papa John. How are you doing, man? Papa John: Yes, I'm doing good, I'm talking to you. Joe: So Papa John: My Joe: Nice Papa John: Main Joe: To see your Papa John: Man. Joe: Face there. Papa John: Good to see you, Joe. Joe: Yeah, man, so how are you doing? Papa John: Then. Joe: How are you doing? Papa John: I'm doing good, Joe. Every day is a better day. Man. Joe: That's good, yeah. Papa John: I got the say Angel me so she's Joe: I Papa John: Like. Joe: Know, I know Papa John: Putting up with my crap Joe: You Papa John: The. Joe: And you're doing Papa John: The. Joe: Some swimming, right? You're staying cool. Papa John: Yeah, in the past, we had Joe: Yeah, Papa John: A big bathtub Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Man, Joe: Is it warm? Papa John: The pool was like ninety seven man eighty nine the other day. Joe: Oh, my gosh. Papa John: I know you when you first go in, you cool off Joe: Yeah, Papa John: And then you get warm. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: And then you come out and you're cool for about 30 seconds. Joe: Welcome to Arizona. Papa John: Is beautiful that. Joe: Yeah, so, man, I'm really excited, I want to give my own quick sort of history of you and I and and then and then I want to kind of go back to where you started and how we both actually had similar influences with our our fathers being Papa John: I Joe: Musicians Papa John: Saw that Joe: And stuff. Papa John: In. Joe: Yeah. Yeah. So for me, so I moved to I moved to Arizona, Scottsdale, Arizona in two thousand four, didn't really know what the scene was, did and didn't play much, didn't go out to do anything. And then all of a sudden I heard about this cool place called Bobby C's Papa John: Oh, my God, that was the place, man. Joe: Yeah, and I walk in the door and it's just all Southern cooking and you're behind the B3 and you have all these great musicians playing with you. And I just say, WOW!. And I think we started making it a Sunday ritual that we would go there every Sunday Papa John: Yeah, Joe: And hang out. Papa John: You Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Were there Joe: Yeah. Papa John: With Joe: And Papa John: Their Joe: Then Papa John: Brother. Joe: And everybody was nice enough to some point I got to sit in and then I got to got to sit in a little bit more and Papa John: We Joe: Then Papa John: To talk. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: And Joe: We Papa John: You Joe: Had. Papa John: Would never say you were a drummer when I found that out. Get your butt off your back. Joe: I was keeping it on the down low, there was a lot of Papa John: Yeah. Joe: Great players there. I didn't want to, you know, Papa John: Your Joe: I wanted Papa John: Great Joe: That Papa John: Player, Joe: Just Papa John: Joe. Joe: Thanks man. That means a lot coming from you, as you know. Papa John: Now we play, I tell you what, I enjoy working with the. Joe: Well, thank Papa John: You're Joe: You. Papa John: You're you're one of the very few people you played music with that listen. Joe: Well, thank Papa John: You Joe: You. Papa John: Know that deal, you get up there and nobody is listening Joe: Yeah, well, Papa John: Everybody Joe: I appreciate Papa John: Playing in Joe: It. Papa John: A different place played a different band Joe: Yeah, Papa John: And. Joe: Yeah, well, Papa John: Well, let's Joe: That Papa John: Go, let's go, Joe: I Papa John: Let's Joe: Appreciate Papa John: Go. Joe: That and yeah, and I feel the same way because literally I didn't know many people around town but you and you and I've said this to you before and but I don't think it has sunk into your thick skull that you literally gave me like a chance and a more opportunity Papa John: Oh, Joe: Than Papa John: My God. Joe: Most people have ever given me in my musical career. Papa John: Oh, Joe: And that's Papa John: My Joe: The truth. Papa John: God, Joe: It's the truth. Papa John: You're going to make me cry live Joe: No, Papa John: In. Joe: No, no, it's the truth, I was nobody I was in and after sitting in for a while and you would always let me sit in and then and then we started playing together, like, regularly. Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Right. And Papa John: Yeah. Joe: That was cool. I was like, wow, I'm playing with one of the jazz greats on the B3. And it means a lot to me. And my father Papa John: Na Joe: Was proud. Papa John: Na Joe: My parents Papa John: Na, Joe: Were Papa John: Then Joe: Proud. Papa John: Your Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Dad was cool man Joe: Yeah, it meant a lot. So Papa John: We had a Joe: Yeah, we had a blast. Papa John: Mutual man like we got into some nice grooves. Joe: Yeah, we did, Papa John: Now, Joe: Yeah, we Papa John: Boy, Joe: We had some nice gigs. Papa John: Nice, nice gig, Joe: Well, Papa John: Good Joe: Hopefully, Papa John: Music. Yeah. Joe: Hopefully there'll be more coming up once the world gets back to some sort of Papa John: And. Joe: Whatever. I don't know what it's going to be, but. Right. Papa John: God help us to get back, Joe: All right, Papa John: It Joe: Cool. Papa John: Always does by then I'll be one hundred and forty cases of that. Joe: They long as you're here with us, that's cool. We Papa John: Ah Man Joe: Don't care, so. Papa John: Beautiful Joe Joe: So let's go back and tell me how this started for you, because I know besides music, like I said, we we talked about what what part of this you want to talk about. And if it's all Papa John: Would Joe: Music Papa John: Anyone? Joe: Or you want to you want to talk about anything else. So tell me about your father or how this music started for you. Papa John: It's very similar, I guess, here, but I was I wanted to play man, and so he said I told him I wanted to play the saxophone. I was about six five. He said it's too big for you, so he started me out on clarinet. I started playing clarinet and then I heard this guy named Louis Armstrong. Trumpet player. I saw I play trumpet. He said I got 15 million saxophones in there. You want to play trumpet? Though he got when I bought me a trumpet, I was about 10 years old i guess. He taught me how to play. And. Next person I saw that kind of play school band in school, and there is a lot of good friends I met when I was a junior in high school and Joe: And where was Papa John: The next. Joe: This, was this all Philadelphia? Papa John: Niagara Falls, New Joe: Oh, Papa John: York. Joe: That's right, I totally forgot Niagara Papa John: And Joe: Falls. Papa John: A New York woman, we're Joe: That's Papa John: Both from Joe: Right. Papa John: New York Joe: I know, Papa John: State. Joe: But I forgot that's where you started out. Papa John: Niagara Falls, New York, man, it was a real beautiful city at one time. And I was always but I dug it,  I love airplanes and cars Joe: I know Papa John: And Joe: You like cars. Papa John: Yeah, and music was right at the top three. I love and you know, it was cool about the music my dad taught me, but it would also take me to all these air shows because, you know, I, liked airplanes my mom about you coming Jen, Jenny my mom. Where, to look at airplanes and I go shopping or something. So but most of my my life is the music that you go out and you hear somebody and you go nuts. And then my next biggest thing was in 1959 when I saw Jimmy Smith Joe: Where was that? Papa John: That was in Buffalo, Kleinhans Music Hall, The Trio too, Donald Bailey and Kenny Burrell, Joe: WOW! Papa John: Stanley Turrentine came later. But I saw, man those cats were dealing. Holy Cow!, that organ, ya know, it's spiritual side. And it just grabbed me, but Joe: That was Papa John: I Joe: Fifty Papa John: Didn't get. Joe: Nine, you said. Papa John: Yeah, and I didn't do nothing till the 60's with the organ, but I was playing trumpet the whole time. Big band singing, all that, you know the deal. Then, I got married and the kids started coming, so I was still playing. But not the full-time I was like, well, not for three or four nights a week. Places were jumping then, you know. Joe: And this was all still Niagara Falls. Papa John: Niagara Falls, the left Niagara Falls in 1967, went to Philly, went to Philly in '57. Joe: What made you go there? Papa John: I was I was my uncle has got to get a job at Boeing aircraft, and he asked me for Niagara Falls is starting to go down and. It was on the ground, and so, yeah, I worked on airplanes and cars, so, you know, it got that bad. I met a bunch of horn players down there. Right. I was in town for two months and I met a guy at work, Am I talking to much Joe? Joe: No, this is what you're here to do. You're here to tell your story, I want to hear it in this. This is all at Boeing. Papa John: Now and I wish you could play organ man. Absolutely. I know you went downtown one time for a session and in Chester you can't get an organ player with him and said this cats gotta go. If you go, you've got to come up here, man. And then we did a lot of road thing at that time. They had Cabaret's they use to call them Cabaret's I did a ton of those Joe: So Papa John: Other people, man. Joe: So when did you start the organ? Papa John: Nineteen sixty three, wait, sixty four Joe: Sixty four. Papa John: I come home from work day and  my wife had one,  she got it for me. Joe: Oh, wow. And this is still Niagara Falls because you didn't go to Philly Papa John: No. Joe: Until 67. Papa John: Yeah, it was still there. She thought of all of this, too bar in organ called My house was never the same since man. Joe: And are you completely self-taught? Papa John: Yes, and the organ yeah, on my dad, I had a basic knowledge of me, but, you know, horn, not chords you're playing chords like, I was trying to transfer all that Joe: Right. Papa John: And it was tough, but. Joe: Well, then the tough part, too, especially for the B3 players, is the independence in the left hand right playing the base line and then being able to solo over it. Papa John: Split your brain in half man. And you thinking and you do it too. Joe: Explain to me how the organ ended up in, I know you said Laurene bought one, but was it because you saw like were you listening people like Jimmy Smith? Papa John: Oh, Joe: Was that after Papa John: Man. Joe: You saw him? You were just bit by the bug. And that was Papa John: Not Joe: That. That was it. Papa John: Every album that would come out, I get from Jimmy and then I tell Jack McGuff and there was a lot of burner's out there Ganpati. I mean there was a ton then, you know, Charles Earling and I met all these guys so now we're out doing some serious. I learned so much. Joe: So what was that first organ that was in the house? Papa John: Or the spin it. Joe: He has no say couldn't have been a full B3. I like Laurene. Papa John: Now, it was a Spinet Joe: Ok. Papa John: And then I bought Leslie. But it still wasn't a B man. And I found a B for sale, so I sold all my stuff, but B and then that's how I really learned how to play like on this thing man [plays organ] Joe: Exactly. So what was your first real gig on it? It was somewhere in Philadelphia with this when you met these guys. Papa John: On the organ?, on the B?, back in Niagara Falls, I had the organ in Niagara Falls, yeah. Once I got to B3, I got out and started playing, I love a man, I was still learning. I mean, the coordination, the coordination is tough Joe Joe: The coordination is tough, the hauling the thing around is tough. Papa John: Well, that's why I had to get surgery on my back. No, that wasn't much but you're hauling that son of a gun man, Joe: Yeah. Papa John: You know, I bought vans. I bought my old van, used to be rented trailer, mostly with trailer till I came out with vans and got a van. You know, it was it was funny, man. You go, well, I've got to move organ, the drummer said "I go get a pack of cigarettes." Joe: Exactly. Papa John: I'll be right back because I get to go get a loaf of bread. I'll be right back. Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Yeah. Papa John: But it was quite experience lugging that monster. Joe: Yeah, so did you bring so you had a B3 in Niagara Falls, did you bring that with you to Philly? Papa John: Yes. Yeah, Joe: And then Papa John: That's. Joe: Where is that where is that now? Papa John: And at the Musical Museum. Joe: That's the original one. Papa John: Yes, the one that we played that night when we when we did the gig. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: At my first box man. Joe: Oh, my gosh, I didn't even realize that. Papa John: Nineteen sixty six by. Joe: Wow. Papa John: That's Joe: Yes, Papa John: My Joe: So Papa John: Yeah. Joe: So everybody for everybody listening in here in Phoenix, Arizona, there's the Musical Instrument Museum. It's called The MIM for short. Papa John's original B3 is there on display. They probably move it in and out on display. Right. Sometimes they'll do it's not permanent. Papa John: Yeah, Joe: They keep it there. Papa John: There, but it was Joey's first organ too ya know Joe: That's Papa John: That. Joe: Really cool. Papa John: Yeah, well, my fathers horns there at one time now playing them, yeah, was that was the first to go that the number one man we had redone. It was like. From being out on the road, being banged around, we had a guy redo it, that's the one man. Joe: Well, I didn't know that, so that that night we did that concert there, that was your we literally play it on your very first B3 organ. Man, Papa John: We're going, yeah, Joe: Oh man, Papa John: Man. Yeah. Joe: I didn't know that. I just thought that was just one of them. I didn't know that was THEE one. Papa John: That's the one I never got rid of it, never. Joe: Wow, Papa John: Never, Joe: That's incredible. Papa John: I would not you know, I could have sold that, that's Daisy, we had a name and we know what the name was, "Oh, boy." Joe: Oh, boy, Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Nice. Papa John: Come on, we had to go Ol Boy Joe: That Papa John: Mad, Joe: Is Papa John: Matt. Joe: So funny, so in those days when you weren't playing out, that was, was it always inside the house the way yours is now in your house, like you're literally sitting behind your B3 three now at your house? Papa John: And I am. It was Joe: Or. Papa John: Either in the house or in the van. Joe: Ok. Papa John: You know, one or the other, and mostly if if it was along, never had much time to take it out of the van, you know, Joe: And Papa John: It was Joe: A lot, Papa John: A go. Joe: Right? Papa John: Yeah, the only time I'd bring it down would be maintenance. You replace tubes, do the wiring and it was traveling. Joe: Did you work on it yourself, because I know a lot of you B3 organ players, man, you know Papa John: They're. Joe: You know that instrument because you can't trust that anybody else in the room is going to know what's going on. Papa John: That's right, Joe: Right, we've had Papa John: The. Joe: A member of Bobby C's, we had like something weird happen one day. Papa John: And try to remember what? Joe: And I remember you just you took off the front lid and people were in there and not people, Papa John: Yeah. Joe: But but you were kind of telling somebody, hey, just try this or whatever, and next thing you know, it's working again. Papa John: That's from years and years and years of that, putting that instrument through its bad. I mean, patience. I got a story we were playing upstairs, so we took the organ upstairs. We were taking it up. So we put two by fours on each side so we could slide it up Joe: Oh, Papa John: And Joe: Like. Papa John: A rope and the leg and the guys up front in the back pushing and all of a sudden the rope broke. I said, what? So I run down, jump. It was like lined up with a door outside door, so I jumped out the door, jumped out the door. I heard it coming down, breaking all there was Joe: Oh, Papa John: There was lights on the sides Joe: Oh, Papa John: Broke every one. Joe: My God. Papa John: Everyone came flying out almost out the door on its back. Joe: My gosh, that's like those those cartoons, that piano like it's like the Three Stooges move in a piano. Papa John: It is, it is, Joe: Oh, Papa John: And Joe: My gosh. Papa John: Flipped it over, put the tubes back in they were all loose and brought it back and went right to work, Joe: I'm sure Papa John: Played a Joe: It's Papa John: Delayed. Joe: Amazing, it's amazing. Papa John: Now it's cursing everybody, Joe: Oh, Papa John: man. Joe: Gosh. So when you you started playing in Niagara Falls on Papa John: Right, Joe: The organ and Papa John: Right. Joe: You were still playing trumpet at the same time. Papa John: Yes. Joe: Ok, and then were you also maybe while you were playing organ in a band on stage, did you ever actually pull out the trumpet, play a trumpet solo also? Papa John: Yes, yes, Joe: You did. It's called. Papa John: Because I was still learning to organ man that and I said, man, I, I've got to do something else, throw me out the gate. Joe: Oh, my Papa John: So Joe: Gosh. Papa John: I was vocalizing and playing hard, but little by little. Left, left, left. the B captured my soul, man. I just I love the instrument man. Joe: So when you were first starting to play and you had to deal with the whole left hand independence and then laying down the chords and then potentially even soloing with your right hand over the left hand bass, Papa John: They Joe: Did you? Papa John: Move in all the time. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Yeah. Joe: Did you have in your early groups that you played in, were there bass players in those groups where you Papa John: With Joe: Didn't have Papa John: The Joe: To worry? Papa John: organ. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Not when I got the organ man. Joe: Really? So you never. Papa John: Even with that, even with the Spinet of playing the pedal, playing the pedal. Joe: Really? Papa John: So I thought that's how you played the B3 until I got hip. I never once I got the organ. Maybe a couple times in the beginning. Yeah, I have to admit, it was a couple few gigs, man. Yeah, couldn't Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Play it, I mean. Joe: I would think you'd want that safety net in the beginning when Papa John: I Joe: You're not. Papa John: Did. You brought it back, you brought it, you just brought that guy had a base electric base, he had like a fender, I guess. Yeah, because I was like sloppy Joes and, you know. Not you Joe: No, no, no, no. Papa John: Might think my hands were going like the bottom is trying to play with the top and it can I tell you, if you lay off of this a while, your coordination takes a minute to come back. Joe: That instrument will kick your ass. Papa John: Oh, double time. And. Joe: So these gigs early on in Niagara Falls, where they were a trio gigs, were they like organ Papa John: Quartet. Joe: Or organ guitar, drums or what was the combo? Papa John: That mostly that, and then it got to Jack's one word that good, I saw it again man, you know, so then it was Jack's trio with the guitar and then we got the sax it was a quartet Joe: Ok, so let's go ahead now back to Philly and you're there, you're you're working for Boeing, right? And you are working on airplanes and helicopters. Wow, OK. Papa John: Chinooks. Joe: And then and your playing out at night, about four or five nights a week. Papa John: Yeah, but yeah, but it got very hectic, they were it was during Vietnam that. Now, where they started working 12 hour days, 6 days a week 7. So I still played on the weekends and I have to keep playing, I would be I'd be kind of mental, Joe: Yeah, now I hear Papa John: You Joe: You Papa John: Know. Joe: And at this point, do you have any kids yet? Papa John: Yeah, have two. Joe: So you had did you have any before you left Niagara Falls? Papa John: Cheryl and Johnny Joe: You did so they were born in Niagara Falls and then was Papa John: Joey Joe: Joey Papa John: You're was born here. Joe: In Philly. Got Papa John: Yeah. Joe: It. OK. All Papa John: And Joe: Right. Papa John: then then reality started to coming around Joe: Yeah, yeah. Papa John: Oh, I got to do this traveling, babies. You know what I got to say? This man, my wife never gave ultimatums. I've been blessed a lot. So I just feel so blessed man. Go through all this stuff and the kids all turned out great. Lucky, I'm blessed! people say they're lucky and blessed and lucky. Joe: We're in Philly, you're working really hard for Boeing because the Vietnam War is happening, you Papa John: Yeah. Joe: Have you have two children. I know Johnny is the oldest or Papa John: Cheryl. Joe: The Cheryls's the oldest. Papa John: Johnny Second. Joe: Then Johnny is the middle. That's why Johnny and I get along, because we're both middle Papa John: Those middle Joe: See! Ballbusters Papa John: Aged. Joe: Both of us just Papa John: Now, Joe: Right in the middle. Papa John: What about the baseball bat boy? He Joe: And Papa John: Was Joe: Then Papa John: A big Joe: And Papa John: Bob. Joe: Then Joey enjoys the youngest. Papa John: We did just go. You're going to be 50 this year. Joe: Wow. Papa John: Johnny is fifty five and Cheryl's fifty eight. Joe: So she and I are the same age. Papa John: Yeah, 1962. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Now, October, she was born. Joe: Yeah, I was February, so Papa John: There Joe: I'm even Papa John: Is a Joe: I'm even older than her see Papa John: Couple months, and you could have been my kid man! Joe: Yeah, there you go. Papa John: Now lighting up! Joe: All right, sorry. Papa John: Nah man Joe: So we're there, we're in Philly, you're working, playing Papa John: Yeah. Joe: A little bit, but works, you know, a lot of work going on. So you're busy. Do you remember who was the first, most famous person you played with? Papa John: You try to think of, well, I played with Jimmy Smith, we played together Bobby C's to do what we did, an organ thing man. That was to me, that's my favorite. That was my. Joe: So that was Papa John: I Joe: Like, Papa John: Love the cat and Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Then George Benson and Steve Gadd. Now all them guys, I dug all those guys other cats too Jack McDuff God, he was a neat person, man. We did a lot jams, me, Jack, Gene Ludwig. Joe: I used to go see Jack McDuff up in Harlem when I lived in New York. Papa John: You were going to the right spot man that cat, what a soulful player he was. A lot of the guys that come up and play, you know, Bobby C's, we would cats come there and once they tell me name, Oh, Joe: I know Papa John: We Joe: It was. Papa John: Get a lot of cats came in like there was a guitar player there one day that played with Miles Davis . Joe: Now, we used to get a lot of incredible Papa John: Yeah, Joe: People, it was, you know, Papa John: It was a great spot. Joe: Yeah, we need another another place like that. Papa John: But that would be that wouldn't that be fun Joe: Yeah, Papa John: To Joe: But Papa John: Trade bands in and out Joe: But you played with a bunch of people like well before you came to Arizona, I mean, you're with all those Papa John: The. Joe: Heavyweights in Philly and you were telling me how even Dennis Chambers and you were really good Papa John: Dennis. Joe: Friends, right? Yeah, Papa John: Yeah, yeah, it's a real good. Joe: Right. Papa John: Your Joe: And Papa John: Good friends. Joe: And I remember when I was at the NAMM Show out in Anaheim, you had that residency gig during the week of the NAMM Show at Steamers. Papa John: Yeah, I did. Yeah, we just played the. Joe: Arturo Sandoval was on it, Papa John: Yeah, and Joe: Right, Ramon Papa John: No, Joe: Banda right? Papa John: He passed away, man. Ramone played, yeah, there was a guitar player can't think of his name, but he was a heavyweight too Joe: Oh, yeah, Papa John: Like Joe: Yeah. Papa John: We all get our shots. How about Joe Pesci? Joe: That's right, he sang, he Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Sang that night I was there sitting Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Right in front. Papa John: Yeah, Joe: That's a Papa John: Joe. Joe: Night that actually you let me sit in that night. So I got to play with Arturo and the rest of the guys. Yeah. Papa John: get your as up! Joe: Yeah, yeah, that was fun because there are a lot of I think I think that night, to be honest with you, I think if I remember correctly, Marcus Miller was sitting in the audience. Papa John: Yeah he was Joe: So Papa John: Were. Joe: Like when you pointed and I was already looked around the room and Joe Pesci was singing with you and I'm like, whoa, wait a second. But it was fun. I had it was a good time. Papa John: Joey too. Joe: That's right, Joey was on stage to right? Papa John: Yeah, yeah, what a night everybody was up there. That place is closed man. Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Is Joe: Yeah, Papa John: damn shame Joe: I know. Papa John: damn shame Joe: Yeah, so when you were in Philly, did you get up to New York, much to play. Papa John: Played a little bit in New York. Yeah, not not a lot, but a lot. I met a lot of cats in New York, I a lot of good players, but I did play there trying to think of some of the rooms. Joe: I know Philly had such a strong scene that, you know, Papa John: Ah man Joe: You probably Papa John: It Joe: Never Papa John: Was. Joe: Had to leave there to go play New York because it had its own. Papa John: We had and then I played to shore. I played in Atlantic City, I played at the Club Harlem with Manny Cambell and the Fiestas, and it was great man the ban was good too. He Be played vibes. We had a conga drummer, drummer, a horn player and a woman singer man, and in the back room there was a front room. We were playing in front of the bar, the back room, Sammy Davis Jr. playing with big band back there. Yeah, I mean, Club Harlem, Kentucky Avenue man. Across the street, Gracie,  Wild Bill Davis was there. Joe: And this was a separate room from any of the casinos. Papa John: Yeah, there was no casinos man this is 1966, '67 Kentucky was like all the clubs, like you went to Harlem or Buffalo and all that, that that's what Kentucky Avenue was all, had all the bands and mostly organ groups that was hot thing, man I got pictures, my wife and I got picture with her of people coming around and get a picture,  remember that? Yeah, you got a picture taken, Joe: Oh, you mean Papa John: There were. Joe: Like at the table, like they would do that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. It's also. Papa John: Back in the old days man, the old days man, let's see, you were just a baby because you were my daughter's age, I use to take the kids. I could get them into places. I'd take um. Joe: Yep, yeah, my father would do the same. Papa John:  Yeah man people would look, he was cool, he knew? He Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Knew. Joe: Yeah, it's the only way, right? It's the exposure. Papa John: Now, the kids loved it, Johnny played, Joey played, Cheryl played for a while, Joe: What she Papa John: You Joe: Play. Papa John: Know, Alto sax yeah in junior high. Joe: Yeah, and it was Johnny always drawn to the guitar. Papa John: Yeah, in fact he played trumpet for awhile. Yeah, and my dad was my dad was living with us, and then he got guitar and my dad could play his ass off too my dad, one of those old time musicians man Joe: Yeah, did he play in the in the army or the in the war during the war time or. No. Papa John: Too old man. He played with all the big bands like back, and he played with the Dorsey Brothers before the were famous when they were together, he told me they would argue from morning till night. I said, you sure they Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Weren't Italian? Joe: Exactly. Oh, nobody has seen anything until they see you and Joey and Johnny together in the same room. That right Papa John: Up Joe: There, that is gold reality TV right there, if I if I can produce that show. Papa John: Get a show, get one! Joe: Oh, Papa John: The. Joe: My gosh. Papa John: You are. Joe: Oh, my gosh. Papa John: We have to make you a part of it that you couldn't just sit out there and produce. Joe: So let's talk about your CDs, because I want to make sure I have the count right, but I count nine. Papa John: Nine. Joe: Yeah, Papa John: You Joe: That's Papa John: Got Joe: What I. Papa John: It, I got it, my wife put him in a picture frame. Joe: So do you have nine too is that, is that the count you have? Papa John: I that's that's what I have nine Joe: Yeah, because I have Papa John: That's on my own. Joe: So if I go from 19, so the first one I have is 1990 for "Doodlin". Is that correct? Papa John: That's it. That's the one that Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Was ninety Joe: It says nine. Papa John: Nine, Joe: It says Papa John: Yeah. Joe: 94. And then "Comin' Home" was released in 95. Papa John: That's the next one. Joe: And then "All in the Family" was ninety eight, and then I have "Hip Cakewalk", which was Papa John: That's Joe: Two thousand Papa John: It Joe: Two Papa John: For Joe: Thousand Papa John: Us, Joe: One. Papa John: Right? Joe: Right, and then I have "Walking Uptown" two thousand four. Papa John: That's one of my favorite one to go. Joe: And then there's two in two thousand six. There Papa John: "Jumpin'", Joe: Is. Papa John: "Jumpin'". And dadaji. Joe: "Desert Heat". That's correct, and then then we have two thousand nine, which is "Big Shot." Papa John: "Big Shot". Yeah, Joe: And then Papa John: I Joe: The Papa John: Forgot Joe: "Philadelphia Papa John: About that, Joe: Story" in 2011. Papa John: Yeah. That's the last one. Joe: That's the last one you put up a post, I think, on Facebook that that cool album cover. Does that mean there's something in the works? Papa John: I did that, I did that picture, by the way, I have an app that said, I'm going to go out here and start, man. I must have got a million hits. Joe: I know, Papa John: One day I'm coming out. We'll get it. Joe: See? Papa John: I just that's what I was doing, that somehow this is our clock. Joe: Oh, I see it moving in the background. Papa John: Yeah, my sister-in-law got it for us. I forgot about it. I would I would have turned it off and we had we had a dog and it's got all the Joe: That's Papa John: It's Joe: Also. Papa John: Got all the seasons on it Christmas. I don't know what that is pretty but I got them all memorized Joe: Yeah, Papa John: [scats] Joe: Yeah, how it Papa John: It's Joe: Long ago Papa John: Over. Joe: How long is that going to play? You know, we Papa John: It's Joe: Only Papa John: Over right now. Joe: We only have an hour. Papa John: There it goes. Hey, man, we only have an hour. Lighten up, take a break, you Joe: It's Papa John: Union Joe: Take a break. Papa John: Take a break? Joe: Is there any thoughts of, I mean or any conversation of a new new CD? Papa John: Yeah, I talked to Clark, Clark calls me about once a month. Wants to know how you feelin' and then he says, well, "When you come in the studio, Pop?", I got a bunch of stuff too I could do. I mean, I've been I don't you get ready now and have your ass in there. Unless you don't have time for. Joe: I always whataya kiddin' me...it would would be an Papa John: I Joe: Honor. Papa John: Love Joe: I'm Papa John: The. Joe: Looking at the names of all these people on these CDs and I'm like, damn, my name's not on that one, wait a second, my name's not on that one, no I'm only, kidding. Papa John: They were all done on the East Coast except Desert Heat and was with the Banda Brothers. Joe: Yeah, yeah, that Papa John: That Joe: Was special. Papa John: Was yeah, that was 05, I think, wasn't it, '06 Joe: In desert, he was '06, Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, Papa John: That's when I moved here Joe: Oh, that's when it was so it was two years after I moved here. Got it. Papa John: Yeah, that's right. You know how happy I am for you when I see all the stuff you're doing, man, I pray for this stuff for you. Joe: I'm just hustling, man, I got Papa John: Now, Joe: To just keep Papa John: Why Joe: I Papa John: You Joe: Don't Papa John: Got Joe: Like Papa John: The right? Joe: I don't like I don't like letting any grass grow under my feet. Papa John: And Joe, that's why you're going to do it, man. Joe: Yeah, well, you know what, it's I'm Papa John: That's Joe: Getting pretty Papa John: Why you're Joe: Old Papa John: Going to do Joe: If Papa John: It. Joe: Something doesn't happen soon. Papa John: Well, you can't go by now, what's going on, you knowthe epidemic or whatever the hell it is that's messed up, and the politicians, they're Joe: Yeah, Papa John: All nuts. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: I mean, so. And you're still making it. You're still doing it, man. So Joe: Well... Papa John: This is like a piece of cake after everything's straightens out. Joe: Let's hope so. We got to get back to playin' is what we had to do. Papa John: Love to man Joe: It's like Papa John: Our. Joe: Oxygen for us, you know, taking this away from us is this brutal. Papa John: You know, come here and playin' myself, and after a minute, like I tried a drum machine and I want to throw it through the window. Yeah, I try I just want to have something to play with somebody just. Joe: That's what we should do. I just throw my stuff in the car, come down there, we'll just do a little Sunday pasta dinner, but we'll Papa John: Yeah. Joe: We'll work up an appetite before that. Papa John: That would be fun Joe, I'm in! Joe: Swim a little bit. Papa John: It is our masks mandatory? Joe: No, I haven't been anywhere, you haven't been anywhere, right? Papa John: I feel like cabin fever, man, but I want to stick it out Joe: Yeah, you just Papa John: I'm Joe: Got to stay Papa John: Going Joe: Safe. Papa John: Nowhere. Joe: Yeah, both of you just need to stay safe. And Papa John: Yeah, Joe: How are Papa John: You, Joe: You going Papa John: Too. Joe: Out? Are you going out to get groceries and things like that or you having them delivered or what are you doing? Papa John: Laurine calls ahead and she goes, they throw him in the car in Joe: Good, Papa John: The back and Joe: Good, Papa John: Then she drives off Joe: Good. Papa John: Right now. Everybody out there that masks everybody Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Down here. Joe: Now Papa John: So. Joe: We wear it wherever we go, so Papa John: So do we... Joe: We'll cold, so did I miss anything that you wanted to talk about? I mean. Papa John: Well, just talking about my time on the railroad, Amtrak. Joe: Amtrak, that's right, that was after Boeing. Papa John: Way after I was playing in between all of that and then I went to Amtrak was the big one...I started as an electrician man, I start I had to learn, you have to go to school and stuff. And we needed I had my kids all grown up. And you're, like starting to go through grade school and middle school as Laurene and I are going to hang out, man. The railroad had a friend she had friends, lot of people on the railroad, and I got the job on the railroad in nineteen seventy seven. Joe: And there was a gap in between Boeing and that, so why did you leave Boeing? Just tired Papa John: Layoffs Joe: Of it. Papa John: Every 10 minutes. Government, government job and I went to Seven-Up for a while to the district sales manager and playing constantly, playing down the shore six nights. At Amtrak I became a supervisor at a big job, kept movin' and I was there 20, almost 30 years. Joe: As an electrician for Amtrak? Papa John: Let's do it in the beginning and end with electrical supervisor. We built substations, took care of all the new construction, but I was still playing Joe. I mean, my job, I was playing constantly. I had to come in to work, Saturday morning, we had to work every once in a while and I come in. Where are we? What is this? Where you go to get playin' and go to have breakfast or have a cup of coffee? So by the time you got home... Joe: Time to go right to the job. Papa John: Great. The music never stopped me, but thank God I went to the railroad because the railroad retirement is ridiculous. Joe: Yes, Papa John: So Joe: Something to be said for that, right? You know. Papa John: Yeah. I mean I never expected that. Never. That was so far from any of my thoughts. My Joe: Help. Papa John: Dad used to say when your dad said go to school, put something in that back pocket Joe: That's Papa John: What do Joe: Right, Papa John: You mean, good news, right? Joe: Yeah. Papa John: I was at your school, Fredonia, man. Joe: Yeah, because you were right out there, right? Papa John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, Joe: Yeah. Papa John: I worked, I did gigs there, I played yeah, well, I knew the guy who ran the station WBZ or something Joe: We forget what it is now. Papa John: Yeah, Fredonia is when I was out there, Don Menza was there, all cats who played with big bands, but that's a great music school man. Joe: Yeah, it was good when when I went, we were we were at at the peak of of what was happening with, you know, we had a student run jazz ensemble and competed at the Notre Dame Collegiate Jazz Festival, and those were run by the school. And we ran it ourself, you know. Papa John: The students you guys had a couple Joe: Yeah, it was fun. Papa John: You had some good players there, singers, players, if you wanted have somebody, go to the school, you had a great reputation Joe: Yeah, I got Papa John: And Joe: To play Papa John: Then. Joe: At the Tralfamadore Papa John: But Joe: Or. Papa John: Tralfamadore? Joe: Right. Papa John: The Tralf?. Joe: Isn't that what it was, The Tralf? That's what we called it. Right. For short, The Tralf. Yeah. Papa John: That's something man! Joe: And I spent when I was at Fredonia, I spent a summer in the Canadian side of Niagara Falls Papa John: Oh, Joe: Playing Papa John: Yeah, Joe: At that Papa John: We're. Joe: Amusement park that's right on the other side. Papa John: Right on the other side, I know, right off Lundie's Lane Joe: Yeah, and we played this little we did this doo wop show, it was Papa John: Of Joe: All Papa John: The. Joe: This company came and auditioned people at all the music schools for summer Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Jobs. Papa John: And Joe: So Papa John: You Joe: We Papa John: Got Joe: Got to hire. Papa John: Your. Joe: We got hired as a band. So it was my buddy on trumpet and a bass Papa John: The. Joe: Player friend, the sax player friend. And then we went there and played and we backed up these these two couples, that guy and girls Papa John: Right. Joe: That were doing this doo wop dancing and singing on the stage. Papa John: Ha Joe: We were Papa John: That's cool! Joe: The backup band behind them. We played a place called Lilly Langtry's Papa John: I know that is, oh Lilly...that's on Lundie's Land, you go up Lundie's Lane, the wax museum and. Joe: Correct, That's right. We actually were friends, so when we were when we were there because we lived there for the summer and these little apartments, the I think it was the either the tallest man in the world or tallest woman in the world. We Papa John: The woman. Joe: Literally yeah, we became friends with her and we would actually hang out at her apartment. And Papa John: She was cool man Joe: That's so Papa John: Or Joe: Funny. Papa John: That boy or girl, rah Joe: Yes, Papa John: Rah Joe: Yes. Yes, Papa John: Is just great Joe: Yes. Papa John: To leave it to me, to remember that stuff. Joe: It's so funny. Papa John: Remember the yard of beer? You went to the Yard In The Park when you had a yard of beer. Joe: I don't I don't know if I remember that. Papa John: The glass was a yard long filled it up. Joe: It's like those things that they walk around Atlantic City with, I mean, Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Las Papa John: Where Joe: Vegas, Papa John: They get Joe: Those huge. Papa John: Yard In The Park, it was called, Joe: That's so funny. Papa John: I played all over the place and Toronto, but you had a good gig. Joe: I don't know about that, but Papa John: It was a good gig. Joe: It was it was OK for at the time we had some fun. So. Papa John: What year was that Joe, do you remember? Joe: It had to be eighty two or three. Papa John: Oh, you are young. You're like my daughter. Joe: Yeah, I yeah, I'm surprised, I remember that I don't remember stuff that far back, but. Papa John: I remember not if it's if I want to remember that Joe: Yeah, Papa John: This done that, then  Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Railroad, I retired. The pension is crazy. Joe: And what was this what year was that, Papa John: '05 Joe: And then literally a year later, you moving out to Arizona? Papa John: Yes Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe:  Papa John:  Joe: There's our organ guitar trio once Johnny gets out here and a couple of years, Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Right. Papa John: We'll have some serious fun when. Joe: Hopefully we won't run out of places to play once we get kicked out of each one for being crazy. Papa John: Hopefully we WILL get kicked out. No, no, no, gigs are special you know,  we keep maintain part of the business man. You don't want to screw that up. Joe: So cool. So 2006, you retire Amtrak two thousand five, you pack up, move out two thousand six Papa John: Sold Joe: And Papa John: The crib back home, I Joe: You're. Papa John: Had a nice I had a nice crib too, that. Joe: But then you come out here and then and then we finally get to meet at one point, and then we play a bunch of gigs around town and. Yeah. Papa John: Yeah, we did. We played a lot man. You have to gigs you were getting gigs left and right. I went out there and start hustling your ass off. Joe: Hey, you have to, right? Papa John: Yeah. Joe: Can't sit by the phone. Papa John: No, what!? Joe: That's the that's the one thing that I just Papa John: Is Joe: Can't sit Papa John: All Joe: By the phone. Papa John: We'd be dead now you can use got to go out after man, but if you wait for the apple to drop off the tree, you'll starve to death, you got to go up and get it. His big thing was education and save your money Joe: And Papa John: To Joe: Save your money, well, you made Papa John: Get Joe: Him Papa John: An Joe: Proud Papa John: Education. Joe: Because you listen, you got yourself a nice a nice retirement package, right? Papa John: Well, I got lucky on that one man God, Thank Joe: You still Papa John: You. Joe: You still were able to maintain playing, Papa John: Yeah, Joe: You got an education Papa John: Oh, Joe: In the electrical field. Papa John: But Joe: What kind of car you have now? Papa John: Oh. Thirty nine Pontiac Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Hot Rod Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Yeah, man's got a big motor in three fifty chevy. All reworked, everything, everything's new and it's like a new car. Joe: How many times you get it out? Papa John: Well, right now, Johnny comes out, we take it out to terrorize the neighborhood, him and I put that car together. Joe: Oh, yeah. Papa John: Yeah, cut the frame off for a new frame underneath, it has disc breaks, power steering, Joe: What is Papa John: Big Joe: It again? Papa John: Motor, a thirty nine, nineteen thirty nine Pontiac, two door sedan. It's just it's a duplicate of a thirty nine Chevy. Joe: What is it like, is it blue or purple, one of the two, Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Which Papa John: Blue. Joe: One? Blue. Papa John: Yeah, Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Well, when you come down, will have to go out for a cruise man Joe: Yeah, I'd love to take that thing out. Papa John: It's fun man Joe: All right, Papa John: It's. Joe: We'll do it. We have a plan now. So we have a Papa John: Yeah. Joe: We have a Sunday pasta dinner. Papa John: A Sunday dinner, baby. Joe: But we jam first. And then we hop in the pool, get cooled off, then we come in and we eat our faces off. Papa John: Right, Joe: And then we Papa John: And. Joe: Go out for a little cruise when it gets Papa John: That's Joe: Cool Papa John: Right, Joe: Out, there Papa John: That's Joe: You go. Papa John: Well when we get done eating, we might not be able to move. Joe: That's true. So you might want to get everything done before we wat. Papa John: That one day you were making something, what was braciole that you make braciole? Joe: I have Papa John: You Joe: No. Papa John: Were cooking something, man. I don't know what it was Joe: I have no idea. I just made a killer designer for Jo Ellen's birthday Papa John: That. Joe: A couple of weeks ago. Yeah. Oh, maybe that's what it was. I put up Papa John: Yeah, Joe: The pot of the Papa John: I Joe: Sauce, Papa John: Love that Joe: The sauce boiling or the gravy, as we call it. Papa John: You call gravy. Joe: Yeah. I don't know if Papa John: You Joe: We're Papa John: Sauce Joe: Not Papa John: Tomato, Joe: Sure Papa John: Tomato, potato, potato, Joe: Exactly. Papa John: But some. Joe: You got to let us know if you're going to do a new recording so we can make sure we let everyone know. And like I said, as soon as all this pandemic stuff Papa John: No. Joe: Disappears, we see if we can get ourselves a gig or a concert somewhere again and get going. Papa John: Concert, Joe: Right. Papa John: I'd like to do that, yeah. Joe: We should get back at The MIM. Do another show up Papa John: I Joe: There. Papa John: Like the yeah, man, we could Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Papa John: Get a yeah, it was okay last time with nice man. Joe: Is there anything else that I missed? Papa John: Yeah, the gig in Albuquerque, wherever we were. Joe: Oh, my gosh. Papa John: Should have made a left turn at Albuquerque Joe: Oh, my gosh. Papa John: The Las Cruces Joe: Right, then we drive all the way there, we set up and then it poured Papa John: It rained Joe: And we couldn't play, right? We couldn't Papa John: That Joe: Play Papa John: They paid and Joe: And Papa John: We got Joe: They play. Papa John: Paid. Joe: So it was basically like a paid little two day trip. Papa John: Two day trip with pay Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, Papa John: That was terrible. I wanted to play. Joe: No, I know. Papa John: Well, I know we weren't going to play when a guy took the B3. He said it's raining, you guys aren't playing, put it in a van. They left. I guess we're not playing. Joe: Remember, we tried to even talk one of the bars around that outdoor stage to let us play. Papa John: Across the street, yeah. Joe: Yeah, it's like we're already got paid, so just move it all into your place in play inside. Oh, gosh. Papa John: We didn't get. Joe: We can't say we didn't try. Papa John: That's where I met that trumpet player, he's on the East Coast now. Joe: Cool! Papa John: This has been a nice pod... Joe: Thanks, Papa John: Of Joe: Man. Papa John: Spaghetti meatballs. Joe: They go Papa John: And little braciole Joe: Right? Papa John: Yeah, Joe: I'm Papa John: My Joe: Really Papa John: Wife Joe: Excited Papa John: Made Joe: That you Papa John: It. Joe: Came on what'd she say. Papa John: My wife made angel hair bolognese Sunday Joe: Nice. Papa John: Scrambled meat. Joe: Yeah. Papa John: I'm glad I came on too Joe Joe: Yeah, man, it's nice Papa John: I Joe: To Papa John: Love Joe: See your face Papa John: That you Joe: That Papa John: Like that and I like Joe: I Papa John: Your face too Joe. Joe: Haven't seen you in so long, so. Papa John: I know there Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Has been a year!? Joe: I don't know. Could be, gosh. Papa John: No Joe: Like Papa John: Time. Joe: I said, my brain doesn't go backwards too well, so Papa John: Time man time Joe: I know Papa John: Is. Joe: I hear Papa John: Time Joe: Yeah. Papa John: Is on my mind, yes it is Ya know what, we should do all that stuff, do I get all those coveres I Joe: Yeah, Papa John: Love doing it to. Joe: Yeah, Papa John: My favorite Joe: Well, Papa John: Was Sly, Sly and the Family Stone. Joe: Um. Papa John: I use to love those...cover that stuff Joe: Yeah, Papa John: [sings] You might have... Joe: Well, we'll we'll have a chance again. Papa John: I hope so, man. Joe: We will. So, listen, man, I really appreciate you doing this. Papa John: Anything for, you know, you're the man, you're my friend, one of my best friends. Joe: It's nice to see you. It really is, it's nice to talk with you. Papa John: Nice to talk to you, too, man Joe: Yeah, man. All right. Well, again, thank you. You you're one of the best. And Papa John: No. Joe: You you've you've been incredible to me. So I appreciate you and I love you. And I thank you for being here. Papa John: Thank you, Joe, Joe: Ok, Papa John: And Joe: Man. Papa John: I love you, too, brother. Joe: All right, and we'll talk soon and we'll play soon Papa John: Hopefully has, God Bless! Joe: All right, man, thank you. Papa John: All right, bye bye... Joe: Bye...

The Quiet Light Podcast
Buying and Selling Insights with Woz, Quiet Light's Newest Ridiculously Experienced Advisor

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2020 31:00


Welcome back to the Quiet Light podcast. Chris Wozniak is the newest member of our team and we thought it would be a great idea to sit down and chat with him. He has built, bought, and sold online businesses, in addition to brick and mortar brokerage firms. Chris has more experience than anyone on our team and we are excited to have him on board. Tune in to hear us talk with Chris about what buyers and sellers should do to come out on top.   Topics: An abbreviated version of Chris' work history. Earning a CBI after becoming a board certified broker. Chris' buy-side brokering experience. Potentially creating short films about clients. Tips for sellers. How he leads buyers through the process. Why Chris spends time with and coaches buyers.  Transcription: Mark: I'm really excited to announce that we have a new member to our team, Chris Wozniak. Now you hear Wozniak and we think Steve Wozniak from Apple, is there any relation? Did you ask him that? I know you talked to him this week and that would have been my first question, how is he related to Steve Wozniak? Joe: I did and I'm not going to tell you the answer. Mark: So we don't know. Joe:    I know. I asked the question. Mark: Then I'm going to listen. Joe:    All right. Mark: You have to listen to the pod. You got to listen. Joe: How many shares of Apple he actually owns and whether he inherited them or bought them? Mark: Oh, there's a bit of a tease right there. Joe: All sorts of tease. Mark: Chris Wozniak, the guy, he's new on our team but he's; Chris is new on our team but he's not a greenhorn by any means. Joe: Not at all. He's got more experience than anybody that's ever joined our team before. I think he comes to the table with more experience. He's built, he's bought, he's sold his own online businesses, and he's run two brick and mortar business brokerage firms and sold one of them as well. His top year is probably selling 15 million dollars worth of businesses. The guy's just ridiculously qualified. He's got all sorts of certifications behind his name in his LinkedIn profile. We talked about that; jokes about that quite a bit, actually. But it's not just talking about him and his experience. I asked him a lot of questions about what sellers should do, what buyers should do throughout the entire process of building a business to eventually exit or looking to buy a business, and then build it so he gives lots of advice throughout. Mark: Well, let's go. I'm excited to introduce him to our listeners, and I'm really excited to get him as a part of the Quiet Light team. Joe: Oh, and there's one thing that we do tease something that's coming in the future at Quiet Light and Chris is helping us bring that to the table. It's something people have been asking for for years. We talked about it briefly, so be sure to listen in to that as well. Joe: Hey, folks Joe Valley here with Quiet Light Brokerage, and today I have the Woz with us. How are you doing today? Chris: I'm doing good Joe. How are you doing? Joe: Good. How many Apple shares do you own? Chris: None. Joe: None? Grandfathered in by uncle… Chris: None and we've never really investigated it either so maybe we do. I don't know. Joe: So you're not… Chris: I knew that I wouldn't work as hard as I do. Joe: You're not a descendant then of the great Wozniak? Chris: I have to be a descendant. I just don't know how far down the line that stretches. Joe: You know, I actually have a client now who is the; we were having just a casual conversation and he said, hey, you want an interesting fact? I'm actually the great, great, great, great-nephew of Teddy Roosevelt. And when he told me, I was like, that's an odd Segway into telling me this, but I've repeated that story and now it is interesting. I find it fascinating that we… Chris: Oh yeah, everybody does. Yeah. Joe: Even with what's going on in the world and some folks wanting to take down the Teddy Roosevelt statue outside of the museum, but yeah, fascinating. So, no relation the Steve Wozniak of the world? Chris: I honestly don't know. Joe: Okay, enough with the jibber-jabber, folks. This is the real Chris Wozniak, the newest member of the Quiet Light Brokerage team, a ton of experience, but I'm going to let him talk about it. I've got your LinkedIn profile open here but why don't you talk to us, tell the folks listening, Chris, about your background and how you ended up coming to Quiet Light. Chris: Sure. Well, first, I want to say that I'm not used to podcasts and I got an email from Joe yesterday saying, hey, just be ready at eight in the morning tomorrow and give your entire professional life history. So I said, okay that sounds like fun. So this is going to be off the cuff and obviously coming from the heart. But yeah do you want the long kind of version of my… Joe: I think people want the shorter version. Chris: Okay, that's going to be hard to do but the short version of the long story is I graduated college. I was in commercial real estate for several years, even in college as an intern. Then I joined my dad as a business broker. We had a company called Lesdon & Associates that was in 2002, 2003. Joe: Brick and mortar business broker or online business broker? Chris: Mainly Main Street brick and mortar which we graduated to smaller deals and we had initially started and graduated to larger and larger deals, we eventually sold Lesdon & Associates, I think in 2008, 2009. And then we started The George Ryan Group, which was a company focused on lower middle-market businesses. And so what we define that as is anything over a million dollars and then we never had an engagement over 12 or 13 million. So we own that company and going backwards in 2002, I started my first e-commerce business. Joe: That's a long time ago. Chris: Yeah. Joe: 18 years ago. How much did the website cost you? I love the answers to this question. Chris: I had to hire somebody to create and code it for me. I had the idea of what I wanted to sell; the product line, which was actually non-precious gemstones in 14-carat gold settings. Joe: Wow. Chris: So kind of a very niche-y product. But anyway, we built that for I think $5,500, $6,500. Joe: Wow. That's a lot of dough. I ask the question just because I like to say mine was $50. Chris: Oh yeah. I guess then there is no Shopify, there is no platform that you could just point click. Joe: No. No Amazon fulfiller accounts, very different. Chris: Yeah. Joe: Okay. Chris: So I sold that. I sold the e-commerce site about a year and a half later and did pretty good with. It was 22, 23 years old so it was a big chunk of money for me and my wife. And so fast forward, I've been selling businesses for 17 years. Some of those are online businesses, but through the years I've created and run and sold online businesses of my own. And so I guess five years ago or about six years ago, my wife and I decided we wanted to get out of the United States and kind of change our pace of life. And the only way I was going to be able to do that was to be able to have some type of income where I could do business brokerage because of the situation. So we ended up moving to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. We were there for two years. And so winging it for about a year and a half to two years leading up to that move, I created an Amazon FBA business. And when we got to St. Croix, I purchased with a partner an affiliate business in the finance niche. Joe: So just to be specific here folks, Chris, has built, bought, and sold his own online businesses. Okay, go on. Chris: Yeah, and then I've also created and still own several content sites and still own my Amazon FBA business as well. Joe: Okay, as I look at your LinkedIn profile, you've got a lot of acronyms here M&AMI, CBI, all sorts of different things, BCB. You come to us with things that I think most of the team does not have. Chuck is now certified in some way and these certifications folks are normally designated for a local brick and mortar business brokers. There's no specific certification for online business brokers. Walker's got some as well. Specifically, I think he got it prior to writing the book that you all hear us talk about, which is Buy Then Build. But what are some of these credentials that you have, Chris? Chris: Board Certified Broker is a designation that's awarded by the state of Texas. I earned that I don't remember when; maybe 2006, 2007. I've also got a CBI, which is the Certified Business Intermediary. That's awarded by the International Business Brokers Association. I got that shortly after my board-certified broker designation. And then I also carry the Merger & Acquisition Master Intermediary designation. That's the M&AMI given by the Merger and Acquisition source, which is kind of a sister program to the International Business Brokers Association. And to maintain that designation it's pretty difficult. I don't know now how many there are throughout the United States, but at the time there was maybe between 100 and 150, I believe. I don't know if that's still true or not, but it's difficult to achieve that designation because you have to have done a deal over a million dollars and then you had to maintain that. You have to do a deal over a million dollars at least once a year and believe it or not, in our world, Quiet Light's world, and my world that doesn't seem like a lot. But in general; in brokerage in general, that's tough to do. Joe: Yeah. So, folks, if you haven't visited the Quiet Light website lately, you'll see that it is new next time you go visit it. And it says right there on the homepage, sell your online business with a team that has a crazy amount of been there, done that experience. And obviously, the Woz here, QLB's Woz. We have three Chris's now so his email is actually Woz@QuietLightBrokerage.com because he has that experience. Chris: By the way, I had to clarify to the team because Joe introduced me as, hey, check this guy's email out. He's our new member, Woz@QuietLightBrokerage so I immediately; my first reach out to the entire team, all the other brokers was guys I'm not trying to be cool with Woz. There's already two Chris's. I didn't want to get anybody confused with the other two Chris's. My name is too difficult to spell in its entirety so I went with Woz for simplicity purposes only, not to be cool. Joe: You're cool by default just because the email address is accepted. But you do have a crazy amount of been there, done that experience, but let's segue way to one of the reasons why you are on the team amongst all of the others. And buyers and sellers this is important for you to understand in terms of one of the things that we're going to do at Quiet Light in the coming months. We're launching this podcast sometime in the month of July 2020. And you've got, Chris, some buy-side brokering experience. For the last decade or more we've had requests for buy-side services and we've always said, no, we don't do that. Because of your experience with it and experience with a close friend of mine that you worked with we're going to move in a direction where we're going to offer this. Don't start sending us e-mails here folks. We will announce it. We'll give you the details. We're going to start with a small pilot program and make sure that we serve you properly. And we will not be helping you buy businesses that are listed by other business brokers. These will be unlisted businesses that we will search and find for you, given the criteria that you're looking for. But what made you go into or get pulled into the buy-side part of the brokering Chris? Chris: Yeah, that's the right way to say it. I kind of got pulled in to it wasn't necessarily a proactive decision on my part to get into it. There was demand there for it and so I just tried to get that demand and service those people that needed that service. So we had buyers that we're looking at online businesses, we had buyers that were looking for any type of service business, we had buyers that were specifically looking for manufacturing, all these things over the years and so we just developed the process on trying to uncover businesses that were not on the market, which is that's the kind of grassroots kind of guerrilla effort that we use to uncover these types of businesses. Joe: Yeah, and it's an exciting one for us because it's one that everybody's constantly been asking for and sort of pulling us in that direction. But with Chris's experience, the vast amount of experience that he has here we formulated a plan, we're starting to put it into action and we will test it out in the coming months. And we will make an announcement both via the website, email address, this podcast again, and an official, probably podcast specific to the buy-side brokering and what services we'll be offering. So keep that in mind for the future, and we're excited about it for sure. So, Chris, with your experience, I'm going to ask you random questions because you've been doing this for so long. As everybody knows, Mark and I don't script these. We're just flying by the seat of our pants here and hopefully, it gets across good information to you folks. Let's talk to the sellers out there in the audience, in your experience; the vast amount of experience that you have, what are the top one or two things that a seller should understand about a business that they own, and a path toward exiting that business? And when I say understand, I mean understand and do. Chris: Understand and do, yeah. Well, I think something that kind of gets overlooked when we're speaking with sellers and trying to coach them and advise them is they should know that it's going to be an emotional experience because of the nature of what it is we're about to do, which is the biggest transaction in their life. It's bigger than purchasing your home. It's bigger than the most expensive car or boat you're going to buy or sell. And so this transaction is going to be a monumental change and it's going to be an emotional ride because they typically have some blood, sweat, and tears poured into this business and a lot of times it's their baby. So to not address that when you're speaking with them, because they may not realize they're going to go through these different waves of emotions, that's why a lot of times I know you've talked about it, too, and I've said it a million times, we're just as much psychologist or therapist as we are advisors because it's 100% going to happen that there's going to be these waves of emotion and anxiety and things of that nature that happen. And so I think if the sellers just know that and we can kind of tell them what to expect a little bit and why they're probably going to be feeling this way and why it's natural and why everybody else goes through it too, that I think helps ease that burden a little bit. Joe: Yeah, I think that's a huge one. I was reading some content that's being created now that describes what we do and it said something like entrepreneur, advisor, broker, mentor, friend to online business owners and become all of those things and the friend part at the end because we spent a lot of time with clients. And I'm sure you've experienced that, especially if you've been working with somebody that lived in the same hometown as you or a neighboring area where you actually get to see them more. In our situation with the online world, we get to see them now with Zoom and we see them at conferences and things of that nature, but not as much. So the business folks know the name Joe Cocker, and if they've been listening to the podcast and I've been talking to Joe for two and a half years, I've never met him face to face. I sold his business in Q1, we had him on the podcast. He told a story. This is somebody, folks, that his first child, two days after his 17th birthday, he was in high school working full time and still graduated high school; hustled, worked hard, sold his car. This is the title of the podcast, he sold his car to buy inventory and then sold his business for seven figures. That was the process, a hell of a story. But, you know, I consider Joe a friend, even though I've never met him face to face. I can't wait till COVID goes away so I can get down to Florida, go visit with him and go fishing because he's got a new boat and he goes fishing all the time. And he's very, very good at it apparently. But that's a big part of it. And one of the things that you're going to see, folks, is a new series that Chris Moore actually has been working are called Quiet Giant and we are sharing some experiences with our clients and doing a quarterly short film, if you will, about them. And the second one is already produced and one of the things that the person featured in that series said was just reiterating what you said, Chris, which is at times the advisor mentor, broker, friend is a therapist because whether it's 250,000, a million, quarter of a million, or ten million that you are two weeks away from and you're negotiating the asset purchase agreement and it goes off the rails because it will. And the difference between a good and great advisor is that the great must get it back on track towards closing. But you are going to be in a very emotional state and if you all can see Chris on YouTube, he's very calm and collected. And obviously, I'm not hyper myself, the tone of my voice is this is about as excited as I get some time. So we're here to support, advise, and help and sometimes that comes across in therapeutic sessions if you will. And we've all been there and done that so we know. When we were selling, we're in the same situation, right? You've done it dozens and dozens of times with clients as well. Chris: Yeah. I sold a non-durable medical equipment company that was one of my largest sales of my career in 2014 for right around ten million dollars. And I shouldn't say the name of the business, but I'll say the first name of the seller's name is Ralph. And he actually reached out to me on LinkedIn a month and a half ago just to see. He saw my name and it kind of; I don't know why it popped up or how it came into his point of view, but he reached out and said hey, how are you doing? And I mean, we spent a lot of months getting his business marketing and getting it sold and we developed just a great relationship. And he's just one of honestly a ton of sellers that I've had that we still maintain relationships and we get along great. And that's one of the things I love about the business. It's transactional, but it's very intimate and there's so much at stake that you bond. Joe: Yeah. Chris: Or it's almost you just bond. Joe: Yeah, one of the things I like least about the business is the stigma of being a quote-unquote broker. But once I got over that and realized and became that entrepreneur, advisor, broker, mentor, therapist, friend, it is what we are. And those that want to put a label on us as just a broker, they can just go somewhere else. Chris: You know all those letters we were talking about earlier. Joe: Yeah. Chris: I probably got those because of insecurity. Joe: Right. I'm incredibly secure because I don't have any of those letters. Chris: Right, exactly. Joe: No, you're just lazy. Chris: I'm the most insecure, yeah. Joe: All right, let's talk. We're going to keep this episode relatively short, folks, just simply because you don't want to learn too much about Chris until you get to know him personally. But let's talk about some things though that buyers can do. One of the things that sellers can do is prepare themselves emotionally. Well, actually, I'll follow up on that first, how do you prepare yourself emotionally? I've got some thoughts on that, but I want to hear from you. Chris: How do I or how does a seller? Joe: How does that seller prepare themselves emotionally? You said that is one of the biggest things they need to be prepared for, that it is emotional. How do they get prepared for that? Chris: I think broadly speaking and yeah just talk to them about the process. What is this going to look like for you from day one and then all the way to the exit day? And as long as you're very upfront about that and you're detailed about your explanation of what that process looks like, it reduces the amount of question in the seller's mind. And then if you're also honest with them and you're not selling a bill of goods that you can deliver, which is we're going to get you a buyer in the first week and that buyer is going to be the one that buys your business, they're going to close, it's that easy. If you create those kind of expectations, you're not going be able to deliver. Joe: Are you saying from a seller standpoint, it's actually hard to sell a million, two million dollar business? Chris: Yeah, it's a little bit difficult. And believe me, as that day gets closer and closer you're not going to get more calm. As you get closer to that million or two million dollars, you're going to start to tighten up a little bit. I won't say what I want to say, but you're going to tighten up a little bit and it's going to get more real and it's going to get daunting there for a little bit. But you just got to hold on and listen. That's the other thing, you asked what are two things you would do as a broker or what two things to consider with a seller. My second thing instead of going with the normal answer would be if I'm talking to a seller right now, listen to our coaching. And it's not because we're rocket scientists, it's not because we're smarter than you. You're an entrepreneur. You probably have certain personality traits that have gotten to where you are and why you're successful and we get that. We're entrepreneurs also, but we're not trying to say we're smarter than you or no more than you. But we actually have the knowledge of selling a business, not running your business, but selling a business. So if you're going to hire us, just trust us because we're there to coach you. We know the pitfalls. We know the traps. We know that things are not going to go perfectly all the time. That never happens. You're always going to get sidetracked. So if you just listen to our coaching, if you listen to our coaching when you're dealing with buyers, that's a huge part of it. So my second point of advice would be just trust us and allow us to coach you. Joe: And the sooner we can begin that process, the better. You don't want to talk to somebody, sign an engagement letter the next day, and then list the business for sale a week later. It's better really for everyone involved to start that process of building that trust and that relationship as early on in your business as possible. I love it when somebody calls and sets up a meeting with somebody on the team that says I'm tracking toward selling in Q1 of 2021 or 2022. Let's get started. I want to do a review. And we do that, we will look at the profit and loss statement, we'll look at the financial key metrics, we'll see what the strengths and weaknesses of the business are. We'll go over the process and educate you, help you set an exit goal. You're going to pick that number, not us. But we're going to help you understand what you're leftover with after the sale. It's not necessarily important what you sell it for it's what you could keep. And then ideally reverse engineer a path to that goal. And the longer you are from reverse engineering that path to the goal, the more likely you are going to achieve it or overachieve it or beyond that. Chris: Yeah, I agree. Joe: All right. Let's talk about bias. You've worked with a lot of them, both as the sell-side broker but you're working with buyers and then as the buy-side broker as well. Any advice for buyers when they come to you or anybody on the team or any broker period or actually to a seller directly for that matter, what should they be bringing to the table? Is it a Wall Street type negotiation, is it just come in and pay all cash, what are the secrets to being a great buyer? Chris: I think part of being a great buyer is also listening to the advisor because obviously there's two sides to the coin. So part of our job if we're representing a seller, is to get their business sold. And one of the ways we can do that and ensure that that happens is we lead the buyer through the process. And so that's no different. I interview buyers when we have a business for sale, we have a buyer that approaches us we basically interview the buyer as well. And one of the things that we coach them on is transparency, I think is a big one, because, in a lot of transactional environments, you're quote-unquote negotiating so you want to keep your cards close to the vest. In this sort of situation, we were talking about bigger dollars. Sellers need to know that you're financially capable of getting this transaction done. And so eventually you are going to have to be transparent, not only with your financial situation but also your experience. That's a big one because quite frankly, a lot of the time they're seller's notes, there's earn-outs in some situations and so your ability to pay that owner back is huge. And so when you're going through the process, that transparency is a big deal and a lot of buyers don't understand that. It's counterintuitive. Joe: It is. Instilling confidence and use the advisor first and foremost and then the guy that's going to be selling you the business is critical. Mr. Buyer. I had a call yesterday where I had to go through this process of; the first call I had with this particular buyer, first, he talked about the multiple and how high it was, and he only thought the business was worth X. It's all right. Well, they're not willing to sell it for even close to X, so maybe this one isn't for you. He did move on. In the same conversation, he talked about raising funds. He didn't have the capital for it. So two strikes did instill confidence in me that he thought the business was even close to what it was worth, close to what it was listed for. And two, he didn't have the capital. And so he's going to be raising the funds during a worldwide pandemic with a looming recession where banks are tightening things up. And from that, we had a good call. We had a call yesterday. I would say it was a good call, it wasn't a great call. The first call was a great call because it ended with maybe this doesn't make the most sense for you, but then he followed up with he really did a very thorough job reviewing the package and asked a lot of great questions. Yet there's not confidence in me or I have to reveal who this person is in detail to the seller of the business and neither one of us have a great deal of confidence. So I had a good call with him yesterday where I had to be honest and I think I'm slightly offended him saying, look, man, it happens. You spend a lot of time on this, yet you don't think the value is there and you're trying to raise money. My question was what are the odds? Give me a percentage, in your opinion that you will be successful in raising the capital to make this purchase? He goes, I think the odds are better good than not. I'm like, really? Come on, instill some confidence in me. I'm sorry if you're listening buyer, but I said some very nice things about you as well and I do have a lot of respect for you. I think it's just; and we talked about that, the instilling in confidence. Chris, you're human, right? I'm human. We're spending time trying to help both buyers and sellers get to a successful transaction and we're going to give both parties some advice that they're not necessarily going to like. But it comes from a place of experience; crazy, been there done that experience, and sometimes it's hard to get that across in a way that makes you feel warm and fuzzy when we're telling you. Chris: Oh definitely. Joe: Yeah, it's hard. Chris: One of the things I tell sellers every time we get an engagement is you're not going to hear from me unless I have somebody for you and I'm going to be spending 90% of my time with buyers. And a lot of the time they don't like the sound of that right off the bat. But I let that sink in for a minute and say, look I've got to establish a relationship with these buyers. I've got to establish trust with them and that's why I'm spending all my time with. And it's for you, Mr. Seller or Mrs. Seller. That's why I'm spending all this time with these buyers is establishing that trust and coaching them and letting them know what the process is and how we don't deviate from that process. It's the same thing every time. Every business is different and certain things will happen but we do not deviate from our process and the process is because of experience. That's all it is. Joe: Can you see, folks, why Chris is joining the team here? Bringing a great deal of experience and wisdom, credibility and a lot of credentials, as you can see, because of his insecurity to the team and helping us move in a direction on that buy-side that I think will help serve some of you in the audience to find things that are not listed. We as a company have never practiced spamming emails and reaching out to buyers to say, hey business owner, we've got a buyer for you when we really don't. Chris: Right. Joe: This will allow us to go ahead and reach out to buyers in an honest, sincere, and ethical; I'm sorry sellers. Chris: Sellers, yeah. Joe: Honest, sincere, and ethical way with 100% of the truth. So I'm looking forward to that, Chris. I'm looking forward to having you on the team for many years to come. I appreciate your time today. Chris: I'm so excited. I'm so glad to be with you guys and I appreciate the opportunity. Joe: Woz@QuietLightBrokerage.com, we've got the Woz on the team, guys. Thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you soon. Chris: Thank you. Resources: Woz@quietlightbrokerage.com Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com

AdvoComedian With Ras Kamara
Is Joe Rogan Moving to TX to Avoid CA Taxes | Will Texas Legalized Weed for Joe?

AdvoComedian With Ras Kamara

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 27, 2020 46:18


Hey Advos in this Episode of the AdvoComedian We Will Touch ion the Supposed $100 Million Dollar Deal betweed Podcast God Joe Rogan & Spotify and it Effect on Smaller Podcast Like the Joe Budden Podcast Flagrant 2 Briiliant idiots Breakfast Club & Others. The New Future of Podcast And Aslo Peter Schifft zteaching Joe How to Evade Taxes by Moving To Texas... is Texas More Free When Joe Loves experiment with Drugs..Is Joe Following Elon Musk to Austin TX? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/raskamara/support

Psychedelics Today
Solidarity Fridays - Week 17

Psychedelics Today

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2020 63:19


In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss two news stories emerging from Portland, Oregon- first, paramilitary-like federal agents showing up in unmarked cars and arresting protestors, and second, the beating and pepper-spraying of one of those protestors, Christopher David.  They look at these events from multiple perspectives- what fears are driving the opinions of people who are against these protests? Why does there always seem to be money when it comes to military expenses, but never any money when it comes to the wellbeing of people? How many police officers fully stand behind what they're doing, and how many are simply following orders or deeming certain evils necessary solely to earn their federal pension?  They analyze systems and better ways forward, like considering a bottom-up approach vs. the standard top-down approach or Ken Wilbur's framework of transcending an old system while including all the lessons from it. They also discuss decriminalization vs. legalization and the importance of regulation, and the massive scale of concepts and systems, like how MKUltra needs to be included when discussing the history of psychology. They also discuss telehealth and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and the complications surrounding it right now, from both therapists and clients not wanting to be in an office to the concerns of self-administration at home, to the benefits of self-exploration for those who do feel comfortable and safe engaging on their own. And lastly, they talk about their upcoming Navigating Psychedelics class, which is selling fast and will never be cheaper than it is now. Notable quotes “This is illegal, and people seem to forget that it’s illegal. Even if it’s decriminalized in a locality, doesn’t mean the feds can’t come in and shut you down. And that’s why they call me the party pooper.” -Joe “How many people get into higher systems and institutions with really good intentions [of] wanting to make change, and thinking... “I’m going to change it from the top down.” ...What would a ‘bottom-up’ approach be, and how could we give power back to communities to start to create their own change, instead of thinking that we need to change it from these hierarchical systems? I always come back to Bucky Fuller’s quote about just creating a different system- you don’t change a system by trying to change it, you make a new system that’s obsolete to that old way of being. ...I’m thinking also too, from the somatic lens in therapy- approaching it more cognitively, intellectually- this whole top-down brain approach vs. a body-oriented approach and working with the trauma, working with the body and thinking about, ok, what’s the body? It’s people, it’s communities. How do we start to work that way?” -Kyle “I just prefer to see government funds spent on stuff like the green new deal to save us from climate change. Or health care for all- those kinds of things. Why spend to put people in jail, when we could have, just like with cannabis, taxable revenue. I don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Just because it’s not equitable, I don’t think that totally excludes the thing. I’d just like to see less people going to jail, less people being harmed by black market drugs, and more clean appropriate drugs available to the people who want them.” -Joe “How do we have the money to send these paramilitary agents in but you didn’t have the money to produce personal protection equipment for hospitals? What’s going on here?” -Kyle Links U.S. Homeland Security confirms three units sent paramilitary officers to Portland Navy veteran beaten and pepper-sprayed by federal agents at protest in Portland 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

The Joe Costello Show
Maria Luna - CEO of BRAVO Pay

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2020 47:08


  I sat down with CEO Maria Luna from BRAVO Tip or Pay soon to be BRAVO Pay. We finally reconnected after meeting each other in 2016 when she was very kind and supported a venture I was working on here in Phoenix, AZ. The BRAVO app falls in the payment technologies category and is available as both an iPhone and Android app. Initially, the app was created for hard working people and creatives to get tipped for their services and it has now grown into a payment powerhouse. The new version adds so many more features including social media, social connection, fan pages, store fronts and has literally morphed into an all-inclusive app for anyone who works for themselves or has the ability to make money on their directly with their clients and followers. Unlike the competitors who share your information inside their apps like your name, email, phone # and have deep marketing pockets and charge large fees, BRAVO stands out as caring for all who work hard and deliver great service without giving up your identity and taking money out of your pockets with unfair fees. Maria is so sincere and you can tell that her goal is uplifting everyone and that sole purpose is more important to her than making a single dime. I hope you enjoy our conversation and more importantly, I hope you download the BRAVO app and start using it for all your payments, tipping and social interactions when it comes to promoting your goods and services. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIY2hkhIiZs Maria Luna: BRAVO Pay: https://trybravo.com/ Connect with Maria: LinkedIn Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlunaceobravopay/ LinkedIn Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trybravopay/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqzMQ63Znk4H4wKwO496F9A Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bravopay Instagram: https://www.instagrm.com/bravo_pay Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bravo ********** 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 Maria Luna: Joe: Hey, everybody, welcome. I'm excited for my guest today. I have Maria Luna from Bravo. She is going to explain the app and everything about it. Maria and I met, I think, back in twenty sixteen, and I haven't talked to her in quite some time, but they have definitely done a ton of stuff since then. And we're going to get into all that. I'm not going to spoil it. But Maria, welcome and thank you so much for being here. Maria: Thank you. The pleasure is all mine. Joe: There's plenty of interviews with your history and all of your growing up stories about your mother, how she made money and how this is so dear to your heart. The concept of what you built and then your own education, a bachelor's degree, masters degree. So there's plenty of places people can see all that. I really. For me. I love the app so much. And you were so gracious to be a part of my life in 2016. We had opened up a small performance school. And I really want to use this time mostly to get the word out about Bravo and allow you to explain where you've come from and where it's going. I know that there's a new iteration of it since 2016. I didn't even notice in 2016 or actually I didn't even know if this had happened since then. But we're going to talk about Shark Tank, which is cool. I don't know how much you can talk about it, but so you can just say, I can't talk about that. But I just I have some questions about all of that. But again, let's let's start with just the basic concept of what the app does and then we'll get into I know all these other questions will come up. Maria: Awesome, we'll thank you for the opportunity. So with an honor and a pleasure, whenever I invited to speak about our company, it's it's really a team effort. Unfortunately, I'm the majority of the cases on the face of the company, but there's so many amazing people in the team. I want to recognize their work and I'll be happy to answer anything about Bravo and our history and where we're going. More than anything. Joe: Great. Well, again, I think the best place to start is I think there's everyone's going to have some initial confusion when they hear about the app and they then go. But what about and I'm not going to mention any of the other apps that are on that same sort of platform or potentially do somewhat of the same thing, because I know there's a very distinct difference with Bravo. So I need you to explain what Bravo brings to the table where it's different than the the other apps air quotes Maria: Well. Joe: That are happening or what other people might use. Maria: Ok. More than happy. So starting with our journey and our purpose. When we started Bravo, the main purpose is to financially empower anybody that depends on cash payments, tips or content creators and freelancers to make a living. And you say, well, there's many ways of doing that. Yes. But what we bring different to the table. Number one, with Bravo, you your data is not the product. So we do not monetize on our users data. And that has massive implications in your security and the security of your data. And the money. So starting with that, we are super different based on how private, how protective and secure we are for our users. But beyond that, and the purpose to financially empower that takes me to the next version of Bravo. We create first a minimum viable product. And then a beta where we wanted to prove, OK. There is this perfect way. We're two perfect strangers can meet each other, page other and not exchange a single point of data. And that was to take Bravo to the market and prove that there was a need for a super private way for two strangers to connect each other and continue with their lives while taking bravo to the market. And we have listened unlocked to our users and we started to see a lot of verticals popping up beyond the typical tipping situation where you're tipping your valet or anybody that gives you great service. And then we started to see a lot of increase use age in musicians. Broadcasters can benefit from brow. We're seeing some very important podcasts and podcasters using Bravo. Maria: Any type of freelancers, photographers, yoga instructors, trainers. And then we listen to their pain points. And what are those pain points? OK. Whenever they go and put their content out to monetize, to to make a living. All of the platforms out there start either taking a lot from certain income. So they're costly to use their platforms and they start having tiers that make it super complicated. So, for example, if I have ten thousand users, I have access to these tools. But if I don't, I, I do not make the money or I depend on ads. And then they start hiding your content so that you have to pay to be visible and will listen to all of those pain points. And then we did focus groups. We tested things. We went back to them and we made sure that all of the tools to monetize combining that social aspect of it. Let me bring your my content out and let me be financially empowered by my fans or my supporters are in one platform and in a fair price, not hiding anybody's content. So you work hard for your followers or your supporters. I'm not going to hide your content. I'm going to provide those tools and democratize the tools. Why do you need to wait until your super big to have access to to the tools? And that's what we're bringing to the market in our next item nation, which is a perfect combination of sharing who you are monetizing directly from your fan base and providing a store item where you can sell pretty much anything. Joe: Yeah, that's really cool. And along with this new version, is that part of the name change that I saw or did that happen a while ago? Maria: Well, as a company, we because we went very focus on one side of the market. One one niche inside the market, which was tipping. Joe: Mm hmm. Maria: We first position bravo there because we knew that there is a pawn. Right. Tipping was the tip of the iceberg. So we knew that the first thing we could solve right away was that interaction of two strangers. But the vision is way bigger. And it was to eventually become this platform that around the world, anybody can be financially empowered directly from somebody that wants to either pay them for one time. And now we're adding recurring revenue. And we're also opening tools so that you can have your own store inside Bravo, if you will, to to sell anything like experiences. One use case would be I'm a musician and I'm going to say on this concert, I am going to open 10 spaces for people to buy a backstage experience and they can go and buy it on Bravo presented and have their picture taken with their favorite artist. Things like that. So the sky's the limit. Your imagination is the limit. Joe: Right. So is it now called Bravo Pay? Is that official, the Maria: We Joe: Official? Maria: Are evolving now. The Joe: Ok. Maria: Name to the final purpose, which is way bigger than just sending Joe: Tipping. Maria: One time gratuity. So we're evolving the name to Bravo pay. Joe: Awesome. OK, so can I give you some scenarios so that I again, I want this to be I think the marketplace in the sort of pay apps is a little clouded. Or people get used to something and it's a habit forming type thing and they don't they don't want to change and they might not understand that they might be paying fees that they don't need to pay or they're sharing information that they don't need. That's probably the most important thing that Bravo brings to the table unless I've missed something. But that's the thing that I keep hearing, is that it's an anonymous exchange of money, in a sense. Maria: On this version, on our next restoration, on top of that, which is great for your safety and security, what we're adding is that intersection of of social finance of you happen, that direct support from your customer and and your fan base and expanding the tools, democratizing the tools that in any other platform are costly or dependent ads, or they hide your content so that you have to then pay more. Joe: Great. So, again, for clarity, I want to. I want to say that before the new version comes out, though, the huge part of Bravo was not having to exchange any personal information in order for someone to pay you or for you to get paid. Is that correct? Maria: Correct. The security Joe: Ok. Maria: Of being a total. Joe: Right. And so now the new version is you're stacking on the social layer that has been missing because it's just basically was a tipping paying app. But now you're adding in. If you have Bravo, you have all you're capturing all the social tribe that follows you. You're allowed to interact with them. So you're adding other layers that could be more helpful to everybody, but definitely artistic types and creatives for sure. Maria: Correct. And let let me paint the picture for different use cases. Let's Joe: Ok. Maria: Say I'm a yoga instructor and I am on the app and now my my students can not only premium Bravo, but then I can offer it experiences to them through the app that I can sell in my store. So I create a store item for everything that I am going to offer. And like a super private class or an advanced class or anything that I want to offer, I can do it inside the app. I can also grow my my user base or my followers by sharing what I do on the app so I can then also put videos and pictures and content that can be featured on the app and can be also shared to anyone that it's on the app. So we're doing that intersection of social content and payments. Joe: Wow. So it's not just social connection and payments. It's actually you're allowing content. And are you allowing. Are you saying you're allowing even like a store front situation? Maria: Yes, you can create a store on the only thing it's like because of the different regulations of the different platforms, the store items have to be for something physical or something that is not an app purchase. So I can buy things like I like I mentioned the experience of a backstage meeting or I can buy a special class, something that it's not digital. I can buy it on the app, merch, a t shirt, anything that I want to create on a store item for. Joe: That's great. That's really. So it's really come like much different than what I knew. Maria: Oh, yes. The division, it's big and again, because the purpose is to financially empower everyone on all of these tools are offered in a very democratized way. If you use the recurring tools or the additional tools to monetize, Brummell will keep a five percent, but you keep a ninety five percent of the income. And for the gratuity payments, you keep a hundred percent of. Joe: Right, sorry, member. The the actual formula is it's a two percent fee going to the person that's actually making the payment. Right. So it's a Maria: Which which is another differentiator, because Joe: Right. Maria: Let's say if you're going to make a payment with other platforms, you in order for that transaction to be free, and then when I say, quote unquote, free, it's because you are the product most of the time. But let's say if you're going to pay with those platforms, you can only pay with a debit card or retrieving the money directly from your bank account. Bravo allows credit card payments at a two percent fee, which is Joe: Yeah. Unheard of. Maria: Unheard of in the market. Well, yes. Joe: Yeah, it doesn't happen. And it's funny because the listeners and eventually I take this and I put it on my You Tube channel because some people just don't. I don't want the content to be lost for people who don't listen to podcast. But you and I are both in Arizona. And I first saw Bravo when I would pull up to various restaurants and the valet would have a sign and I would look at it and would say, bravo, you know, tipping and whatever the sign said or used to say or still says, I'm not sure. But again, for the users, I want them to understand that what has to happen is both parties have to have the app on their phone, which is a free app. It's downloadable on either Android or iPhone. Right. And the initial way that the payment occurs is by the Jeep finding that person via G.P.S.. Maria: There's Joe: Right. Maria: Two ways if I am near you. I can you find you by proximity because of the G.P.S. capabilities. But we also have a search tab that I can find you by your username. And that's another way we protect your privacy, because my name is Murray. I will not. But on the app, if bananas is not taken, I can be bananas. So that gives another layer of security. Obviously we're in the payments industry in the back end. We need to know who you are because there are laws and regulations. Joe: Mm hmm. Maria: We need to know our customers there so KYC know your customer regulations. So in the back end, we know who you are, but the person that it's paying you doesn't need to know, you know, your real information if you don't want to. Joe: Right. Maria: Your handle is customizable. Joe: Sure. And I think that, again, money. I don't want to say this in the wrong way. Money is great. But money. Physical money is really dirty. Like Maria: It's Joe: The handle. Maria: 30 Joe: It's nasty. Maria: Now, the call, the make makes us realize they're doing more. Joe: Right. So this is a very cool thing because the timing of it where I now have a fairly sizable booking agency in Arizona. And then we expanded into Colorado last summer. So now we're in two states and we have over 500 forms of entertainment on our roster, everything from literally a instrumental guitarist to synchronize swimmers in a pool all the way up to A-list entertainment. And so for us and our entertainers were in that time right now where they are very you know, they all need to go back to work because that's how they make their living. Most of ours are full time entertainers, but they don't want people coming up to them to necessarily request songs because they get right on top of you there, or sometimes they'll even come up. I've seen people come up and they're right in your ear while you're playing a song you're trying to set. It's just ridiculous. Maria: Yeah. Joe: But on top of it, having people come close to put in a tip and put that money in a tip jar, and then you have to handle all that money later on at the end of the night. So this is a huge way to get rid of that whole they don't have to get out of their seat, that you don't have to handle dirty money. And it's just another great reason why, you know, not only the entertainers should all have the app, but consumers should start to look to put it on their phone and they're going to see more more opportunities pop up where they don't have to go, pat their pockets and go, oh, I don't have any cash. It's just right. It's all done. Maria: Correct. Joe: Yeah. Maria: And that is the general purpose. We want everybody to work hard for their money. That has something to bring to the world. Either service or your art, your talent to be to have a decent way of living. So we want to facilitate that interaction where I can. I see. I love what you do and I just tip you or pay you. But now, on top of a one time gratuity, we're adding the ability for me to subscribe to you as a fan and then on a monthly basis support what you do. So do us a podcast or I can subscribe on a monthly basis, you know, support what you do. But I also we're offering and bringing to the table partnerships like right now. We partnered with so many virtual concerts. There's a group, Facebook, that does a blues night every single night, and they're accepting the tips via Bravo. And a lot of people tell me, you know. What is next? So what is next is all of these tools that we are providing to put even more money on the hands of the creators, the artists and the service workers. And then we are going to be rolling out a marketing campaign state by state, to bring the word out in a disciplined way. I'm very proud to say that we we took problem from a bootstrap organic movement to now a movement that is going not only in the USA, but we're going to expanding to Europe, we're going to expanding to Latin America eventually. So Canada will say so. Yeah, you're going to hear more about us. Joe: Yeah, and I want the listeners to know that I knew you when. Because it's true. It's and and the fact that you and your husband, Hector, the both of you are real people like you've come from understanding that this is a situation where you're you're you're making money at something. But more of it is that you're helping people like it's a very sincere movement. This is not a gouging situation. Maria: Well, I would say it's a team effort, like the idea was conceived in a trip that hit there I was we were we wanted to tip our tour guide. We couldn't we didn't have cash. And that's where the idea was born. It took me back to the days of my mother living Joe: Yeah. Maria: On tips and all of that. And then we wanted to create an easy way for people to connect and pay. And then the vision was eventually this could help not only in the ticketing situations, but people that depend on other people to pay at a distance or take a bigger level. But we wanted to go very disciplined. It was the two of us at the very beginning. Joe: Mm hmm. Maria: I mean, Elmer joined us. Hector is a self-taught coder, although he's a physician. So he did the initial wire frames. Then Elmer joined us as a chief technology officer. And now we have six engineers of of world class quality. Joe: Wow. Maria: We have a team. We have Adam that then joined us in the marketing side and sales side. Travis Kohlberg, that it's he is super young, but probably one of the most creative social content creators in the world that he's working with big names. I can I don't dare to say it because, I mean, I don't know how private these projects are, but as big as it gets and we're so fortunate that he is part of the team as well. So super talented, passionate people. And we started with twenty five users by invitation. I think I knew you a little bit after that. Joe: Sure. Maria: And we have been told everything. We have been told that brand is going to crush you. They have, you know, millions and millions and billions of dollars. And unlike we're driven by a purpose, we're not here to take anybody out of market. We are creating our own opportunities. And the more the merrier, the more tools that people have to make money. And let's all competing. In fairness, I'm not afraid of big money or big pockets because we are driven by that purpose. We created a grass roots with twenty five users now. Now we're over two hundred and fifty thousand people all over USA and growing. And that is because of a true excited people talking to their customers and their fan base. Joe: Yeah, that's great. I'm really happy for you. I want to. Can we talk about the subscription piece of it just Maria: Because. Joe: So that I so that I understand? I want to make sure that the users, both the person getting the money and the person paying, understand that the app is free and they just put in whatever their information and then they can create, like you say, create their handle, which basically makes them somewhat anonymous or hidden. But then you offer a subscription based. Maria: And that it's coming. It's not available to Joe: Ok. Maria: Everyone yet. However, Joe: Ok. Maria: All of our brand ambassadors are testing it and very soon we're going to open it for a number of thousands of people. General public that that one, too, tested. We're going to open it for testing before releasing it to the whole wide world. And then it's a beautiful thing. Now we're allowing people to first check us out. So you don't even need to create an account to see. And that's we are changing also our tag name to explore, pay, earn, because that describes better what you can do on the app. Joe: Mm hmm. Maria: So you can explore different profiles. So you create your profile. I'm going to be able to see your profile even before I decide, OK, I'm going to actually sign up to sign up. You provide very little information, your name, your last name, your email. You enter and you can even enter with your credentials with Facebook twitch, many Apple. We're allowing people just boom. I entered with my own credentials and then you can explore the content, whatever you are offering on the app. Your videos, your pictures, all of that, it's free. I don't need to pay for all that to the content creators. What we allow them to do is create a subscription model. So let's say your diehard fans or customers can then subscribe to support you and you can offer them physical experiences or things or merch or anything that it's not an in app purchase. You can offer them on the app by creating sport items. So more to come. We are going to start releasing little by little. We already started a teaser campaign of what's coming on Joe: Mm hmm. Maria: Social media Bravo page. But we're going to very soon open it for people to test themselves. Joe: Yeah, that's great. So one of the things that I saw was Richard Sherman. Is he a spokesperson for Bravo? Maria: I am so fortunate, again, that we started with so many passionate users, but then they brought Richard Sherman is one of the kindest, nicest human beings ever. And he he shared with me that even though he's very conscientious of the importance of of empowering, financially empowering people, he dedicates time to educate his fellow friends on players, on the importance of finance and good education on your own finances. So he loved the idea and he joined us. He's part of our advisory team to better understand that world of athletes, because that's another thing. You create content. You can be a problem. Not only you have to be on service. I'm an athlete. Think about all of the athletes right now sitting at home waiting to be called to work. And now they can have this opportunity that on the app they share who they are, they share the routines, they can share everything, and then they can have that special connection with their fans. Something else we're adding on. It's the ability to chat with your favorite person, but it's at will. So let's say you can say to my customers, I'm going to chat with them Fridays at 1:00 p.m. and then you can turn it off as well. Joe: Yeah, that's great. And I just before we get away from Richard Sherman, I want to make sure that the listeners, because not everyone's going to know him if they don't watch football. But he's a he's an amazing NFL football player. Maria: With the San Francisco 49ers. Joe: That's it. All right. Maria: Yes, yes, he's a cornerback for Joe: Yeah. Maria: The San Francisco 49ers. Joe: To Maria: And Joe: Try. Maria: But again, beyond the big figure that he is inside of the NFL. He is a way bigger human being. He has his own charity. He's he's an amazing person. Joe: That's great. It's great to hear I was really when I saw that, I was like, wow, this is man, Murray is blowing it up and I just. It's crazy. Maria: Really, it's the whole the whole team and the passion behind it. Joe: Yeah, it's really, really exciting. I'm glad. Oh, so when is the new version? I think you said you're starting to kind of send it out here and there to different Maria: Well, Joe: People. Maria: Right now, all of our brand ambassadors have it in their hands. So they're they're testing it for us. And we gathered all of their feedback to make it even stronger on the next phase. Very soon we're going to release it to their fan base. So they're going to be able to provide a code to their fan base to test it. And we are going to also do a campaign so people can request to test it before we release it to the general public. Joe: And is there a release date? Maria: We're not going to announce it yet because Joe: Ok. Maria: There's many factors, and once you are in technology, you know that there are many factors around the launch. And we wanted to make it again, like everything we have done in a lack of grassroots. So we want to bring both our ambassadors, the ambassadors, Zoom, bowling their fan base. We're going to open it to people that are curious when tested and we want to use their voices. So if I talk to you, I can talk for many hours. But if a friend of yours or somebody you admire tells you this is a secure, perfect way for us to have this connection, then it's a more personalized thing. Joe: So you've mentioned a couple of times about a brand ambassador. Can you explain to me what that is and how someone would find out about it and how to become one? Maria: Well, we call them Jubran Ambassadors, but they're so gracious. They're just people that that love our kirp really much Joe: So Maria: Up. Joe: I can be a brand ambassador. Maria: Yes. You're hired. No. Yes. It's people that are passionate enough to join our movement and we call them Bravo family. And they just they just tested with their with their fan base because ultimately it's a tool to be empowered financially, directly by their supporters in the future as we grow. We will open opportunities for. To be paid to be a brand ambassador. But so far, it's a very grassroots. We have famous people like Madonna's guitarist. This woman want to give money Joe: Yes. Maria: Is one Joe: I saw Monty Maria: Rapper. Joe: And on the Shark Tank episode. Maria: Yes. Joe: Yeah. Maria: And he's still he's like a like a brother. I love him so much. I would have a richer. We have Mike Studd, which is a platinum recording artist, and he also has a podcast called Y and Kay. We have John Kilmer's that does a podcast with him. We have Alice Cooper, Solid Rock. We Joe: Oh, Maria: Have Joe: Awesome. Maria: Lee Jansen that it's a professional golf player. Jarrett under Meehl, which is a band that it's amazing. If you haven't heard your music, find you a band. I can't keep going on and on. There's there's many and comedian Brad Bryant Toffler, so many that I am I will be unfair if I leave somebody out. Joe: Right. Maria: But. Joe: No, I get it, I get it. Yeah. It's so funny. I know for Ruka and I know Jared Jared in the middle. Just because, you know, they're Arizona based, but. Yeah. That's awesome. I have a question that I don't want to forget to ask. How does somebody know that that person has Bravo? And I know that at one point when we know you and I met and in 2016 and we had it, there were stickers and there were signage. And so does that all of that still happen? Is that still available to someone? Maria: We can, but court called it temporarily changed the scene. And Joe: Ok. Maria: I'm very proud to say that the spy, that many restaurants have been affected and we have been partnering with some like Helio Raisin. It's a local restaurant that we partnered with two to help as much as we can. But all of that market dried up very soon. And then we started then to see a lot of growth in the virtual world, like like the blues artist that I mentioned and the musicians and whatnot. So we have been growing despite all of this tragedy. And my heart goes out to everybody that it's suffering from from this cold it. But the main point to be said is that that changed the arena. So now the physical interaction doesn't happen as much, though, paid by proximity. So most of the things are virtual. And the way people let them know was talking about it, like you can find no. Awful. Joe: Ok. Yeah. So if a performer let's so I already have people back at work at a local resort here called the Phoenician. So it would be a matter of them getting into the habit of saying, Maria: You Joe: Hey, Maria: Can remember Joe: You know, Maria: The. Joe: Yeah, just if you like what you hear, please hit me up on Bravo. Just something simple like that. Yeah, Maria: Now Joe: Well, that's Maria: It Joe: Great. Maria: Is, but I guess I can mention it is a movement. And normally the person that it's the receiving side has the power to to to bring the message to the people. They. Joe: Yeah, yeah, and it's funny because you mentioned the virtual stuff. And obviously I have a lot of entertainers locally in town that I know that I see up on any of the various platforms doing their live sessions with the hope of making any amount of tips whatsoever to just keep their head above water. So it more than ever, it's important to a have an app like Bravo to be able to receive those tips. And the fact that you're not gouging them with these huge fees. And so everything that a fan or a customer pays, they have it all goes to them. And it's just it's a great thing. So I just I can't stress it enough because I just think that you're in a different realm and I know that you're sincere and it's very much comes from the heart, which is in the business world. That's a hard mixture of having a heart and still wanting to be successful. Maria: I Joe: But. Maria: Don't know what they have to fight, like Joe: I. Maria: Henry Ford said once, a business that only makes money, it's a poor business. And I totally live by that. Joe: Yeah. Maria: You can. I have to be responsible with my stakeholders. And obviously, we're adding now more ways to monetize forever. The receiving side gets the one time gratuities for free and then the recurring revenue because we need to provide other tools. They keep running five percent. But beyond making money, why not be that responsible partner in society where everybody is uplifted with you? That that's Joe: Yeah, Maria: What actually. Joe: Yeah. And you are that person, so thank you for that. I appreciate it for sure. OK, so Maria: But Joe: Now. Maria: Now you're hired as an ambassador Joe: Ok. Maria: To Joe: All right. I'm holding Maria: The. Joe: You to it. All right. So I want to talk about Shark Tank because Maria: Of course. Joe: I didn't know it totally caught me by surprise. And I'm a huge shark tank fan. I follow all of them on social media. I comment all the time on a lot of stuff, on Laurie Laurie stuff and on Damon's stuff. They seem to really be up there a lot. Those are the two that I and you know, the likes. I mean, I don't know if it's them in the background doing it, but it seems sincere, like they they seem like they might be the ones answering the comments or are liking them or not. But who knows. But I have the date of November 5th. Twenty seventeen. Is that correct? Maria: That's correct. Joe: Ok. And I understand the way it happened was you had won a tech award at some other. Maria: Right through San Francisco, Joe: What was it again? Maria: Techcrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, the audience speak. Bravo was their favorite startup. Joe: Yeah. And so from there, my understanding was one of the producers from Shark Tank saw that, heard heard about it, whatever, and invited you on. Maria: Yes, they invited us to to to start the process. But after that, you just like anybody else, so you don't have any special privilege. You still have to submit your versions and everything. And then you go through a very lengthy process all the way until they select the final people presenting. And we were in that group. It was a great experience. And they're they're good people. They're fun. They're they're they're good human beings. Joe: So when you say a lengthy process, what what is that? Maria: I mean, I cannot share because I would I have a confidentiality Joe: Yep, Maria: Agreement, I can there's things that I can not share. Joe: Yep. Maria: But let me. It is not that you just submitted one audition and you're in. That's as much as I can say there. It's a process. Joe: Sure. Maria: It's an Joe: Ok. Maria: Ongoing process where they filter different. The offers are are real. All the conversations are real. And like in any business situation after the show, then there's the conversation continues. Joe: Yes. Maria: And then some companies move on with the offers and some companies are not necessarily depending on on additional discussions. Joe: Mm hmm. Maria: But I have to say they were very fair throughout the process. Everybody makes their own decisions based on what is best for the future. Joe: So Laurie said, and I quote. You were Maria: Lori. Joe: Here. You were one of the most impressive people she has ever seen on the carpet. Maria: She was very generous to say that. And I have to say this about her. I always say that whenever you say something good about a person or bad. Unfortunately. But I tend not to say or try not to say anything bad about anybody. But whenever somebody says something good is because they see that doubting themselves. And Laurita is a good person. So she is all about women empowerment. And I think she was super kind and generous of saying that. And I thank her for that. Joe: How nervous were you? Maria: I have to say the truth at the moment that you're pitching, there's this all adrenaline that it's in you that you're going to an automatic mode. And I'm the kind of person that I don't take no for an answer easily at least. Oh, I went there to bring it before that. I was extremely nervous, like any other human being, because there's many things. I mean, obviously, I saw other chapters where they pretty much crush the Joe: Right. Maria: Spinners. But my team and this is we're having a great team behind you. It's so important. Heck, they're out on Karoline, everybody. My team kept me focused on one thing. The people that do poorly on the show, it's because they don't know their business for a reason or they don't prepare well. But we built this from the ground up. I deal with the finances when the accounting, everything. So from day one. So I knew the numbers. I knew my stuff. And I knew my purpose and the purpose of everybody in the team. So that that took care of of the, you know, having the confidence. I mean, in life, what what can happen is not going to kill you. It's going to make you stronger if it goes by. Joe: It's a. Maria: Fortunately, when. Well, and it opened great doors for us. Joe: I have to tell you, I could be an amazing entrepreneur. I think if I only had the financial side of things together and I think that's probably my biggest downfall. And I'm trying. It's just so hard for me. But the fact that, like everyone that goes on Shark Tank, you go in with. We want this amount of money for this percentage of the company or whatever type of deal. But Muzi, it's that, right? It's we want X for X and you after the end. So the first thing happened is Barbara sort of interrupted you as you were about to explain some stuff and just said, I'm out. Whatever she said it was. And then Kevin thought the space was complicated. So he was out. Alex very cordial. He was just like, if it's not on the back of a napkin, I can't understand that. But me, the back of an envelope, I forget. Maria: Oh, my God. Do you remember it better than I Joe: Yeah, Maria: Do? Joe: Well, I just I had to watch it because I wanted to make sure that I really understood what happened. And then I could see Lori and Mark whispering and ultimately they made you the offer. But the thing that impressed me the most was you were so calm. And when they gave you the offer, it wasn't even like you turned to Hector and did one of those Pylos that everyone doesn't share. You were like you knew the numbers so well that you knew what you could give up and what you couldn't give up. And you counter offered, like, so quickly and so precisely. Damn, I want to know how to do that. Maria: Well, I think it's, um, it's a combination of you have other people that that were with us, friends and family that believed in us and invested also in the company. So you have to have them also in mind and have a bare minimum that will bring value to the people that believed in your first. Right. So that that was part of it. And. And having a, you know, a plan for what was acceptable and what wasn't. Joe: Yeah, it was amazing. I was just like, wow, I would have crumbled when when Barbara first Centera, I would have been like, oh, it threw me off and I would have just been all over the place. But you were just right right there. I say, go, go, Maria. It's like. Maria: They're very gracious. It's just like, oh, well, obviously it's a show, so they baby to make it super endearing, like there were places where I saw policies and I'm like, they make it, you know, super exciting. And that's that's why they're successful. They're they're very good at anything. Joe: Yeah, it was great. OK. So let me recap. So what is the Web site for the app Maria: Look, Joe: At? Maria: You can go to try. Bravo dot com right now, because we started this campaign, you're going to see a video. Is an upgraded experience coming soon? But I tried Bravo dot com. If they want to contact us, they can write to support. I try like when you try something new. I try bravo dot com support. I tried Robillard. Com and and contact us. And also we're very responsive on Instagram. Well you can find us. That's Bromwell underscore pay. And Facebook and Twitter. Joe: Yeah, and I'll. Maria: We're on TCW. Joe: Perfect. So and I'll go and put all the links in the show notes so that it'll be easily accessible by everyone. So again, to make it super, super clear for everyone so they don't go and go. What about. I hate to use this to use that word again. The selling point for Bravo is that it's a very safe, secure, practically or basically anonymous way to pay and accept money from from anyone. So. Maria: Yes. And then in all of those payment applications, which Bravo, that's a small part of Bravo were more than just payments. But those payment applications are are designed for friends and family to pay each other because you need to trust the person. If if I don't trust you, I better not receive the money because once I pay or I it's it's a done deal. And then. But with Bravo, more robust way to pay a stranger, for starters. But then the next version of Bravo, which is super robust, where you can share who you are. Share your content directly. Contact your fan base or your fan base. Contact you and then offer exclusive experiences or merch on the same. Joe: It's really exciting. I am, Maria: The majority of the money, it's a recurring Joe: Yes. Maria: And keep a hundred percent if it's a one time thing. Joe: That's a big, big plus. So I'm really excited for you and Hector and the whole team. I feel like we're family because we go back so far. And I felt like it was the beginning. Even though I know you start I think it was 2014 was the inception of. Maria: Well, we've we formed the company in 2014, but our minimum viable product. We brought it to the market in 2015. Joe: So a year later, I met you. So and here we are, 20, 20. And you guys are just crushing it. And I'm really happy for you. Maria: Thank you. Thank Joe: So Maria: You. Joe: I'll put in all the links in the show notes. And this way everyone can find you and reach out and I'll make sure this gets on all the various platforms that I push this out to. I'm almost at 5000 friends on my Facebook. Me musician page. So they will see this and hopefully we can convert them over and have them start using Bravo. And keep. Maria: Let them join Joe: Yeah. Maria: The movement. Joe: Let them join the movement. I love it. Well, I can't thank you enough for your time. I know you're super busy, but stay healthy. Much success to you. I'm really excited for you both. And the team. Maria: Thank you. Let's continue the conversation. I don't want to lose contact with you. Joe: I know it's been too long. Right. Maria: Yes. Yes. Joe: All right. Maria: It's really Joe: Well, Maria: A pleasure Joe: Thank Maria: To see Joe: You Maria: You. Joe: So much. Maria: All right. Take care.

IT Career Energizer
Refocus Regularly to Stay Relevant and Shoot for the Top with Joe Carson

IT Career Energizer

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2020 34:34


Phil’s guest on this episode of the IT Career Energizer podcast is Joe Carson. Joe is a cybersecurity professional with over 25 years’ experience in Enterprise Security & Infrastructure.  He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, an active member of the Cyber Security Community, and a frequent speaker at Cyber Security events around the world. He is currently the Chief Security Scientist at Thycotic. In this episode, Phil and Joe Carson discuss how to keep your skills fresh and relevant. Joe explains that it is not just about learning new languages. He shares how he uses physical experiences to help him to identify the right way to approach projects. Joe also identifies several areas of technology that are set to take off, in the near future. They also discuss how to get started in the cybersecurity field.   KEY TAKEAWAYS: (5.38) TOP CAREER TIP Never stop learning. Being a continuous learner ensures you do this and keep moving. It is now normal to have to switch roles and tech every five years or so. Knowing when to let go of a technology you love and move onto other things is important. Joe explains how he works out what the trends are and stays ahead of the curve. As you will see from the podcast, that does not always mean learning a new programming language.   (11.26) WORST CAREER MOMENT In 1999, Joe was working on the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service system, which is clearly a critical system. Naturally, around that time they were preparing for the year2K switchover. So, they had to take the system down completely and restart it from scratch. When they did, the screen was blank. A truly awful, heart-stopping moment. In the podcast, Joe shares the strange reason behind that situation.   (15.39) CAREER HIGHLIGHT In the early days of TEDX, Joe was asked to speak. He enjoyed the experience. But the highlight came after he had given his speech and sat back down. At that point, he looked at the list of people were speaking with him and was blown away when he realized that he was in the company of people who had achieved amazing things. Olympians and quite literally rocket scientists. Until that moment, he had not really appreciated how far he had come and what he had achieved.   (18.23) THE FUTURE OF CAREERS IN I.T Joe is excited by the pace of change. Provided we embrace things like AI, with responsibility, he believes that our lives will improve in unimaginable ways. The other thing that Joe talks about is the way in which humans interact with technology is changing. We will soon be using our brains rather than our fingers or voice to interface with all kinds of devices. So, right now the fascinating areas of data, cognitive, and neuroscience are especially hot.   (22.59) THE REVEAL What first attracted you to a career in I.T.? – Joe´s love of gaming is what ultimately lead him to a career in IT. What’s the best career advice you received? – Don´t be a perfectionist. What’s the worst career advice you received? – You need to be prepared to relocate to be successful. What would you do if you started your career now? – Joe says he would not want to change much. What are your current career objectives? – Learning more about RFID, radio frequencies, and IoT. What’s your number one non-technical skill? – The ability to simplify things and explain complex things to practically anyone. How do you keep your own career energized? – Joe is always trying new things, which keeps his career energized. What do you do away from technology? – Joe enjoys photography, scuba diving, and travel.   (30.27) FINAL CAREER TIP Shoot for the top. You do not necessarily have to take baby steps to get to your ultimate goal. Often, you can take a big leap and get there far faster than you think is possible.   BEST MOMENTS (6.03) – Joe- “Keep moving forward and motivated. Embrace new ideas and never think it is too late to learn something fresh.” (8.11) – Joe- “When creating something new, fully understand what you are trying to achieve by studying how it has to work in the physical world.” (11.03) – Joe- “Dedicate blocks of time to something specific. This is the best way to deepen your understanding.” (22.01) – Joe- “How we interface with technology is going to change drastically. So, that is a big growth area.” (23.48) – Joe- “Don't try to be a perfectionist and don't be afraid to share and ask for advice.” (31.46) – Joe- “Bypass all those small steps. Focus on your big goal, and just go for it.”   ABOUT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil Burgess is an independent IT consultant who has spent the last 20 years helping organizations to design, develop, and implement software solutions.  Phil has always had an interest in helping others to develop and advance their careers.  And in 2017 Phil started the I.T. Career Energizer podcast to try to help as many people as possible to learn from the career advice and experiences of those that have been, and still are, on that same career journey.   CONTACT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms: Twitter: https://twitter.com/philtechcareer LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/philburgess Facebook: https://facebook.com/philtechcareer Instagram: https://instagram.com/philtechcareer Website: https://itcareerenergizer.com/contact Phil is also reachable by email at phil@itcareerenergizer.com and via the podcast’s website, https://itcareerenergizer.com Join the I.T. Career Energizer Community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ITCareerEnergizer   ABOUT THE GUEST – JOE CARSON Joe Carson is a cybersecurity professional with over 25 years’ experience in Enterprise Security & Infrastructure.  He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, an active member of the Cyber Security Community, and a frequent speaker at Cyber Security events around the world. He is currently the Chief Security Scientist at Thycotic.   CONTACT THE GUEST – JOE CARSON Joe Carson can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms: Twitter: https://twitter.com/joe_carson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephcarson/ Website: https://www.thycotic.com/      

The Quiet Light Podcast
How to Handle Any Problem on Amazon with Steven Pope

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2020 38:10


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

The Joe Costello Show
Part 2 - A Conversation with Richard Maxwell

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 3, 2020 83:03


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

The Joe Costello Show
Part 2 - An Interview with Nate Morton, Drummer for "The Voice"

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2020 62:19


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.

The Joe Costello Show
An Interview with Radio Personality, Commentator, Drummer, Rick Lewis

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 30, 2020 80:18


Rick and I became friends some years back through a mutual acquaintance and our friendship has grown more and more over the years. We have a deep respect for each other, our drive and our accomplishments. We share a kinship in that we're both drummers and love to watch each other perform and share our experiences on and off the stage. Rick takes us all the way back to his early childhood where we learn how his path and his outlook on life, was created at a young age both musically and personally. You will hear him say throughout this interview, the words “No Fear!” and you'll see why he has accomplished so much in his life up to date and why he continues to push himself and grow even more. ********** Rick Lewis: Radio Personality Color Commentator for the Denver Broncos Drummer for The Rick Lewis Project *iHeartRadio Shows* https://thefox.iheart.com/featured/the-rick-lewis-show/ https://koanewsradio.iheart.com/featured/logan-lewis/ Rick's Links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1ricklewis Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ricklewisproject/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/1RickLewis https://youtu.be/oDbwc0ss72A ********** 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. For show notes and past guests, please visit 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 Rick Lewis Interview: Rick Lewis Interview Joe: Hey, Rick Lewis, man. How you doing? Glad you Rick: Well, Joe: Could join me. Rick: Good to see you, too, Joe. As you can tell, as we were setting this up, I'm a borderline moron when it comes to this type of technology, so I'm trying my best. Joe: Hey, that's what happens when you're a big shot and they have everybody around you taking care of the technology. You just sit back and put the Rick: Yeah I need an I.T. guy at my house Joe: Headphones on and start talking Joe: [laughter] All right, cool. So I just wanted to start from the beginning. We're gonna just do a quick overview of where you started out and so let's just dig into it, man. Everyone's going to know by the time we start talking, at least your bio and everything else. But, you know, I want to start from the very beginning and get a quick synopsis of where you grew up, where you were born, where you grew up. Start from there. Rick: Yeah. So I was. I was born outside of Detroit, Michigan, in a steel town, blue collar steel town. Great place to grow up. Just, you know, really, really good childhood. A lot of great memories. My dad worked for a chemical company there and we lived there from the time I was born till 6th grade. And then my dad started moving around the country because he was kind of moving up, up the ladder in his company. My dad was the first guy in our family to ever get a college degree. And so he kind of broke the mold of, you know, generations of the family. And I really admire him for doing that because he had five kids. He was going to night school to get a degree. I don't know how he did that, but he did it. And once he got his degree, he started kind of moving up in the corporate world a bit. So middle of 6th grade, I moved from Detroit to Columbus, Ohio, middle of 9th grade, I moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Naperville, Illinois, which is right outside Chicago. And then just before my senior year, we moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. So we moved around quite a bit. I went to I think it was four different high schools, in two different states. And I think that...you know, what the time was was a little bit traumatizing because you're always the new kid. But looking back on it now, I realize that it it there were some good things about it that kind of molded me into who I am today. Joe: Right and from what I know, you and I are friends and I know you a fair amount, but I have a feeling that you are really good athlete, right? Rick: I was a really good athlete. Yeah. You know, growing up, I always thought I wanted to be a pro athlete. And that was my dream and that was my dream until I got into college, and then once you get into college with with better competition, you know that that dream was quickly shattered and I realized that that wasn't going to come to fruition. But so that was about until I was about 19 years old, until I realized that, yeah, I'm a good athlete, but there's a lot better athletes than me out there and it just wasn't in the cards for me. But yeah, growing up, we played every sport in Detroit. You know, every sport throughout the season, hockey, baseball, basketball, football and very, very competitive. We played we played a lot of sandlot games back there that were very competitive with some really good players and it was it was really cool to be in that type of competition where you have a real sense of pride for your street or your neighborhood and you're playing against all these other neighborhoods. And it got, it got to the point where there'd be fights. You know, there'd be a lot of, a lot of people that held grudges, you know, and that type of thing and ah like I said, it was kind of a tough part of of the country with all like blue collar, you know, people's kids that were really grinder's and just really gave everything they did...100% percent effort. Joe: Right! Rick: And I was one of those guys. Joe: I know, I know from your mentality that you weren't going to take any shit from anybody, so, so so how did you get to NAU in Flagstaff? Rick: Ok. Joe: How'd you pick that school out of out of Rick: Yeah, Joe: Everything? You know Rick: Well, like I said, we moved around a lot, so I was a good football player. And the fact that we moved right before my senior year was not good for somebody that was hoping to move on and play college football and get recruited and get it to a good football program because, you know, it's hard to follow somebody, especially back then, not today with social media. You know, it's a lot easier to get your profile out there to, you know, college recruiters and coaches. But back then, it wasn't. So the fact that I moved right before my senior year was a bit of a handicap for me. But I had a good senior year and I was getting recruited throughout the state of Ohio and Indiana and Kentucky and places like that. That I wasn't really that interested in going to, you know, a lot of smaller schools, a few mid-level schools. I did get letters from some other schools around the country, too, that were bigger. But I didn't have the confidence at that point to one up, you know, leave, leave or leave home and go halfway across the country to try to play at a at a bigger school. But anyway, NAU one of the schools that that did recruit me back then, I never even heard it in a year in Ohio. I mean, I had never heard of that. I heard the name before. So I ended up going to actually went to Miami University, Miami of Ohio, which was about an hour, maybe an hour and a half from my house. And the reason I did that is because at a high school girlfriend that I thought for me it was more important that I stay close to home so I could be around this high school girlfriend and Miami of Ohio had a really good football team at the time. Rick: They didn't recruit me. So I just went there so I could be closer to my girlfriend. Three weeks since you broke up with me and, you know, the typical freshman story. And so I couldn't wait to get out of that school. I mean, I just kind of I waited one quarter and I quit and I came back home and try to figure out what I was going to do next. And it was at that point that I really I think is when I would say I became a man at that point, because I had a I had a bit of, I guess you'd call it an awakening or epiphany back then as I was going through all of this pain, you know, this is high school heartbreak. And I realized that ah, that I had, I was I was blessed with a lot of things. I was I was born at the right time, you know, born in the United States. You know, I was athletic. I had had some intelligence. I had some musical ability. And I realized that I had all of these skills that were already given to me and that it was my job at that point to take all of these gifts and then try to make them better, you know, try to enhance myself in every way and become a better person all around. And so once I had that epiphany, I decided that it was time to launch. And I remember that NAU had recruited me and I like I said, I'd never even heard of you before but Arizona seemed like a really exotic place to be, especially for a kid from Ohio. And so I decided that's where I was going to go. Joe: And what did you. Yeah. So what did you go there to do? Cause it it wasn't getting go there for football, right. Rick: Yeah, Joe: What was your major. Rick: I did. Joe: Oh you did. Rick: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Joe: Oh, cool. Rick: And I had no major in mind at that point. I was I was on a different kind of mission. I wasn't going there to learn or be educated out of a book. I was going there to experience life. And so the school part of it wasn't all that important to me. I had something else in mind and that was just, you know, finding out who I was, what I was fully capable of doing, challenging myself and at that point, I would say I had no fear. I had no fear of failure. I had, I didn't even have a second thought that whatever I did wasn't going to work, that I would find a way to make it work. And I would find a way to be successful and I just...I could have I could have done anything at that point. I literally could have done anything. But I didn't know what it was yet. But I had a feeling whatever I did, it was going to be great! It which change this belief, just this faith that I had. So I went out there, you know, the football was a part of the package, but it was really just to find myself in the football part of it ended up becoming becoming a very minor part of the experience out there, because I learned so much about myself and what I was capable of doing. And I had several majors when I was there. I just you know, I could never find anything that really interested me enough in school until one day at the gym, a guy told me that he had a show on the campus radio station and he said, you should come down tonight to them on my radio show. I'd never even thought of it. And I said, "OK, that sounds cool, I'll do that". So I went in there that night and I really liked it. He put me on the air. I ended up getting my own show. I'd found my thing, basically. So when I went out there for with complete confidence that I would find but not knowing what it was at the time, I did find it. It's... Joe: How far was that into into that college year or like was it the first year, second year? Rick: I want to say it was year two. And I was only there for two and a half years, so I would say probably right after my first year I discovered that. And then I switched my major to radio TV. Like I said, I got my own show on the campus station. I, I knew I was...I knew I was good at it right away. You know, I just found my thing just like you when you found that you could play drumms, right? You knew Joe: Yeah. Rick: What your thing is. So I knew what my thing was. And so I also got I was doing ah...I was like a club deejay. They had nightclubs and stuff like that, you know like disco kind of thing. I became a disco deejay and that was really fun, I really enjoyed that. And just once again, just developing my craft, basically learning how to talk in front of people, learning how to put on a show, learning how to present. And that just was just giving me more and more experience for my radio TV career that follow. So after, after a year or so of doing that, you know, a lot of people were telling me, you know, a lot of people in Flagstaff were telling me right now my, my group of people [laughter] Joe: Right. Rick: Would be, you know, they were saying, you know, "Rick, you're really good at this man. You should go to Hollywood. You should you should try to get into movies in Hollywood". And I was thinking, yeah, you know what? I should probably try that. And so once again, going back to the no fear thing, that's what I did, I ended up quitting NAU after two and a half years. This was this because after like right after the fall semester. So going in to the spring, some guy that was driving to California for a job and I didn't have a car, I didn't have any money, I literally five bucks, that's all I had. So I had no car, I had five dollars to my name, everything I owned a pillowcase. I did, I didn't have any, anywhere to go up there, I had no place to stay...nothing. Well, there's this guy that I was driving out with, had a van, so I thought, well, you know, if I get desperate, I could maybe sleep in this guy's van. So I went out there and I quickly got hired at a club about there in Orange County as a deejay. And not only did I get a job, they gave me room and board at a at this nice hotel because the club was at a hotel. So I got a job, room and board at the hotel, I got a company car, all my, all my meals paid for and all my laundry and dry cleaned. Joe: Geez. Rick: So it was like I hit the lotto, you know? And I remember I called my dad up when I got out there because he was really mad at quit school. And I called my dad up when I got out there and he ah...he goes, "So what are you really doing out there, son?" He goes "Are you in the Mafia or something?" He goes, "He said, no...nobody gives a 21 year old kid a company car". I said, yeah, I know, Dad, but they did and so I had that, you know, so that gave me some stability and some income. And I went out and got an agent and this agent sent me out on my first, like very first audition was a movie called "Fast Break", which was a basketball movie, Gabe Kaplan was the star of it. And um,  I tried out for it was a very minor role in the movie. Basically just had to play basketball. So once again, going back to the athletic ability that I had. Right. So that was my tryout and they went, OK, good, you got the part. So I ended up I work six weeks on this film every day for six weeks, and it didn't pay that much. Rick: I still remember when paid it paid seventy five bucks a day. And at that point, I'd had a motorcycle. Um, I rode the motorcycle to the set every day in L.A. for six weeks...it never rained one time. Lucky because at that point I didn't have the car anymore because when I got this job, I had to quit the the deejay job. And so that I had to get a motorcycle, somebody loaned me money to get the motorcycle. Some guy just said, you know, "Let me buy that for you". So once again, it's just like it's like everything was just meant to be for me. And so that kind of got me started down the path of trying to be an actor. The movie was a was a big hit for those of you watching this now, you could still find that movie. It pops up like on, on TBS, like once a year they play it. At the time, it was one of the biggest movies of the year that came out because Gabe Kaplan was a big star back. He was coming from Welcome Back Kotter to that. And so. Joe: I'll have to rent it now so that I can and I have to figure out if I can find you somewhere in the film before we get past this point, though, I want to ask you, what gave you the foresight to to actually go and get an agent? How did that come to your brain to go, wow. I need to go get an agent. Rick: Why just knew I just knew if you're going to be if you want to try to get some TV or movies, you needed an agent. And so this guy this guy got me in quite a few things, mostly, mostly extra roles but I did pick up ah, I got a couple of national TV commercials, I got a Budweiser commercial, I got a Marantz stereo commercial. I was an ABC sitcom called "Makin' It" with David Naughton. You know, just a minor role...I beat him up in the show. I was like a tough guy and, and they and they you up, they didn't think I looked tough enough and I had, I had blond hair, kind of surfer guy look and so they sprayed my hair black with, with a Joe: Oh Gosh... Rick: spray paint out of the can. They sprayed my hair black to make, it look like me. So I was kind of disappointed in that because if you watched it and knew me, you wouldn't even know it was me. Joe: Oh Wow! Rick: But a lot, a lot, a lot of cool experiences along the way. Joe: That's really cool, and it's funny because you started out doing the radio thing, which is not in front of a camera to being fully in front of a camera and then come where we are today, now you're well, actually you do both now. So it's kind of cool. You got the experience, so you're comfortable in both situations. Rick: Yeah. And the way I got decided to go back into get into radio is, this is, this is really was a turning point in my life. I was working at a liquor store, like all actors do. You're either a wait, you know, a waiter or you work at a liquor store or something like that. Something that gave you the freedom to be able to go out in an audition and do whatever you needed to do. So as working at a liquor store in Anaheim, right down the street from Disneyland. And it was a Friday night and that night a show that I was on was on TV. So I brought a TV in to the liquor store because I wanted to...you know, I obviously wanted to watch myself on TV. And in effect, it was that show "Makin' It" that I just mentioned, the ABC sitcom. And so I brought to TV in and I had it on the counter and it was a Friday night on Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim, right down the street from Disney. And a couple of guys came in and, you know, put a 12 pack on on the counter and and I'm busy looking at the TV over here and I turned around I said, "You want anything else?" They went "Yeah, I think we'll go get another 12 pack. I said, "Yeah, that's great!" And so I go back, I'm looking at the TV, one guy comes around behind me and the guy in front of me puts a gun to my head. So they're obviously holding me up. Yeah, Joe: Yeah, man... Rick: It's so. Rick: You know, it's you don't know how you're going to react in a situation like that, until that happens and everything for me just slowed way down almost like slow motion. And I didn't panic, I was, I was really calm. I gave him the money out of the um, the cash register, but I knew that they had some marked bills in there. If you pulled these marked bills, that triggers a silent alarm and the Anaheim PD comes because if you're getting robbed, that's what you did. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want to give him those bills because I knew that the alarm would would trigger the police to come and I thought if the police came, these guys would either hold me hostage or kill me. So you could see how how clear I was thinking. So I didn't give the bills and they said, you know, "Give us all the bills you M'efer". And so I pull them out, I threw them in the bag. Now, I knew that the cops had been alerted. So they're trying to get me to open the safe. I couldn't open that, I said, "Hey, man, I just work here, I don't have the combination". And they said, "Open the safe!!". and I said, "I can't man, I just work here". So they said, "Get in the back room, hands over your heads!!" I'm walking back like this. And that's when I thought, well, I might be in trouble now and then it's the same time, I'm still thinking, man, I hope nobody comes in that front door because they'll probably kill me. Rick: Even the cops were there, if the cops come they'll hold me hostage, if somebody else walks in, they'll probably kill me. This is a Friday night and then nobody comes in. So then they told me to lay on the floor, hands over my head, you know, like execution style...I'm doing that. And they're still trying, they find a crowbar. They're trying to open the safe, and so they, they couldn't get it open and they finally realized they're going to get out of there. And they told me to count to 100 before I got up. They had to step right over me to get out. And I'm thinking they're either going to kick me in the head, shoot me in the back of the head, you know, who knows what they're doing? Well, they didn't you know, they stepped over me and ran out the door. I counted to three and I ran up the door because I wanted to see if I could catch a license plate. But they were on foot. So they got away. It is up standing in the parking lot, five cop cars pulled up and at first they thought that I robbed a liquor store. And I quickly explained to them what had happened. And so, anyway, long story short, they never caught the guys but the next day I got called into the corporate office. It was a U-Tote'Em, I know if you remember you U-Tote'Em Joe: Ok... Rick: Became they became Circle K's Joe: Ok. Rick: Yeah, so a corporate liquor store. Joe: Mm...hmmmm Rick: And I got called in to the corporate office and the guy sat me down and he goes, "Well, you got robbed last night!", I said, "Yeah, yeah!". He goes, "Well, you know what? They got a lot of money!!" I was like? "Yeah!?", he goes "No, they got like $227 dollars. I said "Ah ha!" and he goes, he goes, "That's a lot of money!" And and I said it, and I was, I was probably twenty three years old, twenty two, you know, still just a kid and this guy's got his suit on and everything. And I said, I said, "Have you ever had a gun pointed at your head!?" And he said, "No, I haven't". And I said, "Listen, man"...I said, "I would've carried the safe to my fuckin' car!!". If I...that's a quote, you know, quote unquote. I told them that, he goes, "Oh, no, no, I understand,you know, I totally get that", but he goes, "We're going to have to let you go!". I, Joe: Oh, Rick: I got fired... Joe: Gosh... Rick: for being held up, and so I said, I said, "Why would I give up my life for a minimum wage job?" I said "I would get I wouldn't give them anything they wanted". He goes, "No and I get that we can have you work here anymore". I don't know, I still don't know what that was about. But I ended up realizing that I should probably get into radio. You know, that's really what I was born to do. Now, the acting thing wasn't my thing and so I ended up going back to school at Long Beach State because they had a really good radio program there. And I had a year and a half to go to get my degree and I got a degree at Long Beach State. They had two broadcast stations on campus, broadcasting into Long Beach. It was great experience...I did everything from a deejay shift to a sports talk show, to a news, I was a news anchor and I did play by play for the Long Beach State football, baseball, basketball team. And so I got a ton a great experience. Yeah, it turned out to be really, really good. Joe: That's amazing because I got on the radio at my college and I got the shitty 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. slot or something like that, because like it was only drunks calling in and telling me to play this and that and I'd get in trouble with it. I wouldn't stick to the playlist that the program director gave me, so. Yeah. So yeah, that's Rick: Oh, Joe: Good. Rick: I didn't know you do that. Joe: Oh yeah. It was it was a disaster. Rick: Yeah, I got to do everything, but keep in mind now I'm a little older, so I'm probably twenty three, where everybody else there is 18 and 19. So I was more experienced, I've been around. And so I really don't want to say I was the best guy there, but I probably was, you know. And so they want it, so they utilize me any way they could. And it just turned out to be great in fact I'm not bragging, but I got nominated as outstanding graduate the program. And this is Joe: Oh cool! Rick: it and me, a guy who never cared about school. I mean, I could care less about what I could learn at school or at least a classroom part of it but once I got into radio, it was just my thing. I got straight A's, I got a 4.0. my last year and a half with, without really even trying. And when that happens, you know, you found, your thing, you found. Joe: Yeah. Rick: You're supposed to be doing, you know, just Joe: Yeah. Rick: Like I mentioned earlier with you playing drums. Same thing. Joe: So now, now you're, you found it! You found what you love, you got your degree, you excelled in it. How you know, if we can just cover quickly the, the the brief stop offs at the different stations around the country that you, you got work at and then finally landing in Colorado. Rick: So, yeah, I graduated in June. I sent out tapes for, I sent out tapes for, you know, to be a deejay and I also sent out sports tapes to do sports talk or be a sports reporter because I like both. And and I didn't, you know, I thought I'd end up in sports, honestly, like to be a sportscaster but I didn't want to limit myself, so I set up both and I got hired in August. Two months later, I got hired at a radio station in San Clemente. So in the market still right on the beach, it was it was pretty cool. The money wasn't very good. I still remember what I was making back then, it was twelve hundred a month to do mornings at this station in San Clemente, but I wasn't in it for the money. I had, I knew, I knew what the goal was, I knew that the money would come at some point. This was just all about getting getting you getting reps, as they say in football, you know, building up my chops. I knew I had to build up my chops. I didn't come out of college, you know, a good broadcaster. I came out of college a you know, a green professional broadcaster with a lot of potential. So I totally saw the big picture and I knew I just had to get reps in and every day, you get better and better and better. Just like playing an instrument, you just got play. And, you know, anybody can crack open a mike and talk on the radio but it's the years of experience that really, you know, fine tunes, what you can do, just like playing drums or playing any other instrument. So, so San Clemente, I was there for a year and a half and I started getting noticed by some of the bigger markets like San Diego, they had me working weekends and say Diego at a radio station down there. In fact, they offered me the morning show down there and that's a whole another story, I kind of blew that one. Well, I don't know how much time we have. But Joe: It's Rick: Yeah. Joe: Up to you. Listen, I. I will stay here as long as, I have a lot I want to cover. Rick: Yeah. Yeah. Joe: But if Rick: Well, Joe: If this is Rick: Ok. Joe: A great but if this is a great story, because the story with the five dollars and the pillow Rick: Yeah. Joe: Case, Rick: Yeah well anyway... Joe: I had never I had never heard. So that was a great story. Rick: Yeah. Well, anyway, it was a, I learned a lesson talking to fans that would call the show, you know, a lot of times when records are playing, you'll kill time talking to people on the phone. And I happened to mention it to somebody, who happened to call down the morning show guy at the station in San Diego and tell them, "Oh, by the way, I heard this guy in San Clemente, Rick Lewis, is taking your job!" This guy's "What!!?" He went to the boss, told the boss, the boss called me. "Who? Who did you tell, you had the morning show here at the radio station!!?" And said, He said, "I can't hire you!" He said, "I had to deny it, I'm not going to be able to hire you". Anyway, that's the short version of the story, but still from there, from San Clemente, I ended up getting hired at a radio station in Anaheim. After about a year and a half in it, it was quite a big step up. It was a union station. The money was really good. I had probably more than tripled or quadrupled what I was making, you know, so I was there for just a week and they changed the format. I got fired a week into the week into this job and it was, you know, like I said, it was. Rick: It was a pretty good step up. And like I was thinking, how did they not know that they were gonna change the format a week ago when they hired me? It was pretty devastated. And so once again, I'm starting over I ended up sending tapes out. This time I'm certainly tapes out of the L.A. Three months later, I got hired at the biggest rock station in L.A. and probably the biggest rock station in the country. Some of you may remember KMET The Mighty Met, those of you from from L.A. certainly remember KMET. So, so one door closes, another one opens. I ended up like just jump, jumpin' over the mid-market, you know, radio station, right up to the very top. So in a year and a half out of college, I'm working at the top radio, top rock radio station in the country. It was named Billboard Magazine's Major Market AOR Radio Station. And so this was like a dream. It's unbelievable! I was the youngest guy there, they had legendary radio personalities there and just just a blessing for me. You know, I'm not the most patient guy anyway. Yeah, I don't think I was ready for it, to be honest, I still had a lot of a lot of growing to do as a radio personality, but that's certainly accelerated it. Rick: And then once again, the pay was two or three times more than what it was gonna be an Anaheim so in a year and a half, I just like I shot right to the top of my field. And, you know, you're probably thinking, well, you didn't pay your dues, you know. I guess maybe you could look at it that way, like I didn't have to go to a lot of shitty markets and you know, grind it out for 10 years before I got the opportunity but that's just how it happened for me. But I never took it for granted. I never took it for granted because going back to my blue collar roots, I would call myself a grinder with talent. The talent a blessing, the grind part, that's on me. I had nothing to do with the talent. But the grind part's on me, and I always thought that a grinder with talent, is the, the person you would want to hire because that person is going to take what they got and they're going to outwork everybody and they're just going to get better and better and better. And so that's kind of how it happened with me. So there I was LA, now you want to know how I got to Denver. OK. So. Joe: Yeah. Now, I wanted to how cause, like cause, that's where we're going to get into more of this other stuff. So... Rick: Yeah, so I worked in LA for...see, I started in 81' at San Clemente and I worked in LA till 1990 so nine years. I also worked at Power 106 in LA, which is still a big powerhouse radio station in L.A. because I ended up getting fired from KMET twice, um yeah, two times. Yeah, one time I just signed a three year deal and this fired me three months later. They pulled the plug on the whole radio station, this was in 1987. They, they became the first smooth jazz radio station in the country. They just pulled the plug on one of the greatest, if not the greatest rock radio station ever! Turn it into smooth jazz, fired us all. So that's the third time I've been fired now since 1981. So I went to...I realized then that I, to make the really big money and the biggest impact in the business, you got to do morning drive radio. So I stepped back down to that radio station Anaheim, that I was that early on in my career and started doing mornings there and I did mornings there for three three years and I got fired...again. So for no reason, you get fired in radio, not for doing anything wrong, it's usually a turnover of, you know, upper management, middle management, format changes, that kind of thing. So, so now I've been fired four times, since I started in 1981 and it's really hard to get a job in radio. Every time you get fired, you think I'm probably never going to get hired again. Rick: You know, because it's it's it's really hard to do. And I had, I had so many chances along the way there in LA where I almost hit like the big time. Like I got asked to guest host PM Magazine and I crushed it! And I killed it!. They call me later, they said "Hey, we want to, we're thinking about making you the national PM Magazine host" and I was probably, I was probably about twenty six years old, twenty seven, and they were like "I was like, cool!" So they said, we got to, get we got to get a reel, gotta to get something more than this to show people nationally, come on down, we'll do some test and test rule. And that day I got stuck in traffic driving from Orange County to Hollywood, took me two and a half hours. I didn't know then, that I'm hypoglycemic, so my blood sugar just tanked on the way down there. So I got there, I did the audition and I was flat, totally flat. And I knew it was not a good audition. And the guy pulled me aside, he goes, "Rick, what happened man, you crushed it when you guest hosted the show, the just wasn't very good!" "Yeah man,I know", I said "I'm just not feel "in it today. He goes, "I can't show anybody this!". "Well, can we try it again?" He goes, "No". So anyway, I blew that one. Dick Clark called the radio station in LA that I was working at, some, somehow he had seen me somewhere and he said, "Hey, I want to meet this guy, Rick Lewis, one of your radio people". Rick: They gave me the message, I call back, they set up a meeting with me. I go to Dick Clark's Studios in Burbank and I never met Dick, but I met his right hand man. We had about a 90 minute meeting. And he told me that they were going to develop a bunch of shows around me. And so of course, at this point I realized not to get your hopes up in Hollywood or in show business because a lot of times it just never happens. So I was feeling good about it, but I didn't get my hopes up at that point and I'm maybe twenty seven years old, twenty eight, I already knew better than to get my hopes up. So we had some conversations on the phone after that about different shows and different show ideas for about three, four months and then they went dark on me. Nothing, nothing ever happened again, I never heard from him again. So anyway, I had all these near misses or near hits along the way. And so at 1990, a radio guy in L.A. named Frazer Smith, and once again, anybody from LA would know that name, he was, he's one of the legendary guys out there. He was from Detroit and he told me, he said "Hey man!", he goes "I just got offered a half a million dollars to do mornings in Detroit" and this was in the 80s, so translate that into today's money. That's a lot of money! Joe: Right. Rick: He said big money Joe: That's a lot of money. Rick: You can make big money in some of these Midwest towns doing mornings. I went "Really!!? OK, it's good to know". So I contacted a guy that I knew in our company that I still work for and they offered me an afternoon show back in Cincinnati, which is where I used to live. I thought that was too big of a step down in market size, I turned it down. A show, a station in Detroit, told me that they were very interested in hiring me to do a show there and so I went back and interviewed. I took my life back, we were looking at houses and neighborhoods, never happened! And anybody that's in show business,  you know, Joe, you've been you've been in the entertainment business a long time, you know that this is just how it goes. All of these big things get dangled in that most of time they don't happen. But, I knew at that point that I'm ready to leave the market if the right opportunity came along. So the guy who offered me the job at Cincinnati got back to me and he named off about three or four other markets that they were willing to hire in and Denver was one them. And I'd never really been to Denver before. And he said, hey, we got this comedian named Floorwax, he's really funny, but he doesn't get the radio business, he doesn't understand it. He needs a really good partner to make it work. He'd already, he'd already had a show here in Denver. He was on the air with another guy and he said the station is losing money. Rick: They're they're not right even in the top 20, but he said, if you can go there, turn it around, he said you can write your own ticket. And I kept thinking back to what Frazer Smith told me about how this could all work out financially. So my wife and I flew out and we liked the city. I thought it was worth taking a chance for a year. Once again, back to no fear. I left the L.A. market and I by the way, I did get after getting fired there, I did have another radio show, another radio station I was working for back there, so it wasn't like I was unemployed, but I, I told my wife, I said, even if this only last year with Floorwax, we'll go somewhere else, meaning me and Floorwax will keep going somewhere till it hits. Because I knew I knew that what we had, was really special. And it ended up here we are 30 years later, I'm still doing the same radio show..it's unbelievable. And it's been just an incredible run and I'd never take it for granted because of how I started my career, getting fired four times in the first nine years. I wake up every day just counting my blessings. And I also realize it didn't matter how good you are, how big you are, how much money you make, they could fire you in a second and I've never taken that for granted. Joe: I know that about you, I know that you're grateful every day for what you have and what you've accomplished and that's why this is a special interview for me, because we we think along the same lines and in, you know, that's what they say, right? You said you are, what is it? The quote is something like, "You are the sum of the five people that you associate yourself with" or hang around whether or whatever. So, Rick: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, I get Rick: We all Joe: Yeah Rick: Attract, Joe: Yeah. Rick: You know, the energy we put out. We named Energy. And so Joe: Yeah. Rick: That's how you and I became friends. You know, you Joe: Yeah. Rick: Kind of attract who you are or what you what you put out there. Yeah. Joe: Yup. So you get to Denver and they get rid of this other guy that Floorwax is with and you step in and you guys create this this Lewis and Floorwax show that was on the air for how many years? Rick: Well, Floorwax and I did twenty three years together. And then Joe: Ok. Rick: Unfortunately for floor wax, he ended up quitting the show and he's been gone ever since. So he's been gone for seven years now. And the show continues to go on. The show is still very successful. You know, big revenue maker, big ratings. It's amazing. I can't believe it's lasted this long. I really can't. Joe: Yup, yeah, and there must have been a lot of pressure, right, when that whole thing happened where Floorwax was going away, you were still handed the show to say, let's keep it going and make the best of it. And I'm sure at that point everybody's eyes were on you going, ok, can he pull this off without having the secondary person with him on the air to exchange that banter with and all that other stuff? And I know listening to it after that, that it just it just kept shooting upward. It just was amazing! Rick: Yeah, I kind of thought Joe: And still is so... Rick: Maybe it was over here in Denver when he had left. In fact, I hired an agent outside. You know, the more I had a New York agent, you know, a national agent thinking that I would probably be looking for another job. And I looked at it once again as an opportunity. You know, like, all right, this is the universe telling me, hey, it's time to move on. Floorwax left in January and by that summer, the radio show was number one in the morning. And so then they the company was coming back to me talking about a new contract. And so it ended up working out where they signed me to a new contract. I don't think they thought it was going to work. I thought, I think they thought the show was over, you know, and this will be it. I think everybody was surprised, including myself. I ended up retooling the show, kind of reinventing it, reinventing myself. I looked at it as an opportunity to just get better. You know, I had a band with Floorwax as well, that was real successful. I looked at that as an opportunity to, as kind of a rebirth. And, and the approach that I took and it took a lot of work, it was a lot of work with the radio show and the band, to get it actually to the level we were before and in some cases even better. Joe: Right. So the timeline is you start with Floorwax. What year? Rick: 1990. Joe: And then it ends January of what year? Rick: Well, twenty three years later. So that would be 2013. Is what you Joe: Got Rick: Walked Joe: It. Rick: Off? Yeah. Joe: Ok. OK. And you picked up and you just just it was it's amazing. So I know that the list could be huge, but let's just for the sake of keeping it condensed. I know just a few times you invited me into the studio and I've been in town or I've listened to it from being in Arizona. What's the top five most famous people you either interviewed live in the studio or remotely on like call-ins over the phone? I know it's ridiculous because the list is probably hundreds. Rick: You know what it is, it's a really hard question to answer. Joe: Did any of them make you nervous? How's that? Maybe that would pinpoint them somebody like being really over the top. Well known. Rick: I literally interviewed almost everybody you can think of joke. You know, if even when I was in L.A., I worked for Westwood One and my job was to go get, to do probably seven to 10 interviews a week of either movie stars or rock ah, you know, rock stars, singer songwriters. So I was interviewing seven to 10 people a week for a couple of years out there. I interviewed everybody. When somebody is new album would come out, I got to meet them at a hotel in their hotel room, you know, and interview them. So it's all kind of a blur, to be honest Joe: Yeah, I'm Rick: With Joe: Sure. Rick: You. You started naming names. I could I could tell you. Oh, yeah. Joe: Yeah. Rick: I could tell you a story about Joe: Yep. Rick: That Westwood One gig did make me a really good interviewer or me, you know, it made me really know how to interview people and how to how to listen to people instead of, instead of having a list of questions in your ask, that you ask, you know, question number seven off your list, while they're talking, you're already looking at question number eight. You're just like, you've just got to let it flow, you know, and it just go with the conversation because a lot of these people, they, they, they're not that comfortable being interviewed. It's not their thing, though, some of them are great, like David Lee Roth. That's a guy I've interviewed many times. All you gotta do is turn the mic on and let em' go and just try to guide it, you know and try to, hopefully you get from point A to point B to point C without losing your license. You know, guys like that, Ted Nugent, Joe: Right. Rick: Ted Nugent, you just let him go. But you try to guide them, you know, along the way to try to get what you want out of them. Guys like that are real easy, but a lot of them, they really have very little to say. A lot of a lot of these rock stars are somewhat introverted, movie stars, really a introverted.  Movie stars, you take away a script, they don't have a whole lot to say. You know, they're always you know, they're going off, everything they do is off a script. You've seen some of these guys on the talk shows. You know, it takes a really good interviewer, Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman guys like that, to bring them out. And so you learn how to do that. I like I have so many. I really. Joe: I know, I know it's it's it's Rick: We Joe: A bad Rick: Wear Joe: Question. Rick: This watch. We can do this for hours Joe: I know, Rick: A day Joe: I Rick: For. Joe: Know. All right. So now you are currently on the Fox, 1.3, 103.5 Rick: Yeah. Joe: On weekdays. And you've been doing that alone since the spring of 2013. Correct. January 2013, that's Rick: Since Joe: When four Rick: January Joe: Weeks Rick: Of Joe: Left. Rick: 2013. Joe: Ok. So on top of that, you recently. I don't, I say recently only because in this industry, you know, a couple of years is still recent. But you, is it true that you're the color commentator for the Denver Broncos? I just didn't want Rick: This Joe: To get Rick: Is true, Joe: It wrong. I don't Rick: Joe. Joe: Want to say. Rick: Yes, it Joe: And Rick: Is. Joe: Just for Rick: Yes, Joe: The audience Rick: It is a. Joe: Sake, because I didn't even though I watch a shit ton of football, I didn't really understand what color color commentator was. So if you can quickly, you know, explain what that means, because I don't want to I don't want to give it the wrong description. Rick: Ok, I, I've been doing play by play, which is a different role for a long time, going back to when I was in college, I'd been doing play by play of high school and college games for, I got back into it at least 10, maybe 12 years ago, and I was working for Comcast here in Denver doing games play by play. So it wasn't like this whole thing of being at the booth was foreign to me. So four years ago. Ed McCaffrey was the color commentator on the radio on the Broncos flagship station. Ed McCaffrey, great football player, Denver Bronco legend. And he for some reason had to miss a game and so my boss called me like on a Tuesday and he said, "Hey, Ed can't do the game Sunday in Jacksonville, what do you think? You think you can do it?" I was like, yeah, yeah, I can do it. No fear, right?. I'd never been a color commentator before, but I understood the role because I've done play-by-play so much, so I prepped for it really hard and did the game and it went really, really well. And so much so that I thought, you know, you know if Ed ever decides he doesn't want to do this anymore, I'm going to throw my hat in the ring and see if I can get that job. And it happened the following spring. Ed McCaffrey decided that he wanted to spend more time with his kids. He's got at the time, I think he had two kids in the NFL and one in college. Christian McCaffrey, his son, is one of the best running backs in the NFL. So he, he decided he wanted to watch him play more and didn't have time to do this. Rick: So, I did get the job and so the color commentator is a is a different role than play by play. The color commentator has a very short window to try to color up the broadcast, keep in mind, this is radio, not TV. It's different on TV, on TV, you don't have to explain what happened because everybody can see it. On the radio, you have to paint the picture. And so the play by play guy will tell what happened on the play and in some cases even break it down. And then I have about maybe 10 seconds in between plays to say something that he didn't already say that actually add something to the broadcast and moves it forward and kind of resets the next play and so, it's a real challenge. It's a real challenge. I always thought play by play was easier, I still do, I think for me, play by play is easier to do than the color roll. So it was a bit of a learning curve on it. But I really, really enjoy it because it's challenged me for the first time in a long time, not only with the prep that's involved, that it's a lot of prep, but the speed of the broadcast is, is such that, you really got to be on your game because it's moving really fast and you got one shot. So it's like you're a Nik Wallenda, you know, when you're on a tight rope walking across the canyon, there's no safety net. You've got to be on your game. You've got to be super focused. Joe: Yeah, and it has to be Rick: And Joe: This Rick: That's Joe: Super Rick: What I like about Joe: Delicate Rick: It. Joe: Balance between knowing when he's actually done saying what he's going to say in the play by play and where you guys aren't constantly stepping on on top of each other and then there's room for the next play to come in or whatever. I hear it, I just I, I'm baffled at how it gets done so cleanly. Rick: Yeah. And my partner, Dave Logan is one of the best in the business. He is up in the upper elite 1 percent of play by play guys in the world and so the fact that he's so good, of course he could cover up any mistake that I might make or if I if I, you know, stub my toe a little bit, he can completely cover it up in a very smooth way, which I'm sure he's done for me many times, you know, to make the broadcast on good. You know, the fact that I've been in broadcasting so long, well over 30 years, what, 39 years, you know that I'm able to make a broadcast sound good. Joe: No. Rick: Let's figure out a way Joe: Go Rick: To make Joe: Ahead. Rick: It something. Joe: Yeah. So Rick: And Joe: I Rick: So Joe: Just it just as we're talking Rick: That's Joe: About Rick: What I Joe: This Rick: Do. Joe: See how I stepped Rick: Yeah. Joe: Right on top. Yeah, that's right. So is it true? I don't know if if where I heard this, but is it true that you are the only broadcast person doing these NFL games that is not and an ex NFL player. Rick: Yeah, on TV, I don't think there's anybody certainly on ah,  I don't anybody doing NFL games on TV that wasn't a player. There may be one on the radio, but I don't know who that would be. There's only 32 teams. So you got 32 broadcast teams doing it on radio. I don't think there is a guy doing color that didn't play in the NFL. Most of the play by play guys or guys like me that are broadcast, you know, guys, you know, experience broadcast guys. We kind of flipped the formula in our broadcast because Dave Logan played 10 years in the NFL. So you've got to play by play guy that played 10 years in the NFL. And then me being a broadcaster that I know the game, I understand the game, I played a little bit of football myself, so I totally get it. But it is pretty unique. Joe: And you're having to do what is an eight away and eight home? Rick: Yeah, eight home/away and then four preseason games, so 20 games a year. Last year we did twenty one because we had the Hall of Fame game. Joe: Right. And what's the most grueling conflict with the rad... that, you know, the morning drive time show now with you having to do the football games, what what days are the hardest for you? Is it Mondays because of the Sunday game or? Rick: Well, if we play a game like on a Sunday night or Monday night or Thursday night on the road, I don't work the next morning on the radio because we will get into 4:00 o'clock in the morning, sometimes 05:00 in the morning. So I take the morning show off. I do two radio shows a day, I don't know, I don't think you're even aware of it. But I'm do two live radio shows a day. So I do the morning show on the Fox actually from 6 to 9 a.m. from 9 to noon, I do a talk show on K.O.A., which is the Broncos flagship station with Dave Logan and Kathie Lee, who's on with me on the Fox show. So I'm doing six hours of my radio in a day. Joe: I had no idea. Rick: That also also pretty, pretty unheard up in a major market. Joe: Yeah, I had no idea that you were doing that extra stuff, I had only known about the Rick: Yeah. Joe: The Morning show so well. Rick: Well, this is why you don't hear from me much anymore. [laughter] Joe: I don't that's why I'm excited that I have you right now and I can't let you go until I get through Rick: Yes. Joe: A lot of this stuff. So let's let's bounce over to, you know, you and I have this mutual kinship and in playing drums. So when did you start playing? And then we skipped over it a little bit, when you're talking about you and Floorwax and having your band, which was the Groove Hawgs and now you have The Rick Lewis Project and you run the band and, and you and I had this same sort of leadership role in our bands. But when did you start playing drums? Rick: Yeah, I started playing drums at 17, I believe. I played piano when I was a little kid. Ah like classically trained, you know, lessons, piano recitals, all of that. I probably played piano for about three and a half years, I never liked it, but my mom was kind of forcing it on me. I would have much rather been outside playing football or baseball or whatever. So that was always the dilemma for me and I was pretty good. I picked it up pretty quick, I could read music and all of that. And then she finally, she, she gave up and said, "Ok, you can quit piano and do whatever you want." You know, I'd always wanted to play drums, I was always interested in drums but my mom and dad would never get me even a snare drum up. You know, we had five kids in the family, we didn't know we didn't have enough money for, to go out and buy me a drum kit. So I just kind of put that on the back burner, but at 17, somehow my younger brother got a drum kit. I don't know, I don't remember how it happened. Maybe my mom or dad gave it to him for a Christmas gift or whatever, and I started playing drums at 17 and I realized right away, like, you know, I can I can kind of play these. And, so I really took a great interest in it, and I played a lot of self-taught, as you know, played along to records, you know, put headphones on and just play the songs. And so I learned how to play, I think I learned how to play musically, you know, I never took any lessons and so for me, I play like the record because that's how I learned how to play. And like I say, I was so people I don't have chops, I have a chop, I got one. You know, I can play a song, I can play a groove, right? That's all I got, I can play a groove, but Joe: You have more than that, trust me, I've seen you play. Rick: Well, I don't. But I, I played until I was twenty one, when I went to NAU we'd go to the music room, me and a bunch of guys, you know, and we would jam in the music room. Remember I played once in a country bar in Flagstaff. You know, it took a lot of beer to Joe: Yes. Rick: Get up there to do that. And I did it and I just I just loved it. But then when I moved to LA to be an actor, I quit playing drums and I didn't pick up a pair of drumsticks again until I was probably 40 years old, so almost a 20 year span of not Joe: Well. Rick: Playing drums. And then when I was 40, I got it, I got interested again and I bought myself a drum kit and started to try to get up to speed and we formed a band pretty soon after that. That was the Groove Hawgs Band and with the connections I have here in town, I was able to hire the best musicians around here and it was it was a pretty good band. It because of who we were on the radio and Floorwax was in the band too. Because of who we were on the radio and the high profile that we had, we were getting really good gigs. The first gig we ever played was at Red Rocks...sorry, Joe. Joe: I know, it's like man! Rick: Yeah, we opened for the Doobie Brothers and CCR at Red Rocks and it was just amazing! And I was working as hard as I could to get back up to speed. You know, just practicing every day and having had no formal training, you know, was strictly just instinctive, you know, trying to get better and once again, just play the music, just trying to play songs. You know, for some reason, I got a really good natural feel for song structure. So that that, that's a gift. And being able to play drums is probably, it might be my favorite thing I do right now is maybe playing music, which is saying a lot because I do a lot of really cool things. The Groove Hawgs got to play big shows and we played, we opened up for ZZ Top and James Brown and Leonard Skinner and Ted Nugent to Def Leppard. We got to open probably seven shows at Red Rocks. Joe: That's amazing! Rick: We opened for The Who at the Pepsi Center...that was amazing! Back in 2007 or 8, there was The Who and The Pretenders at The Pepsi Center. So we played some really Joe: And you do it right, too, because you have a drum tech and I don't Rick: Good gigs Joe: So you just rollup, with your stick bag on your shoulder and you're like, oh, here. Rick: Yeah, yeah. The whole breaking down Joe: Oh, Rick: The drum kit, Joe: God. Rick: They...love...about it...that's one that's the big downside of playing drums. But luckily for us, you know, we the band gets paid pretty good for doing these gigs and so I can afford to pay my band Joe: Yeah. Rick: Members really well. You Joe: Yeah. Rick: Know, I told you they get paid really well and so I can also afford to have a Joe: Yep. Rick: Drum tech who can do all of that Joe: Yeah. Rick: For me as well. So I'm not in it for the money. Joe: No, Rick: Believe me, Joe: I Rick: This has nothing to do with money for me, just playing music. Joe: Know, I know. And it's too bad. I know right now it's like a kind of a tough question, but you guys are still doing local gigs around town. Like when things get on the other side of what's happening now with COVID-19, you guys will be out doing your normal festivals that, you normally just play like festivals and things, right? You're not. Rick: Yeah, we have a new band, The Rick Lewis Project started in 2013. So seven years in already and once again hired the best musicians around here. We played some big gigs too, which we've opened for Leonard Skinner and you know, many other people like that. We did a show with Ziggy Marley, I mean, we were the only non reggae band on the lineup and pulled it off. We ended up switching like four or five of our songs into reggae songs. I never played reggae before and we pulled it off. So it's it's really, really cool. But yeah, we have a residency at a casino here so that we can play anytime we want, pretty much so we play there about every six weeks. In the summer, we play a lot of festivals and we do still support some big acts. We've got a show in August with Government Mule on the books. Hopefully we'll be able to play it. You know, that type of thing. And others were I mean, we were just in the process of really rounding out our schedule for 2020 when all of this Coronavirus Joe: Yeah. Rick: Hit. Hopefully we can come out of it. You Joe: Yeah. Rick: Know, who knows? I think I think we will. I think by at least July, I would think, we'll be able to start playing live shows again and people will be able to start going to concerts again...I'm optimistic Joe: Yeah. Rick: About that. But Joe: Yeah. Rick: Who knows? Joe: Yeah, it's crazy. So this is something I don't know if I've ever asked you or we talked about and I'll have a few more things, so I'm not going to keep you much longer. But if you had the opportunity with all you know about music and all the musicians you've made and all of the conversations that you've heard, if you had ever had the chance to become a professional touring drummer over being the, you know, the radio personality that you are and all of that, would you ever have chosen that, that lifestyle? Rick: Well, that's a good question! Joe: I know you love performing in front of people. When I watch you play, I'm like, you know, you are so in your element doing it and and you're a great frontman when, when you know, anytime that I've jumped in behind the drums and you've run up to the front of the stage and like, you know, you're a great front man as well. So I just was like, man I wonder if he ever goes God, if I had only started that earlier and, and my path taking me in that direction. Rick: That's a great question! I have no regrets but I do think that looking back on it now, I wish I would have focused more on music than sports because, sports was my whole world back then and now I realize that for most people, your athletic career is over and after high school and if you're lucky, after college. Very, very few get to play professionally or make a living out of playing sports. Looking back on it now, I wish I would have stuck to the piano. You know, I told my mom that recently. I said, I wish you would have forced me to continue to play, just to establish, you know, that side of me. I wish, you know what I did? I did discover drums young enough at 17 that I could have been probably a pretty darn good drummer by now, good enough to tour with a big band. I don't know if I put enough work into it to be that good. I think, I have, I have whats inside of me to be that good but I haven't put in the work you know, because of everything else I do. You know, I wasn't a guy that could sit down and play drums for 10 hours a day, which a lot of guys do it, you might have been one of them. I was a guy who could sit down and play drums for an hour a day. And so that's what I did, you know, for 20 plus years, I would play for an hour a day. That's all I had time for,you know, with a family and an established radio show and everything else that I was doing. But boy, you know what? If I could, I sometimes say, man, if if like Earth, Wind & Fire would hire me to go on a tour, because I love playing funk music, that's my thing. If I could be the drummer and Earth, Wind & Fire on one tour, Joe: Yeah. Rick: that would be hard to turn that down, the really hard to turn that down. But, but, you know, a lot of musicians, a lot of these successful musicians that we all know and love, they've had a lot of hardships along the way and a lot of it's drugs and alcohol. Almost every one of these successful bands goes through that. You know what? I don't know, man, I don't think I'd change anything. You know look look, you know, my friend Danny Seraphine, who is the drummer from Chicago...longtime drummer from Chicago. I just watched a documentary on the band and I think it was on Netflix and drugs and alcohol once again, you know, Terry Kath's ends up killing himself. Maybe accidentally, maybe not. But you watch every documentary on Netflix about a successful rock bands, it's drugs and alcohol that takes them, almost all of them down. I don't know if it would be worth it to have to go through that type of thing but I did take one lesson on drums and that was Danny Seraphine. I told you that, right? Joe: Yeah. Rick: Yeah. Danny, Danny Seraphine came this my basement Joe: Yeah. Rick: Right here that we're sitting in. Joe: He's a sweetheart. Rick: Danny Seraphine came over and spent a weekend, I think, or two or three nights at my house and I got to drum kits set up in my house and he goes, "Hey man, let's get out a jam a little bit." He goes, "I want to see if I can help you." And I was pretty intimidated, but once again, no fear. So we sat down and we played together for like 90 minutes together, side by side. You know, he'd play a lick and I'd try to copy it. You know, that he'd play a groove and I jump in on it. And then he showed me a couple of things and after about 90 minutes, we stopped. He said, said, "You're a good player" and this is a long time ago, this is probably almost 15 years ago, he said, he said, "You're a good player," he goes, "but I can tell you don't have you." He said, "I can tell you you don't think you're a good player." He goes, "You should know you're a good player" and he goes, You have good time", he said "You have a great sense of time, great feel, a great groove." And he said, "Take that with you every time you play and realize that every musician wants a drummer that has those three things, time, feel groove..You said you got it." He says believe me. "That's what all these guitar players want is a drummer like that," he said "they don't want drummers that are playing all over the song and doing drum fills, you know, every break," And he said, "Take that and be confident that you have that." And that really helped me a lot. So that one lesson from Danny Seraphine really meant a lot to me and it gave me the confidence to, you know, be myself in play and play like I do, which is my one chop, I've got the one, I got the one Joe: Yeah. Rick: Here. Joe: Doesn't matter a grooves, it feels great. That's all right, man. All right, so what's next for Rick Lewis? What's...anything that is a super exciting that you can talk about or you know, I know you got a shit ton on your plate, I don't even know how you sleep. But just wondered if there's anything new you wanted to talk about before I let you go. Rick: I've gotten really good at living in the moment and living in the now. Joe

The Quiet Light Podcast
How Visiting China (and how) Can Boost Your Revenue & Cash Flows

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2020 32:22


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  

The Quiet Light Podcast
Envision and Achieve Your Life and Business Goals With David Wood

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2020 37:54


Twenty years ago David Wood was ahead of the curve in the coaching space thanks to a workshop that led him to delve into the emotional aspects of business leadership. He is here today to discuss ways owners can use emotional intelligence to overcome the hurdles and valleys of growing a business. David is a high performance life and business coach, working solely with established entrepreneurs. He got his start on Park Avenue at the age of 23 and thought he had it made as a consulting actuary. A mandatory personal growth workshop made him realize that he was clueless about anything emotional in business. Today he uses his knowledge in his own business, Play for Real, to help entrepreneurs and business leaders push through tough scenarios with themselves and others and help them to do great things. David also is a coach trainer, mentor, author, and host of the Tough Conversations podcast. Episode Highlights: Reasons why David is speaking with us today. How he takes surface level goals and delves deeper into them. What questions entrepreneurs should ask themselves in order to get through any growth challenges in their business. David's focus on goal setting. The difference between a coach and a therapist. Why people seem so eager to move to the next thing when a sale is over. Quick coaching tips for business owners. The 4-step approach David suggests for sellers and buyers. How David's techniques can help your business and improve your life. Transcription: Mark: So a few years ago Joe I wrote a blog post on the Quiet Light blog and you can actually look this up and it's called I made a bad website acquisition. It was about a business that I bought and made some mistakes with and subsequently sold later on. At the end of that little ownership period that I had with that; it was a really small acquisition, we're talking a very small five figure level here but at the end of that period I hated that business. I hated it so much because it wasn't making any money. It was taking a bunch of my time. The logistics were a bit of a pain. And I got to the point where frankly I was willing to get rid of it for just about anything. And when we talk about the soft side of a transaction a lot of times people want to talk about the financial side and the metrics and the numbers and the financials; how do you actually juice that multiple, how do you get the value as high as you can? But so much of what we do is on that other side and that is the soft side of the transaction and understanding the arc of an entrepreneur's ownership of the business and how are you going to feel when you sold that business as well. And look before you turn it off and think this is all soft gooey stuff; this has a real impact on valuations. And I know you talked to David Wood about this, he was a business coach, because he really kind of keyed in on that as well. Joe: Yeah I know it has a tremendous impact. I like to say don't let the business outgrow you. That's generally why people sell because they've got a certain capacity and the business outgrows them; they get sick of it, they get frustrated, trends change, and they sell which is exactly what not to do. So working with a business coach like David who spends a lot of time with people in the e-commerce world helps you understand what your own personal goals are in business and in life. They're combined when you're an entrepreneur. And helps you get through those valleys and over those hurdles as you need to. David is a good friend of Ezra Firestone. I met him at Blue Ribbon Mastermind. Brad and I and Chris were there so I heard him do a fantastic presentation and I just had to connect with him afterwards and have him on the podcast. I think he can and will and has through the podcast I listened to he imparted some great wisdom when it comes to operating a business within your own capacity. Mark: Let's hear it. Let's get to it. Joe: Hey folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got David Wood from Play for Real with us. David is actually a high performance life and business coach. I met him at Ezra Firestone's Blue Ribbon Mastermind event in; where were we David? St. Petersburg, Florida. David: Yeah. Joe: In January of 2019. I'm sorry 2020. David is a good friend of Ezra's and he did such an amazing presentation I wanted to have him on the podcast. Welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast David. David: Hey thank you. I'm happy to be here. Joe: Well, I'm glad you're here. We don't do fancy introductions so why don't you go ahead and give the people listening a little bit of background on yourself and what you do. David: Sure. Well I thought I was successful and I was at the age of say 23 because I was working on Park Avenue. I grew up in our country town in Australia. And here I am on Park Avenue consulting with Sony Music for the next song and I thought I pretty much got it made. I was a consulting actuary and for people who don't know what that is, we deal with financial projections going say 50 to 100 years into the future. Joe: Wow. David: And so my job was risk assessment but then I lucked into doing a personal growth program and I nearly didn't do it because they were all smiling way too much and they all wore nametags. I'm like this is very cult-y. I don't know about this but I didn't let that stop me and they cracked me open. They had me realize that I'd gotten great at systems and logic and results but I didn't know anything about vulnerability. I knew nothing about deep connection with other people and how to really influence people. Emotional Intelligence was something I hadn't even heard of. So the first half of my life was about business and results and success in that line of work and then the last half of my life has been about researching the more I still call it hippie woo-woo stuff like the touchy feely stuff. How do I make eye contact with someone? How do I be vulnerable? How do I deeply connect? So the people who come to me don't just want their business to be better. You can get a lot of business coaches for that. And they don't just want a part of their life to be better. They want everything to be to be better than it was before. So that's the short version of; oh I didn't say to in that course I got to coach somebody. Someone was really stuck about something that was destroying her marriage and I was able to hold space for her and her life changed and I got hooked. I was like this is amazing. I just spot the patterns and see what's missing and make a suggestion and she ran with it, totally revamped her marriage and her life, and I was like I can do this more than as a hobby? And this is back in ‘97 and it turned out yes you can. People were just starting to consider coaching as a career. So now I've been doing it for 20 years and I don't see any sign of stopping. Joe: You were ahead of the curve then and you're doing pretty amazing stuff now. You didn't mention that you wrote a book, that you're on stage quite often, you're on 70 podcasts last year, then Loosening Jack Canfield or John Gray did the inside cover of your book or things of that nature. You're pretty well connected with high level people but you deal with a lot of entrepreneurs as well in your coaching business, is that right? David: Yeah I'd coach entrepreneurs mainly for the last 20 years. Now I'm doing more corporate stuff, some vice presidents and also some prison work and working with prison inmates so I'm expanding but I'm an entrepreneur at heart. So I love working with entrepreneurs who are already doing great things. I don't work with just startup. You have to have a track record of success and then let's; how do you go further? Joe: The people listening are probably saying well why are we on the podcast together; why are you here? David: Yes. Joe: And when we list a business for sale oftentimes someone will say; a buyer, well if it's so great why are they selling? Or we always ask the question why they're selling. And more and more often what happens, people, is that a business outgrows the individual. And what we want people to do is understand first and foremost who they are, what they're capable, what their likes are, what their dislikes are, what drives them, what fills the cup and makes them happy. And that's a lot of what you do in your day to day work, David, is that correct? David: Yeah. Joe: Okay. David: Yeah I get people who have got surface level goals. They come to me like they want to be a better leader. They want to learn how to manage their team or something like that. And that's fine. Let's start there. But then I want to know what's really going to have you be happy. And some people know and they just don't think it's possible or they haven't put time and attention on making it happen. Some people haven't really asked themselves the question; how could my life be better? And that's the sum total of my initial sessions with a client; how can your life be better? Sometimes it's a business goal. If my business increased by 30%, that would do a lot for me financially and my family and then my life would be better. Okay maybe I'll buy that. But normally there are other things like what if my relationship with my partner was deeper? What if my kids opened up to me and talked to me about their life? What if I had the health that I wanted? So yeah I like digging into those questions like how could it be better? Joe: How can the people listening today sort of figure out what questions to ask themselves? Imagine we've got an audience that it's got a healthy mix of entrepreneurs that someday may sell their business. They're learning about buying and selling and preparing the business for sale. And then the other half of the audience might be those that are thinking you know what I'm going to buy one of these someday because they're unhappy in the corporate world or they've sold one and they don't want to take the risk of building another so they're choosing to buy. But let's focus first on those people that are struggling with the business that they have; they've grown it, they bootstrapped it, it's growing like crazy, and they're just trying to keep up. How does one identify what their own comfort level is with the size of the business or the staff or the growth? Because a lot of what we deal with are people that wait too long that things get pretty miserable because it's grown to the point where it's beyond their comfort level. They don't want to manage people. Mark and I had this conversation this morning and he's like we're doing an organizational chart here at Quiet Light Brokerage and I'm in a particular place mark and we're all in different places. The key center of our organization is the advisors; our team of advisers. And I'm straddling a couple of areas, Mark is straddling a couple of areas and we said to each other we have the right as entrepreneurs to do what makes us happy. We want to choose that path. How does one identify what it is that makes them happy? Is there a is there a process that that they would go through in terms of goal setting or asking questions of themselves and I will just stop rambling now answer that question help me out. David: So the question is how can people identify how they can be happy; what are the right questions they can ask themselves? And I love this, on 75 interviews last year no one's really asked me this question. So what I did is I went straight to my website and I'll read out some of the questions. I have a life assessment that anyone can take. And if you like we can give it to people at the end of the show. They can go and fill it in but I'll read out some of the questions. I have people in this assessment rate your life areas out of 10; business career fulfillment, wealth and money, your key relationship, health and peace. I even include relationship with yourself; like how much do you like yourself. So these are a few of the areas, there are a few more which I don't want to steal all the thunder. I'll leave some for people to find when they go and fill it in. And I have people rate them out of ten and that helps them look at oh wow this area is really a three; like my health and peace is a three, what's going on there? Or my relationship with my partner is like a six. Is that really okay with me? Like am I really going to leave the rest of my life at a six? So that's the first point and then I have people rate coaching areas; how about how are you doing with real goals? I'd like to talk about; and you heard this in my presentation at Ezra's Blue Ribbon, GPA, goals planning and action. So out of ten how are you doing with setting real goals, having a real plan, and taking real action? A lot of people would like to be more focused. We're kind of like a monkey on crack when it comes to getting work done. How about your daring, your caring, your decisiveness? So you rate these out of 10 and by the way this form doubles as prep if anyone wants to do a session with me. I use this as an intake because I want to go straight to wow you're doing great here, here, here, here, and here are three areas that look like they could be doing better. Which of these do you want to focus on? Joe: I think the real goals thing is amazing and critical and so obvious that everybody should be doing it but I don't think they do. I read decades ago; right David, we both got some gray on the chin that Harvard; I took a little class at Harvard, half the kids wrote down their goals and half didn't. Those that wrote down their goals were something like ten times as wealthy or successful and happy as those that didn't. One of the things that we're trying to do here and having you on is part of that mind shift. I want people to stop asking the question how much is my business worth, how much can I sell my business for, I'm ready to some business how much can I, how much can I? Instead set goals and say in three years I want to sell my business for X and then reverse engineer the pathway to that and understanding, gaining the knowledge on valuations and setting goals to that pathway exit. Are you working with people in terms of that goal section of their life whether it's personal, with their partner, with their business, with whatever it is that is weak on that scale and helping them with goals or do you just sort of act in a way almost, and what's the difference between a therapist and a life coach and a business coach in this situation? David: All right we've got three areas I want to address here. We'll see if I can track and remember all of them. The first one… Joe: I won't remember them all so don't worry about it. David: The first one is for me I like your process in this many years I want to sell my business for X. I think that's missing a key step. I would say firstly how do you want to feel in three years? It's incredible; and you can do this when you're doing a New Year's visioning session if you ever do that kind of thing. Like don't set goals first, set feeling goals. I want to feel this. And then you can set some goals that will help you feel that. I want to feel at peace. I want to feel deeply in love with my partner. I want to feel joy as I walk down the street and look at strangers. Those aren't some bad goals; actually this came off the top of my head. And then all right to feel like that what would I need to be doing? And I looked at well I love coaching. I've wrote this down; it was three or four years ago, I need to be more coaching and training because I'm inspired when that happens and I want to feel inspired. It's like oh wow I didn't know that. So it is a goal. So first step, how do I want to feel, secondly what do you need in your life to feel that and there might be a financial component to that. All right I need at minimum this amount of money to support these goals that are going to have me feel good. And you probably found this when you coach your clients, it might be less money than you thought the minimum. They have done some studies that show that first; I don't know how much it is 50 or 60 grand can really do a lot to provide happiness in the year and after that it drops way off because you need your own food and you want shelter and you want some basic peace. But after that that poor show that extra trip or vacation isn't going to do that much at all. So that's the first thing. And then there was a second component. I know I remember the therapy component but what was the other component to your question? Joe: I told you I wouldn't remember David. Come on, I'm serious. I meant it. David: Oh that's right. I wanted to say some people come to me ready with goals. They're like I know what I want I'm just not getting there fast enough. So we might do brainstorming or we might have to strategize a plan and they might just need some accountability to put attention on it. All right every week I'm going to do it. Other people it might take three to six sessions to peel the onion and to just uncover. They may not know yet. Like people would come to me with I want this this and this, six months later we've uncovered that; I'm working with an executive right now who finally has seen that he's really arrogant and he thinks he's smarter than everybody else which may be true but it's not serving him. He didn't come to me with that but it's a merge and it's impacting all of his relationships not just at work. Joe: Did he come to that realization and share it with you or did you go you know you think you're; how do you come about that realization? David: Well, sometimes I might gently point it out and I have that privilege because they're paying me. So I can say you know I think I have some feedback that might not be easy to hear but it might be very valuable, would you like to hear it? You're never going to get a no from someone who's paying you to hear your idea. But he came to me. He said you know what I think I can be a bit of a jerk and we; actually this was really fun. Sometimes you get to have fun in coaching. I said to him there's a chance. I know this is hippie woo-woo but I think you could really make a big difference for you if you're willing. It comes from the Himalayas and you're willing to trust me on this. He said all right. So I took him through this Himalayan chant. It starts with; maybe you've heard it, it starts with Owa Tajer Kiam and we did this and we kept on going and he got faster and faster saying it with me until he realized he was saying oh what a jerk I am, oh what a jerk I am, oh what a jerk I am. And when he finally got it he laughed so hard and that's part of my style is let's bring some humor to it. Yeah, you can be a jerk, so can I. When I'm frustrated I'll use my intelligence to belittle the waiter and they may not even know. And then I'll feel bad about it. But we're getting off track. So some people have a sense of what they want, other people it's going to take some time to uncover and I find that really fun and fascinating. And then you said how is coaching different from therapy. It's very contentious. A therapist will argue about this but once I heard this metaphor a therapist will help a man with a broken leg to walk again and a coach will help that man to run the four minute mile. Joe: Okay. That's not mental therapy though that's physical therapy. How do you differ from somebody sitting down and saying I'm unhappy with my life? David: Well the metaphor is more about someone who's really, really struggling to go from bad to okay versus helping someone to go from okay to good or from good to great. Joe: Okay. And you're the okay to good or good to great. David: Yeah, that's my target market. Now there are coaches who might be willing to work with someone who's really struggling financially. For example if someone's got a lot of historical stuff trauma and baggage from that; and I'm one of them, I have no judgment about that. That's not me. I would say a therapist could spend time with you to help you unpack and bring up all those feelings from the past and like that. I'm more interested in what do you want and what are you going to do about it and there is some overlap because sometimes people have limiting beliefs. And I've got one vice president who said I think I've got some limiting beliefs that are holding me back, can you help me with those? I'm like yeah we can bust those open. But I'm not going to do a lot of how was it when your father treated you this way and whatever; that's not my style. I'll refer someone to a therapist if it looks like there's some old stuff that's really holding them back. And a disclaimer and a plug for therapists there are some therapists who will work with people who are doing just fine and help them go to great. So it's a broad brush painting with right now. Joe: But I got to tell you in the future audience you may hear me say how do you want to feel in three years when you sell your business instead of what's your financial goal. What do you want to exit for? Inaudible[00:21:40.0] a combination of both. Because I've got to tell you people are this is their baby they've built it up and sometimes they're sad to sell it. But I'm interviewing people right now for the purposes of writing a book. Yes this is the second time I've mentioned this on the podcast and I will not be obnoxious and plug it all the time but it's fascinating. The idea is when that wire hits your account and you can do it with your phone now and you see all of those zeros in your bank account for the first time, what was that feeling like is the question that I asked. And the feeling was okay, that's good. Now I've got to get to work and helping with the transition of the business and keep going. It wasn't champagne popping and jubilation and things of that nature. And do you think that's because; and I heard this literally at three out of the five interviews that I've done so far. Do you think that is just because they're caught up in time focused on the work at hand versus setting a financial and feeling goal when someone exits their business? David: I think the question is why are people so quick to move on to the next thing and they're not celebrating and enjoying? Joe: Yeah I guess so. Thank you. You do a better job of reframing my questions than I do. Thank you. David: My pleasure. Firstly tell me do you have a working title for your book? Joe: I do. We talked about it. That's right. David: I think there was one line you said and like oh you got to hold on to that line. I can't remember what it was. Joe: We did. I've settled on; and this is the part where I'm either an idiot or brilliant. I sent out two title options; I already said it to everybody here, one was Incredible Exits which is a series we use here on the podcast for people who have sold their businesses. And the other was Exitpreneur. David: That's the one I remember, yeah. Joe: That's the one that stuck. Right. So I think probably 24 out of 25 people said Incredible Exits, go with it, it's just that. David: Do you remember the book title that I suggested? Joe: Yes Making Exit Sexy Again or something along that lines. David: No, that might be the subtitle but you said to me something like the real money is in the something. Joe: It's when you exit the business. Yeah the real money is when you exit. And then yes… David: It was nothing like where the real money is. I forgot what it was but I was very excited about it at the time. I really am. Joe: We're Making Financial Sexy Again that was the subtitle that you suggested. David: Your financials; because you said the real money is in the financials and people might get that and so you can make it sexy. Joe: Or eyes bleed. Well I ended up settling on The Exitpreneurs Playbook with the whole goal of setting a goal and reverse engineering your pathway to that. But we might add some feelings in that goal. David: Yeah. So speaking about reverse engineering I'll comment on why I think we're so quick to skip over the celebration but firstly I want to tweak or reframe something you said. I agree with you it would be good to ask them how do you want to feel when you sell the business. So that's great. I think that would be a good move. And what I'm talking about that I want to clarify it is much broader than that. I'm saying how do you want to feel in your life generally. Joe: Yeah. David: And so just for listeners to make sure that that's clear; how do you want to feel generally when you wake up, as you go about the day, when you go to bed. How do you want to feel and what kind of activities and things actually have you feel that and then reverse engineer the life of that. And you may find that money would be a component and that's where Joe can come in and help you maximize what you get for your business to support what you've already created in terms of your life goals. Now why I think we're so quick to skip and I'm one of them once a while this is I say why we are quick to skip the celebration and I got this from Dan Sullivan I think; a Strategic Coach. So we're looking forward, that's how we're oriented. We're looking forward and we constantly see the gap between where we are and where we want to be. And that's great that's the ego's job because it wants to put food on the table. But when we do that all we're going to see constantly are gaps. We're constantly going to see what there is to do and it can be overwhelming and we miss the celebration. If we want to feel good and acknowledge ourselves for how far we've come we have to turn around. Metaphorically look backwards and see how far we've come and that's the gain. So he talks about Gain and Gap and I'm always like all right that was good. Now what's next? And I have to slow down and even say to people we're celebrating or I'm going to pop some champagne or we're going to dinner or dinner's on me because I want to really acknowledge this win in my life that for example my health has been pretty rough for quite a while and I went out three times last week to go and be with people and get limbic connection and that's a win. So we can slow down and celebrate that and say wow look how great that is instead of looking forward to go there's still so much to do health wise to heal. So does that answer your question? Joe: It does. Thank you. Have you got any quick tips for those that are too afraid to hire a personal and business and life coach; have you got any quick tips in terms of somebody that's caught up in that grind every single day just trying to keep the wheels on the bus and not run out of inventory and deal with the coronavirus now and tariffs and so on and so forth? How do they kind of slow down and focus and appreciate what it is that they've got so that they can look forward with a clear vision? David: Yeah well I would recommend filling in the life assessment at PlayforReal.life. It'd take you five or 10 minutes and it's great information to have about your life. And then you can see oh maybe I want to work on the real goals, I'm going to sit down and do an hour session with myself and set some specific measurable targets that will have me feel great. So that's one thing. I like to talk about truth and daring in particular. Joe: I played that as a kid. David: Yeah well that's Truth or Dare. Joe: I know, I know. David: I like truth and dare. I don't know if those are quick tips but I think the more we speak out truth the better life gets the more attractive we get. We might rock the boat a few times and have some teething pains but I think… Joe: So speaking the truth to those around you, to yourself, is a daring thing to do? David: Most of us have grown up learning to hide things. We learn it covertly and subconsciously. We're like I'm just going to keep all this stuff in here and I'll show the world what's safe. And I get that and sometimes that's appropriate. But nine out of 10 times I think it separates us and a great leadership move and personal growth move is to share the things that are a little edgy. Hey when you said that I felt disappointed or I notice I want us to feel better working together and it feels strange and I don't know what it is to talk about it. Joe: It's hard to initiate that. David: Yeah. Joe: How do you initiate that? I remember I was a kid; I was in my 20s and I was volunteering at this theater in Portland, Maine and doing a massive renovation. It was going to end up being a concert venue and I volunteered to work my tail off so that I could become an employee of the company when it finally opened. And I got that opportunity and it really pissed off somebody else and we weren't done yet. We still had another three or four weeks and that person he could have been bumping into me with his shoulder because he was so upset he would have. It was that kind of you know mental stare and whatnot and finally I just said hey what have I done to upset and offend you? And it was hard for me to figure out what to say but it worked and we became friends afterwards oddly enough. And so I did; I was truthful and confronted him I dared to and it worked out very well but it's very hard to do. David: Yeah. Joe: How do you bridge that gap and say it? David: Well the biggest obstacle is most people aren't even aware of those troops that are swimming around in their subconscious. They're just like that guy's a dick. Or that I don't like her or I'm just not going to work with him again. He's unreliable, right? We don't even see that I could speak up and possibly change this. So that's the first thing is become aware of it. And I'm working on an app called it; that will help you do a true thought to try and work out oh what are the truths that I could say if I felt courageous? Secondly once you work it out say it's like that guy and you're feeling like things are strained and you want to bring up the conversation, the thing that gets in the way is lack of clarity. You're not aware yet what your hope or intention is like what's the good that could come out of it? You haven't generated that yet. So it's a bit murky. You're not totally clear what you're afraid of. It's probably something like he might get defensive or it might be really awkward and might make things worse. But that's not clear in the mind. So I have a free download on the on the website. It's called A Four Step Tough Conversations Blueprint and the worksheet will help you get clear, it'll even ask you is there a request you could make; something they could do that would improve the situation? so you get clarity then you're going to be much more likely to have the conversation because like oh now I know what's going on. Before I was just this jumble of I just didn't like what was happening. Then once you got the clarity you can follow the four steps which give you to them in a nutshell. You asked permission, don't just dump the conversation; can I talk to you about something for a few minutes? You share one hope and one fear. My hope is that we'll feel more connected after it because I'm feeling like things are a little strange now my hesitation is I might make it worse. But are you willing; can I share the issue? And then three you share the issue and make your request. My request would be just that you let me know what's going on or if there's any way I can improve the situation. Joe: You make it sound very easy. David: Well I've had a lot of practice doing them and talking about it and the worksheet really does make it a lot easier. I'm not saying you're not going to feel uncomfortable and I'm not saying there isn't risk. That's what makes it a little bit exciting but your chances of it going better are much clearer because you'll have the steps. You can even take a printout with you and say I wrote down some talking points because I wanted to do a good job at this. And then the step four; super important, is get curious and listen. How is this from your side? What are you experiencing? Do you have a better idea than what I do? And then you shut up and you listen and then you'll work it out together. Joe: I love it. Can you summarize for us as we're wrapping up and running out of time how is it David that this is helpful for people in business; the entrepreneurs that are here in the audience? David: Oh my God. It's helpful for everyone but specifically in business you want your staff to be motivated and empowered. I had my assistant quit out of nowhere. She did only three things that weren't working for her and she didn't have the training as most people don't know how to speak up. She didn't even consider a conversation was possible. So by you learning these techniques and practicing it you can model it for others so that you can have more communication among your team. You become more attractive as a leader. You're going to build more loyalty that people want to work with you. They will have a sense that they can trust you. You'll have more customers because your energy is going to shift. And they'll be like oh wow; like Ezra, right? I say one of the reasons that people go and pay and be part of Blue Ribbon Mastermind is because of who Ezra is and how he shows up. And he's learned how to have these conversations and speak truth. So if we had more time I could probably go into 10 more benefits but here's one final benefit. You will feel better and you will like yourself more if you're speaking truth. Joe: Yeah that's a pretty huge benefit, that's called being happy. So I'm going to go ahead and download it myself. I know you and I are going to chat personally next week and I'm very confident that I will actually become one of your clients and maybe we'll have you back on and talk about my personal experience and how we went through that process and what it's made; a difference for me, in my life here at Quiet Light Brokerage. All right. Any last minute thoughts and then of course again the URL at how people reach you if they want to touch base and possibly have a coaching session or just learn more from what you do on the website. David: Yeah. Thank you. So my last thoughts are you're doing great; wherever you are, whatever you're doing, life is incredibly complex. I'm going to do a rant sometime on this. Things are designed to break down. That's how it's going to work. And you made it this far. You're doing great. You don't need anything else. That's the number one thing. Secondly there's always room for more; for things to be better. That's the game I'm playing. How I do better and get the most out of this this life. And so if you want to practice speaking a truth more maybe having a few tough conversations I think that'll help. Setting goals and really we didn't talk about laser focused action but those are some things that can help. My invitation, if people want to find out more or get in touch with me PlayforReal.life is my website and there are three cool things you can do at that site all at the same link. One you can download this blueprint if you want to have a blueprint; a roadmap for your tough conversations. Secondly I have my own podcast if you want to listen to me as well as Joe. I've got Tough Conversations with David Wood, you can subscribe at the website. And the third thing if something resonated for you on this call and you'll like I want life to be better. I want business to be better and if you think you might be coachable like you're open to input see if you qualify for a discovery session. If you qualify I don't charge for that one because it's fun and too because it's how I find the right people to work with long term. We'll actually dive into your life and business and create a plan. And if you want to implement it on your own, keep me posted. Let me know how it goes and if we both believe that coaching can have a big impact we'll talk about setting up coaching and that's all at PlayforReal.life. Joe: All right. Well I'm looking forward to it myself David. Thanks for coming on the show I appreciate it. And I hope you can help a lot of people in the audience just be happier in life and happier and more successful in business. Thank you very much. David: My pleasure Joe. Thank you. Links and Resources: Play For Real David's Podcast  

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries
Disney's Recess (Created by Paul and Joe) Pt. 4

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2020 74:12


The full unauthorized deep history of Recess. Learn everything you wanted to know and more about a forgotten gem. How did it start? Why was it at Disney of all places? Who are Paul and Joe? How did this happen?  Hear it from the creators themselves, as Paul and Joe explore their lives and their creations, their failures and successes, and of course Recess.  This time Paul and Joe find themselves at Nickelodeon, and help define the newly birthed Nicktoons with Rugrats.   Recorded before Recess was on Disney Plus.  This is Part 4. 

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries
Disney's Recess (created by Paul and Joe) Pt 7 (the end)

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2020 71:58


The full unauthorized deep history of Recess. Learn everything you wanted to know and more about a forgotten gem. How did it start? Why was it at Disney of all places? Who are Paul and Joe? How did this happen?  Hear it from the creators themselves, as Paul and Joe explore their lives and their creations, their failures and successes, and of course Recess.  Part 7, final episode of our series, and the end of the line for Recess.

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries
Disney's Recess (created by Paul and Joe) Pt. 6

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2020 69:33


The full unauthorized deep history of Recess. Learn everything you wanted to know and more about a forgotten gem. How did it start? Why was it at Disney of all places? Who are Paul and Joe? How did this happen?  Hear it from the creators themselves, as Paul and Joe explore their lives and their creations, their failures and successes, and of course Recess.  Welcome to Part 6 and the beginning of the Recess on Disney's One Saturday Morning. 

disney created recess joe how one saturday morning
Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries
Disney's Recess (created by Paul and Joe) Pt. 2

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2020 35:36


The full unauthorized deep history of Recess. Learn everything you wanted to know and more about a forgotten gem. How did it start? Why was it at Disney of all places? Who are Paul and Joe? How did this happen?  Hear it from the creators themselves, as Paul and Joe explore their lives and their creations, their failures and successes, and of course Recess. 

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries
Disney's Recess (created by Paul and Joe) Pt. 5

Disney Dust: Disney Documentaries

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2020 38:23


The full unauthorized deep history of Recess. Learn everything you wanted to know and more about a forgotten gem. How did it start? Why was it at Disney of all places? Who are Paul and Joe? How did this happen?  Hear it from the creators themselves, as Paul and Joe explore their lives and their creations, their failures and successes, and of course Recess.  Welcome to Part 5, in which Joe helps develop Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold! and Paul gets to work on Beethoven the animated series.  We are one step closer to Recess, strap in. 

Can We Go Downstairs
CWGD #41 - Take me the F out

Can We Go Downstairs

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2020 54:24


What is Sez doing for Valentine's Day? Just how much beef does Sean eat? Will anybody see Nickelback with Joe? How dope is Drew's back tuck? Remember the JetBlue pilot who went nuts mid-flight?

The Quiet Light Podcast
Future-proof Your Business and Rock the Recession With Jonathan Slain

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2020 30:24


There is always a recession coming, we just don't know when. The US is in one of the longest expansion periods ever known but many predict a recession in the next twelve to twenty-four months. Business owners can make money in a growing economy and they can make also money in an economy that is pulling back. Today we are talking to Jonathan Slain, founder of Recession.com – a company he started in 2008 when he lost his fitness-based business. He saw an opening and borrowed the money to launch his successful recession-proof consulting business. In his new book, Rock the Recession, Jonathan and his co-author highlight ways savvy entrepreneurs can bounce back from internal recession and make plans to be buyers when opportunity knocks. Episode Highlights: Jonathan's recommendations for owners of online businesses to start assessing themselves as recession ready. How to benchmark a small online business with smaller revenues. Importance of board of advisors and mentors and how to find them. The cost and time involved in choosing advisors and mentors. Other actionable advice for someone running an online business to prepare for economic downturn. The importance of having access to capital and credit now rather than waiting for the pull back. Why Jonathan wrote his book. Internal recessions and how to avoid or rectify them. How to research whether what you're selling will survive or thrive. Advice for the business hunter in pre-recession times. Some final tips in Jonathan's own words. Hint; plan now. Transcription: Mark: Joe there's a recession coming. Joe: Is it? I'm not sure I thought it was here 18 months ago or was coming 18 months ago and now it's going to be fall of 2020. What's the story? How do you know this? Mark: Well there's always a recession coming, right? Joe: Oh, yeah. Mark: I mean we know we just don't know when but if you look at; I would encourage people listening; when you're in your car don't pick up your phone but when you get back to your office or get back to in front of a computer do a search for a graph of recession gaps and you'll get to see from 1900 until present when the recessionary periods were and when the non-recessionary periods were. And we are in a period of time right now, one of the longest expansion periods in our economy and so it's not really soot saying or you know looking in a crystal ball to see that there's a recession coming. We know it's going to happen, we don't know how bad, we don't know when exactly but we do know it is. And I had an investment professor in college who would say all the time bears get rich, bulls get rich, pigs get slaughtered and I always thought well bears get rich too but you need to actually plan for; I screwed that up, it's bulls and bears and pigs but whatever you need to plan for this… Joe: I'm just trying to think through what you just said so thank you I thought I was not keeping up with you. Mark: Well you know what I failed that class so maybe that's why I don't know the right answer. But bulls get rich, bears get rich, pigs get slaughtered. And the point was you can make money in a growing economy, you can make money in a declining economy don't get greedy; that's the lesson but there is an in lesson in there, you can make money in a down economy but how many of those listening right now are just looking at their last year being like that was awesome without any idea of what they're going to do when; not if but when the economy pulls back or they haven't pull backed within their own company. And I know you talked to somebody who specializes in this; he owns recession.com for goodness sake. Joe: I know what a great URL, Recession.com, it's Jonathan Slain and he's been through this. He started his own company in 2008 and just had to fight through meeting payroll and all these different things and learned so much in terms of being ready for the next recession and preparing for the next recession. And he's expanded beyond the actual economic recessions that we're talking about and focuses a little bit in helping companies with internal recessions so that if they had a client that had a subscription or SaaS business but only had 10 major clients and they lost two or three within a month or two that's an internal recession. If you've got a hero SKU that you're selling and 70% of your revenue is from that hero SKU you are setting yourself up for an internal financial recession with your business if competition comes in and hurts that. So he has a readiness assessment test; a recession readiness assessment test on his website and it goes through and compares how you are prepared compared to others and helps people take advantage of upcoming recessions and avoid the major pitfalls in being one of those pigs that get slaughtered. Mark: Well let's get right to it because I think this is an important topic for anyone. Anyone out there that has an online business, don't get too fat on your current earnings. Understand that businesses go through cycles, economies go through cycles, let's all survive this next cycle and thrive in the next cycle and it sounds like that's what we're going to learn here. Joe: Hey folks Joe here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Jonathan Slain with us. Jonathan is the author of Rock the Recession and is an expert in preparing for an economic downturn either in a worldwide situation or a nationwide situation or possibly in your own business. Jonathan welcome to the podcast. Jonathan: Let's rock. Good to be here. Joe: Can you expand on that background a little bit? We don't do any fancy introductions here. Can you tell the audience who you are what you're all about and where you come from? Jonathan: Yeah, so I come to you today from my home in Cleveland, Ohio but I really started my career; I have to disclose that I'm a recovering investment banker. And so that's where I started. From there I went on to own my own business which was five gyms all located in Cleveland. I think you mentioned earlier that I borrowed some money from my mother in law in the Great Recession so we can talk about that. And since then now I am full time doing consulting for large companies looking to grow revenue in or profit and that is what brought me to writing the book. And then when we were talking before we started the show getting me on Fox News lately. So we can talk about any or all of that but that's my story. Joe: Well congratulations on stepping up to the Quiet Light Brokerage podcast from Fox, it's a big show you're on now. Jonathan: Understood. Joe: Are you nervous? Jonathan: A little bit. Joe: We've got some pretty impressive people in the audience believe it or not; they're both buyers and sellers of online businesses, entrepreneurs that are building businesses that they're solopreneurs in some case sometimes they have remote VAs working for them sometimes they have staff. But what would your recommendations be for those that are; first we'll talk about the owners of online businesses and how they prepare for a potential economic recession. Jonathan: Yes. So the first thing that I would do is to assess where you are. So as a business owner it's really to benchmark how you're doing compared to where everybody else is in the market. So if you don't know where you stand then you can't figure out what you should do first to start to get better and improve. When it comes to benchmarking that was where my business partner and the co-author of the book; that's where we started. And so we put up a free tool. It's on our website so if the audience wants to go to recession.com they can go there. It's 20 questions. It only takes about 5 to 10 minutes Joe and you'll get a score from 0 to 100. If you're a zero then it's likely that you're going to go bankrupt in the next recession, if you're a hundred then you're licking your chops; can't wait to pounce when we hit the next downturn. So that's where I'd start. Joe: How do you benchmark in an industry like the online business with a lot of smaller businesses doing less than 10 million in revenue when none of the information is public? Jonathan: Yeah. So what I can tell you is that from all of the responses we've received to the recession readiness assessment, the average score right now is a 37. So I think for people looking to benchmark themselves with other private companies 37 is where we're seeing the mark. If you're above that score that relative to we've got a thousand plus responses you're probably doing better than the average and below that can be nervous. So I think that's one piece but it brings up a good point and I think part of what I was listening to on some of your other episodes is that private businesses, small businesses need to have their own board of advisors. And so that's one of the questions actually on our assessment is do you have a board of advisors? And I'm not talking about your lawyer, I'm not talking about your accountant, I'm talking about people that have a proven track record of making money in business preferably in a similar business to what you're doing to your online business and that will just give you straight feedback. Again I know that some people bristle when I say don't have your accountant or lawyer on the team. My issue is that your paid professionals may not want to tell you what you need to hear all the time for fear of losing your business. Joe: And I think that's a great idea. I call them mentors or board advisers whatever it might be. The question is I saw something on the hustle the other day, we focus on or I watched that and I know Sam and that was a question that someone came up with so like look I'm trying to find a local mentor or board of advisors; how do you find them? A lot of people gave a lot of different responses but what would your advice be in terms of trying to find the right type of mentor or board of advisor and is there a cost associated with it? Jonathan: So I always have a list. I call it the list. I keep it with me at all times. It's the 10 people I'd love to have on my board of advisors; the people I'd love to have as a mentor or a coach. And the issue is that most of them are not going to work with me right now. These are all folks that are super busy; they're overcommitted, and so they're on my list because once a quarter I bug them. I send them an email, I text them, I give them a phone call, I just drip on them and I try to wear them down until they finally get to the point where they're like fine I'll coach you; I'll mentor you. And that's literally I think how I've gotten a lot of my mentors because the people that I'm chasing don't have discretionary time. And so I don't think it's as simple as we listen to the podcast and we decide I'm going to do this thing and you just all of a sudden have a board. It's going to be a process that takes some time. In terms of the cost associated with it, I do think it depends on who you're working with. But I would think an honorarium of 500 to $1,000 per board member per quarter is fair. And I'll tell you that they shouldn't need the money. If the reason they're doing this is turning a little bit extra money I don't think you have the right person on your board. I think that in most cases they should be donating whatever you are giving them to their favorite nonprofit. And I think they should want you to pay them the 500 just to keep you honest and actually listening to their counsel and to keep them honest so that they feel like they have some skin in the game that they need to do some research; they need to read your financials before they get to the meeting. Joe: And how much time a quarter do you take up with someone like that? Jonathan: Yes. So my thought would be a four-hour meeting once a quarter and that they should do anywhere between two and four hours of prep of reading whatever packet that you send to them before the meeting. Joe: Okay, not too bad. What actionable advice can you give people that are running online businesses now in addition to the board members what could someone do now thinking okay, if there is an economic recession I want to do everything I can to prepare over the next 6 to 12 months. What can they do now? Jonathan: Yes. So the second step in the whole process would be to tune yourself and your business up. And by tune up I mean you're going to be doing things like looking at your line of credit. So do you have the right line of credit to be able to grow in a recession? Joe: Why do they need a line of credit? Jonathan: So by that, I simply mean capital access to cash if we get into a downturn and you see an awesome opportunity to buy assets to buy inventory for cheap, to be able to afford talent that you couldn't get access to during the recession or maybe they find a bolt-on opportunity for their business to purchase another business then you're going to need access to capital in order to make all those things happen. Joe: And what forms of credit would you advise someone seek? Jonathan: Yes. So I think that the best would probably be a line of credit that isn't secured by personal assets. If you can't get that done then look at a home equity line of credit and if you can't get that done then look at credit cards. The thing is to have access to capital; you don't have to use it. But here's the deal like right now when the economy is good this is the best possible time to go to your bank and ask for credits. When we're in a recession, when we're in a downturn the banks are not going to loan you money. They're going to laugh at you if you come and you try to borrow from them. I mean one of my favorite sayings is that you can go to a bank; it's like asking for an umbrella except when it's raining. So banks operate in the same way. They want to extend credit now because all the banks are competing for your business. When we're in a recession, when we're in a downturn they're going to start to contract their portfolios. They're going to start to mitigate risk. They're not going to want to open up new lines of credit especially for online businesses; especially for newer online businesses that they see as riskier and not asset-backed. Joe: I'm going to back that up, folks. I sold my business as you all know in November of 2010. I bought a house in June of 2010. I paid mostly cash for it. I sold my business in November and then got busy got delayed and didn't apply for that home equity line of credit until sometime in May the following year. Well, guess what? I had filed my tax returns. I didn't have employment. I had a ridiculous amount of equity in my home and I got declined for a home equity line of credit because of timing. It was ridiculous. It was 2011 at that point as well. So the economy was just coming back and I had a ridiculous amount of credit but because I didn't have a quote-unquote job or income at the time I got turned out for hillock. And I had been given previous advice exactly like this and this is from my mentor; a business person, a business advisor, always have some sort of line of credit available to you. Jonathan is right. Make sure if you can it's not tied to personal assets but the reality in this solopreneur world that we live in for the most part that's really hard to do. If you can't get that non-secured get secured and get it backed up as a credit line with your investment advisors or on your home equity line of credit or any other way that you can. What about credit cards and revolving credit cards; do you advise people to mess around with that at all or is that something that they should avoid? Jonathan: Well I would as a last resort. Again for me, you don't have to use them. But I'm a business owner too; I'm an entrepreneur I always want to have a backup in case things don't go as planned and so part of this is that I want everyone to look forward to the next recession. I know that's weird but that was the idea behind why we wrote the book. I mean the traditional plan for a recession is fire people and cut overhead and just survive and that book's already been written many times over. The idea here was what if we studied people that leverage recessions and use them as a way to hack the system to escape the usual need to hustle and grind to be able to grow your business and then sell it for a dream outcome. And so I'm always thinking of how can we use credit in downtimes to be able to buy assets to buy businesses from other people that weren't smart enough to listen to our podcast; from everybody that didn't prepare. And at the same time if all the stuff we're talking about isn't working; Joe, if people are listening and they're like look my business isn't growing and I'm in a recession myself then you need access to that capital just to survive. I mean at the end of the day we all need to protect the beehive as entrepreneurs because if the business doesn't survive then none of the rest of this matters. Joe: And that's almost moving into the second type of recession and that's just an internal business recession when someone has key employees that leave or hero SKUs where competition comes in. How do you help people in that regard or what actionable steps can you recommend to them that they take to avoid a situation like that or rectify it if it happens? Jonathan: Perfect. I mean I know a lot of people don't always agree with my predictions. I do think that we're going to have some sort of a downturn in the US economy towards the end of 2020. I don't think it'll be a full-blown recession but I do think as we get closer to the election that consumers and businesses will hold up in terms of spending and that will slow our economy down. But if you're rolling your eyes right now, if you're saying I don't agree with this guy I don't think the next recession still 2021 or 2022 and you're about to tune us out then just wait one sec. The idea here is that you brought up non-economic recessions so if your biggest customer leaves that would usually put most businesses into a recession. It could apply to a hero SKU in our case. If you have a competitor come in and attack your hero SKU; same difference, you're in a recession. If your best one or two employees leave and they go start a competing business, you are in a recession. The other one that has recently come up is what about government and regulatory changes? I mean I know the audience understands that vaping is a huge new business and everybody wants to get into marijuana, get into vaping well in New England they recently passed a law putting a moratorium on vaping while they studied the after-effects of it after there were several deaths. All of a sudden all those online businesses that were selling vaping cartridges were vaporized. And that happened overnight. It happened very quickly. So I want everybody listening to have a plan for how they can leverage those opportunities. Joe: Well the tariffs I guess could be considered a recession for some businesses. I've got a client who's tariffs are 42.6% on top of his cost of goods sold; a pretty big impact. Jonathan: They sell online? Joe: No, they don't. Jonathan: Okay. Well so it's thinking through if you're in one of those businesses what can you do? So the question then becomes you want to start to think about how you can diversify. And I know that the more practical tips for this are that I like to use online research. There's a site called Ibis World and it's a paid site. Joe: Is that I-B-I-S? Jonathan: I-B-I-S. Ibis World. You would have to make an investment but they provide industry reports on where they believe the future of different industries are going. So if you're selling line online they've got a report for that. If you're selling widgets online they've got a report for that. And the idea there is that you want to think about industries that will do better in the downturn and industries that will do worse. So in the book, we write about some of our favorite; some of the ones that got pummeled in the last recession, in the Great Recession and the ones that did well. The ones that got pummeled think like jewelry stores not good in a recession. If you're selling high-end jewelry online or in a store; not good, same thing with things like travel and tourism, discretionary goods. That's why I was selling personal training services in the Great Recession; not good. We all know that insurance and finance got hit especially hard in the Great Recession. Not good. So the ones that did well would be things like consumer staples; so if you're selling consumer staples like toothpaste, people are still going to need to brush their teeth in a downturn. If you start to get more exotic with your thinking; think about like veterinary clinics and veterinary supplies, people still spend money and take care of their pets in a downturn. And people don't care; if their dog is sick they'll put it on a credit card, if their dog likes Eukanuba and that's one of the most expensive brands, people will not change their dog food brand if we're in a recession. So if you're an online seller of those high-end pet products; I actually like that market. I think it will continue moving forward. My point just to answer your question though is that if you slow down, if you do some of the deep work of thinking instead of just being busy then I think all the answers are actually out there for how I will position myself, how I would start to diversify if I am in that hero SKU situation. Joe: In other words I had a neighbor tell me once; I was asking him, he was a bit of a mentor as well, he said Joe, you know exactly what to do. You just need somebody else to tell you to reinforce it. Same thing here folks; you've heard Mark and I say it and almost every guest that's ever been on the podcast, focus on the business. It's not about driving top-line revenue only, focus on the nuts and bolts of the bottom line part of the business and that's going to bring value; improve transferability, the documentation, the growth trends, the data behind the business and that's going to bring you more value in the short run and in the long run if you eventually do sell your business. And that leads Jonathan to talking about the other half of the audience; the people that are buying online businesses, those people that tune in week after week as they're on the hunt for that next business that they want to buy and they listen to us. What advice can you give to someone if they're out there hunting for a business in terms of looking for that business with a potential forthcoming recession? Jonathan: Yeah. So I want to start with the story and that's that Paul Belair who I wrote the book with; right before the Great Recession started Paul bought a business. He invested a million dollars with his management team to purchase the business and they grew it during the Great Recession. It was an HVAC business, so a business that helped out with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; not a sexy business. And they sold it 63 months later. They sold it for over 70 million. Joe: He bought it for a million and sold it for over 70. Jonathan: So the purchase price was higher than a million but they put in a million in cash. Joe: I got you. Jonathan: And then they had some debt to fund the rest of it. Joe: Fair enough. That still sounds like a hell of a return on investment. Jonathan: Yeah well it's 70X on your cash plus; I can't tell you the exact number. He's under an NDA but in any case, it's even over 70 million. So that's why Paul writes the book with me but in terms of being on podcasts, you would prefer to be off playing pick-up ball in Florida. Joe: So hopefully he's using Amazing Aces. We've got a client that bought that business and it's a great brand. Jonathan: Really? Joe: Yeah. Joe: Jonathan: I love it. Well, it's Amazing Aces? Joe: Absolutely. Jonathan: All right I'm making; you know what? I'm still Christmas shopping for him. Joe: There you go. Jonathan: So I tell you that story because part of the way that they did that huge one million to 70 million dollar exit is that they picked a business and then they moved it such that it would have a tailwind in a downturn. And so if you're a buyer right now it's thinking about what kinds of businesses would get an economic tailwind if we were in a downturn and then like my mom says you've got to put yourself in the middle of the street if you want to get run over. So Paul… Joe: Very bad parenting; I don't know what the deal is with your mom but I got to say that's not very good advice. Alright. Jonathan: Paul put himself in the middle of the street because what he did was when he bought that HVAC business they moved it from doing mostly construction; so by construction I just mean when you buy a new HVAC system and they install it on the roof of your building that's a construction project. Joe: Yeah. Jonathan: Those units cost 5 to 20,000; that's a big project, a big investment. They moved it to doing service. So how could they take the equipment that was existing for a business owner and repair it because in a downturn; in a recession, people would rather repair their equipment than replace it. And so Paul saw that trend coming with his management team and totally changed the business to really capitalize on that. And that's how they were able to grow it into this recurring revenue business which again is another big thing I'd be looking out for your buyers. Joe: Yeah. Jonathan: Yeah. How do we get into a business that has recurring revenue? How can we be selling the razor cartridges instead of that one-time transaction? Joe: So find a business in a niche that's not going to be impacted by a downturn whether it's a critical service business or something like the pet space where people will spend money on their pets no matter what and adding some sort of recurring revenue aspect to it. Beyond that any thoughts in terms of their own personal financials and how to prepare for it in terms of buying; is it the same thing lining up as much line of credit and purchasing power as possible? Jonathan: Yeah well actually my favorite tip there is on the personal guarantee side. So I know right now with the economy booming; I mean consumer confidence is at record highs, unemployment is at record lows, the economy is still booming so banks are still willing to do more than they will at any other point in our economic cycle. I love the idea of capping, reducing, or eliminating personal guarantees especially for your buyers. So what does that look like to go to the bank and ask them to do the deal but to do it without a personal guarantee or to put a cap on that personal guarantee? Right now I think bankers are willing to have that conversation. You don't have to give up a blanket personal guarantee on all of your stuff. So this isn't possible generally with an SBA loan so don't worry about writing to me about that because I get it. But if you can do a conventional loan product can you get it so that you can cap those personal guarantees or reduce them? And it may mean that you have to shop banks, maybe you have to go to four or five banks, maybe you have to talk to your local credit union to make that possible. I just think it's worth having that conversation so that if we get into a downturn; if your business does go sideways that you've mitigated some of the risks that you would otherwise have. And it's free to ask. Joe: And on that aspect folks we've had Shakil Prasla on the podcast and Shakil has bought half a dozen businesses and he's done it mostly with non-SBA money and building up credit with banks and probably is avoiding that personal guarantee as well. So Google Shakil Prasla and Quiet Light Podcast and you'll find that episode. In fact, I think if you Google Shakil he's got a new course on how to purchase an online business as well so check that out. Jonathan before we go any last-minute thoughts or advice for anybody listening in terms of rocking the recession that may be coming in like 2020 in your words? Jonathan: Yes. The main thing is to put together the recession plan in the cool rational light of day as opposed to the emotional heat of the night. I want the audience to be thinking about putting together a plan now and then putting it under glass and then if you do have a recession in your business or you see on Fox or CNN that they're announcing that the economy's in a recession you can go over the glass break the glass take out your plan and start to execute it. The issue most of the time is that we don't have a plan and so when we get into a recession whether it's personal or affecting the entire country you're huddled in the fetal position in the corner of your office like I was when the Great Recession hit. I didn't have a plan. I had people knocking on my office door asking me what was going to happen with the business. And I just spent months trying to figure out what the plan was while all my competitors were executing and taking the best opportunities off the shelf. Well if you're still graciously listening to us that's what I really want for you is to be one of the people that can actually be looking forward to the recession and that can just move into execution mode when the next recession is announced. Joe: That's great advice. Thank you, Jonathan. How do the audience find out about more about what you do online and helping them rocking the recession? How can they find you? Jonathan: Sure. Recession.com is the website and yes we really do own recession.com. All my contact information is on there. They can get me at Jonathan@Recession.com or all the infos are on the site if they want to go do that. Recession Readiness Assessment. They'll see all my contact info right at the site. Joe: Excellent. Thanks for your time today Jonathan. I appreciate it. Jonathan: Alright. Rock on. Links and Resources: Recession.com Free Assessment Tool Rock the Recession Ibis World

The Quiet Light Podcast
How SMS Marketing Can Increase Your Engagement 4X With Arri Bagah

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 3, 2019 37:49


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

Gritty Founder
00046. How Joe De Sena Went from Cleaning Pools to the Stock Market to Building Spartan, a World Leader in Obstacle Course Races

Gritty Founder

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 19, 2019 51:57


On today's episode of Gritty Founder, Kreig Kent talks with Joe De Sena about his entrepreneurial journey and how he built Spartan. Joe shares valuable advice on finding product-market fit, iterating early, and running lean no matter how much money you have. Joe De Sena created the world’s largest obstacle race and endurance brand and is dedicated to ripping 100 million people off their couches and into the Spartan lifestyle. Some Questions Kreig asks Joe: - How did you come up with the idea for Spartan? (15:30) - Describe a Spartan Race, what is it? (27:57) - How did you build the product to manage all the participants? (30:44) - How did you grow the business so rapidly? (31:43) - If you could go back in time, what advice would you give to your former self? (34:50) - What is some advice for founders? (43:58) In This Episode, You Will Learn: - About Joe’s background and how he became an entrepreneur (4:23) - How Joe built and grew Spartan (15:37) - Start getting feedback and iterating as soon as possible (27:08) - Spend the time and money to build the right infrastructure and foundation early on (35:19) - The importance of finding product-market fit (36:02) - You need to practice adversity (37:10) - Joe’s thoughts on parenting (38:23) - Even if you raise money, act and operate as if you don’t have money (44:00) - Focus on gaining momentum over margin (44:53) - There is always room to cut expenses (45:26) Connect with Joe De Sena: Twitter Personal Website Spartan Also Mentioned on This Show... Joe’s favorite quote: “Death is the price you pay for life, so make it worth it.” ―Joe De Sena Joe’s book recommendation: Adrift by Steven Callahan

The Quiet Light Podcast
Incredible Acquisitions: The Beard King (Part Two) With Raj Patel

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2019 28:33


In the world of e-commerce acquisitions, it is always beneficial to explore a transaction from both the seller and the buyer side. In today's Beard King follow-up episode we bring you part two, the buyer. Raj Patel is a law school dropout who has been an entrepreneur for several years. He started to build Amazon businesses while studying full time. Being and entrepreneur and making more money as a student than he would have if he had followed his original career path led Raj to abandon law for e-commerce. Raj looked at over 35 businesses before pulling the trigger on Beard King, his first sizable acquisition. He is here to give insight into his search criteria, the buying process, and some of the ideas he has to grow his newly acquired business. If you missed Part 1, you can listen to it here. Episode Highlights: Raj's background and how he found success in e-commerce. Why he began moving towards acquiring rather than bootstrapping. The new Amazon third party platform and any impact Raj fears for his businesses. The number of businesses he looked and how the search process played out. Whether any of the other deals explored in-depth came to offers. Why direct calls and face to face time between buyers and sellers is important. Aspects of the Beard King business that attracted Raj despite trends and competition. Raj's retrospective view on what was done right and what lessons he can share from the acquisition. How he boosted his bottom line quickly. What he's now doing to boost the topline. The foreign markets Beard King is focusing on and how Raj chose them. The sources of Raj's experience, how he learns, and how he weeds out useless information. How he interacts with other entrepreneurs on a regular basis to avoid loneliness. How many hours Rajputs into the new business each week. Transcription: Mark: Hey, recently Joe I know that you had Nick from the Beard King on the podcast to talk about selling the Beard King. And today we have part two. You have Raj on who bought the Beard King. Joe: Yeah it's a great follow up. The first one we get to see it from the seller's perspective and then we get to see it from the buyer's perspective. And Raj is pretty impressive. He is a young guy. He's in his mid-20s, a law school dropout that became an entrepreneur. He was going to law school and building Amazon businesses along the way and realized that there was just no way he was going to make as much money in law school with the demands of law school and life in general afterwards as he is as an entrepreneur. And this is the first sizable one that he's purchased and he goes through the process of the hunt for finding the right business, some of the criteria he was looking for, and some of the changes he's going to make to the Beard King to help grow it over the next 12 to 24 months. Mark: Yeah you told me before that he had been looking for quite a while for a business and he looked at was it like 30 or 40 different businesses before he pulled the trigger on this one? Joe: Yeah, exactly. He'd made a couple of offers on other ones that we had listed, it just wasn't in the right place at the right time in order to make it happen. So this one I think is going to work out great. AAs the audience knows that listened to the first one there's a lot of IP around this one with utility patents, design patents, and it's a big reason why Raj jumped on this very quickly. Mark: Very good. Let's get right to it. Joe: Let's go. Joe: Hey folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and the Quiet Light Podcast. Today I have Raj Patel on the line with me. He bought the Beard King. We had Nick on the podcast last week talking about his exit as a seller and today we've got the buyer. Raj, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. Raj: Thanks for having me, Joe. How are you? Joe: I'm good man. But where's the beard? I mean we chatted last week there was a little bit of stubble I was expecting a big bushy beard today; what's going on? Raj: Unfortunately I am not the Beard King. I can't grow a great beard but I do know business though. That's my thing. Joe: You do know business that's for sure and at a young age; we're going to get into that a little bit as well. Why don't you tell everybody listening who you are, what you're all about, what your background is? Raj: Yeah pretty much my name is Raj Patel and I've been doing about e-commerce; it's my 5th year in I would say. And I primarily do Amazon FBA but we do some; I do own a couple of sites as well that we do direct to website sales as well like Shopify and those platforms. But yeah primarily we're doing; about 80% percent of my revenue is coming through Amazon FBA right now and riding this wave of how well e-commerce is really doing and this market is just exploding right now. Joe: And if I recall from our conversations you're 25 years old and were on the path to becoming attorney and said I can't do that, I'm not going to make enough money. I want to be independent, I want to be an entrepreneur and live this life. Is that right? Raj: Right. That's pretty much true. Yeah. Well, I just turned 26. But it was one of those things where I was making more money while I was in school than I would probably make with a job after I graduate. So I was kind of one of those things that didn't quite make any sense for me to continue that path and I was enjoying what I was doing I got to travel. I'm still traveling all the time and I'm kind of reaping the perks and just growing businesses. Joe: How many have you purchased; was Beard King the first actual purchase or were the other 2 or 3 that you might own are purchases as well or did you develop those from scratch? Raj: So I developed 2 from scratch and those are the ones I started with about 4 or 5 years ago when I was experimenting and I still have those 2 today. And I purchased another and then Beard King would be my second purchase. Joe: I got you. Raj: I moved away really now from starting my own businesses because I've accumulated the capital so I'm moving more towards acquisitions and finding the right fit and brand and adding my spin to it and sort of the knowledge that gained in the last 5 years in defying that 3 businesses. Joe: That's interesting you know we've had Walker on a podcast, he wrote Buy Than Build and then Amanda Rob another advisor here at Quiet Light took another approach which is bootstrap, build, and then sell. You've bootstrapped and built too but you're now because you have the capital buying. Do you find it's easier to get ahead when you're buying something because there's revenue that's already being produced or is there; what's the sort of logic between buying now versus taking the time to build? Raj: Right and to me, it's kind of a timeline thing. I've always been sort of aggressive in terms of expanding and it's to a point where if I start my own Amazon business, I'm looking at a year or 2 out before I can really see the return on my money in terms of the marketing, getting trademarks, getting brand registry, doing a whole bunch of things; graphics, creative, getting all that stuff together as well as building the supply chain in China or wherever you're supplying from and it's really a time thing. I know the work that I put into my first 2 businesses and the timeline it took me to get to where it's at now which was it took quite a bit of time and a lot of work while I was obviously doing other things. And now that I have the capital I'm able to skip those 1 to 2 years of just hard work; not hard work but that sort of figuring things out period and get right into the top where I'm already getting a cash flow positive business that I can just keep adding to it really. Joe: Yeah. And if you hadn't started those other businesses you wouldn't have been able to buy the Beard Kind. You wouldn't have gotten capital. So there's no perfect process or method for everyone. You've got to take your own path. It sounds like you took one that definitely worked for you and now you're evolving into a buyer instead of a builder. Raj: And I would say for anybody who's looking to get into it you know it always helps to know kind of what you're doing too. If you have a little experience that's going to help but that learning curve won't be as drastic. So kind of what I know and now that I'm able to pick these businesses I kind of have these 5 years under my belt I can figure out what I generally want and how I can improve the businesses that are out there. So I feel confident purchasing. Joe: So let me grill you with a bunch of questions as a buyer given that you've just gone through the process and on this one in particular. It's mostly an Amazon business at this point it started off non-Amazon, right? Shark Tank, Shopify, things of that nature and now it's mostly an Amazon. As a buyer, as an entrepreneur, how much do you fear the Amazon third party platform and things changing there and having an impact to your business? Raj: Yeah I think that's a pretty big concern for everybody because they're thinking oh well I only have one source of revenue but the truth is if you expand to a whole bunch of different markets on Amazon you're having kind of multiple streams of income. It's not just you had to stick to the US and that's it. People always forget that there is a lot of people in the world and expanding; it's not like you're putting all your eggs in one basket. And the way e-commerce is kind of going is Amazon is kind of just out there killing everybody right now. So it seems like though you have to follow this path and if you continue trending upwards Amazon looks like it's the way to go right now. Joe: So you're comfortable with the risk on Amazon and you don't think it's going away. Raj: I don't think so, no. I still think it's relatively new and the idea that a couple of years ago you can never build a business like this out of nowhere. First, it was always you take it to retail, you build the supply chain and you're talking 2 to 3 years of just negotiation and relationships and now you can build an entire platform, a business in like a matter of 2 to 3 months which is crazy to think. Joe: Yeah. Raj: Things change over time and you kind of have to go with the flow and that's what; this is where it's at. Most of these businesses; Amazon's made it so it's automated for you and you can run these businesses and pretty much just continue to grow it. And whether it be on Amazon's platform or somebody else's or it changes over time you just have to be willing to change with that too. Joe: And when you were on the hunt for a business to buy were you specifically looking for something that was Amazon based or were you looking for anything that was e-commerce physical products and you didn't care what they were selling. Raj: No I did like the Amazon platform just because they allowed me to; I do a lot of other things during the day as well and the one thing about the FBA platform is you can really optimize everything that I don't have to put in 30, 40 hours a week. I can kind of put it on autopilot and set it. But the other main thing was ad spend is getting kind of crazy in terms of running Facebook ads and Google ads and all that stuff. It's kind of getting really expensive and I've been noticing the last 1 or 2 years with the drop-shipping model that really pushed up the cost for acquisitions for these and getting clicks. So I was kind of trying to stay away from that because that was something I couldn't really control. I couldn't really control how much I'm going to spend on ads with Facebook and all that but I could kind of control my supply chain and have a relatively good idea of what my margins would be on Amazon. Joe: I got you. Okay, just out of curiosity how many businesses in total did you look at in the process of finding this one? Talk to us about that process because some people say they've been looking for a long time but they never actually looked at a full package or they've made 9 offers they must be doing something wrong. What was your process? How long you have you been looking and what was your process? Raj: I would say I was looking for a solid 4 to 5 months I would say and I was looking pretty aggressively. Every day I would look at at least any; I was subscribed to every single email list out there whether it be Quiet Light or whatever other brokerage; everything and I contact; I don't just subscribe to a contact list. I've talked to all the brokers and I would look through all the memorandums and all the offering material. I look through from top to bottom because to me I was always learning something in those. It didn't seem like it was a waste of time for me to read an offering material. You kind of learn how people worked their businesses and you can really gain a lot of knowledge just from reading those as well. So it was never like I didn't; I just skimmed them, I read all them and you could see on my; I don't know within half an hour I'd probably have signed up or whatever new businesses out there and getting their offering memorandum. So I would say 4 to 5 months of just aggressively looking for the right fit. Joe: And in that 4 to 5 month period how many; rough estimate how many listings did you look at in detail where you've looked at the full package? Raj: I would say probably more than 40. Joe: Wow. Raj: I'd say 35 to 40. And some of those weren't exactly Amazon FBA because not that many FBA businesses are available as you would think in the market that fast. I mean when I was looking I wouldn't see more than I don't know and in a month maybe 3 or 4 new businesses would pop up that was something different or something that fit my criteria really. Joe: Okay, and of the 35 to 40 that you've looked at how many offers did you make? Raj: 3 to 4 offers I would say I have made on businesses. Joe: Did you two go under LOI on any other businesses and have it fall apart in due diligence or did your offers not get accepted until the Beard King? Raj: Yeah I did actually do one LOI; no actually what happened was I missed it by a day. Another buyer came in and signed the LOI before I signed it and I literally missed it by one day. I flew in in the morning but my offer was late willingly. Joe: Well how do you; in that regard you said that when you look at these packages you have conversations, with all the brokers that you'd have conversations, it sounds like you're building a relationship with them, do you find that building that relationship with a broker advisor that is representing that client helps if you're making a lower offer or justify some sort of offer or did you that no matter what if you made a lowball offer whatever that lowball is that it was received with displeasure and animosity from the broker and the seller? Raj: Right. I would always try to talk to the broker because when you send a lowball offer by email it doesn't seem genuine. I mean lowball offers aren't too genuine anyway. But when I talked to a broker I can sort of tell them this is what I'm thinking this is what the business needs this is what's missing kind of justify why I'm shooting them that offer and it's the starting point for me. It's to get the conversation going. If I see that there's some room to work here it kind of gets me more excited to say okay maybe we can get to the number I have in mind. That's not the number I want but I can meet you somewhere in between just to know that you're able to work. Some sellers will be stuck on a price or as we've seen many times too I know we talked about business before that just shot through the roof and they're asking this they went over asking so I kind of can gauge where the audience is slash what the seller is really thinking. Joe: Yeah, so I think you've gone through the process with me twice because I think you made an offer from one of my listings that had 10 offers if I recall. And I don't recall specifically on that one or not did we do; with the interview with the seller did we do the video call? Raj: We did a video. Joe: We did a video call. Did we do that with Nick or was it just audio? Raj: Just audio with Nick as well. Joe: Okay. So we're doing video now. One of the things that we've done and moved to as often as possible when it's feasible is on that first buyer call; buyer-seller call we will pop on the video as long as everybody's comfortable with it. I felt that it makes a tremendous difference in terms of connecting. You're in one part of the world, the seller's in the other part of the world and you can bridge that gap. And I've been in situations that I'm sure you've heard this or seen it before where being likable kind of makes a bit of a difference in business especially when you're in other parts of the world. Raj: I think one thing I've really noticed is a lot of people with their business that they're selling this is kind of their baby, right? This is something that they've been working on for years and to see somebody that maybe is just looking straight at the bottom line and just wants to buy it and just do whatever they want, seller's don't like that. And they might take a lower offer from somebody who seems genuine in their intentions to grow the business and they have a passion for that business. And definitely, that face to face helps with that. That's for sure. Joe: Yeah. So this particular business it had plenty of interested parties. You kind of stepped up and got the ball rolling with Nick and went under a letter of intent. It's got what? Two utility patents, two design patents, multiple copyrights. I haven't seen a whole lot of businesses like that in my 7 years of advising with Quiet Light. The drawback or the downfall of this particular business I think was the trends. I think you've got a heck of a value given all of the IP protection that it has, the way that the revenue took off right before closing you almost ran out of inventory because things took off because of the Amazon patent protection program. In your searches were you specifically looking for something with this kind of IP or were you just looking for something with great trends that you thought you could handle and take over? Raj: Yeah. So I was looking for something that had some kind of; something that was proprietary about it and IP is always great because another way to collect and another source of revenue is to enforce the IP and it kind of takes away these competitors. And the one thing I was seeing with business was there were a lot of competitors at the time if you recall and the IP had just gone through. So it's one of these things where I kind of was excited to get in there and start taking off these competitors. And as you saw right before a whole bunch of the competitors got knocked off the platform and the sales they shot through the roof. So that got me even more excited to say well this is just the beginning, right? Joe: Yeah. If I recall we had a conversation and it was there's a possibility he might run out of revenue; out of inventory. Raj: Actually he did run out of inventory. Joe: Prior to closing? Raj: Prior to closing we went about 2 to 3 days; nothing is in it there but 2 to 3 days. Joe: But we waited to close. The goal was to no matter what we were going to close after inventory is in stock. Raj: Exactly, yeah. Joe: Talk to me about your review now that you've had the business for 3 or 4 months. Looking back you've looked at 40 different businesses, a lot of different brands, what was done right with this business and what lesson can you share that maybe was done wrong in terms of this particular business? And I don't want you to throw Nick under the bus. I think he did an amazing job with the brand. Raj: Yeah, 100%. I think that Nick has done an amazing job to start off with the marketing side. Joe: Yeah. Raj: What Nick has built-in terms of marketing and he has a real keen eye for how to put that vision out there and represent the product in a way that it's appealing to everyone. Also, he invented the idea too which is something that we don't really think of too much, right? Joe: We all come up with great ideas. He actually followed through and got it done. Raj: Right. Yeah, he came up with the idea and then he made such a great marketing plan and if you look at how well the website is made, how well the quality of the product is, everything is impeccable that he's done. I think that was really his strength just how well he executed on the marketing side of things. Joe: And what do you think the weaknesses of the business were in the months ahead of you taking it over or the 12 months ahead of you taking over? Raj: Yeah so what I kind of look the weakness is we're really just cleaning up the logistics of the business. I saw that there was a lot of money kind of left on the table in terms of the cost of goods was way too much when I was looking at the business and that's when I was already in talks with my own suppliers and everything figuring out like hey we can drastically reduce the price and t explode the bottom line really and get this business; make it extremely profitable from what it is. That was kind of the icing on the cake because I was able to; as you know with this business when we look at the numbers it was kind of like you had to kind of dig deep to figure out where everything exactly was. And by doing that and like you said reading the offering material I was able to figure out like if I clean up the logistics I will easily make this business extremely more profitable than it was. Joe: So you worked with a manufacturer to modify; did you modify the product or just found a manufacturer cheaper, less expensive, same quality? Raj: Manufacturer cheaper, same quality, I haven't even; I'm considering modifying it a little bit but the price point I have without changing anything I just knocked up 80% of the value which is crazy. I mean everything that happened off the product… Joe: Percent of the cost of goods sold? Raj: Cost of goods sold off of the product. Joe: Can you put that into dollars? Raj: Sure. Right now I'm paying; how much the cost of goods is right now? Joe: Don't talk about how much you're paying, how much did; well I guess people will figure out the math here and we have to…if you tell me edit after this I'll edit and if you're all hearing me say the word edit then we chose not to. What I'm trying to figure out is a lot of people think about how to drive more revenue and you've got a unique approach which is how do we actually maximize the bottom line? I know now that I'm an entrepreneur buyer that the value of this business is a multiple of the trailing 12 months; the discretionary earnings. So did you save $2 a unit times 100 units a month that you're selling or what kind of immediate boost do you see to the bottom line inaudible[00:20:25.5] negotiations? Raj: I've saved say $6 a unit. Joe: Holy cow. Raj: Yeah. Joe: Holy cow. That's tremendous. Raj: And it wasn't just the cost of goods it was also the method of shipping; that was a big deal. Joe: That's right. You've got the capital to do freight versus doing just in time airship inaudible[00:20:44.2] right? Raj: I had the cash flow to lock up for a month or 2; that's okay with me but when I can take that much off the bottom line that's definitely winning. Joe: That's amazing. What are you doing to boost the top line? You just said most people focus on the top line instead of the bottom you're doing the smart thing but now tell me what you're doing for the top line? Raj: Sales fix everything at the end of the day; sales fix everything. You know the logistics thing the reason I started with that first was that was a quick fix. That's something that you could do instantly. Improving the top line, now that might require a little bit of money, a little bit of tweaking, some marketing, and what we've done with that is really expanding and being aggressive with opening up in all different marketplaces; Canada, Australia, UK, Germany. I just kind of hit the ground running with those in the works of launching in all those different countries. Joe: Really? Raj: That's what we're working on now and sending inventory over there figuring out the VAT stuff and all that stuff I've done before is just kind of even as we talk some country is only going to see maybe 5 to 10% increase in sales but it's still 5 to 10%. It still adds to the bottom line and still, you're leaving money still on the table and you don't want to do that and so that's what we've been focusing on right now. Joe: And how did you choose those countries just out of curiosity? What kind of research did you do or is it just countries that you're comfortable with and you've done it before? Raj: I've done it before and as well as I did a little research on the European ones because as you know it's a little expensive to open up the VAT and all that stuff if you're not choosing but working with other sellers and the experience I know kind of what countries do really well. If you have a North America Amazon plan you can easily open up in Mexico and Canada within like an hour. It's not anything. The listings get sent over and it's not a lengthy process. I just had to send the inventory. Joe: Did you have to translate the Mexico ads and everything? Raj: Oh yeah, you have to translate it. They have the translator on there and then you had to run through each of the listings as well because even when they get sent over the listings get converted they don't end up being right anyway so you kind of have to inaudible[00:22:52.8] anyway. Joe: I got you. Okay, maybe we can do an update in a year to talk about how those international markets went and what kind of additional revenue it was driving. Let's talk about how you've learned to do what you've accomplished here. Are you tuning into podcasts, did you go through any training programs, what is the source of your experience; who do you listen to, what do you read that kind of thing? Raj: I'm kind of a simple guy in the sense that I really listen to what Amazon puts out there too. They haven't tons of seller university information which is great but when I started watching YouTube videos here and there kind of helps. I never paid for a course or anything like that because I kind of learn by trial and error. I don't think you need a course per se but you're going to make a lot more mistakes if you don't have a clear path to follow. There's a lot of information. I would say it's not really too useful for people or kind of misleading out there too. So it's kind of hard to find. But using Amazon's material and just going to trial and error. I'd say your first product is not going to always work. And I think people are under the impression that if they buy a course and they do this that this is a home run; it's not like that. It's trial and error really. Joe: Okay, so you're doing your own research; watching, reading Amazon stuff and what they put out versus paying for courses and programs and going to events and things of that nature. I just had a call this morning with somebody that is like Nick he's 12 months after selling his own business and one of the big reasons he sold was he felt isolated. It was growing and there was risk but he felt isolated and alone. And he did the same thing. He didn't have a Mastermind group or anything like that. How do you overcome that? Do you have friends and colleagues that are also Amazon sellers that you talk with? How does that work in your life? Raj: I'm in contact with a ton of people that we talk almost every day about what we're doing and say oh you know international sellers and see how they're getting what they're doing on Amazon. So they are mass; I'm not part of a thousand, 2,000 group mastermind group but I am part of groups where big power sellers kind of talk to each other and figure out what's going, what's working, these new changes Amazon's made. So we do talk about that every other day. Joe: Okay, and how many hours a week are you putting in on Amazon altogether or Beard King all together? Raj: Beard King? Joe: Sure. Raj: Beard King by itself I would say I'm putting in about 15 hours right now. Joe: A week? Raj: Yeah. Joe: And you're making more money than most people make when they do graduate from law school. I think you've chosen the right path here. Raj: Yeah I think I'm onto something for a while now so I'm happy with the outcome and grateful for everything. Joe: Well look, you did the work, you took the risk, you were in school and focused on building your own businesses as well. You studied up. You took the risk. You worked hard. The harder you worked the luckier you got. And here you are today buying a business with something very rare; a great IP and whole lot of protection with a lot of growth potential ahead of it. It's growing in the bottom line which is fantastic the way that you're renegotiated cost of goods sold and shipping. I'm excited to hear what it does over the next 6 to 12 months for the expansion to the other countries and some other focus. Raj: Q4 is coming up and we're super excited it's about; we're already up all across the board in revenues and it's just about to take off now so it's in the interesting lap in the next couple of months. Joe: That's great. Let's get every man in America growing a beard and using the Beard King products. Raj: That's the dream. Joe: You've got to do it too though you've got to grow that beard. Raj: Yeah I'm going to try. It's a patchy beard but I'll work on it. Joe: For anybody that does get over to the Quiet Light YouTube channel. I think it's Quiet Light Academy now. You've got to take a look at Nick's beard versus Raj's beard and my beard. You and I Raj are pretty pathetic. We don't have much to go on at all. Raj: Nick got a crazy beard though. Joe: Absolutely. Well, listen it's been great. I appreciate you sharing your story. What you've accomplished is pretty damn impressive and I'm excited to hear what happens over the next 12 months. How can people learn about what you're doing or reach out to you? Raj: Well you can find me on YouTube at Raj Patel and I'm going to be pretty much talking about everything from selling on Amazon to how to launch your product as well as just telling stories of what I've done over the last year that's worked for me and putting some information out there that people can use in whatever they're trying to accomplish by selling online and to learn sort of what I've done and help them out pretty much. So you can check me out at Raj Patel on YouTube. Joe: Alright and everybody watching we'll be expecting you to grow a beard as well or at least have a fake one on now and then Raj Patel at YouTube.com. Raj: Yeah, inaudible[00:27:43.3] progress made. Joe: Alright, perfect. All right man thanks for your time today. I appreciate it. Raj: No problem, thank you, Joe. Links and Resources: TheBeardking Youtube

The Quiet Light Podcast
Investing in a Web-Based Business: Mistakes and Best Practices

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2019 39:13


Today we welcome Chuck (iii) Mullins, we are talking with him about his background, experience, his algorithm knowledge, ask him our rapid-fire questions, and pick his brain about the business. Chuck built his first profitable website back in 1996 when he was an impressionable 18 years old. He studied computer software engineering in college, which taught him the skills to analyze search results and implement strategies. Throughout his career of developing, managing, consulting, and investing in internet-based companies, Chuck has developed a keen ability to spot opportunities and develop strategies that lead to growth and profitability. Episode Highlights: Chuck's background, entrepreneurial experience, and success stories Web-based business ups-and-downs The difference in long-term cash flow from web-based businesses and get-rich-quick cash businesses Chuck's favorite web niches Chuck's favorite audience member (who is also a buyer) Websites that are more/less desirable The importance of knowing your Profit and Loss Biggest mistake buyers can make Best practices for buyers and sellers The importance of understanding the business and doing your research Quiet Light's vision and how we can help you Transcription: Mark: Joe, one of my favorite things about working with team Quiet Light is some of the camaraderie that we have with each other. The fact that we get to tease each other a little bit, egg each other on, but also help each other out; talk about deals, collaborate on our transactions because everybody at Quiet Light has so much entrepreneurial experience that it's like having this built in board of advisors for every single thing that we do. And one thing I think you and I need to do a better job of; I know we've had each of the advisors on Quiet Light at the Quiet Light Podcast. I think we need to bring them on a bit more so that others can enjoy some of the experience that they have. You had Chuck on recently and grilled him a little bit in this episode. Joe: I did. I want people to get to know Chuck for the fun experienced entrepreneur that he is. And so I mixed it up a little bit. I had some fun with him we did some rapid-fire questions. I intentionally; just let me get this upfront and out there for the audience. I intentionally mispronounced somebody's name. I butchered it intentionally. Again I did it seven or eight episodes ago and I got some email saying I think the person you're trying to find is so and so. I did it again. Mark: Same person? Joe: Same person; yeah, if he's listening. Mark: He needs to start listening to the podcast especially my episodes because frankly, I've got a leg up on you. Joe: You have overtaken me for the most popular episode on the Quiet Light Podcast. I will overcome that because I've got some great ones planned coming in here soon. Chuck is a fascinating individual. I've known Chuck for a long time and he's really, really smart when it comes to his entrepreneurial acumen. It's almost annoying to be honest because with a model that we have at Quiet Light Brokerage; we don't have employees, right? No one's an employee of Quiet Light Brokerage. We have a lot of entrepreneurs who work together in sort of a collective group. Well, one of the benefits to that is all the advice and feedback I'm able to get from people. And one of the most annoying things is all the feedback and advice I get from everyone. And sometimes; Chuck especially, Chuck is so thorough. What's the term he gives to himself? Whatever it is he just hyper focuses on the most minute little detail and I fear asking questions sometimes because of the level of detail that he's going to give to me in terms of what I have to fix and correct in a document that I'm creating. Mark: But at the end of the day even though sometimes it can be overwhelming like come on you think I'm doing everything wrong evidently because I keep getting his feedback, it's always on point. And I don't think I've ever received feedback from them where I look at it and say this is not worth considering or looking at; so a smart, smart guy. I'm looking forward to it. What are some of the things that you discussed in this episode? Joe: Well we talked about some of; he's got almost three years brokering now and over 20 years as an entrepreneur now. And he talked about some of his experiences; the pros and cons of A. being an entrepreneur, some of the things that he's found that certain buyers do better than anyone else, and how he wants new buyers to adopt that style, and then the biggest mistakes that someone's selling their business can make as well. And it's fascinating as I just said he's got 20 plus years as an entrepreneur. I'm in the same boat. You're in the same boat. So collectively the team at Quiet Light I'd say what 250 years of entrepreneurial experience that we share with our team with our clients and I think it's fascinating. Chuck is just the tip of the iceberg here in terms of the experience. So it's exciting to share this with him and we had a lot of fun. So that's the key to this one. Mark: Fantastic, well let's get to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage on the Quiet Light Podcast. And today we have the most special guest. His name is Chucky. Now that's not what we call him. It's Chuck. I use his personal email address. I'm not going to tell you at what you can all haul in the mail anyway. You know his e-mail address its Chuck@QuietLightBrokerage. Chuck Mullins, welcome back to the Quiet Light Podcast. Chuck: Thank you, sir. Thank you. For any that's specific it's actually Charles Clifford Mullins III. That's my D-I-I-I. Joe: You know I am from New England I can't talk with a British accent; it's something about us. Chuck: Well I can't either. Joe: Alright. Well listen you know the routine. Normally on the podcast we ask people to give their own background; who they are, what they're all about so that we're not sounding like we're reading from a script which we don't. We wing these things. You know that. Our audience knows that. But before we get into that I want to ask you a series of rapid-fire questions; the first one so that people understand and establish your experience here at Quiet Light Brokerage, how long have you been brokering at Quiet Light Brokerage? Chuck: About two and a half; almost three years. Joe: Almost three years. Okay. So let's start with…I've got a total of six questions. Number one; and you've got to give me a quick answer. Number one, who's your favorite broker? Chuck: Joe Valley. Joe: Good, good, good. Alright, if you were stranded on an island with me, Brad Wayland, and Jason Yellowitz and a rash floated by and they would only carry three of us; there's four altogether, who would you leave behind and why? Chuck: Jason Yellowitz, because he would be able to burn his stacks of cash to stay warm. Joe: And he carries it with him, is that what you're saying? Chuck: Inaudible[00:06:25.8] Joe: Jason I know you all listen to the podcast so everybody make fun of Jason. That's your job here. Alright, this is a really important question. Who is the better podcast me or Andy Youderainan; I mean in Andrew Youderian? Chuck: I would have to go with Mark. Joe: You are… Chuck: Hello? Isn't it you that people come up to the Booze and ask for or is it Mark that they come up and ask for? Joe: That's me. It's me. Mark doesn't go to Booze. Alright, sid you know Walker Diabel wrote a book; and a best seller book? Chuck: Have you heard about the second book that he wrote? Joe: No. He wrote a second book? Chuck: Yes. If you go to WalkerDiebel.guru you can check out the second one that hasn't been released yet. Joe: Okay, Alright. So this is a tough question. This is not a trick question. I want to know if you can answer this one. What's the name of Walker's book? Chuck: Buy Then Build. Joe: You got it. Okay. Alright. Chuck: How can you not get it? I've heard it at every conversation. Every conference I go to there's these three books that are just floating around that conference and I'm like wait a second how did that get there? Joe: And it's the bottom of every one of his e-mail signatures. One of these days you're going to dig way back into the archives when he was actually an actor and find a clip and we're going to change his email signature line somehow some way. Alright, so as you know historically Quiet Light Brokerage does not recruit brokers. I have conversations three or four times a week these days with people who want to join the team. But we, for the most part, don't recruit. We have as you know or Mark has as you know recruited a few starting with Amanda back in the day. She was the first. And I think Brad was also recruited. And yourself was also recruited. Of all of the brokers that Mark recruited; last question by the way, what was his best decision? Chuck: Probably Brad. He's been killing it man. Joe: Man and give yourself some credit Chuck. Come on. Anybody but you would probably be the politically correct answer but essentially you just threw Amanda under the bus. But fortunately Amanda doesn't really listen to our own podcast either. Alright, enough of this nonsense; let's talk about you and your experience. I know all about you but for the audience members, Chuck has been on the podcast before Mark had him on when he first joined the team two and a half years ago, three years ago. And the focus of that podcast was a tiny little bit about Chuck but mostly about Chuck's due diligence experience. And I think you had a list of was it 25 due diligence tools? Chuck: Who can remember? Joe: Yeah, a lot. And it's all; if you Google Quiet Light Podcast, Chuck Mullins, due diligence you'll find it. It'd be at the top of the Google search engine and it's great stuff. And I learned a lot when I did it. But I would say I refer most people out for due diligence; buyers that is to our friend Chris Yates at Centurica. They do a great job. Well, let's talk a little bit about who you are and your life experience and a little bit of your brokering experience now that you're three years into Quiet Light. So who the heck are you? Tell us about your entrepreneurial experience. I know that you started way back when you were in college, right? Chuck: Yeah. I graduated high school in ‘96 and I always wanted a computer but we couldn't afford one. So finally for college I needed a computer so I got a computer and started a free website on it's like Angel Fire or Tripod or one of these things way back in '96. And I remember just putting up some content and that is an online library for college students. And I remember somebody offered me like 10 bucks at some point to put a link on my website. I'm like $10 awesome, I'm making money and then somebody offers me like a hundred bucks and I'm like what $100? So then I was; this is before I even had a domain so it was like AngelFire/blahblahblah. I started thinking about okay we'll buy a domain and back then they were like thirty-five bucks. I was talking to my mom and I'm like mom I'd buy a domain and she's like you're crazy you shouldn't buy you know like you're just wasting your money and why are you spending all this time in front of the computer and then it just started growing and then somebody offered me a thousand bucks. And before you know it I was making about sixteen grand a month off of advertising back in the ‘90s. Joe: In college, right? Chuck: In college; yeah, and so I was just… Joe: That's a lot of Jägermeister. Chuck: And the Internet bubble ended up bursting in like the 2000, 2001 and all that money like dried up overnight. So I was like okay now what? So I had to figure out how to pivot and myself and two other guys; we had different businesses. We all pooled together and started a membership site. The first month with our membership site we made like 60 grand. It was just like mind-blowing like oh my God we're in college. I didn't have keggers I had like full bottle; like full bar parties. Joe: Everybody wanted to be your friend, right? Chuck: It was fun and we'd stay at like the Ritz Carlton for Mardi Gras and like just do crazy things. We rented like a ski chalet; it was like a 15 bedroom house on the slopes and I forget where it was bit we then brought all of like; we had affiliates at the time, all our affiliates to come and ski with us and so we had a great time. And at some point, I was making a lot of money and I didn't really know what to do with it all. I was definitely wasting my fair share of it. Actually kind of going back, my mom, the whole thing with her telling me I shouldn't start the business and this and that in 2003 I think it was about my mom and sister cars for Christmas. Joe: I wrote that down when you said it because I knew that. You told me the story about Christmas and your mom went outside and there was a big ribbon on a brand new car. I guess she's happy you bought that domain name, after all, isn't she? Chuck: Yeah. Yeah for sure and I do not usually tell that story so maybe we'll have to edit that out. Joe: No. No editing. Tell the story. Chuck: I made two giant boxes and I had my mom like a box of some keys and she sees them and it had Lincoln in it which I had a navigator at the time and she's like oh it's a scavenger hunt he put his keys in here and she walks outside and sees this giant box and just like; my mom doesn't curse and she goes oh shit and she runs outside gets ready to tear into the box. And I said wait, mom, hold on hold on there's a card on there you've taught me better; open the card. And so she opens it and it says to my sister and my mom is like inaudible[00:12:57.1] my mom's like…well my sister is like to me? And again I wiggle the keys in front of my sister's face and she's like what?! So she runs and dives in and my mom looks at me like what this like WTF and I'm like you're over there. Then she starts walking and then sees it like buried on the other side of the house in a big box and like runs over and dives in. We're in Georgia at that time at a family house and it was cold and she didn't have shoes on. It was a great time. I've got the video. One day I'll have to share with somebody but I don't know that I want to share it. Joe: What a great experience and a great thing to do for your mother and your sister did. Did your mother get the nicer car or was it equal to both? Chuck: I was actually going to buy them the exact same car and then I was talking to my sister trying to like make sure that it was the kind of she would want and I said well what do you think Mom would like? And she said well my favorite car is a Sequoia and I ended up; my mom a Lincoln Aviator and my mom's Sequoia. They're about the same price. I think my sister was a little more but I did get some grief about that. Also the night before or a couple of nights before we went to Walmart and I bought every single piece of cheesy add on part you could get and added it to the car. So I got like a fuzzy steering wheel cover, dice, a little light-up things that go on the rims, and just totally like made the car look as ridiculous as possible and told them in order to get it they'd have to drive it with that stuff on it. Joe: That's hilarious. So for anybody that's listening instead of watching if you look at my chin and Chuck's chin you'll see some gray; there're probably a little more on mine than his of course. His is more his cheek mine's dead on center of my chin that's because of age and life experience. So you had some amazing times Chuck out of college making more money in a month than most people in this country do in a year; all web-based business experience. It's not always wonderful though. Chuck: No, absolutely not. Yeah, entrepreneurship is ups and downs. We've gotten hit by Google so many times I couldn't even tell you. And most of them were just algorithmic. But I have on one of my big businesses, we had about 12 that were all doing the same thing and one of my partners had used the same email address in our Webmaster Tools account and somebody from the spam team I guess noticed and went in and just manually penalized all of our businesses. I think except for two because those were the only two that didn't have those email addresses. And just overnight it's like poof gone and it's just like oh it's heartbreaking. At least when it's the algorithmic type of penalties it's easy to kind of; well maybe not easy but you're going to recover from that. The manual penalties, we hired somebody who used to work in the spam team. They told us what to do. We did it. We just haven't been able to recover from that on those other sites. Joe: Yeah I know it's always hard. Google algorithm updates I think are getting a little better, a little easier to handle and manage I think ultimately. I always used to say this actually if you do the right thing the way Google tells you to do it, ultimately it's not going to hurt you; the algorithm updates. And I guarantee there are people out there shaking their head no right now because a good friend of mine, he built a great business, a great, great content site, and sold it and there was a an update recently. And the buyer, another great entrepreneur bought it and did have some negative impact. What they both know is that sometimes when Google casts a wide net some of the wrong sites get caught up in it and over time that does get corrected but it does sting initially, doesn't it? Chuck: Yeah. And I will say like the reason we got caught up in a lot of the updates wasn't because we were doing the things that Google tells you to do. We were gaining the system and we deservedly got caught for doing those things and we would adjust our technique and then regain. So like one of our sites had like 100,000 pieces of unique content that we were in Google index for like 30 million pages. Joe: Wow. Chuck: So like how does one do that? Joe: How does one do that? Good Lord. Chuck: Trickery. Joe: Well the grey in your chin has matured you to the point that I think you're beyond the trickery because you look at the long term cash flow and benefits of owning an online business now it's not just a quick cash anymore. At least that's the way I look at it; you too? Chuck: Yeah, absolutely. And you're talking about like the algorithm updates and I feel like there's been so many and that most of the really garbage sites have probably gotten taken out by now. I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong but now it's more of like just tweaking the knobs a little bit. So unless you're in one of these like fringe business models I tend to believe and I could be 100% wrong but I tend to believe that most of the major algorithm updates have been already done and then now they're going after I guess like medical websites and things like that. Joe: Yeah. The updates are far further I'm sure in between and in many cases not as severe. Alright so I'm going to throw a question at you. I don't know if I told you this story or not or if you've heard it. Some of the audience members might have heard it so I'm going to just test your algorithm update knowledge. And if you answer within two seconds then I know you heard the story. So I bought a business, I sold my business in November 2010; yada, yada, yada. People have heard this a million times, or at least tens of hundreds of thousands of times if they've listened to every episode and keep downloading everything. No we haven't done 100,000 episodes that's totally inaccurate. I can't do math by the way apparently. Alright so I bought a content site. I sold a great site. The content was amazing. And then I bought a piece of junk. I had 42 amazing days. I bought it March 1st, 2012. I had maybe 3 or 4 keywords on the first page of Google and then boom they fell to the bottom of page 1 and then page 2 and they were gone and I lost over a quarter-million dollars in the course of twelve months. What happened? What algorithm update was that? It was; again I bought it March 1st, 2012; I had forty-two amazing days. Chuck: Panda. Penguin. Joe: Penguin. Alright, you're close. We're going to have to throw that quiz out there. Everybody in the audience wouldn't throw that quiz out there for a price. Chuck's wearing a beautiful Quiet Like Brokerage…is that a polo shirt? Chuck: Yeah. Joe: We need to get some of those packaged up and give away prizes for that kind of stuff. Alright let's jump on to your Quiet Light Brokerage life; your entrepreneurial life, amazing ups and downs, a lot of great ups and you did some good things for family and friends. The downs, we learn from them and we try to take those lessons and make sure that we are really bringing great listings to market so the buyers are making good safe investments and the sellers of those investments can move on with peace of mind to their next adventures whether that's another business or retirement. In your history of transactions here at Quiet Light, is there any particular niche that you gravitate towards and enjoy more than another because as you said a ton of content and affiliate experience, but I think some of your larger deals have been physical product e-commerce sites. But is there anything that stands out for you? Chuck: Yeah I mean so my heart is in like membership sites. I love recurring revenue. I think everybody does and that's why the multiples are higher because of that recurring revenue and the predictability. So I would say that that's kind of where I'd like to be but my biggest sales have been around physical products inaudible[00:20:53.3] an outdoor sporting equipment one that was great. One that I really love that I sold like six months ago was a company that did custom-tailored suits. That thing it's like awesome. Who doesn't want to say they have a business that sells custom-tailored suits? Like it's just; I think it's got the cool factor. Joe: That's the amazing thing about what you do and what we do at Quiet Light is that we come to this role with a lifetime of experience that; I was talking with Walker and Brad about this recently that we didn't know it but all of our entrepreneurial life was preparing us for this role. And now we get to experience so many cool different business models. You come to this role with a ton of membership experience but custom-tailored suits and you're like that's the coolest thing. Who doesn't want to say they own a custom-tailored suit business? I need to buy a custom-tailored suit. I know who bought it and I can reach out to him. I know who he is too. Speaking of that I do want to ask a random question although its timing is not very random and you have to answer this. There's only one answer to this. This buyer listens to the podcast and he comments and he tells us about us sometimes when he's riding his bike. So do you have a favorite audience member that also happens to be a buyer? Yes or no? You have to say yes and you have to say his name now because he's a… Chuck: Sure. Mike Nuñez. Joe: There you go; Mike Nuñez, this is just a shout out to you. Thanks for listening Mike. Chuck: Well I'll tell you it shouldn't just be a shout out to him. If anybody wants to know how to be a good buyer and how to buy businesses they should talk to Mike Nuñez because he is 100% the absolute best buyer I have. And not like just in a sense of like the actual acquisition of the company. When he gets on a phone call and talks to the sellers he makes them feel like they are the only person in the world; the most important person like he's just so smooth and he's not doing it as like a ploy or a gimmick. He's just a nice guy and he really appreciates these people and the businesses they've created. And it's just he's really good on a call. Joe: It's the unknown secret that we tell all the time to buyers. Look, when it's a great business it's a great opportunity. There are going to be multiple buyers. And it's not always the most money or the most cash that gets the letter of intent. In some cases, it's the buyer that the seller likes the most. And being likable on those conference calls is critically important. Mike does it very well. Chuck: And one of my businesses; actually I think two of them that Mike purchased, the sellers actually said like I want to sell to him. Make him buy this. It doesn't matter; I mean within reason, right? The price; but they were willing to take less than somebody else because they liked him so much. Joe: Oh boy. Now if Mike's listening and he paid full price now he's going to be like inaudible[00:23:49.1]. Chuck: That is the problem because of course I did make him pay more than the other people but they were willing to take less. And what's funny is one of my sellers told him as much oh like I would have taken less from you and I'm like don't say that to him. Joe: In his heart, he was willing to take less but his checkbook and his head was willing to take the highest bidder as long as it was Mike Nunez. That's the key. In your experience both as an entrepreneur and as an adviser here at Quiet Light you've seen a lot of businesses that have come up for first they reach out to us for a valuation, they start thinking about an exit sometimes the day before they want to exit, sometimes months or a year or so in advance. What do you see being the biggest thing; most consistent thing that those particular entrepreneurs do wrong time and time again that there's just if there's one thing you could just like shout into the microphone right now to everyone listening even though some of them are doing it right, what are the majority of folks not doing that that you want them to do to bring more value to their business? Chuck: Silence question. Joe: Yeah it was a long one. I kept rambling on in my sentences because I could see you thinking. Chuck: Yeah. Joe: Maybe I should have asked a little more. Chuck: What's weird about at Quiet Light is we actually get so many great businesses to sell. People bring us quality things. So what are some of the bad things people do? Joe: Let me just get some stats behind that though; because it's true what we bring to market, it's great stuff. But the reality is Chuck if you look at my numbers I've closed 105, 106 transactions in seven years. People say well that's not very many but in order to close those transactions; I've ballparked the math and I've talked to 2,500 entrepreneurs. That's 2,500 valuation calls. Your stats are similar. What is that consistent theme that if you could speak to somebody that someday may sell their business what should they be doing? Chuck: Sure. So when we talk about like specific like product-level things like when people are just selling random shots keys that aren't unique in any way; those are really difficult to sell. When you have an actual unique product that's got some sort of a brand to it that's not easily knock off-able that there's a moat around it like that makes it so much more desirable to people and so much more valuable. One of the things I also see probably is just P & L's; having clean P & L's. Oftentimes people's profit and loss statements are just a complete mess. They'll lump, they want to save; I was just thinking about a specific one, but you see people are just lumping things in because they know they had a cost but they don't really know when it was or where it was and they just kind of guesstimate things and put them in the wrong ones. So then you'll see like really lumpy P & L's. And we always try to work with people to flatten those out and figure out where the real costs are. So that often takes a lot of time to just figure out what the true P & L is on a business. And for doing add backs; what's a real add back? We fight with people a lot on what's a real add back versus something they think they should be adding back. Joe: Yeah I want to just step in and shout out that there's no question I think that preparing your business for sale is the number one thing that people don't do. They decide to sell as I say instead of planning to sell. That means they work their tail off. They launch this business. They work like crazy against all odds. They succeed. And it's producing solid revenue and profit for them. And they just burn the candle at both ends and then the candle starts to burn out. And they're emotionally tired, they're frustrated, they're exhausted, and they wake up one morning I'm just not into this. I'm going to sell. I didn't know I could sell but it just occurred to me. I'm done. I'm calling Chuck Mullins. And at that point because they're tired; because they're emotionally worn out they need to sell because trends will go down. They won't do the things that they need to do to keep the business growing and strong and in great shape for somebody else to take over. And so at that point you get those P & L's and you're like yeah Excel is not really accounting software. Ideally Quick Books and Xero or one of the other so that we can run a historical P & L and do year over year trend analysis and look at the metrics. All that is really hard and then there's the commingling. So I'm going to just mention a podcast; not ours, somebody else's. EcomCrewPodcast247. Chuck as you know I sold Mike Jackness' business ColorIt last spring. And Mike is a bright guy. Mike knew exactly what to do as most people in this audience do. They know what to do. And the mindset that Mike had was simply I'll get to it someday. What happens is you end up chasing too many rabbits and that someday comes when you get exhausted and in his case, he had four brands under one LLC and three of them were really not sellable at the time that we decide to list the business. So what does that do? You've got four brands all in one LLC, tax returns commingled, and you're only selling one brand. What does that eliminate? Chuck: SBA financing. Joe: SBA financing; exactly. Is it required to get an SBA loan? No it's not to sell a business; absolutely not. We sold multimillion-dollar businesses without an SBA loan. But what it does do is it casts a broader net; buyers. And even some of those buyers; I've had it. Have you had buyers that have more than enough money to stroke a check for a multi-million dollar business but they use SBA? Chuck: Absolutely why not leverage if you can? Joe: Yeah, so that's I'd say number one. I'm in total agreement on the documentation. We always talk about that the risk, growth, transferability, and documentation; gets your numbers right, get those P & L's in great shape and it's going to help you learn about your business and set goals and then that passion may get reignited and you may do more in the business and grow it and have a bigger exit someday down the road. It's not that I don't love it when somebody calls me and says I'd like a valuation and part of that is okay, what's your timeframe, when are you ready to sell, right now. Not that I don't mind that; I love that if everything's in great shape. It's just tougher to sell it when it's not. They get a lower value, right? Chuck: Yup, absolutely. Having those four pillars and the clean books it makes a big difference. Joe: It really does. I think I'm in total agreement. Buyers or sellers of businesses, get your documents in great shape. The best way to do that, just call, email inquiries@QuietLightBrokerage.com, Chuck@QuietLightBrokerage.com. Reach out. It's a service that we provide. I mean what do we do Chuck? We help, help, help, and then keep helping, right? Chuck: Build value. Joe: Build the value. It's my; I've got a mentor that I talked to long and hard about all my business opportunities and in this particular one as we chatted about the model and what we do here at Quiet Light he's like well it just sounds like you're giving away all your knowledge for free in hopes that maybe they'll work with you. And I' like that's exactly right. We help first and we're entrepreneurs so there are times that we wish we got good advice and we were too young to listen or there was nobody around to talk to about it. And now we share that when it comes to business values and planning an exit. The number one thing you can do is just reach out to somebody. It's free. Talk to Chuck, he's got a ton of experience. Chuck: I'll tell you kind of in my entrepreneurial days if I wasn't going to be an entrepreneur I always wanted to be a consultant and help other people. And I never had like the actual desire to go out and build a portfolio and charge people to help them grow their business. But like you said I've been do this since '96. I've met so many businesses; a lot of focus on optimization and SEO and just so many things. And one of the things I actually like about is giving unsolicited advice. So when I'm on all these valuation calls I'm constantly asking people like oh have you tried this, have you thought about this? So even if they're not ready to sell I'm often giving people advice on how to increase their business. And even when I do have listings like I think of one and particularly like I give him so many ideas and then he did those and the business just kept growing. That actually came to bite me because the business grew so much that we ended up pulling it off the market after getting multiple full-price offers because it just had grown so much and he wanted to just wait a little bit and we're going to actually getting ready to relist that here soon. Joe: It's a good problem, right? I mean I've been in situations that you say it bit you but ultimately this is a long term play for us; it's building relationships and that person respects and appreciates you obviously because he's coming back for some of your entrepreneurial life experience and it's benefited them financially. It's going to grow the business and ultimately they're going to get a bigger value and tell people about what you did. So that was a little bit more about the sellers and the things that they can do and then number one I think we both agree, plan that exit; call somebody, e-mail somebody, get a valuation. It's not going to hurt. What about buyers; biggest mistakes that buyers can make? Chuck: Disrespecting somebody's business. So getting on a call and like; I'm trying to think of a of a PC term that I could use that's not a profanity, just talking smack about somebody's business, trying to negotiate them down in price, and like trash-talking the business. That doesn't work. At least not at this size but maybe it works when you're dealing with a couple hundred million dollar business or something. I don't know. But at these levels, people care about their businesses at least the ones we sell. Inaudible[00:33:38.9] and when you talk smack like… Joe: It's personal even at the 15 to 20 million mark. Mark just closed one just under 15 million. It's owned by an individual. When you're talking about a hundred million, yes somebody is up there at the top like their shareholders and the CEOs and COOs and all that and big-time attorneys are in there negotiating. It's not you're talking to the guy across the table that actually built it and owns it for the most part, right? So he cares about it. Chuck: He worries about it like he's had the baby. I mean you wouldn't believe how many people I've talked to; sellers that cry on the phone about their business like it happens a lot. People are deeply invested emotionally in their business. When somebody comes in and disrespects it for no reason other than they're trying to negotiate, it doesn't go well. You need to be nice. That's what Mike does so well. And I want to keep talking about Mike. Well like… Joe: Should we talk about Walker again? Chuck: He's about people and he's nice. Joe: Let's talk about Walker again then. Actually you're absolutely right. I remember being at the Rhodium Weekend Conference before you were a member of the team here at Quiet Light. Now he's up presenting and talking and I could swear in that environment and I used the word that begins with an A and ends with an E; figure it out, folks. Everybody's got one. And what's the secret to being a great buyer? And I said don't be one; as simple as that. I can see you out there in the audience shaking your head up and down. And that's exactly right. Mike is very nice, very kind. When I sold my business I had people that were well I remember one, in particular, ripping my business to shreds on a conference call; initial call and I'm like why am I even talking to this guy. I'm not selling it to him even if he gives me an offer over asking. And then, strangely enough, the last call, the person that ended up buying my business first thing he said is thanks for creating such a great site. Your products have helped people exactly like me. By the way I took stuff like this and I ran the Boston Marathon actually the Chicago Marathon last month and it's because of products like yours and I said cool. It was actually a really short call; 20-minute call. I didn't ask any great questions I had going on. That was really nice but I don't see he's buying my business and he almost; he bought it almost full price offer. Chuck: I'll tell you what you just mentioned something that is often overlooked. When you get on these calls don't just wing it; do some research, educate yourself before the call, and ask the right questions. It's so important. So many times I get on a call and the seller or the buyer doesn't ask any decent questions and the seller just writes them off and says let's not take any more calls from that person. They weren't serious. So make sure that you understand the business and you're asking good questions that a good buyer would ask, right? Joe: Yeah. They don't have to be the most intelligent questions the seller has ever heard but that you've done your research and you care. I mean yeah Chuck you put there together a great package and all the great questions are in there. They just have to dig into them and digest it a little bit and ask the same question in their voice and see if you get the same or similar answer from the client on it. I think that's great. I think you're absolutely right. Too many times there has been a few buyers that they're not prepared for. You can hear them walking down the street getting in the car and it just feels like a complete and utter waste of everyone's time including the person who's making the call and asking the questions. Okay, is there anything else; before we wrap up is there anything else you'd like to say about Walker Diebel? Chuck: Visit WalkerDiebel.guru to check out his new book that's coming out in a couple of months. Joe: Let's do this; actually everybody do is too. Go to IMDB and look up Walker Diebel the actor and watch some of the movies he's been in. Add a review, let's see if we can boost that one-star rating up to one and a half. Chuck: Inaudible[00:37:37.6] tomatoes maybe. Joe: Alright Chuck, you're a good man. I appreciate you coming on. We'll wrap it up here with time. Any last thoughts for anybody out there thinking about selling their business or buying one; any last pearls of wisdom and I know I didn't prepare you but any last-minute pearls of wisdom? Chuck: Yeah. I would just say that reach out early. We're not here to be high pressure as far as trying to sign you to sell your business. We're here to lead with value. We're going to offer some hopefully some wisdom that's going to help you sell that business in the future. So don't think that like oh I don't want to reach out because I'm not going to sell it for six months or a year. Talk to us now. Let us help you get the business in shape to sell it later. Joe: Great advice. That's Chuck Mullins folks. We will be back in the next podcast. See you soon. Thanks, Chuck. Chuck: Bye-bye. Thanks.   Links and Resources: Chuck Mullins Chuck's LinkedIn Walker Deibel's IMDB

The Quiet Light Podcast
The Transition: Handyman to Amazon Business Owner with an SBA Loan

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2019 35:34


When it comes to buying and selling a business, one of the first questions we typically get is how long it takes to complete the deal. These businesses are complex and looking beyond the multiple to see the potential value and return opportunities for return is key. Today's guest experienced a longer deal closing than expected but he is being rewarded for his patience. Some mistakes take longer to clean up than others but this is the story of how much the seller wanted to sell to this particular buyer despite the snags in the process. A born entrepreneur right out of high school, Karl spent over 10 years building a handyman business on his own. Right around the time he heard about Amazon and a local kid making a million dollars on the platform, Karl started to dabble and found his way in. After a few false starts, Karl became experienced in the Amazon marketplace. Today he walks us through his business buying process and his plans for doubling discretionary earnings in a very short time. Episode Highlights: The background on the business Karl purchased and how he knew it was the right fit for him. What happened with the SBA loan process and how that affected the deal. How Karl maintained the rapport with the buyer throughout the process. Why a price increase occurred during the process. The importance of keeping on top of the lender throughout. Karl's plan for doubling his margins and how he's implementing it. The importance of an in-face meeting with your Chinese manufacturer and how often to have one. Karl's advice to anyone planning a purchase. 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 come 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 Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage. Today I've got Carl Sally on the podcast. Carl recently bought a business from me and it was a long, long process. I think we; I'm going to throw a quick data to Carl, we originally went under LOI in October of 2018 and didn't close until June of ‘19 and we want to share the story of why with the buyers and sellers and talk about what happened during that period, how the business grew out, how we fell out of LOI, got back under LOI and eventually closed to the point where both you and the seller are thrilled and some of the things that you're going to do with the business going forward. Before we go over all of that why don't you give a little bit of background on yourself so the folks listening know who you are Carl? Carl: Sure yeah so right out of high school I basically started out a little handyman company; very artificial, just a smelting yard and painting walls for a long time, offered a few contractors to work for free until I got enough knowledge to do plumbing and electrical and basically do the house from the ground up. I did that for 10 years. So in my late 20's that's when I learned about Amazon and I always had podcasts and things trickling in my ears, self-help books and what have you while I was tiling bathrooms or roofing on a house. And I heard the 4-hour workweek and kind of the same time I heard about The 4 Hour Work Week I heard about this kid, he was making a million dollars a year on Amazon. And so I said man if she can do it there's gotta be a way I can figure this thing out. And I did some free work for him at his warehouse. And he taught me a lot and just basically pointed me in the direction of YouTube. I learned everything I could. I had a few failures in my first project; my first product on Amazon. I think me and my partner lost maybe 10 grand on our first product and that was all credit card money. And then the very next product that we launched we did it the right way and we're able to actually start a business on that foundation and eventually grew that to five, six million dollars in gross sales. Joe: That's amazing. Now let's just come back to this kid that was making a million bucks on Amazon. You didn't hear it online. It was somebody local in the area that you live in? Carl: Yeah, it was just some random kid from the community. Joe: And you tracked him down and said look man I'm here for free I just want to learn? Carl: I was great at electrical work and I knew he needed some electrical workers for his house so I just thought he could do a little trade with me. Joe: Fantastic. Carl: He was thrilled. It was nothing to him. Joe: That's beautiful. That's the way to do it. I remember hearing a story a long time ago doing the same; self-help books and everything like that where somebody was trying to develop a project, a real estate development but he didn't have enough money. So he brought in people with all of the expertise and gave him a piece of the pie and all that sort of stuff. Where there's a will there's a way. I mean that's exactly what you've shown here. And now you've bought a business that's quite sizable and you're running a business that's even much larger. So cool, good for you. That's a great story. Let's give a little background. Again just a review. We just closed the transaction. Today we're recording on June 26. I think we closed on the 12th of June but we went under LOI a long time ago. You and I've been talking for I guess it would be eight or nine months now. This is the first time we're on video folks as well. You might want to jump over to the YouTube channel and see what's going on there. The first time we've seen each other. We'd like to do a lot more video in the initial buyer-seller conference calls now. But this is our first shot together. So that's great. Carl: Yeah. Joe: But it's been a long time. We initially; a little bit of background on this particular listing folks; it's a listing that I had listed for sale I think it was in late ‘17. And the growth rate on it had slowed. The owner of the business had some competition and he reduced prices. And his sales went up, his total volume of orders went up I guess I should say. His revenue did as well but the margin shrunk because he cut costs. So growth had slowed to 1 or 2% and it concerned buyers. So for owners out there, sellers think about that aspect of it. It concerned buyers. Growth has slowed. He slashed prices. He had some great growth opportunities in the package but just hadn't implemented them out of fear. He didn't want to make a whole lot of changes before listing the business for sale which generally is right. But in this case, the combination of that slowed growth because of cutting prices to fend off competition turned buyers away. And we didn't sell the business. We had it listed for three or four months. And Kevin decided look I'm going to go ahead and implement these growth opportunities and come back at this in the future. And he did. He came back. He implemented those growth opportunities. He fixed what was broken and came back and the growth was phenomenal. Nine months later, 10 months later we saw a 25% year over year improvement in total revenues and discretionary earnings. We listed the business for sale. And probably within a couple of weeks, I think Carl you got the winning bid. We put that under offer at full price. You knew what you could do with the business which is fascinating because this one is it's in the home sector, right? You can do installation yourself and things of that nature. I didn't know there was a connection before with your background, how you grew up in that first 10-year high school. That's awesome. So it makes more sense now. But why don't we talk about it? This is we went under LOI and it was going to be an SBA loan and it fell apart. We were almost there and then we lost it because we didn't get a commitment letter. Can you talk a little bit about your process in terms of first maybe why you liked this one and then what the SBA loan process was like for you and then we'll get into how it fell apart? Carl: Yeah sure. So the business itself I really liked because well one the numbers were right, it had a very; like you said a strong year over year growth which I found attractive. All the products; it had a small amount of products for the amount of revenue so that that ratio of low amount of SKUs to high revenue was very attractive to me. So it's less management and I could handle it myself. Also, the review ratings were really high. It had a great historical keyword ranking for most of the SKUs and all of those things kind of checked all the boxes for me. And then next I wanted to talk seller because a lot of it has to do with the seller as well. I knew this would be a long process with an SBA loan and I wanted to work with somebody who was honest. So as soon as I got on the phone with them I realized this guy's a straight shooter. And I've dealt over the last 15 years with a lot of shady characters and I just don't like doing business with those kind of people anymore. So it checked every box at that point and I said okay I should definitely; I don't want to screw around. I want to give him a good offer. I felt that it was a good price for the amount of growth that it had left to do. So I made that full offer. And then we started to kind of get into my first SBA loan experience. Joe: I definitely want to talk about that. Let me talk about price. We're not going to give away the price here folks but we went with an aggressive multiple on the low side. I'd say we were at about 2.8 times even with that growth. But it's because we have listed it prior and it didn't sell. So we were able to list it for more than we did the prior time but at a multiple, that was relatively conservative at 2.8 times. And it's important to note that because of what we're going to get to at the end. So okay, back to the SBA process. Carl: Sure. So we started the process and of course, I think I approached two different lenders and they had said each one of them had said oh yeah we'll get this done for you in 30 to 60 days. And I'm like oh man that is faster than I thought. That's great. Let's do it. Joe: Yeah. Carl: So we got it going. And I think about three or four months into the process that's when we realized that I had actually screwed something up in the paperwork. There was a personal financial statement for those who haven't done SBA loans yet, you have to declare everything that you have as an asset on this paper. And so in good faith, I didn't want to commit a federal fraud. So I declared everything that I thought was an asset including two properties that I have been receiving rental on for the last three years not thinking anything out. And then they went to go do a title search on them and realized that my name's not on the deed. It's not on the loan. And to me, those have always been performing assets. But in reality, since I didn't technically own them and I just had kind of handshake agreements; paper agreements on the side with the other partners in those properties, they didn't check out. And it's almost like I was in danger of performing fraud even though I came from a place of honesty. I put assets there that I technically don't really own. So anyway the bank at that point couldn't lend to me. I was untouchable. And we had just wasted four months of time. And of course, the seller was furious. I was furious. And the lender was furious. Everybody is just mad because I screwed up. I still wanted the business. The business was growing hand over fist every month. And I realized there was no way at this point even if the seller decides to keep me on that I'm going to be able to pay the same price for it. So I reapproached Joe and the seller just to see if we can still make a deal happen. There was literally just this one little thing in the paperwork that I screwed up so I knew I had this other stack of 100 documents that I could just drop in the next lender and hopefully accelerate that process. And I think probably Joe knows better. You know better. But I think that the seller saw that I had been moving extremely quickly the entire time even though when the lender had been dragging their heels. It was probably par for the course. I see now. And so he knew that I would perform very quickly for the next lender and that there was no way that he was going to get another SBA buyer that would move faster than me. And we had also established a pretty good rapport over the over those four months. He's kind of like I am in that he likes to move fast. So I think we just kind of hit it off and he still was able to sell it to me even though we did raise the price which I thought was an extremely fair raise. I thought he really took care of me on that which I'm grateful for. We were able to make the deal. Joe: Yeah let me pipe in there because I have to; people are like what you raised the pricing? You kept going and you bought the business? First I want to touch on a couple of things there. When an SBA lender says yeah we can do this in 30, 45 days; definitely get that done. And you think yeah that's great, that's fast. You have to talk about from what starting point. Lenders have a different definition of closing, of starting; they're really talking about from the commitment letter; 30 to 40 days. And they're right. Sure. But we always want to talk that one language and that's from a letter of intent, right? We signed the Letter of Intent I think with the initial one was October 14. It's going to take anywhere from 60 to 90 days to close that deal. And by closing, we mean what? We clearly define that as money changing hands, asset changing hands, you taking control of the business, Kevin the seller getting funds; all of that is closing. So when anyone is ever talking to an SBA lender talk from the point of the Letter of Intent. Understand that there's going to be a time when you got to put that whole package together, submit it to them, it's going to go to underwriting, then you're going to get a commitment letter. That in itself can take 45 days. And then you're another 30 to 45 days to closing. So that's where we get that 90 days from the SBA side. It can happen quickly. We've got; I think Chuck did one in 45, 42 days something like that. But if it's a sizable deal and more towards the end of the year guess what they want to do it faster because they're trying to hit certain numbers. Yes, they could do it faster all the time right Carl? Carl: Of course. Joe: The other thing I just want to touch on. I'm on a podcast right now with a guy named Carl and I tried to talk my seller out of selling the business to Carl. It is pretty laughable, right? Carl: I don't blame you. Joe: Because when the deal fell through the first time I'm like look, Kevin, your business has exploded. It's worth a lot more now. We need to really jack the price. If we go back out based upon what's happening year to date and this is now, this was March 2019 at this point something. I gave a high number; a much bigger number, that the business is worth probably $350,000 more than we were under LOI with you. And you know what? He's like you know what Joe I really like Carl. We get along really well. I like him. All the paperwork is done. If we can just get it submitted the right way with another lender we could still fast track it. And you know what let's see if we can find a fair price that's going to work for Carl and me. So we did. We went back to you and we did jack the price. You ended up paying, and I'm not telling the list price, but you ended up paying about $160,000 more for the business. Carl: Right. Joe: Oddly enough the multiple still went down. Carl: Yeah, that's how good it was doing. Joe: Yeah. That's how good it was doing. You went from a 2.8 multiple to a 2.55 multiple. Yet you were paying $160,000 more. Now I'm talking about multiples here a little bit. Folks, one of the lessons I want you to get from this, Carl is looking at this business with an eye of what he can do with it, what he can accomplish, and how he can grow it. We're going to talk about that in a few minutes. Not the multiple. The multiple wasn't his main focus. It was wow it's doing this in discretionary earnings based upon things within the business I can correct, fix, shift and even with the same revenue, I'm going to jack up the discretionary earnings and have some instant equity. Speaking of instant equity we talked about it, I think that you have probably a quarter of a million dollars in instant equity in the business because I think it's worth at least that much more right now than what you paid for it based upon the growth. Okay, so there's my little two cents I wanted to go ahead…hold on a sec, my producer is poking his head in. What's up, Chris? This is odd. Okay, he gave me a piece of paper. He's asking me Carl have you ever heard of a guy named Andy Youderian? Carl: I did not. Joe: Okay Chris, no idea. Okay. Hey anybody in the audience listening, if you guys have any idea who Andy Youderian; sounds like somebody from Star Wars, have any idea who the guy is, reach out to me find him, let him know that our producer is looking for him. Alright, I'm sorry for that tangent guys. Back on track. Okay so we went out to another lender and it worked. Just touch on that in terms of how long that process was because you had to resubmit an entire package again. Carl: Right. I mean they want; as soon as they said they wanted to work with me I dropped a document stack on them about 50 pages long; no 50 documents, some of those documents were 20 pages long. Joe: Wow. Carl: I mean it was just a huge stack of paper and in my mind, I'm thinking now we can get this bank down in three weeks. But of course they; when you get legal involved I realize that that's the real linchpin is the lawyers. It just takes so so long to review and get stuff back to you. They would expect to document for me in a week. I hand it to them in 24 hours. They needed it by close of business. They'd have it in five minutes. So I never ever ever want to be the person who's holding the ball. I think with SBA loans you got to just keep the ball in the lender's court over and over and over again. And sometimes it would be even though I'd get it to them so quickly I would be waiting for seven days for a response. Joe: Yeah. Carl: And this just; that time compounds. Joe: You got to keep pushing. Carl: And I would push and I was always squeaky; always squeaky with the lender. Joe: Squeaky but nice folks. You can't put them off. Carl: Squeaky but nice. Yeah, you don't want to put them off because I still do want to do repeat business with these people. So it's a fine line you walk. But I think in the end we really did close that super-fast. It wasn't like maybe even within that two months that they normally promise. Joe: I think it was. It helped; we fast-tracked the package to underwriting which sometimes again takes 30 to 45 days. But because you had it we were able to get there fairly quickly. The other lender, by the way, helped out with that. He gave a lot of the package right over and helped out as well. Alright, so we did close it. Let's jump to the fun stuff so people can learn about what you're doing with this business. We closed June 12th; yeah 11th or 12th, then you and I had a conversation. And you basically told me that you're going to double the discretionary earnings. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you're doing it and what other folks should look at when they're looking at businesses instead of just looking at the top-line number in terms of the meat and bones of the business itself, what you looked at and how you're approaching it so that you know you can increase the bottom line number and the total margins? Carl: Sure. Well, oddly enough I didn't even realize this until maybe three days before closing. But I was really excited to close finally and I put the deal in front of my partner for my existing business who does most of the logistics for us. And he said hey this product is really similar to some of the stuff we sell, why don't we run it past our existing supplier and just get a price out of them before shopping it around to other people in China. And so we did and I think the main item that the seller of the business I was purchasing was paying for; I think he was paying 16.50 for an item that this new manufacturer was willing to make for us equal quality for $8.05. Joe: Wow. Carl: And so I said holy crap this can't be real. So we just got the samples in yesterday and it's pretty similar. I mean probably with another dollar tweak to $9.05 it'll probably be damn near the same product. And at that point—. Joe: How many units is that selling? Carl: I think that's about like 20 a day, 600 a month; 6 to 900 a month. But what that did to the EBIDTA bottom line is I think it increases it by between 80 and 90%. That's incredible. Carl: Yeah. Joe: We get a quarter million equity going in by— Carl: It was a huge windfall. I mean completely unexpected honestly. Joe: When it comes to relationships with your Chinese manufacturers, I understand your business partner from your other business spends a lot of time on that aspect of it. Do you find that it's important to get over there and meet with them face to face and spend a little time with them? Carl: Oh absolutely; 100% yeah. To be able to press the flesh with the Chinese manufacturer is night and day difference. I mean that big of a difference; completely night and day. You're just a number overseas even if you have big order amounts. They like the green but they also like the in face meeting a lot. It's part of their culture. They call it Guanxi over there where it's business relationships; a special word for a business relationship that you develop. And the more Guanxi you can develop with your manufacturer, the more seriously they'll take you even if you have smaller order sizes, even if you're ordering less frequently, they give you the benefit of the doubt many times if you screw something up they'll pick up the slack for you. And some manufacturers will negotiate on their terms as well which is something that for most people who buy from China they know that they're very inflexible on that. But if you meet them enough and bring gifts and you offer respect and just have a good time; just go out, have some cigars and some drinks with them, the more often you do that the more a friend you are they really blur the line between friend and business over there. And the more that you can step into that gray area the more freely the favors flow and the more freely they'll give you really good terms which is even better than in my opinion getting a better price. Terms is everything because your cash flow is helped out so so hugely. So I think it's hugely underrated I think everybody should see their manufacturer. Joe: For those that haven't traveled to China before, how complicated is it? Is it safe? Should you plan on spending three days there or five days, a couple of weeks and see multiple manufacturers? What would you recommend to people that haven't done it before? Carl: Personally, I think at least a week is good. And I think starting their relationship with your manufacturer. Don't just go in blind. Have at least a few months of history with your manufacturer where they see that you do pay and you're a real buyer, you're not just a maybe then they'll already respect you enough to want to extend…roll out the red carpet for you. And just saying that you're going to be there for seven days. They will take care of you. They're extremely honored to have an American guest come to their homeland and care enough to see the things that they like and care enough to see their manufacturing facility that they've spent so much time developing. So yeah they'll take you on tours. They'll pay for your hotels. I mean I've never had it where at least it wasn't at least offered to pay for most of my expenses. They bought my family gifts. I mean I didn't; these were things I was uncomfortable receiving. But I felt like I needed to receive them in order to develop that relationship and not become one-sided. Joe: I've heard that time and time again. I think one of the key things for buyers to take away from that is that if they've never been it's safe to go and people are honored to have you there. Carl: Oh yeah. I felt very safe. Joe: Business relations; Guanxi you call it, is that right? Carl: Yeah, that's what they call it. Right. Joe: So buyers that are looking at businesses one of the ways that if the seller of the business has never gotten on a plane, spend some time with the manufacturers in China. There's probably a good growth opportunity in terms of bottom-line maybe terms and do that. How often do you feel it's necessary to go over? Carl: Maybe once a year if that, if not once every couple of years even. The first meeting is the best. If you can spend a good week there. It makes a huge difference. Joe: You say [inaudible 00:28:42.4] every day or are they taking you beyond the manufacturing facility and recommending other things that you can see in China as a tour? Carl: So we had two manufacturers. Actually the first time we went to we sort of split our time three days with this one three days with that one. And we saw them every day while we were there. We didn't know anything about anything. And we totally explained to them look if you have a business to take care of we can take care of ourselves we'll walk around town and just entertain ourselves with the new sights. But they were pretty adamant about wanting to be with us every day. So that's just how it shook out. Joe: Terrific, that's fantastic. Okay, so a little bit of a tangent there folks but a great recommendation in terms of being a buyer and how to improve the bottom line numbers. Carl: Sure. Joe: Alright, so you're going to improve the discretionary earnings on this business that you already have a quarter-million dollars in terms of equity when you bought it by another 80 to 90%. How long is it going to take that to happen in terms of buying the product and getting it in? Carl: Probably two months. So in two months, we'll start to see those savings in two months. We already have about three or four months of inventory on hand so it's plenty of pad to get the new inventory up and running. But that's probably what's going to happen. And then it'll take another year to log that. A year afterward to log that in as actual recorded earnings. Joe: Right. You're thinking in terms of a resale of the business, total discretionary earnings on the trailing twelve. Carl: Days to log in the equity; right. Joe: The equity itself. Yeah, we have in the past when the cost of goods sold has been dramatically reduced then ordered hit FBA and sales occurred. We have been able to do an add back. And for folks that haven't already heard the podcast on the sale, I did with Mike Jackness on Colorit, Google Quiet Light Podcast Mike Jackness ColorIt or even eComcrew. Mike did a series and honestly, he's a fantastic podcaster if you haven't heard it. I think it's episode 247, 257. Just Google Quiet Light ColorIt eComcrew podcast and learn. Because you actually learn from somebody that's sold a business. And some of the trials and tribulations we went through when you've got four brands in one seller account under one LLC and you're only actually selling one of them. So sellers out there doing that please listen and learn because it's a major challenge. But we got through it. What other things Carl would you recommend to people that are buying a business when they're looking at things like you have and approaching it? You've done something I think really really impressive here; hanging in here for seven and a half months to get the deal closed. Building and maintaining a good relationship with the guy selling the business so he trusted you. We talk about the four pillars here at Quiet Light, well that's the fifth one right there. It's being a good guy, being likable, building good relationships with either your buyer or your seller. What other things do you think are critical when you're buying a business? As people are looking all the time they're looking at lots of things before they find the right fit. What would you recommend they do? Carl: The first thing that comes to mind is anything sold at 5 million we're really looking at SBA funds. I think what I said earlier about just being forefront on pushing the ball into the lender's court; that is so important. If you're lagging on documents then it can damage the entire transaction and the relationship with the buyer. They see that you're lagging. So I mean that is underrated. I've always been a punctual person but I never realized how much that really plays in the business on different levels. I think one of the things that helped me was having built an Amazon business before so I really was comfortable with all of the key metrics and some of the red flags on the account didn't bother me at all because I knew that those specific things were common given the circumstances. So I think it really helps to either have that background or start small. I would never have jumped into this with both feet at this dollar amount with no prior experience. I think I would have rather pick something maybe 10 times less or maybe five times smaller and just gone in with an attitude of this is my intuition and I'm going to learn here. The mistakes I'm going to make, at least I'll probably break even. It's going to be cheaper than college and more lucrative. I think going into a smaller deal is still a good idea even if you can't put up big numbers to show off to your friends. It's not what it's about, right? Get that experience under your belt and then you can make really good decisions down the road. So buying small is good, starting out from scratch I think is a great experience as well. It takes time but you're better off putting in time than losing tons of money I think. Joe: What about finding a mentor? You clearly did that. That's one of the things you mentioned. The kid in the neighborhood that was doing a million on Amazon. Carl: Yeah. To be fair he really just pointed me in the direction of YouTube. That was his biggest recommendation. And I mean you can learn a ton just by listening to people. A lot of my mentors don't know me. I get them in books. I get them in podcasts like this one. I get them in blogs. So there's a lot of free information out there I never took a course and I feel like I've done pretty well. Joe: Well, obviously you've done pretty well. I got to tell you just the YouTube thing I've got a 17-year-old and anything he needs to learn it's on YouTube. Carl: Yeah. Joe: I'm 63 so anybody my age, learn from Carl and those younger; anything you want it's on— Carl: It's crazy. It's information at your fingertips. Joe: At your fingertips and it's free; that's right. Alright, then this is great. We're just about out of time. I appreciate the last nine or 10 months. And I'm looking forward to working with you in the future on some other transaction as well. Carl: Oh definitely. That is not the end. Joe: Alright, thanks for all your time. I appreciate it, your patience and congrats on such a great business that you've got here. Carl: Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it. Links and Resources: Mike Jackness Episode

The Quiet Light Podcast
Acquisition and Transition: 18 Month Update

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 7, 2019 29:05


For our first entrepreneur acquisition update episode, we are speaking to Nathan Singh, a buyer who made a purchase through Quiet Light eighteen months back. Nathan is a great example of how a buyer can get a good deal and beat out other buyers just by being personable and investing in the seller. It turns out that it's not always the person who has an all-cash offer on the table that wins the deal. Having a Nathan was more appealing and likable to the seller, won out on a deal, and today we are hearing all about how the acquisition transition has gone for him. Episode Highlights: Nathan tells us all about the two WordPress plugins he bought and what each does. Any regrets regarding the multiple and the use of an SBA loan for the transaction. The company growth rate and any challenges Nathan's faced. Where the growth has come in and what he attributes that growth to. Staff retention and how the transition is going within the staff since the original transition period. Nathan's tips for an easier transition. The importance of involving the customer in order to create a relevant product road map. The biggest challenges and successes of the businesses. Things Nathan has implemented to ignite that growth. Way's Nathan keeps his relaxed disposition. Growth Goals for the next 12-24 months. Nathan's 3P's advice to entrepreneurs looking to strike out and acquire a business. Transcription: Mark: Joe, about a year ago you had Nathan Singh on the podcast. Nathan was a really good example of how a buyer can get a good deal, beat out buyers that maybe have a little bit of a stronger position with their offer or if they're a cash buyer just by being kind and generous and investing more importantly in the person that's selling the business. And I guess it's time for an update from him. Joe: Yeah, Nathan did a great job. His seller was Syed Balkhi. He owns Opt-In Monster. That's not the one we sold but we sold two of his WordPress plugin sites which are essentially SaaS businesses and Nathan beat out a full priced all cash buyer with a full price SBA deal where Syed agreed to carry a 10% seller note which was pretty substantial based upon the size of the business. And it's a story I've told often in the different events that we go to and here on the podcast so sorry for folks hearing it. I'm repeating it but yeah the first podcast we did with Nathan was all about that and the transition and training and things of that nature and we're doing an update. I think this is probably our first entrepreneur acquisition update. And he talks about what it's been like for the last 12 months; some of the wins, some of the losses, some of the challenges, the team and things of that nature. It's a great episode to see what people have done. I think really probably more like 18 months later. I think we sold it to Nathan in the fall of '17. Mark: Yeah, I get asked all the time like do you guys follow up with people that have bought these sites and what does it look like a little bit after. And frankly, we don't do enough update follow up with people who have bought so this is good. I'm glad that we are doing this with somebody we're doing on the podcast live so that people can actually hear how the acquisition has gone a year and a half later. Let's get right into it I want to hear from Nathan. Joe: One more thing I want to just shout out a reminder this new intro that we have, we've got some movie quotes in there. If you can figure out what the movie quote is for the intro go back and rewind, listen to it, put it down in the show notes and we'll give a call out to you in the next episode. Joe: Hey, folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today we have our first ever Quiet Light update or acquisition update. We've got Nathan Singh on the podcast; Nathan, welcome. Nathan: Hey Joe. Joe: Good to be back, good to have you back man. I tell your story often. I share the story that it's not always the person who has an all cash full price offer that wins the deal and that being likable is one of those intangible very, very important factors. And for those that didn't listen to the podcast that we did with Nathan, he … I want to say won a deal where someone was bringing all cash to the table at a full price deal and Nathan came to the table just being more likable. He happened to go to the same school as the seller Syed Balkhi. I know it's the Gators, is that … wait a second, hold on, I'm going to put on the hat because I have it. I have it. There it is. Nathan: There you go. That's the right one. Joe: And I didn't plan this I just happened to have the hat up in the cabin. It's been there since fall of 2017. So it's … I'm going to get it wrong and Syed he should … he sighed so loudly when I got it wrong. Is it Florida State? Nathan: No, I would have sighed again, real loudly. Yes, University of Florida. Joe: I'm sorry. Nathan: [inaudible 00:04:41.8] Joe: There it is. There was obviously a quick connection between you and Syed on the conference calls because you both went to Florida State. Nathan: University of Florida, not Florida State. Joe: Okay. Folks, obviously I don't pay attention to schools in Florida. I'm from the Northeast originally and we don't follow our college teams at all. Now for those watching the video, my hair looks great. Okay, I just took the hat off. You connected with him on the school but you also connected with him in terms of the way that you wanted to keep the staff in place and take care of them and that it becomes a family or an extended family. And that just really resonated with him and he didn't want to call the end with you whereas the all cash buyer it was all about the fact that he was all cash he could do a quick close and these types of things but it was a little rough around the edges. Syed believed in you, trusted in you, and actually took an SBA deal where he had to not be all cash, he got 90% and so he carried a pretty substantial seller note that won't be paid in full for … I don't remember the exact terms of the deal but probably a balloon payment in year five along those lines. Does that sound about right? Nathan: Yeah. Joe: Alright. So you bought Soliloquy and Envira Gallery. Can you tell the audience a little bit about both of those businesses and what they're all about and what they do? Nathan: Yeah sure. So both of those businesses are pretty similar in the sense that they are WordPress plugins. Envira Gallery is basically a gallery plugin. That's a really simplified way to put it but it's really a photo management system. And if you Google best WordPress gallery plugins you're probably going to see that in just about every result you see. Soliloquy same deal. It's a slider plugin. Essentially if you've ever seen sliding pictures and things like that in PDFs and videos that's what Soliloquy does. But essentially it just makes developers and designers lives a lot easier when they're developing this sort of thing. That's not something they really want to get into so it just streamlines the whole process. The whole gallery management system is there. And it can display multiple galleries in pictures and sliders in a very professional way. And especially for photographers, that's a big deal. And that's what Envira Gallery does. Joe: Did you have a lot of experience, direct experience in WordPress and plugins and things of that nature before buying the business? Nathan: Not at all. At least some people actually have worked in WordPress to some extent whether they've blogged or … I've had very minimal. I've looked at the backend years ago at one point I'm like no way. So WordPress has come a long way since then. A lot of people who have … who used WordPress and have been keeping abreast of that news, Gutenberg came out, what it did is essentially went straight for the head of Wix and Shopify and some of the really easy to use platforms for building websites. So Gutenberg is that which is a WordPress site builder. It's built in. It's made by WordPress. So that's the main thing for all users, now you can get in the backend. It makes it a lot easier. But no previous to that I was pretty new to it. I didn't really understand the dynamics and the market but the only thing that I had that was slightly close to that is I developed an app before in iOS. And so it was again it was being a part of this community and having some community standards when you have plugins that are uploaded to the depository. Joe: Okay. So you were an entrepreneur. You did sell a business. I sold it for you prior to buying this one but no WordPress experience. You bought it … this business with an SBA loan and it paid a what I would say is a fair multiple. A lot of folks might say I think it's strong. I won't say it. You're welcome to say if you want to. But do you have any regrets in terms of the multiple and the use of an SBA loan in the purchase of this business? Nathan: No I don't think so. Regarding the multiple, we did pay a strong multiple. I knew that going in but I also knew going in … I've gone through hundreds of business over the past few years, I talked to owner things like that. In order to get those businesses kind of like with Envira Gallery and Soliloquy where the churn was pretty good … it's essentially a SaaS business. It's been well maintained. It comes from a good pedigree by way of Syed Balkhi. So all those things played a huge part in me wanting to go ahead and stretch what I was looking to do in that multiple. But on the same end when you're doing an SBA it made that decision a whole lot easier as well. So given the SBA process, I mean I've talked about that in the last podcast that we did as well it was … it's come a long way. And so for me having gone through the trenches and years and years of trying to get SBA loans for businesses with no assets and getting to that point and seeing it streamlined with a guy like Stephen Speer and kind of what Bank United did, it's just … I mean it was like a dream to go through that really quickly. But yeah I mean we're here year later and I don't regret it. The only thing I will say that I kind of … was a thing I didn't sort of anticipate is how quickly the interest rate did change. And it does change year after year but it wasn't so drastic that it affected the business in any way. But it did increase just a bit there so. Joe: Your loan had a variable interest rate. Nathan: I think it was more as a result to the Fed increasing. Joe: Okay. Nathan: It was something that I was aware of but it was just political things happened and it increased a little bit there. Joe: Okay. Alright so why don't you tell us how things are going? Are you seeing the business … what, we closed in the fall of 2017 so it's been a little over 18 months, have you seen the business grow? Are you challenged by anything or is it growing year over year at this point? Nathan: Yes, so it is growing. It's a pretty healthy double digit growth. Joe: Double digit growth, okay. Nathan: So no complaints there. Challenges are really again coming and yeah I've been pretty much like industry agnostic every business I got into. Like I usually know nothing about it and I prefer it that way in some cases. And so coming in and learning it I've been attending the Word Camp. I went to Word Camp in US. I went to Word Camp Miami and really connecting with the people that are shaping where WordPress is going. And just some quick stats for people that like numbers, WordPress was around like 25% or so in all the websites in the world pretty much and now they're around 33 or 35% and that's continuing to grow. And just about every major web site that you probably visit is on WordPress. So the fact that that market share is growing there's … that's helped a lot with the organic growth as well. Joe: Is that US growth or a combination of US and international? Nathan: I think it's a combination of both it's like it's used in the world but definitely United States I think that WordPress has a pretty solid share there. Joe: You know it's interesting that's not something that we zeroed in on in the client interview with Syed in terms of WordPress growth. Is it something you thought about prior to and during due diligence prior to the LOI and due diligence or is it just worked out that way that you bought essentially a SaaS business on a platform that is growing? Nathan: Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both. So I understood that WordPress was … at that time the numbers haven't been released. The numbers are officially sold on Word Camp US or just before. So the actual numbers I didn't really know at what rate it was growing but I did know that just the nature of the open source WordPress community, the fact that they're building a bond and we talked about … a little about Gutenberg during the acquisition as well but just having seeing the route that they were going in relation to all these other paid sites, and what the paid platforms did to me it made sense that WordPress is going to continue to grow. It's got a foundation to expand on and so it did play a little … not a significant amount in terms of the actual business acquisition. Joe: Excellent. One of the big reasons why you and Syed are working together now was that you were going to bring the staff over, keep everybody involved and you worked remotely from a home office whereas everybody else I think does as well. How has that transition worked out in terms of the staff and you and are you still working together? Nathan: Yeah, great. Yeah, it's been great so we talked a little bit about this again in that previous interview but there was kind of a bumpy ride with the staff. Again full time they've been with the previous company for several years and they were part of a larger outfit. So there were some worry there that it's just going to be us, essentially four folks transferring over to a completely new owner; my smaller company, how is that all going to work out? I think that just … it was a trust thing and I think after a couple of weeks that they saw that I was in the trenches with them and I was really working to make their lives easier, making sure they're taken care of. You know we went on a retreat, we stayed in Austin, we stayed in a big house; an Airbnb together, really got a chance to bond and we're doing it again this year as well. I think those things all sort of helped build that trust. I mean from where we were to point one just like in any transition when you're taking people's livelihoods and basically giving it to this owner that's completely new and they've never met there's always that kind of anxiety and stuff. But we've come a long way in that time and I'm happy to say that pretty much the entire team is still in place. One person did move on to another opportunity but outside of that, the core folks are still there. Joe: Oh, that's great to hear. Syed is probably happy with that as well. As far as the training and transition goes I know that normally it's up to 40 hours over the first 90 days after closing is the standard in the asset purchase agreement, have you needed to reach out to Syed and other folks that are in the upper level management side or were of this business beyond that transition and training period so that you just reached out if you had a quick question that didn't come up in the first 90 days? Nathan: Yeah, I think it was that. It was the first maybe really the first month or two is the bulk of the questions and stuff. Syed was really good about it. We went through training together. Thomas the co-founder was there as well or actually the founder. And so we recorded those conversations, went through each one of the processes and so I had all that. That helped tremendously so if you are selling try doing that. Go through recorded conversations and go through the process of what you do day to day and that really helps for them to not have to ask any questions. They can just look at the video again. Joe: Oh, it's a great idea and we use a Chrome extension called Loom, L-O-O-M on a daily basis when a broker has a question for me or I have a question for someone else they often just record their screen and send that. What software do you use? Nathan: We use Zoom. Joe: Better. Okay. We're on Zoom now and we're recording. Fortunately, as you all will hear in an episode or two I just did a podcast this week. I jokingly said it's the best one I've ever done but I forgot to hit record. So we'll be doing it again next week but I'm sure the guest will bring that up in the podcast for sure. Alright, let's talk about the biggest challenges that you have had since buying the business back in the fall of 2017. Nathan: Yeah, I would say the biggest challenges for me just like with any other business is kind of getting on that horse and riding it. It was just that the day to day stuff, making sure there was no loose ends that I was missing. I think aside from that it was really that there was not a strong product roadmap going forward. So everything would have gone well until up until that point and I think the team was kind of like well we're just fixing stuff how long do we want to just continue just fixing stuff day to day? And so that was just like kind of shaving a product roadmap, again I'm coming in super fresh so there's not a whole lot I can bring to it in terms of this is exactly what we need to do to take us to the next level, right? But the great thing is since I run other businesses and you kind of get a process within yourself that you can apply to these other businesses and for me, it was like let's ask the customers. And that's exactly what we did. We went straight to the customers, put out a survey; short, less than 60 seconds to complete. What are the features you like most, what do you want to see, how are we doing, stuff like that and they let us have it in a good way mostly. Joe: In a good way, okay. Nathan: And so the great thing is that they were happy with this feature set and they provided some stuff that would make them much more happier. And so that is what we're working towards right now. Joe: So they gave you that product roadmap and then your team is working on that. You're not working on it, you're just visionary and they're actually doing the actual work itself, right? Nathan: Yeah, you're right the developers … you know what I did is basically help create prioritize the roadmap. And so the things we have to do first which is we got to rebuild some of our functions and things like that. That's the most important part; to keep … to build on that foundation. And then outside of that, it's going to be basically hitting those priority items and then doing those in truncheons as we move along based on that. Joe: What would you say are your biggest successes or triumphs? Things that maybe they were a challenge but you've overcome them and see that it's maybe something that kept you up at night but it's changed and it's a big part of your business now. Anything like that? Nathan: I think for me it's been a little bit of the marketing, kind of the way to take the market. WordPress is a little bit different in the sense that we have three versions that are on this .org repository. They've got somewhere in the range of 150 to 180,000 active users or active installs, probably more than that with Soliloquy. And so there's not a lot of data we can gather. And up until recently there wasn't a lot of … there's not a funnel that you can put them through to bring them over to the paid versions because again it's actively monitored and it's a lot different than if you have a trial version and you're moving them on to a paid version of the funnel. So I think the challenge was trading out ways to get around that and still playing by the rules. So again opt-ins we've recently put in opt-ins in the free version that wasn't something that we could do previously but things in WordPress community has changed. So that's going to be a huge boom for us. Aside from that kind of marketing directly to the WordPress base, a lot of designer and phyto developers that are used to a certain thing. So one thing they weren't used to was re-occurring payments, annual subscriptions and things like that but honestly, it's become something of paramount importance to anyone that's running plugins that they have to be running a SaaS type program in order to survive or else you won't be able to make it. Joe: Have you changed the payment system with these two products? Have you changed the way that the customers are paying for it? Nathan: The payments have stayed the same. I think a lot of it was showing them the value of continuing that. Joe: Okay. Nathan: Because again WordPress is a little bit tricky because once you pay for it once you basically own it for life. Joe: I got you. Nathan: So here that is really … is bringing in those value added updates and the value added support; the source support is probably like number two on our most celebrated feature of Envira Gallery and Soliloquy. We get it all and we saw it in the survey as well. So making sure that we're doing everything we can for that customer experience just from the support standpoint and not only at the stuff that we're doing as far as updates and things like that. Joe: So you really brought your marketing experience and expertise into the business and that's how you're triumphing in a sense. Is that what it is attributable to the growth that you've seen, the double digit growth or is it that it was going that way and you're just on for the ride and making sure you don't break it. Nathan: Yeah, I think there's a balance between those. So initially … mostly when I go into these types of acquisitions I'm looking for something that's like the first year I'm learning. It's not like I can insert myself and change things at day one like say if you got a content site when essentially you're dealing with software. So it's always very different, the base is different, and then the software base is different in terms of developers and things like that. So for me, it's applying the past knowledge of just making a great intuitive software, changing up the interface to what I believe is just a more … a better user experience, and outside of that applying some of those basic marketing things that just need to be done. In this case a lot of that, the basics have been done, but it's that out of the box stuffs that really needed to get taken care of. Joe: I love that first year just learning approach. I see lots of these businesses that are listed and sold. There's a certain amount of year over year growth and the goal is to at least sustain that. And I had a call this week with someone that blew up the SKU count dramatically and it was his kind of biggest failure but at the same time it turned out to be a little bit of a triumph as well because there are some SKUs that are now generating an awful lot of revenue. But there's also a great deal of loss there as well. So I like that learn in the first year process. And what kind of things are you working on now that were never done before in the business? Nathan: Yeah, so there's a couple of things that have also attributed to the growth outside of just again being a SaaS business with not a terrible churn. And the churn for WordPress businesses I think is probably a little bit above average of what other people see in WordPress. Again you buy one so you can potentially keep it. So outside of that, it's been growing. Our affiliate revenue, that's been increasing pretty tremendously. But we had a lot of articles that had been written that were getting pretty decent on the traffic, didn't have any ads on there, didn't have really any affiliate links things like that. So that's one of the things putting in those affiliate links, building more articles around those really high performing traffic. I think at the time this wasn't taken to do that and sort of nurturing that so that's … I've seen— Joe: Are these affiliate links for other plugins or SaaS products or physical products or a combination of all three? Nathan: So the shoe in for us really became the funnel editing tools. We did a lot of … there's been a lot of [inaudible 00:22:24.1] done, tools such as Photoshop and things like that. And so lot of traffic to that kind of stuff. And it just made sense to start saying hey if you don't have Photoshop and you want to do this stuff that you see in this tutorial here's where you can go. And that's pretty much it. And then building off of that and saying what are those Photoshop competitors are out there well there's Skylum Luminar, there is Capture One, there's all these different types of photo editing tools that are kind of riding on the coattails and maybe on the heels of Photoshop. So writing tutorials for those and the same type of strategy that was used and say hey if you don't have it you can go get it over here. Joe: That seems like such a logical thing to do, slow down and read the article, what are people looking for, what can we … Do you know what you're doing? You're helping the audience. They're reading an article about editing and you're then offering them the best photo editing tools right there within the article and you happen to be making money off of it as well. Nathan: Absolutely. And it wasn't the intention of just skyrocket the affiliate. It just made sense. I was like a rational person would mainly look at that and be like you know what this is already an article at Photoshop so you probably already have it. That's not true. There's a lot of people that wouldn't make something black and white and something color in the black and white picture but they didn't know they needed specifically Photoshop to do it. So they end up going … picking up the Creative Cloud plans 9.99 or 19.99 or whatever a month not three or $400 as it used to be. So it's just a lot more easier and accessible. Joe: How did you find the affiliate platform to use, those affiliate themselves? Nathan: Yeah. So share sell has already been in use in the previous ownerships so that's just one of those things. But in this case, it wasn't really even bad. It's just getting … just registering for the program and dropping them the wings and saying hey I should always focus on this some more too because it looks like to be growing. Joe: Pretty easy stuff then. Nathan: Yeah. Joe: Now you mentioned an e-mail list as well; you've historically had lots of free users, a huge e-mail list. Have you ever done anything with that and if not are you planning to do anything? Nathan: Yeah. So the free versions, there was really no list before because there's no way to collect emails from before. So we've started an opt-in for that which again I think is only … it's been a few couple of short weeks but already we're seeing the results come through. The only … the list that we do have is just essentially people that have paid the pro. But the great thing is we're able to cross sell with Soliloquy because generally if you need something like Envira Gallery you probably need something like Soliloquy. Joe: Yeah. Nathan: So that's continuing churn along as well. Joe: That's fantastic. Nathan you look so happy and relaxed and just chill, are you always this way or is it you're just in a good position in right now that you're running this business and see the trends and whatnot? I mean what's the deal? Let's get simple. Nathan: It's a little bit of both so I would be in positions where things were going absolutely terrible and so the short answer is I meditate every day so that I just accept things as they are so that makes life a lot easier for anyone listening. The second part is I think it is that I paid a higher multiple but I've got the security of if all else fails and I can't figure out what to do it will still follow some level of revenue that was expected. So outside of that, I was just building upon that success that's already sort of continuing as well. Joe: Excellent. What's in the works of … goal eyes what are you looking at in the next 12 to 24 months? Anything that if we come back for the second update in another 12 to 24 months what are you hoping to achieve? Nathan: At a minimum, I'd like to achieve that same double digit year over year growth. But I think again entrepreneurs try to go all triple digit all these different revenue channels. Again I opened up the affiliate revenue more and that's beginning to be more of a significant one. But a couple more like that I think would be interesting and just continued growth man. I mean the main thing is … this is one of the things we discussed earlier. It's just that focus on the customer; making sure they're happy, making sure that we're hitting all those needs and then the business kind of just takes off by itself if you're hitting all those things. Joe: That's it. A clear and simple plan; not too complicated. Focus on the customer makes a lot of sense. Any words of advice from one entrepreneur to others in the audience; people that maybe they're working in the corporate world and want to be the next Nathan Singh. Any advice that you can give in terms of running your own business and overcoming challenges and things of that nature? Nathan: Yeah, I would put it safely into patience, persistence, and presence; those three things. Joe: Alright. Patience I get that. Persistence I get it. Presence … meaning? Nathan: Meaning I think as entrepreneurs what we get into is too much looking around to see what someone else is doing or where they wanted to be in a couple of years and getting super stressed if they don't hit those goals. Remember that is just your perception of where you wanted to be, reality happens different things. And I think that if you're approaching everything in a present moment, I'm not trying to sound like a spiritual guru here. Joe: It's just natural though. I like it. Keep going. Nathan: If you're approaching everything in a present manner you're likely to focus on what you're doing at this point and not be so stressed about all those other stuff. Because essentially that's going to be what's going to mess you up; it is worrying about the future, worrying about how things are not going, things like that. Focus on what the problems are at the current moment and do those things at that minute, at that second and just kind of block everything out. I just feel like everybody is uniquely designed to run their own race. So don't look left and right just do your own thing and you'll get to where you're trying to get to. Joe: I like it. I like it very much. Nathan Singh thank you very much for coming back on and giving us the first ever Quiet Light update. I look forward to doing this again. I wish you the best of success. Nathan: Absolutely. Good talking to you Joe. Joe: You too. Links and Resources: Envira Gallery Solliloquy

The Quiet Light Podcast
How Happy Feet Became a Shark Tank Success

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2019 35:48


Can a plush slipper put you in a happier mood? Today's guest and Shark Tank dealmaker have been banking on that since buying the existing Happy Feet business in 2002. He is with us today talking about the wild ride that his kiosk, retail, and e-commerce business has been on with a single brand that now has licensing agreements with the likes of Disney, Marvel, and the NFL. Pat Yates is another serial entrepreneur and e-commerce success story. Pat has the broadest experience in physical product of almost anyone we've talked with here at Quiet Light. From his early start in a retail golf shop, to selling coffee out of a truck in a one-man distribution venture, on to kiosk retail with Happy Feet which now has a booming e-commerce presence, Pat has done it all. He walks us through the Shark Tank process, the deal he struck, the risks he took in his first licensing deal with a celebrity face, and how he managed the rapid growth and cash flow challenges his business faced. Episode Highlights: When the website for Happy Feet went live and Pat's vision to merge kiosk to e-commerce. The Snooki Story and how he took a chance on licensing for the first time when no one around him thought it was a good idea. His decision to apply to be on Shark Tank, the process he went through, and what his appearance did for the growth of his business. Rapid growth cash-flow challenges and how Pat overcame them. The importance of having good people around when growing. Ways to scale and grow creatively for success. Mistakes Pat made or was perceived as making in scaling the business. How kiosk business works and Pat's thoughts on the current kiosk climate. Pat's advice for those beginning as entrepreneurs and his key tips to being prepared to succeed. Transcription Mark: Joe, Pat Yates is somebody that has been a friend of Quiet Light Brokerage for a long time and might have one of the broadest experiences in the world of physical products of people that I know. He sold everything from licensing products on retail, a whole kiosk business, e-commerce, and he was also on Shark Tank and you finally had him on the podcast where he can talk about some of the experiences that he's had and what it's like to grow a business that's as popular as Happy Feet. Joe: Yeah I know. Over the last six or seven years I've probably talked to maybe a dozen people that have been on Shark Tank and Pat I think has had probably the most success. He got a deal with Robert. He talks about the process, the presentation, preparing for it, a little bit … he goes back into how he started in Happy Feet in malls, in kiosks; really his father bought the business and he tells some great stories about Jersey Shore and meeting Snooki and how he took a risk and did a licensing deal with her. And then really talks about the success after Shark Tank and how to manage cash flows. And then we dipped a little bit into the back side of it because I was at a Blue Ribbon Mastermind last summer and somebody that has e-commerce product talked to somebody that does retail up on stage and whether they should try mall kiosks and things of that nature. And because Pat has a great deal of experience there we talked about that a little bit at the end in terms of how to go from e-commerce to retail and whether he thought the kiosk business was a good option. Mark: I know every time I walked through a mall … a few years ago when I was walking through a mall I'd always come across one of his kiosks and his giant stuffed slippers which is what Happy Feet is right? Joe: Yeah. Mark: They're these ridiculously oversized slippers and they're super fun and I know people bought them for Christmas presents and everything else. So I've always been fascinated with what he's doing. I do have to ask you real quick just changing topics, do you have any idea what the movie quote was on today's intro? Joe: Not at all. No idea whatsoever so if anybody knows what it is rewind, listen to it again, put it down in the show notes, we'll give you a shout out and a thanks in the next episode. Mark: All right why don't we get to Pat and listen to what he has to say about growing an e-commerce business and also the chaos side of things too. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got a Shark Tank alumni and we've had some on the past before but this one actually got a deal and has a great deal of entrepreneurial experience; Pat Yates from Happy Feet. Pat welcome to the podcast. Pat: I appreciate you having me on and I'm looking forward to it. Joe: Good man, all right so we don't do big introductions here. We want to hear a little bit of background on your story. Tell us about your entrepreneurial life, how you got started, and where you are today. Pat: Well it's kind of funny. I started my first business pretty much directly out of college. I was actually working for a gentleman in a … when I got to college I started working in a retail golf shop. It's where I've worked in summers and they put me on as the manager in that location which sounded like a really important job at the time. When I got at a college I thought I was going to change the retail golf industry. But in an event when I was working there I had an opportunity through one of the customers I had to get involved in a business in Columbus, Ohio and I lived in Louisville, Kentucky at the time and he basically told me about it and I decided right on the spot to buy into this franchise deal that he had for a coffee company in Columbus. I went home and my wife of three or four months I told her we were moving to Columbus and she'd never been there. So it was kind of an interesting conversation. My first ever business was basically a one man, one truck. I would get up in the morning and I would sell coffee accounts to restaurants and offices and put in vending and just go out and hump it and it was me and that was it. I did everything. Joe: Let me interrupt for just a sec for just a sec for those husbands out there that are newlyweds and still within that first year of that honeymoon, are you still married to the same woman and do you have children now? She actually wanted to go on it? Pat: Amazingly it'd be 29 years this June and yeah [inaudible 00:04:57.3]. So yeah I was pretty lucky and she just had an interesting ride. You should have her on the podcast to talk about me. That would be probably better. But yeah we started … I started that business and 2 ½ years later I sold it back to the company that was a long … it was a long story about a father and son in federal court over their ownership and it was out in the press and we sold ours back. We had a contract. It was exciting. I moved out to Tennessee and started my own company. I basically have a 200 mile non-compete and I looked at the map 200 miles away and my mom lived in Nashville; I've lived in Nashville. We moved over there and started the same kind of company right after I sold it. So at that point, I started working a little bit also in the winner's pawn specialty retail so I would use carts and kiosks for a couple of months and make extra income whilst I was building that company and that's what led me to e-commerce which led me to Happy Feet. So the short synopsis is my father and his wife are trying to work and sell on kiosk too and they were trying to find products. So when they went to a trade show in Atlanta, the Atlanta Gift Mart one time and ran across a guy who had these slippers and he had a patent on them and designed them and he really wasn't selling any so they agreed to buy a container of them. A small container of 4,000 units and put them in a mall here in Louisville. They sold out that season really quickly. It was a great beginning and then we went out and started sending … giving off 24 people to get kiosks across the country. And in 2002 I bought it out from my family and started going in a little different direction, a trajectory on retail that aren't kiosks that turned out to be really big but then really catastrophic with relation to the growth pattern and then started to concentrate more on e-commerce. And that's obviously led me to a Snooki deal which I'm sure you're probably going to end up asking about which is the funny part of the conversation typically. And then it led me to Shark Tank and it has led us to every late night show, morning show, TV show you can imagine. So the press around the company was incredible and obviously, I'm still here doing it basically 20 years later. Joe: That's an incredible story. So if you're focusing specifically on the e-commerce side of it when did you first open up the first web site for Happy Feet? Pat: Well the first one was actually opened up by my dad when they had the business in 1988. They were … they started in doing very little stuff. I mean I'm talking like we packed two orders in the basement one day. Joe: How much [crosstalk 00:07:08.6] 1998 is a lot of having, I think my first site was 50 bucks probably 1998. Pat: I could guarantee that my dad would not have spent $50 on a website. So I don't know how much he spent but it probably was somewhere south of $50. They really weren't doing anything. I think when I bought the company they were doing $22,000 in web sales. They just … it hadn't translated but what happened was I had a little different vision. And my vision was that if I can get it out to people in kiosks and grow that funnel sale it would get the brand recognized by people and then they would continue to buy it online. And since our business was seasonal, two months a year they were coming to me. Two months a year they were going to the kiosks. So if the kiosks can say osh kosh wherever or from like Milwaukee, Wisconsin closed down and someone went back to buy and they didn't have them they see the name on the back of the slipper and all it did was that distribution funnel continued to grow. So my thing was to try to get it to a lot of places for me to market very quickly and try to build the e-com via that. And we went from 22,000 to about 100,000 to about 400 and we capped a million and now we're well over three million and it just shows no signs of slowing down. It's a fun product. Joe: You know the way that you went about it is actually hard work and hustle. And that hard work and hustle got you in the right place at the right time which is not necessarily luck. It's because of the hard work and hustle but being at that trade show in Georgia where your dad was and meeting these folks and taking the risk in buying that half container load so good for you. But then there's a lot of work to do since then. And as we've talked and I've had a lot of people on the podcast and what I've experienced over the last seven years in the brokering side of it is that everybody has problems with cash flows. So I want to talk about that with you. I want to … first I want to hear the Snooki story and I want to hear a little bit of the Shark Tank experience but then I want to talk about how you've solved the problem of cash flow with a company that is growing so rapidly because everybody that's in the first 12 to 36 months of a business that's growing rapidly faces that challenge especially with the Amazon growth these days. But talk to us about the Snooki story did she just happened to have— Pat: Well it's kind of interesting. It's actually my most fun story of all these and actually from many standpoints; number one from a standpoint of growth, second of all from a standpoint of trusting my judgment. I've had done many podcasts before and I've talked to a lot of people about the biggest thing with me is if I always trusted my judgment on what I first had an inclination on I typically had success. Now it's not always that way. Not everybody gets it right the first time but the 80-20 every time I trusted myself it was good. Every time I didn't trust myself it was the same 80-20 but the 80-20 was the other direction. Well, I'm sitting in my house one night and this is 2009 maybe. I'm guessing. I have to go back and look. But my son comes into my bedroom and I've said this many times so I'm sure people have heard it and he said dad your slippers are on Jersey Shore. Snooki is wearing your slippers on Jersey Shore. I said I only have two questions: who's Snooki and what the hell is Jersey Shore? I really had no idea. I had no idea what it was. I've heard of the show but I didn't pay any attention to it and this was the second season on Miami so [inaudible 00:10:13.8] rewind it and I look and she's bent down cleaning something up with our pink slippers on. It turns out she was just a fan of the product. She bought them and took them down there and thought it'd be cool to wear in the house. So we get all these emails and orders immediately as soon as it starts hitting the air. And we sold out of those pink slippers in like three days. So at that point, I knew I had something. So I being a ford motion guy; that's one of the words I use a lot being a ford motion guy, I picked up the phone and I called her agent and it turns out one of the guys is selling license agreements for her because they figured they could capitalize on her fame at the time. It was in Chicago so I got my car and I drove to Chicago four hours the very next day and I sat down and had dinner with her agent and we offered her a license agreement to design her own slippers. I can tell you that there was not one person including my current partner at that time that wanted me to do it. Every person said this will be a complete travesty. Why in the world would you put her in front of your product? I said well there are several reasons: number one, I saw what it did when we got the press and second of all you can always deal with those things. I mean there's no bad press. What you want to do is get it out there. So to make the long story short we sound this license agreement, we launched our product. Her leopard slippers is still probably all-time the greatest selling product we've ever had. The first time she tweeted out about it with only a million followers she crashed our site. So we got to learn really quickly how we needed to scale. Joe: Wow. Pat: Then she took us to trade shows. We went … she was on Jimmy Fallon playing slipper golf which is one of the coolest. If you ever get the chance you can Google it. It was really fun. I was there for it in New York. We were on Good Morning America, on the Today show, so all that stuff came from it and it turned out it was one of the best decisions I've ever made because of the way that it helped to get the notoriety around the product. And I just trusted my judgment because not one person really believed it was ever going to be something good for us. And it was exciting and since then I'm still in touch with her regularly and her management. We still do a lot of things together. So it's been a great relationship for eight or nine years now. Joe: Wow that's fantastic. A fun story too. Is there any chance of Jersey Shore coming back on the air? Have you got any inside information? Pat: They did a rewind this year but I don't know how it did. I know that she has got some other things she's working on so she's always … I mean the thing is people just … really it's amazing in our society how people sort of make quick determinations on small snippets of someone. She's actually a really sweet girl. Some people look at her and think she's this hard core partier; she really isn't. When we were in Vegas is a great example, we went out … everything she gets she gets for free. We went to a restaurant, she took a picture for Instagram, probably a $7,000 bill and with all these people. We went up to this nightclub and it was roped off area, bottles, service, everything she wanted for free. Her life at that time was just immeasurable with relation to the benefits and things she got. But what we ended up finding out was is that she was just this really calm, young girl. We went out to dinner and out to a club and she never had a drink. It wasn't the Snooki they sell on Jersey Shore; it was Nicole Polizzi which is her name. She's an adopted girl from Colombia and she has a great family and she does … she has great young kids now. She's actually a tremendous person. That's the one thing people would really be surprised at next door. Joe: I believe it. Well, I know that you got connected with Quiet Light back in 2010, 2011 or '12. I know you had some conversations with Mark about doing a valuation for Happy Feet. And as Mark often did he probably gave you some good information and suggested you go and fix that or if you want X amount of money you got to build the business more. Not high pressure at all he did the same for me in 2000. I forgot, no it was 2010, maybe we called him about the same time. But at some point, you said okay this Shark Tank thing looks interesting I'm going to give it a go. Can you talk about your decision to apply to Shark Tank, what it was like being on the show, and what it's done for Happy Feet since? Pat: Well I applied on season two originally and it was … I mean if people hadn't done the Shark Tank applications, it's like 50 or 60 pages of disclosures. It's all handwritten. You can't type it. It's so non-technical, you can imagine. And I got turned down that first year. I went to the interview process. We submitted videos and got turned down and I hadn't really thought much of it after that. I watched the show and I was a fan but I remember it they were getting ready to finish casting for season five and I get a phone call. And believe it or not I was actually on a golf course and I picked up the phone and they said look we'd like to revisit your application. We're scaling so fast. We're doing so many new things. We'd like to revisit it would you want to resubmit this application? I said well it took me days to be able to do the application and videos and stuff and I said like okay if you feel like there might be some fruit from it let me know. So I resubmitted the application, did the videos, it comes right down to the end. This is like in September of 2013 they called and said Pat look we have four or five slots left and about 18 or 20 companies where we got it narrowed down to. We want to tape so what we're going to do is we're going to bring you out to LA and we're going to let you tape in front of the producers. If they like you they'll keep you if they don't they'll send you home. And I'm like alright. So I flew out to LA and actually it's interesting because Snooki was sort of involved in this in a pseudo way. I went out and I taped my test and I went that night to Dancing with the Stars and I sat with her family and her agent at Dancing with the Stars live which was really cool by the way and [inaudible 00:15:25.0] I was done I got a call and they said look we're going to tape you tomorrow so be ready. We're keeping you, we are going to go ahead and tape it. So we taped in September of 2013. It aired in April of 2014. And I was also told that probably 30% of people they tape don't get on air. I've heard the number is less than that but there was no guarantee I was even going to get on TV. And then in April of 2014 obviously it aired and it was an exciting episode. It did not go well for a long time in there. And the way that the production was set up and the way they showed it, it turned out to be what I think is one of the better endings and exciting. So it was a lot of fun and obviously, it was a real whirlwind and since then there's just been nothing but great things that have come from it. Joe: Well you got a deal from it. You're one of the first guys I've ever talked to that's gotten a deal from it. I've probably had conversations with five or six people over the last three years that had been on Shark Tank but you got a deal. Actually, I've got somebody else that got an offer but he didn't accept it which in hindsight he should have. But what was the whirlwind part? You were there for a long time it didn't go the way that you wanted it to but you did end up with a deal, how did it go? Pat: Well you're in there … I'm just going to estimate, I'm going to say I was in there probably an hour and ten to an hour and 20 roughly. You get no break rights. There is no break. If you have to go to the bathroom or you have to get a drink forget about it. You're standing on your spot and you're answering questions and they're grilling you. And probably for the first 15 minutes to an hour, it just wasn't going well. Barbara didn't like me which most women don't like me when they meet me the first time. Then I don't know how it went, then Robert— Joe: We'll do another podcast on that and again we'll have your wife on in that podcast. Pat: Anyway it just … everything seemed to be going negatively and then I got an offer from Kevin which was one of his royalty deals which wasn't going to help me. And then Lori I really thought was going to do something then she hitched her wagon to Kevin which was really tough for me because I did not want to deal with that royalty agreement and that was really all I had on the table. And then about an hour and five minutes in I decided because Mark had made comments I asked him if I could tell him a story versus you know asking him. And I talk about my mom who had passed away and I talked about my passion as an entrepreneur and how this is a single product and some people don't do that as a company but I was going to get up every day to make sure it grew. And he made a quick comment which I'm glad they didn't cut out and he said you're the real deal and you have a great business but it isn't a fit for me. At the time I wasn't sure why I mean obviously he has an NBA franchise, we had NBA licensing, I don't know if that got anything to do with it or he just didn't want that kind of product. But either way what happened was it changed more of them because at the end of the day Mark controls more money than most of those people put together. And you're in a situation where if he is saying something like that it makes people view it different. And I think my plea is exactly who I was as an entrepreneur; passion, excitement, and getting people engaged where they feel excited about what they're going to do. Then all of a sudden Robert came back in and made an offer and then Lori and those guys wanted to counter. I gave him a maximum we wanted and understand we only took at our web addition we weren't a consolidated company with relation to wholesale and then all of a sudden Robert said I'll take that deal and I wasn't going to hesitate. I didn't even allow Lori and Kevin to react to it. I just said done and it was over. And the deal changed after the fact. It wasn't exactly the same on the show. It really wasn't anything near that. Joe: There's lots of due diligence after you shake the hand I assume. A lot of verification and it takes process. Pat: For us, it wasn't even that. Robert and I talked and he said you told me you didn't necessarily need the money and he says why do you want to do this? Well I said, first of all, I could use some money but it isn't that important now but I really need the connections and I'd like you to help me grow this company. That's really what I wanted. He said look let's just do a small deal without the money. If you need something in the future I'll try to help you but I want you to work with my Shark Tank group. We signed a deal and we've been working with him ever since. And they're fantastic. They have a Shark Tank division that's run by a really dynamic young lady and she's really good and anytime I need him I can get him. I talk to Robert occasionally. I was in his office four to six months ago before the launch of the Disney line and we went over some stuff but he's just a great guy and it's a great group of people. And honestly, I'm happy it didn't close at what it was before because it would have changed for both of us. There had been a lot more expectations on both sides and other than that Robert has helped me with anything I need from soup to nuts with business including we have so much press. Obviously, it led us to DreamWorks it led us to basically every license we want in the United States and the world for that matter. So it's really a blessing for me and it was exciting, it was stressful, it was fun, it was really scary to watch because I couldn't see the episode. I wasn't allowed to see it. I had to watch it like everyone else. And I swear to goodness I had no idea how it was going to look. And I honestly [inaudible 00:20:12.4] and I don't really get nervous. I've played basketball in a small college, in high school and I've been an athlete. I'm a very competent high playing individual but that one I was sitting there to win. I just don't know how this is going to look. But it was great. And then the one interesting thing that most people don't realize they will usher you off to an airport immediately. As soon as you get off sound stage they take you out of the sound stage into another stage. You do your post interview. They have to sit with a counselor which is required for an hour because they're afraid that some people would be suicidal. So you'll sit with a counsel when they feel like you're in good shape to leave they walk you out the door. This is not a joke. They put you in a van. They drive you to a hotel. You should have your bags packed and they will not put anyone that takes in the same hotel. They don't want you talking. We were originally in the same hotel before we pitched and afterwards they spread you out and then you fly back the very next day. So it was a real whirlwind and it was exciting but it was stressful. But everything that's come out of it has just been fantastic and it made for good television. Joe: Okay I just have to comment on the counselor part and then we'll move on to your growth and then the cash flow challenges that everybody in the audience that's an entrepreneur faces, but does Mr. Wonderful have to pay for the majority of the counselor because he says you're dead to me more than anyone else? Pat: Probably Barbara would be. She has I don't know … it was … again that part was a little odd for me. I didn't know they were going to do that but then they just bring it on me. So I'm like no, I'm in a great mood what do we need to do to get out of here now? They make you stay for an hour. Joe: That's fascinating. Alright so how did it turn out and what kind of growth have you seen since 2014? And then we'll talk about how you dealt with that in terms of financial cash flow challenges. Pat: Yeah I mean we jumped up 40 to 50% over the period of time from where we were in the baseline during at the time. It led us to get passed by DreamWorks to do a license which at the time was a very good thing but it was my first foray into a big license and it was a little challenging. You couple the fact that they were sold in the middle of it in DC universal which became very difficult because they were moving those assets in and they get people assigned, people to work with me. So the DreamWorks thing was an interesting lesson in licensing and how implemented and I didn't do a great job at it but it was a good license and now obviously we're working with Disney and Marvel and all those things came from Shark Tank so it's a great thing for us. Joe: So when it comes to a business that's growing rapidly as many of the folks that I talked to on a regular basis are dealing with a lot of the physical product e-commerce businesses that we're selling, actually I'd say the majority of them are probably less than three years old. And the reason that I see that people exit, you know buyers always say well it's so great why are you selling? It's because for that three year period they're hardly taking any money out of the business. They bootstrapped it, they put it together, and then every penny that comes from the revenue of the business goes back into buying more inventory and trying to stay ahead of it and not have stock outs. What have you done in your business to overcome some of those challenges and what advice can you give to entrepreneurs that are eventually going to be in your position? Pat: Some of it is … there's an easy answer and there's difficult answers. So the easy answer is I think anytime that you're facing cash challenges you should address that either one of two ways. Obviously, they jump off the paper to anyone. Obviously, there's banking that you get involved in but I believe that is really important to find someone who can add value to your company if you decide to do a strategic partner. Some people believe don't believe in partners but if you can find the right strategic partner that not only gives you a leg up in some of the systems and other things that you're going to encounter as you grow but also can help in the financial thing that's premium. What I did as we started to try to grow it is I partnered with someone that could afford to help scale that growth and make sure that we had a position to where we would have the product. But I also started to get creative with vendor relationships. For instance, there's a manufacturer that I work with on licenses that is one of the biggest manufacturers of plush in the country if not the biggest. And I went to them because their margins were really low when we talked about and I said what if we could raise your margins by you going ahead and using your scale and your manufacturing abilities. You send the product in, we have the ability to pay for it as we sell it almost like a consignment deal but we can help you develop a division where your margins grow if it's not capitally intense then it would make sense for both parties. So what I tried to do is be very passionate with people I could put around me in vendor partnerships to try to get them to help me with the initial product I needed to do anything. We developed a brand new credit slipper called zlipperz; Z-L-I-P-P-E-R-Z. That was a collaboration with a company on being able to develop the actual design and to make the product and then we didn't have to put a lot of money on the pocket because we're putting a lot into the system side. I think you just have to talk to everyone you can possibly think of. It doesn't have to be an investor, it doesn't have to be a bank, it could sometimes be your vendors, it could sometimes be family, it could sometimes be a warehousing and distribution company. I mean I almost … I talked to a warehouse and distribution company one time and said look if you could bring your distribution to us we'll help invest in some of the product and we'll mark that back up to be able to help get the distribution business. So there's a lot of ways that people can scale businesses if you put the right people around you. And I think you just have to be willing to have those conversations and think creatively on how to grow your business. Joe: I think you're absolutely right. The more I've talked to different entrepreneurs in this situation it's being likable and it's working hard and it's getting lucky back to the reason you are in the business here and now. And again I don't mean to make light of being lucky because it only came from your hard work and dedication and being willing to take some risks by hopping in a car and drive four hours to Chicago just to meet with the agent of Snooki when you didn't really know. You didn't know what she was all about. So you got to do those things. Well, we had people on the podcast that sort of break the mold in terms of being able to buy internet based businesses because they use local banks because they've built relationships with them. They go and they talk to them, they shake their hands, they see them face to face, and they instill confidence in the bankers, other types of lenders, investors, family funds, family members, warehouse owners, shippers, whatever it might be their goal is to stay in business and to grow. And if you can do what you're talking about and make it mutually beneficial then they're going to help your business grow as well. We do that every day. It's not just brokering and trying to sell a business for the absolute maximum price, it's trying to achieve the goal of the seller. Sometimes they're trying to get it sold very quickly with a better set up and transaction. Maybe all cash close in 30 days other times they want to max it out. They're willing to take a small note on something and hold the business and deal with that emotional stuff you go through for a little longer in order to reach the goal. So I like the fact that you're talking about bringing in other people and talking to as many people as possible to make something mutually beneficial. Well, what would you say has been the biggest challenge and maybe the biggest mistake you've had to have made in terms of finances in cash flow and things of that nature? Just pull on out of your hat to— Pat: Well it's interesting because I can tell you I've made hundreds of mistakes but as I've talked about before there's … let's just say there's a hundred there's less than three that I would regret because the other 97 led me to something that is always better for business. So I'll give you a great example when I was growing the kiosk business my father and his wife Sharon who started it basically had … I don't think they had more than 25 kiosks at one point in any seasons which is still a lot if you're talking season November, December. When I bought it and started doing distribution I changed it up. I brought them into the warehouse because they use to sell only containers. They bring them in to container loads, they bring them in to Seattle or LA Portland and they'd send it to customers. They never touched a product. They didn't have a warehouse; didn't touch it. It was basically just an order company. It's like an FOB order. What I decided to do was get a warehouse and bring the product in, get the warehouse to scale, put people in there, break the containers and ship whatever they needed. So if they didn't get in the 4,000 or 8,000 pair of containers I could still sell. So we went from 30 to about 300 kiosks in about four or five years. So we were one of the bigger kiosk programs seasonally in the United States. We had them from every state. You know I had one guy that ran 20 of them. So what I couldn't see at that time were two things: one, how good that would be and two, how catastrophic it would be. And it's interesting that they're both. And the reason they were both is I started to get so much product and we were so seasonal that I was taking chances on buying product in case we added a few kiosks late or someone needed more or whatever and that was just that all that was doing was rolling the dice and eventually figuring out what year it was going to come up craps. That you ended up a year where you had a million dollars in products sitting on the floor for nine months to a year that you didn't have money to pay for. So I was sort of in a position to where I was betting on to come a little bit more than I needed to be with the kiosk business so it became catastrophic with relation to cash flow. And I ended up having to partner with someone to be able to make sure that I could hedge it and grow. But at the same time, it was the biggest blessing I did because as we put the slippers out there and our name and buy HappyFeet.com was on the back people learned about our brand and we started to build that same funnel I talked about. It's funny how my hands are always down here than they appear but— Joe: And if you had the video I can see that funnel, that visual that you're doing. Pat: I just let everybody know I move my hands we're not even on video. Anyway, my point in this is that it helped grow what we … the scope of the business. It looked bigger. It looked like a company. It looked like something you'd want to be involved with. So all these people started taking notice and we did NBA license, we did NCAA, we did NFL, we did all these different things and we really expanded the base of the product. And it's something that … you know the first container they bought was four styles in three sizes or four sizes, there were 16 SKUs and now we have over 5,000. Joe: Wow, incredible. Pat: So it was catastrophic to our cash flow because it nearly broke me and it should have and still trail the business for years after that because I made the decision. But it's hard to be upset about it because we were in a position to where we decided that we couldn't continue on that trajectory. So we cut the kiosk business back, we concentrated on the .com and what we found out was people were conditioned to buying a product and if the kiosk wasn't there that year they bought it from us for Christmas. So those leap years and those difficult things it's almost hard to be upset about it because it was almost like the lost that you would have taken or the aggravation tax. It was something that you really needed to be able to grow the company overall. So it's really hard to regret that. Every decision that I made that's been bad I always look at something and that thing could be better. The DreamWorks thing, I was terrible at it. I didn't understand any licenses but now I have learned some things about it that going into the Disney/Marvel deal that helps me really understand it better. So I don't regret a lot of those things. I just try to learn from them to get better and back to the point you talked about with relationship on scaling the cash, be passionate like I was. When I talked to people they get excited about building products, they're excited about doing businesses and doing all these things. If you go in and find people that have capital that don't operate businesses and you're passionate they'll put you in place to make you successful because at the end of the day that's what you're going to do for them. It's all going to come around and that's why I have to maneuver so I have to jump up every day and say I want to be passionate. Sometimes it's been hard for me to do that because it's tough but that's what I'm always trying to do. Joe: Yeah it can be exhausting for sure. Let me just pivot here, you've talked about kiosks a lot, it's what you know. You know very well. You're in the ecommerce world now and licensing and so on and so forth. I've been in a few events, Mastermind events where people have stood up and said hey what are your thoughts about me taking my brand and starting in the kiosk business and expanding in retail that way instead of a retail store? What are your quick thoughts on that for folks that are out there thinking of that now? Is it a pain in the ass? Is it worth it? Is it challenging? Is it too much, too late? What are your thoughts? Pat: Let's say … let me answer two ways: number one, for our product as big as it is and needing storage for a couple of months a year it's a very difficult sale. Because I think it's challenging, it's tough, it's a big investment, they want too much per square foot. I personally think that the kiosk and especially retail business is terrible. That's just my opinion. I just think retail, in general, is bad so when it falls down to that and what you see malls do is go away from branded products and good looking kiosks in the past to getting anything they can get in there. It's now like a flea market. So I really don't think it's a very good business unless malls turn around and change it. As far as retail goes you're making a huge commitment to what you're getting in front of customers. Right now I think it's very difficult to get in to retail and be able to scale. But if your product is small enough and you have the ability that you can get people to run them independently then yes I would not sign a lease all over the country as an independent company and then try to make it work for one hug and then have 25 or 30 locations. It's not a good business plan. I think some people have to go to retail. Luckily I'm right now knock on wood I'm not in that position to have to do that. It's not a tremendous business but it's not a bad place to start if you have to. Joe: Okay I got you. Alright Pat you've been an entrepreneur for 30 years, there a lot of folks out there that are just starting off on their entrepreneurial journey some of them are 20 years old, some of them are 50 years old and are quitting the corporate world any last minute advice for those that are just beginning that you can share? Pat: Yeah don't quit your job until you have a built business. I mean I talk to my sons, my sons don't work in my business because we know that I can … first of all, I need them to go and find their own way. And I want them to be able to go out and understand what it takes day to day to be able to work at this job and bride. If they were working for me then I know that they would get a little bit of a sense of complacency. But I tell them if you want to start a business start it while you have a job. Something that is not taking you away from a job, not like you're living and working for someone all day and then taking some of those money. See if you can make a run in whatever product or business you want to do, keep your income so you don't add that stress. There's a stress to starting a business you need to make sure you have an income. If you can figure out how to make that and navigate that as a new entrepreneur, then I think that you have an ability to have a good balance. Either way, you have to be ultra-excited about it and willing to do anything. I'll give you a great story and I know that some people may have heard some of the podcasts, I had a guy that was an entrepreneur here in Louisville that I work for at that golf shop and I told him I said I'm going to go start a business I think I'm going to leave this job is there any advice you can give me? And he said well you're moving from a meal ticket to a suit lot and understand that's not going to be easy. There're going to be days when you're going to worry if you can even have food on the table or whatever it's going to be and you're not going to have a fall back. You're not going to have that check coming on Friday and you better hope it shows up in the mail paying some of your receivables so you're not going to have anything. And it's stressful and some people look at the excitement of taking a product and taking it to market and say hey I can do this so I could really make this work but they don't understand the other intricacies to running a business and stress that comes with that. It's not easy so the biggest thing is just to make sure you're prepared for that. Number two, I'd like you to keep the job and then I would find some mentors to put around you. A board that is a pseudo-board; it may not have to be a board of directors, it's not that sophisticated but people that can help you understand and navigate the problems that you're going to go through. You're going to find them. Joe: Awesome, that's great advice. Pat Yates, HappyFeet.com thanks for coming on the show we'll talk to you soon. Pat: BuyHappyFeet, B-U-Y HappyFeet. Joe: There you go BuyHappyFeet.com I'm going to go buy some. Thanks, man. Pat: Thank you Joe. Links and Resources: Happy Feet Pat's LinkedIn Profile  

Answering the Call Podcast - NOBTS
Emir Caner on leadership and inspiration

Answering the Call Podcast - NOBTS

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 28, 2019 29:54


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.

The Quiet Light Podcast
How to Use Drop Shipping to Kick Business Into High Gear

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2019 34:14


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  

Answering the Call Podcast - NOBTS
How to Share when they Don't Care

Answering the Call Podcast - NOBTS

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2019 41:24


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.

Clienting
Clienting #27: Gyi & Kelly take Guest Questions

Clienting

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2018 52:43


For this episode of Clienting, Gyi and Kelly answered marketing questions from former Clienting guests. Audio questions:  Alex Barthet- Blog called the Lien Zone about construction topics- trying to show up on SERP's as the featured snippet. Single best thing to do to appear in the snippets? Should he care about showing up in the snippets?  How? The content should answer a question, must be high-quality (comprehensive, entertaining/engaging, etc), has to be 'the best answer.'  Search for what you want to rank for, see what comes up. Also look at the People Also Ask box Create something better Already showing up in page 1 is a good place to start Keep paragraphs short (40-50 words) and structure the content with bullets, etc. Should you care? https://moz.com/blog/optimize-featured-snippets Jared Correia-   Lawyers are flummoxed by social media- can lawyers pick one medium for social media and which one should they choose?   Jared's son, Joe: How do I get other kids to trade me their good pokemon cards for my weak pokemon cards?  Jason Beahm- Are there any tricks to running successful PPC campaigns without spending tons of money? For example, I have heard that this can work with long tail keywords, is this true? :) PPC Hero Brad Geddes Kirk Williams - PPC Kirk If you could only recommend one or two kinds of content to create and market, what would that look like? Where to put your energy right now if you feel like maybe this is an area that has been lacking. Written questions:  Sam Glover-  What Yoast SEO plugin settings should I check or change after installing it on a new website? And is the pro version worth paying for? Erin Levine-  What platform do you use to build sites for clients? WordPress? Wix? Why? If a client has a limited budget and wants to work with you, what do you suggest that they start with first? Updating website? SM presence? Do your copywriter services including pitching to media? If not, do you have a go to resource to help guide us on that endeavor? When planning marketing services for a particular client, what factors do you consider besides the obvious (budget)? Size of firm? Where the clients are? How are you able to satisfy your taco craving when you live in the mid-west? Is there really any good Mexican food there?  Jordan Couch-  What’s the best way for attorneys to gather data and measure return on investment in social media marketing? It seems like just measuring social media engagement isn’t sufficient since you could have a very active following without any of them converting into clients. Likes, comments shares (vanity metrics) Reach Audience engagement Site traffic Leads generated Sign-ups and conversions Revenue generated downloads Tracking: FB Pixel, UTM parameters https://www.searchenginejournal.com/measure-roi-social-media-efforts/263259/

The Quiet Light Podcast
Build a Real Business with Kevin King

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2018 44:42


One of the mistakes people often make when starting their own e-commerce business is they try to make the business an extension of themselves. They don't build out enough within that extension and therefore don't build a real business. A real business that is going to be attractive to buyers. Some also make attempts to reject Amazon, feeling they can achieve success with Shopify, Walmart, and other E-commerce channels. Today we are talking with a true Amazon veteran and success story, getting to the truth behind building real e-commerce success, working to build a real and viable business, and why it pays to go to China. Kevin King is an e-commerce entrepreneur's advisement expert. He teaches to and works with seven to eight-figure companies and speaks at e-conferences all over the world – attending nearly twenty-six events in at least 10 countries in 2018 alone! He runs his own e-commerce site selling his Amazon products, and has developed and guided hundreds of products from inception to market. He's been in the Amazon Private Label space since 2015. He's here talking about the Amazon opportunity bubble and how he doesn't see it popping anytime soon. Episode Highlights: The skyrocket of the Amazon business model and how that model has changed. Kevin shares his tips for doing business right from the start and increasing chances for success. The different ways to approach the Amazon model. Kevin gives us a definition of Amazon Private Label. The number one crucial skill you need to succeed on Amazon. What you really need financially to start a real business. How to find out where the demand is on Amazon. Why being on top of your inventory is vital to your success and how often you should turn your inventory each year. What it really means to build a brand and if brands mean anything to potential buyers. Why Amazon is a great place to launch a product but not to build a brand. Why product choice is the backbone to business success. What to look at when choosing a product to sell. Selling cheap easy turnover items versus high ticket items. The most important thing to do to improve traffic on Amazon. Unless it garners at least 20% of your revenue, multichannel sales don't increase your chances of finding a buyer. The international factor and branching out to other marketplaces. Kevin's golden rules for moving a product. How many products are the right amount to have in your portfolio? Where the money is really made in the Amazon space and the importance of how and where to source products. Transcription: Mark: Okay Joe I want to start this off with a question for you. Back when you owned Puristat how long did it take before you realized this is going to be able to grow into something and how long did it take before you turn it into kind of like a real business that could be scaled? Joe: That's a great question. I wish I had a really good prepared answer for it. Mark: I got you completely unguarded with that. Joe: Yeah. I'm one of those guys that built a business without knowing I could actually sell it. And as you and a lot of folks that know my history I started out on doing radio and direct response and did a TV infomercial and then eventually took it 100% online. But early on in my entrepreneurial career, I did have a sit down with a good friend … a family friend that slapped me upside the head in terms of accounting and I did have my ducks in a row in that sense. And I always built what was a real business so that if I got hit by a bus one of my head people could take over, my wife could take over things of that nature. But it never actually occurred to me until I was emotionally tired that I could sell the business. And then I reached out to a guy named Mark Daoust back in … gosh, 2010 right? Mark: Way too long ago. I think one of the things … one of the problems I see and I've seen over the past 11 years with entrepreneurs is we make the business an extension of ourselves; an extension of our personality. And because of that sometimes we don't really build the business in a way that can be sold and we don't have intentionality of building something outside of ourselves. And I know you talked to Kevin King who had a lot of suggestions and tips as to how somebody should be building their business for that expansion and again for lack of a better term a real business. Joe: Kevin used the term real business probably 10 times in the first five minutes and he is such an honest straightforward tell it like it is kind of guy that he says you got to build a real business. Grow up build a real business. Don't be a … build a real business. And he just says it in a way that you just have to go okay he's right, I need to stop messing around, grow up, and build a real business that is going to be really attractive to buyers when I'm ready to sell. Kevin is one of the few guys that is out there teaching, helping, coaching entrepreneurs build ecommerce businesses with a focus on an eventual exit. He's got a four year plan in terms of … you know step 1, 2, 3, 4 in terms of year 1, 2, 3, 4 with an exit in mind not that you're going to exit but that you're in a position to exit in 48 months. Part of that is giving it enough time to mature and grow and gain value. And he's a believer as many folks in his position are that a majority of the revenue that an entrepreneur gets to put in their bank account comes upon an exit and that's a simple matter of math. We hear Scott Deetz talk about that a lot and he's an advocate of that as well. But I tell you there are … the gurus are a dime a dozen and Kevin has been around a long time. He walks the walk, he talks the talk, he's a guest podcast on lots of podcasts, AM PM Podcast co-host, and helps out a lot with Helium10. And now he is so sought after. He's being asked to go and present and speak around the country … around the world and he's being paid to do it. You and I have to … we have to say can we sponsor and by the way can we speak and we pay them to let us up on stage these people are actually paying Kevin to get up there and talk because the wisdom that he shares is so valuable. Mark: That's fantastic. I want to get to this, hear what he has to say. I was at a conference a few months ago and there's a speaker who said … and I'm going to keep this PG even though he wasn't PG but he said if you want to have a real business you have to do real business stuff. And it's one of those truisms that is just kind of basic but good to hear once in a while. So I'm interested to hear what Kevin has to say about it and for those listening, I think it would be a good idea to listen to some of the specifics that he gives here and just measure up against what you're doing right now. Are you doing these things? Have you been doing real business stuff within your business to actually build something that's real and external? Joe: Perfect let's go to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley with the Quiet Light Podcast and I have an amazing guest today. His name is Kevin King. Kevin, how are you today? Kevin: I'm doing good Joe. How are you doing? Joe: I'm good man. You're kind of a legend in this industry now. You're traveling all over the world speaking at events, getting paid to speak at events, helping 6, 7, 8 figure entrepreneurs build their Amazon businesses. That's kind of the intro, why don't you tell us who you are and what you're all about so the people will understand it directly from you? Kevin: Sure no problem. Yeah, I've been doing ecommerce since the 1990. So I go back about 20, 25 years or so since the days before there was even a Google. I've been selling ecommerce to my own websites. I started selling on Amazon on around the year 2000 or so and then I've been doing the FBA model which most people are familiar with now since 2015. I originally started out doing wholesaling, some arbitrage, and some other stuff on Amazon and still do that through another business. And then I'm also involved in a couple of different training things. So I teach advanced level sellers, 6, 7, 8 figure sellers in the Illuminati Mastermind which I'm mostly training. Like a 3 hour training [inaudible 00:05:54.2] these tactics and techniques for sellers and then we do a live event once a year. It's a pretty high level live event and then also I have a course called the Freedom Ticket which trains new people on how to sell on Amazon as well as how to have a 7 figure Amazon Business that I do myself and then I'm partners with a couple of other people and a couple of other Amazon businesses. And then I … like you said I speak at a lot of events all over the world for Amazon sellers and ecommerce. Joe: And why don't you tell us how many you went to so far this year? This is being recorded in late 2018. Kevin: Yeah in 2018 I'm at 26 events so far this year. Joe: And say how many different countries. Kevin: Oh man I haven't added that up. The number of countries would probably be at least 10. Joe: At least 10. Kevin: So I would actually … it's a … China, Hong Kong, let's see … several United States including Hawaii and it's not another country but Hawaii and then several and Germany, so Germany, London, Greece, Romania, Ukraine, man all over … all over the place. Joe: That's incredible. And you're attending and speaking at these as well right? Kevin: That's correct yeah. Some of them I'm just an attendee but over half of them, I'm actually speaking at. Joe: All right well let's help the people that are listening, those that have Amazon businesses and those that don't, those that want to get started. A lot of folks like you and me started off with our own websites and Google AdWords and content development and eventually morphed over to Amazon. I didn't, I sold my business before you were selling in Amazon but before I realized that Amazon was a tool I could sell on. I sold in 2010. I look back and think man I wish I knew a Kevin King back then. Kevin: Yeah the Amazon space is one of those that … it had a hot wave around 2012 or so. The guys over at Amazing.com kind of set this off where they turned it into a business model and started instead of getting rich in real estate let's get rich in selling on Amazon. And so they started doing courses and it took off and since then there's probably about 4 or 500 other people that came out with different courses. And to be frank, most of them suck. The guys at Amazing do a pretty good job and there's three or four others. I'd like to think that mine is one of the better ones but most of them are people that either isn't selling on Amazon or tried it and failed or they're just not very good. So you have to be very very careful out there. It's become a big industry that is … a lot of people realize they can make more money selling the show than they can selling the gold or whatever or that saying is you know. It's teaching people how to do it rather than doing it. But the opportunity … so as a result of that a lot of people say hey is this selling on Amazon saturated? Is it too late? Did I miss the boat? I say absolutely not. I think it's better than ever right now. The difference is it's no longer an easy game where when 2, 3, 4 years ago it's pretty easy to just go to Alibaba.com find a product slap your name and logo on it and sell it on Amazon and those days are pretty much gone. It's a real business now. So if you approach this as a real business and not a get rich quick scheme and not listen to a lot of these course guys that are saying you can quit your job tomorrow and sit on the beach drink margaritas and just check the app and watch the sales come in. But treat it like a real business and keep your job. Don't quit your job maybe for a year as long as you got money … unless you have a lot of money in the bank saved up that you can live on. But if you treat this like a real business that you can reinvest it there's no better business out there that has a better return right now. And Joe you know this, you guys broker a bunch of businesses so you see these numbers and you see the guys that do it wrong and the guys that do it right. And like I always say if you take $5,000 and you put that into the best mutual fund on Wall Street in about 3 years you'll have about 7500 bucks or so roughly on average. If you put $5,000 on an Amazon business and do it right that $5,000 in 3 years can pretty easily turn into about $52,000. So the ROI is tremendous but you got to do it right, you got to treat it like a business. And I always tell people if you're going to start in this business the thing that you need to do is … I say it's like a 4 year plan. Year one you're basically learning and you're earning. Year two … whether that's you taking a course from someone that you paid, you're watching some YouTube videos or whatever you may be doing, you have to be careful though if you're watching YouTube videos because some of that stuff is out of date or incorrect. So you're learning and you're earning. In the 2nd year, you're optimizing. So maybe you're adding additional products and additional variations. The 3rd year you're preparing to sell. You're getting all your ducks in a row. You're getting all your financials correct. Hopefully, you've been doing this all along but you're really optimizing your financials and in the 4th year you sell. The best opportunity in this business is not running the business; it's in selling the business. Because when you sell an Amazon business typically that's where you're going to take in over half of your profits. Sometimes as much as 70 or 80% of what you're going to walk away with from running the business. People would say why the heck would you sell a business if this is such a great opportunity Kevin why the heck would you even sell it? And I say well it's leverage. I mean there's no better … that's how you get ahead. You know in real estate that's how you get ahead and wherever it is leveraged. Even if you're making $200,000 a year off this business if you can walk away in one year with a million bucks let's say in your pocket, you can just turn around, pay off some bills, take a nice vacation, buy the wife a new car, whatever you want to do and then start over again. And I know a lot of people that are on their 3rd Amazon based business right now. I know a guy that sold his first one in a year for half a million. He sold his 2nd one for 7.5 million. Now it's the third one. I know another couple, a really nice husband and wife team that just recently sold one for 4 million, got a multiple of almost 4.2 and their next goal is 2021 to sell it for 10 … the next one for 10 million. So it's a great way to do that. Joe: [inaudible 00:11:38.6] them the skill set. You know the folks that I talk to they build these and then we sell them for them. Once they've got that skill set they can go back to the well. They can go back to the Amazon well and build another brand because they understand it. But let's throw some chips out there. You said you could turn 5,000 into 50 in 4 years. We've seen 5,000 turned into several million in 4 years. How much would you recommend to the newbies that are out there and what I want to do here is give some tips from you the expert. I get so much misinformation out there. I want you to talk about a few tips that newer folks should do so that it increases their success level. And then to those folks that are out there doing it now some of the things that you may be able to call from your travels and your experience that are new that are completely different than they were maybe even just 12 months ago. But how much money do you think somebody at a minimum should start off with and should they be focused on branding, wholesaling, arbitrage … what is your opinion on what they should do to get started and increase their chances of success so that they can have that big exit down the road? Kevin: Well I can say this 11 different ways to skin the Amazon cat. You can make money off affiliate market by doing wholesale, by doing retail, arbitrage, online arbitrage and there are several other ways. The best way, in my opinion, is private label. It has the most opportunity and the best margin. So if you're looking to maximize your return you should really look at the private label side. Joe: Let's define that if you would please? Kevin: Sure. Joe: Just for the new ones starting off. Kevin: The private label is where you're actually basically creating a brand … attempting to create a brand or you're actually taking products that already exist, maybe modifying them slightly and putting your name on it. It's kind of like if you go to the supermarket and you look at that ketchup, there's Heinz ketchup which everybody knows that do all the advertising and right next to it is the local store brand, Safeway, Kroger, whatever it may be brand of ketchup which often comes off the same factory. And it's often the exact same materials they just has a different name on it usually at a slightly lower price. Joe: Right. Kevin: So that's private label. So the idea behind the private label is to go onto Amazon use a lot of these tools, these 3rd party software tools, find the opportunities, and that could be either based on keywords or it could be based on complaints and customer reviews and you can fix the problem and you can come in and compete. The Amazon business itself is the number one most crucial skill you need to have is mass. This business is all about numbers and so if you're not a numbers person you need someone on your team that is a numbers person. It's not something where you get emotional and hey I built a better mousetrap or I've made a new invention. I mean there are opportunities there if you have a new invention or you have a new idea but there has to be the demand. And the beauty about Amazon and selling on Amazon is it's a huge laboratory. I mean with 550 million or so products on there most of them with a review someone with thousands of reviews. It's a great laboratory. I mean companies 10, 15 years ago used to have to do focused group marketing and all kinds of expensive research just to get this kind of feedback and it's publicly freely available right now to anybody that wants it. So you can go in there and if you know how to mine this data you can find major opportunities. And so you want to look … it's all about math. So back on how much should you start with you know that depends. I recommend you have at least 5 to $10,000. I mean you hear stories of people start with 100 bucks or 500 bucks but usually they may have started with 100 bucks but what they don't tell you is that a week later they borrowed 50,000 from their rich uncle. They have these rags to riches story where they get terms from their supplier, there's something else to it. You can't start with it, I mean you could start arbitrage with a 100 bucks if you're going to grow a real business you need money. You can start a business with a thousand or a hundred … hundred to a thousand but it's going to be a really slow build. So the more you have the faster you can go. So what I always say is if you going to start this business how much do you need? You need 2 ½ times your initial inventory investment. So if your first round of products is going to cost you let's say $4,000 to have made. So you're buying 1,000 units of something. That means you can basically spend about $4 per unit landed cost. Landed cost means the cost to manufacture the item whether that's in the United States or in China plus the cost to ship it and if you're importing it all the taxes and shipping cost that's basically landed in the Amazon warehouse. So you need 2 ½ times that. That means you need about $10,000 to start the business. If you don't have $10,000 you need to find a different type of product to sell. If you only have 5,000 good, do the math and you have to find some things you can buy for about $2,000; your initial inventory. Joe: So if you're buying 1000 pieces at 4,000 bucks what's the other 6,000 for? Kevin: The other 6,000 is because in this business it's a very cash intensive business. So if you're successful you're most likely going to have to be buying your 2nd round of inventory before you sold your 1st and probably before you've even paid for your 1st in full. So you're going to need … the worst thing you can do on Amazon is to run out of stocks. If you run out of stocks on Amazon for more than a few days you're basically starting over. That's the death. Now 90% of people that start selling on Amazon fail or they take a course either they don't launch or they fail because they don't do the math right. They don't plan it properly. They don't pick products that are within their budget that they can maintain, that they can sustain. And in the other … you know in this case of the 4,000 so you might need another 4,000 to place your 2nd order and then the other 2,000 is for advertising cost. You might need some software, some other miscellaneous things. That's the bare minimum. In my opinion, it's better to have a better cushion than that but that would be the bare minimum. And then it's all about math. It's all about looking at keyword demand. It's not trying to invent something new, that's kick starter or that's … you know there are other business models for if you have something that's brand new that you want to do. But the best opportunity is to look at the demand on Amazon. Use these keyword tools. See what people are searching for, what they're buying, what they're complaining about, and go in and either make a slightly different product of that or fix the problem that people are complaining about and then come out with something. And so that that's why I say it's all math. It's all about the financial side which most people are not good at and the forecasting and it's all about the keyword and the demand side. And there are some great tools out there … 3rd party tools that have come a long way in the last 3 years that can really help you with it. But most people that even are paying for these tools … you know they're paying 100 bucks for a tool like Helium 10 for example that's one of the better tools out there. A lot of people don't even know how to use the tools. It's kind of like they have a nice race car with all these gizmos and buttons and all these kinds of things that they can do to really race down the track at 200 miles per hour but they're just putting along at 40 miles an hour. So master these tools and learn these tools and you can do really well. Joe: Okay and that's the 1st year really the mastery of those types of tools and things of that nature. Kevin: Correct. Joe: Got you and we say a lot of the same things. I put myself on mute because I'm struggling because we're doing … one of the things I'm always saying is that and I'm actually doing a presentation next week and its, if you want to increase the value of your business in the year before you sell, don't run out of inventory. You know that it's going to kill maybe certain things in terms of momentum on Amazon. I know that when you run out of inventory it reduces your revenue and your profit and that times your multiple is going to be the loss on your business value. I just said a lot. It probably doesn't make sense to most but just don't run out of inventory. Do what you can; beg, borrow, steal, hillock, line of credit, credit cards, whatever it takes if you've got a good solid business. As far as the brand sell or the private label do you recommend and do you prefer seeing people picking a category, let's say they're going to … okay, I'm going to invent a new … I'm not going to invent, I'm going to build a better mousetrap and it's a swimming pool cover and then all of the additional products evolve around swimming pools or do you think you find that great product there and then you do this search for the next great product and it may not be related at all? Kevin: I think there are two different ways to do that. I mean one is if building a brand is difficult, building a brand it's not just sticking your name and your label on something. A lot of people think that's a brand. They think that if I create a logo and stick my name on my pool cover I, therefore, have a brand and I have a bunch of pool and that's not true. Brand is an identity. It's something that people relate to. It's like … you know think of Apple, people are lining up to get the new iPhone. It's a certain cool you know Apple came out with that thing differently you know that it's almost like a … it's hard to build a brand and I don't think Amazon is the place to build a brand in my opinion. I think Amazon is a great launching … if building a brand is your strategy that's awesome and Amazon can be a great place to launch because the marketplace is already there. The view about Amazon is they already have a huge audience and just all these cool tools that you can use to figure out how to reach them. If you go out and you build your own Shopify site or your own ecommerce store you've got to figure out how they bring the traffic there. You've got to start doing Facebook ads, email list, PR, whatever it may be to bring the traffic there versus on Amazon you don't have to do that it's already coming. You'll only use outside traffic … if you have to use outside traffic to drive sales on Amazon you're doing something wrong. In my opinion, the only time you should use outside traffic to drive sales on Amazon is when you're doing a launch. If you're launching a new product and you need it to kind of influence the algorithm, that makes perfect sense and you should do that. But if you're heavily weighted on driving outside traffic from Facebook and you're sending it to Amazon just to make sales on Amazon then you shouldn't be doing it. You should have sent that to your own store because when you send someone from Facebook to Amazon they're not … they don't become your customer. They're not identifying with your brand, they're identifying with the Amazon brand. They're buying because it's Amazon, they get it in a day or two. They trust Amazon. They know that it's easy to return blah blah blah. In most cases, they don't really care about your brand. So if you're trying to build a brand you need to drive it to your own store. But using Amazon as a launch pad because it has a built in traffic and then you could use the data you get from Amazon you can refine your product get it fixed get that good feedback and then take that data from Amazon even as a 3rd party seller you can create what's called [inaudible 00:21:36.9] and all kinds of stuff on Facebook and then go out and build a brand that would identify more with you. And I think the best opportunity to build brands using Amazon is on consumables … on people … maybe it's dog treats or supplements or something like that where people will come in over and over and over. But if you're selling pool covers … building a brand is difficult so what I tell people is still trying to really build a brand initially that may come and evolve into that is more build … go after an avatar. So rather than just trying to be the guy doing all the pool supplies, to give yourself the best opportunity on Amazon so you're not stuck in a niche. I mean if you go after the pool supplies and you're doing pool covers and pool chemicals and pool everything else you're kind of stuck there. You're like okay what else can I find in a pool category versus if you go after an avatar and you pick a person … let's say it's a runner. I'm going to go after an athlete, people who love to run outdoors, then you can actually go across multiple categories and you can do something like something in electronics category that's a fitness tracker or a band to hold your iPhone on your arm or whatever and you could do socks and you could do water bottles. You can get across over all these different categories and you open yourself up to more opportunity. Or you can just … you know some people they don't care; it's just the shotgun approach. It's like I just find opportunities I don't care it's just cash flow. Typically if you have a brand it depends on the buyer. Some buyers actually really value that and they'll pay a higher multiple for that if you're planning on selling. Others don't care they just want the cash flow. So it depends and so when you're 1st starting you might just … I don't know that you need to think about that because it's going to evolve. Most people their 1st or 2nd product doesn't succeed, it's more of a learn … some people get lucky and it does but you can ask most big sellers that are doing 7, 8, 9 figures a year and they'll say yeah my 1st one it just I don't sell it anymore it didn't work. So I would get too stuck at that in the beginning. I would just keep going and then it's going to come to you. You're going to start seeing the opportunities and you'll be able to drive off. Joe: I got you, great information. It totally makes sense, the avatar and being able to say okay I'll do a running … people that are running. And it could be men, women, it could be kids. Again the products breath and depth is really really broad and deep as opposed to limiting to grilling products or swimming pool products. Kevin: Not to say you can't do that, I mean you can do that but I think the opportunity is better if you go towards an avatar rather than just a niche. Joe: Yup, got it. I love it. Let's talk about for those that are listening to this podcast Kevin obviously they can tell you know what you're talking about. They probably already know your name and have seen your presentations. What things are you doing and are your 7 and 8 figure friends doing that is new and different and must be done to help take things to the next level? What kind of tidbits can you share there? Kevin: Well the number one thing is to me the thing I've learned in this business is it's not about profit; it's about ROI if you're trying to grow a business. When I 1st started I was looking at products that would have nice profit margins. You hear people sometimes on Facebook say I've got 40, 50, 60% profit margins and those cases do exist rarely but I used to say bullshit on most of those people. The average in a private label business is between about 20 and 30% if you're doing things right. Joe: Let's call that seller's discretionary earnings for everybody listening that's … it's you run a net profit and you run a profit loss in Quick Books you get net profit on the bottom then we're going to add back those owner benefits like your salary like your meals and entertainment like your travel and things that nature that are not business related. So your net income plus your add backs equals your seller's discretionary earnings that's what we're talking about. Kevin: Now once you do your add backs that could go a little bit higher. I'm talking about just on the books you know when you when you are factoring it all your cost is about 20 to 30% on private label. On wholesale, it's closer to the 10 to 15% range. Joe: Right. Kevin: And wholesale businesses are a little bit harder to sell because you don't have really a brand. You're just selling other people's products. You don't have anything proprietary so they're a little bit harder to sell that's why I also said private labels is one of the better ones. So let's say it's in that 20 to 30% that's average, some people are higher than that some people are lower. But if you're in that 20 or 30% net you're doing okay for the most part. But what I used to do is when I was … it's … this business is all about choosing products. The product is the backbone of it. That's where it has a stone in a walk for a lot of people is they're afraid to pull the trigger because they're like I only have 5 grand or 10 grand to start, did I pick the right product. And sometimes they get paralysis by analysis and they just don't move forward. But when you're choosing a product I used to look at the profit margins. I'd find a crate maker for example as one of my old products and you know it had about a 40% margin from what I could buy it from landed and from what I was selling it from and I was like okay this is great but the problem was I was ordering … I ordered 1,000 of them and it took me about 6 months to sell those 1,000. And then I ordered another 1,000 and it took me about 5 months to sell the next thousand. So that's a turnover a little over 2 times per year. So I had a great profit on it but it was tying up my cash tying up my money and so ROI to me is the most important by far number in this business as you want to look at when you're sourcing products is what kind of return on investment. And that's basically how fast can you get your money back. And so I looked for ROI's of at least 150% or greater on everything I do now. And that basically means how many times … if I have and maybe a lower profit margin. Instead of the 40% profit margin, I may have a 25% profit margin. But if I have 150% ROI I'm working and turning that money and that inventory much much faster. And I can grow a lot quicker without having additional outside capital, without having to go into my RA or whatever it may be, or take expensive loans that are out there and you can grow your business faster. So by picking high ROI products, you have a greater chance to success. For example, I recommend you at least turn your inventory 4 times a year in an Amazon business. So it's basically every 3 months you need to be turning your inventory. Ideally 6 to 8. Some people you know a supplements business are at 12 or more. Just by example Walmart stores, their average inventory turnover is 8.3. So 8.3 times per year they're selling through their entire inventory. That's a critical number when choosing products and when choosing things to do in my opinion. So one of the bigger opportunities right now in the space is in the high ticket expensive items because all these courses out there they teach you find something if it fits in a shoe box it's lightweight weighs less, it's cost less than $20, it's easy to source you can buy in for a buck or 2 in China and sell them for 20 bucks on Amazon and the problem is that everybody is there. That's where everybody goes, that's where all the courses … everybody finds the same products, the same weighted blankets, the same barbecue gloves, the same stuff and only a few of those people succeed. And so if you go outside the box and look at the more expensive stuff maybe you don't have to buy a thousand units of them, you only have to buy some things that sell 5 per day but they're selling for $300 versus things that sell 50 per day and they're selling it at $20. You could make a lot more money on these more expensive things. And some people shy away from that because sometimes it's a little bit more of an investment to get into it. But there's great great opportunity there. And the other problem right now is what's happened with all the low end stuff is the Chinese hackers … most of them are Chinese, there are some that are Russian and Eastern European but the vast majority are Chinese and it's crazy what's happening out there. There are leaks inside of Amazon where these guys over in China can get the actual data straight from Amazon, the actual conversion data, the actual … they're doing all kinds of crazy stuff; hardcore competition and its part of their culture to do this. And most people don't … aren't aware of what's happening and your chances of competing on that lower end are getting harder and harder and harder because of all this. Joe: So you recommend to start off that way or you're thinking in terms of larger people … larger account owners to move into that category where its a larger ticket item and a high ROI? Kevin: Both. Joe: Both? Kevin: Yeah, both. Joe: Okay, you mentioned that if you're sending traffic to your Amazon store from Facebook you're doing something wrong on your Amazon … inside your Amazon seller account. What tools can be done what … and maybe it's all basics, Kevin, maybe this isn't anything new but what are the most important things to do to make sure you're improving your traffic on Amazon as much as possible or is it a combination of a number of different things? Kevin: I mean if you're a brand that already exists up there Amazon should just be a channel for you. You already have your own store. You're already selling in retail Amazon is just a channel so that's a little bit different approach. But if Amazon … if you're starting this business and Amazon is your primary focus at the beginning which is what most people are doing now that they're doing FBA business, Amazon is their primary focus in the beginning and that's great and people always say you shouldn't be an Amazon only business. You should be off Amazon and I agree with that but … and you could probably tell me more about this but my experience Joe in the valuations people always say well I don't want to just sell on Amazon. What if Amazon shuts my account down? Amazon likes to shoot 1st and ask questions later and then I'm screwed. I need to be selling on Walmart. I need to be selling on Jet. I need to have my own Shopify site. But most people, the vast majority of people that's a very small percentage of their sales and from my experience, unless it's 20 or 30% between … you know most people say about 30 % maybe you have a better number of your sales it doesn't really add to your valuation. If you got a sale or a buyer coming in if you got 2% of your sales in Walmart or [inaudible 00:30:59.9] if you get shut down on Amazon so what you're still screwed you got to fire everybody. And so most people it's hard to make that adjustment so my advice is if you're going to be starting on Amazon take advantage of the platform. There's never been a better opportunity. It's one of the best business opportunities in the last 100 years of business to start selling on Amazon. And like I said earlier if you're trying to build a brand then use that data and there are ways to do that to then start going off Amazon especially if you're on the consumables side. But I think you're better off taking that same energy that you're trying to put into building a Shopify site or trying to launch on Walmart to go expand to Canada, go expand to Europe, or go expand to Japan. You're much better off. You're going to get a better valuation. Canada is like 5% of my sales compared to the US but that's 2 ½ times what my sales in Walmart are and it's easy. It's same format. I already know how to do it. It's natural and most people are afraid to do that. They're afraid of other countries or they're afraid of other tax systems or they're … whatever. And its ego based. I want to be saying I sold on Walmart or I had my own site … it's bad. Joe: Yeah a lot of the folks that you and I know that are buying up Amazon businesses; one of the 1st things they do is take them international. They buy them and take them overseas. Let's talk about that for a minute- Kevin: But a lot of people don't do that because it's … you're basically doubling your investment. Let's say you want to go to Europe- Joe: They don't have the capital. Kevin: Most people in this business are cash strapped and that's where the opportunity right now is it's like the people that you just said that you know and that I know that are buying these, they're coming in with money and they see the opportunity and they come into play. And at first most of these entrepreneurs they use their life savings or … and then some to try to build this and they're cash strapped so they can't … I mean to go over to Europe you're basically okay now I got to buy all new inventory and float it and they can't do it. Joe: Yeah the people that are buying businesses like this that are coming into the entrepreneurial world for the 1st time say it's great why in the world are they selling? And I always have to ask that question on what they need to understand and what they're learning by going through the process is that most of these businesses whether it's a Shopify store or an Amazon business even those that I've sold in the past that are a combination of both and have a utility patent. It's still bootstrapped and most of the money being made is going back into inventory to keep up with growth. And they're not able to pull a whole lot out and so they're bootstrapping. And they don't expand overseas because they don't have any more places to dip into to pull more money. So somebody coming in from the outside that has that extra working capital and a mindset to take it beyond the 4 hour workweek and run it as you said a dozen times already as a real business and grow it into the different countries and take it beyond a one channel platform and beyond Amazon. You can take it to different countries and it's going to increase your value; it is when you could take it beyond into building that brand off of Amazon into different platform it builds your value even more. But you're got to be challenged. You got to look at that and say okay what … how long am I going to be in this game and how much am I going to invest in terms of time, energy, resources, risk into building a Shopify store and generating traffic to it. If you're going to sell in 6 months for those that are listening and you hear Kevin's advice you know multichannel he's right but every story is different and unique. You don't want to build a Shopify store and start driving traffic to it and investing a lot of money in breaking even or losing for 3 years down the road if you're going to sell in 6 months. My advice is to do what you do and do it really well. Keep selling on Amazon and make that business strong and have some built in path to grow. Kevin: Another one too besides Europe I mean like … or expanding to other market … I mean Amazon's into what 13 marketplaces now? But besides expanding to other marketplaces the other opportunity that's out there is … it goes again back again that gets cash strapped is retail. I mean retail is not dead. I mean there are all these stories about retail is dead and tears is going out of business and Radio Shack went out of business and blah, blah, blah. They didn't adapt. Amazon is going into retail. They've bought whole foods. They're opening retail Amazon Go's. They're opening these 4 star stores out. They're going … retail is not dead. It's still 90% of all sales out there and it's going to probably remain at above 80% for the next several decades. I mean ecommerce is gaining on … it's going to take a bigger share but so going into retail using Amazon as a proven ground is a great way to get into retail too. Joe: How do you make that leap though in Amazon? How do you go okay I'm going to go into retail? Is there a Helium 10 for retail? Kevin: No there's not a Helium 10 for retail, it's a whole different animal. You're just saying about the opportunities outside of Amazon is I agree going to Amazon … other Amazon Marketplace is first should be your top priority if you can. But going into retail I know several people that have started on Amazon and now they're crushing it in retail. But that's … again that's another cash flow thing you know you've got to … it's a whole different animal. There's people that teach … like Karen Waksman stuff that teaches actually people how to go from Amazon to retail and how to get into retail and how to use your Amazon reviews and sales and demographics. And you have this data like look you know I have a lot of people in New York or these areas and you have 27 Target stores right here you know you should be tearing my products. There's a lot you can do there but it's it takes again it's another financial thing. You got to wait 60 days or more to get paid or you got to use factoring to factor invoices and brief purchase orders and so it's a whole different animal but there's great opportunity there too. Joe: But it's also as you're saying it's more cash but it's also math figuring that out and pulling that data out of Amazon. A lot of people have trouble just pulling the data out. Kevin: Yeah they can't that's why I said in the beginning, this is math. If you're not good at math or data analysis you need someone on your team that is. This business is not about … I see so many people go like I improved the product, I made it better, I know my product is good people should just buy it. If the demand is not there, if the data doesn't work, the analyst … there's too much competition you can't … you don't have the margins you've got to bail. To me, people get too emotionally tied to products and then it becomes their little baby and they don't want to abandon their child. Sometimes you've got to kick the kid out of the house. So many people won't do that. I have a rule that after 6 months … I get a product 6 months that I launch. When I launch a new product under my account if within 6 months it's not throwing off at least $2,000 a month in profit, I drop the product because I can deploy that capital in a better way. And so I have … you know some people their business models add, add, add products they got hundreds or thousands of products in their portfolio, mine is not that. I have about 15 to 20 and I do 7 figures so it's manageable. And I kick out once that I replace them with something that can give me a better … it's like stocks you know. I treat products like stocks. And I look at them like stocks, where can I get the best return? And get rid of the low performing ones and replace them, deploy that money into getting something that's higher return. Joe: Let's talk about that just for a minute. We're running a little short on time but I want to touch on new products and staying relevant. And it's going to different for each one. But we're talking now about again the people that are buying the Amazon businesses and one of the great things they can do if they've got capital is to expand to the other countries. What about launching new products is there any methodology to how often you should launch a new product? Or should you just adopt what you've talked about which is it needs to kick off this amount of profit or I get rid of it? And how many can you manage and the folks that you know that are doing … are they doing 10, 15, 20; what are they doing? Kevin: It depends on your … I know people that have 800 products doing 9 figures a year and I know people … typically the people that are doing 9 figures a year have a lot of products. The people that are doing 6 and 7 figures typically … I mean some of them have a lot of products some of them has 50, 60, 70 products. That seems to be kind of a ballpark range. For these guys there in the million dollar figures, they typically are in the probably at least 40, 50 products and then some thousands of products. But as far as launching new products it's all based on the more products you can launch the better you can grow, its cash flow and its opportunities. I see opportunities all the time when I'm doing keyword research and product research and I can't act on it I just don't have the money or I don't have the resources. I'm a small team you know. Some people have 20 people and they could deploy faster. They're sitting in their underwear in their house and it's just them and a couple of VA's. So you're limited by that as well. So it depends on your strategy and your resources how fast you could deploy but as you see opportunities and they still exist out there and there are still new ones coming up every day is taking advantage of those depends on your cash and your team size. And the more of them you can take advantage of the faster you could grow and the more you could sell for. But the money in this business too, one of the important point I want to make is I truly believe that money is made in the sourcing, not on the selling. A lot of people always go what can I sell the product for? It's not what you can sell it for it's what you can source it for. Because you have more price … you're more immune to price competition that way. If everybody is going to Alibaba or global sources or online Google and stuff and just by example you know I just went to China. I went to the Canton fair and there are some socks that a friend of mine sold last year and sold like six … $700,000 for these socks Christmas time and they were paying something like 2 bucks a pair for these socks. Well I found those exact same socks by just going to the Canton fair at 57 cents. You're not going to find that online so most people that are out there doing Amazon they're sourcing online. They're using Alibaba, they're using global sources, my saying is get on a freaking plane and go to China. Because going in face to face you can … it's a big deal in their culture and you could find a lot of stuff that just doesn't exist. I found one supplier of these like Christmas bags that I was like okay great you have a lot of bags I might want to sell these next year as a seasonal item. I said can I go to your website? He said no I don't have a website, oh if you have a catalog … no, I don't have a catalog. I said so how do I order from you? He said take pictures. He had 10,000 different types of bags. Take a picture of what you want here and I'll give you a price, that and the prices were ridiculously low from what I could find on Alibaba. Joe: Sounds like an awful and wonderful- Kevin: So I'm like this is the best opportunity ever because nobody else is going to find this guy. His quality is good, the prices are ridiculous. So that's what I mean the money is made in the sourcing. So if someone else … if I buy a box of socks for example if someone else … you know if I'm buying them at 57 cents and someone else comes in and I'm selling mine say for 10 bucks and all of a sudden someone comes in and starts selling them for 5 bucks. Well, I'm like shoot if I got to go to 4.99 to compete and I'm paying 2 bucks there what my margin maybe I'm going in the hole even after the Amazon fees and everything. Because typically it's about a 3rd a 3rd a 3rd … I mean just as a … if you're doing math, get math, ballpark math Amazon typically takes about a 3rd of the selling price, about a 3rd of the selling price is your cost of goods sold and other expenses, and about 3rd is your profit. So I don't [inaudible 00:41:52.6] 5 bucks there went all my profit but if I'm at 57 cents I can still compete. So that's what I mean the money is in the sourcing and so don't be afraid to get on a plane and go to one of these big fairs in China. Go visit factories that can make a huge difference. And people that are selling, you know the biggest thing that they're already successful the number one thing you can do is if you're sourcing from China especially is get on a plane and go meet your factory. Go eat strange bugs and weird stuff and monkey hearts and whatever the hell else they eat crazy stuff over there and get drunk with the supplier and watch what happens to your pricing. Watch what happens to your terms. All of a sudden 30% down 70% on delivery all of a sudden maybe you get a 60 day terms or you get some other things that can make a huge difference in your business and the pricing is lower. Now you're their buddy you get priority on the production line when it's Christmas time or before Chinese New Year your stuff goes out first. It's amazing what you can do on the sourcing side. Joe: Wow Kevin that's incredible stuff, a lot of tidbits there. Incredible; really, thank you. I understand why you're traveling all over the world speaking and presenting here. If people want to reach out to you and find you how do they go about doing that? Kevin: Yeah sure I mean the probably easiest way is to go to AMZmarketer.com That's A – M – Zed Marketer.com that just redirects to my Facebook page where you can … I don't sell you anything there. It's just where you can listen to all the different podcasts I've been on; a lot of free content. You might get some ideas or learn something. Or if you're already selling at IlluminatiMastermind.com or if you're new to the business and I always recommend this to people … if you're new to the business or even if you've been selling for a while go to FreedomTicket.com there's a webinar there. It's about a two hour webinar it's … you could choose a date on auto replay. It's not live right now but just watch that. You don't have to buy the course if you don't want to but just watch the first hour of that webinar and I think you'll walk away from that. It's not a sales pitch in the first hour. It's a lot of hard core data on how to choose the keywords, how to do things right in this business and just … it's hard core training and just watch that and that might help you understand some stuff. Joe: That sounds great. I hope a lot of people will do that. Those people that are currently running their Amazon businesses and plan to exit someday and the people that are buying we want them to be successful and grow their businesses and come back and sell them someday so that's awesome. Thanks so much, Kevin. I appreciate your time. I look forward to seeing you at the next event. Kevin: Cool, I appreciate it. Thanks. Links and Resources: AMZMarketer.comIlluminatiMastermind.comFreedomTicket.com  

The Quiet Light Podcast
Understanding Influencer Marketing

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2018 40:07


What exactly defines an influencer in the marketing space? Do you need Oprah in order to sell your product? These days the term influencer is used so much as the concept spreads to become more of a “scope of influence” rather than just a celebrity endorsement. There are all kinds of influencers and within any industry, there are influential people out there, it is just a matter of finding them. When it comes to buying and selling a business, a company can add value to their business by diversifying their sources of traffic. The more diversity in traffic, the more the risk goes down for the buyer and the value goes up for the seller. Today's guest, Shane Barker, teaches the “Personal Branding – How To Be An Influencer” course at UCLA. He's a seasoned marketing consultant, who for the past several years has become an expert in using influencer marketing to boost sales for brands. Shane believes that nowadays companies have got to run an influencer campaign just like any other facet of the funnel in order to maximize their brand's reach. Episode Highlights: What exactly is influencer marketing? Finding that niche person for the product. Identifying real vs. fake followers and how feedback needs to be weeded. Measuring real engagement over just follower numbers. What is a good engagement rate to look out for. The influencer marketing software tools that are out there and how to use them. Aligning the influencer with the product. What is the typical cost per influencer? How can you track the influencer's impact? Why Influencer marketing works well. Tips and tricks on how to find influencers in your sphere. Cheaper alternatives to hiring a consultant to help with your IM campaign. Transcription: Mark: So this past weekend I was at Rhodium Weekend and we've talked a lot about Rhodium here on the podcast. It was out in Las Vegas and somebody that we know, somebody who's been on the podcast Shakil Prasla, a good friend of Quiet Light Brokerage happened to run into another Shakil; Shaquille O'Neal. And he has a great photo of himself on Facebook with Shaquille O'Neal and he told me and he said that Bobby Brobine called his attention and so Shakil just shouted out and said hey we share the same name and sure enough that called his attention and then resulted in Shakil our friend having a picture with Shaq; really really cool. It's always fun to be able to reach out to people who are well known and have some influence and obviously, this is something we can definitely use in business as well as in we are in a whole are of this in business and marketing called influencer market something I haven't done a lot of. Joe, have you done much influencer marketing? Joe: You do it all the time Mark. We do … you just did it. You just did it for Rhodium Weekend. How many people that have signed up for Rhodium Weekend have gone to Chris's centurica.com website for due diligence because you're an influencer and you talked about it? Mark: But I'm not on the same level of Shaq so you know. Joe: Oh I don't know. I don't know. Mark: I'm definitely not as big as Shaq in more ways than other knows because the guy's a big dude. I've seen companies use influential marketing before and it's crazy; the impact that you have on your business when you find the right mix. Joe: Well you know a lot of folks think influencer marketing is … I've had a couple of listings where Dr. Oz mentioned the product or the ingredient and the revenue went … sort of skyrocketed. I sold one earlier this year where the product was named one of Oprah's favorite things, that's like the golden ring. That was back in like 2008 and they still get traffic and revenue from it and it's 2018. So that is what a lot of people think about in regards to influencer marketing like you and Shaq. And by the way, Shakil call out that was a great photo thank you for that I showed my kids. But that's not really just the influencer marketing that I think a lot of our audience should be thinking about. We've talked about it all the time when you've got multiple channels of revenue, multiple channels of traffic it brings the risk that you're going to lose business down and increases the value of your business; the lower the risk the higher the value. Influencer marketing should be another channel. The next generation buyers people they're … my kids, I have 2 teenage boys, I cannot get them off of Instagram watching videos. My son, 17 years old, he learns everything. The computer I'm on right now he learned how to build it on YouTube through influencers. They're all about influencer marketing. So the next generation is going to be just that. We had Shane Barker on the podcast, that's who you're about to hear folks. He's a UCLA professor. He teaches a class on influencer marketing at UCLA. He's a consultant and he helps people. He'll take over their campaigns and he'll just tell you how to do it. He had some great advice in terms of tools to use to track your influencer engagements; how to find them, how to measure their success, and what to do in terms of maybe interviewing them and negotiating with them and writing up contracts with influencers and all these different things. The one thing I didn't touch up on was workload but he said that when you frame it up right and you put the right package together in terms of your plan through a consultant so you don't waste a whole lot of money it can then be handed off to a VA who should be able to run with it fairly easily. Mark: That's pretty cool. So is this going to help me get Shaq to a certain point in Quiet Light? Joe: Hmm … Shaquille O'Neal, no not Shaquille O'Neal but Shakil Prasla yes. He's already an influencer [inaudible 00:05:01.2] is what he is. Mark: I would rather have Shakil Prasla … actually, that's kind of a lie, sorry Shakil. All right let's get to it. This is actually a huge topic. I know this is going to be like the next big thing in marketing and this is one of those areas that people don't really know a lot about. Some people are doing it well. They're making a lot of money because of it. They're building their brands because of it. It'd be great to unlock this so why don't we go ahead and listen to it [inaudible 00:05:25.8]. Joe: Yeah I do. You've got to think about it just like an Amazon sponsored ad campaign, just like your content development for an SEO, just like your Google Ad Words campaign. You've got to run an influencer campaign the same way and Shane really talks about that in detail so let's go to it. Mark: Awesome. Joe: Hey everyone its Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage. Today we're going to talk about influencer marketing with Shane Barker. Shane Barker is an expert in the space. How are you doing today Shane? Shane: I'm doing awesome Joe. How are you doing man? Joe: I'm good. You know back in my day there was no influencer marketing. It was pay-per-click and write good content and Google will reward you. Of course, my day wasn't that long ago. I sold my business back in 2010 but the world has changed dramatically since then and it constantly changed and you're on top of that and you are at the forefront of it which is one of the reasons that I will call it out right now why you haven't written a book about it yet because it's constantly changing right? Shane: Yeah that's the deal. We talked a little bit before the podcast started today. The thing is it is an evolving space. I mean it started off back in the day and I said back in the day as we kind of joke around about that but you know I'm doing this for a while but it's really word of mouth marketing right? Which back in the day the presentations that I do I always talked about like as an example would be like Tupperware. That was kind of like Helen who is a lady that she would have these parties and have everybody over and she was influential in the area because everybody loved Helen. She was a great wife and she'd have beautiful little kids running around. Everyone wants to be like Helen and they'll all come too. They'd have a few drinks and the next thing you know they're buying Tupperware right? So it's that influential type thing, that's how it kind of all started and then obviously we evolved to Beats by Dre and some other ones like that where you see this people wearing the headphones and they would go and give them the free product. And you see all these athletes that are wearing this stuff and I mean obviously they sold I don't know it's like 3 or 4 billion dollars to Apple so you know it's obviously some- Joe: I guess it's been around a while because celebrities have been endorsing products for years, for decades and they get paid for it. Shane: Absolutely. Joe: So that's influencer marketing right there let's do this. So Shane, I didn't tell you before we started recording we don't do fancy introductions. Obviously, we're a couple of minutes in already. Shane: Yeah. Joe: Can you tell those folks that are listening about your background, what you do, how you do it, and where you come from? Shane: Yeah absolutely. So I reside out of Sacramento California but I'm in Los Angeles quite a bit because I teach at UCLA. I teach a class called Personal Branding and how to be an influencer. It's a quarterly system so I do how to be an influencer on one side and the other side on how to work with influencers. We work with brands down there as well. So yes I've been in the digital space for 20 something years. I really jumped in the digital space because I had my own business. So it was one of those like hey I want to bootstrap this thing and I didn't have a lot of capital. This was a long time ago. I've got a company called Hotpad that I had a patent on it; a reusable heat pack. I had a cool patent on it and so I had to do everything. I had to do the logo, I had to do the website and this was this is probably 15 plus years ago. So we were jumping on the internet, there really was no SEO. We just put something up and something went on the 1st page. We didn't know how it happened or what happened. We were just excited that that was happening. There was no … there was just nothing, there was not a lot of software, there was … we were grinding this thing out and it was kind of wild wild west. And so I jumped into it and was working with this … once again probably 15 years ago on called getafreelancer.com and now it's freelancer.com. So I was stating hey, listen I want to manage projects and I want to go work with people that know how to do these certain things that I didn't necessarily know how to do. I was … at that time I was in school and I'd already owned my own business. Just as I owned a bar and I had done some stuff. It took me 10 years to graduate not because I wasn't smart. Well, I don't know … maybe because I wasn't smart but maybe the bigger the reason was is because I want to travel and do this and I had my own businesses. So I jumped into that and like I said for about 10 years I owned a bar and did some other fun stuff; all offline type businesses. And then when I was doing Hotpad the reusable heatpad company I decided to go back to school and that's when I really started doing outsourcing and kind of figuring out how to work with other people and I've been doing that ever since. I mean right now I have a 31 person team that's all over the world. I don't have them … yeah, I have all like project management software or like all front stuff in place. And so I have like where I'm doing this interview today is I have an office here in Sacramento that's strictly for content creation; for us putting content together. And my team is once again all over the place so they're … so it's kind of awesome. So that's kind of catapulting me out once again where I'm at today. We do heavy content marketing, we do heavy influencer marketing. And then I'll kind of talk about my story a little later about like how I jumped into influencer marketing and all that. But I consider myself like a brand and an influencer specialist and then also a digital strategist. Because it's just that's what I've done for so long when … it started off on SEO and then obviously a lot of social stuff and now we do influencer marketing. We're always trying to … the new stuff that comes along it always seems to knock on my door whether I want to do something new or not when it comes to marketing. So that's kind of where I'm at today. Joe: Well, our audience is full of people just like you and people that want to be like you; those that are leaving the corporate world. For influencer marketing, I want to go through some of the steps that you teach in that class at UCLA and the process. But let's 1st define it what exactly is the influencer marketing in your view? Shane: Yeah so influencer marketing in which I said a little bit earlier is in the back in the day it was influencer marketing was not called influencer marketing but really it was working with celebrities and getting somebody that had some kind of influence because they're an actor, or celebrity, or some kind of singer, or something like that and you ask them to endorse your product. But usually, it was for the Nike's, the Toyota's, these bigger brands because you had to have a big budget. And the deal was that you were going to do some kind of a commercial, maybe sometimes radio, but mainly a commercial where you would go and this person would say oh my god I have this kind of car this, I love my … whatever my [inaudible 00:10:57.3], I love my Toyota, I love my Nike shoes whatever right, usually bigger budgets and once again somebody that has a really really high influence. Well, last in the 5, 6, 7 years you've seen this switch of where really anybody can have influence. You don't have to have … you don't have to be an actor; you don't have to be a famous person to do this. And you'll see this obviously on YouTube, Instagram, Snap … sometimes on Twitter and then on Facebook as well. The idea is that an influencer is anybody that has influence over their sphere … over their community. So as an example you Joe obviously are an influencer because you have influence over your podcast and what we have here. So that makes you an influencer because people follow you, they listen to your podcast religiously, and they go and they get great information from it and they go and apply that in the real world. So if you were to say hey guys this is some software that I use and I've used it for the last 6 months. I've tested it its absolutely awesome then guess what probably a lot of people in your podcast are going to go hey that sounds like an awesome product. If Joe uses it then I should use it. And so everybody has this type of influence and we look at this. So as Instagram as an example I look at people, let's say you have 5,000 followers or 10,000 people I go well are those influencers? They absolutely are. I mean if I have 5,000 or 10,000 engaged … a heavily engaged audience I would much rather work with that person let's say as an example yoga mat. I'm a yoga instructor and you as a brand you're selling yoga whatever quick bed or something. And so you come to me, I would much rather work with a yoga instructor that has a 5 or 10,000 following that's heavily engaged than somebody who has a million or 2 million or 5 million. Because really at the end of the day what … in the beginning of influencer marketing was like hey I want to go with the people with the highest following right? They have a milion followers like that's how … it's who I have to work with because of the fact that you look at all those eyeballs. But the issue is this … and we all realize this thru marketing is that back in the day it was like if I can get a million visitors that'd be awesome. It's not the amount of visitors it's the quality of the visitors; the type of traffic that you're getting from that. So same thing with influencer marketing you want to really niche down and find the person that is really going to be best for your product. The reason why and we'll go onto this later but the reason why there's these issue with influencers and fake followers is because brands were paying influencers on the amount of followers they had. So you get a situation where they say, Shane, if you have 10,000 followers I'll give you a 1,000 bucks. If you get 25,000 I give you 2,000. But if you have 100,000, my friend, I'll give you 10 grand and then guess what happens an influencer goes man how do I get to that quicker? How do I get to that mark faster because obviously I'm doubling, tripling, quadrupling my money? Well, then what happens is now they're doing something where they're adding fake followers and doing some stuff that's obviously unethical to be able to get to the next price point. Joe: How do you measure engagement over followers? Shane: Yeah that's the deal and it's funny when you talk about back in the day because it literally when I talk to people I've influenced I mean I always talk about back in the day that makes it sound like we're like 100 or something; like I went to school with Jesus or something or Moses or like I was on the boat or something. But you know for us it's like when I look at this like we were doing influencer marketing 5, 6, 7 years ago there was no software right? So there was nothing out there to really … I mean what we would really do is we would go and try to find these influencers by search. Like go on Instagram and look up hash tags and stuff like that which is still relevant today and we still do that say obviously. And we would go and we'd put these profiles together and I would manually go look at them. Because that was it, like that was my … an engagement for me was not necessarily a number but it was more … we ended up coming up with an equation over time that we looked at of followers, engagements, likes and stuff like that. So we had a little bit of an equation or some kind of … and we call that algorithm because it wasn't that crazy but where we would go and take a look at that. And we would just have these Excel spreadsheets that I would just take tons of notes and we would do all this kind of crazy stuff. Now there's plenty of software. There's all kinds of softwares you can use. I mean we use … Grin is one of them that we use that you can do. There's another klear.com which is with a K. There's Neoreach, there's Revfluence … I mean there's all kinds of them. There's all kinds of different ones that you can go. Some of them are free, some of them will cost … I have, I mean I'm very fortunate since I have access to almost all the softwares because they want me to look at their software and evaluate it and stuff so I'm very blessed in that sense. Joe: You do? Shane: Well I mean you know it's so funny. I'm very humble about that and I don't think of myself as an influencer but over time you start to realize you're like wow I guess I am an influencer you know. I'm just not … I don't know I just don't think of myself that way, like when I go to conferences and speak and do stuff it's [inaudible 00:15:08.8] people come up to me like I've been following you for a long time. It's always really … it really kind of shocks me. Or like while walking somewhere and I'm not that famous by any means but they will come up and say are you Shane Barker? And there's been a few times I'm like God do I owe you money, are you VISA or like I'm just trying to figure it out right. It's like this weird … so you know an influencer [inaudible 00:15:25.1] come up I guess and things are good and I've got some good foundation and people are following me so I'm not mad at that by any means but- Joe: That's good. The software does it help you measure the engagements does it go that deep? What is this like Grin and- Shane: It does. So this is the thing you have to look at when it comes to engagement, this is the key and when you talk about software … so software is that 1st level. So the 1st level of when you're going in you go and you take a look at it, you can put in hash tags, you can put in keywords, you can do this kind of stuff. So let's say it's yoga, that's the thing I'm looking for and let's say I'm I can sell this yoga mats all over the world. So it doesn't necessarily have to be in Los Angeles or Las Vegas or something. So I go all over the world, so what I do is now I can curate these lists. I mean go take a look at them, you add them to whatever … some kind of a folder or whatever it is, you pull those people in. That's the 1st step and it'll say the engagement. And it'll say your engagement is 3.5%of 5.6% and software is the 1st step. That's where you're you curating the list and you're saying hey okay I want to find 10 good influencers so I'm going to curate a list of a 100 or 200 or whatever. And then the next step to this whole thing is you … software is lovely but influencers once again because they want to make money and I'm not saying all influencers are this way but … well, we all probably want to make money but there's ways to fudge your numbers. So that's what we have to look at. I can go on to Fiverr right now and I can add any picture on Instagram and I can get 10,000 likes for $5, $10; whatever the number is. Joe: Right. Shane: And that's not engagement. I mean somebody like if you came into my store … let's take this offline. I own a store and Joe you came in and you knocked and you said hey Shane I was wondering do you guys have this and I just went [thumbs up] that's not engagement right? You're like okay so Shane no … so say that again so what do you have this I'm looking for this- Joe: You just gave us the thumbs up. Shane: The thumbs up, that's right I forgot we go audio and video on this. So the issue with that is that's not engagement right? Engagement is like oh hey Joe thanks for coming in my shop. If you're looking for these blue widgets then you want to go over here or let me show you some … blue widgets are cool but the yellow widgets are the ones I think you need because of this this and this. So that's where we kind of get this thing of where the software is awesome go take a look at it but engagement is conversation. So if I'm a yoga instructor or a brand and you're a yoga instructor or either way you know vice versa. Joe: Yeah. Shane: Then what I should do as a brand I should go look at your profile and find out 1st of all how many other sponsorships you've had. We don't want somebody that has a new sponsorship every day because the audience is going to be a little unauthentic … not authentic right? Joe: You don't want somebody that has a new sponsorship every day you want somebody- Shane: No, because think about that like this is a thing, it's like it's like dating. If you wanted to date a girl that's had a new boyfriend every day for the last 15 years like you got to think well there's got to be something wrong with that right? Like there's … it's not … the numbers aren't working they're not … you really want to develop your brand, you want to develop a longer relationship with an influencer. But if they're talking about something every day the problem is then you get to a situation where people start to go okay does Joe the influencer really like this product or is he just doing this for money? Because it just doesn't feel like we want Joe the influencer that says listen I've tried this product for 3 months you guys you know I don't promote tons of products this is a product that I've used it's absolutely awesome this is why I'm promoting it. Joe: Okay. Shane: Right, so you want to get authentic- Joe: You're going to look at that engagement percentage and you're going to focus to see if they've had lots of different advertisers on a regular basis. Back to that engagement percentage so Shane, you had said 4 or 5% what they have … what is a good percentage? And I mean people talk about open rates and things of that nature in email campaigns, what is a good engagement percentage for people that are just starting off? What would they look out for; the number? Shane: I would probably say it's like probably 3 to 5 % is a good engagement rate. I mean anything higher than that is awesome. Joe: Okay. Shane: And here's another thing we talk about that engagement because I'll touch on this as well is you have to look at the comments. So we have this list of let's say its 100 influencers and let's say I'm looking for 10 great ones. You want to go through … you want to look at their profile; A. look if they've done a thousand sponsorships then I would get away from them or you look at the engagement. But you want to look at what people are asking for like hey Joe the yoga instructor. Hey, I want to know … it looks like you're using that new mat or you're using a new water ball whatever like where did you get that? Or hey Joe when are you coming to town or hey this … like what you want to show that people are engaged with the content and this is where things get … where people can fudge numbers where if you go to somebody and they have an engagement rate of 10% you're like oh my God this guy's crushing it, this girl's crushing it, you go and look at it and they have 1000 emojis, that's not engagement right? So you can … from software standpoint an emoji is engage- Joe: You want actual communication, people talking back and forth info and some responding, people asking questions. Shane: Right. That's the thing and that's when we talk about the … when I said I'd rather have somebody of 5 or 10,000 or 15,000 than a million. Joe: Yeah. Shane: That's where the engagement rate stays higher because Joe what I would look at is Joe the influencer. What I want is that if people are asking questions and you get 20 questions there should be 20 answers by Joe. Joe: Right. Shane: Joe, you should be going in there and saying hey … where I think is that's engagement. That's showing that you have an engaged audience. When you get to the … I'll use Kim Kardashian as an example, you have 20, 30, 50 million; they're not responding to anybody for the most part because they can't physically do all that. And so the engagement rate is a lot less. You have your audience that's … you get eyeballs so if you're Coca-Cola you're going to say hey I'll go with Kim because I know that she's going to get eyeballs. I don't really care about the engagement. I'm looking at overall exposure and they've got a big budget. If I'm a brand you really want to go take a look at that and say who is … who's on the come up. They don't have to have a million followers but who's engaged? Who seems to be really into it? What's a good product alignment? You're at this … is your product and this influencer going to align correctly? And then what I do … and this is a big one a lot of people don't do this, I interview all the influencers. I do a call just like you're doing here Joe. I get on there and I say hey Jennifer I've got XYZ product I usually have some questions and I say so tell me a little about yourself or what … who you've worked with. They should have some kind of a media kit so there's some 1st steps that we take. And then I go so tell me a little bit what have you looked in [inaudible 00:21:17.3] XYZ company and they go … I mean I haven't looked into it but I know that you guys are offering 1,000 bucks a post so I was interested. Joe: Right. And that's the thing I was just going to ask actually so thank you, you went there. How do you track this? How does it … what does it cost? I mean people do sponsored ads in Amazon, they do Google Ad Words, and it's a clear defined cost per click. What is it typically cost per engagement I guess or per influencer if they've got a 3% engagement and 5,000 followers? Shane: Yeah that's the thing is it's everything is negotiable. So this is where it becomes a little harder because you do for if you're going after the keyword Sacramento DUI attorney you know that it's $3 per click. It's very easy. If you're going up with Amazon there's a … they have a model that they put in place to be able to understand once again how popular it is and what they're going to charge. Joe: Yeah. Shane: Influencer marketing is different because you're dealing … each influencer is different. Each influencer, in theory, should own their own company or their own brands. So what you do … I mean there's certain websites and stuff and calculators you can go to and kind of what you think would be fair but what I always tell people is this, the analogy I use is like let's say if I have a Babe Ruth signed baseball card. And everybody tells you and all the big guys go hey man that's worth a million dollars Shane; guaranteed a million dollars. There's only 2 of those out there. Yours is in mint condition it's worth a million dollars and I go well I'm going to wait to get a million dollars. And then Joe you come to me and say hey Shane I heard around the campfire that you have a Babe Ruth card I'd love to buy it from you. And I said well it's worth a million and do you know what Shane I appreciate that but how about if I give you 75,000? And I go okay you know I'm actually not off. I guess I don't need to hold on to it. I mean 75,000 is a good deal. And that's a good deal right? It's a supply and demand type thing. The cool thing about brands is there's hundreds if not thousands of influencers. So everything is negotiable. There are some companies or some influencers that will do free product. There are some of them that will do free product plus some type of an affiliate link where they're getting some kind of residual sales. There will be other ones that just want a flat pay per post. But everything is negotiable so it's very difficult to say you should spend this amount. You have to figure out what you think is going to be fair. So if I go in and say listen I want to get to 10 influencers I have a $10,000 budget so in theory I have $1,000 per influencer. What you have to do is go in and figure out those influencers and talk to them and say what would you usually charge. Well I charge $250 per post on Instagram let's say. And so my mind I'm thinking I get at least 4 right? So I say how about this why don't we do this, I'll go and pay you $1,000 we'll do the 4 things but I also want you to do two Instagram stories and I want you talk about a Snapchat for 2 times. If I think that's a good deal and that can move some traction and you think it's a good deal then it's a good deal. So that's where everything is different with everybody but I think what happens with brands and what they don't realize is these influencers once the followers start getting honey because that's what brands still look at most of the time. Is that they get pitched 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 times not a day but a week- Joe: The influencers- Shane: The influencers do. Joe: Right. Shane: And especially if you're up there then you're getting pitched over and over and over right? So the thing which you have to do as a brand, you have to 1st you have to differentiate. So make a nice little catchy subject line. You want to get their attention, not just looking to work for you that's just kind of yeah okay I get it. But come up with something kind of flashy. But in the email, you're going to tell them, you want to make it a win-win right? Because influencers are used to people saying hey if you post 2 pictures I'll send you a shirt. And that's kind of like ah okay thanks. So you want me to A. the reason why you got in contact with an influencer is because you love their content. So they probably have a video, they probably have a video guy and a photo person and all this kind of stuff. They have like … it's a business and you're telling them that you're going to send them a free $20 shirt for 2 posts when they have costs. I mean there's a reason why you picked that influencer because they have great content. If they're a lower influencer what I mean by that lower followers and they're doing it themselves then maybe that makes sense. And maybe they love your brand and maybe they will do it for free. They'll say you know what I love you guys as brand why don't we do … you guys send me one shirt a month, I'll do two posts a month and that's going to be a win-win for everybody. Joe: Let me ask about tracking because you know with Google Ad Words you can track response at ads you can track … we know what cost per acquisition is. How do you do that with an influencer that you give $1,000? Shane: Yeah there's a number of different ways of doing it you know the ones that just want a flat pay per post … I mean that's … the difficult part is … I mean what I would recommend is so this's the thing if this is my company this is my brand this and what I do with my clients. There's a number of ways to do it. There's coupon codes, so you put Jennifer25 so they should put something on hey this is Jennifer these are these products by these companies I've used it in the last few months everything's awesome and I've worked out a deal where you guys everybody gets 25% off hurry it's going to be gone in 40 hours; whatever the message. Joe: The influencers, for the most part, is saying use my coupon code and being up front and saying I'm getting a commission I'm getting paid I'm- Shane: They're supposed to, FTC you're supposed to right? So the thing is because they don't want you like in theory fooling the public right? So it's no different than if you had whatever Snoop Dog talking about Toyota on a commercial at the bottom really low will say Snoop Dog was paid for this promotion. So there's … they want to make sure people aren't being fooled so you should put this as some kind of a sponsored ad or #ad or #sponsored something like that. Joe: Okay. Shane: They would put that in the hash tags it's … the FTC's there's always a little bit of gray area with that. But if you put some things like that you should be safe. The thing is that what you want to do when you have those like I said when those people reach out to you and you're trying to develop those time relationships. The thing is you have the coupon code so you can use something whatever that is the thing but one thing a brand realizes is just because you hire Jenny that has 50,000 followers they can't be a frequency deal. So email marketing if I want to go buy a Coca-Cola what I do is I see a commercial and then I see a banner and I see this when I go to the store I go, man, I feel like drinking a Coca-Cola for some reason. It's the same thing will influencer marketing, don't think 5, 6 years ago you could put up one post and probably make some great money; it's a frequency deal. So you don't … when you're negotiating with influencers make sure that there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … there's multiple things that they're going to do for a set price assuming that's how you want to … but just make sure it's a multiple deal with the … so we have coupon codes, you have an affiliate link. So Instagram being the example there's only one place to put a link right so it's a very valuable valuable place. What we use … there's a number of different things you can use but with that you can either A. you can negotiate with the influencer and say hey we would like to give you an affiliate link that you put in your bio thing and we'd like for the next 2 weeks while you promote this product we'd like for you to have that affiliate link in there. So they can put link in bio or something like that. So it pushes them up there but you have to have a contract with that influencer and make sure they know what they're doing. That's another big thing with this is we have brands and if- Joe: Where do you find these contracts? Shane: You can look online. And we actually have some templates that we use that we could that I think … I'm sure I've shared them on multiple different posts but really just a brief right? You want a brief of like hey this is the hash tags you are going to use. This is the kind of content that influencers have used in the past that have been successful but give the influencer free reign to do what they want. Just give them basic guidelines. Hey, we're also looking for you not to do any anything within our competitors for the next 3 months so that you're not doing 10 different campaigns about the same kinds of stuff; just some basic stuff where you're covering yourself. We want to also want to make sure that our link is in your bio for at least 2 weeks or a month or once again everything is negotiable but you have to talk about those terms ahead of times and brands don't because they don't know. That's the reason why I always recommend hiring a consultant or somebody to help you with your 1st few campaigns because then they can … there's these things where you can lose a lot of money and not know what you're doing and just assume by hiring an influencer an influencer is going to do what's best for you. Most influencers aren't marketers; they aren't right? Joe: Right. Shane: The yoga instructor that just … he's a yoga instructor, he didn't go in and get his marketing degree and say hey I'm going to go and try to build this huge community. He just started doing what he does. Joe: So he needs guidelines given to him from you on what to do and how to do it. Shane: Yeah because if not then it … you just, you need some direction. Joe: Got you. And you've talked about Instagram; my kids are always watching videos in Instagram. Occasionally they snap back and forth and I don't know how they're ever going to make money on Snapchat but I'm sure they are. I'm sure they probably are. But what social media outlets are the best options for people that are selling yoga pads [inaudible 00:29:20.6]. Shane: So Instagram is where we spend a lot of time because it's like that lifestyle; everybody wants to like have the pink puppy and be doing yoga be … have the perfect little cute little babies around and the perfect relationship. And so it's that lifestyle type you know when I'm always on my jet I'm eating caviar and life's good. And then we have YouTube which obviously is awesome because YouTube's always going to be out there. What I mean by that is YouTube's the number two search engine. Joe: Yeah. Shane: So we work with an influencer that does a review of a product or talks about your product they'll go and put that content and they have a huge subscribership let's say it's 10, 15, 20, 30, 100,000, 1 million and that video literally goes out to all those people and then you get those eyeballs on you. Joe: So the software you mentioned before measure engagements on different mediums like YouTube and Instagram or? Shane: It can. Yeah, there's multiple … there's different softwares that do different ones. I mean there's one or two that can measure engagement in all of those. Or what you can do … what you want to do is you can talk to the influencer and say hey put this in the brief. I want to make sure that I'm getting all of the inside information on my campaign and how it went and what we did and that kind of thing. Joe: Okay. So Instagram number one, YouTube number 2, is there a 3rd that people should look out or a 4th or a 5th that you'd consider? Shane: I mean Snapchat is not bad and then Facebook and Twitter there's some stuff going on there. But really where we spend our time is Instagram and YouTube just because it's the amount of how many people around them. I mean people spend I don't know … I guess like 55 minutes a day on Instagram. I mean I think it's after … like after you die it's like 8 months or something … I mean it's … of your life time. I mean it's crazy right and obviously people spend a lot more time on there and then YouTube once again as always it's that evergreen content that's always going to be out there when people are looking for certain things. If you have a … once again I have this thing and this is a brand new patented product and I get someone to do a review on it on YouTube and they've got a huge subscribership like my sales could go through the roof because of that. Joe: Right we've got a number of transactions over the years where I've had businesses that had huge spikes because of Dr. Oz mentioning the product or the ingredient in the product. I sold one earlier this year … I think all these years have blended together, earlier this year where it was on one of Oprah's favorite things back in 2012 or 13 and that carried it for a long time. Would you recommend that the audience members that have the yoga mats of the world go after those big influencers or just focus on the smaller ones or maybe a combination of both because you might get lucky? Shane: Right. You might get lucky. I mean it really depends on budget as well. So if you're going to go after I mean Oprah being the example that you give. Like if Oprah talks about your product then all you have to do is hire somebody to count your money at that point. Joe: Right. Shane: You got to … you physically have to figure … you have somebody and get maybe 100,000 and just have … and just count the money and just probably I will organize it through serial numbers just to get something to do. Joe: I think these people would argue that you also have to scram like it's an inventory to fulfill those orders because that's what happens. Shane: Oprah is not going to promote anything without knowing that you've got some good distribution in place. Joe: A good problem. But that with free endorsement as well, it was sending products to that influencer looking for a free review and Dale called them one day and then said hey you're going to be in this issue and they're like oh my God that's two days from now. Shane: So I'll answer your question, so Oprah obviously being the mega of this whole situation but there's no reason not to ask bigger influencers or smaller influencers … I mean smaller following. They're going to be probably more apt because they're hungry and they're just either getting started and that kind of stuff. You see the prices can be a little lower. They're going to be more engaged stuff like that. But I'm not saying don't shoot for the stars. I'm not saying don't send something to Oprah if you have a patented product that really takes care of a need that nobody knows about because you'll never know. You're saying right there that all of a sudden Dale gave the phone call and said hey we loved your product and you're like you've got to be kidding me right? The thing is nobody is going to knock on your door if you're not out there and pushing. If you're not out there sending that information to Oprah or whoever you'll just never know. And so what I would do is do a nice … I mean I would once again just pull in what … figure out who your buyer persona is and if it's Oprah's people because you have a book that you just read and it's a self-help book and you think you can really help everybody, you have a different angle, you've got a great phenomenal story then pitch Oprah. Go for it. Like why would you not? She's not going to know about people that don't pitch her but I would also say the smaller influencers are … you know ones of medium size and all that go after them as well. The other thing that I always do is like let's say I'm a newer company I go and look at my hash tag. So let's say I'm #whitecoffeemug so … great I go and look that up and that's the name of my company. You might already have influencers in your sphere that love your product. Joe: Okay. Shane: That's a no brainer right? Like that's a … you go in there I'm already talking about your product I don't … you need to convince me of anything except how much free product I can send you to keep spreading the good word about my product. Joe: Okay, awesome. So for those that are listening again that are trying to sell yoga mats and use the medium influencers, forget the shooting for the stars and Oprah that type of thing. These people are usually entrepreneurs with maybe a remote contractor or 2 or 3 VA's here and there. They may take this project on themselves at 1st and then hire somebody to take it over once they've setup SOP's. What kind of time do you think it would take if it was me and I'm working 25 hours a week running my business which is pretty standard for the types of businesses that we sell, should we focus on a lot 5 hours a week to get started, 10 hours a week and what kind of budget would you suggest somebody starts off with that maybe they're doing a couple of million years in an annual revenue. Shane: Yeah, so what I would recommend and once again I'm not just saying this because I'm a consultant. I would hire a consultant and say hey what do we need to do here? Because there's people that have paid me a lot of money for me to learn what I learned … what I know today. I recommend that with anything, not just influencer marketing, with anything; like if you want to jump in and do your own PPC figure out somebody that's a PPC consultant and have them so you listen I just want to hire you for 5 hours a month or 10 hours a month or whatever. I want to put together my ideas. If you can go in and tighten them up it will save you so much money because as entrepreneurs we always go hey we'll do it ourselves right? I'm a grown ass man I'm going to go do this, I can do it. It's not a problem. I'm not going to delegate because I have at least 2 more hours in the day. I'm only working 22 hours in the day I have at least 2 more hours, sleep is so overrated. I'm going to do it myself. Okay, that's awesome; take it on. I'm not here to squash your dream but what I am telling you is that if you have a consultant that helps you along the way they'll help you with you know these … they'll potentially save you money, save you a lot of time. And because there's like plans I'll put together for people and say listen now you go hire a VA or let me show you how to do this or put the plan in place and now these people can go and implement it and they will come back after a month and hey what problems did you have? Hey, you kind of messed up here let's look at the pitch emails you sent. Who responded? Now, what do we respond back to them? Like that's a person that wants to take it on themselves. We have two ways of working obviously, one is hey we'll do it for you like don't worry about it. You sit back we're going to just ask you questions you give us the answers. Or the other way of like hey you want to learn right? And a lot of agencies don't do that like you want to learn because they don't want to give up the secret sauce. I don't have a problem giving up the secret sauce. I want to help you out and I just want to make sure you're successful. Joe: Well look I think what's going to happen is a lot of folks … you know we give up a secret sauce all the time. We help. If you help people they may say you know what I love this I think it's going to be great please do it for me because they're busy doing other things as well. So I think it's a great idea. Some of the people that are listening may want to give it a go and shoot from the hip and see if anything sticks which is probably not the greatest idea in the world. Others will hire a consultant to create a campaign and then they'll run with it, they'll hire the VA. And others may say look just please take this on and run with and we'll measure results with you and if you want we'll keep going. Shane: Also, we're doing that thing too is we're actually developing a course as well. We're doing of course for influencers and for brands. So now we're in current stages of developing that. So they'll also be an inexpensive option or a cheaper option than hiring myself as a consultant or hiring my company to do everything for them where they can go in and take a course for whatever $97 or $300. And they'll go in and they can go through it and once again they'll have enough information there to be dangerous so they don't have me on an hourly basis. Or if they want a bigger project they can do that as well. But we're developing that ritual as we speak. Joe: What's your timeframe? People are going to go okay great when is it going to be done? Shane: I knew you we're going to hold me by the fire Joe because I told you about the book earlier and so then you put me on tonight. Joe: I know. Shane: It will be done by the 1st of the year. Joe: Okay. Shane: That's right, I said it. Joe: When it's done make sure I get that link and we'll put it on the show notes of the podcast okay? Shane: I can't wait but by the 1st. If not by the 1st then I would just … I'll drop off as an entrepreneur and just go and do something separate that's not online just because I'll be so ashamed. Joe: 61, 71, you've got something like 80 days maybe to get it done okay. Shane: Now you're just trying to stress me out, Joe. I mean come on I just gave you a date I mean now I got to go talk to my people and go listen we're going to have to double our staff- Joe: [inaudible 00:38:00.2] for meditation for that stress. You'd be okay. Shane: Okay. Joe: You're not just … no, you're thriving on stress. Come on. Shane: I love that, like the fact you just told me that like secretly I don't even need any more coffee. Like I just got these goose bumps on my back that I said you know what I'm going to show Joe. I'm going to show him by the 1st he forgets this. Joe: Please do. Shane, I love the influencer marketing approach. So many people focus on one thing and you know when they diversify their revenue streams, their sources of traffic it de-risks or lowers the risk of the business and the lower the risk is for the buyer what happens the value goes up. So for those that are listening take a look at it. Take a look at influencer marketing. Hopefully, this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast has helped. Shane, tell the people that are listening how they would reach you if they want to talk to you about consulting or talk about maybe you taking over their influencer marketing campaign. Shane: Yeah so you can reach me at ShaneBarker.com that's S-H-A-N-E-B-A-R-K-E-R.COM and my personal email is shane@shanebarker.com just email me if you have any questions or if you need anything I'm here to help once again. Joe: And if they want to be an influencer themselves they can just head on down to UCLA and take your course right? Shane: Yeah, it's a really cheap course. It's UCLA, I mean it's only one of the top 20 universities in the nation. It's not a problem, just get a little bit of financial aid you'll be fine. Talk to your parents. Joe: You must be doing something right if it took you 10 years to graduate and now you're teaching at UCLA so good for you. Shane: I'll tell you. Thank you so much. Joe: I appreciate your time make sure you give me that link. I'm going to hold you to it. Shane: I'm on it. Joe: All right buddy, talk to you later. Shane: Thanks, Joe bye bye.   Links and Resources: ShaneBarker.com Shane@shanebarker.com Influencer Marketing SaaS: Grin.co Klear.com NeoReach.com

The Quiet Light Podcast
Building a Portfolio of Content Sites w/a PE Exit: Brad Wayland

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2018 44:27


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

Answering the Call Podcast - NOBTS
Drugdealers, prison, and the rest of my past

Answering the Call Podcast - NOBTS

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 27, 2018 26:08


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.

The Quiet Light Podcast
The Episode in Which Joe Gives Ryan Daniel Moran “The Goosies”

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2018 40:39


Ryan Daniel Moran was a preacher-in-training turned entrepreneur. He moved to Austin with little to nothing to his him name, and launched Amazon businesses that he eventually sold for over 8 figures. Ryan did us all a solid – really – by documenting and sharing his journey. The Freedom Fast Lane Podcast helps entrepreneurs at every stage of their business, from startup to exit. In this interview, Ryan shares his top three “mistakes”, or as discussed, things he wishes he did differently as he looks back. He openly shares his story and journey, in the hopes that other entrepreneurs do things to maximize the value of their business (and life). Through Ryan's conference, Capitalism.com, he helps bring like minded entrepreneurs and experts in the ecommerce space together to build brands and businesses that last. While he may be a preacher-school-dropout, Ryan still has a way of delivering the goods when it comes to advocating doing the right thing…so good things follow. Episode Highlights: [1:25] Who is Ryan Daniel Moran? [4:38] Is it better to buy or build? [6:43] Ryan thinks we're in a “seller's market” [8:05] What are Ryan's “mistakes” and what would he do differently. [11:30] Does it matter if you like your buyer? Does likability matter? [13:52] The likable buyer story…who won out over an all cash buyer. [15:12] Mistake # 1 – playing the short term. [17:25] Mistake #2 – telling people what to do and diminishing their talent. [18:51] Ryan shares his staffing team numbers. Inhouse and remote. [20:06] Mistake #3 – Ryan wishes he spent more money on advertising, customer acquisition, and brand building. [22:51] Why is a 100% Amazon business worth less than a Shopify store? [24:00] What channels would Ryan expand to – beyond Amazon.com [25:30] The first “nut you have to crack” [27:02] Ryan disagrees with Joe! [30:40] Brands last, product businesses don't. [31:06] Should you be thinking about a possible exit at all times? [33:05] What gives Ryan the “goosies”. Ok…he didn't say goosies, that was JLo. [33:58] Know what you will do with your money before you sell! [36:10] Should you plan your next brand before you sell, or stay focused? [39:29] How do you get more Ryan Daniel Moran Transcription: Mark: So if I could go back in time I would do a number of things different than I did in my entrepreneurial past especially before I sold my first company. And I have told you the story before that when I sold my first company I sold it for $165,000 only to find out that a year later the same person who bought the company got an offer for 350,000 without changing anything about the business at all. So … and there's a lot of regrets I have by not going back in time obviously I think anybody would like to have that ability. Joe: I'm glad it's that instead of saying you're bringing me on as a business partner. Mark: Well, you're here so I can't … I might not say that to your face. Only when you're on vacation and I have somebody else filling in as guest host. Joe: Well, Jason doesn't listen to the podcast, let's talk about him. Mark: Right. Exactly. Joe: Conversation … no regrets there. Yes and Daniel Ryan Moran was our guest and he talked about some of the regrets or as we called the mistakes because that's how he learns in life as many of us do by making mistakes and in trying not to make them over again. Fascinating … fascinating yes they're our podcast today Mark. I don't know if you recall … if you were there for his presentation at Smart Record over the last summer in Austin but he got up on stage and he spoke for 60 minutes with no script, no PowerPoint presentation and everybody was captivated. And the information that he has in it … volume of entrepreneurs that he works with and the velocities, and the approach, and everything about the way he does business and the way he literally … I mean not literally, preaches business. Okay, he's a … he was going to be a preacher so I want to say preacher school dropout. He chose to be an entrepreneur instead but the way that he talks about things is spot on with the way that we see the most successful entrepreneurs run their businesses. They focus on a number of different things and they implement those and maybe someday if they choose to exit they're in a great position to do so. Ryan talks about all of that including his own two exits that combined totaled over eight figures. Mark: Daniel Ryan Moran, same Moran that comes from Freedom Fast Lane right? Joe: Freedom Fast Lane Podcast where he talks about his story. You know five years ago he had a car and he drove to Austin, Texas and he decided he was going to launch an Amazon business and record his journey. And his journey is not over yet. It's on a new adventure, a different larger adventure but his journey kind of came to a new chapter after selling the last Amazon business that he had. But he talks about it all the way through on the Freedom Fast Lane Podcast. He got tired of seeing people do things the wrong way and learned ways to cheat at conferences and started to do his own conferences through capitalism.com and bringing good like-minded people together that build strong foundation long term value businesses and he talked about all of that today. Mark: Fantastic I can't wait to hear it. Let's go to it. Joe: Hey, folks, it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got somebody that a lot of you might know already. His name is Ryan Daniel Moran. Ryan, welcome to the show. Ryan: Joe thanks about having me in, let's make some magic. Joe: Listen I was having a barbecue last night we had some friends over and this is an absolute true story and one of them is an entrepreneur wannabe. She's in the corporate world and she bought some Amazon products and she tried something and it didn't work but she's going to go at it again someday and she's grilling me … she always asked me how things are with Quiet Light Brokerage and she starts asking about the podcast. I said yeah we're doing all right and hey have you ever talked to Ryan Daniel Moran just like that and here you are today we're talking to you. You're kind of a little celebrity I should say … little, you're kind of a celebrity; a rock star maybe for this … look it was a 50 year old woman. She's rather attractive and she knows who you are. Ryan: Well you know it's like my ideal market is attractive 50 year old women. We all know that that's the market I'm after right now. So tell her to give me a … maybe call me maybe. Joe: She loves listening and the fact that you're first and foremost helping people that's what she loves about it. She says someday she's going to get back to it but she loves listening and she's going to take that leap at some point in the future so good for you. And listen as I said prior to the intro we don't do fancy intros. So if you would … I know it's hard to talk about yourself but give folks a little bit of background about yourself; who you are, where you came from, and what you're all about. Ryan: Yeah. I invest in and I start physical products brands. And the way that I got to that point was actually as a pastoral student back in 2006. I built my first website and started my first business in between high school and college on my shared dial-up computer in my living room and hand coded websites using raw HTML in a software program called Dreamweaver. If you are old enough to remember Dreamweaver and you know it well. So what's funny is we hear a lot of people who are talking about building and … or selling businesses thinking about the good old or either like all the opportunity is gone now or the good old days have these … man, I was hand coding websites in Dreamweaver on a dial up computer. Do you realize how much more opportunity we have now being able to build websites on platforms and sell products on Amazon? So the opportunities are way way bigger now but I was just trying to find a way to supplement my … what I expected to be $30,000 a year salary as a pastor. Now fast forward a few years I did not finish the pastoral route for reasons that would be probably best left on a second podcast that you have Joe that's going to be called quiet skepticism. Joe: Yeah, some kind of … something where we're helping people, we're guiding them off that path right. Ryan: Exactly; quiet go to the light we'll call it. And I did not finish that route and I became a full time entrepreneur. So I was in really involved in the internet marketing space for many years until I really decided or realized I hated that crowd. I didn't like hanging out with those people. So I was like what a conference where those people hung out and I took the skill set that I had from Search Engine Optimization from Pay-Per-Click Marketing from Email Copyrighting and I applied it to physical products brands. And I've had a couple of different exits in the physical products world and now I'm an investor in physical products businesses because it's what I know. It's who I can help the most. And I think it's one of the biggest upside is in the market right now whether you are selling or building a business or buying a business, I think there's a tremendous amount of white space with the transition from big brands into more what I call micro brands mostly Internet based that's where I see the biggest opportunities right now. So that's a … I've had a couple of exits and the total over billed were eight figures in cash exchange. I still own a minority stake in a few of those businesses and have a portfolio business but my primary focus is investing in physical products brands and I have a media company for entrepreneurs at capitalism.com. Joe: Okay, so when it comes to investing people look at buy versus build. In fact, we had a podcast recently with our newest broker Walker Diebel who wrote about a book called Buy Versus Build and there's a really long subtitle and it was a … it quickly rocketed to the top 10 podcasts that we have. And you're talking about investing, do you think it's better to buy versus build at this point in your career or would you recommend somebody that's just starting out to scrape some dollars together and bootstrap something and start? Ryan: Yeah, it's better for me to invest but it wasn't better for me five years ago. In 2013 when I took my first sale on Amazon.com for a physical product I know business investing in physical product brands. I know businesses buying physical products brands now … back then I was buying a lot of websites. And you know what I was buying Joe? I was buying search engine friendly websites with email lists … social media followings weren't this big back then, but with audiences, followings targeting each market that sold affiliate products; because that was what I knew. Joe: That's what you knew. Ryan: I would have been a lot of people who are like looking for the system and that you are the system. You are the machine. And your machine is unique to you. So applying your machine to different opportunities is where value is created. So for me, I'm … at this point, I have more upside as an investor because I already have all the retail connections. I have the connections to sell businesses. I'm connected to other investors. That's my own skill set but the entrepreneur who I invest in is way better suited to start that company than I am and that's what capitalism is. Where I get the value that I bring in combination of the value that you bring and when we bring them together it's greater than the sum of our arts. And so for me yeah I'm … I have more value as an investor but to say like it's better I think would be a mistake. Joe: You know I think you're absolutely right. It depends upon the individual's situation without a doubt. I bought and I've sold and I've invested as well and I can say each were successful in their own way and each were very very difficult in their own ways as well. You'll learn along the way from the mistakes mostly. Ryan: If I could Joe I will add though, I mean globally I think we're in a seller's market. I think we're looking at buying versus selling if I give it a binary choice I do think we're in a seller's market right now. Joe: I have to agree with you 100%. When we have a good quality listing come … I had a conversation with someone this morning who wants to buy. And he's a referral from somebody who already bought and this guy is doing great so I want to do what he's doing. And the response is look when a great listing comes along you need to be prepared. So the more listings you look at the more you're going to know the right shit when it comes along. And you need to be able to act fast because you and a dozen other people are doing the same thing and they're going to make an offer on that business. So I agree it's a seller's market but at the same time, the multiple still don't get pushed too high. It's still the buyer to decide that. You and I as sellers, as brokers can pick whatever number we think the value of the business is but we don't make the final decision at the end it's usually the buyer. The seller's got a lot to say about it because they can say yes or no. But it's still the buyer makes the decision in terms of the value for the most part. But you just recently said you've exited a couple of different times in the last few years. What did you learn in that process if you look at the exit? Or maybe do you want to talk about the fact … the mistakes you made maybe building and what you can do to help the entrepreneurs that are listening or perhaps the exit and maybe a little bit of both. Ryan: Yeah well, there's one thing in particular that I think was on the stake if you will and it was thinking that the buyer had all of the control. By the way, this is C money right here or by a … my … he is the one who wants to make great on the Internet. Joe: For those listening and not watching somebody just walked into the background. Ryan: Yeah, so the mistake that I made was thinking that the buyer had all of the control. And if I could redo this Joe, the truth is if you built something, if you built a business you're the one with the asset. You're the one with the goods that money is chasing you, people want to buy you and so often the seller comes into market and is like the thing that I'm after is the check and I'm hoping that I get the check and that immediately puts you in the frame in which you're the after. You're the one who is not in the power position. So we share them with an offer and the seller is like thank you please oh please Mr. Money Pants I would like your money. And now they're in a position to beat you up over earnings, over … in the negotiations. So what I wish I had done was recognize the fact that I'm the one with the goods. I'm the one with the asset that people want. I'm the one courting the offers. People are making offers to me. There they want one I got not the other way around. So if you're in that position and you're willing to say no and you combine that with the turn ship that says here's what I'm looking for, that to me puts the seller in the frame of mind repair and the negotiating position. I didn't do that. I discovered that after the fact and I really could only have learned that by going through the process. I learned … I personally learned by making mistakes and paying for them later. Joe: We all do. Ryan: Yeah but that's a mistake that I wish somebody had told me before I went to market. Joe: Or is it … the buyer that you're referring to is it a strategic buyer or did you have your business officially listed and people came to you? Ryan: Yeah, we had it listed and we were acquired by an equity group. I still own a minority stake in that company and I'm in great terms with the equity group. I'm really happy with the buyer. I have become friends and obviously business partners at this point. But had I gone to the market with terms that I wanted I probably would have ended up in a more favorable financial position when it came to closing. Joe: Well, the next time you have a transaction you'll know that and you'll be able to make adjustments. Ryan: Right. Joe: Really I think like you said the check isn't the end all, it's more about … I think almost in many ways what your next adventure is going to be. I know that a lot of folks that I work with and myself included when I exited I was just … I sold too late. I was emotionally tired and I think that's the absolute wrong time to sell. You should sell … you should plan to sell, just don't wake up and decide to sell. But when you're emotionally tired you're not doing everything that you can to maximize the profits of the business and that's going to drive down the value. And you're going to get beat up at the end if you're so committed to that check that you can't negotiate a little bit more for something else and be willing to walk away from that buyer if they're if they're not a good buyer. And correct me if I'm wrong but just tell me how you think here, I always find that it makes an enormous difference if you like the person that's buying your business or the one … if you're buying a business from. It's not just about the check. It's not just about the money. It's the people you're doing business with. And I think that as a seller you can get more value if you're respected and professional and likable and the same as a buyer, if you're a buyer and you're professional and likable and complement the owner on the business that they built that you're going to get a better transaction out of it versus all the hard core raw street negotiations. What are your thoughts on that? Ryan: I don't know if you are right or wrong because I intentionally don't do business with people that I don't like. [crosstalk 00:15:45.7] Joe: So, therefore, anybody that wants to buy a business from you if you don't like them then you've got to do that to work with somebody you like. A classic- Ryan: I don't think everybody has that mentality though. I think I would even go as far as to say the majority of people are buying and selling based on numbers or like the deal and very few entrepreneurs get to find every purchase as a person. And so I think most people are approaching it by numbers and logically rather than is there a connection here. I personally … just like for the protection of my own lifestyle am willing to say no to anything that I personally don't like. And what that does is it always puts me in a strong negotiating position because if I don't like somebody I have no problem walking away. And the person who has … the person who is most willing to walk usually has the upper hand in the negotiation. Joe: I agree 100%. I find that from a buyer's perspective one of the questions I get a lot from buyers if I'm up on a panel or speaking or something like this is how do I negotiate up against an all cash buyer, somebody that's got more money than me? And the tried and true answer is really is be likeable. It's … you don't necessarily have to have more cash to get the deal done and I … the classic example is I sold a business last fall. It was about two and a $2.5M and the guy had two full price offers within the first 10 days. One was from an all cash buyer who was a little rough around the edges and was hard to work with. The other was from a really likable guy who was buying with an SBA loan and actually required 10% seller financing in that. The entrepreneur, the seller of this business had the choice; you could go for the all cash or you can go for the guy that he liked. He actually chose the full price SBA buyer and chose to carry a 10% seller note versus working with somebody that he didn't like. So in that situation, I think it makes a difference in terms of … buyers that are listening be likable. If you're working with a broker you absolutely have to be likeable because they're … as you said it's more of a seller's market. And there's a lot of buyers out there. There are buyers that are competing for that same business and when they're likeable they're going to build rapport and when you build rapport you sometimes learn about things before they hit the market as well. Ryan, talk to me about some of the mistakes you've made in your own business. Maybe two or three of the biggest mistakes that comes up at the top of your head. Looking back and learning damn I screwed that up if I ever do that again I'm going to it a different way. Ryan: Well, every time I've made a mistake it was because I was playing the short term. So when I have made short term decisions I usually make bad decisions. I like to say that the longer term that I can make decisions the wiser I am and the better decisions that I make. I said before that people forget that behind every purchase is a person … that goes for customers too and all relationships are long term relationships. Or the best relationships are long term relationships. So if you are aware that behind every transaction is a person and you play it like it's a long term relationship you end up building the better company. Sometimes in spite of a short term decision, meaning … for example as we're recording this there's a … in the Amazon there's a thing we're calling review gate where Amazon is coming in and hit them onto your businesses and removing their reviews. And it's been a bloodbath. It's been absolute bloodbath. And the people who are soaring through it are people who have been doing of the right things the right way for the longest. And the people who are being hurt the most are the people who are the most profitable over the last couple years because they played the tactic game. And like there's absolutely room for tactics inside of every business but those who have been building really solid brands and building audiences and building followings they're going to soar right through this and capture a whole heck of a lot of market share. So the mistakes that I made were always in saying what's the Band-Aid solution here rather than building for the long term. So we take a rule now in the business that we're building, we say okay here's the situation that we're in rather than talk about how we're going to fix it let's say what do we wish we had started doing 90 days ago and that would have made today a lot easier to get through? That's the decision that we need to make today which is a really hard conversation to have when you're in reaction mode. But we force ourselves to ask that question because it usually addresses whatever the root cause is that we need to fix rather than going for a Band-Aid solution. So that being mistake number one, mistake number two would be as a leader telling people what to do. There's a great book called Multipliers that really morphed my brain in terms of how I can affect [inaudible 00:20:52.9] people. And what I realize after reading that book was that I have been diminishing the talents on my teams by telling people what I wanted them to do rather than casting a vision and inviting people to build their piece of that. Now that seems kind of a nuance and maybe overly simplistic but I couldn't emphasize enough the accountability that this book brought me on how much I was diminishing the people that I was working with, And the difference in energy and growth that happened once I started correcting those issues. So as an entrepreneur, we often have like our baby that we're bringing in to our team and we're telling people how to build the baby when reality if we're working with smart people they'll probably own that area of expertise better than we can even if we can't see it. And the big distinction of that book highlights is someone who diminishes their team is usually the smartest person in the room but a real leader makes the rest of the team like they're the smartest person in the room. And that was a huge shift in my overall happiness and with the growth of my companies and it's something that I wished that I had done before I was building companies to sell them. Joe: What kind of staffing do you have just out of curiosity? Ryan: Well, the company that I just exited was a team of four. The portfolio of companies … of brands that I have is a team of five. And my media company capitalism.com is a team of six. Joe: And are all of those people in-house or do you do some … or the VA's are they working remotely or they come to the office every day? Ryan: I'm only counting in-house people so that does not count freelancers. But no not everybody … we have … there's, we are a distributed team. So like I'm recording this in my office right now, one of my team members is just right here my side. But people will come in and out. Some people … like we have a team member in Canada, we have a team member in Germany, but they're all full time dedicated to [inaudible 00:22:47.0]. Joe: Good. I asked that because you know most people that are listening would probably be considered lifestyle entrepreneurs and they have to outsource staff and VA's and people working remotely. So it's good to know that even though they're not coming into your office every day this is really important [inaudible 00:23:02.3] get their short term vision don't have that long term vision so that you don't have major major stomach aches with algorithm updates we'll review gates in that situation and then over managing of the staff you know let them be their experts; anything else that comes to mind? Ryan: As far as big mistakes that I've made … I mean we talked about the mistake in selling and as far as building the business I'll say I wished that I had spent more money on cold advertising. Like always like there's never been a business that was like ah you know I think I spent too much on advertising. I've only ever said I wish I'd spent more on advertising. Joe: Yeah, where would you have spent it because these are primarily Amazon based businesses correct? Ryan: The businesses that I personally built, yes. Joe: Right. So where would you spend that money? Ryan: So we just identified the problem because you said they were mostly Amazon based businesses so had I done things even better I would have doubled down on non-Amazon advertising. Because what … if you're an Amazon business which is like nails on a chalkboard to me because it means you're dependent on somebody else. Joe: Right. Ryan: It means that you're dependent on this channel and you've got to go double down on building a business has a different leg to the stool and that when you combine those things together magic can happen. If you've got an email list of 100,000 people that you've built from cold advertising or from buying tripwires and now you're combining that with the power of something like Amazon.com that's really really powerful. Most physical products sellers never make that [inaudible 00:24:32.6] or they get so myopic into one channel that they never spend the money and the time to go develop the advertising for another channel. I wish I had been comfortable losing my rear end on other advertising channels until I figured out those systems. It's interesting Joe, it's true that every channel you will lose for a while and then you figure out the systems and then you start to grow through it and you get profitable. The strange thing is that most people once they've figured it out and get profitable they're unwilling to go do that hard work in another area. So the way that Amazon worked in 2013, '14, and '15 was if you spend until you grab long enough you could outrank everybody else and go win but I never … I lost that hustle when it came down to Facebook Ads or influencers and people start looking for the immediate ROI. In what business is there immediate ROI? When you're building a long term brand that has sales potential … like buyers are buying the systems; they're buying profitable systems because you've already gone through that hard work of developing the systems that are profitable. But it requires you to go build them so I wish I had spent more on advertising, been more willing to lay it on the line, rolled more back into reinvestment. So I'll call that mistake number three. Joe: So for buyers and sellers that are listening, entrepreneurs that are listening it's that one legged stool, two legged stool, three legged stool. If you're 100% Amazon business it's riskier than if you also have a revenue channel from Google Ad Words and driving traffic to your Shopify store and you might be doing wholesale or B2B things of that nature but right away as I've said before if you've got a business that's just at within $100,000 in discretionary earnings that's 100% Amazon same business $100,000 in discretionary earnings but you've got 60% Amazon, 25% Shopify, I guess that would be 15% percent [inaudible 00:26:36.4] my math here, another percent of B2B that business on the other side is going to be worth 15 to 20% more. So you might be breaking even or losing a little bit of money on that land grab trying to grab more customers but if you can turn that into even the same discretionary earnings that business automatically is going to be worth 15 to 20% more because the buyers will pay more for a risk averse business that'll be around for the longer term so very very good advice. What channel would you go to first? Because there are so many options these days and building a channel off of Amazon is hard as you know. You've got to learn a whole new expertise. Where would you go first and what do most of your successful folks do? Ryan: Yeah and I'm actually going to cue on very creatively sidestepped this question because the obvious is Amazon. But where I would suggest is actually people double down on where the audience is. To me, this is the nut has to be cracked if their building a sellable company. And what that means to me it is for some people their audience hangs out following influencers. For other people that is they follow blogs or they have a blog where the audiences are already hanging out. Or some people they've got a Facebook where there's an audience. Now what most businesses, especially like a million dollar businesses, are doing is they're going channel first and trying to extract as much of it as possible. Like I'm going to go to Amazon try to rank and pull as much out of this pie as possible. Only a few people can win that game but if you switch it and you say where are my people who is the ideal buyer and where are they then the channel where you collect the order can always change. And that makes Shopify, Amazon, B2B a whole lot easier. The first nut that you have to crack isn't where the buyers hang out apart from the sales transaction and then you bring those buyers to the transaction. So the transaction to me … Amazon, easy no question. Put your product on Amazon the credit card is already there, people are already looking for it. No question, easy, done. The nut that needs to be cracked is what happens one step before that. And if there is … like if you don't have the influence, the list, the following, the traffic, the pay-per-click strategy that some way to go get those people and bring them into your ecosystem I think you are struggling from the get go and that's the primary question that I ask the entrepreneur. Joe: Yeah and I think depending upon as you say the product and what they're offering some of those different channels will make more sense. You know I had a conversation with someone this morning that has several brands and one brand has incredible numbers with email marketing and that same expertise applied to that different brand doesn't do as well. Ryan: Right. Joe: They're driving people to their Shopify store though Amazon keeps growing and out phasing everything else. So I understand identify where your customers hang out and then you've got to go find those customers. To own that list though you need to send them to your own store, not to Amazon. So are you sort of balancing between sending them to Amazon because it's all there or? Ryan: No, I just disagree. So I think that the loyalty to the brand is the customer experience. And you give the customer the ability to give you money wherever they are most comfortable making the purchase. I heard Brian Lee say where it's … Brian Lee is the founder of the Honest Company, the billion dollar brand with Jessica Alba, and I heard him say once that he considers it a win when the product is in the customer's home. That's when you've wo, not collecting it online e-commerce site, not getting into retail. It's when the product is in the customer's home. However, they get it and you want to release as little friction as possible getting the product into the customer's home. You will own the customer experience when you have their data. You have the ability to communicate a message in front of them. So if you've got the email list and you send them over to Amazon, Amazon rewards that and your conversion rate is probably going to be higher sending them to Amazon that sending them to your Shopify store. So there's a balance [inaudible 00:31:12.7] I know that I can get a higher immediate customer value sending them to my own web site because I can put them through upsells and cross sells to get their immediate data versus sending them to Amazon where I am going to have to work to get their data. I don't have any upsell experience. They might see a negative review. And so the entrepreneur is going to have to play the game of where the numbers make the most sense over the long term. But I think that the actual customer experience happens in when you communicate with them. And that's in the email message, that's in the outside of just a transaction, not just where their credit card is being added but words being communicated. Joe: Okay, I get and I'm just going to repeat it for those that are … well not smarter than me; let's put it that way. So it's capturing the customer information up front, building that relationship with them, and then simply send them to the place that they can buy the product and experience the brand with the least amount of friction and get it in their home. Ryan: Nailed it. Joe: Okay. Ryan: That's my opinion. Joe: And it all goes back I would say and it's kind of almost unspoken that the brand has to be pretty amazing so focus on that first. Build a great product, a great brand so they have a great experience and then do all that other stuff as well. Ryan: Yeah and let me address that because that often brings up the question how do I identify a brand? Like what exactly is the brand. And the brand is the way that trust is communicated to a very specific customer. Most Amazon sellers have no idea over their customers they know what their product is. If you know what you sell and not who you sell to you do not have a brand. Or you might have a brand but it's really lousy whereas if you know who the person is, it makes the product really really easy. I was just meeting with one of my team members today; we were expressing the frustration over one of our brands in our portfolio. Because when we acquired it, it sold a lot of product but it had no target market. And so we've had to do a lot of work to convert that brand into an actual brand where people are not just buying a product but they're buying something and it says about them sells. Those businesses last, product businesses don't because they're commodities. You forget about commodities and the minute that there's a better price or better customer experience their loyalty changes. But when you've got the brand people are very stingy with their trust. I want to give it to you, you have them for as long as you keep their trust. Joe: Very important message right there. Ryan, any thoughts in terms of whether someone should be building this business and always think about the future and possible exits; do you try to instill in them that they should know the value of their business in the event they wake up some day and want to move on or do you just focus on building that brand and when you're ready the time will come? Ryan: You know the real … the temptation for me is to say that no, you shouldn't be necessarily thinking about selling but I know that I'm in a different spot than everyone who's listening. So I would say if you are building this to make money, be building it to sell from day one. Because the very act of being in it for the money means that you will burn out, you will wake up and want to do something else. It's going to happen. So if that … and like let's just be real about it, if you're in it because of the payday, build it to sell because that's what you're in it for and the payday is the cherry at the end of the rainbow here. If you were in it because you've got a product you want to bring to the world then still develop the systems and processes that will keep you in the position to be in your zone of genius. And that will make you more sellable one day but I don't think it's necessary for you to know what it's worth or be making decisions based on that. So these are different goals. Now I build companies that I'm excited about and I am building them in the same way that we make something valuable because I want to be in a position where I'm just in my zone of genius. But it's a different mindset than if I'm building something because it's going to be profitable. Does that make sense Joe? Joe: Absolutely; excellent …excellent. Hey listen I know we're running out of time here I just want to say that last summer I was at the stock market conference and you got up and you spoke as did another dozen or so very very successful entrepreneurs. Each and every one of them had a PowerPoint presentation. You got up there with nothing. And you talked for an hour and the audience was captivated as was I. You have a gift thank you for sharing it. I appreciate it. Ryan: I just got goose bumps. Thank you so much, mate. I really appreciate it. Joe: How do more people get to experience that and listen to you and hear what you do share? Ryan: You know I'd love to answer that question, can I offer one more piece of advice before we go? Joe: You can offer a dozen more pieces of advice. Ryan: Wow, awesome. I'll leave it to one but if you are in this to please have a plan of what you're going to do with the money when you get it. Entrepreneurs are magicians. We remake things up here on thin air. We create value out of thin air. We create a bigger pie. We make money show up. And we also make things disappear. Joe: Isn't that true? Ryan: And if you do not have a plan of what you're going to do with the money it will slip through your fingers. I know you think you're the exception. I know you think all I have to do is invest this at 8% and I'm [inaudible 00:37:11.5]. I know you think that's how it's going to be. You will ball the money. I … right now I just heard you think “no I won't”, yes you will. So if you don't have a net for catching the money and allocating the money for your lifestyle you will be back in the grind very very quickly. I promise you, I know you don't believe me. I'm here to tell you that's the case. Have a plan for what to do with the money once you get the money. It's actually my favorite conversation to have. At some point, I'll probably have more chops [inaudible 00:37:45.3] about investing once you have a big windfall. But for now, it's like have a plan like a plan is better than no plan. And that plan would probably be best done after you sat on the money for about six months and you've gotten used to that money being in the bank account. Your second question or actually your only question was- Joe: Can I interrupt that? Ryan: Please. Joe: I definitely want to get to that but in terms of having the plan to exit, I'm always telling people look have your next adventure planned. Because entrepreneurs like you say they blow through the money, it goes through their hands like saying. I'm often saying maybe get that other opportunity started and launched long as it's not competing to get the ball rolling. So that you got some working capital maybe you're going to put it in … some of it you're not as bootstrapped although you'll be more successful probably if you are. Do you think maybe they should 100% focus on what they're doing on that brand before they sell it up until the day they sell or maybe when it gets big enough and good enough and they've done enough right they can take some of their attention and start Brand B while they're selling off Brand A? Ryan: Wow, Joe. The reason I'm saying wow is because my experience is pretty unique and that was I took about a week off and then I immediately went back to workaholism and it was the worst. It was a horrible experience. Now full disclose like at the same time I was going through separation and I'm going through a lot life changes. I threw myself into work right after the sale. I celebrated by reading books on my patio for like eight days and I was immediately back to workaholism. And I like … I roasted my body, I mean I so needed a break and I did not give myself that break. I don't know if every entrepreneur was as burnt out as I was. I was more burnt out than I [inaudible 00:39:40.5]. Joe: Most ideal [inaudible 00:39:42.8] they come to me tired, exhausted, ready to move on. Ryan: Joe, it's been over a year. I wouldn't even say I'm back now. You know I'm probably operating at 75% of capacity because I never really recovered. So should you go right back into it? I don't know. I think it depends on the level you're at and your own wiring. I make really good decisions when I'm relaxed and creative. I make terrible short term decisions when I'm stressed. And when I'm in that workaholic mode I'm a terrible entrepreneur. I wish I had just blissed out for like three months; I didn't. Joe: I don't know what the folks that listen to you every week would do if you would disappear for three months though. Ryan: Well here's the thing though Joe. I kind of did. Like my podcast sucked for like three months, three to six months and I was trying … like I'm sitting in front of mic trying to come up with things to say and I was uncreative as heck. So I sort of did disappear it was just a different way. And now I'm getting back to it and it's a completely different experience. But I actually think I did my listeners a disservice by not taking a break. And if have been just really upfront and be like guys I just got an eight figure check I am going to the beach and I will call you when I'm ready. My audience would've popped but instead, I was like operating from this place of like I'm so … oh my goodness I'm so tired and I turned off a lot of people. I know it's not the answer that you expected it's not the answer I expected to give you. Joe: No, I like it. Ryan: But I think it's true. Joe: I think sleep and rest and meditation or whatever it is to focus on is absolutely necessary. So back to that original question and you know finding out what they do with the money after they sell. How do they get more of Ryan Daniel Moran? How do they experience what that audience down at Smart Market and myself experienced where you just talked and everybody listened and took notes and all that? Ryan: Well, thanks so much, man, my media company is capitalism.com. My podcast is called Freedom Fast Lane. And I say things into a microphone and we hold events at capitalism.com that are specifically for entrepreneurs. And we're actually … we just rebooted the Freedom Fast Lane podcast. I feel as though- Joe: With fresh energy. Ryan: What's that? Joe: With fresh energy right? Ryan: Well yeah, I think you'd probably feel it from me. Five years ago I started this journey as a boy and I was … I just put everything I owned into my car, drove to Austin, Texas, started some new companies, I documented the whole experience from startup to sale. And then I kind of grew up while documenting the journey. And now there's a new journey and it's a much bigger one and so we just rebooted kind of the entire audience, the whole experience in the podcast. And my podcast is called Freedom Fast Lane. My company is capitalism.com. Joe: Okay. Well, I'll make sure those are in the show notes. I'd love to see you be more successful on this new adventure, this bigger journey. Ryan: Thank you. Joe: Let's stay in touch. I think I may see you at the capitalism conference at the end of August; let's see. At the very least we'll be to as many as we can be over the next few years. Ryan: Good to see you man, thank you so much for having me. Joe: Thanks for your time, I appreciate it. Links: Capitalism.com FreedomFastlane.com

The Quiet Light Podcast
Using Artificial Intelligence in Managing Multi-Channel Advertising

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2018 42:13


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

The Quiet Light Podcast
What the Supreme Court Decision on Sales Tax Means for You

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2018 41:29


Similar to outsourcing fulfillment, today's podcast guest says for many entrepreneurs, it may be best to outsource the collection, management and disbursement of sales taxes with the new Economic Nexus ruling by the Supreme Court. In this podcast, first we cover what the decision means to online entrepreneurs, and how it will impact the average business. For some no action needs to be taken. For others a lot of action must be taken. And ignoring the details is not really an option. Sometimes the least interesting subjects and work as an entrepreneur bring the most value. Well-managed financials are one such thing. Held within the broad “financials” umbrella is now sales taxes. While the answer to the questions, “should I collect” used to be grey. Everything is fairly black and white now. And the subject is never going away. Episode Highlights: Don't geek out on Sales Taxes. Outsource it. See SALT experts below. If you have Nexus it means you have an obligation to potentially register and collect sales taxes or income taxes in a given state. Physical Nexus is where you are, where your business is, where you are storing inventory or where Amazon is storing it. Economic Nexus is the change with the Supreme Court decision. The states could define other ways to define Nexus. For instance either $100,000 in sales or 200 transaction in the last 12 months – and you could be required to collect sales taxes on those revenues that occured within their state…regardless of Physical Nexus. Economic Nexus takes effect immediately for the 24 states that already have them on the books. (Links below will lead to finding the 24 states) Notice and Reporting are other ways to determine Nexus. It's really confusing! You MUST register to collect sales taxes. If you collect and do not remit, it is CRIMINAL. Hire an expert to register to collect sales taxes. There are 45 states that require it. Only register where you have to if you are a small seller. But if you are doing 10-20 million in revenue, “suck it up” and register everywhere. SALT experts can handle almost everything for you. See notes and links below. SALT is an acronym for Sales and Local Tax Experts Use www.WhereStock.com to determine where Amazon is holding your inventory. Seel link below. Taxjar is a good option if you wish to take on managing this yourself. Scott & his outsourced accounting team at Catching Clouds use Taxify (but recommend both options) The Supreme Court Decision may not increase a buyer's liability in an asset sale. Transcription: Joe: So Mark Jason got an e-mail this week and he had a question and it was “What makes Quiet Light different?” And Jason gave it an interesting answer and I want your feedback on it. It says “Well the formal answer is that we're all entrepreneurs but that's not really it. The difference is that Mark … you Mark Daoust is one of the best human beings on earth and that permeates everything we do. As a result, he attracts good people that are always doing good work with the best interest of others even if it's painful for the broker we ignore our own incentive to do what's right.” Did you pay him to say that? Mark: Yeah … well, I'm not going to say exactly how much but he got paid for that. I think it's a little over the top. I mean really. Joe: But he didn't write that down. He said it to someone and someone wrote it down and shared it with me. And I … look I shared this to put you on the spot. You look by the way very much like an internet entrepreneur today. You've got a t-shirt with some ducks on it, a little duck, duck going on there. Mark: Duck, duck, gray duck. I'm from Minnesota and I [inaudible 00:01:53.2] I'm going to put this out there, it's a more sophisticated game. All you parents out there stop this duck, duck, goose crap. It's all duck, duck, gray duck; that's what we're doing here. Joe: Don't know if we have time to go into what the heck you're talking about with duck, duck, gray duck. Well just … I thought you were going into hockey or something like that. I wanted to touch on one more thing you know Jason talks about that and you and the environment that you've created here and the caliber of entrepreneurs and advisors that you brought on. I listened to a podcast last night with Chuck Mullets and for those that are the buyers in the audience today, if you have not listened to the 27 tools for due diligence I think it was, listen to it. Because some of the tools in there were just amazing and I've been doing this for a long time and I haven't heard of any of them. I have to take my hat off to Chuck and give him some compliments for the job that he did there. I was really really impressed. He's a … I'll say it, he's a lot smarter than I thought he was. Mark: Ah, you know the bar was pretty low, to begin with. Joe: But I want to just raise myself up a little bit and show you something. Mark: What's that? Joe: I have on- Mark: Oh you have on Chuck's shirt that he made for you. Joe: I have my Quiet Light logo shirt on. So there you go. Mark: While I'm wearing ducks. Joe: Oh I didn't shade you there. Okay, listen this podcast is about something that's really important. It's about the Supreme Court decision to change the way that sales taxes are to be collected. Let's not get into details, let me just tell you that we had Scott Scharf on again. We specifically talked about the problem and the solution. What does this mean to e-commerce entrepreneurs and how do you solve it? I can tell you right now when you get three quarters of the way through the solution is … if you are up for it just like you outsource your fulfillment to a 3PL you can outsource your sales tax collection and distribution and management. And if it were me that would be my recommendation but it's absolutely there and you don't have to deal with all that little detail and there's a lot of it. Mark: Yeah and I like to say a word to people that share a person holiday with me, and when I read and hear about some of these red tape sort of restrictions that are coming down, I have a tendency to plug my years and go la-la-la-la I don't want to hear it. Joe: Right. Mark: I like the days of the free open web when it was just easy to do things. But the fact of the matter remains this is the direction we're going. Joe: Right. Mark: Restrictions, regulations are going to come into play more and more frequently and these aren't necessarily bad things we just needed to understand how to navigate them. And so an episode like this is timely, I'm glad that you got Scott on the line to do this episode because this is the [inaudible 00:04:34.0] time the episode given that this decision just came down a few weeks ago. Joe: Yeah some of the things that we talk about here on the Quiet Light Podcast are painful as entrepreneurs. Particularly those that don't love this detail, they love the excitement of driving revenue and the marketing aspect of it. These painful things when you pay attention to them will make your business more valuable if and when you ever decide to sell. So again listen to the whole thing. Get through it, he talks about it in detail point by point. But I try to keep him on track so it's not … he doesn't geek out too much. Scott loves this stuff. Mark: Scott? Never. Joe: He calls it geeking out himself. So we try to get on track to … okay how do … how does a guy like me, how does a guy like Mark, like an entrepreneur listening, how do they overcome this giant massive ball of red tape? And really, I think the answer is, outsource it. And we're going to give all of the ability to do that down there in the show notes. Mark: Sounds great. Joe: Let's go to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Scott Scharf on the line with me from Catching Clouds. And we're going to talk about the Supreme Court decision that's come down regards to sales taxes, define what the problem is, and then give you a solution to it in the second half of the podcast. Scott welcome … welcome back actually right? Scott: Yeah it's great to be back. Joe: All right so you know we don't do fancy introductions. Tell these folks who you are and what you do at Catching Clouds so they understand what level of expert you are here. Scott: Yeah at Catching Clouds we're e-commerce accountants who are really experts in the accounting e-commerce businesses and of course sales tax management; which is why we can talk about this topic. We've been doing this for the last seven years and we love solving problems for e-commerce, sellers, anybody that we interact with it. And this Quill decision is definitely one of those things. Joe: Quill decision, that it that's the name of it? Q-U-I-L-L. Scott: Well, yeah so Quill was a decision from what 26 years ago that the Supreme Court overturned their own finding that really delimited what states could do to go collect sales tax from small businesses that are selling across state lines. Joe: Good. Okay, so they overturned it. So, folks, you heard Scott say that they're e-commerce accountants and I just want to reiterate … and you know my little soapbox here. E-commerce accounting, accounting, good financials, clean documentations, it's one of the four pillars to get maximum value for your business. So if you're using anything other than Xero or QuickBooks seriously consider talking to Scott if you want to get maximum value for your business. Because Excel spreadsheets for a 20 million dollar company or if you're doing a half a million in revenue doesn't matter, you're going to lose value in the sale of your business if and when some day you decide to sell. So there's my little pitch, definitely- Scott: [inaudible 00:07:24.7] Joe: these services. Okay so if I understand this correctly this is no longer physical nexus which I think everybody that's listening knows the definition of it; what it means. Is economic nexus, can you tell us what the heck that means for these folks? Scott: Yeah so actually physical nexus still applies so it's not that they got rid of physical nexus it's just not the only consideration deciding if you have [inaudible 00:07:52.0] of fancy. Joe: So let's say what physical nexus is anyway then, go ahead. Scott: Okay. Well, physical nexus … well, first nexus is if you cross a threshold and you have nexus based on some parameters means you have an obligation to potentially register and collect sales tax or income tax or other things in a given state. So if you don't have nexus you don't have to do these things. Okay, that's the first part. So there are different types of nexus, the first one is physical. It's been around for quite a while. It's where you are, your business is, your business is founded, you have employees, you have property. Okay for an e-commerce business, it's wherever you're storing your inventory. If it's at a 3PL on either coast you have a nexus where you're storing your inventory. If you're an Amazon FBA seller, when you send inventory to three or five warehouses they'll move it to up to 26 states that's your inventory and it creates nexus. There are a few other ones out there but from a physical perspective … I've been around for a while, there's like affiliates and other things. But the main thing it's where you are and your property is. Joe: Physical nexus, okay. And now we've got economic nexus, what is that? Scott: So economic nexus what states have determined and the brakes were taken off with the Supreme Court decision that they could define other ways to determine nexus to basically either require your business to do reporting and other function or register and collect sales tax in those states. So what they've done is said hey if you're doing over typically in the standard is based on the Supreme Court decision $100,000 in sales or actually more importantly 200 transactions either in the last calendar year or in the prior 12 months and that would mean that they're expecting you if you're a larger business to register and collect sales tax from there … of any consumers buying products you're shipping to into that state. Joe: How many transactions do you say? It was 200? Scott: 200. Joe: So if it's a $20 sale it's only what 1,000? Scott: $1,000. So $100,000 people see the $100,000 and think that oh God there's no way I didn't know you'd do $100,000 in any states last year, but it's totally based on your average. So if you take your average sale price and multiply it times 200, if you've done more than that revenue in any states that have these laws you're over that threshold. Joe: Okay so economic nexus passed by the Supreme Court, when does it take effect is it immediate or is there-? Scott: It's immediate for the roughly 23, 24 states that already had these laws on the books. And the only thing that was holding them back were these court cases that were just … was decided a week and a half ago. Joe: Okay so there's 24 states, not all 45 that collects sales taxes but that is 24 of them. And for folks listening, we will add a list of those 24 states but there'll be a lot of resources in the show notes that we'll give you that through their software as well. Scott: Well and it's not just economic nexus, you have to remember there's now notice in reporting states that aren't doing economic nexuses but have set thresholds for doing notice and reporting. They're basically two different new ways of determining nexus and they're both in effect now and there are other states that have them starting later this year and more. So it's multiple ways of nexus that might impact your business. Joe: Okay so I'm just going to say a few years ago I did a presentation at Rhodium Weekend all about e-commerce selling and part of it was sales tax collection accounting. So I wanted to say to Yana if you're listening I was right. She came after me after that now that's never going to happen. It's right. So really just don't even worry about the 24 states I think physical nexus, economic … basically get prepared to collect and remit sales taxes everywhere and use a special service that can allow you to do that. First though … and we'll get to that but first do you have to register to collect sales taxes? Scott: Yes. You have to if you are not registered you don't have a license and a number from the state, it's criminal to collect sales tax and not remit it and not have a license. It's also criminal to collect sales … have a license to collect sales tax and not give it to those state. Those two things have additional penalties and they'll come after the business owner's criminally. So you need to have a license before you start collecting sales tax and then once you start collecting sales tax you have to give it back to the state either monthly, quarterly or annually; whatever they say. Joe: Okay just to clarify, you used the word criminally three times. That's a little scary. Scott: Well it's … but unfortunately both Amazon and Shopify and these other sites, I mean literally there's a button in Shopify that you can click that says collect sales tax in all states. And it's easy to start collecting sales tax in the 45 states that have sales tax. So technically it's very easy to hit these buttons and not realize and you just want to be careful. And in difference between criminal is there's additional by jail. Everything else related to sales tax is expense and cost which is more likely to happen but maybe not as painful but can be pretty painful based on penalties and interest and other things. Joe: Right. Okay, so first and foremost let's just define and answer this simple basic question that some folks have been asking, does this mean … and I know the answer to this thus do you, does this mean quote unquote I have to start collecting sales taxes? The answer is yes. The answer is you should have been collecting them before, you had to before. Correctly? Scott: Well correct, if you have physical nexus that goes back in time. Okay, most of these economic nexus laws are new. And the way they're currently written is if you pass the threshold then the expectation is you register and start collecting sales tax going forward. So there's going to be nuances and changes but in general, if you exceed most of these thresholds for economic nexus or notice in reporting basically the expectation is you go out, you register now, and you start collecting forward. And there's no … depending on the state but for most states, there's no real risk of you owing money or have not done whatever in the past, you can go forward. But when you have physical nexus because of Amazon FBA or a 3PL then you need to consider if you register and collect going forward where you still have a risk of any previous outstanding liability which I know within a sale you're very aware of to make sure you know both the seller and the buyer are aware of any business liabilities or do you go back in time and pay anything that you didn't collect in the past; which isn't fun. Collecting sales tax or paying in sales tax you didn't collect from the consumer on each individual sale. Joe: Yeah because that's directly coming out of your profits now instead of collecting and just passing it through. Scott: Yup. Joe: Okay, so let's jump to making this easy for people that are listening. The bottom line is that they need to start collecting sales taxes and remitting them. Obviously, get registered to collect sales taxes. There're software out there that does this right? Because you're talking about you need to do this, you need to do that, and for me as a former physical products e-commerce seller, my eyes would roll into the back of my head, I would [inaudible 00:15:15.0] more and I'd never wake up again. Can't … Can I just pay somebody to do this for me and if yes what are the options and how much would it cost me annually or monthly? Scott: Well the first part, so you don't pull out your own hair, is there are multiple services out there that will help you with the registrations and register you in multiple states because it will drive you crazy. Every state is a little bit different. On average I'll pay about $100 per registration plus $20 to $50 in registration fee for some states, that's the first piece. So if you've decided to register in two, five, ten, whatever number of states you need to get registered first and I suggest … it'll just drive you crazy, is would be to get registered and there are a number of services out there that can do that for you. Joe: Okay and we'll put those in the show notes but why Scott only five or ten whatever you decide to get registered? And why wouldn't you register for every state that requires you to collect sales taxes? I guess maybe because you never sell any … somebody in the state of- Scott: So one it's just that overhead in the cost of doing business. So the first thing there are 45 states that have a sales tax and we are all heading sometime … I would have said three to five plus years that we're going to collect sales tax on every e-commerce sale, it's now probably two to four years or two to three years. It's going to happen a lot faster but there is a cost even on the low cost tool or outsourcing it … and I'll talk about some of those numbers in a minute, but you really only at this point want to register for sales tax where you have to. You shouldn't have to if … now if you're already a 20 or 30 million dollars e-commerce business just suck it up and go to all 45. Joe: Right. Scott: Anybody else below there, you're paying more money for compliance and tools and registrations. And in some of these states when you register for sales tax nexus you are in some ways volunteering to pay income tax. Potentially depending on the state and the situation; minimum franchise tax like in California which is $800 a year, and then additional fees, and not only the sales tax cost but paying a CPA to file and deal with franchise tax returns and income tax returns. So you want to as a small business or even a medium sized business minimize that overhead and only do this in the states you need to but you definitely want to start the big states where the population are. California, Florida, Texas, and those other bigger ones is the basics to get that going but you would want an easier way in. So figure it out for the first batch that you're doing and then do another batch and another batch. So you just can't stop your whole business to do sales tax and you just have to balance those things out. But at the same time, you don't want to show this huge [inaudible 00:17:52.3] selling and talking to Quiet Light. This huge compliance overhead and its overkill and it's going impact your own profitability and the money you're taking out of the business. So just want to find a balanced approach as you get there. Joe: How do you determine that? Is there a tool or process inside of Shopify or if you're an Amazon Seller that tells you that you know what sales you have by state? Scott: Yeah so there are two … for sales price there's a couple of ways to do it. So the first if you're an Amazon FBA seller there's a great tool called wherestock.com you pay him $30 and they'll log in … we'll get you the link, and they'll connect your Amazon site and they'll … it'll take them about a day and they'll give you a report showing you all the warehouses where you have inventory and when it started. How far back in time if you had inventory in the Michigan warehouse and if you go through that list and you don't see North Carolina or some states because of the type of your products it'll tell you, you might have had or five of these main states that you've never had inventory in and you don't have nexus there; which is great news. The next piece is really a matter of downloading all of your orders out of Shopify for the previous 12 months or the last year and then just pivoting the data or doing a total if you know how in Excel to show you your sales; both the number of sales in each state and the total dollar volume in each state. So you want to know your own numbers and any that you're over $100,000 in sales or unfortunately $10,000 in Washington State, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma starting on Sunday I think. I think it just started Sunday. I think it was July first and it's happened right before it. Those are $10,000 in sales which is really low, everybody else is 100,000. So that'll … you'll go through those states and add up the ones that you have, look at the ones that you have the most amount of sales and income in and start with those. You want to know your own numbers and work through your own list. The other option is and I can provide a link to our tax calculator that we have in there … bunch of other people putting them out there that basically take your average sale amount enter it and it will total all those things up. But those are the two things; one, all of your income across all of your sales and then this Amazon wherestock report to let you know what's going on in FBA and that'll be in your information and then you just build a list and you work your way through your own priorities on how many you want to do; all at once or a few at a time. Joe: Okay so just to dumb it down a little bit. If you're doing 20, 30 million dollars just suck it up and do all 45 states. But if you're doing maybe just a million dollars in revenue, which is fantastic, do this report because you don't want to have to register in 23 states that instead of all 45 if you don't have to. Scott: Right. Joe: Someone else talked about it in this way. I mean that registration alone is going to cost you $100 to $150 so maybe $3,000 or so for 23 states that you don't have to register in. But if you're only doing $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 in revenue in the state of Montana it doesn't make any sense to register because a. you're not going to hit that threshold and b. realistically Scott is if someone in the state of Montana that works in- Scott: Montana is a bad example they're not on sales tax. Joe: Okay. Scott: So pick one of the few states that doesn't have one but Nevada or however else- Joe: How about Maine? Scott: So it's always a risk man, your question is so should you or not you … are you going to, can you fly under the radar- Joe: Yeah. Scott: Are they going to find you tomorrow and what's going on? So it's a risk management decision between the cost of compliance to your business versus the overhead and the cost of compliance and then the chance of being caught. There are four million Amazon sellers, there's between five and ten million businesses doing e-commerce these days. The states just had their handcuffs taken off and they're all going to go woohoo let's go get this money from out of state sellers. It's going to take them a while to ramp up and the chances of getting caught are very very low and they have been low and they're still very very low okay? But there isn't really no ambiguity now; there's no more well, maybe, or there's this court case, or whatever else. Joe: Right. Scott: So until now and whenever possibly the Congress does something or more lawsuits happen which take time this is the way things are today and you just have to make that decision of a risk management. So you never want to mess around with the IRS when it comes to payroll taxes or W-9s and contractors but for sales tax, you're going to have to balance those out. But the chance of being audited or being notified by the state is significantly higher than it's ever been in the past. Joe: Okay let's talk about the services that are out there; as in the software or services that you recommend for listeners just … you can do your download calculator that I'm going to provide in the show notes to determine the revenue by state and things of that nature to decide where they want to register. But what softwares or service programs do you recommend that folks check out that you have seen people use consistently that make this a whole lot easier? Scott: Yeah for people doing it themselves I would start with TaxJar it's by far the easiest to use most straightforward they … not only do they pull in all the data but they process the filing for sales tax and the payments in all 50 states. It's both the easiest and I, from what I've seen the lowest cost. They're a great tool. They have a great blog and a ton of information and support and it's the best way to do it yourself. The next one that's a little more powerful- Joe: Hold on a second. Scott: Yeah? Joe: In terms of a TaxJar thorough cost ballpark if someone's to put in all the states what would the overall cost be to … and do they do registration or just compliance? Scott: Okay so TaxJar does not do registrations. Joe: Okay. Scott: It's only the sales tax data aggregation to pull it all together from channels. Pull everything together. One note is if you have sales that are outside of Amazon, Shopify, or BigCommerce you have to import that data into TaxJar so that you have the complete thing. From all the sales so your filings are accurate. But in general, you're going to pay a monthly fee between I think 29 and up to 500 depending on the number of sales. Whether it's a thousand per month, 5,000 you know … in larger apps you're going to pay a base monthly fee no matter what; totally reasonable wherever your SaaS thing. And then you're going to pay a per-filing transaction. So if you're paying filing quarterly you're going to pay four times somewhere between $21 and $30 per filing. I don't have their pricing memorized. Joe: Sure. Scott: So if you're filing quarterly your costs are going to be lower. If you're filing annually it's going to be these monthly fees. So if you're a smaller seller the pricing can work out to be fairly affordable. They also have kind of an unlimited filing piece so if you get over a certain level … and I haven't done the math whether it's 20 states or 30 states but there's a certain point where you can pay it for kind of an unlimited plan and get to a max price. I think that's in the 4 to $6,000 for the year kind of total. But you can using that tool max that out and really lock that compliance cost in. Not counting your time making sure it's being done right. Importing data, dealing with notices, and just making … keeping an eye on it, it's not a set and forget process. Joe: So, on the high side it sounds like maybe $500 a month and your maxing out the services there, on the low side $29 a month so it all depends upon the size of the seller and how much you do. Okay, you are about to mention another- Scott: So the next one I would say is Taxify and that's what we use because we're doing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of returns every month. It's a little more powerful in certain ways. They have integrations. It can handle a wider range of different businesses and there's … it's just they're really kind of head to head but for DIY most people go with TaxJar just because it's easier to use. TaxJar is more powerful if you have a more complex business. You might want to consider it or compare the two. Pricing is pretty similar between those two and- Joe: Those using TaxJar you said TaxJar, not Taxify. Scott: No we're using Taxify. We are using Taxify. Our accounting practice for us to file we use Taxify but I've known the TaxJar guys for six years now and they really do have a great solution. And any of our stuff we talk about those two is really the primary ones to consider third one is- Joe: Hold on I want to just interrupt again sorry. On this option, you're saying you already use it which means that with your accounting services for sellers of a certain size I assume, the collection, the management, and remittance of the sales taxes are part of your services as well. Scott: Correct. Joe: So I don't have to learn the software, I can hire you guys to do it. Scott: Correct. Joe: Okay. Scott: Well and I'll talk about some other … outsourcing is absolutely a viable, just like you outsource fulfillment to a 3PL or to Amazon FBA, sales tax is something you don't want to geek out on. I've done it for the last six years, it drives me crazy but I geek out on it. It just … it will distract you from listing products and buying products and designing new products and all the front end stuff to generate more income. That is absolutely something you want to … you might like that we look at here's how you do it yourself and you should understand anything you outsource but we do that. We offer the service but we also do notice management. The states send all kinds of notices. Even if you pay on time they'll send you a notice but if you don't respond to the notice they'll fine you for not responding to the notice. So there's more to it than just a set and forget tools. These tools are phenomenal as they deal with the complexity. Because every return is different, they have 50 different fields. They really aggregate the data and reduce the complexity of filing and paying which is awesome which is why we use automation. But then there's there is more to it. Joe: Okay, you're about to mention a third option for folks. Scott: Yeah third option is Avalara TrustFile. Now if you really are already a 20 or 30 … so Avalara has two products, they have a smaller and a lower end one which I don't think is as powerful as TaxJar or Taxify called TrustFile which you can use. They've cleaned up their pricing but it's still a little confusing but they're a viable tool. If you're already let's say five or really 10 million and you're doing more than just e-commerce you can consider Avalara AvaTax which is their higher end tool which will give you more control automated. If you have an accounting department it is definitely a tool you would consider. Quite a few CPA's and accountants use AvaTax as well to do more complex larger sales tax across multiple businesses. So those are really the key players, there are other smaller players out there but those are really the key players that are really focused and understand what's going on out there. Joe: Okay. I was listening to your better half Patti on your YouTube channel. She does a great job, by the way, great Q and A's there. I think she mentioned SALT experts and what they do and what not. Can you define what a SALT expert is and why someone listening might want to consult with one of them? Scott: Absolutely so a SALT; Sales And Local Tax expert, these are people that will do one, they can do a nexus study which tells you where you have nexus and it'll tell you whether your products are taxable or not, are they a food, are they a candy, do they have flour in them, are they clothing or … they can go look at all that. You can all interpret what the states say but these are people that do it all the time and will contact the state anonymously or you. The next thing they will do is what's called a voluntary disclosure agreement. If you owe a state tens of thousands of dollars of back tax and you want to come clean because you want to clear out your liability to sell your business and just make sure everything's done right, they'll go to the states anonymously and say I have this seller and they'll represent you. And in some cases get penalties, sometimes interests, and can potentially get a payment plan if you're cleaning up historical sales tax. And you want that person representing you a SALT expert, not your CPA. Unless they've done it multiple times in their own state you really want to talk to someone that's an expert. They're the people you want to call if you're audited to represent you and help you get through an audit. So those are the unique things we haven't talked about but the main thing is you can outsource your sales tax compliance to them. They will do the registrations and most in almost every case they will set things up. Most of them are very technical … in our case we at Catching Clouds we're really great at setting up Shopify to collect sales tax right and Amazon and eBay and in the more technical configurations. So we're very technical accountancy but they will help advise you on those things. They're all over it. They talk to me about the technical stuff, we're really good friends. It's a great community. I'll try to just solve this for sellers but then you can pay them a monthly fee or a per-state fee to take care of the data collection which you have to give them. The filing, the payments, notices, and kind of provide a complete service to outsource your sales tax. You can go to one person, pay them to take care all of your sales tax that's going on and advise you and then they're the ones that are keeping tabs on all the changes that happen every week; every month if that's the route you want to go. Which is a good way to go, in general, I'll give you a safe number, you really want to budget at least $50 per state per month. So you're looking at between $600 and $1,000 per year for this to not be an issue to worry about but you need to budget the right amount. Plus you want to have that same space because everyone's … Arizona's awful that they'll come back the second year and hit you with hundreds of dollars additional fees per county and everything else that you didn't count on and you can't get around and they'll deal with these random issues. Joe: Okay, great. I have a list of those from your website for those listening again in the show notes SALT experts will be available. Sounds like a one stop shopping place to go and just outsource all of this. Of course, some people that want to do the work themselves will have those calculators that you talked about there as well Scott and the links to the Taxify and TaxJar and Avalara. A couple of quick questions before we wrap this up, and maybe they're not quick questions but historically when someone sells their website … their physical e-commerce business in this case, the question of liability for past sales taxes that should have collected is really really gray, right? Scott: Yeah it is. Joe: And only once for those listening how do you solve that problem as a buyer? In most cases, most buyers don't worry about it. They really never have and these are people that are a lot smarter than you and I combined. They don't worry about it; pretty high level folks. In one case I had and think about this as a seller, I had someone that it was … the business sale total value was around $758,000 but they did the math and they said look in the 24 months that you've been around you should have collected X amount of sales taxes and let's call it $50,000 in that purchase price, in that $750,000 in the asset purchase agreement $50,000 was set aside in Escrow for potential sales tax liability purposes. And when the buyer went out to register to get their sales tax in the state of California, Texas, whatever if that state said yes, of course, we'll register you but we know that you owe us from this brand, you didn't own the company but from this brand you owe us $17,000 then that money would have come out of that 50,000. For the record, the buyer was able to register in all the states that he wanted to register and not a single state said okay great but you owe us money hence all 50,000 was released. How does this Supreme Court decision in economic nexus change that liability moving forward for the buyers of these businesses? Scott: I don't think it … I think it only increases the chance of the state contacting you and having to either answer the questions or go through an audit and all of these things are moot until you're actually audited. And you're at that point where you're dealing with an auditor and then then they ask for historical records and financials and everything else. Up until then, it's not really an issue. Unfortunately, though it's the decision of that state; are they going to hold the new business and whoever bought that Amazon seller account? They want to attach the liability to the Amazon account where it was being sold that you buy a continuing Amazon account which is what most people do or is it tied to the prior business and the business owner? The people selling you need to be concerned when you get that big chat to set some of this money aside if the states come after you historically because if you've spent it all, it really … in most cases tends to tie to the original business owner of the business. So I would say that there's … it's really if you're buying [inaudible 00:34:44.4] sale you have to be worried about it more than anything else. If it's an asset sale you're buying this asset, starting a new business, you've got to register fresh and move forward. There's a small risk but only after you've been audited. So it's just a couple of nuances there. Joe: So very very small risk and only after you're audited and the odds of being audited again, incredibly small. Scott: Correct. Joe: Okay. Let's talk about those out there that are wholesaling. They're buying products and wholesaling them, they don't have to collect these sales taxes is that correct? Scott: They don't but you have to follow the rules. The first is and what really does this finding really change is instead of collecting tax exemptions certificates; so for every B2B sale you have to get a tax exemption certificate and it's not just a picture of the sales tax license on the wall of someone's cell phone. You have to have something that has your business name on the top that other companies who you sold it to their tax licenses whether it's one state or multiple states. And it doesn't matter which states they are and an owner or a business manager an approved person of that company signing at the bottom saying they're responsible for the sales tax. Okay? Joe: Is it on a form? Is it an official form that they would fill out? Scott: There's a form per state and there's a great multi-state form. I can get you all of the links and if you want to have a process that you have them and keep in mind that they pretty … a lot of them expire every year. So you want to have all of these forms from your five or 10 or 50 or 500 B2B customers on file. And if you get audited by any given state then you need … then you have these to say hey I didn't have to collect sales tax but if you don't have the forms or they're expired or you're missing them that … then they can say all of that was taxable and you owe the sales tax. Even if the other company sold it and collected sales tax they can double dip and come after the information. What this decision really changed was two things related to B2B sellers. But first, as most people tend to collect tax exemption certificates for their own states where they're filing where they would expect their own business to get audited. Now that it's kind of every state can look at all this information, B2B sellers should start collecting tax exemption certificates on every sale. And if you have your top five or ten B2B customers, go back and get them from those ones and … to make sure you've got this filed. And then just set it aside in case you're audited. The second big impact of this for B2B sellers is now your B2B sales, number of transactions, and dollars volume count towards these economic nexus thresholds. It's all of your sales. It's your B2C sales and B2B. And even if you're 100% B2B and you have no tax you're still going to cross this threshold. And the states are still going to expect you to file a return. And it is going to cost you the same amount in compliance for you as it does. Even if you give them no money like every number is zero. Joe: That's really important for people that are doing both B2C and B2B. I was thinking just wholesale B2B but we have a lot of clients that they'll sell to let's say for instance chewy.com they're selling their own website but they wholesale to Chewy. They need to pay attention to this stuff as well. That's great information. Scott: It's all of their sales. It combines both and it's looking at all of your sales. Because what the really the states are doing and all these laws are meant to do is to get to the point where every transaction is taxed and they get a sales tax from every sale. That's what they're trying to do so pretty much most of the pain goes away if you register and collect in a state. You don't have to worry about different fines and fees or other unknowns, you can start defining your cost of compliance but that's really where we're going. Joe: Okay. Do you think this Supreme Court decision is good or bad? Overall for the individual states that are going to be applied this collect and collect is what I'm saying. Scott: I think it's bad for e-commerce sellers. I really do. The compliance costs just went from an unknown maybe I can avoid them to … and we're heading that way so I think it's bad for e-commerce sellers. Of course, it is great for the state bureaucracies that are going to go out and collect a bunch of money from other states until something else changes to back it down. I think it's going to increase the risk for smaller sellers and even mid-range sellers of having more unknown's that could impact your business. From us, as consumers, we're really getting to the point as a company … a country since we're so consumer based, it's all about products and services and things along those lines that we're really heading to the point where we're going to pay a sales tax on everything. It's just that the cost and the complexity and potential risks to all small businesses, not just e-commerce businesses, anybody that has a product and ships it out of state or does anything else now has to be concerned about that much more in running a business that you know e-commerce businesses are 24/7, running really fast, the rules are constantly changing, you just didn't need this additional in my opinion large overhead of cost of doing business to really impact them. Joe: Right at the end of the day hopefully it would be great for states and the roads and highways and schools in the state in which you live. But for now, it's a major complexity that you as an e-commerce owner have to deal with. Scott, as always you're fantastic. These details are great … for me personally they're overwhelming many times but that's the point of the show notes and simplifying it and really … perhaps hiring that SALT expert to do the vast majority of this work for those listening that choose to go that route. Scott before we depart any last thoughts or recommendations for people that are listening; both buyers and sellers? Scott: Yeah. Just take a deep breath plan out time once a month or a quarter to focus in on this. Add up your numbers, decide your risk tolerance, and then move on. And then don't worry about it for that month or quarter. And then when you decide to do it, think about what it is you're doing and make a decision and move on. You don't have to stop all your business or sales or everything else. Just take a practical approach. This is one more thing that has to be on your regular process; like checking your insurance or other things that you're validating. And just keep moving; keep selling and growing. Balance the risk and then just move on. Joe: That's great thanks, Scott. As always appreciate it look forward to seeing you at the next event and hopefully lots of folks will reach out to you here. And be at peace of mind here with what you've shared. Thanks so much, Scott. Scott: Well, thank you. Links: Catching Clouds eCommerce Accounting Patti's Q&A about Sales Taxes and the new SCOTUS Ruling Catching Clouds Academy Fox News Supreme Court sales tax ruling: The winners and losers MSNBC Supreme Court Rules States Can Require Shoppers To Pay Online Sales Tax Internet Sales Tax | What Online Retailers Need to Know Sales Tax Nexus Threshold Calculator Sales Tax Permitting with SalesPermitted.com Get your FBA stock locations summarized and delivered to your inbox. Sales and Local Tax (SALT) Experts – Outsource Everything Cathie Stanton and Lauren Stinson, Cherry Bekaert ► http://cherrybekaertsalestax.com/ Michael Fleming ► www.salestaxandmore.com ► https://www.salestaxandmore.com/chart… Diane Yetter ► www.salestaxinstitute.com ► https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/res… SaaS Sales Tax Apps: TaxJar ► https://www.taxjar.com/ Taxify ► https://taxify.co/ Avalara ► https://www.avalara.com/us/en/index.html

The Quiet Light Podcast
Building an Amazon Affiliate Business from the Ground up – with Chris Guthrie

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 3, 2018 41:31


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.

Hustle And Flowchart - Tactical Marketing Podcast
Mike Matuz — How To Find Antiquated Industries And Disrupt Them

Hustle And Flowchart - Tactical Marketing Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2018 65:58


If you’ve ever wondered if it was time to just get out there on a new path with a business model to see if it’s Grammy worthy or a straight to the rental rack kind of gig, Mike Matuz is the guy to enlighten you. Mike’s sole mission is to help anyone with a great business idea to succeed. He lends his 5 years of experience going from a new gym owner carrying debt to being fully self-funded as a prime example of what tuning in to business disruption can do for anyone who’s ready to get into action.   Now Mike’s journey is to coach and mentor others who want to reinvent themselves as they bring new solutions to antiquated markets and test the waters before they jump with both feet into the entrepreneurial pool. Today you’ll hear plenty of passion from these three guys as they discuss curation over creation, why being a consumer can make you a great producer, and how to spot a business disruption from a mile away.  If Mike’s wisdom gets you thinking outside the box, be sure to check out our recent episodes with Josh Bartlett and Aaron Fletcher to keep you moving towards your own corner of the “be your own boss” universe.   It’s human evolution. You’re not meant to spend 80 hours a week under fluorescent lights in a cubicle...Money gives you options.”  - Mike Matuz   Some Topics We Discussed Include: What kind of bromance brews in the water at an  Aaron Fletcher mastermind? How ADD is an asset for an entrepreneur When is the best time to fail forward? Four steps to help you determine  if you want in on a business venture Do we smell a SAAS in Evergreen Profits future? Where’s the arbitrage and why you should care… Why geographic  locations are tuned into the  entrepreneurial effect Self-liquidating degree? Hmmmm… Everything intersects at these two “M’s” Why business disruption is about curating not creating Details you should be granular about This is the monumental hurdle to a disruption taking hold The most antiquated business model in the history of the world,  according to Matt and Joe How to make a great player into an MVP Is the funnel the thing? Spin it to win it...It’s not all about the rich getting richer for business models anymore One of the two things you must simplify to cause business disruption Contact Mike Matuz: Book Mike to speak or for coaching on his website Watch Mike on YouTube Connect with Mike  on Facebook Find Mike on Instagram References and Links Mentioned: Mike’s Real World MBA program The Launch Lab in Long Beach Perry Marshall live mastermind Kcomm Aaron Fletcher’s live event Die Empty by Todd Henry Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris Road to Reinvention by Josh Linkner Hustle & Flowchart Masterclass #62 with Josh Bartlett Drunken Podcast with Aaron Fletcher Need help with your own business disruption so you can obliterate the too much work and not enough play model? Click here and apply to work with us.

The Quiet Light Podcast
SaaS Buyer Purchases Multi-Million Dollar Site & Shares Secrets to Beating All Cash Offers

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2018 29:37


If you've ever wanted to sell or purchase a SaaS business, listen to this Podcast because Nathan Singh has done both. He sold his own SaaS business in early 2017, only to turn around and buy a bigger SaaS business in December of the same year. He's a former NASA Scientist who out-negotiated a full price, all cash buyer to win the deal and close on a multi-million dollar SaaS website. In this interview Nathan shares how he approached his listing review, initial seller conference call, due diligence, navigating the SBA process and the transition after the sale. Nathan also shares why he feels SaaS businesses are the right fit for him, and what other types of website business models he looked at during his search. Episode Highlights: Learn how to make a buyer love you – and want to sell to only you. Interviews should be conversational, friendly and flow naturally. Nathan shares his SaaS due diligence process for this business. Seller was meticulous using Asana and Dropbox with SOPs and a streamlined process. How to navigate the SBA process and the team he worked with. What was it like to take over a remote team that was loyal to the owner. How he took over the business, worked for three weeks and then went on a three week vacation. SaaS Businesses produce recurring revenue without product working capital. Seller worked part-time and Nathan is planning full-time to expand and growth the business. Nathan purchased this SaaS business with an SBA Loan. Tax returns matching the P&L is great, but not always the case for solopreneurs. Keeping the sale confidential is critical until the APA is singed. https://youtu.be/yj_XkpWdRKs Transcription Mark: Hey Joe, how are you doing? Joe: Doing great today, how are you doing today Mark? Mark: I'm still under the weather. Joe: I had somebody tell me at the prosper show recently that they obviously enjoyed the podcast they came out to pay this compliment, but that he could tell we were in different parts of the country. I'm not sure how, I said “Did you watch” he said “No, I listened”. And he knows that we're in different parts of the country. So where are you in the world just so people understand? Mark: How in the world did he know that? Joe: I don't know. It's your funny accent I think. Mark: I'm up from Minnesota, although people think that Minnesotans have an accent, we do, but especially up north. Not as much in the city. I'm in the Twin Cities the Saint Paul side. If anybody's ever coming to the twin cities just drop me a wine and be happy to get together. Where are you? Joe: I'm just northern shell at North Carolina out in Morris zone North Carolina, and the more people I talk to, there's lots of sellers around here, lots of buyers around here and I've connected to just quite a few so anybody in this area, reach out. Mark: I thought down in North Carolina you guys supposed to have a bit of a twang accent, aren't you? Joe: No, not from here. [inaudible 0:01:47] from here. Everybody moves here because they're too darn cold up north. I grew up in Maine. We fled to the south back in 2006. Mark: Ah, ah. Whoever that was that knew we were in different parts of the country, I want to know how. That's pretty good. Joe: Not only did he know that, he came up to me to thank you and me personally for doing the Podcast, number one, and doing it with Norm Ferrar on SOP's because he got to connect with Norm, and it helped take his business to the next level, and he said it has made a huge difference in his business and his life. Mark: That's fantastic! Joe: Yeah! It's a feel good moment at that time. Mark: We got to be careful; our heads are going to get really big. Joe: I know, I know. Let's talk about somebody who doesn't have a big head but should, because he's a really impressive guy. That's Nathan Singh. He bought a multi-million dollar SaaS site for a million. He has also been a client. We sold his SaaS businesses before. You remember Nathan well, right? Mark: Absolutely! Joe: Well, Nathan is one of the nicest guys, very humble. Former NASA scientist, NASA engineer, and turned entrepreneur. We worked together first on the sale of his business last spring, and then he purchased a multi-million dollar SaaS site I've closed in the fourth quarter. And in review, we're sharing on this Podcast a lot of the things that he did right to make a great impression on the buyer, to out-negotiate all cash buyers to work with the SBA and lender to literally, quote, Nathan is one of my favorite clients of all times from the SBA lender, and the under writer as well. He instilled confidence in everyone all along the way that made him the choice to be the buyer that they approved him overlooking at other buyers as well, and he has just done a great job. Getting the business sold and then he talks a little bit about what he has done since purchasing the business including going on a three week vacation within three weeks of buying a multi-million SaaS business. Mark: Wow that's pretty brave! I don't think I could've done that. Joe: He had it planned, he took it and things went well, and they continue to go well. Mark: That's really good. So I'm excited to listen to Nathan. Nathan is generally, one of the nicest guys I've dealt with in 10 years, and I've dealt with a lot of nice people but he rises at the top of the list of one of the nicest guys. I'm excited to see him in the video, because I don't think I've ever met him in person. Also, more importantly, listen to what he has to say. Mark: Let's go to it! Joe: Hey Nathan welcome to Quiet Light Podcast! How are you today? Nathan: I'm doing well, thanks for having me. Joe: Excellent man! We haven't chatted for a while. I know you've been traveling so welcome back. Listen, we've talked about this briefly but the tradition on the Quiet Light Podcast is that we don't read scripts and do flowing introductions of our guests. We'd rather hear it straight from you so, for the folks that are listening today, can you share some background on yourself as an entrepreneur and where you come from? Nathan: Yes sure. So, before I was even an entrepreneur, I started off doing software engineering, and mostly high level stuff on requirements and project management. Work on department of defense for a couple of years and then moved on to their space operation. So while I was there, I really got the bug, for trying to start my own business that we knew we have an idea what I was going to do, but I just happen to run across somebody who was selling an app and basically started his app and it was a screenwriting program called Scripts Pro, brew that out for a couple of years and then it got acquired, and I was like “I want to do this again” so it just rings and repeat. After that I had an online ordering platform called Order Zen and had the same with that. At that time was actually easy to broker. So I brew that out till what I can do, and then we got that acquired, of course with a seller for that one. Pretty much after that, we became very tight, and I monitored your listings specifically, very closely, and then we came across the listing for Envira Gallery and that's kind of have [inaudible 0:05:57] Basically, that's pretty much the background that I had since industry extinct and that's why I [inaudible 0:06:02] it over to this senior entrepreneur acquisitions have been online businesses. Joe: I think you sort of lightly flew, touched over the fact that you were a NASA scientist. I mean, come on, that's a glowing thing to have in your resume. Let's not make that too light. It's an interesting transition from a scientist working at NASA to becoming an entrepreneur. I guess once you get the bugs, you will get the bugging, and you can't stop. So that's great. So I want to talk a little bit about the process that we went through, and you in particular, went through in buying Syed's business. Syed was a guest on the Podcast as well, as you know. In terms of how it works for you and what we looked at, can you, for the people that are out there looking at businesses and building portfolios of online businesses, can you talk a little bit about your vetting process and how you went about it? Then we'll jump into how you handled the call of Syed and the whole process right through the closing. Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. So the good thing, I mean I had some pretty good time between the time that I sold my last business and the time that I was working. So I got pretty acquainted to what was in the market, multiples they were going for, and the kind of business that sell out. So predominantly I was looking at SaaS businesses. I've been it in before. I love the fact that it was recurring revenue, there's no product I had to deal with, so I really zero in on that as my primary, well, it's more left open to great businesses that had good year over year return, and Syed just sort of filled all those checkmarks. They had great in over a year return, it was growing. In his case there was kind of a lower owner involvement which is great because that allows me to come in at full time and really push at the growth. So those were some of the main key characteristics. But one of the biggest ones, I know that you're familiar with this one. First question I'll ask you is, “Joe, is this taxable?” and I wanted to make sure that was it, because I wanted to leverage my money as much as possible. It may not be for everybody but we certainly list, so I've been trying to pursue SBA business and the loans for a while, [inaudible 0:08:04] And as you know that's not been easy for the last, however many years. But I would say within the last year too, I've seen more qualified banks and qualified SBA folks come in and be able to really take that sort of thing with ecommerce businesses and SaaS businesses, know what they're talking about, and present it to their credit department, and make it happen, and I actually solve with Stephen Speer, he's not even a competitor, he's a guest as well. Joe: That's right Stephen Speer from BankUnited, for those that haven't heard the Podcast, he was a guest. Very informative, as far as lenders go, I'd say Stephen is top notch, the best, and he's an entrepreneur, sort of, himself. Yes he's a lender with BankUnited but he works from home often, more often than not, and lives our lifestyle which is really unique, and he understands ecommerce and so he is underwriter, really important. So for those not familiar with the SBA, it's Small Business Administration. If you're buying a two million dollar business for instance, you don't have to have two million dollars. You can have 200,000 dollars and really leverage your money. But note, is Austin a ten year note which obviously works very well in terms of these online businesses. Let's jump to the first call that you had with Syed. Nathan, can you talk about your objective was on that first conference call would start? Nathan: Yeah, so the objective is pretty much similar as with most sellers, you try to get a feel for the seller and knowing the business with its seller personally. You're going to be working pretty close to this guy or girl. So, the main thing is, I want to understand what Syed does day to day, what is his outlook for the business, you know, kind of that more, the regular things that you'll for even if you're buying a house, and how the thing was maintained. So with Syed, it was really, we talked about this before. He knew early on that I was a gator so that kind of help me knock a little bit there too. Joe: What do you mean gator? What does that… Nathan: For the gator, so quarter gator not [inaudible 0:10:11] it's seminal, it's two different things.. Joe: Did you see the Podcast by the way? Nathan: I heard the Podcast with Syed. Joe: I put the hat on and I have a gator said hold up… There it is right there folks.. Nathan: But yeah, it was really bad to understand, you know, kind of gains and knots in the businesses. I was a buyer, one of the specific things you're looking for is, is there anything I'm missing that wasn't in the perspectives, in terms of, what is the seller doing that if I remove him from this equation, will I still be able to do this? Because that taught something that you will rarely see at perspectives and even on conversation. You're kind of feeling out for that but at the main time, at the main thing, what I would advise, anybody that's listening that's looking to buy a business, because I've been doing this for a while, in terms of talking to sellers, and back and forth, and I've been selling my own business. You don't want this to be a stringent interview where you're just running through all these questions, you want to be very conversational and let it flow. I've gotten a lot of good results by doing things that way. I think that was the main thing, is that we kept it friendly and conversational instead of, “I'm trying to figure out why you're selling this because I don't trust you.” It was just a totally different approach. Joe: I can tell you that, with the conversation that you had with Syed, he has told me that on that call he wasn't looking forward to it being over. He enjoyed the conversation and the things that you had in common like the gators, but more along the line of taking care of the customers, and taking care of your people or your staff first, and he really enjoyed it. Where some of the other conversations that other seller have, they can't wait until it's over. I had that experience with one of the people that called me when I had my business for sale back in 2010. He was rude, he was abrasive, and I did all I could to stay on the line and be polite, and just wanted the call to be over. Even if he made me a full press offer I would have a hard time selling him the business. So that makes a huge difference, I think when you ended the call with Syed, his thought was, “Man I really hope Nathan makes an offer, loves to do business with him, and the people that are using my services and products, and the staff that I have in place, will really enjoy working with Nathan and thrives with him as the leader of the business.” Is that kind of what you were shooting for or it's just natural that you did that? Nathan: You know I think it's a little bit of both, I've sold being on the opposite side and being on Syed's then while I was selling my business, I've come across different buyers and newer party's conversations, when you just talk to them, you're like, this is not the right fit. Even if this guy came with a complete cash offer or whatever it could be, this may not be the right fit. With Syed, I kind of guessing here, I think he was sort of looking, not so much about the deal or the money but he was looking for a right fit because he was worried about his folks that were, i mean these are all permanent employees with no contract, there's really in this business, five of them, and so he really cared about them and he really cared about the customers. A lot of it came from me just doing things that were customer centered, I've always run companies like that, I've run teams that way, and I just sort of mentioned that, I was like, I don't know who else your other buyers are, but this is the way I do things, so I don't know if that fits within your battle, it just happen to be that way, and then I heard later on that these were his core values, and those are my core values, and we just sort of mesh over that. Joe: Yeah, it was exciting factor in choosing you over the, technically, two other buyers. Let's talk about, jump forward to your due diligence process, what was your goal in due diligence, how did you approach it, and how long did it take? Nathan: You know, it's funny. I've done more due diligence in past businesses that was much smaller. I'll sort of elaborate it on line. So the initial due diligence I've coarsely didn't know, returns on profit and loss versus statements and all that good stuff, what you're supposed to do. I did not do as deep with due diligence solely because of the talks that me and Syed did have, and just the reputation that Syed had. So his influence in the WordPress community, he has got a lot on the line. So I didn't really have to worry about him ripping you of and stuff like that. He was really worried about, they going to the right buyers, versus me worrying I've got the wrong seller and the wrong product and… Joe: But you still verified that financials that was to make sure… Nathan: Yeah, the basic stuff was all done but I didn't lose any sleep worrying if it's something was going to happen because, again, there's still background that you've parked over this. When you see that the tax returns are completely reflective with the P&L that got submitted and the perspectives, that right there gives me the warm fuzzy I need as I go forward. I don't have to kick and [inaudible 0:15:00] as much, trying to figure out where am I getting ripped off. You're going more with the mindset, okay the basis is there and everything else should just work flow and it did. But that was the main stuff, it's just making sure that everything wind up with ways that it was. Joe: You only note on the tax returns, for those buyers and sellers listening, Syed had a business partner, so often time with partners, the tax returns and the P&L's are very very clean. When you are a solo entrepreneur, your more things, personal things with the business, it can get a little bit messier. The SBA looks at the tax returns, first and foremost, they'll use the P&L's if it's halfway through the year, and three quarters went through the year, thanks for that nature. But the tax returns are first and foremost, and what they do, their valuations off of. So don't be completely afraid if you're a solo entrepreneur, that you cannot sell a business, then have it be, financed with an SBA loan because you absolutely can. With the lenders that we've worked with, they understand the add tax schedules and the personal benefits that anyone takes, and so do the underwriters within the group that we work with there. So, you didn't worry too much about the due diligence process, naturally, you verified the financials, you had several calls with Syed, and you went through the process with the SBA. Let's jump to that for just a moment, what was it like going through the SBA process and what did you had to do? Nathan: Yeah, the fun thing is that I had actually been through this process with previous businesses before, and so I've actually gone to that fun part of the business. We just had issues and pulled out. I was familiar going in. So first of all, kudos to Stephen, kudos to you, and kudos to Syed for just being an awesome team for making it all happen. That's probably why we had them work speedy close than what's usually expected. But you know, aside from that, I think having everything ready to go, I mean, Stephen was good about that, and pretty much gave me more or less the stuff that I needed in terms of, “These are things on the checklist, you should probably have this done because from my experience I know that it's more of that likely go through”. That helps, because a lot of times, there's always [inaudible 0:17:17] going on, a lot of times the buyer takes a long time to get stuff back. So we didn't really have that issue here. But you know, again, it really mattered. I've worked with SBA bankers before, and it really matters on who it is that you're dealing with. With Stephen's case, he just had everything down. He's done ecommerce, he's done SaaS businesses, there is no “Well how does this work or where is the? So tell me where the hard assets are in the business?” There was none of that. So that kind of straight lined the process really well for all of us. But I think just having that stuff done upfront, that's what helped us get really done at speedy line. Joe: You said that Stephen and myself and the underwriters all worked very well together and Syed and so on and so forth. I happen to have dinner with Stephen and the underwriter that worked on your business, they were both in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago, and they both talked about you being one of their favorite buyers. So for anybody listening, this stuff matters, Nathan brought a business, would that note to the seller, when somebody else made and all cash offer. The seller chose Nathan over that all cash offer at the same purchase price, because he liked Nathan and what he stood for. The SBA lender and the underwriter, both said that Nathan was one of their favorite buyers of all time which makes process easier. They're going to work harder for you when they like you. It's human nature, so really really important to understand that aspect of it. Let's jump now on to closing, training, and transition, and what's taking place since then. I think we closed just before Christmas. By the way it was probably from letter of intent to closing about 50 days which is fairly short for an SBA loan, and we had a full week of thanksgiving in there, so call it 45ish. What's transpired since you close, how was it going, what was training and transition like and so on and so forth? Nathan: Yeah, again, comparing it to the past businesses I've had and worked with the past sellers, it's been night and day. The great thing is that because of the level of business, you know that will add the seven figures, because Syed runs seven and eight figure business above, he's very meticulous. So the first thing he did was setup, you know when they found a project in a drop box to view list. With all other things that his team needed to do for me, everything I needed in there. So that made it a lot more extreme ride then. Again if you're selling your business and you're getting to that point, make sure you have something like that in place, because that's the other warm fuzz and that lets you know that “Okay it's stuff I'm not thinking about as a buyer, the seller informed about for me” and we kind of running through those checklist. So, you know, I would say the transition went pretty smooth, I mean not really that he cuts.. You know, I talked to the CTO, I talked to the CFO, we all had these one on one's where we talked about what they did, so I made sure that I knew exactly what each person role is because I was taking over a couple of people's roles… Joe: How did they feel by the way, the staff, with you coming in and taking over Syed's role? Were they excited? Were they scared? What was that like to tell them that news? Nathan: You know, I think that initially they were, like most transitions, they were maybe a little one sided, just because, there was a lot of grey areas up until the actual deal was inked. So they were a little one sided, they were a little confused about what was going to happen now, they are getting the impression at something else or did I keep the same things they've had. So from my end, it just took a little bit of, getting them all on, talking to them face to face and letting them know, “Listen, everything stays the same, I've liked the way that Syed have done business, I've planned to keep those same things in place, let me know if there's something you're customed to and that is done because those things have all been accounted for” and so I wanted to do it and make sure I went above and beyond what they were expecting what happened after this transition and just kind of talk them down on the fears of what naturally happens when there's a transition even in corporate out and serious stuff. We're good to go now and that's what kind of passed that. Joe: While we kept it confidential, we didn't want to let the staff know that the business was even for sale, until everything was finalized, inked, and really truly going through. That's something all sellers struggle with, when to tell the core people. In my case, when I sold mine, I think I waited until the asset purchase agreement was signed, because she was valuable to me and I wanted her to stick around for me and for the new owner of the business. So that's what we did here, and I know that Syed said you did a great job instilling confidence in the staff and making them feel comfortable. One of the attractive things about this business is it was one of many businesses for Syed so he wasn't working full time on it. How was the workload then for you, taking over the business? Are you working full time early on or you're finding yourself with more than full time? You're working less? What's that situation like? Nathan: Yes, I'll say initially, at first two weeks, just like any transitions, it was pretty much full time. But I had a pre-planned vacation that's about three weeks long, that I have to go to India. So for me, that was a big deal to make sure that I would be able to leave and just do the minor stuff in the background and have some question, to get things while I'm abroad. Joe: So just, you bought the business, we closed, and then you had two and a half weeks of being around and then you went to India for three weeks? Nathan: Correct. Yeah. Joe: And everything still ran smoothly. Nathan: And everything is still smooth. I mean, that was mentioned to me early on and that was again, that was a really attractive factor to know that. You know, I think you've mentioned that you could move and go to the Far East and come back. That's kind of what I did. So, it was good to come back and see that everything was still in place, that the team was, the team was phenomenal, that Syed did assemble. Each individual player plays a major part in what they do, and for that reason they're also very turnkey. That's a turnkey business, turnkey team. So, that's why when I saw where am I inserting myself, it was kind of learning the role to what's already being done. How can I improve, how can I make things better for them, and be the leadership that Syed has been able to provide and do his other businesses. Joe: Okay, so where do you see your workload now? You were working really busy, after just a couple of weeks you went away for three weeks… Nathan: I would say that corporate atmosphere, it's like still checking at 8:00 to 9:00, I'm out by 5:00 – 5:30 and I'm told, you know, the employees do the same thing. Let's not make this a full 12 or 14 hour a day, and I want to balance that, that work-like balance too. Because I came from that kind of environment and I know it pays good. I usually work the eight or seven hours, sometimes nine whatever it needed. Rather than that, at a certain time before my wife comes home or whatever, I'm usually done, closed out, and I'm trying not to think about it. Joe: Well, what are you working on? Syed didn't work in about a few hours a week on the business and now you're working 30-40. Are you fixing broken things or are you working on to projects and growth opportunities? Nathan: Now the great thing is he built a solid foundation so what I'm really doing is I'm working on the stuff that he wasn't able to do, which is the marketing advertising taking that further gain, the PPC's setup, optimizing on the SEO getting the right content writers in to put that detailed information that we really liked, that's been attracting the other folks and traffic. So it's been really centered around the business development, the marketing and advertising stuff, which has really been done, because again, he's got great and recurring revenue, we've got a great organic traffic through Google, so from that right now, it's the going above and beyond the PPC stuff. The stuff that he didn't have to give and didn't really have to focus on because the business is really self-sustained. Joe: Right, so you want to grow the business, you didn't buy it and just collect a check every month, you're trying to grow it so you're putting in more hours. Nathan: Aside from just the business development, it's also providing that the one on one with these folks. I mean again, these are not contracted. These are folks that have certain benefits and they've liked that type of attention and focus from a leadership. So that's what I'm enable to do, I'm enable to gear about the product road map, provide my input to that where we want to go, instead of just kind of them doing whatever, it's done and just see that the money reach the bank, it's not really that. Joe: As far as much, one thing we haven't touched on is where they work from. You've got five employees, are they all working from an office or they're all remote? Nathan: They are all remote, they have been doing that for many years, so again, I tried to focus and know what side has all of you been doing, since Syed has 40 plus employees, they've been doing this for years, and I think Syed began and has been doing it for 14 to 15 years. So I liked that idea, and I liked the fact that they're able to do this with milestones. I don't know, there's no… You know a lot of times, I would just set a meeting yesterday, but some other guy, they own a company here in Houston, and they were like, how do you keep track? I was like, I don't. There's a lot of trust involved, and there's milestones that are set, and as long as these milestones are being set, I don't care where they're working that 40 hours. Joe: What's your favorite software? What system are you using to communicate and track what they do and work with them? Are you using Slack or what are you focused on? For people that are running remote staff that are having trouble with it, what would you recommend? Nathan: Yeah for Slack it's been awesome. I'm pretty new to Slack, I used Skype on my last business. Slack is way better than that so I highly recommend that. We use Zoom, we do a lot of this, the face to face meetings. I think that matters a lot with the remote staff, was getting at Facetime, and again, letting them know you're just not an employee behind the computer that's just in another state. We're talking to each other, we're going to do once or twice a year meet ups. So we do team building activities, that's super important too. Yeah I would say that Slack, the Zoom, and also Asana. Those things are big key to really help with the project management and the milestones we've set, and Github as well for the developers. Joe: Okay, awesome. Alright Nathan because we're running out of time, how do you see the future of the business? What are you looking over that 12, 24, 36 months? You're going to hold to stay, you grow at 10%, you're going to grow 50%, what are you predicting? Nathan: Yeah, you know, I hate to throw a prediction at it right now, I'm happy if we're over the double digits, anywhere in the double digits will do triple digits in over a year growth, I'm a happy, happy camper. I think when possible again, got a great business, great team in place, and there's nothing but upsides so, I'm looking forward to it. Joe: We'll going to have to check in, in the future and see how it turned out. You have any last minute thoughts for multipliers and sellers? You've been in both shoes, you sold, you offer your services, business, you bought one, any last minute thoughts in terms of what they should do or focus on? Nathan: Yeah, I would say the huge takeaway from this and for me has been, you know, when you're doing these buyer and seller conversations, no matter what side you're on, keep it conversational. It's great to have your question beside, but don't run through it like a machine gun and keep it just robotic and mechanical. Because there's a huge human element here involved and this was a prime example that actually happened. Joe: That's great. Nathan, pleasure doing business with you twice now, I'm looking forward to hearing some great news, great success, with Envira Gallery and so on and so forth. I hope that really works out and maybe we can check in, in the future and do another Podcast update and let the folks know how you've been succeeding. Nathan: Yeah, I would love to. Joe: Awesome man, thanks for your time today. Nathan: Awesome, talk to you later Joe. Links: Nathan Singh – LinkedIn GitHub Stephen Speer @ Bank United for SBA Loans Asana – Making Teams Work

The Frontside Podcast
098: Experience First Development

The Frontside Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 29, 2018 31:03


This Frontsider panel episode explores what virtues go into making quality software, such as having tests, making sure software is performant and accessible, and why you should try to avoid technical debt. Transcript: CHARLES: Hello everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast Episode 98. My name is Charles Lowell, developer here at The Frontside and your podcast host-in-training. With me today, we're going to have a round table, a Frontside round table. With me today is Elrick. ELRICK: Hey. CHARLES: Joe. JOE: How you doing? CHARLES: And of course, Will. WIL: Hello, hello. CHARLES: Welcome, y'all. We're going to be talking today about some of the things that we do around here, aside from trimming the shrubs and making coffee and snacking on Altoids. Like, way too many of them. Yeah. I was thinking we could talk a little bit about software qualities of relative things, like this software has these qualities. And I think that that kind of lofty goal of software quality is comprised of having a bunch of little qualities. The quality of having fewer bugs or the quality of having these things. And so, talking about all these things that we do and kind of what we do to make sure that we continue to do them. Or the ways that we can ensure that our software has these things. So yeah, we can just start really anywhere. WIL: Yeah. So, one core thing is obviously tests. CHARLES: That kind of falls under we want to have – really, there's two qualities there that we want, right? Is we want to have… WIL: Maintainable software. CHARLES: We want it to be maintainable. We want it to be resilient to change. And we want it to work properly, right? Yeah, so we put tests in place to make sure that that happens. JOE: Tests also inform design in a really positive way. A lot of the time, anyway. WIL: Another thing that we like to include in our apps is responsiveness. CHARLES: Yeah. And just making sure that you have – that it works on a multiplicity of devices, right? WIL: Yeah. And not just the devices, but browsers as well. CHARLES: Yeah. And it turns out it's actually really hard to do that after the fact. WIL: Right. JOE: Yeah. CHARLES: Making sure that lots of browsers, lots of devices. Because yeah, sometimes you have some weird screen width that is on some weird device, and making sure that that works. I guess there's some overlap with testing there, too, isn't it, right? Like you want to be running your tests on those devices at those resolutions to make sure that they're going to work. This is something that we aspire to but I don't think we're quite there yet. It was making sure that our applications are accessible. WIL: Yeah. JOE: I'm very excited to learn more about this as we get into this, yeah. CHARLES: Right, right. And asking the question, how is it that we actually can ensure our applications are accessible? We have very paved roads for making sure that our applications are resilient to change and that they have low bug rates and that they're well-designed via testing. But what is the analog of testing for accessibility? What's the way that you can put those guardrails in for accessibility? I have no idea. And that's an ongoing conversation here at Frontside. JOE: So, I guess I'm curious as to what technologies are actually involved in accessing a web application in – would it be reasonable to say a non-traditional way? I know there's such things as screen readers, but is that all we're talking about? Or what is the ecosystem that we have to consider supporting? CHARLES: I'm certainly not an expert on this. We'd have to get Rob in here to chew our ears off this. JOE: Yes. CHARLES: But from what I've picked up from him and from our conventions with Marcy Sutton and some other folks that we've had on the podcast, it's a big umbrella. So, it's anyone using an application in a non-traditional way. So, whether that can have to do with limited vision, hearing, movement, range of movement, cognitive ability, it's a gigantic whale of a domain. WIL: Yeah. The topic of accessibility can definitely be several podcasts on its own. CHARLES: Yeah. One thing that we've talked about is it would be great if you could drive your test suite through a screen reader or something like that. What would that even look like? There are a couple of open source ones out there, but they're Windows-only. I think it was NVDA was the big one. And then you have a screen reader that then drives the applications in your operating system, so it's going to vary per operating system. So, making sure that it's accessible on Windows, at least as I understand it, is very different from making sure that it's accessible on a Mac. JOE: Yeah, it's like a whole other layer. And it's like BrowserStack outside of the browser. CHARLES: Right. WIL: There are things that you can do from the beginning that will make it easier when you get to that point. It's just like using semantic HTML, knowing when and how to use proper aria labels. All these things, if you do it from the beginning, it's not as big of a task as bolting it on afterwards. CHARLES: Right. And I think we do have a leg up when it comes to web applications. It's within our power to change. There are cross-platform of those technologies. But as you said, it's important to put them in from the beginning. Because as we've seen, for each one of those categories, you're accumulating debt if you don't address it. So, there's technical debt. But I think that technical debt can [inaudible] into a bunch of different areas. So, there's technical debt in terms of the internal quality of your architecture, the way your software components talk to each other. And I think that that's what people mostly think of when they talk about technical debt. But I think in terms of responsiveness debt, there's a slice of the technical debt pie that has to do with making your application responsive. And so, if you don't address making your application responsive, you're accumulating debt and you might not know it. And if you're not making your application accessible, then from the beginning you're accumulating debt. So that if you have to go and try and figure out your accessibility story six months, a year, two years, you might actually uncover and say, “Whoops. I've been swiping the accessibility credit card. And holy crap, with all this. All my fines and penalties and compounded interest. Now I'm accessibility bankrupt.” And that can be scary, right? WIL: Yeah. And a lot of people don't realize with all this debt after the fact is they think they're going in and adding things like responsiveness and accessibility and tests. But really, you're also taking away previous work that's already there, things that need to be refactored. If you put these things off, you're not just adding a few hours of time. You're inflating your time exponentially. CHARLES: Right. Right, exactly. It can be intimidating but I think it's also empowering, because technical debt is like a scary subject. But if you're like, “Oh, we can actually slice our technical debt into a bunch of different categories and address them individually,” just knowing that this is an area where debt can accumulate, that's half the battle. Because the worst thing is debt you don't even see. ELRICK: Yeah. WIL: I mean, [inaudible] is big. That's a big part of accessibility, that, is most people don't think of accessibility. So, that is a huge debt that a lot of companies don't see. JOE: What about something like internationalization where I feel like I've never been in an application where that wasn't punted on to some degree. That's kind of a well-known problem, but it still takes a back burner. Do you think that if accessibility had more exposure as a concern, would it actually get the attention it deserves or is it kind of destined to, “Oh, we'll get to those yaml files later. We'll send those off for translation later,” that type of thing. ELRICK: I don't know. Sometimes I feel as though people feel as though they're trading speed away when they're building applications when they go to implement these things. Like, “Okay, well we're not really going to touch on these right now because that's going to slow us down from pushing out features.” Which is not really true. Because if you don't settle on these things early, you're not really building a solid foundation for your application in the long haul. So, I think people are like, “Oh, we'll just do it later.” CHARLES: Right. ELRICK: And, “We'll just ship features now.” CHARLES: Right. I think that's exactly right. It has this kind of secondary effect where not only do you develop the debt but you develop a culture of accumulating debt, right? Like when it comes to people getting a hold of their finances, the first thing that they have to change is they have to change their spending habits. And that can be the hardest thing. It's not just balancing the equation. It's like saying, “I need to readjust my thinking about this.” ELRICK: Yup. CHARLES: So that I'm not consistently put in this situation again. JOE: So, there's an operative word there, right, in personal finance in that usually if a company is addressing technical debt especially down the road, something that they've punted on for a while, it's far from personal. There's a board of directors or there's a special interest group involved. There's people who want features that are putting money into it. There's a lot of pressure as the company grows and more people are involved. Priorities are more likely to be lost, I guess. CHARLES: Are you saying it can be hard when your culture is spread over that many people, it can be hard to shift? JOE: Absolutely, yeah. And I guess to keep with the dash-first thing, ideally were we starting a company, we would want to start a culture for this company. A culture that recognizes the vulnerability that we all have to technical debt as applications grow. We want that upfront. But the reality is, you know, startups are eager to get things out. Companies that have been around for a long time have high-paying clients that they depend on that want certain things. And yeah, I guess I'm just saying that it has to come in from the beginning. CHARLES: Yeah. And I think that – I don't want to completely disparage technical debt entirely, because technical debt like actual debt, like financial debt, is a powerful tool that you can wield. But it's also, it's like a table saw. You can also easily slice your finger off. It doesn't mean that it's not a useful tool, right? If anyone's bought a house, it's really great that you can borrow money to buy a house. It's great that businesses can borrow money and get small business loans to get bootstrapped. And that benefits us all to have that community. I don't think that – yeah, startups definitely, they need to have technical debt as a tool that's available to them. But they just need to understand the consequences of it and be able to get a hold on it. JOE: That's a super interesting take. I never considered it that way before. CHARLES: Yeah. It's definitely not my take. I actually think the person who coined the term ‘technical debt', that was the original idea. But then people realized that technical debt can also get way out of hand. WIL: It's just like real debt. If you're not paying down a certain amount every so often, it's going to keep growing. CHARLES: Yup. You're going to have to declare bankruptcy at some point and throw out the piece of software if you don't pay a down. And that's going to be more expensive. ELRICK: Yup. That's definitely true. So, I have a question. And we see this all the time repeating itself at various companies, whether it's a startup, a large company, where they put off testing and mobile-first, user-first, accessibility-first. Like all the firsts, they just toss it to the side. Why do you all think that that happens so frequently? CHARLES: I think it comes into people not understanding that if you don't address it from the start, it won't happen naturally. There is a prime motivator that has to happen. If you don't imbue something with those qualities when it's tiny, when it's a tiny seed, a tiny crystal, you're going to have to drill through layers and layers and layers of core to put it at the crystal to begin with. I like to think of software as kind of like a tree. And we eat the fruit of the tree, and that's the features that users use. And we can tell that a fruit is delicious merely by placing it in our mouths. And we can tell what fruit is bad. But we can't really look at the fruit itself to say what caused this fruit to be good, what caused this fruit to be bad. We have to look at the tree. And I think that that's what people miss when they're developing software, is that what you really want to do is you want to build a tree that builds good fruit. You can't just take the fruit off the vine and say like, “Hey, I've got this peach but it doesn't have enough sweetness. So, I'm going to take a syringe and I'm going to inject glucose around it and make it less tart.” You say, “I want a sweet fruit,” right? ELRICK: Yeah. JOE: You could probably actually do that. CHARLES: You could. And that might be a strategy. And we see a lot of software that has those qualities of, “Oh, we're going to make this accessible,” or, “We're going to try and make this beautiful.” I happen to think that pigs are adorable animals and look great in lipstick. But that [laughs]… you could put lipstick on a pig but people can tell. And you can say, “Oh, this peach needs to have softer fruit,” and you can whack it with a mallet to actually make the meat more tender. But people are going to be able to tell. So, what you really need to do is you need to care for the peach tree rather than worry so much about the fruit. Because if you have a healthy tree, then you will have healthy fruit, right? ELRICK: Yeah. So, you want to plant good seeds. JOE: Yeah. WIL: Back to you question, Elrick, about what motivates startups and other companies to put off these things. I think the biggest thing is just time and money. They have this misconception where they're saving a little time and saving a little money now just to add it back later. But in reality, it's going to cost them tenfold time and money for adding it later, versus just spending that little bit of time and money and all that to begin with. CHARLES: That's true. JOE: It could also boil down, as far as just personal intimidation. Not so much like a business side of a thing but maybe just, think of all of the things that you listed, Elrick. It was almost a dozen dash-firsts in there. If you're sitting down at a startup that you started with three friends and just approaching these things for the first time, that's a lot to tack on right upfront. It's intimidating. CHARLES: It is intimidating. I think my message to those people is I've felt intimidated by that. I think my message to those people is like, the nice thing about it is if you attack those, if you tack all of those things from the get go, the features will take care of themselves and feel more effortless as you go on. You say like, “Oh, well actually, I don't worry about a high rate of bugs.” I want to say recidivism, but that's not the right word. A high rate of return, not on money but on – or high rate of bouncing your users. You don't want that. And if you bake that in from the beginning, parts of the software development cycle that were stressful before just aren't stressful anymore. So, if we say, “We want to have a system that is easily maintainable, well let's put that in from the very beginning.” We say that a lot. We deploy to production on day one. But what that means is, we say we have this value that we want the system to be easily maintainable. And so, we're going to do it from day one. That means that we actually – it's not something that we worry about so much on down the road. Whereas that used to be very stressful. I don't know. I remember when I started my career, there were these long release cycles where every six months, you'd release software. And the last month was just absolutely terrible as you try to stand this thing up and get it into production and then realize it's not monitored. There's no one checking the health of this thing. So, it's pissing off users at one in the morning. And… WIL: Beepers. CHARLES: What's that? WIL: Beepers. CHARLES: That's actually a great – there's a story there. The one time I got a beeper, I went canoeing in the canals of London and I tipped over my canoe and I dropped both my cellphone and the beeper that they've given me. ELRICK: What? CHARLES: I never got put on pager duty again. [Laughter] JOE: I'm going to use that next time [inaudible] with an on-call position. That's a good move. CHARLES: I remember, I definitely remember how sour my manager's face was when I turned [inaudible] the cellphone that was like, dripping with water. JOE: He was eating bad fruit, probably. CHARLES: Yeah. [Laughs] So, the other thing is we like to build beautiful applications, right? So, you have to – that match the user experience. You have to spend that time on design and beauty upfront. You will not have a beautiful application after the fact. You just need to bake it in. ELRICK: And accessible design. CHARLES: Exactly. ELRICK: Don't forget that one. CHARLES: Don't forget that, right? A responsive design. WIL: Yeah, accessibility-first in design. Yeah, responsive and all that starts in design phase, yeah. CHARLES: Yeah, all that, right? So, you want a great experience. You want an accessible experience. You want a responsive experience. You want a quality experience. You want a performant experience. That's another quality that you say. Like, “We're going to make sure that this is performant.” If you want that – and that's something that we're not always great about, right? We don't actually put in benchmarks for our software from the get go. But maybe we should. But there's perhaps a hidden cost there that we might be actually accumulating performance debt that we don't even know about. JOE: That's true. ELRICK: Interesting. JOE: So, things that pop up that are new. Like, accessibility wasn't probably always a thing in computing. Internationalization probably wasn't always a concern. Beautiful certainly wasn't a concern if you look on Wayback machine. You will see that to be true, right? [Laughter] JOE: So, all code is tech debt, I would argue. Or at least has the potential to be. And yeah, as the ecosystem as a whole evolves, being responsive to that, having plasticity in that respect, sort of like meta-first. CHARLES: Right. JOE: That could be the real challenge. WIL: Yeah, Charles is mentioning all these experience things. And so, I was thinking X-first is simply experience-first. You want you users to experience a certain quality of your app. That experience needs to start in the conception phase. CHARLES: Yeah. ELRICK: That's true. And even your developers coming in, developer experience. JOE: Yeah. CHARLES: Right. And I think the core of that X-first, that experience-first, is you need to pick which experiences. Because you can't have everything. JOE: Right, yeah. CHARLES: One, there is going to be too much. You have to say, “I'm going to sacrifice on knowing that this is a performance thing. I'm not going to include that in the core DNA of my application.” And there's just going to be things that you don't know about yet that are just unsolvable problems or that don't necessarily work. And you can say, “You know what? Hypothetically, I'm not going to make this an accessible – I'm not going to focus on accessibility.” But then you need to own that. And you need to know that you're accumulating a huge amount of debt around that. And then I think that is a particularly bad trade-off because someone's always going to come along and you're going to have to know that your application is accessible. I think once we clamp down on that, that's going to be something that we have a strategy for and we include at the beginning on every single application, right? ELRICK: Yeah. CHARLES: But I think you need to have, almost like holding the cards in your hand, say, “These are the cards. These are the X's that I'm going to have in my hand. And they are going to be core to my app.” And they're going to be part of the DNA of that tree. So that I know that the fruit is then going to have those qualities. JOE: And then you as an engineer, that goes through an iterative process as well. Just starting out, you have no idea what that DNA should look like. And short of learning from people who are wiser than you who are around you, and reading blog posts and whatnot, really the only way to know the pain of strong-arming internationalization for instance into a 15-year-old Perl application, is to go through it. And then, you know, future trees will not have this DNA. CHARLES: Right. Right. And that's the other thing. Is if you are going to include, if you are going to try and splice something into the DNA, there's a lot of work. And you just need to go for it. You acknowledge that it's going to be a lot of work. And you need to, you just need to own it and go for it. And pay that expense of actually getting it deep, deep, deep into your application's core values. So that then, you don't have to worry about it anymore. Otherwise, you're going to be paying – you're just basically signing up for a lifetime of debt. Right? WIL: Yeah. And then to make the debt analogy even more, it's like people don't understand the total debt. The end debt. People get a $30,000 loan with a 4% interest and they think they're paying back that $30,000 loan. But really, they're paying back $36,400 after all the amortization of their interest. The debt is higher than you can see, always. CHARLES: Right. WIL: And it's true in tech debt, too. React is the new hot thing now, but in 10 years we're going to be on React debt that we're migrating away from. JOE: I hope so. [Laughter] CHARLES: Maybe less, I think less than 10. WIL: Yeah. The debt is always there. And people don't realize how much they have to pay on top of what's visible. JOE: Yeah. It's an invisible vig. CHARLES: What's a vig? JOE: It's interest, in the mafia. CHARLES: Oh. JOE: Sorry. Yeah. CHARLES: I forgot you're Italian. JOE: Yeah. ELRICK: So, for people that are listening, they might be in a situation where they need to advocate to the powers that may be these X-first values. What do you all think that some of the approaches that they should take to say to whomever it is that, “We need to do this first”? Because there's times where you might say, “Hey, we need to do this first,” and people just look and say, “Oh, maybe not.” Then you need to push back on that. CHARLES: In my experience, I find that the tech debt argument is a good one. Because I think it can be, it's both limiting and empowering. Because sometimes it really is the right call to pull out your credit card and put something on it. If you need to buy water and you need to buy food and you don't have any other means, man, put it on the credit card. Right? Seriously. Even if you have no idea how you're going to pay it back. Like, whip that sucker out and stick the chip in. And it doesn't matter how much it costs. And so, sometimes that is the right call. But I think draining it of a moral or a value as a human person thing, and approaching it from a business decision and saying, really trying to attach a cost to it. Because then I think if you can drain out the emotion of it, because people really want something. They're striving to go get it and trying, give them tools to think about it rationally. That I think is a good strategy, to just say, let them know that there is a debt that's being paid here or that's being accumulated here. And it's really large. And maybe even say, “Look, if we were to put this off by six months, this might cost not twice as much. It might cost ten or even a hundred times as much.” So, by saving $5,000 now, you might actually be accumulating $50,000 worth of debt. It's [bigger] than you think. But I do like – so, I think that's one important tool. But I think then also the other important tool is to say, “If we are going to attack this, let's drive it home. Let's put it at the core. Let's make this a value that we hold so that the tree can take care of the fruit itself.” So, if we say that we're going to put in accessibility – because not all projects are greenfields. JOE: Absolutely not. CHARLES: So, what's the message to them? Sorry. You're just SOL. I think if you're a year into a project, two years into a project, and you realize, “Oh no. We need to do internationalization,” recognize that that might be something that's – that's a pillar of your architecture. Or, “We're going to make this application accessible,” don't half-ass it. WIL: Weave it in. CHARLES: Say, “We're going to transform this. We're not going to add accessibility. We're going to transform what we have into an accessible application.” Or, “We're going to transform what we have into a beautiful application.” Otherwise… WIL: Yeah [inaudible]. CHARLES: I would say leave it ugly and focus your efforts elsewhere on things where you do have your values straight. Because you're never going to have everything in line. JOE: No. WIL: Treat software like immutably. You don't add something to it. When you want to add accessibility, you're creating a whole new accessible app. ELRICK: Ooh. That's deep. CHARLES: Yeah. JOE: So, having seen – I don't know. I think it was very apt, looking at it as a business decision. I've seen it go the other way. Because at least among engineers and people on the technical side of it, this can become a very strong moral issue that people feel very strongly about. CHARLES: Because we have to live with the consequences quite honestly, right? JOE: Exactly. And that's a hard thing to translate to say an executive board that may be three levels abstracted away from you and is making those decisions. I've seen people attack or approach this I guess with that emotion built in, with the, “This is the right way to do it. Everybody else is doing it wrong.” It gets nowhere, basically. What needs to happen I think, so you talk about having this beautiful tree. But that also requires beautiful gardeners. And so, where the moral thing or the interpersonal thing comes in is there needs to be kind of an inclusive and encouraging environment that is fostered among the people tending to the tree. And that's a totally separate thing than selling the business value of it. Those things should be completely divorced. CHARLES: Yeah. It's funny. It's always hard to reconcile those two things, right? Because on one you have, “You have to take care of the raw consumption of material and the output of product.” But then also trying to – so, there's some baseline math that has to happen but making sure that that goal, it doesn't slice people. And can enable them to be happy and feel like they're doing good work. And that the things that they're doing is having meaning. It's probably an insoluble problem that we're going to be dancing around for as long as people are around. If there's one thing that we've come to recognize around here, and we've stated it many different ways from a bunch of different angles through the course of this conversation, and I would say through the course of this podcast, but that is if you want to see something in your software, make sure that you attack it from the get go. ELRICK: Intertwine it in your DNA. CHARLES: Exactly. And then you can actually experience the fruit, rather than trying to always, always trying to jam it and change it and get it into the taste you want after the fact. So, I guess that's it. Thank you so much y'all, for this conversation. I really, really enjoyed it. For those of y'all listening, if you want to continue the conversation, you can get in touch with us we are @TheFrontside on Twitter. Or you can drop us an email. We're contact@frontside.io. So, thanks Elrick. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Will. JOE: Thank you. WIL: Thank you. ELRICK: Yup. It was great. JOE: It was fruitful. [Chuckles] ELRICK: Frontside-first. CHARLES: And well, we'll see y'all around.

VO School Podcast
Episode 21 - Promo with Joe Cipriano

VO School Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 21, 2018 54:30


Joe Cipriano is a 40 year veteran of the voiceover industry, his extensive resume includes many years as the voice of networks such as NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC, Disney, Sony Television, The Food Network and many more. His resume is long and varied, including commercial, live announcing (including the Emmy and Grammy Awards), imaging and radio, but Joe is best known for his work in promo. And promo is the subject of this weeks episode! We are taking a deep dive into the world of promo with one of the its most experienced practitioners. What is promo? How does one get into it? What does a typical day look like for Joe? How important are mentors? What are the skills needed to compete? And how does network and cable promo fit into SAG/AFTRA. We answer these questions and more on this weeks VO School Podcast! http://www.voschoolpodcast.com

Elimination of the Snakes
Elimination of the Snakes - Show #392

Elimination of the Snakes

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2015 64:28


Dan's rejuvenated.The sobering thing.Events of the last 2 weeks.Fact or Crap: Dan gets 2, John gets one.Mail Bag:A joke from Earl.A few thoughts from Becky.And now we have one from Sam.one from Joe: How to know when migrant gravy train arrives in your town.One from Peter: New grant bringing full-service schools to Madison.The Rest of the Show:All email again.

Ben Greenfield Life
Podcast Episode #51: Ben Greenfield & John Gilbert Answer Your Best Burning Questions About Fat Loss, Nutrition & Human Performance

Ben Greenfield Life

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 24, 2011 97:17


Click to Subscribe to All Ben's Fitness & Get A Free Surprise Gift from Ben. Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode The story behind the highly unconventional Podcast Episode #51 (NOT podcast episode #52 as I accidentally say in the introduction!): This week I made a big mistake. I accidentally erased the recorded audio interview on “natural topical anti-inflammatories”. So I put the future of Podcast Episode #51 into the hands of the Ben Greenfield Fitness newsletter subscribers. Here's what I asked: write down the one burning question you have about fat loss, nutrition or human performance (try to make it relevant and unique). Then just e-mail it to ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. The FIRST question I received was promised a brand new midnight black and lime green BenGreenfieldFitness t-shirt. And here was the official FIRST question: ———————————————————————– “Hey Ben, I've been charting my meals online to monitor calorie intake now that I'm not training for long-distance events, and the most frustrating thing I find is estimating your base metabolism and how many calories you truly should be eating in a day. There is a HUGE amount of variance from site to site, depending on your normal daily activity level and amount of exercise. Is it worth being tested or consulting a “real” nutritionist/dietitian, or is there a reliable do it yourself source for this kind of information? And, relatedly, many of these sites also estimate amount of calories you burn in exercise, which also seems entirely arbitrary and potentially inaccurate, but I know my Polar is “off” too, so I only use it for estimating purposes. This gets frustrating when you're trying to balance diet and exercise more closely. The bottom line: is good enough really “good enough” for using these systems for weight loss? I'm curious as to your opinion. Thanks for the podcasts and newsletters. They are always a good source of information.”   -Nicole ———————————————————————– Congratulations, Nicole! Your BenGreenfieldFitness t-shirt will go out just as soon as you e-mail in your mailing address (by the way, that picture above is a girl getting one of those resting metabolic tests I mention in the answer). But following Nicole's question, I was then bombarded with a barrage of questions. So many questions, in fact, that I had to give an emergency call to my colleague  John Gilbert, the metabolism mastermind over at Human Wellness Solutions to help field these questions. John and I sat down in our Spokane metabolic laboratory to record this podcast and answer your questions, which were all fantastic! We decided to start by awarding the THREE top questions with a free exercise DVD from “100 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism”.We like this first question because it really strikes at the heart of what alot of people struggle with. Go ahead and send us your mailing address, Buddy! ———————————————————————– “How do you stay motivated when you know what to eat, how to lift and the amount of cardio that is necessary to lose weight but you can't seem to “stick with it”. I have approximately 20 lbs to lose and when I lose 10 lbs I seem to notice that I feel better, my clothes fit better and I receive compliments from friends and family.  Then I fall off the dedication  wagon and quickly put the 10 lbs back on. A month or two of dedication lost in a matter of weeks. I'm trying to understand the psychology side to my self sabotage, any suggestions? I know you're not a psychologist but any suggestions you have would be helpful.” Sincerely, Buddy – Going mental in Southern California! ———————————————————————– Believe it or not, many people, especially triathletes, really struggle with this next question, which also won a DVD. Mailing address please, Steve! “About 9 months ago when I got back into a training routine I was able to hit my max HR of ~170 with what seemed to be relatively low exertion. As my fitness improves I find it harder and harder to get my HR up. I used to do long runs @ 150 without a problem, now 143 – 145 is a huge effort. My endurance is greatly improved, and my pace is faster, but a max effort is now required just to reach LT. My LT tests yield lower numbers each time. Doing 100% effort 1 minute sprints or 4 min Tabata sessions won't even allow me to reach max HR. I do not believe that I am over-trained and I don't really feel terribly fatigued. What gives?! Is it just me or does this happen to anyone else?” Thanks – Steve ———————————————————————– OK, this next guy gets the last DVD just for going all out and asking a three part question. Now that's dedication. Send us your mailing address, Thierry… “Q1:  what is your take on krill oil as a substitute for fish oil supplements? Read that it is more potent and does not give you the fishy burps or side effects. Q:2 there are a lot of claims being made regarding resveratol in wine and as a supplement. Is it something we should try to fit into my diet? Q:3. What do you think about taking the daily vitamin supplement 4-6 hrs apart. Currently I break my tablet in two and take one half with breakfast and the other with lunch or a snack.  I read somewhere that the body may not be able to absorb all the good stuff and that it may be excreted if not taken in smaller doses.” - Thierry ———————————————————————– Here are the rest of the questions that John and I address in the podcast… ———————————————————————– “How can I add more muscle to my neck?” David ———————————————————————– “A nutritionist told me that it is best to do your long ride or run (low intensity) on an empty stomach and not eat for at least the first hour as this improves the bodies ability to utilize fats when racing longer distances.  Is this correct and why?” Cheers – Graeme ———————————————————————– “Dear Ben, being a vegetarian can I still do the Shape21 plan?” Thank you – Heidi ———————————————————————– “I've always been into “fitness” even as a smoker.  I finally quit 18 months ago and feeling and looking ever so fabulous. Months after quitting, I continued to workout 5-6 days per week,  I didn't change my diet by consuming more food, yet, the scale showed I was  “gaining weight”. i.e.  115pds before.  Was..137. I've only come down to 130 and yes,  I'm having a very difficult time getting back down.  I'm  ONLY 5″2″.    I'm very comfortable at 115 and I don't want to take any type of drug to burn the fat.” HELP – anonymous ———————————————————————– “Hi Coach! If you had to name 5 supplements that no endurance athlete should do without, what would they be? ( Glutamine, creatine, resveratrol, fish oil, etc….) Thanks, Ben.” Sincerely, Joe ———————————————————————– “How should daily diets and caloric intake differ from 2/days to taper or recovery day with no exercise?” Thanks – Noah ———————————————————————– “I have 2 small kids who often don't sleep through the night.  Some days I am just so tired.  Is it better to get a couple more hours of sleep or should I just get up and work out at 6 am anyway? I am really frustrated because I have lost 23 pounds so far but I still have a fat belly.  I have only lost 1 in around my waist.  What should I do?” Jennifer ———————————————————————– “Ben, As a person with occasional irritable bowel flair-ups (especially in stressful times like right before a triathlon), do you have any suggestions or nutritional thoughts on how to lessen or eliminate the flair-ups.” Julie ———————————————————————– “Can you recommend stretches or other solutions for extremely tight hips? I cannot bring my knees to my chest while holding them together and have very little internal rotation in my hips.” Kevin ———————————————————————– “Ben, I can't figure out why I have this insatiable craving for fat at night, particularly for almond and sunflower butter. I know they are not bad fats to eat, however, I will get a bag of baby carrots and go through a whole jar in one setting. I do admit these cravings occur on big training days and know I'm not suppose to be refueling on fat. How do I stop these drug-like cravings for fat. Is it because my body prefers fat rather than carbohydrates for energy? Not sure if this would help, but I'm 6′0, 170, 3-hour marathoner who is currently training for Lake Stevens 70.3, what would you recommend I do? Love the podcast, I listen to them everyday on my way to work.” Thank you Ben - Tommy ———————————————————————– “Hey Ben, What are your thoughts on nightshades in relation to training/recovery/ anti-inflammatory properties…kind of gets u back on that track but let's u expand on training intensity/volume n trying to manage it with supplements or food.” Peter ———————————————————————– “Does what you eat and when you eat really matter? E.g. If I have 3 slices of pizza will they give me belly fat and if I eat them 20 min before bed is the affect amplified?” Thanks – John ———————————————————————– “Ben, Are there certain foods that can aid in fat loss, or does fat loss depend on calories in versus calories out and musculature?” thanks, angel ———————————————————————– “Here is my question. How do you feel about the supplements like “fat burners”.  They are all over in terms of advertisements and promise to boost metabolism for everyone, regardless of activity level.” Thanks – Rich ———————————————————————– “What's the best dinner and breakfast before race day, and also how long can you go without drinking water during a race, is it a bad thing to not drink anything during a race I usually don't and my maximum distance is half marathon.” Thanks – Jesus ———————————————————————– “Hi Ben, I recently listened to one of your podcasts from May where an athlete mentioned gaining more weight during her IM training time than when she was a couch potato.  Your comment was that you heard that comment a lot. Well, I'm in the same boat.  I have been training for Ironman races since 2006 and every year since then have put on more weight and, in my opinion, gained more jiggly bits, then when I was just weight training and running for short distances.  I am not an elite triathlete or top age grouper.  Rather, I'm your average age grouper, or mere mortal.   I have been watching what I eat, and feel I eat a clean diet 95% of the time.  So why is it that I keep putting on the weight and gain body fat?  Is this just a normal thing as you age – I'm in my late 30s.  Or am I doing something wrong with my eating? I'm not sure if you can answer this question without knowing my training hours or looking at a food journal, but I'd greatly appreciate any advice you can give me, even if it is to do some research.” Susan ———————————————————————– “Hey, my burning question (having lost weight recently and being over 50) what can I do nutritionally, supplement / natural to handle the saggy baggy skin issue?” thank you- Joanne ———————————————————————– “I am in my mid-50's and had used natural progesterone (derived from yam) for approximately 7 yrs. and, at first, was able to have some control over my weight and then, all of a sudden, it didn't work anymore.  I then switched to natural bio-identical compounded estradial cream (myob/gyn said it  would help me in losing weight) and it didn't do anything. I tried it (estradiol) for 6 months with no success and discontinued using it as I noticed no change.  I have continued my workouts - cardio and resistance – and am still stuck.  Do female hormones REALLY assist with fat loss?   I've not seen it in my experience, and I've tried both progesterone and estrogen (bio-identical) with no success when used singularly or in combination.  Thanks!” Jan ———————————————————————– "Hi Ben, What are your thoughts on Hammer Nutrition products in general and specifically Recoverite and Perpetuem?" Many Thanks, Joe ———————————————————————– "Hi Ben, hope things are great. I have one burning question: How do you lose weight without losing power on the bike/run. My situation is  183 cm tall and 80 kg weight (I am in Australia, don't know what that is in pounds)  am a 10.09, 5 x ironman and just ran a 3.00.12 marathon(with a 3 min toilet stop). I feel if I lost at least 4 - 5 kg it would get me that spot to Hawaii in the Australian Ironman. I need 9.40. Plus I look at the weight for height ratio's with the guys doing the tour de france at the moment and that is roughly what they are 183cm about 74 kg." Thanks, Nigel ———————————————————————– "I have a multi-part question about fuel for long training and racing:   How much, when and what is your "best practice" for fueling. I'm training for my 1st triathlon ... just a sprint distance, but am trying to determine what type of fuel and how much I need." Thank you, Ashley ———————————————————————– "Please explain the difference in sugars and also explain cortisol cycles as they pertain to circadian rhythm." Jim ———————————————————————– "What are the 3 (or more...pick any manageable number) most important initial steps for a beginner/novice to take when starting a fat loss program? What are the 3 (or more...pick any manageable number) most important initial steps to take in order to maintain/sustain progress after a fat loss program?" Jeff ———————————————————————– "Ben, Here's a question for the Q and A.  I recently found a calorie calculator online that is based on your gender, age, weight, average heart rate, and total time exercising.  In my opinion, this would be a more accurate way of determining calories burned during any activity: what was your average heart rate during the total time of activity.  Regardless of the activity, isn't the increase in heart rate most indicative of intensity and calories burned?  Thanks." Scott ———————————————————————– "If you only had one type of food to snack on during the day, what would it be and why?" Thanks, Joe ———————————————————————– "I recently reduced my stress level (I mean cut it by 75%!) and suddenly my  workouts were much more productive. I asked my trainer what we were doing  differently and he said nothing... it's your stress level.  So what exactly  is it that's going on there?  What is it about stress that was killing me and keeping me fat?" Thanks, Chip ———————————————————————– "Name one essential, must-have, won't-finish-unless-I-have-it thing (food, drink, goodie, supplement) that you take during your Iron distance races." Jon ———————————————————————– "I HAVE HEARD RECENTLY THAT CARBONATION SLOWS FAT METABOLISM 60%?  WHAT ARE THE CURRENT FACTS ABOUT DIET AND/OR REGULAR SODA? THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO." MARY ———————————————————————– "I'm allergic to all the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS) that I've tried (aspirin, anaprox, meclomen, naprosyn, yada).  Do you have any ideas for some topical and for some ingestible natural anti-inflammatories that I might try?   The amount of NSAID has to significantly accumulate in my body before I get a rxn - so not to worry - I don't have an allergic reaction to the first few doses." Thanks in advance,  Jordeane ———————————————————————– Do you have a question? Remember, you can now ask your questions via *audio* to me via the free Skype software by simply “Skyping” me at username “pacificfit“. You can also call toll free to 1-877-209-9439 and leave a voicemail for Ben Greenfield. Also mentioned in this podcast… 1. You may remember that in 2009, I began training the girl who had tried everything for fat loss (32 year old stay-at-home mom who has already tried Slimfast, Atkins, Herbalife, Body for Life, interval training, personal training, detox, low-fat diet, horseback riding, Slim in 6, a home treadmill and elliptical, mini-trampoline, gym membership, cleanses, Weight Watchers, hoodia, green tea, calorie counting, walking, hiking, Tai-bo, Wii fit, Denise Austin, bands, exercise balls, yoga and Lean for Life). During this episode, I talk about our new strategy – the HCG diet for fat loss. She's already lost 9lbs in just the first 6 days! Follow her story by clicking here. 2. At that same time in 2009, I began training a 55 year old man who wanted to become as lean and ripped as possible, while also wanting to gain optimum health and energy for his incredibly busy career as a public speaker and expert adviser. He is doing fantastic! Learn about how we shocked his body off a weight loss plateau by clicking here. After just 7 days of this protocol, David's body was “shocked” for sure. He weighed in at 198 and 15% body fat on the day of our next visit! That is a drop of 21.5 pounds and 13% body fat, between January and July 2009! Weight: 198 (Starting Weight: 219.5); Body Fat: 15.39 (Starting Body Fat: 28.2%) 3. Only 7 days left in the 63 Day Fat Loss challenge using a copy of my book, “Shape21″. You're not going to want to miss the action over at the Shape21 Lean Body Challenge website. There are photos, videos, and much, much more. How much fat can the human body lose in 63 days? Just click here to see photos and videos and read the latest testimonials from participants. 4. Check out the brand new http:/www.humanwellnesssolutions.com! That's all for this week. Be sure to leave our podcast a rating in iTunes! Just click here to go to our iTunes page and leave feedback! Finally, remember all the time put into producing this podcast for you, and consider donating to our show (we'll throw in a free T-shirt)!